When Soldiers Came for My Grandpa, Haile Selassie

In this EXCLUSIVE interview with the last emperor of Ethiopia's favourite grandson, we learn the detail of HAILE SELASSIE's overthrow by the military in 1974.When the soldiers came , PRINCE BE'EDE MARIAM, who lived in the imperial palace, volunteered to stay with his grandpa so he wouldn't be alone. Other members of the family left the country.The teenaged prince paid dearly for that act of loyalty: he was imprisoned for 15 years. PRINCE BE'EDE tells us how the emperor did not resist the soldiers. He went with them ' for the good of the country'.The coup leader, MENGISTU HAILE MARIAM, was not among the soldiers who came to the palace, we are told. But MENGISTU was very respectful of the emperor, right up until HAILE SELASSIE's murder. PRINCE BE'EDE tells us about life with his grandfather - how the emperor was a stickler for discipline and punctuality. The Prince was tutored in the art of debate from an early age and every night Haile Selassie himself would serve the young Prince milk and honey before bed.Is PRINCE BE'EDE bitter about the loss of so much of his young life? 'Hatred for me is like a virus,' he replies, ' it attacks yourself rather than anybody else.' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.