UCLA professor and Third World cinema expert Teshome H. Gabriel dies at 70. The Ethiopian-born educator was ‘one of the first scholars to theorize in a critical fashion about Third World cinema,’ a fellow academic says.
By Dennis McLellan | Los Angeles Times
Teshome H. Gabriel, a UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television professor and internationally recognized scholar of Third World cinema, has died. He was 70.
The Ethiopian-born Gabriel died Monday of sudden cardiac arrest at Kaiser Permanente Panorama City Medical Center, said university spokeswoman Teri Bond.
“He was a brilliant, gracious, elegant and generous man,” Teri Schwartz, dean of the School of Theater, Film and Television, said in a statement Wednesday. “Teshome was a consummate professional and a truly beloved faculty member at TFT. He will be greatly missed by all of us.”
Gabriel, who began as a lecturer at UCLA in 1974 and received his doctorate in film and television studies there before becoming an assistant professor in 1981, was the author of the 1982 book “Third Cinema in the Third World: The Aesthetics of Liberation.”
Vinay Lal, an associate professor of history and Asian American studies at UCLA, said Gabriel was “one of the first scholars to theorize in a critical fashion about Third World cinema.”
“He is a principal exponent of the idea of Third Cinema,” Lal, who is on leave, said via e-mail from India. “He saw such a third cinema as a guardian of popular memory and as a source of emancipation for formerly subjugated peoples.
“While Third Cinema would develop its own conventions of narrative and style, its aesthetic had to be tied to a politics of social action. Teshome was very attentive, as a film scholar must be, to cinematic styles and conventions; but he kept very close to his heart the idea that Third World cinemas had to be true to the cultures, traditions and forms of storytelling found in those societies.”
Gabriel co-edited the 1993 book “Otherness and the Media: The Ethnography of the Imagined and the Imaged” and most recently wrote the book “Third Cinema: Exploration of Nomadic Aesthetics & Narrative Communities.”
His many other accomplishments included serving as editor in chief of “Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media and Composite Cultures.” He also was founder and an editorial board member of Tuwaf (Light), an Ethiopian Fine Arts Journal in Amharic, from 1987 to 1991.
In his later years, Lal said, Gabriel “wrote on such things as the relationship of the Web to weaving, the idea of the nomadic (and the transgressive), and the relationship between the built form and ruins.
“He was a rare thinker, interested in allowing ideas a free play, and he never ceased to explore new forms of media as well as developments in cinema.”
Gabriel was born Sept. 24, 1939, in the small town of Ticho, Ethiopia, and came to the United States in 1962.
He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Utah in 1967, followed by a master’s of education in educational media two years later. At UCLA, he earned a master’s degree in theater arts (film/television) in 1976 and his doctorate in film and television studies in 1979.
He is survived by his wife, Maaza Woldemusie; daughter, Mediget; and son, Tsegaye.
A memorial service is planned for 3 p.m. Saturday at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, 6300 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles.
Commander Zeleke Bogale has passed away on this day last year, June 17, 2010. The following is a tribute by his former colleague Commander Assefa Seifu.
By Assefa Seifu
The first batch of Apprentice Cadets for the new Imperial Ethiopian Naval College were flown to Asmara from AA (after all assembled there from various parts of the country) on Meskerem 20 & 21 1948 on board Air Force Dakota planes. We were 47.( probaly the first time to fly for all!)
After about a month they were taken to Massawa (three of us went back to AA to help celebrate the Silver Jubilee of HIM’s Coronation.)In Massawa, we embarked on basic infantry and naval training, plus academic ones particularly in English, math & physics to prepare us for the proper launch into Imperial Ethiopian Naval College curriculum, as cadets. Needless to say there were attritions.
The remaining bulk were divided into three branches; The Executive, Supply(Logistics) and Engineering. Zelleke and I were in the first. So, we were not only course mates but also class mates. On graduation, Zeleke was given the first sword.
Thereafter, we, of the Executive Branch went to Norway for a year’s practical sea training and or another year to England for, what they called, Sub.Lieutenants’ Courses.
We returned to AA virtually on the eve of the Mengistu – Germame attempted revolution. Less than ten days after we returned home, we were ordered to proceed to Massawa to prepare for The Navy Days.
This was a bit tough for those that came from the provinces because they could not see their families after more than two years abroad.
The Navy Days were big celebrations of the graduating cadets, bordering on fanfare; which I need not go into. But one thing cannot be overlooked. Beginning on our graduation, history was made and repeated
yearly until HIM’s overthrow. Please bear the digression a bit for historical purposes.
For the first time since the Cold War, NATO & Warsaw Pact Naval Ships and others from neutral countries participated in a manoeuvre at our Navy Days. This Naval Review by HIM commanded by the Senior Admiral of whichever group broke the ice ‘of the cold war’ and there was a yearly vying which one will send a senior admiral as that would determine who would be the commander of the manoeuvres and the honour of having HIM on board. This was no mean diplomatic feat and political manoeuvre, by HIM and his Minister(s) of Foreign Affairs.
HIM reviewed the manoeuvres from the senior Admiral’s ship until he got his own Flag Ship HMS Ethiopia. Soon after the Navy days, we most of the officers of The Executive Branch, were sent to The US Naval Post Graduate School (USNPGS) at Monterrey California. Please forgive the slight digression, but I feel it is important for historical purposes how the Western Media & Press treat us!
Well after I had come out in exile Egypt copied our monumental achievements and the western press & media hailed it as an extraordinary achievement by Egypt to bring the two opposing Worlds’ war ships to participate in a manoeuvre. Needless to add that I reminded the BBC World Sevice & TV that they had reported this feat for years from Ethiopia. Adding surely they could not forget the time when The Princess Royal (Anne) was the guest of honouor at one of the Navy Days!
On graduation from the USNPGS we were met by officers of other branches and other ranks to sail her back from San Francisco/Diego via Hawaii and Japan to her new home. Zelleke, was of course, part of the of the officer-corps that brought HMS Ethiopia to her new home.
Thereafter, Zeleke was sent to England for further naval and academic education. While there, Zelleke had an unfortunate accident in the underground train where he had one leg partially disabled. All of us,
without exception, were shocked to hear this. Our boss, Commander Eskinder Dessta, was kindness itself. He made sure that Zelleke got the best treatment the country (UK) offered.
A lesser person would have had all his personality shattered. Not Zelleke!
After the revolution, Zelleke was promoted as Administrator of The Marine Department under the Ministry of Transport; later the department was given an autonomous status and became known as The Ethiopian Marine Transport Authority in charge of inland waterways and the seaports of Assab and Massawa.
He was virtually his own boss and there he showed what he was really made of a man of steel and determination in character, brilliance in administration and foresight in the implementation of his duties and responsibilities..
As I had had to leave in Oct 1975 what I relate hereafter is what I was happy to glean from colleagues at the time and now when the inevitable happened to share it with the EEDN family.
One friend (2nd Entry of the navy) that I asked said:
“As discussed, I never had the pleasure of working for/with Cdr. Zeleke. When one thinks of Zeleke, hard work, dependability and good character spring to mind. The story is told that in his capacity as the General Manager of the Marine Transport Authority, he was responsible for turning Assab Port into an oasis by giving incentives to all kinds of people including to several gardeners to look after the greening of not only the port but also the city of Assab too.”
I had to go into the root of this “oasis “as I had heard about it before. So my enquiry, of which I am very pleased, revealed, that the gardeners at Assab Port were so diligent that they did not stick to working hours even during the hottest season. Pleased with what he saw, Zelleke rewarded the chief Gardener and the assistants wit a hefty pay rise that caused fairly senior office staff to murmur. Not that Zelleke
would take any notice of such trivialities. The friend that reminded me of the “oasis” mentioned a biblical story which I looked up for our benefit. No doubt many of you will remember the story Our Lord told his
disciples about the kingdom of heaven and exemplifying it by a boss ‘hiring labourers at a penny a day early in the morning, later employing more and saying that he will pay them whatever is right; and finally,
he did likewise at the sixth, 9th & 11th hour. He paid them all a penny each and when those that had worked longer complained, the boss’s answer was, “Friend I do thee no wrong; didst though agree with me for a penny?” – Matt. 20/10)
That was not all that Zelleke did to look after his hard working employees. The Dergue had ordered no salary increments. The order did not exclude new employment; just not to increase salaries. The good man found a way out of this by creating various echelons. He created higher paying jobs and promoted the dserving thereby giving his staff the increment they were due. Ingenious and kind would you not agree? Let me add one more point on this thread, hope I am not boring anyone.
As most of you will remember the revolution was not just against the Emperor, his family and ministers but all the way down. The Navy was no exception. It was the non commissioned officers that, in effect, hired and fired.
Sadly, it was in the Navy too. A number of highly qualified, very decent, duty-minded officers were dismissed by these thugs for merely being duty conscious and disciplinarians. They were not only dismissed but also banned from any government employment.
When Zelleke was promoted to head the Marine Transport Authority, he needed qualified personnel. What a God sent opportunity! On top of desiring to help his unlawfully dismissed colleagues, some his course
and class mates that he knew were badly wronged. So there was only one solution and Zelleke took it. He went to Col. Mengistu himself and explained. The ban was lifted and he had his qualified personnel and
grateful colleagues to help him.
In the early 70s the insurgents had virtually taken over Eritrea save Asmara, that was surrounded and Massawa. Massawa was attacked heavily.
The service that was to guard the port was overwhelmed and the remnants were trying to come into the Naval Base.
The Captain of the Naval Base, Captain Mersha Girma, is reported to have famously, said to those that were approaching,
“It is not only their bullet that kills! another step in our direction you will taste our bullet. Stand your ground and fight!” ( something to this effect.
Zelleke was at the Port Massawa back then and wanted to join his colleagues at The Naval Base, but his staff prevailed upon him to save the vessels, and boats, leading the evacuation from Massawa towards
Dhalak and Port of Assab.
This is sheer Professionalism! If and when a unit or a force is overwhelmed by the enemy the last duty of the Commanding Officer is to retrieve what is retrievable and destroy what is not so that nothing falls into the enemy hands to enhance its activities.
HE ALSO RAIDED THE LOCAL BANK BRANCH AND SAVED EVERY CENT FROM FALLING INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY.
This is not all that this gallant sailor did,I, besides totally renovating the ports and facilities of Massawa and Assab; he built air conditioned houses and apartments for port employees. He further built guest houses, clubs and recreational facilities at both Massawa and Assab ports to serve the employees and guests coming to the ports from elsewhere for business or work related matters.
Those in Assab, I am told, tried to refuse these facilities to truck drivers. On hearing this Zelleke is said to have fumed and asked them, his employees, that don’t they know that without these divers that crisscross the desert they will have no job? The truckers, gratefully, had an unlimited access and usage of the clubs.
Bear with me for just one more illustration of this brilliant guy. Whenever he entered a contract for new materials and machineries, one condition was never forgotten; the sellers were put under obligation to train his employees that will use/operate these machineries; thus saving the country an invaluable not just foreign currency to have experts to do whatever but to save time too. No one can accuse Zelleke that he has not used his Naval training to full use!
I was looking for an officer that has worked with Zelleke and I was told that there was one 2nd in taker that had high regards for him. I sought him out and here is what he said to me.
“I was saddened to hear of Commander Zelleke’s passing. I had met Commander Tessema a few weeks ago in Addis and he had told me that he saw Zelleke just before coming over and that he was in good mood. He also told me that Zelleke was taking treatment for Evidently Zelleke did not win this time and as usual he must have born his suffering in silence. I feel honoured to have known and worked with him closely on board H.M.S. Ethiopia as well as later at our Headquarters. His integrity, maturity, wisdom, quiet strength, constructive nature and streak of humour were beyond compare.”
Zelleke lived a solitary life for the last 18 years, not for the lack of friends. Far from it! He avoided almost everybody.I learnt from one close to him that his reason was:
“… he said because he felt all his generation including those in the armed forces have failed the country.”
A gallant officer to his last breath!
To conclude let me go the a tribute I heard on ‘Netsanet le Etiopia radio’ by members of ye petty officer Getachew… yewondimamamchina ehtmamamch mahber
“komander Zelleke be aleqochachew yetemesgenu be betachochachew yetewededuna yetekeberu neberu!”
I think the last is a testimony that any body can be proud of.
So, Neamin & Adnew, you had a father to be really proud of. I am confident that you will follow his footsteps to the last.
May the Lord rest His Soul and give you both and your families his solace.
Distinguished Ethiopian scholar Prof. Teshome H. Gabriel has passed away. Prof. Teshome’s invaluable advise and encouragement were of great value in launching Ethiopian Review. His passing away is another great loss to Ethiopia, and the whole world. It is sad to see that scholars of his generation and caliber are passing away without getting a chance to serve their country.
His colleagues at UCLA sent out the following news release today:
LOS ANGELES, CA (UCLA) — It is with great sadness we announce that our colleague Teshome H. Gabriel passed away yesterday evening, Monday, June 14, 2010. Professor Gabriel passed away peacefully in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles.
Teshome Gabriel, professor at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, has written extensively on memory and the cinema, theories of Third Cinema, on the aesthetics of nomadic thought in cinema and on weaving and the digital in developing countries. He has numerous publications including “Otherness and the Media: The Ethnography of the Imagined and the Imaged” and his “Third Cinema in the Third World: The Aesthetic of Liberation.” He is the founding director of several journals, including Emergencies and Ethiopian Fine Arts Journal.
His passing away will be deeply felt at UCLA his home for over 25 years and by his long-time colleagues at the African Studies Center. Our heartfelt condolences to his wife, Maaza, and his children.
Details on funeral arrangements and memorials are pending and will be announced shortly.
For those who want to express their condolences in person the family is accepting visitation this week.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Professor Englebert comes up with an idea that Ethiopian Review has been advocating for a while. As long as poverty-mongering institutions such as the World Bank continue to keep genocidal dictators like Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia financially afloat with billions of dollars in loans and aids, Africa will remain a hell on earth for most of its people. Hopefully the folks at the World Bank, the U.S. State Department and European Union will listen to Englebert’s ideas as presented below:
To save Africa, reject its states
By PIERRE ENGLEBERT
THE World Cup, which began on Friday, is bringing deserved appreciation of South Africa as a nation that transitioned from white minority domination to a vibrant pluralist democracy. Yet its achievements stand largely alone on the continent. Of the 17 African nations that are commemorating their 50th anniversaries of independence this year — the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia will both do so in the coming weeks — few have anything to truly celebrate.
Five decades ago, African independence was worth rejoicing over: these newly created states signaled an end to the violent, humiliating Western domination of the continent, and they were quickly recognized by the international community. Sovereignty gave fledgling elites the shield to protect their weak states against continued colonial subjugation and the policy instruments to promote economic development.
Yet because these countries were recognized by the international community before they even really existed, because the gift of sovereignty was granted from outside rather than earned from within, it came without the benefit of popular accountability, or even a social contract between rulers and citizens.
Buttressed by the legality and impunity that international sovereignty conferred upon their actions, too many of Africa’s politicians and officials twisted the normal activities of a state beyond recognition, transforming mundane tasks like policing, lawmaking and taxation into weapons of extortion.
So, for the past five decades, most Africans have suffered predation of colonial proportions by the very states that were supposed to bring them freedom. And most of these nations, broke from their own thievery, are now unable to provide their citizens with basic services like security, roads, hospitals and schools. What can be done?
The first and most urgent task is that the donor countries that keep these nations afloat should cease sheltering African elites from accountability. To do so, the international community must move swiftly to derecognize the worst-performing African states, forcing their rulers — for the very first time in their checkered histories — to search for support and legitimacy at home.
Radical as this idea may sound, it is not without precedent. Undemocratic Taiwan was derecognized by most of the world in the 1970s (as the corollary of recognizing Beijing). This loss of recognition led the ruling Kuomintang party to adopt new policies in search of domestic support. The regime liberalized the economy, legalized opposition groups, abolished martial law, organized elections and even issued an apology to the Taiwanese people for past misrule, eventually turning the country into a fast-growing, vibrant democracy.
In Africa, similarly, the unrecognized, breakaway state of Somaliland provides its citizens with relative peace and democracy, offering a striking counterpoint to the violence and misery of neighboring sovereign Somalia. It was in part the absence of recognition that forced the leaders of the Somali National Movement in the early ’90s to strike a bargain with local clan elders and create legitimate participatory institutions in Somaliland.
What does this mean in practice? Donor governments would tell the rulers of places like Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea or Sudan — all nightmares to much of their populations — that they no longer recognize them as sovereign states. Instead, they would agree to recognize only African states that provide their citizens with a minimum of safety and basic rights.
The logistics of derecognition would no doubt be complicated. Embassies would be withdrawn on both sides. These states would be expelled from the United Nations and other international organizations. All macroeconomic, budget-supporting and post-conflict reconstruction aid programs would be canceled. (Nongovernmental groups and local charities would continue to receive money.)
If this were to happen, relatively benevolent states like South Africa and a handful of others would go on as before. But in the continent’s most troubled countries, politicians would suddenly lose the legal foundations of their authority. Some of these repressive leaders, deprived of their sovereign tools of domination and the international aid that underwrites their regimes, might soon find themselves overthrown.
African states that begin to provide their citizens with basic rights and services, that curb violence and that once again commit resources to development projects, would be rewarded with re-recognition by the international community. Aid would return. More important, these states would finally have acquired some degree of popular accountability and domestic legitimacy.
Like any experiment, de- and re-recognition is risky. Some fear it could promote conflict, that warlords would simply seize certain mineral-rich areas and run violent, lawless quasi states. But Africa is already rife with violence, and warlordism is already a widespread phenomenon. While unrecognized countries might still mistreat their people, history shows that weak, isolated regimes have rarely been able to survive without making significant concessions to segments of their populations.
For many Africans, 50 years of sovereignty has been an abject failure, reproducing the horrors of colonial-era domination under the guise of freedom. International derecognition of abusive states would be a first step toward real liberation.
(Pierre Englebert, a professor of African politics at Pomona College, is the author, most recently, of “Africa: Unity, Sovereignty and Sorrow.”)
SEATTLE, WA — Investigators are looking into whether the fire that swept through a Fremont neighborhood apartment, killing a woman and four children, may have started when a mattress inside a closet accidentally came in contact with a light bulb, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.
The sources say Saturday’s fire may have smoldered in the mattress and then exploded into flames when the closet door was opened.
Dana Vander Houwen, spokeswoman for the Seattle Fire Department, declined to comment Monday on the cause of the fire, saying investigators are reviewing everything in the apartment. She said officials also are awaiting test results from the State Patrol crime laboratory
“That information will be released when the investigation is complete,” Vander Houwen said of the cause of the fire.
Seattle Fire Chief Gregory Dean said during a news conference Sunday that the fire appears to be an accident.
Late Monday afternoon, the Fire Department released a written statement saying the first engine to arrive on the scene, which experienced a failure of its pump mode, was not a 2008 model as originally reported, but a 1996 model used as a reserve engine.
The older truck, Engine 81, was used by the crew of Engine 18 on Saturday as a replacement for their regular truck, which was undergoing routine maintenance.
The pump operator could not move a lever to activate the pumping mode for the engine’s 500-gallon tank, according to the Fire Department.
In the statement, officials said an independent expert and the engine’s manufacturer, E-One of Ocala, Florida, will conduct an investigation into the failure.
Engine 81 will not be used as the investigation gets underway, the statement said.
Another engine arrived at the scene 2 1/2 minutes later.
After the fire erupted, Helen Gebregiorgis, 31, who was renting the apartment, grabbed her 5-year-old niece, Samarah Smith, and dashed outside, believing the others were behind her. Gebregiorgis’ sister and four young children took refuge in an upstairs bathroom, Dean said on Sunday.
Killed were Gebregiorgis’ sons Joseph Gebregiorgis, 13, and Yaseen Shamam, 5, and daughter, Nisreen Shamam, 6; her sister, Eyerusalem Gebregiorgis, 22; and a 7-year-old niece, Nyella Smith.
Family members had gathered at Helen Gebregiorgis’ home for a sleepover Friday night after watching the movie “The Karate Kid” at a theater.
Daniel Gebregiorgis, Helen Gebregiorgis’ brother, declined to comment Monday on what happened inside the home. He said the incident is under investigation.
Autopsies on the five victims were being performed Monday. It’s unclear when their cause of death will be released.
John Drengenberg, consumer safety director at Underwriters Laboratories, a product safety certification organization outside Chicago, said that mattresses have long been a source of fires in American homes.
Federal guidelines, established in 2007, mandate that all mattresses manufactured and sold in the U.S. must be resistant to open flame sources, such as candles, matches and cigarette lighters. The old regulations, enacted in 1973, required that mattresses resist smoldering cigarettes, according to Underwriters Laboratories.
A mattress that does not have the flame-protective barrier required in all new beds could go from smoldering to a full blaze in about four minutes, Drengenberg said. Once a flame erupt, the results could be catastrophic, he added.
“It would be a fire that would get so hot that everything in the room ignites almost immediately,” Drengenberg said.
During a news conference on Monday, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn described meeting Helen Gebregiorgis at Harborview Medical Center after the fire.
“This was a very very tragic event for, first and foremost, the family. It’s an extraordinary tragedy. And for the community that they’re a part of,” McGinn said. .
The mayor made midyear budget cuts to every city department on Monday except the Fire Department. He said that because of the fatal fire, the safety implications of any budget cut should be studied.
(By Jennifer Sullivan | Seattle Times. Staff reporters Steve Miletich and Emily Heffter contributed to this report.)
An apartment fired in Fremont, a Seattle neighborhood, last night killed 5 Ethiopians. Four of the victims are children. Seattle Times reports:
Hundreds of Ethiopians gathered at a community center in Seattle Saturday night to mourn the loss of four children and their aunt who perished in an apartment fire in Fremont earlier in the day.
The overflow crowd spilled out onto East Yesler Way in the Central Area as the mother of three of the dead children wailed and paced the sidewalk, accompanied by eight to 10 other women who were there to mourn and comfort her.
“I just want my babies,” said Helen Gebregiorgis, who lost her sons, Joseph Gebregiorgis, 13, and Yaseen Shamam, 5, and her daughter Nisreen Shamam, 6.
Gebregiorgis also lost her 22-year-old sister, Eyerusalem Gebregiorgis, and 7-year-old niece, Nyella Smith, according to her brother, Daniel Gebregiorgis.
“I’ve got to stay strong for everyone else,” he said.
The fire was the deadliest in Seattle in decades. It started in Helen Gebregiorgis’ three-bedroom, two-story apartment, where she, her sister and the children had gathered for a sleepover Friday night after coming home from the movie “Karate Kid.”
The fire erupted about 10 a.m. Saturday at the apartment at 334 N.W. 41st St., and quickly became an inferno.
The first firefighters to arrive were unable to fight the intense smoke and flames because a mechanical failure on their engine prevented them from pumping water. The attack on the fire was delayed until another truck arrived minutes later.
One firefighter suffered minor injuries when he jumped from another truck to move a length of hose that had fallen onto the Fremont Bridge as the rig was racing to the fire, said Helen Fitzpatrick, Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman.
Helen Gebregiorgis apparently had fled her apartment with one child and then was restrained by neighbors who feared she might run back into the burning building.
Debbie Tesfamariam said she and her daughter had been friends with Gebregiorgis for more than 10 years.
“They were good, good people. My heart just bleeds for them. So many lives,” Tesfamariam said.
“Nobody knows what happened. Nobody can believe they’re all gone.”
“Every moment counts”
Fire Chief Gregory Dean said his department will investigate any delay in attacking the fire. He would not speculate whether the problems may have contributed to the loss of life, saying only that when the first engine arrived, “there was heavy dark smoke and flames coming out, which is pretty hard to sustain life itself.”
“Every moment counts,” he said. “Which is the reason we send multiple units to these fires.”
Still, there was a delay of about 2-<133>1/2 minutes in attacking the blaze, records show.
Dean said records show the engines were dispatched at 10:04 a.m. Engine 18 arrived at 10:09 a.m., the second truck about two minutes later, and the third at 10:12 a.m.
“Our firefighters believe they can save everybody, so they’re beating themselves up right now trying to figure out what happened,” he said.
Engine 18, arriving from a station at 1521 N.W. Market St., was the truck that had the mechanical failure, preventing it from pumping water. Dean said crews had conducted tests on the rig Saturday morning and the equipment worked.
“We did have a problem here,” he said.
“Our hearts go out to all these people.”
“My babies are inside”
Witnesses reported seeing Helen Gebregiorgis run out of the building Saturday morning and into the parking lot.
“She said, ‘My babies, my babies, my babies are inside!’ ” said Lisa May, of Bellevue, who stayed in another of the building’s five units Friday night to attend Saturday’s University of Washington graduation.
May tried to get to the apartment, she said, but was driven back by the smoke. She and another witness comforted Gebregiorgis until she was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where she was evaluated and released.
She “was just screaming and flailing around,” May said.
Neighbor Nikos Antonopoulos said he heard screaming and saw smoke coming from a window in the front of the building, and then smoke and flames from the back. He grabbed a garden hose and squirted water through a window until firefighters arrived.
“After the Fire Department came, they did a good job and put the fire out very fast,” Antonopoulos said.
Alleci Clemons, 40, who lives next door to the apartment, said the fire spread so fast that no one could get out.
Mayor Mike McGinn visited the scene Saturday afternoon, as did City Councilmember Tim Burgess.
“It’s quite devastating,” said Burgess, who chairs the council’s Public Safety and Education Committee.
Investigators from the Seattle police and the bomb-and-arson squad were on the scene. Their response is routine for fatal fires, said Fitzpatrick, adding that no details were immediately available about the cause of the fire or where the bodies were found.
The apartment is owned by the Seattle Housing Authority. Virginia Felton, spokeswoman for the agency, said the apartments are inspected every year or every other year for fire hazards and safety issues. In this case, the smoke alarm in the building did go off, she said.
There had been a fire in that unit in 2008 — it was caused by a candle — but a different family lived in the apartment at the time, she said.
The housing authority expects to find another apartment for Helen Gebregiorgis and her family.
She and her extended family came from Ethiopia in 1989, according to her brother.
A community grieves
On Saturday night, members of the Tigray Community Association at 19th Avenue and East Yesler Way turned out to support the family. Tigray is a region in northern Ethiopia.
More than 50 women, almost all in white robes, sat in a downstairs room, listening to a priest holding a Bible. Among them was the grandmother of the four dead children.
Community elders, mostly men, sat around a conference table in an upstairs room.
“This is one of the hardest times for our community,” said Berhane Abraha, a spokesman for the community.
“The shock, to observe, it’s getting intolerable for us to move on,” another man told McGinn, who with several aides arrived around 7:15 p.m.
The leaders asked McGinn to help them find a larger building in which the Ethiopian community can gather to mourn. In the meantime, they asked for leniency in ticketing parked cars around the association headquarters. They also asked for counseling help.
“Obviously we have a lot of difficult tasks ahead of us,” Abraha said. “This is too big a disaster for a small community like ours to deal with.”
One man said he had heard criticism of the Fire Department’s response to the blaze, and asked McGinn to look into it. McGinn said he would, and promised the Ethiopian community the city’s support.
“It would be better to be here in a time of happiness,” McGinn told the leaders. “We share your sorrow.”
(By Mike Carter, Susan Kelleher, Eric Pryne and Keith Ervin | Seattle Times. Reporters Jack Broom, Emily Heffter and Jennifer Sullivan and researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report.)
Teshome H. Gabriel, a UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television professor and internationally recognized scholar of Third World cinema, has died. He was 70.