The 1960 Coup d’État: Restorative Justice Ignored

The 1960 Coup d’État, led by brothers Germame and Mengistu Neway, marks the abrupt right turn in Emperor Haile Selassie's reign, ending his struggle to consolidate power against foreign and domestic challengers and inaugurating his determination to hang on to power while deaf to the counsel of trusted advisers and blind to societal signposts. As Bahru Zewde states: “In the three decades between Liberation and Revolution, no event shook the imperial regime or attracted as much public attention as the abortive coup d’état of December 1960.”1 The plotters tested the regime to its core and their suppression challenged the monarchy to implement a just solution. Serving justice, or not, is the focus of this chapter. The first section probes a wide-ranging analysis of the intellectual currents coursing through Ethiopia at the time. It concentrates on the Qachane Club, for many of the drivers of the coup and countercoup were members of this social and intellectual club. The second section outlines the adoption of European legal practices in Ethiopia by focusing on procedural developments in the courts and the reorganization of the Ministry of Justice. This is followed by an account of the coup d’état as background for the trial of the plotters, the most noted of whom was Mengistu Neway. Comprehending how hanging from a rope in the middle of a square in Addis Ababa would ensure his place in history as a revolutionary martyred for his cause, Mengistu Neway did not appeal his death sentence or seek other means of redress. The trial was an outright rejection of restorative justice and, if probed further in cases of less prominent supporters of the coup d’état, the tricky reconciliation process showed elements of traditional restorative justice long practiced by the state, yet with omissions that reduced its ability to bring about reconciliation.