Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Emperor Halie Selassie & The Derg

For those who are interested, I will write a bit in depth about things we learned from our days here.  If you want to view a lot of images, feel free to check them out on my Instagram:  Erin Towns

After a 13 hour flight we landed in the capital city of Addis Ababa.

We have a lot of luggage.  There are 18 people traveling with our group, many who will go on after the program is over to other areas of Ethiopia to tour and study.




















It is damp here.  The first thing I smelled was rain and dirt as we walked out of the airport.  We were greeted by our new hosts with roses and handshakes and shoulder bumps which are the way people here say hello.

We headed to University College of Addis Ababa to hear about Ethiopian culture and the life of one of Ethiopia's best known leaders, Emperor Halie Selassie  We were first treated to a visit to the John F. Kennedy Library that is housed on campus.



Halie Selassie was the son of Ras Makonnen, and ruled from 1916-1974 and was believed to be a walking god in Ethiopia.  While he was very international in many ways, he was accused of many human rights violations.  In the early 1970s, Ethiopia was suffering a terrible famine which the government and landed aristocracy tried to keep very quiet resulting in the most terrible suffering for farmers and high death tolls from starvation.  To make things worse, farmers were taxed enormous amounts.


People started to rebel and people started dying.  This led to the rise of another leader, one who would be the subject of our next museum visit of the day.  The leader's name was Mengistu Haile Mariam, leader of the Derg regime that eventually became the The People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, from 1974-1991.



"As if I bore them all in one night, they slew them in a single night."



These words were spoken by the mother of four teenage children all killed on the same day by the Derg, as she officially opened the small but powerful Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum in 2010.   The rooms in the museum reveal the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie and the horrors of life under Mengistu's Derg regime.




The regime came to power promising democracy and equality for all under communist ideology and nationalization of land and economy.

Opposition to the reign of the Derg started when the Derg unleashed its "Red Terror" campaign against intellectuals and anyone who spoke out against them.




The tour was pretty intense at many points as stories and exhibitions detailed the brutal torture and execution that were part of this period of Ethiopian history.   Like many fellow Ethiopian citizens, the man giving the tour was a survivor of the Derg and told us repeatedly that it was incredibly important to never forget in order to never have something like it happen again.



He stated that he would like American teachers and students to teach and study this period of Ethiopian history in hopes that the lessons learned here could help other areas of the world to also avoid it.





























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