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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Nov. 5 — Ethiopia’s late Emperor Haile Selassie went to his final resting place on Sunday in an emotional, visually stunning reburial ceremony a full 25 years after his death. Dressed in brilliantly colored robes and bearing large crosses of silver and gold, priests of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church held a mass outside the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa before solemnly leading Selassie’s small coffin inside.
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SELASSIE, WHO was one of Africa’s most charismatic leaders and ruled Ethiopia for 44 years before he was overthrown in 1974, was then lowered into a tomb next to an identical one holding his wife, Empress Menen.
The haunting chant of Orthodox prayers echoed out over the city and thousands of ordinary Ethiopians bowed their heads in prayer in the grounds of the cathedral, many weeping openly.
Selassie, who is considered God by followers of the Rastafarian religion, died in 1975 at the age of 83, allegedly murdered by Marxist officers who seized power a year earlier.
His body was buried near a latrine, an insult to a man who had enjoyed almost absolute power.
After the regime that toppled him was ousted in 1991, the remains were put in a mausoleum holding another former emperor, Menelik II, and other members of the family dynasty.
But he had wanted to lie inside the granite tomb in Holy Trinity Cathedral so his family, most living in exile, worked closely with the Orthodox Church and his allies for a reburial.
SELASSIE HEADS ORTHODOX CHURCH
The Orthodox Church still considers Selassie its head and his reburial was a showcase of Ethiopian culture.
Old warriors sporting lions’ manes on their heads and carrying shields and spears formed a guard of honor for Selassie as his funeral procession weaved across the city.
The coffin was draped in the red, gold and green of the national flag and embroidered with Selassie’s personal standard, showing on one side Ethiopia’s patron St. George slaying a dragon and, on the other, the Lion of Judah.
The patriarch, bishops and high priests of the Orthodox Church said in the shade of velvet umbrellas intricately embroidered with flowers and religious scenes.
“Although they killed you and threw your body in an unmarked grave, they could not tarnish your image. You are a great leader, you have done so much for your nation and Africa,” an Orthodox priest said during a mass held in Selassie’s honor.
Legend has it that Selassie was the 225th monarch in a line that stretches back well over 2,000 years, a direct descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
Westerners remember him addressing the League of Nations after Mussolini’s fascists invaded his country and telling the Europeans who did not come to his aid: “This time it is my turn; next time it will be yours.”
MODERNIZER OR DESPOT?
Supporters view him as a modernizer who promoted education at home and a figurehead for the struggle against colonialism.
But he also ruled over a system that created a small class of wealthy landowners but kept most subjects in abject poverty.
A famine killed hundreds of thousands in the last years of his reign and his moral authority was undermined by images of him feeding his pets prime meat while his people starved.
Ethiopia’s current government earlier this week attacked Selassie’s legacy, accusing him of oppression and brutality against the country’s peasants.
Although his reburial was intensely emotional, few lined the funeral procession’s route and only a few thousand gathered in the huge Meskel Square to see the coffin.
Many of those who did turn out said the emperor made mistakes and perhaps stayed in power for too long but that he was a gentle man who tried his best to help his people.
“He was one of the world’s most brilliant leaders, next to King Solomon of Israel,” said Feyesa Wolde Emanuel, a sprightly 87-year-old dressed in the uniform from his time in Selassie’s imperial guard. “He loved his people.”
Rita Marley — widow of reggae legend Bob Marley — was among the Rastafarians at the ceremony. “Rasta people will be all loving his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie I. There is no end of his reign,” she told Reuters.
Rastafarians are named for Ras (Prince) Tafari, Selassie’s title before being crowned emperor in 1930. The movement grew under the influence of Jamaican nationalist Marcus Garvey and his Back to Africa movement.
Selassie gloried in the title “King of Kings, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah” but neither he nor his family ever claimed he was a divine being, as Rastafarians believe.
When sorrow deepens
And the lights are dim,
And when darkness settles
With all ominous whim,
When hope withers,
Dear lads and lasses,
Why aren't you thinking of HIM?
Before the leaves of pride began to fall
one by one,
Before the rains halted,
And before the wilderness turned sere brown,
Here in the cradle they call "the horn,"
amid the den of the hero,
Of the cheetah, of the red fox, of the hippo, of the camel, of the Ibex, of
the lion;
There once was a king - ours,
who brought kingdoms
to our terms.
Who, amid the menace, the wrath and the chaos,
brought nations leagued to their sense.
Forgive us, Janhoy - your majesty,
for we eschewed your dreams
that one crazy February.
Over the world, we had a thousand wisdom to sway,
But in that one ignorance to kill you
all else melted away.
Your Majesty the king,
Teferi, Duke of Harrar,
The conscience conqueror,
Man of the year 1935,
Hearken to our voices -
The voices driven out of bliss.
Since you left us here in the barns,
We have fallen in love with the guns.
Of poverty, we've become the sea-level of all clime,
And we die young for grief shares the time;
To mourn our fall every mother has wept,
And of glory not a pin is left.
Fraud has reigned
And Joy has calmed,
Trust is history
And manners are dead.
We have but it's not there,
We see but we don't peer.
We hear but we are deaf,
We are tall yet we are dwarf.
Outland we desire,
And God dwells elsewhere.
Your grace bewitched the planet at large,
Our impotence couldn't crack a village.
Your Majesty,
What became of your last promise?
That Africa would be one in bliss.
Of unity we called it "split,"
And about us this they write:
"Africa is bleeding
From the rape of her light;
All black men are thus
Those who are ambivalent toward her."
Delight did die and life did freeze,
We are but a squalid abode of hell's nasty haze.
Knowledge did sink and greed did grow,
And the garlands withered right from our brow.
Toward a dream half a dozen jumped,
Down flowed their frolic blood,
Corrupts rode where grace and valor stood,
Thus died the dream that by oracle foretold.
We became prisoners of a dream,
That faded away over time.
For heaven's sake, your grace
And for Africa's sake,
Please make your dreams rise,
With that power of your midnight prayer,
We remember, yes we remember,
We saw you kneel to worship the Lord,
Thus ours was a basket full of bread.
Forgive us and ask the Lord to forgive us,
For bliss, now that we've learned to praise.
May your soul rest in peace,
And May the Lord's company keep apace.
