Ras Tafarians and the Red Terror

Those who mourn the lost martyrs...

In 1930, Prince Ras Tafari (say it fast, and you unlock the inspiration of a whole new dreadlocked religion), was crowned the king of Ethiopia.  He got a new name, Emperor Haile Selassie, a new gorgeous palace at the Northern section of Addis, and the next year, Ethiopia got a new constitution that granted the Emperor almost total power.  Fortunately, for at least a chunk of time, Selassie was a benevolent, dog-loving leader who made big investments in both country-wide infrastructure and a personal fleet of sports cars.

In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia, hoping to annex the country to connect its two neighboring colonies, Eritrea and Somalia.  By 1936, Italians has captured Addis, and Selassie left the country to appeal to the League of Nations to help oust Italy.  No such luck.  A groundswell resistance brewed from Ethiopian patriots, and in 1941, with some aid from the British (who now wanted to see Italy weakened as part of WWII), Ethiopians finally defeated Mussolini’s six years of brutal, violent rule in their home. 

The 1940 and 50’s were a time of rebuilding, establishing Ethiopian Airlines (which we love), Addis Ababa University (which is beautiful), a new national currency, and the headquarters of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.  It was this globally connected and educated populous that was not just disappointed by the slow pace of development, but they were appalled at the famine of 1972-1974 that Selassie’s court kept hidden.  In 1974, the Derg, a radical military group emerged as a challenge to Selassie’s rule, and after populous strikes from teachers, taxi workers, and students, the Derg succeeded in ousting Selassie.  In contrast to his usual ride in a fancy car, the Derg escorted him Selassie to prison in the back of a VW Bug.

With new leadership, the populous uprisings passed for a few years, while the Derg’s Colonel Mengistu instituted Marxist rule.  The nationalization of banks and farms under socialist rule was at first a boon for Ethiopian peasants, by 1977, the Derg had launched a campaign of absolute suppression of any critics of the government.  In the Red Terror, which lasted 17 years, more than 100,000 people were killed, twice as many were tortured and imprisoned, and several thousand fled the country.  This number doesn’t account for the million more starved to death in the 1974 and 1984 famines – started by drought, perpetuated by bad government who wanted a weakened population.  

This week we visited the Martyr Museum in the middle of Addis’ Meskel Square that records all this history and honors the resistance fighters who were killed by a corrupt and power-hungry government.   When we walked into an exhibit on Selassie’s first constitution, we had no idea we would walk out past a display of human bones from excavated mass graves.  And we had no idea that the current heavy-handed Prime Minister Zenawi is the same one who helped defeat the Derg in 1991.  

The final row of the museum was covered mug shots of all of the students, intellectuals, workers, and regular people who had perished at the hands of the Derg or who fled the country for asylum.  Sara looked for a long time for the photo of her college mentor, Tadessa Adera.  In Sara's first semester of African Literature her freshman year, Tadessa alluded to his imprisonment by the Derg, and he promised to tell the rest of his story later.  Tadessa later passed and along with him his story -- a story that rings familiar for thousands of proud nationals who resisted.

Addis Ababa University, photo credit: Nancy Oyler, guest photographer.

Today we visited another museum – the Ethnological Museum at the University of Addis Ababa, housed in Selassie’s former palace.

Walking across the campus, you could feel the sense of hopefulness -- this was the place where young Ethiopians from across the country were coming to learn the lessons of the past and to plan for their country's future.