Mengistu Neway

Mengistu Neway (1919 – 30 March 1961) was an Ethiopian commander of the Imperial Guard during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. He is noted for being one of the early dissidents of the Emperor's regime and for organizing the 1960 coup attempt with his younger brother Germame Neway, for which he was sentenced to death.

Mengistu and his brother were members of a well-established noble lineage called Moja, an Shewan family clan which had supplied the Ethiopian government a number of soldiers and governors for a century, but at the time of the 1960 coup had fallen out of favor. Ethiopian observers, noting that the Moja had a tradition for favoring reforms, later speculated that their coup could be explained in terms of Ethiopian lineage politics. Christopher Clapham rejects this interpretation, noting "this is at best an oversimplification, in that some Mojas remained loyal to the Emperor, while several non-Mojas were actively involved; and there has been no evidence that Mengestu and Germame took the lead because of their Moja ancestry."^[1] Clapham's opinion as on outside however reflect a peripheral and nondefinitive insight. Members of the Ethiopian nobility and even royal houses have been known to choose and to switch between feuding sides in power struggles. The Moja had been instrumental as Kingmakers in Menelik II's, Zauditu I's and Eyasu V's ascent. Eyasu's offensive and insulting attitude towards Fit. Habtegiorgis Dinegde, Minister of War, Justice, and above all husband to Woiz. Altayework Habte, one of the Moja's three principal heads was the last straw in not only Habtegiorgis but many Moja allies such as Dedj's Wordofa Chengere, Dedj. Abebe Tufa leaving the Eyasu camp.