The farthest I traveled outside Addis Ababa before I left Ethiopia as a teen was to Langano. I don’t think I’m alone in this; most native Addis Ababans belong in this group.
In 1997 I went on a backpacking trip across Ethiopia that lasted almost a year. I returned broke and having pissed off my family that sent hard-earned cash to a sera fet hippie-biTé. The last leg of my trip took me from Gonder and I ended up in Yeha. I looked forward to visiting Axum, ground zero to Ethiopia’s 3000-year history. The dusty Gonder-Axum road was spectacular and the holy city even more. I took dozens of photographs of Tsion-Mariam for my mother and Ezana’s rock for my more historically astute pops. But the Axum sojourn ended up being more than a voyage back to Byzantine Ethiopia: I struck a two-week friendship with a one-eyed eight-fingered former TPLF fighter. In 2003 I took my family on the historic tour and during our stay in Axum found out that Tewelde (a name he gave me but his wife called him by his nom-de-guerre which I will keep private) was killed in 1999 during the nasty war in the north.
I drafted the diary entry below late into the night at a Bahr Dar hotel that sits on the bank of the source of the magnificent Blue Nile where I remained until the end of my 1997 trip. Tewelde was a tired warrior who wanted to live the rest of his life in peace. He never believed the Derg’s vicious campaigns in Tigray were a result of a racist genocidal policy—just self-preservation. He carried no resentment or anger against anyone, except, I felt, against me, when I asked if he fought for Tigray’s independence. Unlike his buddies who sneer at Ethiopia’s history and its flag, he was proud of his country’s history, the historical significance of the Axum stelae and ruins, the Tigrayan contribution to the drafting of the Kebre Negest, and his peoples’ defense and preservation of the Tewahedo faith. On more than a few occasions he reminded me that Amharic was the official language in Emperor Yohannes’ court.
Bahr Dar, Province of Gojjam
1997
Tewelde had no idea how long he’d been lying on the concrete floor. He tried to get up but a sharp pain that started in his neck shot through his chest and made him wince. From where he lay the moon looked divided into three distinct parts. He was working with one good eye that fought dried blood for a glimpse at his surroundings. He realized slowly he was looking at the moon through the bars of a window. He passed out.
What was that noise?
Pain shooting through his neck he slowly lifted his head and turned toward the shadows where he felt a human presence.
Seated behind a desk at the corner of the room was someone slowly bringing a cigarette to his mouth. The cigarette was inhaled deeply it’s orange glow showing the outlines of a dark face. The sharp sucking sound of the cigarette was what woke him up. The man exhaled smoke slowly and downward by way of two parallel tracks emitted from his flaring nostrils.
Reacting to the putrid cigarette smoke a salty tear swelled in his left eye. Hell, if they want to torture me all they need to do is exhale smoke into my eye.
He tried to move his arms but pain radiating from his neck to his clavicles forced him back on the hard floor.
What was that noise?
Footsteps approaching from behind. They seemed to reverberate through his ear canal all the way to his heart. For the first time he felt fear. The footsteps stopped. He was staring at combat boots. Strong arms picked him up like a piece of rag and dragged him to a metal chair in front of a desk. Strong fingers untied his hands but left his ankles strapped. He was now a few feet away from the dark one with the cigarette. Footsteps receding. A door slammed shut.
The dark one lit another cigarette. The blinding light from the match obscured the man’s face but slowly took on a more definite form as the flame grew closer to his face. A round face. The eyes almost shut closed as they assisted in the deep inhalation that ignited the cigarette.
Then a switch was thrown. The light was sudden and sharp. It took him several seconds to bury his face into his sun-scorched hands.
He didn’t need to open his eyes to know the light source was directly above him. He could feel the bulb’s warmth on his head; a warmth he welcomed. He felt his head tingling as if reaching to connect with the bulb’s soothing wattage that spread warm blood to every crevasse on his skull. He felt his neck muscles loosening and for the first time since he woke up in the freezing cell he slowly rotated his neck allowing warmed blood unfettered passage to the rest of his upper torso.
With his eye still shut tight he turned his face up to allow the bulb to do the same wonder to his face that it did to his skull. Interesting! The bulb smells like burnt meat! Numbed by his brittle bones and raw skin forgotten hunger came to his innards like a roaring thunder. He managed to lick his dry, cracked, and cratered lips.
“Weha!” he blurted. “Weha ’bakachuh!” he blurted again. Silence. More smoke.
He tried to open his eye. The dry eyelid disobeyed as if suggesting a preference for the nocturnal than the merciful wattage. “Weha!” he begged this time raising his voice.
The door was thrown open behind him. Footsteps approached and stopped next to him. Fear made him brace for a strike and he threw his head between his knees his hands shielding his skull. But the strike did not come. Instead, he felt a steely grip on his left arm. A cold glass was placed in his hands.
The first sip was not even a mouthful. A sip to soften a feverish tongue. Weha! Yehiwet minch! He drank every drop as slowly as he could. The glass was now in a vertical position with his head thrown backward. Now devoid of all water the glass was a study in the grotesque as his tongue flickered inside the empty glass licking every saturation. The glass was snatched from his mouth leaving him with an open mouth and tilted head.
Footsteps receding. Combat boots hit the switch and the room was enveloped in the cold of moments before. The warmth dissipated from the room and fear crept back into his heart. For a brief moment the warm bulb and cold water had made him forget about the dark one in front of him.
The silent one had extinguished his cigarette. Without it, it was almost impossible to see if he was there. But he felt his presence. He also smelled a certain odor. One that eluded him until now. Perhaps the cigarette smoke had concealed it. Maybe the water restored the sense of smell. But he could smell it now. And it came from the man. A smell they told him about. And he began to shiver uncontrollably as if a cold breeze entered the room.
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I never completed the entry and did not get to write about the torture Tewelde was subjected to in the hands of a dreaded Derg colonel. But I share an entry I wrote almost 10 years ago for a larger reason. How could those who’ve been through Mengistu's hell subject their people to the same treatment?
Within one generation Ethiopians have witnessed two governments led by young reformers who entered the Guebbi through the barrels of their guns. Both promised a new chapter in the country’s history. Both promised to end hunger and starvation; a new Ethiopia where the dispossessed and landless would have a stake in carving their nation’s future. Both opened Ethiopia to the ferenj—the Derg to the Russians and the Cubans, the EPRDF to any ferenj with cash. Both underwent Darwinian purgings within their ranks where only those with the instinct to strike first survived. Both have used ruthless force against their people. And both have used peace and security to justify the murder of innocent Ethiopians.
Tewelde died without experiencing the pleasures that come with the trappings of power that his former fighter friends enjoy. He never sat on the leather seats of a Land Cruiser, never tasted single malt whiskey, never walked through the ancient halls of the Guebbi, and never considered receiving perks from his brethren who seized state and federal powers. He joined the movement to peacefully run his honey farm in Adigrat without being constantly harassed by Derg soldiers or the EPLF that he equally loathed. As the saying goes Men plan but God decides-during the struggle he fell in love with a beautiful Axumite—a Muslim he repeated—and remained in Axum apparently until he died.
It is terrifying to see high caliber machine-gun mounted pickup trucks carrying death-faced red beret clad special forces roaming the streets of Addis Ababa. It is difficult not to feel bitter toward a government that wants its people to fear it; not to hate a government that kills civilians on a day millions consider one of the holiest of holies. Only the heathen would issue shoot-to-kill rules of engagement on TimKet.
If these words grate EPRDFians they should. Just stop the killing. And drop your bullshit charges against those who lit Ethiopia’s candle of democracy. And set them free.
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* Bertukan Demeksa has been in jail for 87 days. Her letter from Kaliti Jail is a must read. This week has also produced great writing from the bloggers:
Another disturbing thing will be the long term implications of this decision.When a country kicks out a good journalist, the only real loser – in terms of reputation and coverage – is the country that did the kicking.
* One Ethiopia's You can fool a lot of people for a long time! is a great post but hang around for more incisive commentary in the archives;
