Mengistu Neway

Brigadier-General Mengistu Neway (1919 – 30 March 1961) was the commander of the Ethiopian Imperial Guard during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. He is noted for being one of the early dissidents of the Emperor's regime and for organizing the 1960 coup attempt with his younger brother Germame Neway.

Mengistu and his brother were members of a well-established noble lineage called Moja, which had supplied the Ethiopian government a number of soldiers and governors for a century, but at the time of the 1960 coup had fallen out of favor. Ethiopian observers, noting that the Moja had a tradition for favoring reforms, later speculated that their coup could be explained in terms of Ethiopian lineage politics. Christopher Clapham rejects this interpretation, noting "this is at best an oversimplification, in that some Mojas remained loyal to the Emperor, while several non-Mojas were actively involved; and there has been no evidence that Mengestu and Germame took the lead because of their Moja ancestry."

Mengistu received his earliest education at the St. George school in Addis Ababa, a Swiss-run school which accepted its first students in September 1929. He then became a cadet in the first class of the Oletta Military Academy, which opened January 1935; this first class of cadets could not complete their education due to the advent of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. With his classmates, under the leadership of the Swedish Captain Viking Tamm, headmaster of Olette, they attempted to hold the Pass of Ad Termaber against the advancing Italians after the decisive Battle of Maychew (31 March 1936), but were forced to retreat to Addis Ababa. The Oletta cadets then split up into two groups: one joined Ras Imru Haile Selassie at Gore; the other, which included Mengistu, had joined Aberra Kassa and took part in the Battle of Addis Ababa, where a bold attempt to recapture the capital failed. When Aberra appeared ready to submit to the Italians, the 20 or 30 surviving cadets left him to join the Arbegnoch led by Haile Mariam Mammo in Mulu. After Haile Mariam had been killed fighting the Italians at Gorfo, near Addis Ababa (November 1938), he made his way to Khartoum where he trained with his fellow cadets Asrate Medhin Kassa, Mared Mangesha, Aman Andom and Mulugeta Bulli.

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