The Ozymandias Moment

The British killed Emperor Tewodros (okay, just cornered him) as a punishment for holding their citizens. Emepror Yohannes “took over” the sovereignty, which he squandered fighting for the Egyptians. The Dervish from Sudan decapitated him, and Ethiopia became headless for a little while until Menelik took over. He died of syphilis after a good old age. He left Ethiopia in a lot of mess and intrigue, despite all his efforts, from which Emperor Haileselassie emerged victor.
Haileselassie was a good one — he never fought with foreign powers. He actually fled one and took refuge in the house of the killers of Tewodros and his son, young prince Alemayehu. He came back to a victorious welcome in peace time and his total reign was longer that the life expectancy of the Ethiopians he ruled.
If foreigners did not kill him, then someone at home should do it. In a race against time, for he would probably have died of natural causes shortly, Mengistu Hailemariam dispatched him. As comedian Chris Rock says, whatever kills you after the age of 70, you die of natural causes. Apparently, Mengistu has a clear conscience.
Now this Mengistu was a shifty, conniving person, which is why he is probably going to live longer than the people who should have killed him. Death came naturally to him, and some people chose to be inspired by him, even as he shed their blood.
He was master of divide and rule. What he divided is not the country, but the people that could kill him — they were not even rebels. He divided them in such a way that even their own shadows spied on them.
He was not even corrupt. Having been a low ranking officer, he had not yet learned that lucrative trade, which others after him would master. He just wanted to be king of kings. 
Although he fought serious wars, with two rebels that aimed at taking away Tigray and Eritrea as well as with the Somali invaders, he made sure that his generals would always be so insecure that his successful effort to stay in power would cost Ethiopia many thousands of its poor children, their bloods decorating the battle fields of the east and the north. Battle front decisions were made by a committee of three people in order to make sure that the army did not start shooting in the wrong (or right?) direction, threatening his tenure.
He shoved the people into the fires of war like one would shove wood into fire in a cold, kiremt day. Whereas the wood had merely to burn to give the heat expected from it, people needed conviction, purpose and patriotism to pick a gun, aim it right and pull the trigger. But he did not care if they did not do that. He had enough wood to keep the fire going.
It was strange that people were galvanized by his rhetoric of keeping the fighting on “until the last bullet and the last person.” He was planning to see every one dead and live alone in the land after killing the last person with the last bullet.
Well, that was not to be. He fled to Zimbabwe, and no one knows now if he or Robert Mugabe will die first.
Somehow killing leaders seems out of fashion these days — as well as being highly criminal. So his successors are living in a radically changed world. It is no longer polite to overthrow governments. Starting a civil war? That’s mean! Only the South Sudanese do it. So when war was over, they bargained and Ertirea went with all of Ethiopia’s access to the sea. 
Who wants water anyway, salty at that? Apparently, many people did. They were told they had to do with the beaches of Lake Langano. Tigray also mysteriously began expanding southward, while the independent country called Eritrea also wanted another bite from Ethiopia’s bosom — Ertirea having been the neck and head, not as in thinking.
The following years were simply excellence in divide and rule. What Mengistu did with his generals, the new leaders did with the people. People thought they were being liberated when they got an entire region named after themselves. Like Hell’s Angel left Ethiopia’s pit alone, as Ethiopians were good at watching each other, so are Ethiopians still standing and living today good at watching each other.
Both at home and in the diaspora, angry dogs of different colours are snarling at each other. Not even one among them realizes that they are playing a game set for them. For example, if all people actually believed that all Ethiopians can go anywhere in the country and be able to live, they would not be fighting each other.
Now every body is watching everybody else — in the regions, in the religious institutions, etc.
This power thing must be very appealing. Or it is just that people are so selfish and hateful that while there is mostly enough of many things to go around, they want to keep things to themselves and run things their own way.
But it has been the way of the world that regimes eventually change and rulers go. History books are full of their accounts. Like Ozymandias, whose pedestal read, “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”, so is the story of all those rulers, good and bad, when their time is over. The statue of the great Ozymandias in the famous poem by Shelley was broken down to pieces, and for as far as the eyes can see in all direction was a vast territory of sand dunes, for that was what remained for his memory.