Articles by Elisabeth Clairmonte

September 27, 1975 THE death of Haile Selassie on August 27 marked the passing of an era un- mourned except by a hyper-privileged coterie in Nigeria and Selassie's foreign supporters. For more than eight years from my flat which overlooked his capacious Jubilee Palace I witnessed almost daily Selassie's bent and fragile figure slip into his giant Rolls limousine. In that giant compound were his countless pedigreed dogs and horses, his cheetahs, his aged lion and an equally countless retinue. The question had always been asked: "What will happen when he goes?". That question was, however, settled even before Selassie's death by a series of historical currents that shattered not merely the worm-eaten absolutist institutions scaffolded by the monarchy but also the entire social structure of the empire.