By Natascha Mirosch
The Sunday Mail

HE MIGHT not have been able to stand when the national anthem was played in Darwin at the Arafura games in May this year, but you couldn’t find a prouder Australian than Abebe Fekadu.

“I cried with happiness when they raised the flag and played the national anthem for me,” Fekadu says.

“I was so proud to be there as an Australian.” After almost a decade of hardship, Fekadu finally has a reason to look forward to the future. Not only is he one of Australia’s newest citizens, but the 37-year-old paraplegic won gold in powerlifting for his adopted country and qualified to compete at the Paralympics in Beijing next year.

Ironically, it was while agitating for freedom and democracy in his home country of Ethiopia that Abebe Fekadu lost his own.

In 1996, the young activist had spent three months in an Addis Ababa prison for demonstrating against the imprisonment of political prisoners.

“It was hell. There were a hundred people in one cell. They beat us with electrical wire, handcuffed us with our hands behind our back. They did to us the worst things that you can ever do to another human being.”

Fekadu had reason to fear even after his release. In 1978, at the height of the socialist government’s “Red Terror” campaign, his father, a wealthy businessman, was executed, accused of being “anti-revolutionary”.

“I was eight. They took my father to prison and he never came home,” Fekadu says. Despite his previous incarceration, he continued to oppose the government. “All we wanted was freedom of speech and peace. To be able to vote without fear, to live in a better country,” he says.

It was at a secret pro-democracy meeting in the town of Gondar in 1997 that his life changed irrevocably.

The group’s lookout spotted the police and Fekadu ran for his car. A high speed chase ensued and the car spun out of control, Fekadu was thrown from the driver’s seat and lay crushed under the car.

“I was unconscious and they believed I was dead, so they left me.”

He was rescued by passersby.

“When I regained consciousness, they asked if I would like to go to a hospital in the capital, but I couldn’t, I knew it was dangerous. Instead they got me a traditional medicine man who told me I would be OK, and gave me medicine. It didn’t stop the pain though, and at times I wanted to die because it was so bad.”

Ten days later when he showed no sign of improvement, the people who were sheltering him took him to the capital. “The doctor saw me and he told my relatives I wouldn’t walk again, that my only hope of some sort of life was treatment overseas.”

Friends helped Fekadu fly to Italy where his brother lived.

“In Italy I had an operation, to put plates in my spine so that at least I could sit, and I spent six months in hospital recovering flat on my back.”

He was released into the care of his brother, who lived in a seventh floor apartment with no lift. When an attempt was made to take Fekadu down, the enraged landlady screamed at the pair that it was not a place for people with wheelchairs and that he should get out.

“My brother tried to find an accessible place for us to live but couldn’t, so he told her I was gone and from that time I could only stay in the flat. For 10 months I saw nobody.”

In desperation, Fekadu’s brother got new passports and visas and told him they were going to Amsterdam for treatment. Instead, in 1998, they flew to Australia where they claimed asylum and were detained.

For Fekadu, life in detention was an improvement. But

the sense of liberation didn’t last long – his brother was sent back and while Fekadu’s case was considered he was released with a bridging visa, meaning he was unable to work, study or receive any state-funded medical assistance.

“It was like home detention. Life as an asylum seeker is very bad – you have no idea of what is going to happen to your life. Any time, any day they could send you back home. I have no complaints though. If I complain about the Australian Government, then I complain about the Australian people – and it is thanks only to their kindness, those people of Brisbane who provided me with food, shelter and emotional and psychological help for all this time, that I am alive today.”

It was at the suggestion of a volunteer that Fekadu began going to the local sporting wheelies gym.

“I was very depressed at that time. My English was poor, I had no strength in my arms to operate my chair, and didn’t know how to catch public transport. After a few months I grew stronger and I started to see other disabled people and what they were capable of and had some hope.”

Fekadu began powerlifting and entered his first professional competition in 2002, going on to become Australian champion in 2004, 2005 2006 and 2007. “I had not been sporty at all before this – it never occurred to me that I could be an athlete.”

Earlier this year, he was given the news he had waited nine years for.

He was granted a “talent visa”, acknowledging his special sporting skill and just days before the Arafura games, took part in a citizenship ceremony.

“It was a big party, with all the people who had helped me there, so many wonderful people who had looked after me.”

At the Arafura games Fekadu competed for the first time as an Australian, lifting 157.5kg, almost three times his bodyweight to win gold. He now hopes that with the help of a sponsor, he’ll be able to reach his ultimate goal – to compete for Australia in Beijing in 2008.

“It is my greatest wish and dream to compete as an Australian and to inspire people, both people with disabilities and asylum seekers, to give them hope that if you just keep going, one day, eventually, a door will open for you,” he says.

* Fekadu is seeking sponsorship to help him get to Beijing. Contact the Refugee Claimants Centre in Windsor on 3357 9013.