"My brother, our preparations are ready. Many junior officers in the Imperial Guard support this plan, I cannot say the same about the top levels though. Eventually, word will get out, so the sooner we act, the better."
"Mhmm. The church will be an issue."
"To be quite frank, we can only take more measures to win figures over. Of course not all the church will support this. Not all of the Army, Navy, of Airforce might. However this will be the spark of a revolution, when the people join us."
"Well, it is one, that should events go to plan, happen rather quickly."
"Why?"
"I have talked to several leaders of our air force. Squadrons of F86 sabres shall destroy most imperial guards still loyal to Selassie. The navy, in Eritrea, is practically useless to him.'
"How did you win over the Air Force commanders?"
"There is a little thing called bribery, brother."
"Why have you started using such dirty tactics?"
"It is really the only way to free our people. Afterwards, all cockroaches will get accountability in some form. For now, we must remove the roots of the problem."
*A fighter looking like a militiaman enters the room
"Sir, we are ready to support your plan, which will emancipate the Oromo people, and give us equal rights. There will be no loyalist attempt to start a civil war with our assistance. Also we endorse your plan to give uncultivated land to tenants, to make our land reform against the aristocracy easier. After this, we will fully join the army."
"This group was the Ethiopian National Liberation Front, really codeword for a bunch of disgruntled Oromo activists, after their organization, Mecha and Tuluma self Organization was disbanded in 1967, and the liberation activists detained. Selassie had oppressed them, and that would going to bite him very hard in due time.
Not only this, but reformist activists, Marxists, Pan Ethiopianists, and Ethno-nationalist intellectuals were behind the revolution, giving it a powerful civilian vanguard.
It is often said the revolution was simply a military coup, but really that ignores the truth."
"Why, How, and the Future"- The History of the Ethiopian Revolution by Laureat Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin