6. The princesses' world

BESIDES THE Emperor's eldest daughter, Tenagne Worq, and her four children -- Aida, Sebla, Ruth and Sofia -- there were other female Family members in Akaki.
Among them were Haile Selassie's octogenarian cousin, Princess Yashasha Worq, Princess Sara Gizaw, the widow of the Duke of Harar, Princess Rahel Mesfin, daughter of Ras Mesfin Sileshi, her mother, Lady Yeshimmabet Guma, and sister, Tirauyer, and Princess Rebecca Asrate Kass, her mother, Princess Zuriash and sister Mimi. There was also Princess Igegayehu, Asfa Wossen's daughter, who would die behind Akaki's walls.
Both Princess Tenagne Worq and Princess Yashasha Worq had led highly-protected lives inside the Imperial Court, moving with calm assurance through its unchanging world of gold braid and curtsies, concubines and tiger shoots, ascetics, priests and ancestral oaths.
Meanwhile, twenty something Rahel and Rebecca were cousins and had been friends since childhood; they had played together in the Palace's gilded halls. They had attended the best universities and schools. Rebecca had been arrested when she returned from University College, London, where she had been studying international relations. The Revolution was in its infancy and she feared her father, Asrate Kassa, would be jailed. Her father begged her not to return to Ethiopia, but on her arrival she was arrested. Within five months, on Bloody Saturday, November 23, 1974, he was executed.
Within a year about 20 princesses and other Family members were taken from house detention at Princess Sara's (the Duke of Harar's) house to the End of the World.


Princess Rebecca: (as told to the New Yorker's Mary Anne Weaver): They had come for us about six o'clock in the morning, three hours before the Emperor was placed under arrest. They said it was for our own protection ... That was our crime. In other words, it was preventive detention -- we were hostages of the Derg.

Of course, the princesses knew something was wrong, for three days earlier, the Derg went to Princess Sara's residence and took away radios and television sets.

Princess Rebecca: The morning after the executions, some of our guards, thinking we were still alseep, turned on theur radios in the kitchen, and my little brother, who was upstairs, opened his window and listened in. He heard the official announcement on Ethiopian Radio. I'll never forget his screams -- 'They've killed them all! They've killed them all!' For a long time, he wasn't able to say anything else. The soldiers rushed into the library, where we had gathered and told us it wasn't true -- that the men were going to be put on trial. We were bewildered. We didn't know what to believe. For the next 24 hours, although the rest of the country knew, we were left in uncertainty. Then, the following morning, six Derg officers arrived. We have ways in Ethiopia of relaying bad news -- we try to crush the blow. But they made the announcement as though they were on the radio. They gave us the names of only seven, who they thought were relatives; there were, in fact, 16. We tried to appeal to them -- to their sense of compassion, if you like. We said we should at least go bury them -- thinking they would return the bodies to the families. We said we would go go under armed guard. We were told, quite rudely, that there would be no funeral, nor would they allow us to go to out families and mourn. Then they raised their AK-47s and pointed them at our heads. We were ordered to stop crying. 'It's anti-revolutionary to cry,' they said. It was at that moment that the bad part began. I think they wanted to kill us, too. It's as simple as that.

The princesses learned some time later their lives were saved only by the intervention of British Prime Minister James Callaghan, the United Nations and the British Royal Family.

Princess Rebecca: It was early in September 1975 that they came to Princess Sara's house and told the women to pack. The young princes had already been taken -- we didn't know where. So we packed outr small suitcases, and then waited all day. Finally, at five that evening, a bus arrived. Even the driver didn't know where we were going; he had been told to follow a car. As we boarded the bus, a cadre told us we couldn't take our suitcases after all. 'Where we are taking you, you don't need anything,' he said. I was certain that was the end.