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The Ethiopian Coup d'Etat of December 1960

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Christopher Clapham
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By contrast with many other African states, the Ethiopian Government has in recent decades been almost monotonously stable. The Emperor Haile Selassie reigns and rules through a political system which remains in essentials the direct descendant of the imperial Government as it has existed down the centuries.1 In the last quarter-century, only the attempted coup d'état of December 1960 has seriously challenged his régime. The purpose of this article is to disentangle the various elements present in the coup, in order to illuminate the themes of rebellion and attempted revolution in an indigenous African polity.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , December 1968 , pp. 495 - 507
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

References

Page 495 note 1 I have recently examined this political system in my Haile Selassie's Government (London, 1968),Google Scholar and have therefore felt it unnecessary to burden this account with background information.

Page 495 note 2 The most detailed account of the coup is in Greenfield, Richard, Ethiopia: a new political history (London and New York, 1965), pp. 337–452,Google Scholar from which much of this outline is derived. My own emphases and conclusions often differ from Greenfield's, but I am happy to acknowledge the value of his work in collecting and making available much information which would otherwise be lost. Shorter assessments appear in Hess, Robert L., ‘Ethiopia’, in Carter, Gwendolen M. (ed.), National Unity and Regionalism in Eight African States (Ithaca, 1966), pp. 506–11;Google Scholar and in Levine, D. N., ‘Haile Selassie's Ethiopia: myth or reality’, in Africa Today (Washington), 05 1961.Google Scholar

Page 495 note 3 Names are given in full at the first mention, and the abbreviated form used in later references is italicised—this is the given name, the second name being a patronymic.

Page 496 note 1 This proclamation is published in Greenfield, , Ethiopia, pp. 398–9,Google Scholar with several other broadcasts and documents connected with the coup.

Page 497 note 1 The Ethiopian Herald (Addis Ababa), 21 12 1960 and 9 03 1961,Google Scholar gave two completely inconsistent sets of figures; the East African Standard (Nairobi), 20 12 1960,Google Scholar estimated about 2,000 dead and wounded.

Page 497 note 2 Greenfield, , Ethiopia, p. 2.Google Scholar

Page 497 note 3 Hess, , ‘Ethiopia’, in National Unity and Regionalism, p. 506.Google Scholar

Page 498 note 1 See, for example, Gluckman, M., Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa (London, 1963), p. 12.Google Scholar

Page 499 note 1 These opinions are examined in Greenfield, , Ethiopia, pp. 339–51.Google Scholar

Page 499 note 2 Hess, , ‘Ethiopia’, in National Unity and Regionalism, p. 509.Google Scholar

Page 499 note 3 This figure has been inferred from Administrative Directory of the Imperial Ethiopian Government (Addis Ababa) for 07 1959.Google Scholar

Page 500 note 1 See The Ethiopian Herald, 21 December 1960, which contains the most comprehensive official list of ringleaders.

Page 500 note 2 Greenfield, , Ethiopia, pp. 379 and 420.Google Scholar

Page 500 note 3 Hess, , ‘Ethiopia’ in National Unity and Regionalism, p. 507.Google Scholar

Page 500 note 4 News and Views (published by the students of the University College of Addis Ababa), 16 12 1960.Google Scholar

Page 501 note 1 Greenfield, , Ethiopia, pp. 379–81 and 398–9.Google Scholar

Page 502 note 1 The broadcasts reported in Greenfield's Ethiopia have here been supplemented by my tape-recordings of English and Amharic broadcasts.

Page 504 note 1 From a tape-recording in my possession; this was the tenth of the eleven items in the policy statement.

Page 504 note 2 Greenfield, , Ethiopia, p. 421.Google Scholar