Leul Ras (Prince) Aserate Kasa (also Aserate Kassa, Asrate Kassa and Aserate-Medhin Kassa) was an army commander and a member of the nobility of the Ethiopian Empire. President of the Crown Council since 1970.
Background
Asrata Kassa was born on April 30, 1922, the only surviving son of Ras Kassa, the grandson of the King of Shoa. He was exiled in Britain with Haile Selassie during the Italian occupation, after his two brothers had been treacherously executed when promised safe conducts by the Italians.
Education
Asrate Kassa was educated locally.
Career
After the liberation he returned home and was successively promoted Governor of Bagemdar 1942-4; Wollega 1944-6; Arusi 1946-52; Bagemdar 1952-6; Shoa 1956-7. He became Vice-President of the Senate between 1957 and 1961.
During the attempted coup of 1960, he avoided capture by the rebels, alerted the British Ambassador on what was happening and took the lead in coordinating the loyalists, working fast to muster the territorial armies. He became President of the Senate in 1961. In 1964 he was sent as the Ethiopian Representative to Eritrea.
He was the last civilian governor before a soldier was appointed to this sensitive posting. He was given the title Ras (a high noble) in 1966 and later was appointed to the highest rank of Leul Ras. He was dismissed from the Governorship of Eritrea in November 1970 for opposing the declaration of a state of emergency. He held that Eritrean secessionism was mainly a socio-economic problem and could be solved by civic development.
Despite this loss of prestige, Haile Selassie selected Ras Aserate in July 1971 as President of the Crown Council, to rejuvenate that body and oversee an orderly transfer of power on Haile Selassie's death to his designated successor, Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen. When the Emperor was deposed and the Derg took power, Aserate Kassa was imprisoned and later executed along with sixty other imperial officials on 23 November 1974. His widow Princess Zuriashwork endured 14 years of harsh imprisonment before being released with the other women of the Imperial dynasty. His son Asfa-Wossen Asserate is a political analyst and consultant for African and Middle-Eastern Affairs in Germany.
Personality
A tall, handsome, dark-skinned man; a member of the Shoan royal house with a strong claim to the Ethiopian throne going directly back to an elder son of the King of Shoa (1813-1847). His father, Ras Kassa, voluntarily dropped his good claims to the throne in 1916, saying that Haile Selassie was “the clever one” and should succeed. Asrata has been unshakably loyal to the Emperor, leading the resistance to the 1960 coup and demanding heavy penalties for those involved. But if a struggle for secession developed on the Emperor’s death, he has a formidable claim as a reactionary strong man.
Connections
He was the fourth son of Ras Kassa Haile Darge, and his wife Princess (Le'ilt) Tsige Mariam Beshah. Prince Aserate Kassa was married to (Le'ilt) Zuriashwork Gebre-Igziabiher, daughter of Jantirar Gebre-Igziabiher, and granddaughter of Empress Menen Asfaw consort of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Prince Aserate Kassa was the head of the Selalle sub-branch of the Shewan branch of Ethiopia's Imperial Solomonic Dynasty