Kassa Haile Darge
Haile Selassie I | |
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Personal details | |
Born | Asrate Kassa Bizunesh Kassa Manayalush Kassa Tessemia Kassa | 8 July 1881
John Spencer, who advised Ras Kassa during the writing of the 1955 Constitution of Ethiopia, described him as "surely the most conservative of all the rases in constant attendance at the court." Spencer continued his description of the aristocrat by noting that he rarely saw the Ras "in other than Ethiopian national dress. Large, bearded and silent, this imposing dignitary wore a black cloak with gold clasps worked into the form of lion heads. In working sessions, he used to take out with considerable pride a pair of folding half-lens spectacles with gold frames and bows."[1]
Life
Although he had by birth a better claim to the throne than his younger cousin Ras Tafari (the later Emperor
Ras Kassa served as
The sons of Ras Kassa stayed in Ethiopia and were part of the resistance to the Italian occupation. In late 1936, three of his four sons were captured and executed: Wondosson Kassa, Aberra Kassa, and Asfawossen Kassa.[6]
In early 1941, during the
References
- ^ Spencer, Ethiopia at Bay: A personal account of the Haile Selassie years (Algonac: Reference Publications, 1984), p. 257
- ^ Anthony Mockler, Haile Selassie's War (New York: Olive Branch Press, 2003), p. 6
- ^ Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, pp. 7f
- ^ Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, pp. 83-86, 104-106; Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia, second ed. (Oxford: James Currey, 2001), pp. 154-156
- ^ Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, pp. 312f
- ^ Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, pp. 169-171
- ^ Mockler, Haile Selassie's War, p. 316