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Selassie's long reign ended

By United Press International

LONDON (UPI) -- Ethiopia's armed forces toppled Emperor Haile Selassie today from his 3,000-year-old throne and proclaimed a military regime to rule the country temporarily.

The armed forces promised new elections and invited Selassie's son, Crown Prince Woosan to take the throne as a figurehead constitutional monarch, U.S. Embassy sources in London said. Woosan, 57, is ill in Switzerland.

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Selassie, the tiny, 82-year-old "Lion of Judah," bowed to the inevitable this morning and accepted an Armed Forces Committee decree deposing him as Emperor of the nation he had ruled since 1916, the sources said.

The American sources said Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, was quiet. They said they had no word of the Emperor's whereabouts. Other sources said he had been taken from the palace his army nationalized a month ago and conveyed to a place "specially prepared for him."

The armed forces decree did not abolish Ethiopia's monarchy, which is said to trace in an unbroken line from a union between the Biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

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The decree said new elections would be held, though it specified no time, and a new constitution proclaimed, the sources said.

It ignored Selassie's decree naming his grandson, a student in Engiand, as his successor and invited Crown Prince Woosan, Selassie's sole surviving son, to assume the crown.

In 1960 Woosan was implicated in a revolt by Selassie's palace guard while the Emperor was abroad. Selassie quickly quelled that revolt.

But in recent years southern Ethiopia has been gripped by a killing drought. In the end it was this drought, and Selassie's handing of it in the context of his feudal and absolute power, that led to his overthrow.

Troops under the command of the Ethiopian Armed Forces Committee -- which already had stripped Selassie of the power he wielded absolutely until seven months ago -- were deployed at key points in Addis Ababa, the embassy report said.

The city was quiet, but a 7:30 p.m. curfew had been imposed, it said.

The embassy said Addis Ababa airport was closed and warned travelers against trying to enter the country for the time being, the sources said.

Selassie, known as "The Conquering Lion of Judah," has been under virtual house arrest in the palace the Armed Forces Committee confiscated and renamed the National Palace.

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His daughter, Princess Tenagne-Work, was arrested Wednesday. Western diplomats in Addis Ababa said other arrests of members of the emperor's family were expected.

Selassie's position as an absolute monarch, the latest in a 3,000-year-old Ethiopian line, was altered drastically by a draft constitution introduced last month.

It converted his throne to that of a figurehead constitutional monarch, transferring power to an elected parliament. Selassie had opposed certain provisions of the proposed constitution, presented by Prime Minister Lij Michael Imru.

The draft constitution climaxed a six-month "coup by degrees" by the Armed Forces Committee. Nearly 200 politicians, businessmen and relatives of Selassie were arrested by the armed forces during six months of unrest and rebellion.

Selassie was stripped of his wealth within Ethiopia. Wednesday the Armed Forces Committee complained it was unable to trace, much less recover, billions of dollars allegedly controlled by the emperor abroad.

Its nationwide broadcast charged Selassie with illegally depositing vast sums in Swiss and other banks abroad, using numbered accounts and the names of other persons.

The committee said some estimates put Selassie's wealth abroad as high as $10 billion. It said the fortune included most of the 887,000 ounces of gold -- worth about $133 million -- taken from Ethiopia's Adola fields.

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The committee said Selassie refused to return any of the overseas money, saying his wealth already had been distributed to his children.

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