For anyone who can remember the 1980s, the tragedy of the Ethiopian famine was one of the most unforgettable episodes. It was something new and shocking to be confronted with human suffering on such a scale in our living rooms, on our TV screens. The disbelief of a horrified world was expressed by Bob Geldoff when he asked how could we stand by and watch this happen in the latter part of the 20th century? Well, he didn’t. The Live Aid concerts were iconic events of the age. The awfulness of the famine and the uplifting response of Live Aid helped change our consciousness of the world. The calamities of countries a continent away were immediate and present in our lives in a new way. In a globalising world, we could not sit back.
Yet visiting Ethiopia three and a half decades later, I was struck by how little I had actually known of those events, beyond the pitiable pictures of starving children on our TV screens. I had known practically nothing about the history or contemporary politics of Ethiopia. My understanding was warped by the stereotype of a poor African country, starving children with distended bellies, and dependence on the largesse of the rich world. It was a grossly distorted picture.
Ethiopia was, and still is, indeed a poor country. Droughts, famines and hunger were all too familiar. But the awfulness of the 1983-85 famine was amplified by the fact that it was to a considerable extent manmade. There was a drought, but its tragic effects were compounded by the actions of the Derg communist government that had seized power a decade earlier, in 1974. These included mismanaged land reform and the forced resettlement of people, in part in reaction to a rebel insurgency, especially in the north of the country. As with collectivisation in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and in Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in China in the 1950s, ideology driven reforms and the callousness disregard of dictatorial regimes towards the sufferings of their own people led to the deaths on an enormous scale.
Ethiopians had already experienced the brutality of the Derg regime. Its ruthless suppression of opponents, including rival Marxist groups, following its seizure of power is now known as the “Red Terror”. Thousands were rounded up, in many cases tortured, and slaughtered in mass executions. Most notably, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) carried out assassinations of Derg supporters. Rivals among the faction-riven Derg were also killed as Mengistu Haile Mariam established himself as the undisputed Derg leader. Organised squads of civilians carried out house-to-house searches, often using the cover of the Terror to pursue their own agendas.
I visited the Red Terror Martyr’s Memorial Museum in Addis Ababa. The museum is located on a corner of Meskel Square, at the time known as Revolution Square, where in 1977 Mengistu announced the escalation of the Terror, shouting “Death to counterrevolutionaries, death to the EPRP”, and dramatically smashing what appeared to be three bottles of blood on the ground. The museum contains a large photograph of the incident. It is a moving and shocking museum, with displays of torture instruments, letters and, around the walls, photographs of hundreds of victims, as well as the bones of some of them. It is an intense representation of the injustice and suffering, the pictures and personal effects of victims bringing home the individual grief behind the numbers. The museum was opened in 2010 by the mother of four sons, all killed in one day by the Derg.
The end of the Soviet Union’s support for Mengistu’s regime led to its downfall in 1991. Mengistu was granted asylum in Zimbabwe. Tried for his crimes, he was sentenced to life in prison for genocide in 2007, but Zimbabwe refused to extradite him. Yet despite the bloodshed and famine that disfigured the period of their rule, the Derg still have their supporters in Ethiopia.
I was surprised that a monument the Derg erected in central Addis Ababa, the “Our Struggle” monument, also known as the Derg monument, is still there. An obelisk crowned by a red five-pointed star, adorned with the hammer and sickle. Walls to the left and right of the obelisk feature reliefs depicting the revolutionaries as they wished to be seen, as saviours and heroes of their people. On one side, the last Emperor, Haile Selassie, who died in mysterious circumstances shortly after the Derg takeover (many suspect at their hands), is seen on horseback, ignoring his hungry, suffering people. The tableau moves on to the overthrow of the Emperor and the leader of the revolution, Mengistu, leading his people to a glorious future. The tableau on the other side of the obelisk is a classic Marxist depiction of happy, healthy workers and peasants guided by their leader to the brave new world. Young Ethiopians posed for selfies in front of the monument. The events that the monument and the Red Terror Museum marked in their very different ways took place before their births. What it meant to them, I could not guess.
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