TYRANTS tend to be oddly punctilious about recording their atrocities. But even by the standards of his peers, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Ethiopia’s former dictator, was an incorrigible archivist. The security services of his regime, which took power in 1974, learned the habits of bureaucratic procedure from true masters, the East Germans, who sent Stasi agents to Ethiopia as consultants. When Mr Mengistu fell and fled in 1991, he left behind thousands of pages of memoranda, death warrants and even the minutes of a meeting in 1975 when his ruling committee, known as the Derg, voted to murder the imprisoned emperor, Haile Selassie.
These files form the basis for thousands of criminal cases brought by an Ethiopian special prosecutor since Mr Mengistu fell. The charge sheet and evidence for his trial in absentia for genocide run to some 8,000 pages. Though he remains a sheltered guest of Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, a court sentenced him this year to life in prison, so ending the special prosecutor’s work. But what will happen to all that fragile and incriminating paper?
A woman named Hirut Abebe-Jiri has made it her mission to see that the historical record is preserved. Herself imprisoned and tortured during a purge known as the “Red Terror”, Ms Hirut has set up an organisation to archive, translate and index the Derg’s files, and make them available on the internet through a partnership with the University of North Dakota in the United States. A Canadian resident, she recently went back to Addis Ababa, which she fled as a refugee, and signed an agreement with the government that calls for the transfer of the documents into the hands of her Ethiopian Red Terror Documentation and Research Centre. Her model is Yale University’s Cambodian Genocide Programme, which documents Khmer Rouge atrocities in the 1970s.
Despite many trials over the years, many Ethiopians still do not know what happened to family members who disappeared during the Red Terror. Ms Hirut hopes that her archive and its website will let Ethiopians—including those in the diaspora—learn the truth.
She knows the power of written words: they brought justice in her own case. During the Red Terror, Ms Hirut, then 17, was imprisoned and beaten up. Years later, she discovered that the man who had ordered her torture, a notorious Derg functionary called Kelbessa Negewo, had emigrated to the United States and was working as a bellhop at a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with two other former victims, she sued him in an American court. The most powerful evidence against him was his own memos to his superiors, in which he boasted about his “struggle to eliminate the anti-revolutionaries”. Last year, after more than a decade of legal battles, he was deported back to Ethiopia. He is now serving a life sentence for murder.
9 thoughts on “An archive of murders past”
The next deportee should be Mirchaw Sineshaw. I have heard that he was a revolutionary guard “ABIYOT TEBAQI”. Any cerdible evidence is needed ASAP as we are ready to nail his coffin. Please supprot us on this endevour!!
Kelbessa Negewo is “OROMO” not amara???why the so called oromo’s… bragg as if they were discriminated???
Hirut Abebe, great work this is a dream come true. Hopefully we will be writing about Meles Zenawe and his gang soon.
I agree Merchaw Sineshaw has blood on his hands when he was
an abiyot tebaki in Gondar. Call him at 202-431-2022 and let him know he is a wanted man.
Mr. Mamo,
Please don’t show us on how stupid you are. Actually your name says it all. Actually I have never met a smart adult Mamo. You are indeed Mamo Qillo. How could you generalize the plight of the great Oromo people with this thug?? What if his name was Abebe Kebede does that qualify him to be an Amara. What about your Amhara Mengistu Haile Mariam.Does that mean that all Amhara’s are fascists?? Give us a brak Mamo and grow up my dear.
Mamo, for your info. most of members of Meison and Abiot Tebakas were unfortunately from Oromo ethenic group, may be because their majority in number or just by believing Haile Fida was an oromo from the small town of wellega called Arjo.
Don’t be ignorant and waist our time to read your non sense comments. The story is not about tribe Hiruth is not damn like you she tried to do something bigger than what you are talking about.Who cares if they are Amhara,Oromo. Their tribe wouldn’t make any difference.
Thank You Hirute,It is like a dream comes true for me.like your selves, there are people in and outside the country who survived the torture and still leave with mental and phisical scar.we need the story to be told and let fellow country men know what happened during the Mengistu and co(meson and revolutionary guards) regime.let the murderers and tortureres come to justice.
I hope Hiruth’s taxing task will be completed soon so people like me will be able to find out how their loved ones were made to disappear with out a trace during the Mengistu regime. The ethnicity of who did those terrible acts of hacking innocent people out of life does not matter, at least to me. Those wicked individuals were just individuals and did not, will not represent their entire ethnic group. They were just people who chose killing and shedding innocent citizens’ blood as their romance of the day(s). As a family of victims, all I need to know now is how and what happened to my kin and kits who just disappeared with out a trace. Hirut…God Bless You!!! I pray that your effort will succeed and some day before I go away to join the Good Lord I will be able to find out what happened to my beloved and innocent friends and relatives, Samuel, Seifu, Taye Wodajo, Kiflai Gebru, Meseret, Ahmad Jamal and a few others I have in my diary. These are all friends who I grew up together in a small railway station. After living overseas all these years, I have not been able to erase the memories of growing up with these wonderful kids..playing soccer, train surfing, swimming in a lagoon. going to a small school and studying together…OH Lord!!!!Please let me live until I find out what happened to these dear friends!!!!