African famine was an old story of no particular interest, and Africa was far away. The world took no notice, until the BBC sent Richard Dimbleby to Ethiopia with a television crew. Dimbleby filmed the dreadful suffering in the villages. He also attended a state banquet in Addis Ababa.
With calculated malevolence he intercut scenes of famine and lingering death with those of feasting nobles dressed in scarlet and gold lace and flowing white robes and the emperor seated at a board that groaned with rich food.
Dimbleby had an enormous following. The world took notice. The young students from Addis Ababa University, trained by their carefully selected mentors, began to march and agitate. The Church and the missionaries preached against total power vested in one man, and dreamt of that elusive Utopia where man would love his fellow-man and the lion would lie down with the lamb.
Many of the members of the Derg saw the opportunity to settle old scores and for personal advancement. In a Ve totally unrelated but significant development, the Arab oil-producers doubled the price of oil and held the world to ransom. In Ethiopia the cost of living soared, placing unbearable hardships on a populace already hard hit by famine. There was runaway inflation. Those who were able hoarded food, and those who could not went on strike or rioted and looted the food-shops.
Many of the young army officers were products of Addis Ababa University, and they led the mutiny of the Army. These rebels formed a revolutionary committee and seized control of the Derg.
They arrested the prime minister and the members of the royal family and isolated the emperor in his palace. They spread rumours that Haile Selassie had stolen huge sums of public money and transferred them to his Swiss bank account. They organized demonstrations of students and malcontents outside the palace. The mob clamoured for his abdication. The priests of the Coptic Church and the Muslim leaders joined in the chorus of accusation and demands for his abdication and the installation of a people's democracy.
The military council now felt strong enough to take the next significant step. Through the Derg they issued a formal declaration deposing the emperor, and sent a deputation of young army officers to arrest him and remove him from the palace.
As they led him down the palace steps the frail old man remarked quietly: 'If what you do is for the good of my people, then I go gladly, and I pray for the success of your revolution.' To humiliate him they confined him in a sordid little hut on the outskirts of the city, but the common people gathered in their thousands outside the single room to offer their condolences and pledge their loyalty. At the order of the military council the guards drove them away at bayonet point.
The country was ripe, but it was all teetering in the balance when the Ilyushin touched down at Addis Ababa Airport and taxied to the far end of the field where twenty jeeps and troop-trucks of the Ethiopian army were drawn up to welcome it.
Ramsey was the first man out of the aircraft as the loading-ramp touched the ground.
'Welcome, Colonel-General.' Colonel Getachew Abebe jumped down from his command-jeep and strode forward to meet him.
They shook hands briefly. 'Your arrival is timely,'Abebe told him, and they both turned and shaded their eyes as they looked into the sun.
The second Ilyushin made its final approach and touched down. As it taxied towards them, a third and then a fourth gigantic aircraft turned across the sun and one after the other landed.
As they pulled up in a staggered row and switched off their engines, the men poured out of the cavernous bellies. They were paratroopers of the crack Che Guevara Regiment.
'What is the latest position?'Ramsey demanded brusquely.
The Derg has voted for Andom,' Abebe told him, and' Ramsey looked serious.
General Aman Andom was the head of the Army. He was a man of high integrity and superior intelligence, popular with both the Army and the civilian populace. His election as the new leader of the nation came as no surprise.
'Where is he now?' 'He is in his palace - about five miles from here.' 'How many men?' 'A bodyguard of fifty or sixty.
Ramsey turned to watch his paratroopers disembarking.
'How many members of the Derg stand for you?' Abebe reeled off a dozen names, all young left-wing army officers.
'Tafu?' Ramsey demanded, and Abebe nodded. Colonel Tafu commanded a squadron of Russian T-53 tanks, the most modern unit in the Army.
'All right,' Ramsey said softly. 'We can do it - but we must move swiftly now.' He gave the order to the commander of the Cuban paratroopers. Carrying their weapons at the trail, the long ranks of camouflage-clad assault-troops trotted forward and began to board the waiting trucks.
Ramsey took the seat beside Abebe in the command-jeep, and the long column rolled away towards the city. Parched to talcum by drought and fierce sunlight, the red dust rose in a dense cloud behind the column and rolled away on the wind that came down hot from the deserts to the north.
On the outskirts of the city they met caravans of camels and mules. The men with them watched the column pass without showing any emotion. In these dangerous days since the emperor had been deposed they had become accustomed to the movement of armed men on the roads. They were men from the Danakil desert and the mountains, turbaned Muslims in flowing robes or bearded Copts with bushy hair and broadswords on their belts and round steel shields on their shoulders.
At an order from Colonel Abebe, the jeep swung on to a side-road and skirted the city, speeding down rutted roads between the crowded flat-roofed hovels. Abebc used the radio, speaking swiftly in Amharic and then translating for Ramsey.
'I have men watching Andom's palace,' he explained. 'He seems to have called a meeting of all the officers in the Derg who support him. They are assembling now.' 'Good. All the chickens will be in one nest.' The column turned away from the city and sped through open fields. They were bare and desiccated. The drought had left no blade of grass or green leaf The chalky rocks that littered the earth were white as skulls.
'There.' Abebe pointed ahead.
The general was a member of the nobility, and his residence stood a few miles outside the city on the first of a series of low hills. The hills were bare except for the grove of Australian eucalyptus trees that surrounded the P9 palace. Even these drooped in the heat and the drought. The palace was surrounded by a thick wall of red terra cotta. At a glance Ramsey saw that it was a formidable fortification. It would require artillery to breach it.
Abebe had read his thoughts. 'We have surprise on our side,' he pointed out. 'There is a good chance that we will be able to drive in through the gate...' 'No,' Ramsey contradicted him. 'They will have seen the aircraft arriving.
That is probably why Andom has called his council.' Out on a rocky plain between them and the palace, a staff car was speeding towards the open gate.
'Pull in here,' Ramsey ordered, and the column halted in a fold of ground.
Ramsey stood on the rear scat of the open jeep and focused his binoculars on the gateway in the palace wall. He watched the staff car drive through it, and then the massive wooden gate swung ponderously closed.
'Where is Tafu with his tanks?' 'He is still in barracks, on the other side of the city.' 'How long to get them here?' 'Two hours.' 'Every minute is vital.' Ramsey spoke without lowering his binoculars.
'Order Tafu to bring his armour in as quickly as possible - but we cannot wait until he arrives.' Abebe turned to the radio, and Ramsey dropped the binoculars on to his chest and jumped down from the jeep. The commander of the paratroopers and his company leaders gathered around him, and he gave his orders quietly, pointing out the features of the terrain as he spoke.
Abebe hung up the microphone of the radio and came to join them. 'Colonel Tafu has one T-53 in the city, guarding the emperor's palace. He is sending it to us. It will be here in an hour. The rest of the squadron will follow.' 'Very good,' Ramsey nodded. 'Now describe the layout of the interior of Andom's palace over there. Where will we find Andom himself?'
They squatted in a circle while Abebe sketched in the dust, and then Ramsey gave his final orders.
Once again the column moved forward, but now there was a large white flag on the bonnet of the command-jeep, a bed-sheet that fluttered on its makeshift flagpole. The trucks kept in tight formation. The paratroopers were concealed beneath the hoods of the troop-carriers, and all weapons were kept out of sight.
As they approached the palace a line of heads appeared over the wall above the gate, but the flag of truce had an inhibiting effect and no shot was fired.
The lead jeep drew up in front of the gate, and Ramsey assessed its strength. The gate was of weathered teak, almost a foot thick, reinforced with bands of wrought iron. The hinges were rebated into the columns on each side of the gateway. He abandoned any idea of driving a truck through it.
From the top of the wall twenty feet above them the captain of the guard challenged them in Amharic, and Abebe stood up to reply. They haggled for a few minutes, with Abebe repeating that he had an urgent despatch for General Andom and demanding entrance. The guard shouted back his refusal, and the exchange became heated.
As soon as Ramsey was certain
