Haile Selassie -- Ethiopia
On 5 May, Mussolini declared Ethiopia an Italian province, Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations and pointed out that Italy was employing chemical weapons on military and civilian targets alike. During 1936, soldiers, women, children, cattle, rivers, lakes, and pastures were continually drenched with deadly chemicals and this being Italy’s main method of warfare. The Leagues response was very disappointing as they agreed only to partial and ineffective sanctions on Italy, with several members even recognised the Italian conquest.
Haile Selassie went into exile in the United Kingdom, however, forces continued to fight guerrilla wars throughout the country. Although the Italians had advanced weapons and aircraft, they continued to use mustard gas and mass executions to frighten the population into subjugation. At no time were the Italians able to successfully annex or occupy any part of the country. Although the League of Nations failed to act, by 1939 Great Britain was at war with Germany and Italy, Great Britain together with other colonial forces came to assist Ethiopia. By January 1942 all Italian troops had been driven from the country.
Haile Selassie become increasingly concerned about outside influences on his nation and slowed the modernisation program he had initiated on becoming Emperor. Despite the country’s poverty Selassie viewed himself as a world leader and Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations in 1945. In 1950 he sent Ethiopian troops to fight under Allied command in Korea and in 1954 he became the first head of state to visit newly independent West Germany. In 1960 Ethiopia contributed troops to United Nations peacekeeping force in the Congo. After visiting Jamaica in 1960, the Rastafarians, with thousands of supporters world wide, proclaimed him a living God. In 1963, he helped found the Organization of Africa Unity in Addis Ababa.
While Haile Selassie was on a state visit to Brazil, his Imperial Guard forces staged an unsuccessful coup, briefly proclaiming Haile Selassie's eldest son Asfaw Wossen as emperor. The coup d'état was crushed by the regular army and police forces as the coup attempt lacked broad popular support, it was denounced by Asfaw Wossen and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. It was unpopular with the security services nonetheless it did have some support. The coup attempt has been characterised as a pivotal moment in Ethiopian history, the point at which Ethiopians "for the first time questioned the power of the king to rule without the people's consent".
The coup spurred Haile Selassie to accelerate reform, the emperor continued to be a staunch ally of the West, while pursuing a firm policy of decolonisation in Africa. The United Nations conducted a lengthy inquiry regarding the status of Eritrea, with Britain, the administrator at the time, suggested the partition of Eritrea between Sudan and Ethiopia, separating Christians and Muslims, Eritrean political parties, as well as the UN instantly rejected the idea.
In 1961 the Eritrean Struggle for Independence began, followed by Haile Selassie's dissolution of the federation and shutting down of Eritrea's parliament. Tensions between independence-minded Eritreans and Ethiopian forces culminated in the Eritrean War of Independence. The emperor declared Eritrea the fourteenth province of Ethiopia in 1962. The war would continue for 30 years, as first Haile Selassie, then the Soviet-backed junta that succeeded him, attempted to retain Eritrea by force. The region is infamous for recurrent crop failures, continuous food shortage and starvation risk. A series of crop failures and famines between 1972 and 1974, that killed 80,000 people and brought millions of Ethiopians to the brink of starvation. Together with the 1973 Oil Crisis, riots and dissatisfaction over his reign paralysed his government. The Derg, a committee of low-ranking military officers and enlisted men, deposed the Emperor and announced the end of the Solomonic dynasty.
On 28 August 1975, the state media reported that the "ex-monarch" Haile Selassie had died on 27 August of respiratory failure following complications from surgery. His doctor, Asrat Woldeyes, denied that complications had occurred and rejected the government version of his death. Some imperial loyalists believed that the emperor had in fact been assassinated, and this belief remains widely held to this day. One western correspondent in Ethiopia at the time commented, "While it is not known what actually happened, there are strong indications that no efforts were made to save him.
The Soviet-backed Derg fell in 1991, and in 1992 the emperor's bones were found on the palace grounds. For almost a decade thereafter, as Ethiopian courts attempted to sort out the circumstances of his death, his coffin rested in Bhata Church, near his great uncle Menelik II's imperial resting place. On 5 November 2000, the Ethiopian Orthodox church gave Haile Selassie an imperial-style funeral. The post-communist government refused calls to declare the ceremony an official imperial funeral.
Although many prominent Rastafarian figures participated in the grand funeral, most Rastafari rejected the event and refused to accept that the bones were the remains of Haile Selassie. There remains some debate within the Rastafari movement as to whether Haile Selassie actually died in 1975