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The Ethiopian Red Terror, also known as the Qey Shibir (), was a violent
political repression Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby ...
campaign of the
Derg The Derg or Dergue (, ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when they formally "Civil government, civilianized" the ...
against other competing Marxist-Leninist groups in
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
and present-day
Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...
from 1976 to 1978. The Qey Shibir was an attempt to consolidate Derg rule during the
political instability Political decay is a political theory, originally described in 1965 by Samuel P. Huntington, which describes how chaos and disorder can arise from social modernization increasing more rapidly than political and institutional modernization. Huntin ...
after their overthrow of
Emperor Haile Selassie Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or '' Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia (') under Empress Zewditu between 1916 and 1930. Wide ...
in 1974 and the subsequent
Ethiopian Civil War The Ethiopian Civil War was a civil war in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean anti-government rebels from 12 September 1974 to 28 May 1991. The Derg overthre ...
. The Qey Shibir was based on the
Red Terror The Red Terror () was a campaign of political repression and Mass killing, executions in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police ...
of the
Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
, and most visibly took place after
Mengistu Haile Mariam Mengistu Haile Mariam (, pronunciation: ; born 21 May 1937) is an Ethiopian former politician, revolutionary, and military officer who served as the head of state of Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991. He was General Secretary of the Workers' Party o ...
became chairman of the Derg on 3 February 1977. It is estimated that 10,000 to 980,000 people were killed over the course of the Qey Shibir.US admits helping Mengistu escape
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
, 22 December 1999
In 2007 and 2008, Mengistu was convicted ''
in absentia ''In Absentia'' is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. The album marked several changes for the band, with it being the first with new drummer Gavin Harrison and the f ...
'' by Ethiopia for his role in the Qey Shibir while leader of the Derg.


History


Background

Following the deposition of Emperor
Haile Selassie Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...
on 12 September 1974, the Derg was faced with a number of civilian groups competing for control of Ethiopia, most notably the
Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) (), informally known as Ihapa (), is the first modern political party in Ethiopia. Established in April 1972, it aimed to turn Ethiopia into a democratic republic. Both the EPRP and another pa ...
(EPRP). In September 1976, EPRP militants were arrested and executed, at the same time as the EPRP carried out an assassination campaign against ideologues and supporters of the Derg. This activity is known as White Terror. Although an unsuccessful attempt to kill Mengistu on 23 September was attributed to the EPRP, the first prominent victim of the EPRP's terroristic or insurgency activity was Dr. Feqre Mar'ed, a member of the Political Bureau and All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (MEISON), a rival revolutionary party. However, the Derg was split between then-temporary chair Colonel Mengistu and a faction allied against him, which limited his control. This rivalry was resolved at the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Derg on 3 February 1977, at which fifty-eight top Derg officers were killed in an hour-long shootout. Seven of these officers were opponents of Mengistu, including chairman and Lieutenant General
Tafari Benti Brigadier General Tafari Benti (; 11 October 1921 – 3 February 1977) was an Ethiopian military officer and politician who served as head of state of Ethiopia from 1974 to 1977 in his role as second chairman of the Derg, the ruling military jun ...
, Captain Almayahu Haile, Captain Mogas Wolde Mikael, and Lt. Colonel
Asrat Desta Lieutenant Colonel Asrat Desta (Amharic: ኮሎኔል አሥራት ደስታ, died 3 February 1977) was an Ethiopian soldier and politician who was the Chairman of Information and Public Relation Committee of the PMAC of Ethiopia. He died on 3 F ...
, the latter being an avowed Marxist-Leninist. Mengistu said "We are doing what
Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
did. You cannot build
socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
without
Red Terror The Red Terror () was a campaign of political repression and Mass killing, executions in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police ...
." Christopher Andrew and
Vasili Mitrokhin Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was an archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, who defected to the United Kingdom in 1992. Mitrokhin first offer ...
. ''The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World.'' Basic Books, 2005. ch. 25.
Two rivals to Mengistu were still alive: Colonel Berhanu Bayeh and Lt. Colonel Atnafu Abate. Col. Berhanu had sided with Mengistu, and Lt. Colonel Atnafu quickly sided with the victor of the bloodbath, leaving Mengistu as the undisputed head of the Derg, and ruler of Ethiopia. A few days later, Mengistu turned his attention to his rivals outside of the Derg, foremost being the EPRP.


Attacks on the EPRP

Mengistu officially began his campaign with a speech in Revolution Square (formerly and currently Meskel Square) in the heart of
Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...
, which included the words "Death to counterrevolutionaries! Death to the EPRP!". When he delivered these words, he produced three bottles of what appeared to be blood and smashed them to the ground to show what the revolution would do to its enemies.Backgrounders: Ethiopian Dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
, 1999
This campaign involved organized groups of civilians, or ''
kebele A ward (; ; ) is the smallest administrative unit of Ethiopia: a ward, a neighbourhood or a localized and delimited group of people. Somali word that has meaning of collected people where water is fairly sufficient and available to prolongue thei ...
s'', which within a month's time began to receive arms from the Derg. "Contrary to expectations," note researcher Marina Ottaway and then Washington Post correspondent David Ottaway in their account, "these squads did not all side with the ''Derg'' or heed its call to track down 'reactionaries' and 'anarchists'. Rather, many followed their own whim and law, in accordance to the political faction that controlled each ''kebele'' or factory. Not only had numerous defense squads been infiltrated by the EPRP, but also those controlled by the Political Bureau were often bent on furthering the interests of MEISON rather than the ''Derg''." The Ottaways date the height of the Red Terror in Addis Ababa to a search that began on 22 March 1977, when the Derg felt that they had armed enough civilian groups to permit a house-by-house search for EPRP members, arms, and other paraphernalia. However, the search was anything but systematic, the Ottways note, with "each squad a law unto itself. Some looked only for arms, but others confiscated food supplies, building materials, and gasoline; some considered cameras espionage equipment and others regarded typewriters as highly dangerous." Despite many being taken from their homes in the middle of the night, some never to return home, few of the top leaders of the EPRP were among the dead. A number of distinctly ugly incidents followed. One was at the Berhanena Selam Printing Press, where three days later a dozen workers were arrested for being EPRP members, then afterwards released for lack of evidence; on the morning of 26 March, nine of them were found murdered, including a woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy, which shocked the city. The deaths were found to be the responsibility of a certain Girma Kebede, and who was later found to be "the Political Bureau's chief executioner; he had already murdered twenty-four persons and had a list of over two hundred others he was supposed to liquidate." Embarrassed, the Derg had him and five associates executed as counterrevolutionaries on 2 April. Despite this brutality, the EPRP continued to strike back, best as it could. As one contemporary report describes: : In and around the capital, the main opposition group is the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (E.P.R.P.) .... E.P.R.P. has given the Dergue good reason to be nervous: it has assassinated more than 20 government officials, mounted at least one daring raid on Dergue headquarters, and even wounded Mengistu in an ambush. One rebel sympathizer accosted Correspondent Griggs on a busy downtown street and boasted: "We have 700 marksmen, and some of them are Mengistu's own soldiers. It will take time, but we will clean out the pseudo-Marxist military leaders eventually." Events like this led to tension between the Derg junta (and presumably Mengistu) and the civilian Political Bureau. Concern over the threat of the EPRP kept this tension from becoming a definite break until the eve of
May Day May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the Northern Hemisphere's March equinox, spring equinox and midsummer June solstice, solstice. Festivities ma ...
, when the Political Bureau, on the pretext that an anti-government protest was in the offing, ordered the ''kebeles'' to arrest any young person suspected of being an EPRP member. According to the Ottaways, "Hundreds were arrested, taken to three different sites on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, and executed en masse. Scores of others were gunned down in the streets by the Derg's 'permanent secretaries', the jeeps mounted with machine guns constantly patrolling the streets of Addis Ababa. The death toll may have been as high as one thousand." Afterwards, the Derg disavowed this outrage and put the blame for the slaughter on the Political Bureau in a proclamation on 14 July. The Bureau's leader
Haile Fida Haile Fida (Amharic language, Amharic: ኃይሌ ፊዳ, Oromo language, Oromo: ''Haaylee Fidaa'', 4 April 1939 – 4 April 1979) was an Ethiopian politician and the leader of the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (popularly known as "MEISON", aft ...
and a group of his followers attempted to flee the capital the following August, but were caught. At the same time, the Red Terror made MEISON its next target. "Sensing danger," writes Bahru Zewde, "the leaders of the organization hastily tried to go underground. But almost all of them were either captured or killed in August 1977 as they tried to retreat into the countryside in several detachments." Thousands of men and women were rounded up and executed in the following two years.Mengistu is handed life sentence
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
, 11 January 2007
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...
estimates that the death toll could be as high as 500,000. Groups of people were herded into churches that were then burned down, and women were subjected to systematic rape by soldiers. The Save the Children Fund reported that the victims of the Red Terror included not only adults but 1,000 or more children, mostly aged between eleven and thirteen, whose corpses were left in the streets of Addis Ababa.


Aftermath

The victims' lives are immortalized in the "Red Terror" Martyrs' Memorial Museum in Addis Ababa. Mengistu was found guilty of
genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
in absentia ''In Absentia'' is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. The album marked several changes for the band, with it being the first with new drummer Gavin Harrison and the f ...
and was sentenced to life in prison in January 2007. After his conviction,
Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
, where he received sanctuary due to friendship with
Robert Mugabe Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of th ...
, said it would not extradite him. On 26 May 2008, the Ethiopian Supreme Court sentenced Mengistu ''in absentia'' to
death Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...
. Eighteen associates of Mengistu, 16 of whom are in Ethiopian prisons, also are under a death sentence. Two senior regime officials lived in the Italian embassy in Addis Ababa from 2008 until their death sentences were commuted and they were granted parole in 2020. Another individual who was found guilty ''in absentia ''in May 2002, Kelbessa Negewo, was returned from his exile in the United States several years later to serve a life sentence.


See also

*
Ethiopian Civil War The Ethiopian Civil War was a civil war in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean anti-government rebels from 12 September 1974 to 28 May 1991. The Derg overthre ...
* Hutu Ten Commandments *
March of the Iron Will The March of the Iron Will () was an Italian offensive occurring from 26 April to 5 May 1936, during the final days of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Its goal was to capture the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in a show of force f ...
* Mass killings under communist regimes * Crimes against humanity under communist regimes * Neo-Stalinism *
Stalinism Stalinism (, ) is the Totalitarianism, totalitarian means of governing and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953), 1927 to 1953 by dictator Jose ...


Notes


References

* ''Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators'' by Riccardo Orizio, 2003, p. 150.


External links

*
Victims of Red Terror Memorial website
{{Ethiopian Civil War (1974–1991) 1977 in Ethiopia 1978 in Ethiopia Communism in Ethiopia Conflicts in 1977 Political and cultural purges Conflicts in 1978 War crimes in the Ethiopian Civil War Political repression in Ethiopia Politicides Mass murder in 1978 Ethnic cleansing in Africa Ethiopian war crimes 20th-century mass murder in Ethiopia Red Terror