THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 1

THE NEW DAWN

TEFERRA SHIAWL KIDANE-KAL

 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 2

THE NEW DAWN

ISBN 978-9966-05-093-3
© 2008 Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal
Year of publication 2008-07-20

Printed By:
Elite Prepress Ltd.
P.O. Box 75289 – 00200,
Nairobi, Kenya.
Email: info@[Link]

Cover designed by:

Sylvia Moraa Nyamasyo

TEFERRA SHIAWL KIDANE-KAL

P.O. Box 4201,
Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia.
Email: teferra@[Link] or
shiawl2@[Link]
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 3

To My Wife and Children

 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 4

Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE ..................................................................................... 9!
CHAPTER TWO .................................................................................. 27!
CHAPTER THREE............................................................................... 39!
CHAPTER FOUR................................................................................. 53!
CHAPTER FIVE................................................................................... 65!
CHAPTER SEVEN............................................................................... 85!
CHAPTER EIGHT ............................................................................... 91!
CHAPTER NINE ................................................................................ 101!
CHAPTER TEN.................................................................................. 107!
CHAPTER ELEVEN .......................................................................... 127!
CHAPTER TWELVE ......................................................................... 145!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN ...................................................................... 164!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN..................................................................... 188!
CHAPTER FIFTEEEN ....................................................................... 194!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN......................................................................... 198!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN .................................................................. 206!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN...................................................................... 218!
CHAPTER NINETEEN...................................................................... 224!
CHAPTER TWENTY......................................................................... 232!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE ............................................................... 238!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO .............................................................. 246!
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE .......................................................... 262!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR............................................................. 266!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE .............................................................. 276!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX................................................................. 282
EPILOGUE…………………………………………………………..299
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 5

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I want to thank my wife and life-long partner

Woineshet Kebede Wagaye, my first-born son Marcos and
my very close friends Zewditu Tesfaye Tequame and Tesfaye
Tadesse Gebre Heywot, for their valuable contributions,
constant encouragement and support while I was writing my
story.

I also want to thank Seyoum Mesfin, Tekeda Alemu and

Kasahun Dender for their encouragement. My particular
gratitude also goes to Captain Getachew Wolde Mariam,
Fasika Sidelil and Ambassador Hiruy Amanuel who read the
late draft and offered valuable thoughts. My sons Ashenafi
and Henok Teferra contributed in a significant way to the
final proofreading of the manuscript.

Dawit Zawde, Costantinos Berhe Tesfu, Mulugeta Luleh,

Tadele Yidneqachew and Tamrat Kebede have given me
information and professional advice as well as moral support.
Girma Beshah provided invaluable advice and guidance. My
special thanks go to Sylvia M. Nyamasyo of Elite Prepress
Ltd of Kenya for assisting me in finalizing the publication of
this book.

All my UN colleagues, from Addis Ababa, New York,

Geneva, West Africa, Central Africa and Baghdad have
always been supportive and I want to thank them for
motivating me to write my story.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 6

My thoughts also go especially to the late Ato Ketema

Yifru, Dr. Kifle Wodajo, Ambassador Assefa Lemma, Dr.
Amanuel Gebre Selassie, Dejazmatch Kassa, Wolde Mariam,
Dejazmatch Girmachew Tekle Hawariyat, and Ambassador
Tibebu Bekele who mentored me, and a whole generation of
fellow Ethiopians that shared most valuable information
while they were still alive. Any possible omissions and errors
in this book should be ascribed to the author.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 7

Introduction

This is a story of the life of a veteran Ethiopian diplomat

narrating the experiences of a generation of public servants
while at the same time bearing witness to the events that
unfolded over the last fifty years in the history of Ethiopia.

The events described in this book are from first-hand

observation augmented by information obtained directly from
national and international actors. Major landmarks in
Ethiopian history after the liberation of the country from
Italian Fascist aggression, the rule under the monarchy, the
rise and fall of the military dictatorship, and the pain and gain
of Ethiopia up to and including the coming to power of the
Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front / EPRDF have been
rendered in a summarised form.

After the end of the Cold War, it was said that ideological
conflict was over. This was a delusion. International relations
have continued to be predicated by a world of clashing
national ambitions and interests. This is what I have tried to
bring to the readers’ attention.

Some of my illustrious predecessors who served Ethiopian

Diplomacy have written their observations in greater detail.
They devoted their fullest energy and skills to the struggle for
the survival of Ethiopia’s independence, for African
liberation, for World Peace, for economic development and
for international cooperation.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 8

This book was also intended as a modest tribute to those

numerous friends, mentors and colleagues who rendered
commendable service to the development of African
diplomacy.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 9

CHAPTER ONE

Early Formative Years

My name is Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal. I was born on the

Tuesday evening, of October 14th 1943, in Menagesha,
Marcos District of Shoa, located twenty kilometres west of
the Ethiopian Capital Addis Ababa. The country was still
recovering from the effects of Italian colonial aggression that
had been repulsed two years earlier.

My father, Aleqa (Senior Pastor) Shiawl Kidane-kal, who

later on became Ato Shiawl, abandoned his priesthood at
Menagesha St. Marcos Seminary to join resistance fighters
soon after Marshal Grazziani unleashed massacre on innocent
civilians in Addis Ababa. He was welcomed as a member of
the resistance movement by the formidable guerrilla leader,
Dejazmatch Kebede Bezunesh.

During the war of resistance against Italian aggression, my

father had shown exemplary bravery and was awarded a
Singer sewing machine and a motorcycle from among items
and armament captured from an Italian military convoy at
Wolmera near Menagesha, not far from Holetta. After the
war, Dejazmatch Kebede Bezunesh served his country as
Senator and Governor for several decades. My father led the
humbler life of a village tailor.

I was happy to meet Dejazmatch Kebede in 1964, when I

was a young student in Germany. During his visit there,
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 10

where he was leading a group of senior parliamentarians

invited by the Bundestag, he encouraged me and other
Ethiopian students to emulate Germans by working hard to
advance our country to a higher level of development. That
was indeed a tough proposition. We may not have emulated
the Germans, but we did our best to learn the best from what
they could offer us in our chosen fields of study.

In the wake of the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia,

Dejazmatch Kebede chose to mount an armed resistance
against the military government, the Dreg, but was outgunned
during the ensuing skirmishes at Gende Beret in western Shoa
and took his own life rather than surrender to what he
believed was a God-less and un-Ethiopian regime.

My father was very much affected by Dejazmatch

Kebede’s death. He could not publicly display his rage at the
demise of a system that he had known all his life, especially
when the whole population was gripped by fear of callous
arrests, torture and killings that agents of the junta meted out
on a defenceless populace.

Though my father was fond of the military and supported

the family from his tailoring profession that depended mainly
on the personnel stationed at the Military School in Holetta,
he could never accept the killing, in the name of a revolution,
of countless compatriots. At the height of the military-led red
terror campaign in 1977, I myself was to suffer harsh
imprisonment for nothing more than expressing views that
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 11

could be twisted and viewed as subversive. My father was

always more cautious.

My mother, Sasahulish Kidane was born and raised in a

peasant family near Debre Sina but had settled in Menagesha
where she met my father. They were married in 1941 during
the sun set years of the Italian occupation. They had their first
son Mekonnen who died few years later.

The aftermath of the Italian occupation dislocated many

families including mine and as I was later told, my parents
separated by mutual consent after the war and my mother
went back to north central Ethiopia where she lived until her
death in 1990.

When my parents separated in 1946, I was barely three

years old. My father took custody of me and relocated to
Betcho, a locality fifty kilometres out of Addis Ababa, where
he took up teaching.

During the early forties in Menagesha, to make up for the

loss of motherly care, a close relative, Mama Feleqech,
literally breast-fed me together with her own son Getachew,
who grew up to serve his country as a distinguished officer of
the Imperial Body Guard and a unit commander of the UN
forces during the first post-independence Congo crisis in
1961. Captain Getachew started his own business after his
return from the Congo and went into exile to the United
States when life was made unbearable for private
entrepreneurs during the rule of military junta, the Provisional
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 12

Military Administrative Council (Derg) that deposed

Emperor Haile Selassie. Getachew returned home only after
the military junta itself was ousted in 1991.

Getachew and I were destined to study together in the

sixties at Haile Selassie I University alongside his close
friend, Major Asrat Desta. They were trained in the US and
after brief teaching assignments at Harar Military Academy
and their UN Peace Keeping missions in the Congo, both
officers relocated to Addis.

Asrat, a soft-spoken officer, became an important figure in

the military junta. Like General Teferi Bante, the Chairman
of the Derg, and other unfortunate members of the junta,
Asrat was among the victims of the February 1977 power
struggle and purge within the Derg.

Long before World War II, the Holetta Military School

had always been at the centre of events in modern military
history of Ethiopia. A fellow political prisoner during the late
seventies, Tadesse Metcha, had written earlier on the subject
and narrated at length on the resistance struggle of the early
thirties against Italian invasion. The young officer cadets
from Holetta had organized themselves into a formidable
guerrilla unit; ‘The Black Lion Force’ and in fact succeeded
in destroying several Italian aircraft that were deployed to the
western sector in Wellega.

I grew up in Holetta, in a broken home. Despite all the

effort by my understanding stepmother, Mama Fanaye
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 13

Worqeh, life was not the same as it would have been with my
own mother. The saving grace was the beautiful scenery, the
sweet water, vineyards and the orchards Italian colonizers had
developed earlier and of course, my childhood friends.

I also had the good luck of being brought up by a

wonderful grand mother, Mama Likyelesh Gebre. All these
amenities almost, but not fully compensated for the loneliness
and abandonment that I often felt as a young boy. Mama
Likyelesh, who died in 1967 at a grand old age estimated at
over 100, always tried to instil in me discipline, cleanliness
and moderation in food and in every aspect of life. A tall
order at times! Noting my restlessness and talkative nature as
a young child, my grandmother used to say to me; “God gave
you one mouth and two ears, so listen more and speak less.” I
have since tried my best to strike that balance, though not
always with success.

As a young boy, my first experience with the prevailing

criminal justice system in Imperial Ethiopia was watching
how punishment was meted out on thieves and common
criminals. In those days, robbers and thieves caught in the act
were brought before the district judge and sentenced to forty
lashes. The sentences were carried out openly at a market
place where the town folk and others who came from
outlying districts gathered. The thieves’ hands and feet would
be tied with ropes and while suspended, the lashes were
administered on the back of every condemned thief. The
flogging would continue even after their backs bled.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 14

Though I could not condone any act of robbery, I could

not help but detest the cruel corporal punishment the
criminals suffered. The lucky ones had their appeals heard by
a higher court presided over by a venerable judge, Ato Eshete
and most often ended up with a lighter verdict. Justice
Eshete’s son, Harvard educated Professor Andreas Eshete
who often visited us in Holetta, grew up to become a reputed
academic serving as President of Addis Ababa University in
the late nineties and into the new Millennium.

I grew up with slightly older schoolmates and dear friends

like Dr. Zawde Abate, who later became a Harvard
intellectual; Seifu Tekle Mariam, an accomplished lawyer
and businessman; Dr. Tesfaye Bayou, a police medical
officer; his brother Mebratie Wolde Michel, an astute
technocrat; Fetu Oumar, a self-made and prosperous
industrialist; Bedilu Duki and Gizaw Diriba, both Generals of
the Ethiopian armed forces; Tafesse Muluneh, a physicist that
settled in the US in later years; and Assefa Alemayehu, a
highly disciplined child who grew up to be an officer and a
gentleman of the Imperial Army.

These and my other closest classmates, Brigadier Lemma

Kibret, Dr. Teshome Teklu, Negussie Mengesha; Godfather
to my first son Marcos, as well as Abebe Kassaye, Tadesse
Abebe and Mahdere Ayele gave me their love and attention
and always wanted me to be successful in life. As young
children we were very close and most of us kept regular
contact even later on in life. Among all my childhood friends,
Seifu Tekle Mariam and Bedilu Duki have remained the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 15

closest to me. Seifu, who had in fact been commissioned as a

naval officer before he embarked on his law studies in Addis
Ababa and later on at Columbia University in New York, is a
soft-spoken, highly disciplined and compassionate person.
His brother-in-law, Ato Abraham Gebre Mariam, a native of
Adwa in Tigray and mayor of Holetta at the time, was
perhaps a pioneer in shaping our outlook and political
thinking as he always took pleasure in reciting to us children
in the neighbourhood all the interesting stories he had read
from books and periodicals he acquired whenever he
travelled to the capital. He was a great orator and a gifted
writer. He lived close to our house and that proximity gave
me the unique opportunity to learn from him.

Bedilu has always remained a man with a big heart,

uncompromisingly honest and capable of making personal
sacrifices when it came to helping people unjustly treated by
others. These characteristics often got him into conflict with
his senior officers, supervisors, and immediate family
members, but he always prevailed.

Despite the usually unbalanced diet that poverty had

imposed on my family, I grew up as a healthy child. My first
shock however, was in the spring of 1956, after I tried to
jump the pole vault at our school playground and broke my
left arm during the fall. Lemma Kibret, kind hearted as he
was, was more affected by my predicament and could not
stop sobbing till some help arrived. Army medics at the
nearby Military School came immediately and nursed me.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 16

That night, I remember, for lack of a painkiller, my father

gave me small doses of heavy liquor to ease the pain and help
me get some sleep. In the morning I was rushed to Menelik
Hospital in the capital, Addis Ababa. This was my first visit
albeit under such unfortunate circumstances. I saw horse-
drawn chariots or Gari, for the first time and my father and I
used them for inner-city transportation to the hospital. There,
a friendly English doctor bandaged my broken arm in a
Gypsum Cast and with that hand I sat a few months later for
the National Elementary School Leaving Examination.

Perhaps it was my broken arm that helped me concentrate

on my studies while my classmates enjoyed playing. I
emerged top in the class when the results were posted on the
school notice board at the beginning of the new school year.

An Indian instructor, Mr. Ganapathi, who later followed

us to high school in Debre Berhan where he lived in
retirement until his death at the grand old age of eighty; Ato
Hailu Wodajo, the diligent Headmaster; Tekle Haymanot
Abay, Woizero Laqech, Ato Mitiku, Ato Begashaw, Sergeant
Shifferaw, Kifle Yitbarek as well as Alemayehu Melaku who
were the best teachers I have ever known. They always gave
us encouragement and support.

Holetta is a beautiful village in a rural setting with

agreeable temperate climate throughout the year. That was
the reason why Emperor Menelik II chose to build one of his
palaces there in the late 1880s. Later on, Emperor Haile
Selassie set up a Military Academy that bore his name until
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 17

the young army officers who overthrew him in 1974 changed

it to Genet Military School. In 1990 their successors, the
Ethiopian Peoples Democratic Front (EPRDF), briefly turned
the Academy into a place for detention of former officials. In
2007 it was restored to its former function as a military
academy and the staff college renamed General Hayelom
Araya Military Academy after a famous EPRDF commander.

Since 2004, in response to an attractive business and soil

conditions in Holetta, foreign and local investors have
engaged in the rapidly growing floriculture sector. Holetta
became one of the hubs for economic investment, earning
considerable foreign exchange particularly from the export of
a variety of long sustaining species of flowers. In the process
the small village developed into a medium-sized town by
Ethiopian standards.

Back in early fifties, Saudi Arabia and Yemen were not as

fully endowed with their enormous oil riches as they are
today. Several thousand Yemenis and Saudis lived and
thrived in Ethiopia as small shopkeepers. Just as in the days
of Prophet Mohamed when their ancestors were persecuted at
home and an Ethiopian king gave them refuge, in our time
too, our Arab neighbours continued to be welcomed as
brothers and sisters. Many of them who lived in Holetta and
other provinces intermarried with Ethiopians. One of their
prominent offspring, billionaire Sheikh Dr. Mohammed
Hussein Ali Al Amoudi who was born in Woldiya in the
central province of Wello, prospered in his other home, Saudi
Arabia, and became a man who literally thought like his late
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 18

Ethiopian mother - always helping, caring and dispensing. He

has continued to assist the sick and the destitute that sought
his help. He has managed to build a global business empire,
heavily investing also in several development projects in his
motherland. In 2008, Sheikh Dr. Mohamed Al Amoudi
opened up agricultural and other development projects in
Holetta and even modernized the main road that lead to my
hometown. That road was fittingly named after the great
philanthropist. In September 2007 the Federal Government of
Ethiopia honoured him with its highest award - the Gold
Medal of the Ethiopian Millennium.

During the forties and fifties, Emperor Haile Selassie

visited Holetta every year to preside over the cadets’
graduation. As small children, we would run after his car and
he would treat us to sweets and small cash handouts. His
fatherly smile was captivating and he always took pleasure in
the company of small children. The Emperor even took pride
in directly supervising the Ministry of Education for a long
time after the liberation of Ethiopia.

While growing up in Holetta in the early fifties, a friendly

village tailor named Argaw Ahmedeh got us interested in
world events. He was one of the two people in our village
who owned a battery-operated radio set. The other was
Mohamed Beredauni, a citizen of Saudi Arabia. After school
we would all congregate at Argaw’s house to listen to world
news from Radio Ethiopia and the Imperial Body Guard
Radio that was set up after the successful campaign by the
Ethiopian contingent of the UN forces in Korea. Argaw and
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 19

his family were so generous that they even fed us while

treating us to the radio programs.

The Commanders of the Imperial Body Guard, while

setting up the Radio, had further ambitions that went far
beyond simply providing entertainment to their listeners.
They were slowly engaging in sensitising the public to open
their eyes to modern developments outside Ethiopia, thereby
enhancing the popularity of the Brigade as well as inviting
the army’s envy. The Radio station soon became very popular
and posed a serious challenge to the national radio. Ato
Mekonnen Habte Wold, the Emperor’s Propaganda Chief,
who saw imminent danger if the Body Guard Radio was
allowed to continue broadcasting, initiated and implemented
the decision to close down the station. This generated much
anger against him within the ranks of the Imperial Guard and
reformist civilian intellectuals.

Ato Mekonnen Habte Wold’s proximity to the Imperial

centre of power enabled him to give orders to any minister
and was feared by almost all the courtesans of the imperial
regime. He was reputed to having at his command a network
of spies and petty informants who kept him abreast of the
situation in the country. In turn he would brief the Emperor.
Ato Mekonnen controlled the imperial media and ensured
that various activities via the National Patriotic Association
(HAGER FIKIR), where he also served as President, took
centre stage. Ato Mekonnen understood the power of
information and he oversaw at different times finance, trade
and industry sectors. Despite the fact that there was a minister
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 20

in place, he was the real supervisor of the Ministry of

Information. The Imperial Body Guard did not fail to settle
scores with Ato Mekonnen during their 1960 coup that will
be discussed further.

In the fifties, young students and boy scouts from the

capital and other provinces used to make excursion trips to
Holetta in response to a good public relations exercise by the
Military School. That was my first time to see Tesfaye
Tadesse Gebre Heywot.

Tesfaye and I did not establish close contact then but we

met some years later and to this day we have related well as
close family, with common successes and tribulations – a life
of exemplary friendship that I will recount in the next
chapters.

After I completed elementary school, my first choice was

General Wingate Secondary School in Addis Ababa where
students with best results were enrolled. However, that was
not to be because at the start of the new school year in early
October 1957, I was assigned, along with all other
classmates, to Debre Berhan Haile Mariam Mamo Secondary
School. The school was named after a famous resistance
fighter against Italian occupation. Several years later, I served
in the Foreign Ministry with his son, Ambassador Zewde
Haile Mariam.

At that time the Emperor wanted Shoa Province to open

its own High school where successful students would be sent.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 21

This would end the dominance of the already established

schools in the capital. When we complained, Dr. Kebede
Michael, then Director General of Education who
occasionally came to visit us in Debre Berhan advised us that
His Majesty would not take such complaints lightly.

1958 was the year the Soviets launched the first Sputnik
spacecraft. It captured the imagination of all young students
as our Indian science teacher in Debre Berhan, Mr. Simon,
explained how Russian scientists managed to put the first
satellite into space.

Our first year in high school was very lively until

education authorities felt that the facilities would soon face
congestion especially with the growing student population.
They decided we should all be day students in the second
year with a mere twenty Birr a month stipend. Our Amharic
language teacher Ato Zewde, who used every opportunity to
criticize the feudal regime, had already begun to shape our
political outlook. We thus felt emboldened to lodge our
protest with the Ministry of Education in Addis Ababa.

Led by Gebre Admasu, who later on served his country as

an accomplished economist, we chartered an early morning
bus in Debre Berhan and after reaching Arat Kilo in Addis,
which marched the short distance from Miazia 27th Square to
present our petition to the Minister for Education, a young
Oxford graduate, Lij Endalkachew Mekonnen. He would not
yield to our demands to be reinstated as boarding students.
That was when most of us felt we had to devise ways and
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 22

means to be enrolled in boarding schools, no matter the

location.

Upon our return to Debre Berhan, I went to the town

hospital where a kind-hearted Finnish doctor who was aware
of the history of my broken arm, and considering the effect
the biting cold of Debre Berhan would have on my health,
wrote a letter recommending for my immediate transfer to a
warmer place. He sent me to the Ministry of Education in
Addis Ababa where upon reaching and while waiting at the
gates to gain entry, I met a young college graduate who had
just arrived from the US.

On noticing my state of helplessness, the young man

ushered me into his office after which he called the American
Director of the Evangelical College in Debrezeit (Bishoftu),
Mr. William Wright who secured a place for me. My
benefactor was Ato Tadesse Terefe, who later on worked at
UNESCO in various capacities until he was appointed by Lij
Endalkachew to serve in his cabinet as Minister for Education
in the early seventies.

After the fall of Endalkachew’s cabinet in 1974, Tadesse

became Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Geneva and Bonn where
he served until his retirement in 1989. I discovered later,
during a discussion with his spouse and my UN colleague,
Seble Demeke, that Tadesse was indeed my young
benefactor.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 23

At that time, during his brief discussion with Mr. Wright,

Tadesse had made an ideal arrangement for me to proceed
immediately to Debrezeit, with the Ministry paying for my
boarding. I was lucky considering the popularity of Debre
Zeit, due to its beautiful lakes and resort areas, as well as
possibility of free film shows and other entertainment
facilities at the nearby Harar Meda Air Force Base. Mr.
Wright was gracious and immediately facilitated my smooth
start in Debre Zeit.

I have never regretted swapping the bitter cold of Debre

Berhan with the mild holiday resort of Debrezeit. The only
regret I had at the time was leaving behind my wonderful
classmates and friends, among them Mulugeta Luleh, who
grew up as an avid reader, a prolific writer and a prominent
journalist. Mulugeta could recite word for word the small
Concise Oxford Dictionary. He still possesses a gigantic
memory. His writings were also well researched and often
full of wit.

The newspaper and the periodical (TOBIA) that Mulugeta

helped establish following the mass dismissal of senior
journalists in 1992 from the government media, gained
popularity and attracted wider readership. His criticism of the
new regime and his association with the former order did not
endear him to the powers that be. Mulugeta now lives in exile
in the US.

After the Liberation of Ethiopia from Italian occupation,

the Emperor had built a small palace that he named
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 24

“Fairfield” after his exile home in England where he had

lived for about five years. Emperor Haile Selassie loved to
name some of the nice resort areas in the country after
biblical names such as Nazareth, the commercial capital of
the Oromia Ethiopia’s largest Regional State; Debrezeit,
literally translated to Mount of Olives and Hagere Heywot,
Country of Life. All the three towns have reverted to their old
names, Adama, Bishoftu and Ambo respectively.

Our high school instructors in Debre Zeit who came from

diverse Lutheran missionary societies in the US, Sweden,
Norway, Germany and Finland were reinforced by the best
Ethiopian scholars whom the Ethiopian Evangelical Church -
Mekane Yesus - could provide. Professor Ezra Gebre
Medhin, Professor Ephraim Isaac and Dr. Solomon Enquay
were among our Ethiopian mentors.

All our teachers were university and college professors

who had responded to a call by their respective missionary
societies to teach in Ethiopia and help in the development
efforts of the Emperor, who in a spirit of tolerance and
Christian brotherhood and despite opposition by extremist
Orthodox clergy, always encouraged missionaries to work in
Ethiopia.

Among the missionary teachers was Professor Sven

Rubenson, a Swedish historian who followed us to the
University. As an academician of repute whose publications
on Ethiopian history had won world acclaim, he continued to
inculcate in us in-depth knowledge of our own history. He
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 25

returned to Sweden and retired in Lund after several decades

in Ethiopia. I had the pleasure of studying at the Ethiopian
Evangelical College in the same league as bright young men
who later on had their own successes in life. Among them
were Wond Wossen Alemu, a radio journalist; Aklu Girgire
and Tesfaye Zemo, both agricultural economists; Dr. Fasil
Nahom, a distinguished legal scholar; Mergia Azeze and
Bekele Mekonnen, civil engineers; Dr. Teshome Akale
Heywot, a physicist who immigrated to Canada; Drs Teferra
Tizzazu and Kiber-ab Fre, both medical practitioners and
playwright Teferi Buzuayehu.

Sundays were reserved for us to meet cadets of the Air

Force Academy when they came to listen to the school choir
sing, perhaps more out of the desire to interact with the young
girls in our school. My friend Teferi, besides being an avid
reader and a movie addict, was an accomplished tenor singer.
He looked and acted like the famous Italian singer Pavarotti.
Teferi studied in the Soviet Union and Germany and
immigrated to the UK after the socialist revolution where he
died a few years later.

It was a great sensation in our school when the young

Harvard graduate, Professor Ephraim Isaac - an Ethiopian of
Jewish extraction, came to Debrezeit and trained the school
choir which later on performed Handel’s Messiah in Amharic
in the presence of the Emperor.

After attaining his first degree at the University College in

Addis Ababa and during his graduate and postgraduate
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 26

studies in the US, Ephraim had gained in-depth knowledge of

the world’s religions, ancient languages and philosophy and
distinguished himself as a great conductor as well.

The choir that Ephraim had trained gave a good

performance when the famous American Evangelist Billy
Graham visited Ethiopia in 1961 and preached to a huge
congregation at the Addis Ababa Stadium. Some of us who
were not gifted singers served as counsellors. Our History of
Religions teacher, Professor Ezra Gebre Medhin had prepared
us well for the task.

Ephraim’s most distinguishing mark was his love for

Ethiopian traditional attire. Years later I was very happy to
meet him again in Princeton, always in his shining white
Ethiopian traditional outfit. In the new Millennium he
frequently shuttled between Ethiopia and the US as a peace
activist.

On being awarded the degree of Honoris Causa by his

alma mater in 2004, Professor Ephraim Isaac gave his entire
speech in Geez; the ancient liturgical language only used by
Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox church clerics. Perhaps he
was the first intellectual to do so at such an academic
convocation.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 27

CHAPTER TWO

Winds Of Change

One sunny December morning in 1960, Radio Ethiopia

was broadcasting only martial music. Apparently a coup by
members of the Imperial Body Guard led by Brigadier
General Mengistu Neway was underway in Addis. Our school
warden, Ato Wondimu Yinadu broke the news to us during
the morning break. The Director, Mr. Wright, also came and
joined the discussion. Radio Ethiopia then started
broadcasting decrees and directives from the new
revolutionary command headquarters. Several officials were
rounded up or summoned ostensibly to attend a meeting at
the palace with Empress Mennen where they were detained to
await their fate.

While all this was going on, the Emperor was on a state
visit to Brazil and the Crown Prince Asfa Wossen was
proclaiming, apparently under duress, that he would
thenceforth live as a normal citizen on a monthly salary that
would be allotted to him. It sounded like feudalism was
coming to an end. The Army, led by General Merid
Mengesha refused to join the rebellion led by his archrival
General Mengistu Neway, the Commander of the Imperial
Guards.

As General Merid began to mobilise the Paramilitary

Police and the Air Force to jointly crush the coup, the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 28

Emperor confidently rushed back to Ethiopia. That was the

beginning of the end for the rebels.

Although Air Force Commander General Assefa Ayene

seemed to hesitate at first, he was encouraged to decide in
favour of the Emperor, following discussions with a group of
army officers led by Colonel Kebede Wagaye, that was
hastily dispatched to the air base by Defence Minister
General Merid Mengesha. From his lake-side residence, the
Air Force Commander gave orders to pilots of the newly
acquired American F-86 fighters and T-33 trainer jets at
Harar Meda Air Base to take off.

As the jets flew their first sorties over positions held by

the rebels, they scared the entrenched Body Guard and the
population on the ground with their sonic boom. Other lighter
aircraft were busy scattering propaganda leaflets to the troops
and the public urging their continued loyalty to the Emperor.
The psychological blow was effective.

It soon became apparent that negotiations in Addis Ababa

through representatives of the Imperial Regime and the rebel
group, conducted mainly between two close friends, Major
Assefa Lemma representing the Government side and
Germame Neway representing the rebels had failed. Even the
last-minute intervention by the old Patriarch of the Ethiopian
Orthodox Church, Abuna Basilius could not help. His
Holiness could not persuade General Mengistu and his US-
educated but socialist oriented younger brother Germame to
abandon the coup attempt.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 29

General Merid Mengesha, who in the meantime

consolidated the support of Army Chief of Staff General
Kebede Gebre, as well as the Police Para-commando Chief,
General Tadesse Birru, amassed enough firepower and
outgunned the guards.

On the third day, the Emperor’s plane, though partially

crippled, was skilfully piloted by the famous senior Ethiopian
pilot, Captain Alemayehu Abebe and landed at Asmara to be
welcomed by the Chief Executive of Eritrea, Bitwoded
Asfaha Wolde Michael. At the same time, the infamous
“Green Saloon Massacre” of fifteen senior officials was
taking place at the Gennete Li'ul Imperial palace in Addis
Ababa. The rebel General and his brother soon realised that
the coup had been foiled and fled to the countryside. Before
they left the palace grounds, however, they executed the
Emperor’s officials whom they had held hostage and had
referred to in their earlier radio broadcasts as exploiters.

The victims included the famous leader of Ethiopian

Resistance against Italian invasion, Ras Abebe Aregay who
had waged heroic struggle for the liberation of Ethiopia and
other notables such as Ato Mekonnen Habte Wold, the
Emperor’s long time loyal minister who years before was
instrumental in the closing down of the Imperial Guard radio
programs.
In the aftermath of the 1960 coup, Major Assefa Lemma,
an affable person and an accomplished soldier-diplomat, was
incensed at what he felt was a cruel betrayal by the Guard of
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 30

the Emperor he loved and admired. As a close friend of both

Generals Merid Mengesha and Kebede Gebre, he took charge
of the Ministry of Information and used the media to
galvanise widespread public support for the Emperor.

As the loyalist forces gained strength with reinforcements

from officer cadets from Holetta and a battalion from the
Third Infantry Regiment at Debre Berhan, General Mengistu
and Germame sought sanctuary at a farm near Zuquala, not
far from Bishoftu. The rest of the rebel units either dispersed
or surrendered to the Army. The Emperor’s palace was
retaken with the minimum of casualties.

Within the same week both General Mengistu and

Germame were found hiding in a farmer’s home near Zuquala
and in the ensuing exchange of fire, Germame was killed.
The General was wounded and captured. A close friend of
General Mengistu, Police Commander General Tsige Dibou,
was also killed in a shootout in Addis Ababa.

A few months later, General Mengistu was tried publicly

by a regime-friendly court and despite his sterling
performance at the hearings, where he outlined the reasons
for his failed coup attempt, the summary executions in the
Green Saloon weighed heavily against him. He was sentenced
to death and he refused to appeal. The Emperor approved the
court’s decision and the General was sent to the gallows
before a multitude at Tekle Haymanot Square in Addis.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 31

The 1960 coup attempt against the monarchy was in fact

the result of several years of preparation by General Mengistu
Neway, his selected and trusted officers like Colonel
Worqneh Gebeyehu, Major Yohannes Misikir, Captain Baye
Ttilahun, Captain Asrat Deferesu, Lt. Bekele Seggu and
young civilian reformists who had completed their studies
abroad. The young civilians who were close to General
Mengistu included his brother Germame Neway, Lij Michael
Emru, Ketema Yifru, Germame Wondafrash, Lemma Frew
and others. They were advancing the idea of reforming the
regime into a constitutional monarchy in the course of which
they hoped to encourage the Emperor to gracefully abdicate
in favour of Crown Prince Asfa Wossen.

Captain Getachew, who at that time was seconded to the

Military Academy in Harar and was aware of such
developments, narrated to me how information on the
intentions of the plotters had been unintentionally leaked by
Lemma Frew to reach the ears of Ato Mekonnen Habte Wold.

Before he left for the state visit to Brazil, aware of an

impending coup, the Emperor was in fact thinking of sacking
General Mengistu and appointing another officer to command
the Guard. When General Mengistu Neway learnt of this
through his secret collaborator Colonel Worqneh, he was
forced to launch the coup at least three months too early.

After the coup was foiled, several officers who survived

the army onslaught and the few civilians who included
Ketema Yifru were detained for a brief period and pardoned
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 32

by the Emperor. The families of the victims of the coup,

notably Ras Abebe Aregay’s aging mother, Woizero Askale
Gobena, pleaded with the Emperor to dismantle the force and
give total command to the army. In a shrewd move, the
Emperor appointed the Late Ras Abebe’s son-in law, General
Debebe Haile Mariam as the new Commandant but kept the
force as a separate regiment largely reinforced by trusted
officers selected from the ranks of the army.

Notwithstanding these developments, the seeds for a

bigger revolt were yet to be sowed. Years later, a younger
Mengistu, then an officer cadet who had just graduated from
the Military School in Holetta, was destined to be a principal
actor in deposing the Emperor and yet again in the execution
of several high-ranking officials.

In 1961, during the long summer recess, I went to

Yirgalem Hospital in Sidamo to work as a dresser, plumber,
electrician, etc, under the guidance of the Norwegian Director
of the hospital, Dr. Tauschoe and his Icelandic general
practitioner, Dr. Johansson. Both were fond of me and trained
me in basic hospital maintenance and sincerely wanted me to
join Medical School, just as my classmate, another childhood
friend, the late Dr. Teferra Tizzazu, had done.

That summer job enabled me to buy the obligatory decent

suit before I could register for the college semester. It had its
cost. One day while assisting Dr. Johansson in the hospital in
Yirga Alem, a patient with swollen lips was brought in. He
had to have a slit to get the accumulated blood out. When the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 33

doctor slightly pricked his lips, blood came out gushing and I
fainted on the spot.

After that incident I knew I was not emotionally ready to

become a physician. My Sidamo experience was however
most rewarding in the sense that I got to know the beautiful
and fertile regions of southern Ethiopia and also met several
compatriots of good will whose friendship I have always
cherished.

During the summer July in 1961, when it was announced

over the national radio that our high school graduation was to
be held at the Christmas Hall within the premises of
GENNETE LI'UL Palace in Addis, Dr. Tauschoe
immediately put me on an early morning bus so that I could
join my fellow graduates to receive my certificate from the
Emperor.

Our high school graduation was a unique experience with

more than four hundred graduates from all over Ethiopia
lined up for the occasion before the Emperor. Those who had
completed their final exams with distinction were also given
pens bearing the Emperor’s name besides the certificates. We
were all proud and happy young people.

That summer was also the time the Russians gave the
world another surprise with their scientific and space
exploration. Major Uri Gagarin became the first man in space
when he was launched and brought back safely to earth,
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 34

clearly influencing several young students to pursue higher

education in science and technology.

At the start of the college semester in September, I was

enrolled at the science faculty at the University College in
Addis Ababa. Mr. Logan, my physics teacher made life
difficult for me because he felt I was a bright but, perhaps
rightly so, a lazy student. Usually he would give the class
surprise tests. One day I would score a hundred percent and
on another day twenty percent. That obviously angered him.
Simply put, despite my successful first year after several ups
and downs, I felt I had a different calling - journalism. I chose
to abandon science and join the arts faculty in the new
semester.

Although I enjoyed my classes at the science faculty

where our very committed Canadian Jesuit instructors, Dean
McFarlane, Mr. Rancourt and others were guiding us; the
sociology classes given by Professor Shack, an African
American, were already attracting several adherents. I asked
to be transferred and was permitted to join the Arts Faculty at
the start of the new academic year. I was happy with my
decision.

Emperor Haile Selassie had established University

College of Addis Ababa a decade earlier with the help of a
group of Canadian Jesuit priests led by Professor Lucien
Matte. Students were provided with brand new dark blue
blazers and grey trousers that marked them distinctly from
other young persons wherever they went in town. The area
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 35

between Arat Kilo and Piazza was literally their undisputed

territory. The Emperor would also visit the campus during
lent season and offer fruits and other gifts to the students.

The renowned Maitre Artist, Afeworq Tekle visited the

University College every Wednesday afternoon when there
were no lectures and conducted drawing classes for those of
us who thought they were artistically inclined. Extra-
curricular lectures and debates would also be held in the
auditorium with activists and aspiring politicians like
Professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam and Dr. Berket-Ab Habte
Selassie, then a young Attorney General, taking centre stage.
Bereket, once an eminent citizen of Ethiopia, joined the
Eritrean secessionists after the death of his friend General
Aman Michael Andom and served for some time as an
adviser of Eritrean separatist leader Isaias Aferworqi. Later
on, Dr. Bereket opted to distance himself from the new rulers
in Asmara.

In those days, the Students’ Council in the University

Collage of Addis Ababa had its own first-rate and
independent newsletter, “News and Views”. Yohannes Kifle,
Be'alu Girma, Moges Tekle Michael and a few other select
groups of senior students edited the weekly bulletin. Haile
Fida, who at that time was a senior geology student and later
on founder of All Ethiopia Socialist Movement (MEISON)
was one of the most seasoned contributors. Besides being a
prolific writer, Haile was also among those who attended
Maitre Artist Afeworq Tekle’s Wednesday art classes.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 36

Academic freedom at the College, though affected to a

certain extent by the Imperial Guard coup attempt of the
previous year was still relatively intact. During General
Mengistu Neway’s coup attempt, college students had
expressed sympathy with the rebels. After the events,
however, they were encouraged to apologize to His Imperial
Majesty. The Emperor had pronounced his “fatherly” pardon,
but he could not forget easily. The students continued with
their criticism of the regime through yearly poetry contests on
any occasion that presented itself. There was no love lost
between Academia and the Crown.

Thus in 1962, while the country was still recovering from

the shock of the attempted coup, the Emperor decided to
abandon Guenete-L’eul, the “Palace of Princely Paradise” at
Sidist Kilo and donated the premises along with the infamous
Green Salon, to the new University bearing his name. At the
same time all college students were told to vacate their
dormitories and look for alternative accommodation in town.

Just as we had responded to the same kind of government

instructions in Debre Berhan some three years earlier, this
time too we marched to the Grand Palace to plead our case,
before the Emperor. Charismatic senior class students who
included economist Gebeyehu Firissa, a promising legal
scholar Shibru Seifu and an articulate business administration
student, Yesus Worq Zafu, led us.

Yesus Worq was severely reprimanded by the Emperor

when he tried to reason out that non-residential academic life
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 37

would be detrimental to the student community. Later in the

year, despite being declared by his faculty the best student of
the graduating class, Yesus Worq was not allowed to
personally receive his degree from the Emperor like other
graduates. Yesus Worq Zafu is now a successful businessman
and leader of the Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce
following his long years of exile during the Derg regime.

In the years that followed our protest march to the Palace

in 1961, Addis Ababa University turned into a breeding
ground for firebrand revolutionaries like Eshetu Chole,
Tilahun Gizaw, Berhane Mesqel Redda and others.

In 1969, an assassin’s bullet, allegedly from State Security

firearm, claimed Ttilahun Gizaw’s life. Berhane Mesqel, who
later on led the budding Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary
Party (EPRP) went into exile alongside other revolutionaries
to carry on the struggle, first against the Imperial regime, then
in 1974 against what he believed was an unholy alliance
between Haile Fida’s party and the military regime that
unleashed the infamous red terror of the seventies. This will
be recounted in more detail in later.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 38
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 39

CHAPTER THREE

Radio Voice Of The Gospel

At the University one beautiful day in early February 1962

while basking in the morning sunshine, a group of my friends
was passing by. They told me they were heading to some
place for a part-time job interview so I requested to join them
rather than sit alone. I would wait outside till the interview
was over.

As we entered the small-improvised radio studio located

outside Addis, two Norwegian Lutheran missionaries, the
venerable Director, Dr. Sigurd Aske and Pastor Jelsten were
giving voice tests. They were looking for an appropriate
announcer for a new radio station soon to be set up by the
Lutheran World Federation - Radio Voice of the Gospel. The
Emperor had granted permission to set up and operate the
station six months earlier.

After my friends had taken the voice tests, the younger

one, Jelsten, asked: “Why don’t you too try?” On taking the
test, it was decided on the spot that I had the appropriate
voice. I was then directed to Magnus Manson, the Swedish
administrator of the station.

I was pleased to meet Manson again thirty years later at

his home in Uppsala, Sweden. I also met, after many years,
my high school mentor, Professor Ezra Gebre Medhin and his
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 40

wife Genet Aw'alom, who was also my first radio program

supervisor.

After that radio voice test in 1962 and my subsequent

presentations on the radio, I was paid what was then a
princely twenty-five Birr per spot announcement. With my
first pay, I hosted a feast for my friends; Teferra Tizzazu,
Baro Tumsa, Haile Yesus Aba Asen and Teshome Akale
Heywot. It was a lot of money to spend in a day. The Birr
was very strong.

In summer, after that brief introduction to broadcast

journalism, I landed a full-time announcer’s job at what was
then a hefty 300 Birr per month. When classes commenced
the following September, I concentrated on three things: my
studies, the radio part-time job and an evening German
language course at the Goethe Institute that had just opened
near the University College at Arat Kilo. I made good
progress in German under the tutelage of a warm person, Dr.
Rolf Rauschenbach and his very able Ethiopian assistant,
Dejene Hileteworq.

During our graduation, we received our certificates from

Herr von Stupnagel, a young German diplomat who was the
third Secretary at the Embassy. He was son of the famous
World War II German Army Commander in Paris who had
defied Hitler’s order to burn down the city. Years later when I
was appointed Ambassador of my country to the German
Democratic Republic (East Germany), he was also appointed
Federal Germany’s Ambassador to Ethiopia. What a
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 41

remarkable coincidence! We both later on served in South

Africa as international observers during the first post-
apartheid elections - Stupnagel for the European Union and I
for the United Nations.

The inauguration by the Emperor of Radio Voice of the

Gospel on 26th February 1963 was perhaps one of the most
important events in my life, as would another event on 26th
February 1977 would turn out to be.

During that ceremony in 1963, when Dr. Amanuel Gebre

Selassie, a highly respected official of the Ethiopian
Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus and Senior Adviser to
Director of the Station together with our Administrator Hagos
Legesse cued the Emperor to press the “go on air” button and
I announced: “This is Radio Voice of the Gospel.” My heart
was filled with pride and felt I had made history in my own
way.

Dr. Amanuel, who was a British educated lay preacher

had already gone through ups and downs in life when his
church assigned him the responsibility of assisting in the
setting up of Radio Voice of the Gospel. During the Fascist
occupation, he and other young educated Ethiopians were
dumped for several years in notorious prisons in Italian
Somaliland. After Liberation, Dr. Amanuel served first as
Supreme Court judge and later as special adviser to the
British Embassy before taking up his advisory assignment at
Radio Voice of the Gospel.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 42

Our radio broadcasts soon became popular. Mekonnen

Demissie, who later became an accomplished lawyer and
served with Ethiopian Airlines and UN adviser in Eastern
Slovenia, had earlier on joined the Newsroom Team to
reinforce our efforts. RVOG newscasts were favoured
because the station was relatively free of the notorious
Imperial censors and in fact the Emperor himself was our
most prominent and regular listener. He would often call Dr.
Amanuel to comment favourably on our programs. Those
calls from the Palace were on assurance that we had the
competitive edge over the national radio and this motivated
us to be more creative.

During the early stages of RVOG operations, Tesfaye

Tadesse, a native of Mizan Teferi in Jimma Province, had just
completed his high school at Kokebe Tsebah Haile Selassie I
School in Addis Ababa. When he started working for Radio
Ethiopia, his pay was not adequate and even when he was
paid; the payday depended on the goodwill of the cashier. He
was thus forced to look for better employment and soon
joined us. He later on he won a scholarship to study in the
United States, first at Ithaca and Columbia Universities and
later on at Ann Arbour, Michigan for his graduate studies.

During the opening of the first summit of independent

African countries in Addis Ababa in May 1963, radio
journalists from Radio Voice of the Gospel were at hand to
give live coverage of the proceedings. A team of Radio
Ethiopia journalists did a commendable job of providing
running commentary on the conference, led by the French-
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 43

trained broadcaster, Zewde Retta who was later became

Deputy Minister of Information and Ambassador. Zewde
Retta retired after a long service in IFAD in Rome and wrote
what could perhaps be described as a unique and powerful
book on the recent history of Eritrea. He reviewed
dispassionately and accurately the historical developments
that led to the reunion of the two parts of historical Ethiopia.

At our station, Woizero Alem Seged Hiruy, a British-

educated member of the noble Ras Emru family was doing a
superb job as English News Reader. Since Ethiopia did not
have a TV station then, our British radio news editors, Derek
Tipler, Desmond Telfer and Ken Stewart, who had some TV
experience before they came to Addis helped in operating a
closed circuit TV at the majestic Africa Hall, a conference
centre donated to the United Nations by the Emperor only a
few years earlier.

1963 was indeed the year of Africa’s reawakening. The

excitement and expectation created by that Summit among
the citizens of Addis Ababa was so much that TV sets had to
be placed on podiums at the main square outside Africa Hall
for the public to follow the proceedings as famous African
leaders addressed the conference. Most African countries had
gained independence a few years earlier and it was a sight to
behold watching those leaders pompously escorted in and out
of the conference centre, a ritual that has been carried over
into the new Millennium.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 44

Among the illustrious African dignitaries who had arrived

for the debut conference were; Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana,
who confidently predicted that “Africa Shall Rise” and Ben
Bella of Algeria who called on all his peers to “die a little for
Africa’s total liberation.” There was King Idris of Libya,
Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Ben Bella of
Algeria, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Milton Obote of
Uganda, Nigerian President and Prime Minister Namdi
Azikiwe and Sir Abubacar Tafewa Balewa respectively.
Others were President and Poet Laureate Leopold Sedar
Senghor of Senegal, Ibrahim Aboud of the Sudan, Bourghiba
of Tunisia, Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroon, Sekou Toure of
Guinea, Albert Tsiranana of Madagascar and Milton Margai
of Sierra Leone to name but a few. They all had important
messages to pass on to the world and indeed to the next
generation of Africans. They were great visionaries.

A memorable incident at the Summit was the debate

everybody watched on TV between Prime Minister of
Ethiopia Aklilu Habte Wold and the First President of
Somalia, Aden Abdullah Osman. To the amazement and great
disappointment of many Ethiopians who had knew Osman
following his several visits to their country prior to Somalia's
independence, he accused Ethiopia of having grabbed
Somalia's territory, even before Somalia existed as a state.

Prime Minister Aklilu who had served for a long time as

Foreign Minister, despite the Emperor’s urging not to respond
to the accusations, asked for the floor and responded to the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 45

Somali leader’s allegation and in the process gave an

extensive history lesson to the gathered Heads of States.

While reminding the Assembly that the purpose of the

meeting was to forge unity, Prime Minister Aklilu said the
accusations by the Somali President and his delegation was
counter-productive. He stressed that Ethiopia literally
struggled alone for the liberation of the African continent,
including Somalia. If there was any territorial claim to be
made, then Ethiopia had the historical right to do so.
Meanwhile, in the interest of peace, it would continue to fight
for the respecting of existing frontiers in the continent.
Tampering with current frontiers would invite more
problems, he cautioned.

Earlier, President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana had told the

eminent gathering that the masses of Africa were crying for
unity. The people of Africa, he said, called for the
dismantling of the boundaries that kept them apart. He
articulated his clarion call for the establishment of “Union
Government for Africa” to inspire the youth of the continent.

University students, town folks and journalists had easy

access to the African heroes. We were allowed to get their
autographs, as security around the Heads of State was not
visibly tight and excessively repressive as in latter days.
Those were times of innocence.

Besides occasional live coverage of such events and the

decidedly balanced daily news that usually preceded readings
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 46

from the Bible, Radio Voice of the Gospel’s sports program

was extremely popular. Immediately after we started regular
programs, the leading Ethiopian sports official and life long
member of the International Olympic Committee, a famous
name in the history of African sports, Yidneqachew
Tesemma, had recommended Solomon Tesemma (no
relation), to be seconded to our station to prepare sports
programs.

Solomon Tesemma, a former non-commissioned officer of

the Imperial Body Guard then working for the United States
Information Service in Addis Ababa soon became a star and
gained more and more adherents for our broadcasts. He had
already made a name for himself during the Third Africa Cup
Tournament a couple of years earlier that was hosted by
Ethiopia under the brilliant organisation of Yidneqachew.

Yidneqachew’s epic struggle to unite African sportsmen

and women against apartheid and rally governments and
people the world over for the fight against racism in
international sports will be discussed later.

One day in early February 1964, during an afternoon shift

at the radio station, VIPs from Cologne (Köeln), Germany,
visited the station. Herr von Bismark, great-grandson of the
famous Bismarck and Director of WEST DEUTSCHER
RUNDFUNK (WDR) had sent them. Dr. Schaeffer led the
delegation. Our Program Manager and mentor, Ulrich Fick,
introduced them to me. When I spoke to them in my limited
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 47

German, they were amused and inquired where I lived in

Germany.

I told them I was not so lucky to have ever visited the

county but would have loved to visit the land I admired from
history books. They extended an invitation to me on the spot
and upon their return arranged a scholarship for me to enrol at
the University of Cologne with a part-time training at WDR.
Three weeks later, I received a letter, signed by Dr. Schaeffer
confirming the scholarship grant.

Prior to my departure, our young German studio

technician, Francis Walter Lemke, spared time to teach me
better spoken and written German. Lemke, who developed
his career in London, later on became one of the program
directors of Radio Deutsche Welle, the Voice of Germany.

At the University in Addis, I informed our new Dean of

Arts Faculty, Israeli Professor Yabetz and his junior
Ethiopian counterpart, Dr. Abraham Demoz of my
scholarship grant and they gladly wrote the necessary
recommendation letters to the Ministries of Education and
Foreign Affairs to help me obtain a passport and exit visa.
Luckily, one of my former teachers at Holetta, Tekle
Haymanot Abay had by then undergone advanced education
in India and returned to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
as Head of the Passport Section. He processed my case in a
flash!
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 48

Dr. Amanuel, the caring friend that he always was, saw

me off at Addis Ababa airport on a warm February morning. I
arrived the same day in Frankfurt only to be welcomed by a
bitter, cold European winter. I could not help but feel
despondent at leaving behind such wonderful friends as Dr.
Amanuel, his kind wife Woizero Abeba Kifle Egzi and his
two wonderful sons Hiruy and Tsega. They all considered me
part of the family.

Hiruy grew up to become an accomplished broadcaster

and in early 2000, he served as Ethiopia’s Ambassador to
Germany. In 2006, he joined the Inter Governmental
Authority for Development (IGAD), to head one of their
important programs.

The flight to Germany in 1964 was my first time to travel

by air, let alone in a Boeing 720-B. The Ethiopian Airlines
plane that took me to Germany was the first one of its kind to
roll out of the Boeing factory in Seattle. The development of
Ethiopian Airlines over the last sixty years has been
phenomenal. Thanks to generations of its dedicated Ethiopian
staff who are entirely Ethiopian, making it the pride of
Africa.

Although this attribute is claimed by another airline in the

continent that is not fully indigenous, Ethiopian Airlines has
fittingly taken another branding, “The Spirit of Africa,”
vibrant, always developing and aiming high. In the new
Millennium, the airline entered into a new contract with
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 49

Boeing to become among the first recipients of the cutting

edge technology - Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Back in 1964, upon arrival at Frankfurt, I boarded a

smaller aircraft for the onward journey to Koeln. Lufthansa’s
internal networks were not developed then and they were still
waiting to take delivery of smaller versions of Boeings.

As I flew on the DC-3 propeller aircraft and looked down

from a relatively lower height, I was overwhelmed by the
number of cities spread out in an orderly fashion and the
immaculately lined up farms and forests all the way between
Frankfurt and Koeln. As the day grew darker, the lights on
the ground shone brightly as though they were galaxies of
stars in cloudless skies above, which I used to look up and
admire as a little boy in Holetta.

After the plane landed at Koeln-Wahn airport, my

designated host was calling my name as Mr. Shiawl,
(unfortunately also mispronouncing it as SHAL) which I
found strange because in Ethiopia we are not used to
responding to our fathers’ names. I could have easily come
noticed had he called “Teferra”. So I waited and waited until
after the last bus had left the terminal grounds at midnight.

As I began to contemplate on what to do in the middle of

the night in a strange land, an elderly well-built gentleman
approached me and asked what I was waiting for. I told him I
was waiting for a Herr von Bismark sent to pick me up from
the airport. He looked at me with visible sympathy and in a
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 50

typical Koelsch dialect said: “They must have called your

name over the loud speaker and you did not respond. Young
man, let me take you to town and we shall see!” I thanked my
stars and hopped into his brand new Ford Taunus sedan.

On our way to the city centre, I asked him what his

profession was and he replied: “GEPAEKTRAEGER,”
meaning, a luggage carrier. In our terminology it meant a
KOOLI. I was greatly surprised. I said to myself: “luggage
carriers at Addis Airport could barely afford a square meal,
let alone a brand new car! Life in Germany must be of a
higher standard”.

Upon arrival at the city centre, my benefactor, now aware

of who had invited me booked me in Hotel Mondial, close to
the West German Radio Station where I spent a very restful
night. I woke up to admire the beauty of the hotel perched on
the banks of the Rhein River and the wonderful architecture
of the Dom - the famous cathedral, right across the street.

After a heavy breakfast that was served in my room, I

asked the hotel receptionist to inform the office of Herr Claus
von Bismark, the “Intended” (General Manager) and CEO of
WDR that I had arrived. They obliged and told me that a taxi
was waiting outside to pick me.

I expected a taxi with a clearly marked sign like the ones I

had seen at the airport terminal the previous night. An
elderly person dressed like a General of the Imperial
Ethiopian Body Guard politely opened the hotel entrance
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 51

door for me. I was shocked, because I was a simple student

and thought he should not have bothered.

The man then sprinted and opened the door of a white

Mercedes limousine, like those used by superiors in Imperial
Ethiopia. It did not have any markings as I had expected so
when I hesitated, he informed me it was indeed a special taxi
that had come for me.

Honestly, I thought that “Generals” in Germany were

extremely polite, which indeed they are, until I discovered, to
my amazement that this particular gentleman was the hotel
doorman, only dressed like an Ethiopian Army General.

After meeting Mr. Claus von Bismark and Dr. Schaeffer

in their offices, I settled in my apartment on the Wilhelm-
Hossdorf Strasse, close to what was then a super modern
architecture replacing the war-damaged Severin Bridge that
linked the city’s ring roads and span so majestically over the
River Rhein.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 52
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 53

CHAPTER FOUR

The Koeln Experience

During my first few months in Koeln, a special language

tutor by the name Herr Ludwig had been hired for me.
Though an excellent teacher, he never gave me any rest. One
day I asked him if I could have some time off on a Sunday to
visit the city. “Look, you cannot believe how much they pay
me to teach you German. They pay me a lot of money - by
the hour and I am a family man who needs to make good
money,” he said. I pitied him and decided not to have any day
off. After all, I was the one who stood to gain.

After the German language course I earnestly started my

studies as a guest student auditor at Koeln, with practical
radio journalism training at West Deutscher Rundfunk
(WDR). I was under the tutelage of Frau Dr. Brigitte
Granzow, who was Director of what was then called the
Third Program, KULTURELLES WORT that was dedicated
to culture and education mainly.

One day as I was walking to WDR for my training

sessions, I met a tall handsome Ethiopian at a tram station
near my house. Habte Mariam Assefa was a theology
graduate from Athens University who had come to Germany
to continue with his studies in Law. His father – Mariam, was
a famous wartime resistance leader in Tigray, northern
Ethiopia and following his death, Habte began to lead the life
of a monk in a Coptic monastery.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 54

The Emperor brought Aba Habte Mariam from Tigray and

enrolled him at the Theological Seminary in Addis and later
sent him to Greece for further studies. Upon his arrival in
Europe and while still in Athens, he decided to abandon the
celibate life of a monk and married a vivacious German girl
he had met in the Law Faculty at Koeln University. We
remained good friends during my stay in Koeln and our
friendship continued in Ethiopia.

Dr. Habte Mariam informed me that there were other

compatriots residing in Koeln and Bonn. I set out to look for
them. I met Dr. Goitom Wolde Mariam, an Economics
student who until he joined the Eritrean Peoples Liberation
Front in the early seventies, was an avowed Ethiopian. After
Goitom and I met for the first time at one of the nightclubs in
Koeln, we talked almost the whole night on diverse topics,
among them his passionate views on the virtues of Ethiopian
patriotism.

Later in the summer of that year, Goitom and I travelled

together to Bologna, Italy to attend the annual meeting of
Ethiopian Students Union in Europe. A printing engineer,
Aklilu Yimtatu joined us from Heidelberg. In Bologna, we
met future revolutionaries and also made new friends. The
most vocal ones during the meeting were those who came
from France, like Daniel Tadesse and Negede Gobezeh, who
later became leading members of Haile Fida’s party. Hiruy
Tedla Bairu, who had completed college in Addis while I was
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 55

a freshman, had also joined us from London where he was

doing his postgraduate studies.

Hiruy Tedla is the son of Dejazmatch Tedla Bairu,

architect of Ethio-Eritrean unity during the struggle against
British trusteeship administration in the former Italian colony.
In the late sixties, however, Hiruy joined Osman Saleh
Sabbe’s Eritrean Liberation Front Revolutionary Command.
The Front was weakened after Sabbe’s death in the late
seventies and the emergence of a stronger Eritrean Peoples’
Liberation Front (EPLF) under Isaias Afeworqi, a guerrilla
leader who knew neither flexibility nor compromises.

In the New Millennium, Hiruy Tedla became a frequent

visitor to Addis Ababa, representing part of the Eritrean
opposition in exile. Though his father Dejazmatch Tedla
Bairu was disgruntled with the way the Emperor treated him
in the wake of Eritrea’s unity with the Motherland, Hiruy
Tedla’s dedication as a student, to the cause of Ethiopian
unity seemed intact.

The Bologna meeting was a welcome distraction from the

daily routine of journalism courses and training in Koeln. At
that meeting we elected another latter day Eritrean liberation
activist and senior economic adviser to President Isaias,
Abraham Kidane as our student leader.

Meanwhile in WDR, I trained in Dr. Granzow’s Third

Program Department that included news editing, drama
production for schools, music program co-ordination and
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 56

historical documentaries. It was a journey into the advanced

world of learning through electronic media and I was
determined to accumulate as much knowledge as I could.

My Deutsche Welle job came by chance when I met, at

WDR, Ambassador Assefa Lemma who was serving his first
term in Bonn. He was a close family friend of the German
Director of Deutsche Welle, Wolfgang Teuscher. Teuscher
had the intention to expand the Africa Service of the radio
station and being well disposed towards Ethiopia, he was
looking for a qualified person to build a team and start an
Amharic program. He had heard that I was in WDR and
wanted to meet me.

After a brief discussion, I agreed to take up the job and we

started a daily fifteen-minute program on March 15th 1965. A
few years later, Teuscher, his wife and their little son Oliver
were involved in a fatal car accident on the Bonn-Koeln
autobahn. Africa and indeed Ethiopia lost a great German
friend.

Before I could come to terms with my new job at

Deutsche Welle, Ambassador Assefa was recalled to Addis to
become the Minister for Mines. We missed him very much
because he was supportive of all our efforts to develop good
programs for our audience in Ethiopia. He cared less about
protocol. He was a hands-on person, always warm and caring
and daring. My good luck brought us together again in 1969
when he was sent to Bonn for his second tour of duty.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 57

Ambassador Assefa’s successor was Dejazmatch Amaha

Aberra, an eccentric individual and son of the famous
Ethiopian Patriot Dejazmatch Aberra Kassa. He had
graduated in London as an economist. Amaha could not
really find his niche in the web of imperial court intrigues in
Addis and was assisted by Dr. Eguale, a German-educated
Counsellor of the Embassy. He rarely spent time in Bonn.
Instead, he preferred to live in London or Geneva, most of the
time following up on a project the Emperor had initiated and
mandated German architects to design - a plan for Bahar Dar
as the future capital of Ethiopia.

On the few occasions he spared for his duties in Bonn,

Dejazmatch Amaha would call students to his office, inquire
about their backgrounds and meticulously enter the data in his
special notebook. On one such occasion, he summoned me to
his office and when I told him my grandfather’s name was
Kidanekal, originally from Debre Berhan, he noted all the
details and looked at me straight in the eyes. He then folded
his notebook. Since then, he had a soft spot for me and
always included me in all official functions. I later learnt
from Ambassador Zewde Haile Mariam that my grandfather
had loyally served Amah’s family in earlier years.

As soon as I started organising the Amharic Program of

Deutsche Welle, I encouraged Goitom and the other
compatriots I met in Koeln; Bogale Mekuria, Deragon Haile
Melekot, Alula Abate and Bekele Demissie to join me as
radio program officers and translators. Afterwards Frank
Lemke joined us after terminating his services in Addis.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 58

The Deutsche Welle Amharic service soon, became very

popular and attracted many listeners and I felt I had
accomplished another “first” in my life. Negussie Mengesha,
a young sharp journalist who later joined the Ethiopian
Peoples’ Revolutionary Party (EPRP), was also brought in as
program editor with Lemke serving as coordinator.

Negussie had left his job at Radio Voice of the Gospel in

Addis, when Ulrich Fick and I recommended him for an
apprenticeship at WDR. We were also lucky to have, for our
women’s programs, Mulatua Haile Selassie - a brilliant young
lady trained in the United States that was serving as Public
Relations officer at the Ethiopian Tourism Commission.
Besides her natural gift, Habte Selassie Tafesse a tireless
advocate and developer of Tourism in Ethiopia had trained
Mulatua very well.

Mulatua eventually left Deutsche Welle after getting

married to a young lawyer and astute diplomat, Dr. Berhane
Gebray. Dr. Berhane had done his post-graduate studies in
France while Mulatua was in Koeln. Thus, Netsanet Asfaw,
whom I knew when she was a senior student at the University
College in Addis Ababa and whose brother Tirfu studied with
me in Debre Zeit, then serving as program producer in Radio
Ethiopia, succeeded Mulatua. Later on Netsanet joined the
armed struggle against the Derg and returned to Addis Ababa
in 1991 with the victorious forces of EPRDF to eventually
become an MP and Minister.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 59

Although Negussie, had to abandon EPRP and immigrate

to the US, he was among Ethiopians in the Diaspora who
were instrumental in waging a scathing media campaign to
dismantle the military regime in Addis Ababa. His regular
radio programs in the eighties and nineties through Voice of
America from Washington, D.C. attracted a large audience.

Back in the 1960s, life in Germany for foreign students,

particularly Ethiopians, was at its most convenient. Emperor
Haile Selassie, who earlier in 1954 had paid his first state
visit to the newly created Federal Republic of Germany and
the stunning marathon victory of the bare footed Abebe
Biqila, at the Rome Olympics in 1960 had left their positive
imprint in the minds of Germans.

Ethiopians were warmly welcomed everywhere they went

and they did not need a visa those days. What a contrast to
the situation of later years, where German Police and their
Shepherd dogs awaited disembarking Ethiopians and
suspiciously interrogating them upon arrival at German
airports was a common sight!

During the carnival season that always followed the end of

winter, Koeln, a happy city even at normal times turned into a
merry-making and fun loving circus. Women would freely
and unashamedly provoke young men. They considered
kissing any stranger in public an adventure during the three
mad days, DIE DREI DOLLEN TAGEN. It must be a carry-
over from, old pagan traditions. Young foreign students were
easy prey of such advances by a happy Koeln citizenry.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 60

Besides our regular training programs, Ethiopian students

in Europe were given opportunities to participate in seminars
and workshops organised in other European centres. One
such occasion was when a US-sponsored workshop was
organised in Utrecht, Holland and early 1966 for a dozen or
so Ethiopian student leaders.

In Utrecht, I and my long-time friends; Dr. Fitigu Tadesse

from Strasbourg, Dr. Dawit Zawde from Moscow, my former
college mates from the University College in Addis Ababa,
Hirut Befeqadu and Dr. Ayalew Assaye who were at that time
studying in Italy. Dr. Fiqre Merid from Paris brainstormed
about the possible scenarios that would follow the eventual
demise of the imperial regime in Ethiopia.

Though the Americans were far ahead in their analysis,

they were not immediately impressed with our guarded
conclusion about the likelihood of a left-wing military
dictatorship emerging in Ethiopia. I learnt many years later
that they had finally come to the same conclusion and had
even advised the aging Emperor to abdicate the throne in
favour of the Crown Prince who would then be a
constitutional monarch. The Emperor would hear none of
that.

Hirut Befeqadu, the only girl in the group, later on served

as the Information Officer of the Organization of African
Unity, until she retired after more than thirty years of service.
Fitigu, rose to be Vice President of the Hunger Project in
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 61

New York, still retained his good sense of humour. We all

have continued to develop our relationship in good and bad
times.

My work and training in Germany during the sixties

opened wider opportunities for me to know the country and
its people well. I could never get tired of studying German
history, literature and culture. I watched the economic
miracle unfold unabated. Unemployment rate was in the
minus figures. Thus, labour had to be imported. Italians,
Spaniards and Turks constituted the bulk of guest workers,
GASTARBEITER, as Germans liked to refer to them.

In the late sixties, the development of a culture of

veritable democracy in Germany was in full swing. I watched
with fascination the Bundestag debates in Bonn. Chancellor
Ludwig Erhard, father of post-war German economic miracle
and other master politicians of the day, Fritz Erler, Herbert
Wehner, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Erich Mende,
Walter Scheel, and the Bavarian leader Franz Joseph Strauss
enlivened the debates. Listening to those sometimes-hot
debates from the public gallery of the Bundestag began to
shape my political outlook in favour of social democracy.

Whenever the opportunity rendered itself, I crisscrossed

the country to visit famous historical sites. The Federal Press
Office even facilitated for me and for other foreign students
guided tours of the divided Berlin, a city that won our total
sympathy. I was often dispatched to the airport as one of the
young journalists to interview Federal President Heinrich
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 62

Luebke when he returned from visits to Africa. Life could

never be boring.

On weekends and holidays, Dr Schaeffer and his wife

Barbara would invite me to their home in the suburbs of
Koeln and I took pleasure in taking care of their little baby
Melina to allow the couple to visit the theatre or cinema.
Melina grew up to become an accomplished physician.

While undertaking my journalism training in Koeln, I also

successfully completed a parallel journalism course via
distant education from Benet College in Sheffield, England
and received my diploma in June 1965. I was intent on
continuing my education under any circumstances.

In the summer of 1966, Dr. Aske, the Director of Radio

Voice of the Gospel, invited me to visit him at his home in
Narvik outside Oslo. He proposed that I return to Ethiopia
and take over the management of the news programs in
RVOG once I finished my training programs in Koeln. I
counter proposed by suggesting that since my English had
gone a bit rusty at the expense of my German, I should first
be given the opportunity train at Reuters News Agency or
BBC in London to polish my English. He agreed.

I left Negussie Mengesha, Mulatua, Goitom, Bogale,

Bekele Demissie, Deragon, Tamru Hampo and Dr. Alula
Abate to continue with the Amharic program and headed for
London.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 63

A few years later, Goitom, whose brother had given his

life fighting against Italians for Ethiopia’s liberation, and
Deragon, whose father Ras Haile Melekot was one of the few
Ethiopian noblemen respected and loved by the Emperor,
ended up as senior advisers to Eritrean secessionist leader
Isaias Afeworqi.

I arrived in London on December 1, 1966 on a grey and

cold morning and proceeded to Reuters Head Office on Fleet
Street. There, a senior editor, Bruce Russell, welcomed me
and sent me to a Lutheran hostel in Pembridge Gardens to
settle down and freshen up prior to my intensive training. Dr.
Aske had made meticulous arrangements for my comfortable
stay in Britain. Soon I learnt the different techniques of
reporting, editing and filing stories, giving me a good feeling
of the Fleet Street spirit.

After my one-month stint at Reuters, I joined BBC Africa

Service at Bush House. There, I met Graham Tyre, a Jewish
Brit who doubled as a freelance newsreader at Voice of the
Gospel in Addis during his teaching days at Prince Mekonnen
School in the sixties. He was now a senior manager of BBC
Africa programs.

Graham Tyre included me in the team that prepared Focus

on Africa program, which has remained popular to date.
There, I met and worked with famous announcers of the time
including Alex Teteh Lateh of Ghana, Abdulahi Haji, a
former radio Ethiopia Somali Program announcer who had
preceded me as trainee in WDR and other seasoned
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 64

broadcasters. I also met producers of Radio Newsreel, From

Our Own Correspondents and BBC drama programs in
Broadcasting House at Portland Place.

My final stopover for the three-month training was BBC

Television at Alexandra Palace in Kilburn, North London
where I was taught television news programming. English
language news presentation training was organized
specifically for me to help develop the skills that Dr. Aske
had wanted me to acquire.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 65

CHAPTER FIVE

Journalism, a Continuous School

After my return to Voice of the Gospel in 1966 our

English and Amharic news programs were expanded and
grew very popular. The then Vice Minister of Information
and a few years later a prison mate, Ato Negussie Habte
Wold, was happy to engage me as a part-time Television
announcer. As I wished, my English that had suffered at the
expense of my German had improved and I felt I was
communicating effectively.

I was always encouraged by the generous comments from

the then Minister of Information and later on Foreign
Minister, Dr. Menassie Haile who liked my English news
presentations. I still keep as souvenir my first continuity
announcements on BBC Africa service and the news
clippings of thirty years back about the Horn of Africa. Sadly
and in retrospect, those stories were no different in nature and
content than those of today. Indeed it is only the actors on the
world stage that have changed.

While in London, I also completed my journalism distant

education courses from Benet College, in Sheffield, and,
earned a diploma. Even then I could also spare time to meet
Ethiopian students in London and Ethiopian army cadets at
nearby Sand Hurst. Hiruy Tedla and members of the
Ethiopian community would meet us at Zetland Pub in South
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 66

Kensington, a popular joint for Ethiopians, Somalis and

Sudanese.

Another interesting feature of London to me at that time

was listening to the free political speeches at the Speakers’
Corner in Hyde Park near the Marble Arch tube station. I
watched and enjoyed what I saw of freedom of speech where
even the Queen was not spared of criticism. I thought that
was a political and social safety valve whose usefulness has
been lost to dictators in other parts of the world. On two
occasions I was assigned along with other colleagues to cover
press conferences given by the Prime Minister Harold Wilson
and opposition leader Edward Heath at their respective party
headquarters.

I was astounded at the way British journalists would freely

pose questions to the leaders even if they knew about the
discomfort their questions would cause to the interlocutors.
In Ethiopia no journalist would dare pose critical questions to
ministers, let alone to His Imperial Majesty.

Colleagues at the BBC and Reuters were helpful in many

ways thereby making my brief stay in London fruitful and
memorable. My admiration of the British tradition of freedom
and democracy was reinforced during my apprenticeship. I
always spared time to visit Hyde Park whenever I visited
London in the years that followed.

I returned home after wrapping up my training in the UK

at the end of November 1966. Dr. Amanuel was again at the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 67

airport to welcome me and he whisked me through

immigration and customs. He then drove me to Radio Voice
of the Gospel compound and the ever-gracious Woizero
Abeba Kifle-Egzi was there to extend to me her
characteristically warm hospitality.

In my new capacity as a news manager, I was entitled to

an advance loan to buy a new car and arrangements were
made with the agents of Volkswagen for me to purchase a
VW beetle. Those days a brand new one cost USD 3000 (Birr
7500). The workhorse served me for several years till I sold it
to one lucky fellow at a reasonable price. Cars last long in the
ideal Ethiopian weather because of the ingenuity of Ethiopian
maintenance technicians. Forty years down the road, I still
see my old car on the road and if the owner sold it in 2008, it
would fetch five to ten times as much.

Our work in the newsroom had its advantages. I do not

remember any public function I was not invited to. Major
Assefa Lemma Ethiopia’s former Ambassador to Germany
who had in the meantime taken the Mining and Energy
portfolio got me in touch with several other personalities,
thus widening my contacts and networks. I was learning to
cultivate the right friendships.

In the process, I got to know closely Foreign Minister

Ketema Yifru, his successor Dr. Menassie Haile, General
Kebede Gebre, Bitwoded Asfaha Wolde Michael, Ato
Yidneqachew Tesemma and others. These were all great fans
and supportive of Radio Voice of the Gospel. We were also
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 68

encouraged by the feedback we got from various parts of the

world, thanks to the diligence of our Audience Research
Coordinator, Menkir Isaias.

In those days, the War in Vietnam was an unending saga,

and, American politics were inextricably linked to the events
in Indo-China. We reported extensively on the exploits of the
Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army that was led by
the Dien Bien Fu hero, General Giap, with Ho Chi Minh
giving the ideological guidance. I met General Giap, a
diminutive figure, twenty years later in the early eighties
when he came to visit Socialist Ethiopia during President
Mengistu’s regime.

Apart from the major events that related to the successful

mediation efforts of the Emperor during the Algeria-Morocco
war, the Civil Rights Movement in the US under the
leadership of Martin Luther king, the anti-apartheid struggle,
the Nigerian Civil War, the Biafran War, as it was called
then, and Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of
Independence, UDI, also featured prominently in our current
affairs programmes.

On the early morning of August 20, 1968, while on the

news-editing shift, the teleprinters went wild with breaking
news that Warsaw Pact tanks, led by Soviet commanders had
rolled into Czechoslovakia during the night and occupied the
peaceful country in an attempt to bring to an end what was
then called the “Prague Spring”- the abortive democratic
reform movement of the sixties. Charismatic Prime Minister
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 69

Alexander Dubcek and President Svoboda had been arrested,

handcuffed and carted to Moscow. The entire world
condemned the attack and we at Radio Voice of the Gospel
had voice clippings of Alexander Dubcek from earlier days
that made my morning newscast livelier and more dramatic.

On following day, celebrated Ethiopian Editor in Chief of

the Ethiopian Herald, Tegegne Yetesha Worq signed an
editorial stating: “Czech Freedom Checked!” There was an
outpouring of sympathy in many parts of the world for and in
solidarity with the unfortunate Czechs and Slovaks.

The two Czechoslovak leaders were soon released and

shipped back to Prague, though Dubcek was sacrificed and
replaced by a staunch Soviet loyalist Gustav Hussak. The
same Gustav Hussak received me in audience at the Prague
Castle twenty-five years later in 1980 when the Derg’s then
Foreign Relations chief Major Berhanu Bayih and I visited
Czechoslovakia.

I met Alexander Dubcek in 1990 soon after I took up my

duties as Ambassador in Prague. As President of Parliament
elected in the wake of the Velvet Revolution, Dubcek lived in
the posh diplomatic neighbourhood not far from the Prague
Castle.

He was my immediate neighbour and since he spoke

German, we got to know each other well during our morning
walks. I always told him that I was glad he lived to see the
demise of Soviet hegemony over Eastern and Central Europe.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 70

He retired from his last job after I left Prague and led a quiet
life until his death in an accident on September 1, 1992.

Back in the sixties, during my news broadcasting days, I

often used the style of introducing the voice of the principal
character in the breaking news just as I did with the
Czechoslovakia case. When the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee on April 4,
1968, an audio clipping of Dr. King’s powerful and eloquent
speech “I have a Dream” of August 28, 1963 was useful in
spicing up the program.

Dr. King’s stirring call-to-action defined the moral basis

of the Civil Rights Movement in America and indeed
reinforced the struggle for equality and justice all over the
world. That kind of news presentation gave us the
competitive edge over State-run Radio Ethiopia.

After the Algeria-Morocco crisis where the Emperor was

successful at brokering peace and his unreserved effort to
bring peace to Nigeria, His majesty’s admirers and supporters
considered him a likely candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
That was not to be.

The Nigerian Federal Military Chief of State General

Yakubu Gowan and the breakaway Biafran leader Colonel
Ojukwu, both charismatic officers of British mould,
frequented Addis Ababa for their protracted negotiations.
Ojukwu was a formidable orator, but General Gowan had the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 71

support of his African peers, as secession was taboo for all of

them.

In the sixties, almost all leaders of independent African

states and other world leaders honoured Ethiopia and her
Emperor with their visits. Queen Elizabeth of Britain and the
Duke of Edinburgh; Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and her
Spouse Prince Barnard; The Shah of Iran and his pretty wife
Queen Farah Diba; President Charles De Gaulle his successor
President Georges Pompidou; President Jomo Kenyatta of
Kenya; British Prime Minister Harold Wilson; United States’
Vice President Hubert Humphrey; King Olav of Norway and
a host of statesmen from Eastern and western Europe were
Ethiopia’s honoured guests. These visits and the events that
led to the final victory of the Nigerian Federal Government
over Biafran cessation provided interesting news material for
us newsmen.

There were other visits by among others Aba Iban, the

firebrand Israeli Foreign Minister whom I had the privilege of
interviewing for radio Voice of the Gospel in the wake of the
Six-day war in 1967 with Egypt and Arab states. Mr. Iban
impressed us when, at the United Nations, he eloquently
defended the Jewish State’s right to exist as a sovereign
entity.

An interesting aspect of Ethiopia's relations with the

United States was the Emperor’s yearly visit to America since
the days of Eisenhower. In contrast, despite the very close
relations of over one hundred years, no sitting US President
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 72

ever paid a visit to Ethiopia. Richard Nixon and Hubert

Humphrey were Vice-Presidents when they visited Ethiopia.
Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton did so when out of
Office on humanitarian missions.

The Lutheran World Federation that owned and operated

RVOG was a staunch supporter of the anti-apartheid struggle
and offered tangible assistance to the oppressed churches in
southern Africa. Radio Voice of the Gospel remained its
strong arm until a military government bent on nationalising
even the smallest of private enterprises and petty retail shops
nationalised Radio Voice of the Gospel in 1977.

Work at Radio Voice of the Gospel provided the staff with

opportunities to travel widely particularly within Ethiopia in
our efforts to prepare varied programs that would entertain
and at the same time educate our audience. In the process,
during or tour of central and northern Ethiopia with my
colleagues Mebrhatu, Mekonnen Demissie and Frank Lemke,
we crisscrossed the provinces of Shoa, Wello, Tigray, Eritrea,
Bege Meder and Gojam where we sampled the various
treasures of our country and learnt from the rich history that
was narrated to us on the spot.

We saw what Italian colonialism left behind in Eritrea. In

Tigray we climbed the hills of Adwa where Italy was roundly
defeated by the forces of Emperor Menelik II in the eighteen
eighties. We also saw the site where obelisks were erected in
Axum in ancient times and for want of glory, the Italians, in
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 73

their second attempt at subjugating Ethiopia forty years later

in 1928, had looted one of the tallest obelisks.

The Axum obelisk was returned to Ethiopia in 2007 after a

protracted political and diplomatic struggle. Much to the
shame of post-war Italy and to the anger of Ethiopians, the
looted Ethiopian obelisk was displayed in fort of the former
colonial office in Rome for over fifty years.

While RVOG lasted as an independent radio station, we

had many pleasant moments. Immediately upon my return
from London in 1966, we had engaged a number of young
journalists and trained them to take over several programmes.
Bete Mengistu, Teshome Teklu, Zewdu Tadesse, Getachew
Haile Mariam and Negussie Desta were recruited. All of them
were without match in their chosen fields. Zewdu, with his
self-inflicting jokes was perhaps the best entertainer of the
group. Dr. Bete later on became a lay religious leader and
now runs civil society organizations in Ethiopia and Kenya.

For journalists in pre-revolutionary Ethiopia, the annual

summits of the OAU, the successes of our Olympic athletes
such as those of Abebe Biqila, Mamo Wolde and others as
well as the surprise cabinet re-shuffles (SHUM SHIR) that
the Emperor ‘graciously’ carried out provided enough
material. Imperial media portrayed events in the renegade
province of Eritrea as Arab expansionism and intrusion,
particularly by Syria and Iraq.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 74

Iraq and Syria stood out among members of the Arab

League harbouring and overtly training Eritrean secessionist
elements. Their widely distributed Map of the Arab World
included Eritrea and clearly betrayed their intentions. Several
years later, an Iraqi diplomat who had served at the same time
as me in Berlin was to admit privately that Iraq, under its
successive regimes, had spent hundreds of millions of US
Dollars of its oil money to finance the guerrilla war for the
dismemberment of Eritrea from Ethiopia.

In those days, however, as we travelled all over Eritrea to

gather material for preparing radio documentaries and other
programmes, the loyalty of the people to the cause of a united
Ethiopia never came into question. They knew that they stood
to gain from the union. Indeed they were favoured over other
provinces by the Emperor when it came to opening new
schools, hospitals and even the allocation of senior federal
government positions. However, year after year, with
unceasing Arab propaganda and support from quarters that
resented Ethiopia due its emerging position in Africa and the
Imperial regime’s poor handling of internal conflicts, pro-
Ethiopian sentiments began to erode gradually.

The non-use of Tigrigna in Eritrean schools, the

appointment of non-Eritreans to key administrative positions
within the province, the dissolution of the Federation and the
propaganda from the Arab world, all contributed to the
growth of resistance. Cairo Radio was in the forefront in
offering free airtime to the likes of long-time exile and
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 75

dissident Wolde Ab Wolde Mariam. The resistance bred

reprisals. Another die was cast.

The actions by the Imperial regime and its successor, the

Derg to subdue the resistance in Eritrea by sheer force
accelerated Eritrea’s tragic separation, reversing the process
of unity that many had supported during the sixty years of
colonial domination of Ethiopia’s maritime province.
Recognition of the rights of the people of Eritrea to determine
their own future would have perhaps saved the hundreds and
thousands of lives and enormous property lost during the
protracted struggle. Geopolitics had also its share, of course.

Thus, while secessionist guerrillas within the country

continued with their intermittent attacks on undefended
Eritrean villages and on rural outposts of the Ethiopian Army,
others abroad began tactics of intimidation with terrorist
attacks on civilian Ethiopian air transportation.

One such incident took place in 1969, when Eritrean

separatist terrorists launched a grenade attack on a Boeing
707 passenger plane belonging to Ethiopian Airlines while it
was parked at Frankfurt Airport. Fortunately no passengers
were hurt. To some not so learned fellow countrymen
unfamiliar with the aircraft, the news in its Amharic version
sounded as if seven hundred and seven Boeing jet planes of
the national airline had been hit and the masses simply could
not control their anger until the announcements of the news
was specifically precise in stating that it was one plane, a
Boeing 707, that was the target of the attack.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 76

German and other European media commentators of the

time were quick to put the whole blame on the Ethiopian
government, accusing it of oppressing the province of Eritrea.
Instead of also condemning the terrorist attack for what it
was, they utterly failed to present a balanced picture of the
situation that obtained in province.

In later years as the problem of airline hijacking and

aviation terrorism escalated, the same quarters sang a
different song. In the sixties and after Palestinian Fedayeen
and their Eritrean separatist disciples made several attempts
to disrupt international civil air transportation until they were
effectively controlled and dealt with by well-trained anti-
hijackers. This reminded me of what I read about Emperor
Haile Selassie’s plea at the League of Nations in Geneva, a
plea for deliverance from Italian fascist aggression long
before I was born. “It is us today, it will be you tomorrow”.

In the wake of the attack on the Ethiopian civilian aircraft,

the then Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Ketema Yifru, had
received disturbing reports from Bonn on the hostile press.
He thus called me to his office one morning and suggested
that since I had studied journalism in Germany and spoke the
language, I should be prepared to go to Bonn as Press
Secretary and Spokesperson of the Embassy.

Ato Ketema was a sharp thinker and easily approachable,

always full of humour. He exuded great confidence. This
characteristic was typical even when fifteen years later we
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 77

were both political prisoners of the Derg in the cellars of the

Grand Palace.

At that time, despite the big cut in salary I knew I would

have to endure, it did not take long for Ato Ketema to
convince me to leave Radio Voice of the Gospel immediately
and take up a new career. I felt that was an honour and
provided me with the opportunity to serve my country in a
challenging new field, diplomacy. Dr. Tesfaye Gebre-Egzi,
the dynamic deputy to Ato Ketema finalized the
administrative part without delay. Dr. Tesfaye was an
outstanding diplomat who during the revolution became a
victim of the mass execution perpetrated by the Derg.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 78
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 79

CHAPTER SIX

Into The Diplomatic Service-Assignment In Germany

As was customary in those days, the letter of appointment

as His Imperial Majesty’s Second Secretary of Embassy had
to come from the Ministry of Pen in the Palace and Dr.
Tesfaye Gebre Egzi, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs
processed the formalities.

Apparently Major Assefa Lemma, his deputy Ato

Teshome Gebre Mariam and his friend Bitwoded Asfaha
initially nominated Ambassador to Germany had all proposed
my name to Ato Ketema. As destiny would have it, shortly
thereafter, Bitwoded Asfaha was appointed Crown
Counsellor and remained in Addis Ababa, close to the
Emperor. Instead, Major Assefa Lemma was appointed
Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany for a second
tour of duty.

I was soon dispatched to Bonn to take up my new post. I

arrived there in November 1969 as Willy Brandt’s Social
Democratic Party took power after winning the parliamentary
elections that fall. They replaced the Christian Democrats
who had reigned since the founding of the Federal Republic.
Dr. Eguale, by then elevated to the rank of a Counsellor of
the Ethiopian Embassy, knew me very well as a student and
gave me a good start in my new diplomatic life. A few
months later, Ambassador Assefa returned to Bonn and
assumed his responsibilities.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 80

His wife, Woizero Senedu Gebru, who was by her own

right already a prominent public figure in Ethiopia, was
subsequently named Educational Attaché for all of Europe,
based in Bonn. After liberation from Italian occupation and
her return from the Italian prison island of Azinara, Woizero
Senedu had served first as Director of Empress Mennen
Girls’ School in the capital and later as the first woman Vice-
President the Ethiopian parliament.

In 2006 Woizero Senedu Gebru, at the advanced age of

ninety, was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws, Honoris
Causa, by Addis Ababa University, the leading academic
institution in the Country. Dr. Senedu became the first
woman public figure to be honoured with such an award.

Major Assefa had left army service in the early fifties to

take up various civil service assignments and also head the
Liaison Office at Sinclair Company that was prospecting for
oil in the Ogaden region. His first diplomatic appointment
was as Ethiopia’s Consul General in Aden, then a British
colony. He was self-taught, admired and liked for his open-
mindedness, the warmth of his heart, his considerate and
disarmingly humane nature and his constant effort at helping
younger technocrats to become good professional diplomats.

Ambassador Assefa’s youngest son, Samuel, who

considered his father as role model, was appointed on merit in
2005 as Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Washington, which was
considered in Ethiopian circles as the most demanding
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 81

assignment for any Ethiopian diplomat. He had already

served as Vice-President of Addis Ababa University.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Samuel earned a bachelor’s

degree in philosophy and economics from Swarthmore
College in Pennsylvania. After earning his doctorate in
political science at Princeton University, he taught at
Williams College and Rutgers University and later at Addis
Ababa University.

Ambassador Assefa lived in exile in Bonn until he died of

cancer in 1988. He would have been very proud of his son
and his other disciples had he lived to see their success. In the
course of my duties in Bonn, I learnt a lot from both
Ambassador Assefa and his illustrious wife Woizero Senedu
Gebru.

A year before I left for my new posting in Bonn, in the

summer of 1968, I had met a very shy and lovely girl,
Woineshet Kebede, daughter of Colonel Kebede Wagaye, the
army officer who convinced General Assefa Ayene to join the
loyalists during the 1960 coup attempt.

Woineshet and I then began to date steadily while she was

still in her senior class at the Bible Academy in Nazareth and
our relationship grew closer until we both believed it was the
right time to marry.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 82

Eventually Woineshet and I made our courtship official

and her younger brothers Yoseph, Binyam and Daniel joined
us in the conspiracy to let her entire family know about our
intention to marry on June 19, 1969; a well-kept secret until
then. Her father had by then reached the rank of Brigadier-
General and was deputy to the Force Commander of the
Imperial Guard.

We both felt we could not simply elope and run away to

Bonn. So, as tradition dictated, I had to send elders to
convince the Brigadier to give me his daughter’s hand.
Bitwoded Asfaha and Major Assefa came to my rescue.
When I revealed to them my intention, they were delighted to
help me out and went to General Kebede and politely
informed him that his daughter and I had already agreed to
marry.

Bitwoded Asfaha and Ambassador Assefa sought the

Brigadier’s gracious approval for our marriage to take place
soon. They told him who I was and perhaps ascribed to me
some good virtues that I was not aware of. He was happy to
approve.

A signing ceremony at the Addis Ababa City Hall took

place with Bitwoded Asfaha and Major Assefa on my side
and Generals Debebe Haile Mariam and Dresse Dubale, both
close friends of Brigadier Kebede, on the bride’s side
standing in as fathers of the bride and groom.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 83

A quick reception was given at the then brand new Wabe

Shebelle Hotel followed by another one at my residence
where Captain Getachew, Hirut Befeqadu, young Hiruy
Amanuel, together with my Radio Voice of the Gospel
colleagues Negussie Mengesha, Teshome Teklu, Zewdu
Tadesse, Yohannes Irena and Fitsum Berhan Tedla were in
attendance.

Woineshet and I then flew off to Bonn to start a new life.

She has remained my support in good and bad times, and in
all the years of marriage since 1969, we have considered
ourselves as a lucky couple. Together we have brought to the
world three wonderful sons, Marcos, Henok and Ashenafi.

After I took up my new assignment in Bonn, I continued

with my distant education, this time a Law degree course
from La Salle Extension University in Chicago Illinois,
which I successfully completed in 1972. Tesfaye Tadesse
Gebre Heywot had by then completed his studies in the
United States.

During that same year, Tesfaye came for an extended visit

to Europe before heading back home. We felt that that his
visit to Germany was too short but kept regular contact after
he joined the Development Bank of Ethiopia as Public Affairs
Officer and later on moved to Addis Ababa Cement Factory
as Chief Executive Officer.

Our first son, Marcos Teferra was born on the sunny day
of August 6, 1970 in a private clinic on the banks of the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 84

Rhein River at Bad Godesberg. Woizero Senedu ensured that

Woineshet was comfortable after she left the maternity ward.
As he grew up, Marcos became the favourite baby with the
small Ethiopian community in Bonn.

Ambassador Assefa Lemma, Woizero Senedu, their sons

Samuel and Daniel, their daughters Gohalem and Meskerem
and Dr. Eguale and his successor, another seasoned
intellectual Girma Alemu, a graduate of Indiana University,
all loved and cared for Marcos.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 85

CHAPTER SEVEN

Munich Olympics – Fighting Racism

My duties in Bonn were not limited only to press work. I

was assigned to serve as the Ambassador’s official
interpreter, political analyst and Olympic attaché for the
games that were to take place in Munich in 1972. My contact
with Ato Yidneqachew Tesemma, who kindly gave me the
opportunity to serve in the promotion of Ethiopian Olympic
efforts, intensified henceforth and we remained close friends
until his death 1989. Among his ten children, his daughter
Tamirnesh and his son Tadele remained my very close
friends.

During the Munich Games, apart from the quest for

medals, the African struggle for the elimination of racism
from sports was intense. Commissioner Yidneqachew,
supported by the indefatigable Ambassador Assefa Lemma
led a fierce campaign at Munich. He fought hard, assisted by
a Congolese lawyer Kamanda WA Kamanda who was sent by
the OAU to intensify the effort. I served as media
coordinator.

Ato Yidneqachew and I filled the pages of the local

tabloids and other media with interviews we readily gave in
which we made no secret of our threats to mobilize the total
boycott of the games by all African and African American
athletes, unless the all-white team from the breakaway
Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith was banned from Munich.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 86

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Ato Yidneqachew and the

brilliant behind-the-scenes work of Fiqru Kidane, then
consultant to the Olympic Committee, we succeeded in
keeping white minority-ruled Rhodesia out. Once we won our
battle, a flood of hate mail from racist and right wing circles
in Germany was circulated but this did not bother us.

Yidneqachew Tessema’s steadfast struggle against

apartheid and racism was characterised by the stand he took
when the apartheid regime wanted to lo lure him to visit
South Africa during the early seventies. They claimed his
visit would enable him to see for himself blacks and whites
playing in the same teams. He responded that racial
discrimination in sports could only be fully achieved only
when racial discrimination and apartheid were completely
eradicated from all other activities in that country. In fact he
was instrumental in the exclusion of South Africa from the
Mexico Olympics four years earlier.

As a disciple of Yidneqachew, Fiqru Kidane later served

as senior public relations officer of the International Olympic
Committee Secretariat in Lausanne. He was also Secretary
General of “Olympic Truce”, a Task Force organized under
UN auspices to coordinate ceasefire arrangements in conflict
regions for the duration of Olympic events.

In Munich, despite the tragic killings of Israeli athletes by

a Palestinian terrorist group and the ensuing confusion that
was created in the Olympic village during the games, the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 87

programmes commenced as scheduled, shortly after that

fateful night in 1972.

On the athletics front, the hero of the Mexico Olympics

marathon, Mamo Wolde, watched by his role model, double
marathon hero Abebe Biqila from the Honour Tribune of the
Stadium had managed only a bronze medal. The great
sportsman that he was, he took his third place gracefully.

Another young Ethiopian runner, Miruts Yiftter, also took

the bronze in the 10,000m and did not compete in his 5000m
specialties, largely due to the confusion with his team
coaches who had evidently arrived late to guide him to the
tracks. By the time they took him to the race marshals, the
race had already started. Solomon Tesemma and I jumped
from the podium where we were sitting to see if we could
find Miruts. The coaches, Negussie Roba and Wolde Mesqel
Qostre had preceded us and their belated effort was in vain.

When Miruts returned to Ethiopia after the Games, some

angry local officials accused him of deliberately failing to
compete and had him placed in temporary confinement.
Miruts spent some time away from public view instead of
receiving plaudits for his medal.

Undeterred, Miruts continued training and his great

moment came during the Olympics Games in Moscow in
1980. With the world watching on, he finally delivered the
ultimate tactical blow that stunned his challengers. His tactics
gave him the nickname “Yiftter the Shifter” after he
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 88

accelerated the pace with 300m remaining - a trademark of

that legendary athlete later on emulated by fine athletes such
as Haile Gebre Selassie, Derartu Tulu, Kenenissa Bekele,
Berhane Adere, Messeret Defar, Ttirunesh Dibaba, Gette
Wami, Sileshi Sihine and others who succeeded him. In the
years that followed, Dr. Wolde Mesqel proved to be a great
trainer. His efforts were crowned with repeated successes.

For me and for my family, the Munich games provided us

with the opportunity to meet legendry film stars we had
always admired like Sidney Poitier and Gina Lolobrigida who
were guests of honour. I was very happy to part with my
Ethiopian flag pin of the National Olympic Committee when
Sydney asked for it. I could not find a better advertiser for the
Ethiopian Olympic Team.

A year after the Munich Olympics in the summer of 1973,

Emperor Haile Selassie arrived in Stuttgart for his last visit to
Germany. He was accorded a warm welcome befitting an old
friend of Germany and Emperor of an ancient land.

Although reports were circulating about the famine in

Wello, the issue was not raised at any of the Emperor’s
meetings with President Heinemann, Foreign Minister Walter
Scheel and other German officials. On his return to Addis, he
was gracious to give us a place in his aircraft for a trip for our
annual vacation in Ethiopia. Since he loved little children, he
took our son, Marcos on his lap and spent some good
moments with him during the flight.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 89

During that flight, the pilot must have erroneously touched

some stress signal button that relayed the wrong message to
ground control towers in Europe, and BBC was quick to
report wrongly that the Emperor’s plane was hijacked. As we
arrived in Addis, an apprehensive crowd awaited us and we
heard the details in amazement only after settling in our
homes. Naraian Eswaran, a quick-witted Indian-born assistant
to Dr. Menassie later mocked the BBC with a popular
Ethiopian saying: “A Hyena in a hurry bites at the horn of its
prey”. It sounded good when he said it with his Indian accent.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 90
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 91

CHAPTER EIGHT

My Observations on Libya

In 1973, as preparations were underway for the annual

tenth summit of Heads of State of the OAU, I had to interrupt
my vacation and return to my post in Bonn since an important
task awaited me. Ambassador Assefa had got hold of a
document from the German Foreign Ministry outlining
Libyan strategy for a campaign to move the OAU
headquarters out of Addis Ababa, the capital of a feudal
Empire that the new revolutionary leaders of Libya felt did
not deserve the honor of becoming Africa's political capital.
We had to alert our government and suggest ways of
thwarting the Libyan design.

Historically, the two countries shared common centuries

old culture and indeed the same form of Italian Fascist
oppression. Both peoples had tested the wrath of Marshal
Grazziani. While in Ethiopia Ras Abebe Aregay was waging
stiff resistance against Italian occupation, the Libyans too had
their great hero in the person of the legendary fighter, Omar
Mukhtar.

The new Libyan revolutionary leaders, however, seemed

obsessed with opposing any institution that enhanced the
stature of the Imperial regime in Ethiopia. Egypt’s revolution
of 1952, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser that ousted King Faruq
had already inspired many young revolutionaries in the Arab
World. It was therefore not difficult to see why the young
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 92

Libyan revolutionaries targeted Imperial Ethiopia given the

geopolitical game of the Arab World at the time.

Ambassador Assefa instructed me to translate into

Amharic the document that related to Libyan strategy and
carry it over to the Emperor and explain the details if need be.
With the documents ready, I soon headed back to Addis
aboard a German Luftwaffe (air force) plane that transported
police technical assistance to Ethiopia on a regular basis.

On arrival, I was rushed to the Jubilee Palace in a police

General’s limousine and I had a one-on-one meeting with the
Emperor. He had already taken his habitual afternoon nap and
was alert when I was ushered into his office. Upon hearing
the content of the report that I literally recited from memory,
he said: “Leave them, they cannot exceed their limit”. That
was his way of telling us that he knew how to handle the
situation. After briefing him on our work in Bonn, I bowed
and left his office. Since I was due back the next day, I was
told by the Aide-de-Camp to return to the palace the next
morning and take leave of His Majesty.

The following day, at about mid-day, I was ushered this

time into the Grand Palace Throne Room and met the
Emperor, who was flanked by Prime Minister Aklilu Habte
Wold and Ato Yilma Deressa, Minister for Finance. He said
“INDIET SENEBETKH” (How are you?) He seemed to
have forgotten that he had met me the previous day. He
repeated the previous day’s questions as to how Assefa was
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 93

doing and so on. He asked some questions unrelated to my

mission, which I politely responded to.

The Emperor was visibly exhausted. He must have gone

through a heavy schedule since the morning at the CHILOT,
the imperial Supreme Court since he looked very tired. After
all, he was eight-two years of age then. After the encounter, I
bowed and left. Upon my return to Bonn, I related my
observation regarding the Emperor’s condition to the
Ambassador. He was pensive for some time. ”You know," he
said, “His Majesty was always alert, he had the sharpest
memory. If age is getting the better of him, I think it is the
beginning of the end for the Imperial Order.”

When the African summit started soon afterwards, the

Emperor seemed to be back in good form. Under His
Majesty’s guidance, Prime Minister Aklilu, charismatic
Foreign Minister Dr. Menassie Haile and the other seasoned
diplomats of the Crown managed to avert an attempt by the
Libyan delegation to relocate the OAU Headquarters.

A decade later, Libyan diplomats, led by Dr. Ali Triki,

the Africa Expert in the Libyan government, tried their luck
again at the nineteenth Summit of the OAU during President
Mengistu’s regime. That attempt too failed when Foreign
Minister Goshu Wolde and his team of able diplomats
provided the better argument and galvanized support for
Addis Ababa.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 94

At successive summits of the African Union, other

attempts at re-locating the OAU/AU Head Quarters to Sirte in
Libya always ended unsuccessfully, thanks largely to the
solid argument provided by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi
and Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin. Besides Libya, other
countries such as Senegal, considered by many as Libyan
surrogates who clearly envied the expanding potentials of
conference tourism for the Ethiopian capital, continued
unabated in their attempt to dilute Addis Ababa’s importance.
Neither Senegalese nor any other delegates could match the
articulate reasoning of Prime Minister Meles in favour of
retaining the seat of the Continental Organization in the
Ethiopian capital.

The ongoing haggle over the seat of the African Union

was paradoxical considering the historical closeness of
Ethiopia and Libya that was particularly manifested during a
great flood that hit Libya during the years after the latter’s
independence in 1951 during King Idris’ reign when Ethiopia
sent substantial assistance to Libya.

Two decades later after the fall of the Imperial regime in

Ethiopia, The Guide, Leader of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,
Muamer Ghaddafi showed positive disposition towards
Ethiopia and provided significant military and humanitarian
assistance to Mengistu Haile Mariam’s regime that was left
cash-strapped in the wake of Ethiopia’s break with the West.

At the height of the “Red Star” all-round economic

reconstruction and military mopping up campaign conducted
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 95

in Eritrea by President Mengistu in collaboration with Soviet

and East German assistance, Libyan logistics support towards
the war efforts was evident. In 1982, a number of Libyan
pilots and technical staff perished when their C-130 Hercules
military transport plane crashed minutes after take-off from
Addis Ababa. Libya also provided support through Ethiopia
to John Garang’s Southern Sudan rebel movement.

When Siad Barre switched his allegiance from Moscow to

Washington, Libya was instrumental in the dismantling of the
expansionist regime in Somalia through provision of tangible
support to various armed groups based in Ethiopia, notable
among which was the Somali Salvation Democratic Front
(SSDF) led by Abdulahi Yousuf, who in 2005 became
President of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia
that subsequently got wider recognition from the International
Community.

My First encounter with the Libyan Leader was in

Colombo in August 1976 at the summit of the non-aligned
movement. Foreign Minister Kifle Wodajo had assigned me
to follow up on Libyan politics and I took keen interest and
had the chance to observe the actions of the Libyan leader at
successive African summits he attended almost without fail.

Muamer Ghaddafi has been consistent in his desire to

promote the cause of the “United States of Africa”. He
progressively displayed his turn-around from Arab
nationalism of the Nasserite days to the fervent advocacy of
Kwame Nkrumah's dream of Union Government for Africa.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 96

However, the Libyan campaign to attain the goal of the

United States of Africa, often promoted with Arabic / Islamic
flavour did not attract many followers.

The Libyan Leader’s frustration with the slow pace

towards the attainment of this goal was clearly manifested
when he was the notable absentee at the African Union
Summit in Arusha in May 2008 that met to discuss precisely
the issue of Union Government for Africa. Senegal was again
among the minority that argued for fast tracking towards a
union government while leaders like Ethiopia’s Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi and South African President Thabo
Mbeki chose a step- by-step approach.

In September 1969 when young army officers led by

Colonel Ghaddafi took power in a bloodless coup, they were
all revolutionaries who had in mind the regaining of control
of the headquarters of the two US military bases that had
been established in Libya during the Monarchy, the Wheeluss
and Adams Air Bases. Wheeluss Air Base was subsequently
re-named Mitiga Airbase after a little girl who was killed by
US pilots that were on a target shooting practice near the
base. Adams Airbase now bears the name of Gamal Abdel
Nasser, Ghaddafi’s role model who had shown the way with
the nationalization of the Suez Canal in the early days of the
Egyptian revolution.

The most significant milestones in Libya's history were

the Islamization and the Arabization of the country that has
been going on since the Middle Ages. Following
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 97

independence in 1951 and the subsequent discovery of large

reserves of oil, the September 1969 Revolution ushered in a
new era for the people of Libya. It was a country where
regional divisions based on tribal lines were dominant.

The new revolutionary regime made the first real attempt

to unify Libya's diverse peoples and create a distinct Libyan
state and identity. It created new political structures and made
a determined effort at accelerated economic development
financed by oil revenues. Libyan leaders lead a relatively
modest life and have avoided the opulence that is excessively
apparent with other Middle Eastern leaders from oil rich
sheikdoms. In fact, the Leader prefers his tent to a gilded
presidential palace.

To the delight of Italian, German and South Korean

contractors, Libya has invested heavily in the expansion of
modern infrastructure, education and health facilities.
However, managing the already completed structures remains
a formidable challenge as Libya still lacks adequate numbers
of skilled managers. The competition for Libyan contracts has
always been fierce among western companies.

When it came to longevity in office, Muamer Ghaddafi’s

survival in power was possible largely due to his quick sense
of adjusting politically and his flexibility to accommodate
western interests that clearly understood were focusing on
Libya’s strategic vast oil reserves. He masterfully
manipulated and responded to their ever-increasing appetite
for oil on a mutually beneficial basis. Unlike in many other
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 98

African and Arab countries, though there were still some in

the West that questioned Libyan human rights records,
erstwhile members of the regime who had been dismissed
from power were known to live and work in their own
country as free citizens.

Externally, the support Libya provided to several African

countries took the form among others of the largest mosque
in Africa, The Ghaddafi Mosque in Kampala, Uganda. Libya
also gave cash handouts to a number of African leaders who
failed to meet their arrears of their assessed contributions to
the continental Organization. In early seventies, Muamer
Ghaddafi had provided millions of dollars to then Central
African dictator Jean Bedel Bokassa when the latter declared
he was converting to Islam under the name of Salehedin.
After pocketing the money, Bokassa reverted to Christianity.

Hand in hand with its involvement in peace efforts in the

Central African Republic, Congo, Comoros and Uganda,
Libya was also a key player in the creation in the eighties of a
short-lived strategic alliance, a tripartite pact with South
Yemen and Ethiopia aimed at creating a united front of
countries that the Socialist Camp considered at the time as
truly progressive in the Middle East.

Muamer Ghaddafi always proclaimed he was not anti-

Israeli. However his peers did not take seriously the bold
suggestion in his “White Book” the creation of “ISRATIN” –
an amalgamation of Israel and Palestine, which, he said,
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 99

would enhance harmonious existence between the Jews and

Palestinians as one people.

Following the explosion of the PANAM 103 flight over

the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988 that
killed two hundred and seventy people, a Scottish court had
established that Libyan agents were responsible for planting
the explosive in the aircraft. The Reagan Administration
bombed Ghaddafi’s Tripoli residence in retaliation. The
country’s ostracism from the mainstream of world politics
and the imposition of international sanctions soon followed.

During the Cold War era, Libya’s support for rebels in

any part of the world that called themselves “revolutionary
forces” - including Eritrean separatist rebels and the Irish
Republican Army - did not augur well for the country’s
relations with western governments. Successive British
governments, from Margaret Thatcher’s to Tony Blair’s have
been vocal in calling for and succeeded in mobilising the
majority of the UN members to impose sanctions against the
Libyan regime. However, a number of European countries
overlooked the sanctions and remained major trading partners
of Libya.

In the years that followed the invasion of Iraq by the

“Coalition of the Willing” in 2003 and, in what was
considered by observers as a lesson drawn from what
happened to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Libya’s declared
decision to abandon a budding its nuclear power development
and its offer to compensate the families of victims of the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 100

Lockerbie PANAM 103 air disaster were deemed as steps in

the right direction.

Following Libya’s progressively positive approach in its

relations with former adversaries, international sanctions that
had crippled its trade and diplomatic relations for a long time
were lifted in the new millennium and normal relations
resumed. The United States removed Libya from the list of
state sponsors of terrorism. Tripoli’s seemingly cosy relations
with states that are not so favoured by the West have posed
challenges for diplomats engaged in the normalization and
intensification of better relations with Libya. Non-the less,
under Muamer Gaddafi’s leadership, Libya has definitely
stamped its mark on world politics.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 101

CHAPTER NINE

Diplomacy at the Service of Humanitarianism

Ethiopia has had an unfortunate history of cyclical drought

that every time it occurred affected a significant numbers of
people, rendering them food insecure. Agricultural
production traditionally depended overwhelmingly on
rainfall. In addition, the population has been growing at a
faster rate than that of food production. Although the
immediate cause is weather, there have been persistent
problems related to factors like governance and land
ownership systems.

Thus, in early 1973, when severe drought hit the north

central provinces of Ethiopia, Wello in particular, news of the
plight of the people began to filter through to the outside
world. The exodus into Addis Ababa of drought victims was
increasing every day. Concerned university staff and students
went to the province and upon their return began reporting on
the catastrophic situation that was unfolding in that part of
Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, the Viceroy of Wello, Crown Prince Asfa

Wossen had suffered a stroke and was taken to London for
treatment. The ENDERASIE - Special Representative of the
Emperor, Dejazmatch Solomon Abraha, who is an uncle to
Isaias Afeworqi, could not manage the situation without
massive national and international assistance.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 102

The news of the calamity in the province began to spread

in the University, colleges, high schools and military
barracks. The Emperor had visited the area that same year,
but as a cover up His Majesty was shown only well-fed
children and had not been made aware of the severity of the
situation by officials who habitually brought only good
tidings to his royal ears.

Nonetheless, the Minister for Agriculture, the former

President of the Haile Selassie University, Kassa Wolde
Mariam who later became my prison mate at the Grand
Palace cellars, was in constant touch with Ambassador Assefa
Lemma to mobilise as much German assistance as possible.
We did not comprehend the gravity of the drought until we
saw a BBC documentary film prepared by the famous
journalist cum writer Jonathan Dimbelby.

I later learnt that student leaders Abdul Mejid Husain and

Berhane Mesqel Redda and university academic staff
including Dr. Eshetu Chole as well as other progressive and
compassionate technocrats had facilitated Dimbelby’s filming
in Wello without the knowledge of the higher authorities in
Addis Ababa and Dessie, the provincial capital. The message
reached the world loud and clear.

Ambassador Assefa, Girma Alemu and the rest of us in

the Embassy could not control our emotions at seeing the
heart-wrenching pictures on German TV. The Ambassador
had already approached Interior Minister, Hans Dietrich
Genscher, Foreign Minister Walter Scheel, and former
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 103

German Ambassador to Ethiopia Dr. Kurt Muller then

serving as Senior Advisor in the Foreign Ministry, to help in
our frantic efforts to save lives in Wello.

Soon the Germans dispatched regularly a Trans-All

military aircraft packed with food and other assistance to
Ethiopia. Ambassador Assefa spent quite some time in Addis
to help coordinate the German humanitarian effort. The
British, the Americans and the Scandinavians also provided
humanitarian relief.

Following Dimbelby’s BBC documentary, Henry Nannen,

Publisher of the German Magazine, Stern, started a wider
campaign that reinforced and accelerated drought relief
assistance mobilization in Europe and America.

Despite the efforts made on all fronts, the initial response

was not enough to avert the worsening situation. Blame was
expectedly ascribed to the Imperial regime for delayed
response in the face of such massive starvation. Churches,
humanitarian agencies and individuals of goodwill the world
over, including King Faisal of Saudi Arabia donated
substantial amount of money.

The outpouring of international assistance needed an

efficient coordination mechanism and Ato Shimelis Adugna
was named relief and rehabilitation Commissioner to take
charge of the drive to mobilize further assistance and ensure
that such assistance was utilized properly where it was most
needed.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 104

Besides Ambassador Assefa and his staff in Bonn, other

Ethiopian diplomats in Washington, New York, Stockholm,
Paris, Rome and London were actively involved in this effort.
General Eyassu, the Ambassador to the Court of St. James
and his staff were also active in sensitizing British public
opinion. They succeed in whipping significant humanitarian
assistance from the British government and public.

For us in Bonn and other Ethiopian missions, the priority

was to get as much aid as possible and help save lives. We
could not defend an Imperial regime we knew was getting
weaker by the day and was already starting to crack under
increasing pressure from students and disgruntled soldiers.

After the overthrow of the Emperor in 1974 Ambassador

Assefa stayed in Bonn as a political exile. He longed to go
back to his native land but died of cancer of the liver one year
before the fall of the Derg.

Ambassador Assefa Lemma’s death was a big blow to his

wife Woizero Senedu and members of the family and indeed
all those who knew him as a kind friend and dedicated
servant of his country. The family did all they could to
prolong his life before he succumbed to the inevitable.

Back in December 1973, Dr. Menassie, who had moved

from Information to the Foreign Ministry assigned me to
Khartoum where I took over as Charge d’ Affairs.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 105

Ambassador Dawit Abdou, a witty elderly technocrat was

preparing to go into retirement.

Ambassador Dawit and his wife, Woizero Tsehay,

received me in Khartoum and provided generous hospitality.
The Ambassador had in-depth knowledge of Sudanese history
and culture and was a well-connected man. He was on his
second tour of duty to the Sudanese capital.

As a career diplomat, Ato Dawit Abdou kept himself

educated and other than his native Amharic and Oromiffa
spoke classical and modern Arabic, Russian and French. He
was on the best of terms with most Sudanese officials to the
extent that they considered him as one of their own.

Before Ambassador Dawit left Khartoum, he opened

many doors that helped me in dealing with the Jafar
Nimeiry’s regime. We forged closer contacts and excellent
working relationship with Dr. Mansour Khalid the Foreign
Minister, his successors, Jamal Mohamed Ahmed and
Mohammed Mirghani.

Ethiopia’s interests in the Sudan remained vital regardless

of the regime in Addis or Khartoum. The close relationships
between the two peoples had evolved over several years and
were reinforced by the Great Mahdi, his son Prime Minister
Sadiq El Mahdi, Presidents Abdalla Khallil, General Ibrahim
Aboud, and Emperor Haile Selassie had to be maintained. It
was a welcome challenge.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 106
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 107

CHAPTER TEN

Assignment in Khartoum, Onset of Revolution

To Ethiopian diplomats, save for the desert climate, there

is no better place in the world to serve than in Khartoum. The
city is like home away from home. The Sudanese are among
the most generous people I have ever known. They have
always been welcoming towards Ethiopians. Their facial
features, music and culture are very similar to ours and
despite the Arabic language that separated the two sister
countries; the Sudanese remain attached to Ethiopia and
Ethiopians.

I arrived in Khartoum in the early morning of December,

31, 1973 to be greeted by a temperature of above forty
degrees centigrade; a stark contrast with the freezing cold
climate I left behind in Germany. My family joined me later
after I had settled.

I was met at the airport by Girma Mengistu, a former

navigation officer with the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force, who
after re-training joined Ethiopian Airlines and was working in
Khartoum as station manager. Our chemistry blended and
since then, Girma has remained a very good family friend.
After a brief interlude at Poona University in India where he
studied air transport management, Girma returned as senior
staff of the airline and we spent the next six years that
followed together in Ethiopia and Europe. He and his wife
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 108

Yodit now run a successful cargo transportation business in

Dubai.

At the Embassy in Khartoum which is located not far from

former President Ibrahim Aboud’s home in the New
Extension area, Ambassador Dawit Abdou warmly welcomed
me and we went into the business of briefing and debriefing
each other. He left Khartoum after a few weeks.

Back home, as the situation in Wello continued to

deteriorate, a fundamental change in the relatively tranquil
life of all Ethiopians was only two months away. Revolution
was in the air.

On the sunny day of February 21, 1974, following a petrol

price hike, taxi drivers in Addis Ababa began a strike. Army
units in the capital and in the provinces, particularly in the
southern garrison town of Negelli had already begun to put
forward demands for salary increases. Soon, strikes were
spreading like bushfire in all areas of public life. The Imperial
regime, unable to handle the Wello situation and control its
soldiers was facing mounting anarchy.

Despite efforts at a peaceful dialogue by Prime Minister

Aklilu Habte Wold, university students were emboldened to
continue with their almost daily protests with increasing
demands for radical land tenure reform. Under mounting
pressure, Prime Minister Aklilu Habte Wold tendered his
resignation to the Emperor and Lij Endalkachew Mekonnen
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 109

was appointed to form a new cabinet. This was

unprecedented the history of the country.

As the new cabinet, composed of mostly members of the

entrenched ruling class and senior army generals took office,
those who missed out and had served in the last cabinet spent
most of their time at the Imperial Palace. The new Cabinet
included members of the former regime, notably, former Air
Force Commander Gen. Assefa Ayene as Aviation Minister
and President of the Senate and Gen. Abiy Abebe as Defence
Minister.

This did not dampen the restlessness of the lower ranks of

the armed forces and when the Ground Forces Commander
Gen. Dresse Dubale was sent to negotiate with dissident
officers in Negelli, he was detained and held captive. The
public and members of the Armed Forces in particular, now
understood the regime was not as invincible as they had
previously perceived it to be.

The peoples’ anger grew by the day when they saw it was
the same ruling class that continued to serve as the pillar for
prolonging the life of the feudal regime. Endalkachew, who
came from the ruling class and had good intentions, was
unable to use the historic opportunity to radically change the
system of government.

The rebellion spread to every barrack and unit of the

armed forces and police. Strikes were rampant and
Endalkachew, who was trying to take full control by
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 110

immobilizing what he thought was a parallel cabinet still

nestling in the Palace, could not handle the situation. Armed
Forces committees mushroomed everywhere and senior
officers were being detained every day. Radio Ethiopia and
all other government media also felt liberated and reported
the events as they unfolded.

In early March, my father-in-law who was already a

Senator was returning to Addis after tending his farm in
Shashemane when he was stopped on the way by rebel Air
Force non- commissioned officers in Debrezeit and
interrogated for a whole night after mistaking him for the
other General Kebede, the former Defence Minister.

As Senator Kebede Wagaye was leaving their compound

following the interrogation, the guard at the gate who
obviously did not get the order in good time to let the Senator
out, simply showered his car with bullets. Luckily, Senator
Kebede only sustained slight injuries and drove straight to the
Body Guard hospital in Addis to have his wounds dressed.
When he informed me of this incident, we both concluded
that anarchy had taken over in the Army and the days of the
Imperial order were numbered.

Meanwhile, the challenges that confronted Lij

Endalkachew were becoming enormous. University students
and intellectuals who included my friend Tesfaye Tadesse
Gebre Heywot continued to press for radical land tenure
reform if Ethiopia was to be self-sufficient in food
production. They argued that a change of cabinet in itself
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 111

would not solve the age-old problem of land reforms they had
for years been advocating. Instead they advocated for a new
order that would usher in Socialism. They did not foresee that
the “Socialist” regime that imposed itself on the country after
Endalkachew would be one they had not really bargained for.

Later in mid-June, Major Atnafu Abate, a graduate of

Haile Selassie University was serving in the Fourth Army
Division when he set up an Armed Forces Coordinating
Committee. This Committee came after an earlier one formed
by Col. Alem Zewd of the Paratroops Regiment who was
thought to be too close to Endalkachew.

The new committee, initially headed by Maj. Atnafu,

Abate reconstituted itself and chose as its new Chairman Maj.
Mengistu Haile Mariam, an articulate US-trained logistics
officer who was delegated by the Harar-based Third Army
Division. Maj. Mengistu travelled hastily from Harar to join
the committee. In Harar, he was already leading dissident
soldiers and had detained his senior commanders who
included a well-known strategist, Gen. Haile Baikedagn. The
Coordinating Committee immediately assumed the infamous
name, DERG. From the start, the signs were obvious to
anyone who bothered to see that Major Mengistu called the
shots. According to him, his own interests were Ethiopia’s
and in the course of the revolution, his colleagues who
refused to regard him in this light paid a heavy price.

Representatives from various armed forces divisions -

about one hundred and twenty Derg members - at first
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 112

tactfully declared their loyalty to the Imperial Crown. In the

meantime, the Commission of Inquiry set up by Prime
Minister Endalkachew to look into abuses by past officials
was in full swing.

For the first time in the country’s history, powerful

personalities had to answer publicly before a commission on
alleged abuses and their past activities as officials. Some of
the questions posed by certain members of the commission
like former Attorney General and Ethiopia’s representative to
the World Bank, Dr. Bereket-Ab Habte Selassie, were
thought by many to be vindictive and clearly designed to
incite ferocious public anger against former officials.
Nevertheless, most hoped and expected that after the rigorous
enquiries, the law would take its own course.

Meanwhile, the Derg continued with the arrests and

detentions at the Fourth Army Division Headquarters of past
officials, starting with Lij Endalkachew himself. Ras Mesfin
Sileshi, a famous patriot and confidant of the Emperor as well
as other notable absentees were asked to give themselves in at
the command headquarters in good time or have their vast
properties expropriated. All of them with the exception of
Dejazmatch Tshayu Enquo Selassie complied. The latter died
in a shoot out with agents of the Derg.

The Derg it was claimed carried out all this with the
consent of the aging and helpless Emperor who hoped to
prolong his hold on the throne with a new set of younger and
more powerful aides. He also agreed to the Derg’s proposal to
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 113

name Lij Michael Emru, son of the famous Ras Emru, as the
new Prime Minister with the charismatic Gen. Aman Michael
Andom as Chief of Staff and Defence Minister.

Maj. Gen. Aman, a senior officer of Eritrean origin who

was trained by the British while in exile in the Sudan during
the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, was serving as Senator
when the Derg called him back to lead the Armed Forces. He
was chosen for the task purely on the strength of his past
record as exemplary commander during the Korean War in
1950s and the 1956 war with Somalia.

Gen. Aman soon became a star and the front person of the
Derg and toured government offices and army barracks to
explain the purpose behind the Derg’s Motto of "Ethiopia
Tiqdem” (Putting Ethiopia First). The rest of the Derg’s
membership remained nameless and faceless for a long time -
unknown to a large segment of the public.

As the number of former officials still at large dwindled

from day to day, various institutions that sustained the regime
like the Crown Council and the Imperial Ministry of Pen
were closed one by one. The Derg flexed its new muscle
more and more. The creeping coup was approaching its
climax.

On the eve of the Ethiopian New Year, the eleventh day of

September, the Derg effectively used the media to broadcast
films and a long program narrating the horrors inflicted on
the people of Ethiopia by cyclical drought and the regime’s
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 114

callous neglect as demonstrated by the behaviour of what

were labelled as self-serving officials of the Imperial
government. The stage was set to dethrone the Emperor.
Dimbelby’s documentary film came in handy for the purpose.

On September 12, 1974, I woke up from my bed in

Khartoum when my wife tuned in to Radio Ethiopia that was
broadcasting martial music and a special announcement:
“Emperor Haile Selassie the First has been deposed!” This
was followed by a series of announcements regarding the
policy of the new Provisional Military Administrative
Council headed by the Derg as a collegiate Head of State.
Gen. Aman, besides his current portfolio was declared
Chairman of the Provisional Military Administrative Council.

The new cabinet under Gen. Aman included Lij Michael

Emru, the outgoing Prime Minister as Information Minister.
Dejazmatch Zewde Gebre Selassie, an Oxford-trained
intellectual and relative of the Emperor was named Foreign
Minister. The rest of the cabinet was more or less civilian.
The Derg had decided to use professional technocrats for the
day-to-day running of the State’s affairs.

The United States, Britain and other major governments

were quick to accord recognition to the new Ethiopian
regime. The Sudanese were particularly pleased as General
Aman grew up and lived in Khartoum when Ethiopia was
under Italian occupation. He spoke Arabic like the Sudanese
and they believed this would ease interaction with the new
regime. But history was to take a different course.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 115

Gen. Aman wanted to visit Sudan immediately after his

propulsion to the helm of State but the internal problems
within the Derg and a multitude of other tasks prevented him
from doing so. Instead, in mid October 1974, one month after
the Derg assumed power, a delegation headed by Maj. Atnafu
Abate visited the Sudan.

From my sources in Addis Ababa, I had been informed

that Maj. Atnafu was in fact Number Two in the Derg
hierarchy after Maj. Mengistu. I ensured he was received at
the airport by no lesser personality than Maj. Abulqassim,
Gen. Nimiery’s deputy. There was a large turn out of
Sudanese officials at the airport to meet a leading member of
the Derg, hitherto a faceless entity.

As Maj. Atnafu and I were driving together in the official

Embassy limousine complete with the pennant and motor
escort, young school children on mid-day break greeted us in
large numbers from the roadside with the waving of their
hands. This gave Atnafu a fix. He waved back
enthusiastically, turned to me and said: “I did not know it was
so simple.” I asked, “What?”

He responded by telling me that he always tuned into the

radio every time the Emperor was on a visit abroad and heard
about the warm reception he received from the people on the
streets. “It was so simple!” These words sent a cold chill
down my spine since I began to suspect that the military,
having tasted power, protocol and glory, might never go back
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 116

to the barracks as they had promised in their “Ethiopia

Tiqdem” motto.

Maj. Atnafu’s delegation consisted of two other Derg

members, Major Negash, Lieutenant Alemayehu as well the
designated adviser from the Foreign Ministry, my friend Dr.
Fitigu. Fitigu and I were intrigued to know of the inner
workings, structure and personalities in the Derg and posed
questions to the Derg members whenever we had the
opportunity in between schedules.

Maj. Atnafu was ready to volunteer information but the

young police lieutenant, Alemayehu Haile, cut him short
most of the time with the warning that this was not the ideal
place for such discussions. We sensed that Major Mengistu in
the course of consolidating his powers had already put in
place a system of checks and control within the Derg. It was
also apparent that Atnafu was not really powerful. Maj.
Negash, who later on defected to the Eritrean Peoples’
Liberation Front, was noticeably quiet.

During Maj. Atnafu’s lengthy meeting with Gen. Nimeiry

at the Republican Palace, the Sudanese leader commended
the Derg on a job well done. He went on to praise them for
their systematic dismantling of an archaic and feudal
monarchy an act that he said constituted a new chapter in
military history. He offered to cooperate with the leaders of
the new military government. Maj. Atnafu and his colleagues
were elated.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 117

After the meeting, we were all driven to Wad Medani, an

agricultural centre south of Khartoum and to other
development sites, with Major Abulqassim as our tour guide.
The delegation’s three-day visit was a success and I was
happy to see their plane take off.

No sooner had Maj. Atnafu returned to Addis Ababa than

tension began to rise within the Derg. The junior non-
commissioned officers were constantly challenging General
Aman’s authority as a senior officer and leader. There was
disagreement on the very structure of the Derg.

Some of the young officers within the Derg, who

considered Mao Tse Tung, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara as
their role models believed that power literally came through
the barrel of a gun. The Eritrean question, the lengthy process
of the Commission of Inquiry and other issues began to
exhaust their patience. A number of them were bent on
resolving all differences with a shootout. Gen. Aman began
boycotting Derg meetings and remained at his home near the
old airport. He had made it clear to them that he did not want
to be considered a puppet, as were Gen. Naguib of Nasser’s
Egypt and Spinola of post-Salazar Portugal.

Major Mengistu and his colleagues had reportedly tried, in

vain, to convince Gen. Aman to rejoin them. But the General
thought that he was being used and as a career military man
and as a believer in the sanctity of the chain of command, he
could not take orders from non-commissioned officers nor
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 118

see eye to eye with the rest of the pack on major issue of
fundamental change in Ethiopia.

There were also those who accused Gen. Aman of

advancing the agenda of Eritrean secession. The General’s
differences with the junior officers turned violent when a
young Major, Daniel Asfaw, upon receiving orders from the
core leadership of the Derg, led a tank assault on the home of
the General. Though he knew he was outgunned, Gen. Aman
vowed not to go down without a fight and put up a spirited
fight. The General died when Maj. Daniel’s tanks finally
smashed through his villa.

While the skirmishes were taking place at the old airport

area, the Derg was meeting at the Grand Palace under the
chairmanship of Maj. Mengistu who was being updated with
a blow-by-blow account of the incident. Sadly, the attack on
the General was in clear violation of the Derg’s avowed
motto: Ethiopia Tiqdem Yale Minim Dem, (May Ethiopia
Advance without Any Bloodshed). This incident would only
be just a tip of the iceberg.

That evening, while listening to Radio Ethiopia in my

house in Khartoum, there were reports of smoke and gunfire
at the old airport area in Addis. The extent of the brutality
that took place was not revealed until the next morning when
the Derg announced over the national radio that it had made a
“political decision” and eliminated sixty former officials.
That was a political mass murder in a scale unprecedented in
the history of Ethiopia.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 119

The Derg meeting at the Grand Palace on the previous day

had literally been turned into a Kangaroo court with radicals
arguing that there was no time for legal procedures to bring
the former officials to justice. The level-headed members
were clearly out-numbered. That, many believe, was the first
big mistake committed by the Derg, which until then moved
cautiously in its deliberations.

Derg members were fully aware of the consequences of

eliminating a General so popular in the army. Thus, in a move
believed to justify the killing of Gen. Aman, Maj. Mengistu
had the names of former notables read out one by one and
asked his colleagues to vote on the fate of the detained former
officials.

They passed death verdicts on Prime Minister Aklilu and

Gen. Aman. Maj. Mengistu was already aware of Gen.
Aman’s killing even before the votes were taken. Archival
materials that were recovered after EPRDF took power
showed that Maj. Mengistu himself signed the execution
order of the sixty officials.

That same evening they called out the condemned political

prisoners from the Grand Palace cellars and the Fourth Army
Division compound handcuffed and drove them to the Central
Prison adjacent to the head quarters of the Organization of
African Unity. There, under the supervision of the Derg
leadership, a firing squad finished the job. The bodies were
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 120

buried in unmarked mass graves within the premises of the

Addis Ababa prison.

In the wake of the demise of the Derg in 1990, the remains

of the slain officials were dug out and re-buried with honour
at the Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa. That prison site was
eventually donated to the African Union to serve as an
extended compound for the continental Headquarters.

The December 1974 incident shocked the whole world

and Ethiopians were helplessly subdued as radicals in the
Derg fully asserted their authority through the barrel of the
gun. In the solitude of our Khartoum apartment, my wife and
I mourned the death of our senior compatriots. Personally, I
could not handle the death of so many personalities I had
come to know closely, especially that of my very close friend
Gen. Kebede Gebre.

General Kebede Gebre and I had developed warm

friendship since the early seventies during his frequent visits
to Bonn. He was appointed to head the defence ministry after
his successful tenure in the Congo as UN Forces Commander
in the early sixties and later on as Governor of Harar.
Although I was only giving him professional support, he was
always extremely grateful. He was noble and despite his high
office, he was a simple man. Whenever I was In Addis, the
General would personally pick me up from my hotel and take
me to his home where his gracious wife Woizero Desta
Gebru, Woizero Senedou’s younger sister, would extend
warm hospitality.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 121

During the Korean war of the fifties, Gen. Kebede Gebre

was in command of the Ethiopian contingent of UN forces
and a young and flamboyant officer; Lt. Col. Aman was his
Deputy. According to a hand-written diary shown to me by
his son Tamrat, General, then Colonel Kebede Gebre,
prophetically predicted that “Lt. Col. Aman, a charismatic
leader and popular officer, would one day rise to greater
heights, but, his unpredictable temperament would take him
down.” As it were, fate took both of them down on the same
day.

After the mass execution on that December night in 1974,

the then Foreign Minister Dr. Dejazmatch Zewde Gebre
Selassie who was attending the UN General Assembly in
New York expressed his shock and condemnation of the
killings in Addis and resigned immediately preferring to stay
in exile in the US. Those events in Addis clearly sparked the
beginning of the great Ethiopian Diaspora.

An exodus of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians

followed. These included Dejazmatch Zewde’s successor,
Ato Kifle Wodajo, who was serving in Washington at the
time. Several other diplomats and seasoned technocrats also
chose exile. These included Ambassador Assefa Lemma,
Gen. Eyassu Mengesha, ambassador to the Court of St.
James’ and Ambassador Zewde Retta who was serving in
Italy. Economists including Bulcha Demeqssa who served as
Endalkachew’s Finance Minister for a brief period and
Bekele Endeshaw who succeeded Assefa Lemma as
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 122

Ambassador in Bonn and many others later on joined the

ranks of hundreds of international civil servants who were to
return to their country only after the demise of the Derg
seventeen years later.

Meanwhile, in Ethiopia, the Derg elected another front

man as Chairman of the Provisional Administrative Council
in the person of General Teferi Bante. I knew Gen. Teferi
when he was still an army major and instructor at the Military
School in Holetta. At that time, his son, Ayneshet, was my
schoolmate. Ayneshet and I were to meet later under very sad
circumstances.

After the execution of the former officials in 1974, Drs.

Haile Fida, Negede Gobezeh and other Marxist intellectuals
who had returned from their studies in Europe, began to
identify key players within the Derg and started to quietly
imbue them with Marxist thoughts. EPRP adherents too had
their constituents inside the Derg.

The power struggle that had been simmering within the

Derg thus began to assume an ideological veneer. First, it was
‘Ethiopian Socialism’; a mixture of state controlled and
private economy in a centralised political structure. Then the
doctrinaire ideology of scientific socialism dominated
political life in Ethiopia.

Soviet communists saw an opportunity in this and offered

to train, at their political institutes in Russia, members of the
Derg and other young revolutionaries in scientific socialism.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 123

Several other socialist countries, proxies of the Soviet Union,

and China offered the same help and the Derg grabbed every
opportunity.

On one first such exercise, while I was in the Sudan, a

group of trainees consisting of Derg members and other
revolutionaries came through Khartoum on their way to
Moscow. There was no direct flight and they had to spend a
night on transit. I had to facilitate their onward journey. As
we drove with our guests from the airport to the Grand Hotel
on the banks of the Nile, my Embassy colleagues and I could
sense immediately that they were a divided group.

A young US-trained Air Force lieutenant, later Captain,

Fiqre Selassie Wogderess, seemed to be in charge of the
group and he immediately jumped into the ambassadorial
limousine. Another officer, Maj. Yemane, approached me and
quietly told me that he, and not Fiqre Selassie, was the leader.
Wishing not to interfere in what I thought was their internal
problem, I told Maj. Yemane not to worry as this was only a
transit stop-over and not an official visit to the Sudan.

The group left the next day and as it transpired later, while
in Moscow, they were split between EPRP sympathizers led
by Police Lieutenant Tamrat and Capt. Amaha on one side,
and anti-EPRP Derg members led by Capt. Fiqre Selassie on
the other. Maj. Yemane did not return to Addis after
completing the training in Moscow. That division was soon to
manifest itself in bloody confrontations at home. Fiqre
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 124

Selassie was to play a major role through out the Derg’s rule
in the years that followed.

In the first years of the revolution, Khartoum became a

busy transit point for the Derg’s diplomatic missions to
Eastern Europe, West Africa and the Middle East. The
sensitization campaign about the declared new policy of
peace and cooperation was also coordinated in Khartoum.

During stopovers of high-level delegations, President

Nimeiry was always ready to offer his good advice to the
delegations that included Lij Michael Emru, Maj. Berhanu
Bayih, a prominent member of the Derg, Justice Minister
Amanuel Amde Michael, Trade Minister, Mohammed
Abdurrahman; Ambassador Mengisteh Desta and Dr. Fitigu
Tadesse.

The Embassy was always kept busy. We all knew that,

notwithstanding his professed friendship with the new
Government in Addis Ababa, President Nimeiry, a cunning
political player, was also in good terms with Eritrean
secessionist leaders Osman Saleh Sabbe and Isaias Afeworqi
to whom he had provided unlimited Sudanese diplomatic
support. Sometimes he would receive the rebel leaders in his
office on the heels of Ethiopian delegations.

In the midst of these activities, there were also secret

missions by Derg agents. On one such occasion just before
the December massacre of the sixty officials, Ras Mengesha
Seyoum, then Governor of Tigray and his younger son,
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 125

Seyoum Mengesha had voted with their feet and reached the
safety of Khartoum as Derg commandos were hunting them.
Ras Mengesha had a great reputation as a reformer during his
various government assignments.

With my Embassy colleagues Ismael Hassan and Col.

Meshesha Wolde Tsadiq, we felt morally obliged to protect
Ras Mengesha and when Majors Daniel and Getachew
Shibeshi, both reputed ruthless killers, came to Khartoum to
seek him out, we chose to disabuse them of such a callous
attempt since clearly their intention was against any
international norm - posing an infringement on Sudanese
sovereignty. In any case, I told them, the Embassy had no
information on the whereabouts of Ras Mengesha and his
son.

Meanwhile, I was informed that Sudanese Chief of

Security, Col. Khalifa had taken steps to re-locate Ras
Mengesha and his son and to facilitate their onward journey
to another country. Majors Daniel and Getachew Shibeshi
thus left Khartoum without having accomplished their
mission. We heaved a sigh of relief. Years later, I was
privileged to have as my colleague in the UN in New York
Ras Mengesha’s other son Yohannes Mengesha. Ras
Mengesha now commutes between Addis Ababa and
Washington.

While on one of their missions to the Middle East, Lij

Michael Emru and his team had met in Beirut one former
Ethiopian student, Tesfaye Tadesse Wolde Medhin. What
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 126

they did not know at the time was that the individual had
together with his colleagues hijacked a small aircraft to
Khartoum a few years earlier and absconded with money
stolen from his own comrades. Tesfaye had subsequently
settled in Beirut, posing as a revolutionary in exile. The team
had long discussions with him and persuaded him to return
home.

As Tesfaye Tadesse Wolde-Medhin transited via

Khartoum, Col. Khalifa’s men who already had a dossier on
him arrested him on the pretext of finding in his suitcase
communist propaganda and related literature. Khalifa asked
me what to do with the man and I advised him to confiscate
the unwanted material, if he wished, and let him go rather
wait for a diplomatic incident to happen.

Upon arrival in Ethiopia Tesfaye Tadesse Wolde Medhin

soon managed to infiltrate the highest echelons of the Derg
and declare himself the only genuine communist next to Maj.
Mengistu. We were told later that he perished in late 1978 in
the power struggle that ensued between the different so-called
Marxist-Leninist groups.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 127

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Revolutionary Saga

In May 1975, as the war in northern Ethiopia intensified,

Gen. Teferi Bante, the new Chairman of the Derg was
advised to form a special technical advisory group in his
office to deal with the Eritrean question. I was thus called to
join the new team headed by Ato Taye Retta, a highly
respected cartographer and Director of the Borders
Administration in the Ministry of the Interior.

Woineshet was six months pregnant with our second son

Henok and the timing was just good enough for air travel
back to Ethiopia. I gladly obliged and soon after our arrival in
Addis, Capt. Getachew put us up in his house until we found
some adequate quarters.

At that time, most of the young intellectuals who heeded

the call to return home from their highly paying jobs abroad,
including Berhane Deressa, Berhanu Dinka and others, did so
because like the young soldiers who overthrew the monarchy,
they sincerely believed that they could help modernize
Ethiopia.

During the change of government, every one of us

believed we could exert a moderating influence on a largely
unprepared regime that had imposed itself on the country. It
was sort of an individual and collective attempt at damage
control.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 128

When I returned to Addis Ababa, in June 1975, my friend

Tesfaye Tadesse Gebre Heywot was married only a year
earlier to his pretty fiancée, Zewditu Tesfaye, and like me, he
was also looking for a good apartment for his soon-to-be
enlarged family. He found two in Piazza, next to Mosvold
Store and encouraged me to take the adjacent one so that we
can live close to each other. It was a happy combination of
two families into one small closely-knit community because
Woineshet and Zewditu also struck a lasting friendship
proving providing to us throughout the years their sincere
dedicated and steadfast support.

By this time my friend Tesfaye, had been assigned to run

Radio Ethiopia, first as Department Head then as Permanent
Secretary of the Ministry of Information. I was happy to be
closely cooperating with him in my new function that largely
entailed public relations and communication.

At the Chairman’s office, where I was initially posted

upon my return from Khartoum, every senior Derg member
who visited our office felt they should interfere in our daily
work to the point of micro-managing us in areas they were
not really qualified. I was not so happy with the atmosphere
under which I was working.

Subsequently, with Foreign Minister Kifle Wodajo’s

concurrence, I asked to be allowed to remain a member of the
Foreign Ministry Staff and Gen. Teferi, who was himself a
victim of unwarranted daily intrusions, agreed. Soon, I was
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 129

appointed to head the Press and Information Division in the

Foreign Ministry and I felt more comfortable until the Beirut-
based Tesfaye was appointed by Major Mengistu himself to
head the Asia Department.

During the month of March 1976 as Ato Kifle and his

Deputy, Permanent Secretary Getachew Kibret were
coordinating the preparation of important documents prior to
Maj. Mengistu’s secret visit to China, Tesfaye Tadesse, who
should have taken the lead was unavailable. Thus, Berhanu
Dinka, who was heading the Africa Department; our Senior
Adviser, Tesfaye Mekasha; Berhane Deressa, Head of the
International Department and I were tasked to write the
briefing notes. At Ato Kifle’s insistence, Maj. Mengistu
chose Berhanu Dinka, to accompany him to Beijing.

In the meantime, in the neighbouring French colony of

Djibouti, warring factions of Afars led by former titular
Prime Minister Ali Aref, and Issas led by the venerable
Hassan Gouled Aptidon were fighting for leadership. While
the political wrangling was going on among politicians in the
tiny Red Sea territory, Ato Kifle felt that Ethiopia’s vital
interests in Djibouti were at stake and decided to dispatch to
the port city a senior diplomat to represent Ethiopia. Dr.
Fitigu, who was handling the Djibouti dossier in the Ministry,
was eminently qualified to carry out the assignment.

At home, the Derg too was also locked in a big power

struggle. The first violent wave of purges six months earlier
had already claimed the lives of the sharp Chief of Political
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 130

Affairs, Air Force Maj. Sissay Habteh and the Head of

Literacy and Development Campaign, Col. Kiros Alemayehu.

Maj. Sissay’s arrest and execution came suddenly upon

our return from Mauritius after attending the OAU Summit in
July 1976 in a delegation led by Gen. Teferi. Sissay’s crime
was read over the radio as having “attempted to turn Ethiopia
into another Chile”, in other words, of trying to reverse the
socialist course of the Revolution. Apparently his growing
popularity and the consequences that it might entail for Maj.
Mengistu were not lost on Sissay’s intellectually challenged
adversaries within the military leadership.

While in Mauritius, from the way he spoke of the Derg,

we all felt that Maj. Sissay was disaffected and clearly
predicted his own fate. Nonetheless, he returned to the lion’s
den hoping perhaps he would survive. Sadly, our worst fears
came true. His arrest and subsequent execution were swift
and shocking.

During informal discussions in Port Louise at a gathering

where Berhanu Dinka, Wossen Beshah and other members of
the delegation were present, Major Sissay could not hide his
disgust at the way the Derg was conducting itself.

One morning, in between meetings of the Summit, he

called and asked me whether I would be willing to
accompany him to the city centre, since he wanted to buy a
Singer sewing machine for his wife. He also told me that
should any thing happen to him, the only gift he would leave
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 131

behind to help sustain her livelihood and that of their small

children would most likely be if she started to do some
tailoring of ladies dresses. Tailoring was the only skill his
wife had learnt.

Following Sissay’s execution, endless meetings were held

at the Grand Palace on the reorganisation of the Derg. A new
structure for a reorganized leadership was drafted by the
allegedly EPRP sympathizer Capt. Alemayehu Haile. Capt.
Moges was given the political portfolio that was left vacant
when Major Sissay was executed. Many saw this move as
posing a serious threat to Lt. Col. Mengistu’s power.

By now almost all Derg members had moved one rank

higher in line with timely mobility procedures within the
armed forces. Finally Lt. Col. Mengistu tactfully accepted the
reorganization plan that had clipped his wings. Observers
were agreed that he was waiting for his time.

At that time of the intense power struggle within the Derg,

Ato Kifle Wodajo and his team in the Foreign Ministry were
preparing a policy paper for a peaceful resolution to the
Eritrean question. That paper, “Eritrea, Then and Now” was
billed by many as well done, grounded on historical processes
that led to the unity of the two parts of the ancient Ethiopian
empire.

We were told later that Dr. Haile Fida and his group then
dominating Lt Col. Mengistu’s camp roundly rejected Ato
Kifle’s paper. That paper had called for an all-inclusive
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 132

solution to the problem. Instead, they came up with their own

Stalinist thesis. They had also rejected, in a similar manner
another policy paper on Somalia prepared earlier: “War
Clouds over the Horn of Africa”.

Incidentally, this phrase taken from Ato Kifle’s paper,

appeared later on as title of a book written by a Cuban author
who many thought must have had a glimpse of the report,
given Cuba’s close association with radicals in the Derg.

During the sixties, Gen. Teferi served as Military Attaché

in Washington for the Imperial government and worked
closely with Ato Kifle who was then Ambassador. Knowing
Ato Kifle’s skills as a solid intellectual and diplomat, he
could appreciate the work done in the Foreign Ministry. The
majority in the Derg also welcomed Ato Kifle’s papers but
could not assert themselves. There were differences of
approach on many other issues as well. National
reconciliation, namely rapprochement with EPRP, was a
thorny issue as both camps were already waging intensified
armed struggle.

On several issues of foreign policy, radicals around the

Derg sought to take Ethiopia totally into the Soviet sphere.
Bulgarian communists of those days could not have done
better in terms of selling out fully to Soviet domination. In
the Foreign Ministry the professionals, guided by Ato Kifle
Wodajo, sought to keep national interests above all else and
consistently tried to disabuse the Derg of the plunge into
Soviet fiefdom. Gen. Teferi and Ato Kifle were clear about
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 133

their vision for Ethiopia’s future, which was strict adherence

to non-alignment. That stand was clearly articulated by Gen.
Teferi in Colombo during his encounter with Indian Prime
Minister Indira Ghandi at the Non-Aligned Summit in the
summer of the same year. I was his interpreter. This moderate
approach by a segment of the Derg membership of course
brought out the wrath of the resident Soviet agents upon all
professionals in the Foreign Ministry. Radicals in the Derg,
wishing to please their Soviet backers, got rid of many able
Ethiopians whose only wish was to serve their country in the
best way they could.

In January 1977, in the wake of the death of Chinese

Premier, Chou En Lai, the Hua Kwo Fung Administration
invited an Ethiopian media delegation to Beijing. My Friend
Col. Asrat who was confirmed in his post as Head of the
Derg’s Information Department during the reorganisation
process was asked to lead the delegation.

Several Media professionals who included senior

journalists Mairegu Bezabeh, Haile Mariam Goshu, Lt.
Tibebu Shifferaw and I were instructed to be part of the
delegation. Major Girma Neway, later on created
Commandant of the National Police Force with the rank of
Maj. Gen. was the only other person from the Derg office.

Our visit went on very well and we saw much of China

during our three weeks there. We visited communes,
factories, schools, historical sites that included Chairman
Mao’s birth place, Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s Mausoleum and, of
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 134

course, the Great Wall. Wherever we went, our hosts quoted

Chairman Mao all the time on any topic almost without fail.
When a tour guide at a farming commune in Hopei province
said: “Chairman Mao say water is good for agriculture” our
colleague Mairegu could not hold his laughter and retorted:
“Peasants in our country also say water is good for
agriculture.” We met several high-ranking communist
leaders.

At the end of our visit, Lieu Hsiao Chi, the nominal

President, later disgraced by the Red Guard, gave us an
audience at the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square
in Beijing, where we were warned to be ware of the Soviet
Union, as Moscow had super power appetite. Obviously the
competition between the two communist giants for Socialist
Ethiopia’s close friendship was intensifying. In the meantime,
China as well as the Soviet Union’s proxies in Ethiopia were
engaged in a fierce power struggle.

When we arrived back in Addis at the end of January, the

Derg was literally split into two camps. Capt. Alemayehu
Haile, who became Secretary General during the restructuring
process, led the majority faction. Lt. Col. Mengistu, the tiger
who led the minority camp was only licking his wounds and
waiting for an opportunity to assert his authority. Gen. Teferi
was also given more powers as he had clearly backed the
majority. Col. Asrat and other moderates who formed the
majority of the leadership were considered pro Alemayehu.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 135

On our flight back to Addis, I had asked Colonel Asrat

what he thought of the newly re-organised structure of the
Derg and he told me that he admired Mengistu’s resolute
nationalistic stand and that his ambitions for Ethiopia knew
no bounds, but some radicals were misleading him and that if
there were two or three more like Mengistu, things would
look different. Indeed Col. Mengistu impressed almost every
one around him, as he seemed to show no interest in personal
and material gains.

I sensed that though Asrat would have liked to side with

Mengistu, he did not have the stomach for the extremists
around the Colonel. Asrat felt that as Mengistu was lured into
doctrinaire socialism by those same extremists; his moves
were predicated by blind faith for the collective good, sadly,
at the expense of individual liberties. I concluded from our
discussion that Asrat’s belief in the freedom of the individual
and his respect for General Teferi had swayed him to be on
Alemayehu’s side. He did not suspect the fate that awaited
him and his like-minded friends.

Towards the end of January 1977, Ato Kifle Wodajo had

left for Nairobi accompanied by Ambassador Fitigu to attend
a meeting of the OAU Liberation Committee. He was
scheduled to meet Gen. Teferi in Dar es Salaam later in the
week for the inauguration of President Julius Nyerere’s
Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party. I was instructed to be part of
the delegation and started making travel arrangements.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 136

By collective decision taken at the meeting on January 30

of the newly reorganized Derg, Gen. Teferi was to address
the nation on Radio and TV on the night of February 1 and
rallies in support of the policy statement were scheduled for
the next day. Gen. Teferi’s speech was initially prepared in
the office of the Derg and was presented to General Teferi for
review.

Gen. Teferi felt that the draft speech needed to be recast

and instead address issues of national reconciliation. He thus
directed Ato Getachew Kibret, the Permanent Secretary for
Foreign Affairs to ensure that the necessary changes were
included in the final draft. Berhane Deressa, Head of
International Department, was in fact supposed to hand-
deliver the revised draft and negotiate further changes.

As I arrived at the National Palace that morning to assist

in the presentation of credentials by foreign Ambassadors,
Ato Getachew and Berhane agreed that, instead of Berhane,
who had just come back from the US and was not yet get
acquainted with the power structures of the Derg, I should go
to the Grand Palace to discuss the changes with Lt. Col.
Mengistu, Col. Asrat, Capt. Alemayehu and their close
associate Maj. Moges.

As the script was being revised, Maj. Moges, the new

Head of Political Affairs of the Derg, agreed with Gen.
Teferi’s view that the original draft was too radical and did
not seem to be persuasive enough to encourage EPRP to join
the national reconciliation effort. Though one could see some
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 137

consternation on Col. Mengistu’s face, his cheeks twitched

whenever he was nervous and angry, he yielded to Major
Moges’s amendments.

In the meantime, Be'alu Girma from the Ministry of

Information as well as Hailu Wolde Amanuel from the
Foreign Ministry joined the group that should take a final
look at the draft. I was also told to translate the final version
into English for distribution abroad.

The next day February 2, the planned mass rally was held
at Revolution Square ostensibly in support of General
Teferi’s evening address to the Nation. But as it turned out,
after the General addressed the crowd in similar tone, speaker
after speaker, organized by MEISON surrogates began
condemning the speech. When they wanted to take over the
live broadcast of the national radio and were denied access,
they quickly arranged their own vehicle mounted with
megaphones and started hurling slogans and insults at my
friend Tesfaye Tadesse Gebre Heywot, with threats of
physically hurting him.

After the rally, as the crowd began to disperse, I was

worried that they may even assassinate him, a possibility
given the series of killings that had already been carried out
the previous days and weeks. So, I rushed to my small Fiat
car which was parked nearby and picked Tesfaye to get him
out of the crowd. Our adversaries knew we were being
cautious and as we drove away I left them biting their lips.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 138

On the following day, we all went to work, thinking,

naively perhaps, that life was relatively normal. At Derg’
Headquarters in the Grand Palace, however, events were
taking a different course.

Other individuals, some of them insiders who had first

hand information on the events that followed, have written a
lot. However, I would like to include in my story what a male
typist then working in the Derg’s office, Private Mamush,
recounted to me later on when we spent time together in the
same underground prison cell.

According to Private Mamush, that fateful morning, the

Derg, chaired by Gen. Teferi was meeting for their regular
morning briefings. Some Executive Committee members
were absent on errands they had to accomplish for the day.
Notably absent was, Lt. Col. Atnafu who was touring
Wellega province. Col. Tesfaye Gebre Kidan who was clearly
not aware of the tension that had exploded in the morning and
Capt. Fiqre Selassie Wogderess, just recently appointed to
head the Campaign for Literacy and Development, were to
join their colleagues later.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, as Col. Mengistu excused

himself and left the meeting, the door of the meeting room
was burst open and the Chief of special operations Col.
Daniel, accompanied by Col. Mengistu’s loyalists and their
body Guard entered the room, told every one there to raise
their arms and give themselves up.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 139

Immediately, Col. Daniel had Gen. Teferi, Capt.

Alemayehu Haile, Col. Asrat and the other opponents of
Mengistu hand-cuffed. As a guard led their victims to the
cellars below, Fiqre Selassie was arriving and they forced
him too to go into the cellar with the others. Col. Mengistu’s
exit from the meeting room was apparently the signal for
Daniel to move. Col. Berhanu Bayih and the other Mengistu
loyalists were of course not among those that were forced
into the cellar.

Mamush was convinced that from the movements he had

observed during that morning, judging from the general mood
that prevailed within the Derg after the mass rally addressed
by General Teferi the previous day, Colonels Mengistu and
Daniel had secretly worked out a plan on how to liquidate
their opponents. As they prepared to have their hostages shot
one by one, Col. Daniel immediately realized that Fiqre
Selassie was thrown into the cellar by mistake. Fiqre
Selassie’s life was given a new lease, opening an opportunity
for him to take up later on Captain Alemayehu’s post of
Secretary General of the Military Administrative Council.

Col. Tesfaye Gebre Kidan was spared as he boldly refused

to give himself up. After all, though he may or may not have
been informed of the plot, he was indeed close to Mengistu.
In fact when President Mengistu fled the country in 1990, it
was to Col. Tesfaye, later on General, to whom he left his
seat of power.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 140

During that day of the purge in 1977, those that were led
to the cellar were machine gunned without delay. While all
this was going on, the familiar shots that the people of Addis
Ababa were used to, from the direction of the Grand Palace
and no body seemed to bother.

Lt. Tamrat Wolde Mariam, who after his training at the

Moscow Party School was assigned as a political instructor,
another prison mate, had also heard repeated gunfire and
taken cover within the Palace compound. I remember calling
the Information Department of the Derg that morning to
inquire what was going on. A young sergeant who picked up
the phone told me it was just a small skirmish and that the
situation was already under control.

Mamush recounted that after the slaughter of Gen. Teferi

and the other moderate members of the Derg, Col. Mengistu,
sat with Col. Daniel, Col. Seyoum, Daniel’s Deputy and their
close adviser Dr. Senay Likke to draw up liquidation
strategies reminiscent of Stalin’s Russia. As Daniel sent for
his not so collaborative assistant, Major Yohannes, who was
listed among the first to be eliminated, the corporal who was
sent to fetch him did not understand why Yohannes was
summoned and did not therefore bother to disarm him.
Apparently Maj. Yohannes suspected why he was called to
his commander and had no intention to give himself up. First
he shot the corporal with the pistol he had carried and then
took the machine gun that the corporal had and upon entering
Daniel’s office he opened fire and shot Col. Daniel and Dr.
Senay on the spot. As Col. Seyoum ducked under a table,
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 141

Col. Mengistu jumped out of the window, ran to a nearby

tank and hid himself there till help arrived. Lt. Col.
Mengistu’s guard finally killed Maj. Yohannes.

Corporal Begashaw Gurmessa, a Derg member who had

apparently not shown enough loyalty to Colonel Mengistu
during the purges, was detained with us for some time. Later
on, he confirmed Mamush’s story. Incidentally, this
individual is the only Derg member who was acquitted in
2006 at the mass murder trials in the post Mengistu era.

At lunchtime on that fateful day of February 2, 1977,

Tesfaye Tadesse Gebre Heywot, our wives Zewditu and
Woineshet as well as our friend Tamrat Kebede had met at
Ras Hotel for lunch. Later on Woineshet and I went back
home to see our small baby Henok, before I could resume my
work at the Ministry in the afternoon. Tesfaye went to attend
the burial of his colleague Tsegaye Debalqie, Permanent
secretary of Culture who was assassinated the previous day.

While Tesfaye was putting a wreath of flowers on the

grave of his fallen colleague, a group of Derg commandos,
disrespectful of traditional burial rites, simply snatched the
wreath from his hands threw it away and arrested him in full
view of gathered mourners. Another squad came to the
Foreign Ministry as I was working on a document with the
Permanent Secretary, Getachew Kibret and called me out and
asked if I was carrying any weapons. I showed them my pen
and notebook and told them those were all I had. They
ordered me to follow them to a Land Cruiser full of heavily
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 142

armed soldiers and flanked by those soldiers, I was driven to

the Grand Palace.

Before we proceeded to the Land Cruiser, however, on my

way out of the Ministry, I handed over all documents I had on
me to Maj. Berhanu Jembere, a representative and minder of
the Derg who had been assigned to the Ministry since the
overthrow of the Emperor. The Major was a man I could trust
and he was always good to me. He was shocked to see me
surrounded by military security detail and was clearly not
aware of what was going on in the Grand Palace.

After we arrived at the Palace, the military intelligence

officer ordered me to sit down on the grass in the courtyard.
My friend Tesfaye was soon brought to join me. Thereafter, a
police cadet, Lt. Tamrat Wolde Mariam, and Gen. Teferi’s
son Ayneshet, as well as Private Mamush, the male typist
who gave me the blow by blow account of what had happed
on that morning; Police Captain Mengiste-Ab Bahru; an
Airlines employee Legesse Teketel; as well as a driver and a
dresser; Corporal Teshome, whose crime was only being
assigned to work for the slain Derg members were brought in
to join us in our small cell. We also learnt that the Derg had
planned to arrest Ato Kifle Wodajo as well, but since he had
left for Nairobi in the nick of time, he was fortunate. Many
believed that had he been there, Ato Kifle’s life would have
not been spared.

While this drama was unfolding in Addis Ababa, as Dr.

Fitigu was to relate to me later, upon hearing about the events
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 143

in Addis, Ato Kifle spent some three agonizing nights locked

in a Nairobi hotel. Finally he decided to proceed to Liberia,
then to the US. After a prolonged and not so comfortable
transit in Liberia, he was granted political asylum in the US.
Ato Kifle Wodajo returned to Ethiopia only after the
overthrow of the military regime and served as
parliamentarian, key participant in the drafting of Ethiopia’s
new federal constitution and Chairman of the Electoral
Board. When he died of sudden illness in a South African
hospital in May 2005, he was still serving as an independent
adviser to the EPRDF government. His Alma Mater, Addis
Ababa University honoured him with a doctorate degree,
Honoris Causa, a year before he died.

Ato Kifle was mentor to generations of diplomats,

including Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin of the post-
Mengistu era, UN Under-Secretary General Berhanu Dinka
and myself. When it came to writing speeches, preparing
strategy papers and legal drafts, Ato Kifle Wodajo was the
one person I knew, to borrow a phrase from Oscar Wilde,
“whose taste was simple; he could only be satisfied with the
best”. When I met him a few months before he died, Ato
Kifle confided in me that unlike his detractors, he believed he
was working for his country and was making an effort at
damage control in his own chosen way. I have always
respected him.

Back to that fateful day in February 1977, as dusk fell,

those of us who were rounded up earlier in the day were told
to line up and march to the back of the Palace and enter its
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 144

infamous cellars. Upon arrival, we had to take off our shoes,

belts and all items that the soldiers considered dangerous. A
very sympathetic army officer, Maj. Bekele read to us the
rules. Immediately seven of us were locked into a tiny room
of three by three and a half meters.

As we entered our little cell, we noticed in the adjacent

halls, former ministers of the Crown who had been spared of
the mass execution in December 1974 but were nevertheless
held as political prisoners. Former Foreign Minister Ketema
Yifru; Minister in Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Seyoum
Haregot; Development Bank General Manager Ato Assefa
Demissie and others were standing at the entrance. They
helplessly looked at us in awe as they had already been told
not to communicate with us. The same rules applied for us
when new prisoners arrived. That was perhaps the longest
night in my entire life and I could not help wondering how in
the midst of our misfortune my friend Tesfaye could sleep so
blissfully like a baby. The rest of us spent the night
wondering what the next day will bring.

Next morning, early at five, a prison warder opened the

door to our cell and told us it was time to relieve ourselves at
the toilets close by. To our surprise the shower rooms and
toilets were impeccably clean and some of us in fact rushed to
take a shower. After refreshing ourselves we were again
locked back into our little cell. The first night was over and
we felt lucky to have been left alive and see the light of
another day.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 145

CHAPTER TWELVE

Years of Hell, Years of Reflection

As dawn broke on February 27, 1977 we could only guess

what was to happen next. In any case, our first night in prison
had passed without any further activity regarding our fate.
We could hear cars coming and leaving the courtyard of the
military clinic close by when finally a yellow Volkswagen
mini bus entered our compound at about mid-day and through
the key hole door I could see my distinctly red luggage
among the pile of items in the van. I then figured that our
wives have already been informed about our imprisonment
and were told to send us clothes, beddings and food.

The Derg had suspended food allowances to its political

prisoners, reportedly heeding to a sinister advice of their
erstwhile radical friends, Dr. Negede Gobezeh et al, who in
fact had urged in one of their publications earlier that it would
be a waste of resources to feed political prisoners. It was clear
then that they were party to the decision by the Derg to
eliminate political opponents. Thus, every prisoner had to
have food brought from his own home and await his/her fate.

Early in the morning, as the other prisoners got their daily

papers, in the adjacent cell, we could hear Mulugeta Asrate,
son of Ras Asrate Kassa reading loudly newspaper stories of
the events that had taken place the previous day. Gen. Teferi
along with seven other top officials had been liquidated and
that “the revolution had advanced from defence to attack”. Lt.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 146

Col. Mengistu was named Chairman and took absolute

control. For us it was a repeat news item since Private
Mamush had already told us the whole story.

Towards the end of the day, after a loud pro-Mengistu

rally at the Revolution Square near by, we were once again
permitted to take fresh air for a few minutes and let out of our
cell. Maj. Bekele came and read us our “rights” and duties as
political prisoners.

We were allowed daily government newspapers paid for

from money they had emptied out of our pockets the previous
day, we could also write to our families daily, but only four
lines and in clear messages. He told us that henceforth, as
political prisoners and until such time that a different
directive was issued, we were not allowed to communicate
with the other political prisoners in the adjacent cells, the
former officials of the Imperial regime.

Nevertheless, our senior prison mates could secretly

communicate with us and they always left a kettle of boiled
water at our door for us to make our own tea. They were
allowed to use a small stove outside and we were not.

When those former officials were let out for the habitual
one-hour sunshine and fresh air, we were locked in. We could
breathe fresh air and take small walks in the compound only
in shifts. When a blue Mercedes mini bus brought bags of
food every morning that had been delivered by our families at
the gate, our designated colleagues would also take bags,
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 147

food containers and laundry of the previous day back to our

families.

This went on for about two months when one rainy

afternoon we were ordered to transfer to another more
isolated villa within the palace grounds that overlooked the
former meeting hall of the Cabinet on one side and St.
Gabriel’s Church on the other side.

Meanwhile within the core of the Derg, Chairman

Mengistu continued to nurture a parallel power-base,
composed mainly of non-commissioned officers. First he
made sure that the non-commissioned officers who
demonstrated unflinching loyalty were given quick training
and elevated to the rank of lieutenant. He also included in this
hardcore parallel power base some of the line officers that
blindly followed him.

The struggle between the different so-called Marxist-

Leninist groups who had mushroomed around the Derg was
intensifying further and a series of arrests and liquidations
were taking place. There was also the war with Somalia
which Ato Kifle’s paper had predicted a couple of years back
that some factions did not support whole-heartedly.

As the Carter administration refused to deliver the arms

Ethiopia had paid for, the US Embassy was told to reduce the
number of its staff in Ethiopia and close all technical advisory
offices and military base that were hitherto serving as links
for the long standing US Ethiopian cooperation.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 148

The new Chairman then publicly condemned China in his

determination to prove his unquestioning acceptance of
Soviet supremacy. Moscow, though still suspicious, was
clearly happy to abandon Somalia and side with Ethiopia, the
bigger catch. The regional and national political climate was
heavily charged and alliances shifted dramatically.

Soon, Chairman Mengistu was invited to a series of visits

to the Soviet Union and its satellite states to seal the newly
formed alliance. During his ground breaking visit to Moscow,
the Chairman was kept waiting for long at the corridors of the
Kremlin before he could see Leonid Brezhnev. He later on
flew to Cuba, as guest of Fidel Castro.

In the long absence of Chairman Mengistu, many people,

including our prison Guard were not so sure who really was
in control. The reign of terror continued unabated. At our
prison, our young fellow detainees would be called
unexpectedly and never return after they were taken for what
was supposedly routine interrogation. Maj. Berhanu Kebede,
successor to Col. Daniel as Chief of Derg Security Operations
would call any one and eliminate him or her as he wished.
Even members of the Derg were reportedly shaking in his
presence. I knew his Brother, Captain Assefa Kebede, an
army officer educated in Poona, India who served as public
relations liaison of the Imperial Body Guard during the last
days of the Emperor.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 149

On one occasion, just as the day was getting darker, I was

summoned to the Investigation Office within the compound
of the Derg Headquarters. I thought that was my last day
alive. Usually, inmates called out at such an ominous hour
never came back. Thus, I bid farewell to my friend Tesfaye
Tadesse Gebre Heywot and other prison mates and proceeded
to where the interrogators were waiting.

There, a young corporal reluctantly started asking me my

name, my age and where I was working before I was arrested.
While I was responding to that seemingly casual
interrogation, Maj. Berhanu Kebede, the notorious killer
entered the room and intervened and asked whether I was
Teferra Shiawl of the Foreign Ministry. I confirmed and
asked him how his brother Assefa was doing. He then asked
where in hell I knew his brother. I was visibly angry and
retorted that Assefa was my friend. That brief encounter with
Maj. Berhanu may have saved my life because he respectfully
told me to go back to my cell. As I returned to my friends,
Tesfaye was so relieved that he could not help his emotions.

Despite such disconcerting events, our guards there were

friendly and the isolated location of the villa was conducive
for surreptitious discussions with the soldiers on guard duty
without their supervisors prying. They up-dated us on what
was going on in town, including briefing us on the inevitable
fall from favour of those radicals that were close advisers to
the Derg.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 150

After a few weeks we were brought back to the cellar of

the Grand Palace and last permitted to mix with the former
officials. That was a relief, as we then got the chance to meet
old friends and acquaintances.

We immediately set about to plan our daily lives. There

was a wealth of knowledge inside those prison walls and we
decided to make the best out of our time there. In the pack,
there were scientists, economists, historians, religious leaders,
academicians, diplomats and seasoned civil servants.

It was an opportunity for us younger ones to closely know

senior personalities such as Yilma Deressa, father of
Ethiopia’s post World War Two economic and financial
transformation; Blatten Geta Mahateme Selassie, a noted
writer, Bitwoded Zawde Gebre Heywot, President of the
Senate; Ketema Yifru, the youngest Foreign Minister
Ethiopia has ever had and co-architect of the OAU; Lij Kassa
Wolde Mariam, Minister of Agriculture and former President
of Haile Selassie I University, Asnaqe Getachew, a seasoned
agricultural economist; Dr. Haile Ghiorgis Worqneh, scientist
and former Lord Mayor of Addis Ababa; Liqe Silttanat Aba
Habte Mariam, an articulate theologian; Ato Tadesse Yaqob,
a historian educated in France and Israel and retired Civil
Service Commissioner; Dr. Seyoum Haregot, a Harvard
lawyer and long time Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office;
Ato Mamo Tadesse, a former Minister of Finance educated at
Sorbonne; Teshome Gebre Mariam, a flamboyant McGill
Law School graduate and former Minister of State of Mines;
Gorfu Gebre Medhin, Swedish educated economist, Maj.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 151

Admasseh Zeleqe an army communications engineer and MP;

Ato Menassie Lemma, former Governor of the National Bank
and Assefa Demissie, another economist and Director of the
Development Bank, to name a few.

Between them, those illustrious sons of Ethiopia had

unmatched cumulative experience and a wealth of knowledge
that could sustain at least two more countries on the
continent. Their lifelong experience, knowledge and service
did not count at all as far our jailers were concerned.

As books were allowed in with practically no censorship,

our senior prison mates had plenty of reading material. Derg
censors would allow without hesitation any books that bore
the name of Lenin or Marx or had scientific socialism,
economics, social science or history topics or even the name
Russia for that matter, regardless of content. Tolstoy’s “War
and Peace”; Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago” and other
useful books were there to be read. They even unwittingly
allowed us to read George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal
Farm”, the title which seemed to suggest to them agriculture
and dairy farming.

Outside the prison gates the draconian directives

religiously followed by the regime’s cadres allowed into the
country only literature that toed the Soviet line. Following the
closure of the USIS and the American Library in 1978, a
zealous member of the Information Ministry recommended
that all western books should be burnt. This was too much for
University Professor Aleme Eshete, a lone voice that dared.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 152

He publicly confronted the official and exposed the

preposterous nature of that idea. Fortunately the book burning
did not happen.

In what was thought to be a relatively safe location at the

height of the Red Terror campaign, Tesfaye and I used our
time in the Grand Palace cellar prison to read, learn and
teach. I concentrated on learning French, with Ato Mamo
Tadesse being my tutor. Major Admasseh taught some of us
Basic Principles of Electronics and in exchange, I taught
German. My best students in turn were Mamo Tadesse,
Ahadu Sabure, Worqu Mekasha, Abetew Gebre Yesus,
Asnaqe Getachew and Capt. Mengiste-Ab. Later I learnt
some Spanish and Arabic.

Tesfaye, besides helping our younger colleagues with their

English and other subjects, did several translations of useful
books. Our enriched writing and language skills were to open
high-level international job opportunities for us later on.
More than any thing else, the close interaction with those
senior Ethiopians was in itself the best educational
opportunity for younger political detainees.

Sometimes, I would also do some pencil sketches and

drawings. Tesfaye and Ayneshet encouraged me to continue
to refine my drawing skills and they posed for me. Soon I
would get almost any prisoner as a model and some like,
Tesfaye, Ketema Yifru, Lij Kassa Wolde Mariam and Ato
Teshome Gebre Mariam, always armed with positive
disposition, would serve as my constructive art critics. I was
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 153

also asked to begin a drawing class. It was not easy to follow

on Maitre Afeworq Tekle’s footsteps, but under the
circumstances, and as long as such activity detracted
participants from their daily worries, I was happy to provide
relief from our collective misery with my share of distraction.

One day, as I was drawing the sketch of a handsome

General and an old acquaintance, Samuel Beyene, all
onlookers were agreed that the picture looked perfect.
Sammy, as many of us used to call him, was a very
resourceful person and he immediately contacted a soldier on
Guard duty and sent a message to his family to send him the
next day, a collapsible table, chair and a set of drawing
pencils and water colour.

Gen. Samuel got all the material I needed and gave them
to me on only one condition, that since he never had any
family portrait, I should include the pictures of his wife and
children to be copied from photographs he already had. I
gladly agreed and that work took me well over a month, with
my usual critics helping me to improve all the time.

After the watercolour painting on a rather large parchment

like thick paper was completed, Sammy had it smuggled out
to his family. His wife got it photographed and printed in
London as a post card. She then sent the cards to us for
Christmas. Sammy was happy, so was I.

Long after the death of Gen. Samuel at the hands of Derg

executioners and following my release from prison, I met
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 154

General Samuel’s daughter, Aida, in 1991 at a private party,

and, as I noticed who she was from my recollection of having
painted her image, I asked her where they kept the picture.
She said her Mom had kept it safely in America so that if one
day the artist came to claim it they would hand it over. I told
her I was that artist and assured her they could keep the
picture as my gift to the family.

Following the month of May 1978, as the war with

Somalia was intensifying, the senior supervisors of the palace
prison came and asked Abuna Theophilos to hand over the
big golden cross that the Patriarch habitually carried. Liqe
Silttanat Aba Habte Mariam also had such cross. He too was
asked to surrender his cross. Perhaps, we assumed, the Derg
thought that while a nation-wide campaign for fund raising to
strengthen the revolutionary war effort was under way, they
found it unacceptable that those two religious leaders carried
such valuable items. The Patriarch readily surrendered his
cross.

Aba Habte Mariam, however, went back to the prison cell,

and as he soon came out, I saw him dressed up in his
ceremonial gown, his cross wraped in a small Ethiopian flag
ribbon and watched him go to the barbed wire fence gate and
resolutely tell the soldiers that he was not willing to surrender
his cross, no matter the consequences. The soldiers retreated
and never came back to put similar demands. The comparison
in the strength of resolve between the Patriarch and Aba
Habte was not lost to the rest of us.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 155

Notwithstanding this, the Patriarch was among the first

people who the special security commandoes called out on
those dark days of June 1979, took to a villa in the suburbs of
Addis where they were strangled to death. As he was led out
of the palace cellar, Patriarch Theophilos blessed us all and
bid us his final bye. Many of the prisoners were in tears as he
was led away, we all knew our lives hung on a thin thread
and any one of us could be the next victim.

As witnesses were to confess later during trials of Derg

officials in the late 1990s, the remains of the Patriarch and
those of other victims were found in a mass grave in the
compound of a villa that once belonged to Ras Kassa. Aba
Habte survived to later on take the name Abuna Melke
Tsedeq and eventually immigrate to the United States.

In late 1978, the schism between the Derg and Dr. Haile
Fida’s group had widened and news about some of the closest
advisers of the Derg like Tesfaye Tadesse Wolde Medhin
whose activities were no longer being published in the
government papers that they had earlier dominated. One
morning, when I was in charge of receiving our food bags, I
bumped onto four or five extra bags that the soldiers had
deliberately included with those of ours.

That was their way of informing us who had been arrested

lately and thrown into the dungeon nearby. As was always the
case, this time too I read out loudly the names: “Haile Fida,
Tigist Adane, etc.” and asked if these bags could please be
claimed. The other prisoners got the message. All of us knew
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 156

then that those once very powerful advisers of the Derg had at
long last fallen out of favour. Shortly after this, we were told
that they were in fact taken to a detention centre at the Fourth
Army Division Headquarters to join other prisoners to await
their fate.

Not too long after that incident, we read in the

Government papers that Berhane Mesqel Redda and his
EPRP associates had been apprehended in Wello and brought
to Addis as prisoners. Legal procedures have seldom been a
habit of the Derg any ways, and without much waiting both
MEISON and EPRP leaderships were liquidated at about the
same time. We knew we did not always see eye to eye with
either of them, but felt rather sorry that our generation of
Ethiopians had to go through such self-destructing process. It
was indeed a very grim period.

As I was checking our food packages on one other day,

containers bearing the name of Zewditu, Tesfaye’s wife were
among the items. I could not believe my eyes. Certain that
she must have been imprisoned in the so called red terror
drive at the instigation of our adversaries, I immediately
concealed the containers so that Tesfaye would not see them
till I had devised some means of breaking the story to him.
Zewditu was working in Ethiopian Airlines and she was the
only supporter of the family. Their children, Tsinu and Arki,
that later on grew up to be accomplished academics of Yale
and Columbia Universities respectively, were barely one and
two years old.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 157

While I knew I also had my share of misfortune with a

wife that was unemployed and no one would dare employ
because I was a political prisoner, Zewditu’s predicament tore
my heart. I knew her as kind, caring and always supportive to
all who know her.

Though I was greatly disturbed, I kept my suspicion of her

arrest to myself until we received a letter that she herself
wrote telling us she was, in-deed, all right. All those weeks,
Tamrat Kebede and her father Ato Tesfaye Tequame, a
retired Palace photographer, had taken custody of the
children. For more than six weeks, the four line letters were
all the time written by Tamrat who did not want us to worry
and pretended all was well.

During one of our morning walks, I took Tesfaye aside

and told him what I thought might have happened. Woineshet
could be next. He locked himself in the toilet room for what
seemed a very long time and came out breathing heavily with
rage and with his eyes wet, but his strong willpower stayed
intact.

It was only after our release two and a half years later that
we learnt of the full extent of abuse and suffering that
Zewditu had to endure at the hands Derg cadres. From the
accounts of how they treated her, it was a miracle she
survived. She was arrested in full view of the public while
waiting for a bus to take her to her Ethiopian Airlines office.
If her jailers had their way they would have killed her, had it
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 158

not been for the constant intercession and pleading of well

connected friends like Tamrat Kebede.

A young corporal, Molla Zegeye, was more humane than

his colleagues and at Tamrat Kebede’s constant plea, helped a
great deal to avert the worst that could have happened.
Zewditu’s jailers had first taken her to a near by eucalyptus
forest and were firing their automatic guns left and right,
simply to terrorize her into confessing any connection she
might have had with what were described as anti-
revolutionary elements. She was strong and survived the
ordeal, but came out so skinny having suffered considerable
weight loss.

The six weeks Zewditu spent as prisoner in the filthiest

and most crowded prison near the airport were clearly the
worst days of her life. Her father and her mother Mama
Mersha, who both alternated between two prisons carrying
food for us to the Grand Palace and to Zewditu’s notorious
district jail near the airport, never got tired. Their love and
loyalty was immense.

Woineshet too was harassed constantly but left in relative

peace to care for our children and perform her daily routine of
feeding her imprisoned husband. Besides, her father retired
Brigadier General Kebede Wagaye and my loyal childhood
friends Getachew and Bedilu, as well as our unfailing friends
Sahlitu Ketsela and her husband Solomon Berhanu, were
always checking her out. She was however forced to abandon
our comfortable apartment in favour of a woman connected to
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 159

some higher ups. She settled in a tiny studio apartment near-

by and did not inform me of this until we were released.

Apart from the imprisonment and terror that Derg cadres

meted out on Zewditu, they literally turned both our homes
upside down without any search warrant, as they always did.
They threw out as garbage our valued books and documents
that we had accumulated for years.

In 1978, almost one year after our detention at the height

of the power struggle within the Derg, Col. Atnafu was
executed, accused of deviating from scientific socialism. He
had argued, at one of the Derg meetings, for a system of
mixed economy, vowing that communism would never
materialise in Ethiopia in his lifetime. That was a tragic act
on the part of the Derg, especially when one considered that
the Derg itself was to advance, ten years later, the same
notion that Col. Atnafu espoused.

Atnafu was in fact liquidated because he was reportedly

not comfortable with Soviet intrusiveness in Ethiopia’s
affairs, openly condemning their system and it was obviously
known that his increasing popularity among those who shared
the same outlook must have posed a serious threat to the
Chairman. The Soviets had made sure that Mengistu’s hard
line Marxist supporters within the Derg were pushed to the
limits of their tolerance of Atnafu.

After Atnafu’s execution, the parallel power group within

the Derg that Col. Mengistu had created seemed to be in full
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 160

control. While the Chairman was away in Havana, one

beautiful morning in March 1979 and when all seemed quiet,
a soldier called out our cellmates Ayneshet and Lt. Tamrat
Wolde Mariam. Our unfortunate colleagues thought that they
were being summoned for routine questioning. They never
returned.

At the Grand Palace, it was becoming routine for prisoners

to be called out by the Regime’s henchmen for supposedly
harmless interrogation. Those that were called out never came
back to their prison cells.

They were simply exterminated, Gulag style. The pain for

many of us left to live for a day was being forced to
constantly ask ourselves, would I be next? The mental torture
at the gates of hell seemed eternal. The prospect of survival
and entering in to a new dawn in life seemed only a distant
dream.

The phenomenon of sudden calls by Derg and the

subsequent disappearance of prisoners continued after
Chairman Mengistu returned from Havana. Patriarch Abuna
Theophilos, the frail former Minister of Pen Teferra Worq
Kidane Wold; former Mayor of Asmara, Dejazmatch Haregot
Abay; Education Minister Seifu Mahateme Selassie;
Agriculture Minister and Former University President
Dejazmatch Kassa Wolde Mariam; the Emperor’s Private
Secretary Ato Yohannes Kidane Mariam; Welfare
Foundation Director Ato Abebe Kebede; his close friend Ato
Assefa Defaye and Gen. Samuel Beyene were all called out
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 161

one by one over a period of a few days and they never came
back.

As the names of the wanted prisoners were called out,

Dejazmatch Kassa Wolde Mariam, upon hearing his name,
took off his wrist watch and handed it to his friend Ashenafi
Shifferaw telling him he did not need it any more. After they
were taken, we were only told that they had “changed
prisons”, meaning they were eliminated. We were instructed
to hand over their belongings to the guard.

I could not really understand, nor has any of the ordinary

Derg members been able to tell us later on, why, after five
years of prison ordeal, the leadership decided to liquidate
without any semblance of judicial process elderly and totally
helpless political prisoners who had rendered invaluable
service to their country. It certainly was not and cannot by
any standards be described as revolutionary justice. The
crime of the victims of such an act, carried out with impunity,
was perhaps their having grown prosperous in a feudal
monarchy and having signed a petition requesting release.

As we were to learn later on, this swift but unexpected

disappearance of the Patriarch and the other notable prisoners
prompted the families to tell the BBC that, as their food was
turned back, they were anxious about the lives of their loved
ones. Their fears came true. After the demise of the Derg
years later, the world was treated to horrible sights of mass
graves where those once respected sons of Ethiopia were
buried.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 162

While we were languishing in the cellars of the Grand

Palace, the terror meted out on other prisoners through out the
country was no different, perhaps even worse. Life for the
people of Ethiopia, and particularly for our families, in towns
and villages was growing unbearable from day to day.

Arbitrary arrests and spontaneous killings, fear,

intimidation - in short all the worst forms of human rights
abuse and violations were the order of the day. The agony
that our families had to endure were compounded by the sight
of dead bodies left to rot on the streets of Addis, unless
families of those victims paid specified sums of money to be
allowed to bury their dead. The regime continued to extract
blood and tears from a helpless population.

In contrast, while the general public was being treated to

the gruesome spectacle of piled up bodies of those who were
summarily executed on the streets of cities and towns, we
were fortunately not treated to that show for reason of our
confinement within the cellars of the Grand Palace. We
nevertheless tried to have some lighter moments.

Dejazmatch Girmachew, Ketema Yifru, Gorfu Gebre

Medhin, Teshome Gebre Mariam, General Lencha and other
notables in my side of the prison hall, and, Ahadu Sabure,
Balambaras Zerfu, a very witty former district governor and
Major Admasseh Zeleqe, in Tesfaye’s corner of the hall,
would bring up some nice stories and jokes or act in a manner
that would amuse the rest of us.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 163

Tesfaye and I always wondered why during harmless

discussions some of our older prison mates some times
quarrelled bitterly over their pieces of land that had already
been nationalized by a decree of the Derg. But again, that was
human nature.

Prisoners are great dreamers and we were no exception.

Every morning we shared what we dreamt the previous night
and the elderly colleagues were also eager to interpret the
dreams that most often centred on our eventual release.
Balambaras Zerfu, a former district Governor, was the
“expert” in the interpretation of dreams.

Common worships on Sundays and on holidays presided

over by Patriarch Theophilos, Aba Habte Mariam and Nebure
Id Ermias, a seasoned cleric with the most humble and
beautiful voice, provided solace to most prisoners as he sang
praises to the Lord Almighty.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 164

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Exit From The Dungeon

The prison routine at the Grand Palace continued till July

17, 1979 when the commandant of our prison, Major Simye,
appeared early in the morning and read out several names of
those prisoners that were complaining of different kinds of
ailments who were known to frequent the nearby clinic. As he
was reading the names, some of us thought that they were
being taken to hospital for further checkups, or even worse, to
their death that the Guard euphemistically preferred to as
“other prisons.

As the Commandant went on reading, Tesfaye’s name and

mine had been added at the bottom of the list, and, to allay
any fears of some worse fate, the Sergeant standing close by
winked and told me with simple eye contact that all was well
and not to worry. Thus, all those of us whose names were
read out were informed that we should pack our belongings
and leave them there, as they would be sent to us later.

Meanwhile Tesfaye was asleep and I had to wake him up

and tell him the good news. He apparently did not believe this
and since we always suspected the worst, he told me that he
would not be rushed to his death although I told him this
could be our day of liberation. He thus took his time to
prepare to come out and join the rest of us. We were then told
to line up and march towards the parade ground not far from
the palace cellars.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 165

As we reached there, another officer read out our names

again, carefully, one by one, and told us to hop into an open
Volvo jeep. At that moment, he approached the soldier that
had accompanied us from our prison up to the parade grounds
and told him: “These gentlemen are to be released today and
you will accompany them to the First Army Division
Headquarters and leave them there, where they will be given
some orientation.” I remember how that soldier breathed a
big sigh of relief. Apparently he must have thought that we
were yet another batch of political prisoners condemned for
slaughter and that, fortunately, was not the case. Tesfaye and
I quietly shook hands while still in the jeep.

When we arrived at the First Army Division Headquarters

at Sidist Kilo, we were politely ushered into a big meeting
hall and seated alongside other elderly prisoners that had also
been called out of their cells at the Fourth Army Division
Headquarters, most of whom, like the ones from the Grand
Palace, had a history of medical problems. These included the
seventy-year-old niece of the late Emperor, Princess Yeshash
Worq Yilma.

The orientation was brief and focused only on the

developments that had taken place in the course of the
revolution, the defeat of MEISON and EPRP parties in the
struggle, and of course the achievements of the revolution
“under the resolute leadership of Comrade Mengistu”. All
Derg members and civilian officials were now referred to as
“Comrade”.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 166

After the orientation, a young officer approached Tesfaye

and me to verify our identity and told us we would soon be
contacted by what he called “upper bodies”, meaning higher
authorities. Thus, after nearly three years of confinement, we
walked freely and penniless wondering how the outside
would look like. Our wives, who were informed of our
release, had apparently thought that we would still be at the
Grand palace awaiting transport, only to be told that we had
been taken to another location. That, of course, caused some
anxiety.

Before our families came to fetch us at Sidist Kilo, one of

our prison colleagues, General Lencha Meles, had already
offered to give us a ride in a car that had come for him and
dropped us off at Piazza, where we were to finally meet with
our wives and children.

As I knocked on my apartment door, I found that someone

else had occupied it. While I was trying to absorb my dismay
at the situation, the new tenants kindly showed me a nearby
small studio apartment to where my family had relocated.
There, I met my children and my wife joined us soon
afterwards. We hugged each other, with our sons Marcos and
Henok in between, for the longest hug I could remember. I
could not control my emotions and could feel tears running
down my eyes, not to speak of Woineshet’s endless sobbing.

Zewditu had also come from work and joined Tesfaye

with Tsinu and Arki, who were immediately brought over
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 167

from their grand parents. All our friends and family members
came over the course of that day, and in the following days to
celebrate with our two close families what we thought was
our exit from hell.

That night, as Woineshet and I were quietly trying to

digest the day’s events, we could hear our two little boys
whispering to each other. We stopped our conversation and
simply continued to listen to them. That was perhaps the most
beautiful sound. We both thanked the stars.

Upon hearing the good news about our release, my close

colleague Berhanu Dinka and Hirut Befeqadu brought me all
the backlog copies of Time, Newsweek and Africa
magazines, accumulated over nearly three years. I got a lot of
reading material to catch up on world events that had
unfolded in the years of our absence from the jobs that we
had enjoyed. Our two loyal friends in the military
establishment, Majors Girma Yilma and Fisseha Geda were
also among the first ones to come and visit us after our
release.

While we were in prison, lots of things had changed in the

country at large and in the Foreign Ministry in particular.
Colonel Dr. Feleqe Gedle Ghiorgis, a police officer trained in
Communist Yugoslavia was named Minister. Though Feleqe
was endowed with basic native instinct, he had to learn the
hard way the art of diplomacy while at the same time trying
to assert his leadership over an elite group of diplomats. My
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 168

job was not available, of course, as an army officer had taken

over as Chief of Press of the Foreign Ministry.

The general situation in the country was already

deteriorating and the management style of the new Minister,
compounded by the general fear that gripped the country, had
angered Fitigu and several of our colleagues so mach so that
they, like many Ethiopians, chose to go into exile. Despite the
difficult working conditions that prevailed, Berhanu Dinka
and a few other strong willed colleagues continued to soldier
on.

There was also quite a considerable change in the

Information Ministry. Be'alu Girma had already taken over as
Permanent Secretary. Clearly, under the circumstances, both
Tesfaye and I would not be sent back to our respective posts.

As we were contemplating on what to do next to sustain

the livelihoods of our families, a call came through from the
Palace one early November morning. Earlier on, US-educated
Major Dawit Wolde Ghiorgis, who was the Permanent
Secretary of Foreign Affairs then, had informed me of this
possibility. Tesfaye had also been informed through other
sources and we prepared ourselves to be received in audience
by the Head of State.

During the course of that afternoon, Tesfaye and I were

ushered into Chairman Mengistu’s Grand Palace office
separately, one after the other. I entered first and Chairman
Mengistu spontaneously hugged me like a dear friend that
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 169

had gone missing for years. I could not help smiling at the
sudden twist of fate. As I sat down, he started to speak at
length on recent developments in Ethiopia’s political, social
and economic life.

In a discussion that lasted nearly one hour and a half, the

Chairman laid out, from his own perspective, the full story of
the protracted political struggle within the Derg and with the
Country’s external enemies. His mastery of details was
striking. He then went on to ask me if I knew why I was
imprisoned. I told him that my crime was only serving a
country and people I loved dearly. He immediately admitted
that this was indeed what he had thought, but that certain
elements that were not around any more had misled him. He
was very candid about the whole affair.

He then hinted that perhaps my close friendship with

Colonel Asrat was the reason behind the mistaken belief that
I may have joined the anti-revolutionary camp. I told him
about the private conversation I had with Asrat on our way
back from China, only a few days before the latter was
executed. I recounted to him how Asrat had very favourably
commented on the Chairman’s leadership and character. I
then emphasized hat it would be unfair if the feelings I knew
of my fallen friend had not been brought to the Chairman’s
knowledge.

Chairman Mengistu then looked down at the table and

took what seemed a very long pause before he commented on
what I told him. He then said: “You know, for me too Asrat
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 170

was a close friend. We were all confused at the time and we

did not simply realize what we were doing. We had gone
crazy. As for you, tell me what I can do to compensate for our
mistake.”

At this point, I had to force out the diplomat in me to

respond to this seemingly generous offer, and, I said:
“Chairman, history has now absolved me and there is no
better compensation than a Head of State admitting that a
mistake was made.” He was obviously happy at my response
and went on to explain with great enthusiasm, about his
program to establish the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia and the
need to set up a Commission that would work out the
structures before the party could be formally launched.

I took it that he was asking me to join a group of

technocrats to assist him in this task. He thought my
contribution would enhance better approach in designing a
constructive foreign policy. He gave me the impression that
Ethiopia was at last heading towards an all-inclusive system.
I was soon to discover yet again that I had failed to gauge the
intensity of his blind adhesion to doctrinaire Socialism.

As a young student in Germany, I was a strong supporter

of the social democrats. I had always believed that a social
democratic approach represented a good alternative also for
Ethiopia. The Chairman then repeatedly assured me that I,
like all members of the group, would have direct access to
him and would no more be threatened with the kind of power
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 171

layers that were responsible for my misfortune of the past

three years.

As Chairman Mengistu was talking to me, I was reflecting

on my days in the dungeons of the Grand Palace. Even after
my release from that prison, the situation in which I had
found my wife and our two little boys had indeed bled my
heart. I had already learnt a bitter lesson in those three
horrible years. I have never contemplated leaving my country
and go into exile, come what may, I felt I had to agree. As I
left his office after the discussion, it was Tesfaye’s turn for
the same kind of briefing that lasted equally long.

Three days later, we were again invited to the Chairman’s

office, this time along with other persons selected to serve in
the Commission for Organizing the Workers’ Party of
Ethiopia, COPWE. We found out that all the key players in
the past three years that had rendered valuable and critical
services to Colonel Mengistu were included. There were also
a few old faces, like Colonel Embibel Ayele, by far the most
efficient military technocrat, who we knew had served under
Defence Ministers of the imperial regime and later on under
the two late Chairmen of the Derg.

The entire group was a mixture of civilians, military

cadres and few survivors from the original Derg. By this
time, the total membership of the Derg has dwindled from the
original one hundred twenty to about sixty, and, given the
increasing power of the Chairman, the attrition was
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 172

continuing. Perhaps Tesfaye and I were the only odd persons

out.

As the meeting was in preparation for our trip to Moscow,

Chairman Mengistu started with a brief review of party
formation history; with full of praises for the achievements of
the party of Lenin that he believed was the model that a
future Workers Party of Ethiopia should follow. I was
sceptical at his naivety but listened to him with interest as he
emphasized his confidence that there will be a great deal to
learn from the Soviets. He said he had made arrangements
with the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party
for the Commission members to tour the USSR and meet
party officials at various levels in different regions to learn
first-hand and on the ground from their “tested” experiences.

Such visits were dubbed as “visits for the exchange of

experiences”, although, clearly, we had no party history, nor
party formation experience, we could give back to the Soviets
in exchange. We could perhaps share with them experiences
from Ethiopia’s rich history of guarding our independence,
culture and traditions.

After a week’s preparation, the group travelled to Russia

and was welcomed upon arrival in Moscow by the tall and
handsome party apparatchik, Anatoly Sharayev. Sharayev
spoke impeccable Amharic, just like a native Amhara. I knew
him during the days of the Imperial regime when he was an
official of the Soviet Permanent Exhibition in Addis Ababa
and was declared Persona Non Grata, because he was found
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 173

carrying out “activities not compatible with normal

diplomatic duties”, the euphemism for his being caught red-
handed in espionage.

At the Party Hotel in Moscow, where we took up

residence for the next six weeks, Sharayev brought in
lecturers that gave us long hours of orientation ad nauseaum,
on party organization, Soviet style. In between we would be
flown to historical cities and places of interest such as the
birthplace of the October Revolution, Leningrad, now re-
baptized with its Czarist name St. Petersburg. We also visited
Frunze in Kyrgyz Republic, Sverdlovsk in Central Russia,
Gorky near Moscow and Vilnius in Lithuania. In the evenings
we would be treated to shows and concerts at the Bolschoi
Theatre and to ice hockey games. During one of the ice
hockey tournaments we were among the select few spectators
as the aging Leonid Brezhnev walked in like a robot, flanked
by senior party officials to watch a match.

Sharayev served both as an interpreter and minder

wherever we went. I did not wish to remind Sharayev of his
past in Ethiopia, but his intrusive and domineering posture
forced me to tell him a story I had heard from my elderly
prison mate Dejazmatch Girmachew. The story related to
incidents in Ethiopia’s continued attempt at asserting an
independent existence. Dejazmatch Girmachew’s father,
Fitawrari Tekle Hawariyat, had studied in Czarist Russia and
my respected friend knew a lot about relations with Russia,
past and present.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 174

According to that story, a certain Colonel Leonitiev was

dispatched by the Russian Czar to visit Ethiopia at the height
of the scramble for Africa by European powers. Russia had
wanted to use the common Orthodox Christian religion to get
a foothold in Ethiopia and Leoinitiev’s mission was to
convince Emperor Menelik to forge an even closer
relationship following Russian Red Cross assistance to
Ethiopian fighters during the battle of Adwa in 1896.

Emperor Menelik, it was said, listened attentively to the

message brought by Leonitiev and told him that since it was
the wish of our Russian friends to modernize Ethiopia, he
would appoint him, Leonitiev, “”Dejazmatch” (leader of the
campaign) and send him off to Maji, south west Ethiopia, so
he could “civilize” that region.

Those days Maji was a far away territory and one would
have to traverse difficult terrain and malaria-infested thick
forests to reach there. Leonitiev apparently lost many of his
entourage on the way and the challenge of civilizing that part
of Ethiopia was insurmountable for him. To this day, elderly
Ethiopians refer to that region as Dejazmatch Wolenteff’s
country, meaning Leoinitiev’s territory. Leonitiev was the
Russian official who escorted Dejazmatch Girmachew’s
father to Russia when the latter went to Petrograd to study in
the Military Academy.

Our friend Sharayev then said: “Comrade Teferra, now I

got your message; do you mean we should not try to be too
much involved in Ethiopia, lest we may not succeed?” I
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 175

nodded in agreement. After that incident he was gentler in

handling the delegation. The Ethiopian Ambassador at the
time, Colonel Nessibu Taye, a close friend of the Chairman,
was also not so appreciative of Sharayev’s style and the two
often exchanged harsh words publicly.

Captain Legesse Asfaw, who had risen from Master

Sergeant to Lieutenant and shortly afterwards to the rank of
Captain, apparently led the parallel power base of the
Chairman within the Derg and was as such designated to head
the delegation. His Deputy was Colonel Teka Tulu. This may
sound bizarre to those accustomed to respect of hierarchy in
the armed forces.

Captain Legesse was totally dedicated to the Chairman. At

the hight of the Red Terror he had proven beyond doubt his
unquestioning loyalty to Chairman Mengistu as his special
commissar to oversee the governance of Addis Ababa.
Though a meticulous note taker and learner endowed with
native intelligence, he would never dare make any decision
unless he felt it would please his boss. Apparently that served
President Mengistu’s power game very well.

In the new order therefore, military hierarchy was not

important. We all remember that General Aman Andom lost
his life among other reasons, because of this very issue. It
was the loyalty to the Chairman and the role that the
individual had played in helping consolidate Colonel
Mengistu’s power that really mattered. While in Moscow,
Tesfaye and I could notice the docility of the line officer
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 176

members of the group and their total submission to the

command of their former subordinates.

The delegation was divided into two groups with each one
assigned different tasks. Tesfaye and I were assigned to work
under the chairmanship of Shimelis Mazengia, a young
speechwriter, an avid reader and a fast learner, as rapporteurs.
Shimelis had abandoned EPRP early enough and was in good
standing with the Chairman.

As we were settling down in our rooms every evening to

evaluate the day’s work, I cautioned my colleagues to speak
in general terms as I felt that the protruding items in the walls
could be hidden microphones designed to bug the occupants.
We agreed and every time we started to discuss politics we
would point to those microphones and say together: “party
work!”

After we returned to Addis, we were immediately tasked

with the organization and running of the official newspaper of
the Commission, SERTO ADER, with Shimelis as Editor-in
Chief, Tesfaye as First Deputy in charge of Ideology and
myself as the Second Deputy for International Affairs,
respectively. Soon other assistants joined us. We were not of
course given the opportunity to choose our assistants. The
Chairman interviewed them individually, in rare cases upon
recommendation by Shimelis and simply sent them over to
us.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 177

The task of leading the Ideology department was left to

Captain Fiqre Selassie Wogderess who, as I mentioned
earlier, had completed his political training in Moscow. He
had in the meantime read a lot on Marxism, deepened his
knowledge of history. Fasika Sidelil, an economist of high
calibre, was assigned to assist him. As it transpired in the
years that followed, Fasika’s great ambitions and best of
intentions for the Country’s sober economic transformation
and development were routinely subverted by extremist
elements around President Mengistu.

For all intents and purposes, COPWE had the structures of

a political party and its membership was categorized into
Executive Committee (Politburo) Central Committee, and
simple membership. Shimelis and Tesfaye were elevated into
the Central Committee. The decision to become member of
the Commission or any of the organs in the new hierarchy
was made solely by the Chairman. Members did not apply to
join; they were simply drafted by the Chairman, perhaps after
consultation with his close advisers.

Being drafted into the Secretariat of the Commission was

considered a special favour and some of our colleagues who
were not called to serve in the Secretariat at Arat Kilo could
not hide their envy; little did they know that some of us were
eager to be relieved of that burden soonest.

As the work of constituting the broader membership of the

Commission for the Organization of the Workers Party of
Ethiopia, COPWE, was completed after almost a year of
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 178

preparation, my third and youngest son, Ashenafi was born

on 7th of June 1980. I named him Ashenafi (the winner) not to
herald the birth of a Worker’s Party, but to signify my
survival.
On June 19, 1980, the Commission and the official weekly
newspaper SERTOADER were launched simultaneously with
great pomp and fanfare. Just like Al-Ahram of Nasser’s
Egypt, or Pravda of the USSR, Serto Ader became the
authoritative organ and most wanted publication for all those
that needed insight into government thinking.

Just like in those days of the power struggle within the

Derg at the Grand Palace, after the launching of the
Commission, the intrigues, cabals and other political games
never ceased to manifest themselves. I was thus always
longing to go back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
continue with my normal career there rather than rendering
myself a target of innuendoes and unnecessary cabal at such a
close a proximity to the Head of State. I had had my share
already and paid for it dearly.

In September 1980, the Chairman felt that all progressive

parties in western and central Europe should know the work
of the Commission. He therefore assigned a select group led
by Major Berhanu Bayih, the head of the Foreign Affairs
Department of the Secretariat to visit Greece, Italy, Portugal,
East and West Germany as well to attend the Party
Congresses in East Berlin, Sofia and Prague.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 179

Our first stop over was in Athens, where Pan Hellenic

Socialist Party, PASOK, was still in the opposition and our
major partners were conducting a campaign for the elections
that were to take place shortly afterwards. Melina Merkuri, a
one time Hollywood film actress turned politician gave us a
guided tour of Corinth and introduced us at a mass rally
called by the mayor of the city of Nikia. We also met leaders
of other smaller parties.

After Athens, before we proceeded to Lisbon, we travelled

to Rome to meet with Mr. Pajetta of the Italian Communist
Party and other activists. Before we left Rome, however, I
was glad to meet, in secret, with my friend and former
colleague Dr. Fitigu, who had sought asylum in Italy and was
teaching at Rome University. He told me the circumstances
of his exile and I felt I should tell Major Berhanu that Fitigu
was indeed unfairly treated. Major Berhanu also sympathized
with Fitigu and upon our return he advised Chairman
Mengistu that persons like Dr. Fitigu, Ato Taye Retta and Ato
Kifle Wodajo should be handed back their passports and be
left to lead a normal life.

In Portugal we met the charismatic leader of the

Communist Party Alvaro Cunhal and his Party collaborators
who had just come out of the underground and gone public in
the wake of the popular uprising only a few years earlier.
During our private discussions, Mr. Cunhal, though a
committed communist, told me that he always liked the late
Emperor of Ethiopia and admired the courage of the
Ethiopian people in defeating Italian Fascism. I was happy to
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 180

be Alvaro Cunhal’s host in Ethiopia when he came for a

return visit in 1981.

While on our way to Lisbon, we spent the night in Madrid

and there, during one of our relaxed moments, I bold enough
to ask Major Berhanu why our government was adamantly
against improving relations with the US, given the fact that
even the Russians have their best diplomats in place in
Washington in the person of Anatoly Dobrynin, whereas,
despite our long history of relations with the people of the
United States, the Derg has not named an Ambassador since
Ambassador Ayalew Madefro chose exile in the US in 1977.
The post was vacant over a long period.

Major Berhanu listened quietly and did not respond then.

The next morning, however, he abruptly broke our normal
breakfast table conversation and rather angrily asked me as to
who had sent me to ask the question I posed the pervious
evening. I felt he was insinuating that it must be external
elements that had encouraged me to pose such question to
him.

Though surprised at this veiled suggestion I retorted that I

believed no one Ethiopian was a better patriot than the other
when it came to the interests of Ethiopia and what ever I
suggested was in the long-term interests of our country.
Tafesse Worq Wondimu, who was also in the delegation
looked at me with surprise and sympathy, but Major Berhanu,
did not raise the matter again; neither did he take any action
against me on that score.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 181

Throughout our tour, the Spanish and French languages I

had learnt in jail came in handy. Our whole tour was taxing
since Major Berhanu would narrate in exhaustive detail, his
own historical analyses of the Ethiopian Revolution to every
person we met every where, including to taxi drivers and to
shop keepers. I had to interpret non-stop. Our mission was
accomplished after three long weeks.

When in the summer of 1981, I was mandated to lead a

group of public relations officers to Turin, Italy for the annual
festival of UNITA, the Organ of the Italian Communist Party,
I was joined by Martha Tadesse, serving as tourism
promotions expert, Jacques Dubois, our Design Adviser,
Woizero Kebedech Erdachew a professional exhibition
decorator and, Worqu Tegegne a journalist who later on
defected to Canada.

The occasion provided me with the opportunity to meet

Fitigu once again. I congratulated him since he had already
taken up by then a new and better-paying job with General
Electric as sales representative for Africa.

In Turin, the stand of the Ethiopian Tourism Commission,

jointly run with SERTOADER, was small but effective,
especially since we served cups of aromatic Ethiopian coffee
to visitors, for free. Eritrean dissidents residing in Turin also
visited us. They seemed to be totally nostalgic the moment
we played traditional Ethiopian music and when they
hesitatingly approached us, we offered them coffee.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 182

In the ensuing exchanges, we struck a quick friendship

and they were soon integrated into our team helping us in
distributing leaflets and in serving coffee to visitors. We
discussed the war, of course, and we told each other that the
war would have ended had leaders on both sides of the
conflict sat down and reasoned together. By then, Naqfa and
Algena in northern Eritrea were changing hands and the
Ethiopian Army had also scored some minor successes
elsewhere.

Not long after our return to Addis, Chairman Mengistu

called a special meeting of the COPWE Secretariat and laid
out a plan for a total war with Eritrean secessionists. He
emphasized the need to use strong-arm tactics. He also spoke
of the sophisticated weaponry the Soviets had provided
Ethiopia and was confident that the war will soon be over.

I could not help but raise my hand and ask to speak and he
relented. To his credit and my pleasure, he never referred to
me as “Comrade” and always called me by my name only.
First, I expressed my dismay at not having had the chance to
see him one-on-one before that meeting, though he had
expressed interest in being briefed upon my return from
Turin. I did not dare to remind the Chairman that his own
special assistant, Captain Mengistu Gemechu, had blocked
my effort to see him.

I then narrated how we met our fellow citizens, Eritrean

dissidents, and, at that small Ethiopian stand, we could
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 183

interact peacefully with them to the point that after the end of
the exhibit, they, our Eritrean brothers and sisters, had
organized lunch for us and we all shared wonderful moments.
Our common culture and common heritage was our bond.

Then I went on to suggest that this kind of interaction

could be enriched through better information dissemination,
cultural activities, and sharing of economic benefits for all
citizens. Other participants of the meeting echoed the same
suggestion and the Chairman seemed quick to get our point.
After some discussion on various other topics, he said he was
setting up different committees dealing with culture,
information, reconstruction, trade and economics in a broader
approach to what he termed as the “Red Star Campaign”.

Shimelis Mazengia was charged with the task of

coordinating all activities related to culture and information.
Once in Asmara, I knew he would have easy access to the
Chairman, and I requested Shimelis to lobby on my behalf to
get me out of the newspaper editorial work and convince him
to reassign me to some external relations area. Shimelis
agreed.

At Asmara, Shimelis, faithful to the promise he gave me,

raised my case and when the Chairman hesitated, Fisseha
Geda, by now Commissioner for Tourism, was on hand to
insist that he needed desperately a person that fitted my
profile for his public relations work.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 184

Thus, upon his return from the unfinished Red Star

campaign, the Chairman wrote me a two-line letter, stating
that with immediate effect, I had been posted to the Tourism
Commission. I was very happy indeed and publicly displayed
my pleasure, to the consternation of some “Comrades” who
thought leaving Arat Kilo was like a demotion.

The aftermath of the Red Star campaign had claimed its

own political casualties. Be'alu Girma, as Permanent
Secretary of Information, was member of the Information and
Culture Committee that was set up for the purposes of the
Red Star Campaign.

Be’alu was in the best position to observe the behaviour of

officials around the President and being a prolific writer,
wrote an excellent novel, OROMAY that depicted and
exposed the futility of the military aspect of the campaign and
without naming them by their real names; he poignantly laid
bare the true character of many of those officials around the
President.

Be'alu's book soon gained wide popularity and was sold

out in only a few days after publication. Be'alu’s great literary
work, although admired by the book-starved readership,
clearly failed to impress the powers that be. On the contrary,
it angered them and they schemed to get at him.

Be’alu disappeared suddenly and the story told was that

one day in August 1983, while he was driving to work,
security agents stopped him and took him away. His car was
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 185

left abandoned in a remote part of Addis and his whereabouts

became a great mystery.

All of Be’alu’s friends tried to get some information from

State Security Chief Colonel Tesfaye Wolde Selassie and
from other influential personalities that people thought would
know. Nobody dared to ask the Chairman, of course. The
Chief of State security swore he had no knowledge of the
incident.

Even if he did, habitually Col. Tesfaye would not muster

enough confidence to part with such information.
Subsequently, in the wake of EPRDF’s victory, so-called
eyewitnesses tried to shed some light on Be’alu’s
disappearance, claiming they had seen him tortured.

That disappearance remained a mystery to the public

including the very close collaborators of President Mengistu.
Apparently, Be'alu perished in the same way as thousands of
our other compatriots who were considered a threat to the
regime.

Towards the end of the 80s, the Red Star campaign had
faltered and the days of the Derg were numbered. Prime
Minister Fiqre Selassie had fallen out of the President’s
favour and was forced into retirement. In the first years
following the downfall of the Imperial Regime during the
seventies, Fiqre Selassie was considered a radical
revolutionary.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 186

In later years, however, he was candid to admit that his

compassion towards his fellow human beings intensified with
his growing family responsibilities. Fiqre Selassie had begun
to see the light at the end of the tunnel, unfortunately only
during the last days of the regime.

Anders Wijkman, a former Swedish Red Cross Secretary

General, serving since 2000 as member of the European
Parliament and a great supporter of the Ethiopian Red Cross,
knew Fiqre Selassie very well. When we met in Addis again
in 2006, he revealed to me that while still Prime Minister,
Fiqre Selassie had told him that he wanted to develop closer
relations with Socialist International.

In the process, he was seeking the good offices of Prime

Minister Olav Palme of Sweden to find a way, through the
collective pressure of Socialist International, to avert the
blind slide of Ethiopia into outmoded socialist path that even
Gorbachev’ s Soviet Union was abandoning. He was seeking
Wijkman’s assistance in his effort to establish a channel of
communication with the Swedes.

When we heard the tragic death of Olav Palme, Fiqre

Selassie was visibly shattered and immediately arranged to
attend the burial ceremony in Stockholm. Accompanied by
Foreign Minister Goshu Wolde, his Personal Assistant
Teshome Tesfaye, and myself, he had a long and very fruitful
discussion with Foreign Minister Ingvar Carlsson who
succeeded Olav Palme.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 187

Despite, Fiqre Selassie’s desire for new approach in the

governance of pre-EPRDF Ethiopia, his early retirement and
other events that unfolded subsequently did not permit him to
control the damage that many thought President Mengistu’s
unquestioning adherence to “Democratic Centralism” had
brought upon Ethiopia.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 188

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Promoting Tourism

I knew Commissioner Fisseha Geda when he was serving

with Major Asrat Desta in the Information Committee of the
Derg before he was assigned as Chief of State Protocol and
then Commissioner for Tourism. He is a man of great heart,
credited with having saved many innocent Ethiopians from
the Derg’s Red Terror campaign. The two years I spent with
him at the Tourism Commission as his Promotions Adviser
were perhaps among the most interesting and happiest years
of my career.

Here, I found a person that could effectively use the

talents of others never micro-managed them and in fact
constantly pleaded with the Chairman to release Hotel and
Tourism professionals and other intellectuals that were
imprisoned without charge and let them help in the running of
the Commission. The Chairman relented, and great
Ethiopians such as Habte Selassie Tafesse, Yohannes Kifle
and Ato Getaneh had already benefited from Fisseha’s
intercessions. If I may quote from Former US President
Richard Nixon’s interview with Larry King of the CNN that
was aired in early nineties, “a true leader is one that
surrounds himself with people that are smarter than he is”.
Fisseha Geda was indeed a leader.

With a highly talented team that consisted also of the

respected and experienced journalist Mairegu Bezabeh, the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 189

Commission produced publications and photographic as well

as film material on Ethiopia by engaging seasoned writers
like Graham Hancock, Poet Laureate Tsegaye Gebre Medhin,
Anthropology Researcher Alberto Tessore, Travel Writers,
Angela Fisher and Carol Beckwith, as well as photographers
and world-class film producers Mohammed Amin and
Tafesse Jarra. Their works were well reviewed that they were
reproduced several times over. Later on, towards the downfall
of the regime, Fisseha was assigned as Ambassador to North
Korea. It is from there that he immigrated to the US where
began to lead a quiet life.

The two years I spent in the Tourism Commission were a

major landmark in the history of the Derg. The Workers Party
of Ethiopia was founded, and the tenth anniversary of the
revolution in 1984 was celebrated with great pomp, despite
the looming recurrence of famine in the provinces, especially
in Wello. A new constitution was drafted, Soviet style all the
way, and, ratified in referendum also held in Soviet style,
with the decision already made beforehand by the Politburo
of the Workers Party. That process was referred to as
“organizational work”. Even the awarding of medals for
distinguished services, except in a few notable cases of
irrefutable gallantry at the war front and the recognition given
to renowned professionals such as surgeons, educators, artists
and writers was “organizational work”. However, Professors
Asrat Woldeyes, Ede Marian Tsega, Mesfin Wolde Mariam,
posthumously Yidneqachew Tesemma and a few others were
deservedly recognized.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 190

Towards the end of 1984, in my capacity as Senior

Adviser for Tourism Promotion, I led a delegation to Las
Vegas, to participate in the annual American Association of
Travel and Tourism Agencies (AASTA). Million Wolde
Mesqel, Martha Tadesse and I were confronted with
insurmountable challenge since under socialist rule, Ethiopia
was not marketable to foreign, especially the hard currency
spending, western tourists. Then there was also the drought
catastrophe in Wello again.

We tried to make the best out of our participation in the

Las Vegas event, which was soon overshadowed by more
news of the great famine of 1984 that had struck most parts of
northern and central Ethiopia. While in Las Vegas, the entire
delegation watched with shock the BBC screening of the
famine that revisited Wello as narrated by the famous BBC
Reporter Michael Burk. Just as in 1974, the people of
Ethiopia were helpless and we all felt the terrible pain and
abandonment of our people.

A day before the AASTA exhibit was over, I got a phone

call from Fisseha Geda, who told me that the Chairman
wished to see me immediately and that I should return to
Addis as soon as possible. It took me three or four
connections to reach Rome and when I called him from
Rome, he said I could take it easy as the Chairman was now
hosting the OAU Summit in Addis and would see me after a
week or so. All the same I took the next available plane and
reached Addis before the Summit was over.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 191

Back in Addis, I went straight to Ghion Hotel, where the

Chairman had taken residence along with other African
leaders. He was visibly pleased to see that I had responded to
his call and said that Fiqre Selassie would soon talk to me.
They had apparently put me on a short list of three or four
persons to be nominated Deputy Commissioner for Relief and
Rehabilitation.

Berhane Deressa, my former colleague in the Foreign

Ministry, and I had been suggested for the post following a
discussion the President had with Ambassadors of the
European Union. During that meeting, Ambassador Rossi of
Italy, then chairing the European Union Group of
Ambassadors, had advised the President on the need to
deploy persuasive diplomats if Ethiopia were to succeed in
mobilizing the required international humanitarian assistance
to respond adequately to the famine that had revisited the
country.

A few months earlier, on the orders of President Mengistu,

Berhane had been relegated to running a government
household goods and furniture enterprise. This was because
though Berhane made a sound suggestion regarding strategies
for the 19th summit of the OAU that Ethiopia was to host
shortly, the President felt challenged. The impulsive action by
the President had angered Foreign Minister Goshu Wolde and
alienated other senior staff of the Ministry.

This time round, Berhane was immediately called to the

President and ushered in with all the respect that he never
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 192

expected. Before he even agreed to take the job, his

appointment as the new Deputy High Commissioner for
Relief and Rehabilitation was made public.

I was given the equally demanding job of Secretary

General of the Ethiopian Red Cross. No other appointment
would have pleased me better. Diplomats were needed on all
fronts to mobilize worldwide assistance to respond to the
immediate need of the people and to save lives.

Captain Fiqre Selassie, then Patron of the Ethiopian Red

Cross, called me into his office and laid out the tasks that I, as
Secretary General, ought to undertake. He stressed the need
to design strategies not only to respond to disasters when they
occur, but also to strengthen preparedness and prevention.
The idea impressed me.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 193
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 194

CHAPTER FIFTEEEN

In The Service Of The Red Cross

Working for the Red Cross was a dream come true. The
alleviation of human suffering and hunger is the noblest of
tasks. Protection and promotion of human rights was also a
great challenge. In order to discharge my new
responsibilities, I had to study first-hand what the
administration of the National Society looked like and devise
ways and means of improving it to respond adequately to
growing humanitarian needs. I thus begged the indulgence of
the Executive Board to give me some weeks before I could
come up with a new structure and plan of action.

With the unfailing and dedicated support of Dr. Dawit

Zawde, as well as that of a former college-mate Bekele
Geleta, who I knew as a brilliant organizer, we set about
transforming the entire structure. Dawit was a super
communicator and endowed with the gift of networking with
key partners in the Red Cross Movement. Bekele was a
highly qualified administrator and planner and had executed
the task of rebuilding destroyed railway tracks and bridges in
record time in the wake of Somali aggression in the late
seventies. When we presented the plan of work to the
Executive Board, it was endorsed without difficulty.

Soon, we infused new blood into the management by

bringing in Tsehay Feleqe, who had a proven track record as
the innovator and administrator of the Children’s Village,
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 195

Girma Shibeshi, a Price Waterhouse Chartered Accountant

and Costantinos Berhe Tesfu, a flamboyant agronomist and
management expert who was also victim of the so called Red
Terror and had spent time in the notorious Addis Ababa
Prison. We formed a cohesive and dedicated team in the
running of the Red Cross.

Dr. Dawit had tasted the wrath of the Derg in 1977, when
he was thrown into a military prison for a short while upon
his return from a graduate medical school in London. Bekele
was General Manager of the Ethio-Djibouti Rail Way
Company when Derg agents snatched him on trumped up
allegations and threw him into the Central Prison. Even while
a prisoner he had helped establish the best high school in
Ethiopia within the premises of the prison compound meant
for the benefit of young prisoners. Costantinos was General
Manager of the State Forestry Development Agency before
he suffered the same fate as Bekele and the rest of us.
Between us we had an accumulated experience that could
efficiently run any big humanitarian organization in the
country.

Before re-structuring, the Ethiopian Red Cross Society

had only one million Birr, equivalent at that time to half a
million USD in revolving funds. Immediately after the
reform, Dawit and I, assisted by Bekele and Costantinos,
started a worldwide fund-raising campaign and reached a
total amount of well over one hundred million Dollars in cash
and kind. The Ethiopian Red Cross thrived under Fiqre
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 196

Selassie’s guidance, the chairmanship of Dr. Dawit Zawde,

and the dedicated service of the entire staff.

The Executive Board members and Regional Chair

Persons of the Red Cross were all persons of impeccable
integrity that included Bank Governor and our Treasurer
Tadesse Gebre Kidan, later on appointed Ambassador to
Canada, Hailu Wolde Amanuel, Ambassador to the European
Union, Assefa Yirgu, a veteran journalist, Abebe Engida
Sew, Deputy Mayor of Addis Ababa, Dr. Zewdineh Yimtatu,
Professor at Addis Ababa University, Dr. Mekonnen of the
Police Hospital, Maitre Artist Afeworq Tekle And Dr Tibebe
Yemane-Berhan. These humanitarian volunteers were
instrumental in steering the growth and development of the
Red Cross during my tenure as Secretary General.
As we embarked on disaster preparedness and prevention
programs, Bekele and Costantinos did a superb job in
preparing projects that convinced German, Scandinavian,
Canadian, Japanese and other sister societies that worked in
close coordination with the League of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies (later on re-named Federation of Red
Cross and Red Crescent Societies where Bekele was
appointed Secretary General in 2008) as well as the
International Committee of the Red Cross that chipped in
even more to reinforce our efforts.

We thus mobilized several millions more Dollars for

Disaster Prevention and Preparedness projects, unparalleled
in the history of any National Red Cross Society in Africa.
We could muster enough resources to sign project agreements
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 197

with other implementing agencies, and even with Ethiopian

government ministries. The Red Cross Development Program
was exemplary in every way.

The international community and, indeed, the people of

Ethiopia were looking for some credible public institution to
respond to the worsening humanitarian needs and Ethiopian
Red Cross Society of the early 80s, as the largest Non
Governmental Humanitarian Organization in sub-Saharan
Africa, provided one. Local and international media reported
on our activities widely. We too, effectively used them in the
promotion of the humanitarian cause and in our appeals for
more assistance.

In the disaster stricken province of Wello, through the

tireless efforts of the unsung heroes like Mehari Measho, then
deputy Administrator of Wello and his dedicated staff, the
Red Cross, transformed Bati, what was then the death camp
of thousands of draught victims, into a vegetable garden.
Girma Neway, who at the time was Representative of the
Workers Party of Ethiopia in Wello, was highly supportive.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 198

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Meeting Fidel Castro And Other Leaders

While I was working for the Red Cross, I was often times
called to serve also as interpreter for a number of high-level
good-will delegations that were addressing rallies in foreign
countries and at mass gatherings in Addis Ababa. I
accompanied Prime Minister Fiqre Selassie, Deputy Prime
Minister Fisseha Desta, Colonel Addis Tedla, Colonel
Berhanu Bayih and Captain Legesse Asfaw in their different
missions.

For me, such occasions provided an opportunity to

observe from a closer proximity and assess first-had the
mindset of not only the individual Derg members that I
accompanied, but also that of Fidel Castro, Kim IL Sung, and
Erich Honeker, Gustav Husak, Theodore Zhuvkov, Kenneth
Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Sam Njoma, Yasser Arafat, Oliver
Tambo and an assortment of other leaders.

Though there may be many in the western world who do

not agree entirely with the way Fidel Castro ran his island
nation, the Cuban leader was admired by many others,
especially in the Third World, for having been able to stand
up resolutely and survive all these years in the face of the
might of and seemingly unending controversies with his big
neighbour, the United States of America. I always wanted to
meet that famous person and my opportunity came in the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 199

spring of 1986 when I was assigned as an interpreter to join a

delegation to Havana.

We visited the length and breadth of the beautiful island

and saw thousands of young Ethiopians who were given
educational opportunities by the government of Cuba. Finally
we also met Fidel Castro, the leader that had captured the
imagination of so many revolutionaries the world over.

Fidel Castro met us in his modest office just across the

Plaza de la Revolución in Havana and started the
conversation with questions about "Comrade Mengistu", how
he was doing, his health, etc. Throughout the conversation he
was looking with curiosity at the pitch-dark blue khaki
uniforms of his Ethiopian guests.

After we conveyed our President’s fraternal greetings and

warm sentiments the discussion that followed was mainly
briefing him on current developments. There was, as was
usually the case on such occasions, “common assessment and
complete similarity of views”.

As we met the Cuban leader, the entire delegation except

for me, were all dressed for the occasion. By this time it was
obligatory in Ethiopia, as commanded by President Mengistu,
that all officials should wear blue Korean style tailored khaki
uniforms. The colour was so obnoxious that it was offensive
to the onlooker, but President Mengistu apparently rejoiced in
seeing every one, him included, dressed as simple factory
workers. I was spared of that honor because I insisted, right
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 200

from the outset, that I was Red Cross official and did not feel
obliged to wear the uniform. Instead I chose a simple Cuban
tailored casual outfit.

As we left his office, Castro turned to me and wondered as

to why the “comrades” were wearing a blue Korean type
uniform. Though I had spoken English all the time, seeing
that I wore a Cuban tailored shirt, he asked if I were Cuban. I
politely responded in his native Spanish that I was Ethiopian.
He then hugged me and said he wished he could retain me in
Havana. One of our members tried in vain to explain to the
Cuban leader that Ethiopian officials were wearing those
uniforms as a mark of solidarity with the working class. Fidel
Castro was not impressed at all.

When I met President Fidel Castro again some sixteen

years later in 2001 as an Emissary of Mary Robinson, UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights, it was while was
attending the 105th Inter-parliamentary Union’s annual
gathering in Havana. I could still read in his face his
resoluteness and determination to stick to his socialist beliefs;
despite the downfall years ago of the system that once
bankrolled him.

What I noticed during my trips to Cuba is that Cuban

Communism differed from that of Eastern Europe in being
the product of a national revolution, not of foreign conquest.
Fidel Castro was inspired first and foremost by his
determination to struggle for social justice and do away with
any form of corrupt dictatorship. Cuba’s sad history of
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 201

Spanish colonial rule survived far longer in the island than in

the rest of Latin America. Spanish colonialism was replaced
by years of repressive rule of the likes of the notorious
dictator Batista, a US ally.

Fidel Castro was the great survivor of world politics.

When he marched into Havana in January 1959 at the head of
his revolutionary comrades, I was in high school at Debre-
Zeit. At that time, Emperor Haile Selassie, Dr. Kwame
Nkrumah, Dwight Eisenhower, Harold Macmillan and Nikita
Khrushchev were all in power. Castro has outlasted ten
American presidents and an equal number of Soviet leaders,
defied a US embargo for over forty years and continued to
enjoy the support and respect of the Third World.

After their hard-won victory, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara

and their fellow revolutionaries used their power not to amass
personal wealth, but to give Cubans world-class health and
education services. Those achievements were genuine. They
also put Cuba firmly on the map when they boldly stood by
oppressed nations of the world, such as in Angola and
Ethiopia.

Castro loved our country and Cuban soldiers came to

Ethiopia’s rescue in 1978 and heroically fought alongside the
Ethiopian Army to decisively repulse the expansionist
aggression unleashed by Said Barre of Somalia. Cuba has
trained thousands of young Ethiopian Doctors, Engineers,
Agronomists and Economists. Castro had even taken in,
nearly five thousand young children at a go. Most of them
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 202

orphaned by the Ethio-Somalia war, they brought up and

educated at schools in the Island of Youth in Cuba.

Fidel Castro’s genuine solidarity with the people of

Ethiopia could never be underestimated. Thus, Ethiopia
continued to maintain friendly relations with Cuba and the
commemoration in 2007 by the EPRDF-led government of a
monument in Addis Ababa was a fitting recognition of and
tribute to the eternal bonds of the Cuban and Ethiopian
peoples. Fidel Castro retired in 2008 after a long illness,
leaving the Cuban parliament to elect his brother Raul as the
next president. Raul Castro immediately relaxed the socio-
economic regime that his elder brother has put in place and
run for several decades.

Meeting Kim IL Sung in Pyongyang in 1986 was an

interesting experience. Kim was a story unto himself. His
docile subjects worshiped him like a god. They seemed
intoxicated by his very sight. His admiration for President
Mengistu was also enormous to the extent that Mengistu
would get any thing he asked of him. He was the major
supplier for Ethiopia’s newly established armaments
factories. In retrospect, I believed this must have been the
kiss of death for President Mengistu’s regime, as Ethiopia’s
arms build up was not at all favourably seen by western
powers.

During our visit, I noticed that Old Kim behaved like an

ancient feudal king. While he was treating us for a sumptuous
lunch in his otherwise not so agriculturally endowed country,
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 203

he was narrating his exploits during the Korea-Japan war and

apparently wanted to tell us that he was a young man then. He
turned to one of his elderly aids and asked how old he, Kim
IL Sung, was when he beat “those Japanese”.

The elderly man, a very high-level politburo member,

jumped from his seat and said: “Comrade, you were less than
thirty.” Kim nodded approvingly and repeated to us that he
was indeed less than thirty. I could not help laughing within
myself. The “Great Leader” had to have some one remind
him of his own age and time of his own activities. In contrast,
Emperor Haile Selassie had sharp memory even at an
advanced age. Kim’s behaviour, however, reflected more of
an imperial demeanour than that which the Ethiopian
Emperor used to display while meeting foreign guests.

Our other visits to western capitals such as London,

Geneva and Rome were aimed at meeting leaders of so called
progressive parties and briefing Ethiopians residing in those
countries on the latest “revolutionary” developments at home.
In this exercise, during our visit to Europe, Ambassador
Kassa Kebede, then Permanent Representative in Geneva was
particularly active. Kassa, who had studied in Israel and
spoke fluent Hebrew, had forged close relations with Tel
Aviv for President Mengistu and facilitated the emigration of
thousands of FALASHAS, Ethiopian Jews, to Israel. As a
reward from his Israeli friends, during the final hours of the
Derg in 1990, Kassa was spirited out of Addis camouflaged
as a sick FALASHA being evacuated for immediate medical
treatment. Kassa Kebede was a master strategist and an
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 204

experienced lobbyist. He finally settled in the United States to

work for a think tank.

During my years as Secretary General of the Ethiopian

Red Cross Society, we used every opportunity to strengthen
closer relations with the Swedish and German Cross
Societies. Prince Botho von Witgenstein of the German Red
Cross, with whom Dr. Dawit, Bekele Geleta, Costantinos and
myself had cultivated a close relationship, our colleague and
very close friend Anders Wijkman of the Swedish Red Cross,
as well as my friend and colleague the German Secretary
General Herman Schmitz-Wenzel, made it possible for our
Society to develop rapidly. They also helped in mobilizing
the support of other sister societies.

Ethiopian Red Cross had by now acquired a fleet of over

four hundred trucks and other vehicles, a state of the art
nation-wide radio communications network and a first rate
training centre. Our food distribution networks knew no
boundaries and we could reach victims in rebel held areas
with no major difficulty, notwithstanding the minders
assigned by the State Security Ministry keen to monitor our
activities. We strongly believed that humanitarian assistance
should not be denied to any Ethiopian in distress, be they in
government held or rebel held areas. By the time I was
appointed Minister Counsellor to our Embassy in Berlin and
Bekele Geleta took over as Secretary General, the Society
was functioning on a big surplus budget.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 205
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 206

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Return To Diplomacy

By 1986, though some six years had elapsed since I left

the Derg’s prison, the prison never really left me. I lived in
constant fear. This fear left me entirely only after left Addis
Ababa on my diplomatic assignment. Until the regime
changed, any person in the country, even if he or she was put
in a respectable position and worked closely with the
leadership, could end up in prison any day because of
trumped up charges.

The one painful moment I had to absorb was a day in

February 1986, when, as I was serving in the Red Cross, my
friend and Colleague Ambassador Berhanu Dinka, was
picked up by the notorious State Security agents and led to
the Central Investigation and Prison Centre. I was with him
the previous evening before heading for a field trip to Wello
to organize distribution of relief assistance.

Upon hearing the news of Berhanu’s arrest the entire Red

Cross team watching the evening TV program in our Dessie
hotel were all dumbfounded and could not imagine how an
innocent person like Berhanu, whom everybody liked and
admired for his first rate performance as a diplomat, could be
thrown into jail without charge. I was outraged and
immediately felt like fleeing the country before the same
thing could happen to me again.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 207

Apparently, besides some minor administrative and

procedural oversight that his adversaries used to frame him
with, Berhanu was victim of a palace intrigue that was going
on against the Relief and Rehabilitation Chief Major Dawit
Wolde Ghiorgis, who, in the course of his duties was closely
coordinating his work with Berhanu, the then Permanent
Representative in New York.

Thus, when Berhanu came to Addis for the usual

consultations, the President called him into his office, talked
to him in what seemed a sober encounter. Nothing of “the
administrative lapse” was mentioned to him. As Berhanu left
the office of the President, the order had already been given
for his arrest. That unpredictable action shocked all of us.
Berhanu was to spend well over four bitter years in jail and
like the rest of us that tasted prison life before him, he too
was never given the opportunity to see a lawyer or plead his
case before a court. His release came after ceaseless
intercession with the President, largely by Prime Minister
Tesfaye Dinka (no family relationship) and Fasika Sidelil.

As a result of a series of events that took place in the

summer of 1986, following the defection to the US of Major
Dawit Wolde Ghiorgis, who had enough of the intrigue
around President Mengistu, the post of the Commissioner
was left vacant. Later on, only a few months after Dawit’s
departure, his Deputy, Berhane Deressa who, like his senior
colleague was also disaffected, chose to stay in the US
following his last mission to the UN headquarters in New
York. President Mengistu had to fill both posts with his
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 208

"trusted comrades”. So, he appointed Major Berhanu Jembere

as Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner and Lt. Tibebu
Shifferaw as Deputy.

This situation left the Berlin diplomatic post vacant. The

President followed the suggestion of his Foreign Policy
Adviser Dr. Ashagre Yiglettu and decided that it would be
advantageous to send Commander Lemma Gutema and me as
a team to the GDR. Ethio-GDR cooperation was at its peak
and had to be maintained at the very high level. Fiqre
Selassie, although in not so good terms at the time with
Foreign Minister Goshu Wolde, kindly agreed to my new
posting as Minister Counsellor in Berlin. My return to active
diplomacy was a Godsend.

Foreign Minister Goshu Wolde, a fiery lawyer had

previously served as Military Prosecutor and Minister of
education. His leadership in the nation-wide campaign to try
and reduce the illiteracy level in the country from some
ninety five percent to barely thirty five percent in a short time
has been exemplary. Before he signed my mission order, he
was preparing to go to the UN General Assembly in New
York and when I met him, he seemed rather distraught.

Goshu, a deeply religious person, and his wife, the late Dr.
Chaltu had been good friends. On his last day in Addis, he
avoided the chauffer driven government vehicle and instead
asked me to give him a ride to the Nationalities Institute that
was housed near Black Lion Hospital, some four Kilometres
away from the Foreign Ministry.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 209

In the privacy of my car, I asked Goshu why he looked

depressed. He then confided to me his disgust with the
present leadership in the country. After he arrived in New
York, indeed, he sought asylum in the US and stayed there.

Before I left to take up my new post in Berlin, the Red

Cross colleagues threw a farewell party that is still fresh in
my mid. The luncheon reception organized by Dr. Dawit,
Bekele Geleta, Tsehay Feleqe and the rest of the staff was
generous. Many dignitaries, including our venerable Red
Cross Branch Chairman in Eritrea, Girma Wolde Ghiorgis
were in attendance. Girma, an articulate career civil servant
and former President of Parliament during the days of the
Emperor, was later on to serve as a two-term President of the
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in the new regime.

The souvenir presented to me was a golden ring with a red

cross enamelled in the middle. Woineshet also got a necklace
with the same design. Some Marxist zealots were not happy
to see it on my finger, obviously mistaking it for the cross of
Christ, which I would have carried with pleasure in any case.

Woineshet and I continue to treasure dearly those gifts of

expression of friendship, recognition of achievement and
respect from our colleagues in the Ethiopian Red Cross. I
remain humbled by the knowledge that the big farewell party
that was thrown in our honor was the first and the last of its
kind in the history of the National Society.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 210

Meanwhile, my friend Tesfaye Tadesse Gebre Heywot,

who by this time was elevated to the position of Editor-in-
Chief of SERTOADER, was appointed Permanent
Representative of Ethiopia to the United Nations and he too
was preparing to take up his new assignment.

Tesfaye’s appointment to the highly visible and much

coveted New York assignment came as complete surprise to
him and to some of the senior personalities around the
President, particularly to the not so few that had yearned to be
chosen for that position.

In the summer of 1986, just as Michael Gorbachev’s

PERESTROIKA (Change or Re-thinking) was beginning to
make its dent on the Communist Party and indeed on people
in all walks of life in the USSR, Tesfaye and I left Addis
together with our families to our respective posts in New
York and Berlin.

When my family and I arrived in Berlin, Capital of what

was then the German Democratic Republic, GDR, the ruling
Socialist Unity Party was in the midst of discussing the
impact of PERESTROIKA. In the face of the reality of a
changing world, the Party had taken a stand, though not so
publicly articulated, that Gorbachev’s idea was heresy and
denial of true communism. Thus, to prevent Gorbachev’s
book from reaching the wider public, the Socialist Unity
Party had bought all copies that were available in the German
edition and stashed them.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 211

On my part, I was satisfied to get hold of the English

version in West Berlin and after reading it thoroughly, like
most of my contemporaries, I concluded that the days of
communism were numbered. I bought several copies and sent
them to Addis to those I knew were hardliners as well as to
those who were close friends to the President.

When I called some of them later on to find out their

reaction, they described Gorbachev’s visionary thoughts as
betrayal of communism. They were obviously reflecting the
President’s thoughts, as if by sheer obstinacy Ethiopia could
escape the “wind of change”. To his credit, Commander
Lemma Gutema, the Ambassador, who was then considered a
staunch Mengistu Loyalist, was realistic enough to conclude
that the world including Ethiopia was indeed going to change.

In my new posting, following up on day-to-day diplomatic

activities was a daunting task. Even then, I now found enough
time to concentrate also on bringing up my three sons, trying
to mould them to be good citizens imbued with love of
country and people.

Since the East Germans needed to assert themselves as an

independent state, they allowed lots of amenities to the
diplomatic corps, hoping, naively perhaps, that this would
give them the competitive edge over their Federal German
adversaries. They provided us, the diplomatic community,
with a lavish club with the best of sports and other
entertainment facilities. Diplomatic life in Berlin was thus
very interesting and at times amusing.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 212

Ethiopia’s interest in the GDR concentrated mainly in the

fields of education, medical assistance, industrial and
commercial cooperation. Cooperation between the two
countries in the areas of security was conducted directly
between President Mengistu and Erich Honeker’s politburo.

In such activities as military cooperation that President

Mengistu considered solely his own domain, even
Ambassador Lemma Gutema was not involved. The
Ambassador and I would be invited to the annual hunting
picnic by the Head of State, attend the usual diplomatic
functions and follow up on routine state to state relations.

Despite all the generosity of our East German hosts,

almost all diplomats did our shopping in West Berlin. Some
of us even chose to send our children to schools in West
Berlin. We did not mind at all going through the daily
scrutiny by the East German Guard at Checkpoint Charley or
at the border crossing on Bornholmer Strasse in Pankow,
adjacent to the French Sector, always being photographed in
the process, day in and day out.

Suspicious that we might be smuggling their citizens into

the West, our East German hosts would some times even
shadow our movements following us into West Berlin
through their resident agents there. We were always aware
that our cars with their East German diplomatic plates were
easy targets also for West Berlin Police and US Army
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 213

intelligence surveillance. The cat and mouse game was fun,

though not always amusing.

The contrast between East and West Berlin was stark.

Whenever we entered into East Berlin at the end of each day,
even my little son Henok would always comment that he was
finally happy to be in East Berlin because it was so quiet and
peaceful. He was obviously comparing it to the hustle and
bustle of West Berlin.

What my son did not perhaps know then, I believe, was

that free movement of a free society has indeed its own noise,
unnoticed by citizens who took that noise for granted. On the
other hand, enforced discipline of a controlled society has its
own peace, born out of fear and total submission. That peace,
however, was an illusion. Rebellion was already around the
corner, waiting to erupt at any moment.

Whenever I had more time for a visit to West Berlin, I

frequented driving past the Rathaus Schoeneberg, the
municipal building near the Technical University. There, I
always stopped to look at the balcony of the building from
where in 1961 President John F. Kennedy spoke to thousands
of West Berlin citizens and delivered his famous “Ich bin ein
Berliner” speech. Indeed, as Kennedy stated, if any one had
any doubt about the difference between freedom and
subjugation, one needed to go to Berlin.

My family and I were lucky to have been witness to what

could perhaps be described as the greatest event of the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 214

eighties, the downfall of a system that had divided and

suppressed an industrious nation for nearly half a century. My
sons and I were happy to join the Berlin crowds and in
solidarity with them and chip off souvenirs from the concrete
wall when through popular uprising it was finally dismantled
on 03 October 1989.

Earlier, in the month of May of the same year, President

Mengistu was invited for an official visit to East Berlin. We
made all the necessary preparations to ensure the success of
the visit and the President who, accompanied by his attractive
wife Wubanchi, Colonel Berhanu Bayih the Foreign Minister,
Tesfaye Dinka then Deputy Prime Minister and other
dignitaries arrived in Berlin. Mr. and Mrs. Honecker with the
entire Politburo lined up and received them warmly.

As we drove out of Schoenefeld International Airport,

General Tamene Dillnensaw, our Military Attaché based in
Moscow and I, driving in the same Limousine, heard over the
car radio a BBC newscast in which a coup attempt against
President Mengistu was reported. Addis Ababa was in
turmoil.

No sooner had the President who was being escorted by

his counterpart arrived at the State Guest House in Pankow
than Ambassador Lemma Gutema brought the breaking news
to him. The President immediately asked for a point-to-point
radiotelephone communication. As the central telephones
were suspended in Addis, the Embassy Security Officer,
Captain Belay Gebre Tsadiq and I managed to get a special
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 215

line to Fiqre Selassie Wogderess who was still Prime

Minister.

Fiqre Selassie was in the process of describing the

situation over the phone when the President interrupted him
to confirm his own suspicion and listed several names that he
thought were involved in the coup attempt. Fiqre Selassie
confirmed all of them except one. President Mengistu was
totally surprised that General Seyoum, his Military
Intelligence Chief whom he had always suspected as
harbouring ambitions had not joined the rebels. He was dead
right regarding the others. Apparently the President had
advance intelligence from his loyal Trojan horse within the
rebel group, before he left Addis Ababa.

As it was revealed later, State Security Chief Colonel

Tesfaye was apparently collaborating all along with the rebel
officers until the last moment, keeping the President up-to-
date on every move by the plotters. They included the
Minister of Industry and former Air Force Commander
General Fanta Belay, his successor General Amaha, Chief of
Staff General Merid Negussie, Ground Force Commander
General Hailu Gebre Michael and several other high ranking
officers.

Colonel Tesfaye and Captain Mengistu Gemetchu, Special

Assistant to the President, who had not joined the visiting
party in Berlin mobilized the Special Forces at the Palace and
crushed the coup with ease. Once darkness fell, Air Force
Mig fighter planes could not fly. It was bad planning on the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 216

part of those Generals and President Mengistu once again

displayed his characteristic resoluteness when it came to
consolidating his power.

The plotters were tried by a hastily chosen military

tribunal that simply rubber-stamped President Mengistu's
decision to find them guilty of treason. The fate of the rebel
generals was then sealed at a closed meeting of staunch
Mengistu Loyalists. Ambassador Fisseha Geda, a long time
friend of the rebel Generals and confidant of the President,
rushed to Addis from Pyongyang to advise the President to
pardon the coup plotters and start a process of national
reconciliation and dialogue in earnest. President Mengistu
could not be swayed.

Generals Merid Negussie and Amaha did not give

President Mengistu the satisfaction of ordering their
execution. They had already committed suicide before they
could be apprehended. General Fanta and most of the other
rebel generals were soon apprehended. Fanta was allegedly
killed in a scuffle with the prison Guard despite Mengistu’s
reportedly keen desire to talk to him before the trial.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 217
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 218

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Witnessing The End Of The German Democratic Republic

Meanwhile in Berlin, it was becoming clearer every day

that the GDR communist regime was getting weaker and
weaker as the ruling party started to crack from within. The
people took notice and the exodus to the West increased in
greater and greater proportions. Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia, that were already wrenching their freedom
from Soviet paws, opened their western frontiers, making it
easy for GDR citizens to use those passages to flee to their
kith and kin in West Germany.

The final blow to the Socialist Unity Party came when one
hundred and thirty five East Germans simply walked into the
office of the West German Representative in East Berlin and
barricaded themselves there. My West German colleague,
Herr Von Studniz, invited me to witness for my self what was
going on. The East Germans tried to negotiate discretely an
easy solution to the diplomatic incident. However, that
attempt was futile, since the West German tabloid
BILDZEITUNG had already broken the story.

Later on, a former GDR ambassador to Ethiopia, Hans

Jagenaw then serving in the Foreign Ministry, made a
realistic assessment of the situation when he told me:
“whatever the motive of the people inside the Federal
German Representative’s Office in East Berlin, it is over with
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 219

the German Socialist Unity Party. We have lost control of the

country!” he said.

After the series of demonstrations by masses of

disgruntled GDR citizens, as well as the night vigils in Berlin,
Dresden, Leipzig and other major population centres, the
notorious state security, STASI, could not cope with the
mounting protests.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was the culmination of

several years of effort by western powers at challenging the
Soviet system that had repressed eastern and central Europe
since the defeat of German Nazism. At a rally close to the
Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin in 1987, President Ronald
Regan had even called on General Secretary Gorbachev to
“tear down this wall”.

The ceaseless sessions of the four power talks, which

brought together the World War II allies, US, UK, France and
Russia, with representatives of the two Germanys in
attendance, had finally borne fruit. While the Soviet system
was aging just like the leaders that tried to perpetuate it
through brute force, capitalism in the west seemed to
guarantee liberties, withstand all the romantic student
uprisings of the mid-sixties and thrive on successes of post-
war reconstruction.

Despite Erich Honeker’s prediction only a year before in

Vienna that the Berlin wall would stand for the next one
hundred years, it took only the change of heart of one Soviet
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 220

leader, Michael Gorbachev, to put an end to Honeker’s hard-

line communist dream.

Indeed, until November 9, 1989 it seemed that the Wall

built in1961 and served as death trap for so many GDR
citizens seeking freedom, was not about to be removed. The
authorities had even strengthened and re-mined the death-
strip that ran along it.

Along the entire border with West Germany, the East

Germans had installed more of the automatic shooting-
devices, which killed several would-be escapers. Many East
German soldiers that were posted on guard duty on the border
had voted with their feet and crossed the frontier. Others were
reluctant to shoot fellow citizens trying to get out. The
automatically triggered machines, however, would not
hesitate. The wall symbolized the cruelty of the system for
much too long.

In early November, Erich Honeker was deposed by his

own Politburo and Egon Krenz was elevated to the
Chairmanship of the ruling party. Thus, Honecker, who a
week before had presided over the pompous 40th anniversary
celebrations of the East German State, was left to the mercy
of his own people.

In the re-structured Politburo, a few new faces were added

and that did not satisfy the restless population. As Krenz was
one among equals, I noticed during meeting him at the annual
New Year’s reception that he could not command respect and
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 221

consolidate the kind of power that Honeker once wielded.

Krenz struggled to stay on for half a year.

While all this was going on, Erich Honeker had sought
refuge at the home of Catholic priests since none of his
erstwhile communist comrades would have anything to do
with him. Meanwhile, in the corridors of power in East
Berlin, the cracks were widening and the Party was thrown
into disarray and rendered leaderless.

The 9th of November 1989 was a Thursday; and at a

meeting of the Politburo of the ruling party, GDR authorities
had agreed to open the wall. This decision must have been
made spontaneously in response to the growing protests in
Leipzig, Dresden and many other cities in the GDR.

The border posts were not alerted, neither was the decision
communicated down the chain of command to the security
organs when Guenther Schakowsky, former Editor-in-Chief
of the Central Organ Neues Deutschland, and later on
member of the Politburo in charge of the Capital, called a
press conference to tell the world that as of that moment, the
wall was totally irrelevant.

Schakowsky’s hurried announcement emboldened GDR

citizens to simply cross over en masse to West Berlin. At the
same time, West Berliners began demolishing the wall. The
situation was beyond the control of the GDR regime.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 222

I was listening to Schabowski’s statement over the radio

while bringing my children from school in West Berlin and as
I reached the border crossing at Bornholmer Strasse, I saw
hundreds of young men arguing with the Guard to let them
through since it had just been announced that the wall was no
more relevant. The bewildered Guard packed their belongings
and left their posts. The crowd that had now increased
significantly crossed through the open gates on the border.

At all major checkpoints, it was a sight to see. Young and

old women and men, youth and little children were running
with joy in the direction of West Berlin free at last, to see the
part of their country that had long been denied them. I could
not help my emotions and felt very happy for them. Soon the
crowds marching to West Berlin were increasing by the
hundreds of thousands.

With their habitual efficiency, West Germans had

instantly mobilized buses and other means of transportation
making them available to their lost and found brothers and
sisters. Later in the evening, my family and I joined the
unending wave of human beings to march into West Berlin.
That was our way of expressing solidarity with a happy
people.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 223
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 224

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Times Of Transition

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the
German Socialist Unity Party, GDR citizens of all social
strata chose their representatives for a roundtable conference
and these in turn chose a new coalition government under a
lay Catholic preacher, Heinz Demezier. Ms. Bergman-Pohl,
another non-communist, was named titular Head of State.

Back in Addis Ababa, the attempted Coup of May 1989

had provided President Mengistu with opportunity to
reorganize the Council of State and bring in new faces,
including Ambassador Lemma Gutema who now became
Deputy Chairman of the Council, literally Vice-President.

A few months later, the President was advised to elevate

senior diplomats to ambassadorial level. Thus, one month
after the recall of Ambassador Lemma Gutema, President
Mengistu appointed Dr. Feleqe, Assefa Wolde, Tibebu
Bekele, Tadesse Gebre Kidan, Konjit Sene Giorghis and me
as ambassadors assigning us to Rome, Nairobi, Bonn,
Ottawa, Geneva and Berlin respectively. Our fresh start was
made easier, thanks to the support provided to us by then
newly appointed Vice Minister, Fisseha Yimer. Thus, my
finest moment came when, after the audience with the
President, I walked back in to the Foreign Ministry as an
Ambassador through those same doors I had come out as his
prisoner twelve years before.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 225

Our Trade and Economy Counsellor Yilma Kassaye, an

astute diplomat, was appointed to head the Relief and
Rehabilitation Commission. In the process, some of the finest
and ablest civil servants, the Minister of Urban Planning,
Tesfaye Maru, the Minister of Agriculture, Tekola Dejene
and other middle level officials that had managed to
disengage themselves from the immediate vicinity of the
President took up international posts.

By that time the war in the north was intensifying and the
economy was literally in shambles. Even then, salaries were
paid in time and essential services were running normally.
Though he believed with blind faith that he could win the war
only through military might, the successively humiliating
defeat suffered by the army forced President Mengistu to
reluctantly agree to send a negotiating team to Atlanta to sit
with the EPLF under former US President Carter’s auspices
and to Rome with TPLF/EPRDF facilitated by the Italian
foreign ministry.

In April 1990 while I was sitting in his office to brief him

on the latest developments regarding the downfall of the
Erich Honecker regime in GDR, President Mengistu received
a call from the leader of the Ethiopian negotiating team in
Nairobi, Dr. Ashagre. The team had gone to the Kenyan
capital as a follow up on the Atlanta talks held earlier in the
year. Dr. Ashagre told him that Isaias Afeworqi’s team had
rejected all proposals forwarded from the government side.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 226

The president suddenly got nervous, apologized that we

had to cut short the briefing session and went hurriedly into
consultation with his security chief. For me it was then clear
that the President’s stubbornness that was matched by equally
stubborn disposition of the rebel leader would not take the
negotiations any where and that the final result would be
decided by the better fighter.

After I got back to Berlin, I presented my credentials to

the Interim Head of State, Ms. Bergman-Pohl. The new rulers
in East Berlin were only caretakers until the re-unification of
Germany was officially presided over by Chancellor Kohl at
a moving ceremony in front of the Reichstag in West Berlin
in night of October 3rd 1990.

Just before the inevitable total re-unification of Germany,

I was appointed Ambassador to the Czech and Slovak
Republics while also accredited to Hungary. I left Berlin after
having made arrangements with my counterpart in Bonn,
Ambassador Tibebu Bekele, to take over all assets of the
Berlin Embassy, as these would be needed when the entire
Bonn Embassy moved to Berlin. Tibebu, a dear friend and
colleague since our college days, was close to my family and
he kindly adopted my son Henok to continue in the French
Lyceum in Bonn until arrangements were made for him to
follow me to Prague.

When I arrived in Prague on October 5th, 1990, and in

Budapest in the following month, the Czechs and the
Hungarians did not keep me long before I could present my
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 227

credentials to Presidents Vaclav Havel and Arpad Gonz

respectively. In fact Czech Foreign Minister Dienstbier
received me on the day of my arrival in Prague and President
Vaclav Havel received me at Prague Castle the next day.

I found my new assignment in the two former Soviet

satellite states very interesting. Besides looking after
Ethiopia’s vital trade and cultural interests, interaction with
Czechoslovak and Hungarian leaders was a useful learning
experience as both countries were undergoing periods of
democratic transition.

President Havel of Czechoslovakia who, as dramatist and

a man of letters, had gained fame and respect in the Charter
Seventy Seven Movement, and his counterpart in Budapest,
President Arpad Gonz was also a dramatist. I found both
Presidents as warm and humane. The peoples of the two
countries indeed deserved such compassionate leaders after
years of totalitarian oppression.

As Ethiopia had several hundred students studying in each

of the countries and did conduct significant trade relations,
the work demanded full attention. I loved my new assignment
and went about visiting the various institutions in both
countries making friends and networking everywhere for
closer collaboration. In Prague itself, several active and
former leaders were frequenting visits to the Court of Vaclav
Havel.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 228

We thus had the pleasure of hosting receptions in honor of

participants in the Interaction Group meetings for Henry
Kissinger, Helmut Schmidt, Valery Giscard d’Estaing,
Olusegun Obasanjo, Robert McNamara, Pierre Eliot Trudeau,
Jim Callaghan and other luminaries.

I have always admired Dr. Henry Kissinger for his sterling

performance as a diplomat and now as an outstanding
historian. During my days as a young journalist, I was
fascinated by his role in ending the Vietnam War and in
facilitating the normalization of relations between the US and
China through the avenues of secret, and what was sometimes
referred to as “ping pong diplomacy”. In the many years of
my diplomatic career that followed, Dr. Kissinger’s works
have guided and reinforced me.

As he was to admit during a BBC interview in January

2008, like many observers of latter day political
developments, Kissinger too had never thought that his
efforts in engaging China in the early sixties would have
resulted in helping transform China from a classical
communist state to a fully-fledged industrial state that thrived
on capitalism. Our short but fruitful meeting in Prague
reinforced my admiration of Dr. Kissinger.

In 1990, immediately upon arrival in Prague, during my

interaction with the small diplomatic community in Prague, I
had cultivated close relations with the Nigerian Ambassador,
Yusuf Beita, Kuwait’s Ambassador Mussa and US
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 229

Ambassador, Shirley Temple Black. The first Gulf war was

raging then.

All diplomats, with the exception of some pro-Iraq Arab

representatives, stood by our Kuwaiti colleague Mussa, who
for some time had lost total communication with his home
country, his government and people when Saddam Hussein
occupied the tiny oil rich state.

Shirley Temple Black, a former child actress and

Hollywood film star, has always remained a compassionate
human being, also in the world of diplomacy. Before coming
to Prague, Shirley had her first assignment in Ghana and later
on served in various capacities at the State Department. She
was a genuine admirer of Ethiopian culture and was well
acquainted with our history. We struck close friendship.

While Ambassador Tesfaye Tadesse was presiding over

the Security Council in New York during the critical months
of the Gulf War, I developed closer working relations with
Ambassador Shirley Temple Black and other representatives
in Prague of the Coalition countries. We conducted frequent
consultations and shared useful information and analyses that
we in turn transmitted to our respective capitals.

Ethiopia was now totally committed to supporting the US-

led intervention in Kuwait. Needless to say that this action by
the Ethiopian government now led by the new Prime Minister
Tesfaye Dinka was not enough to soften the US
Administration towards President Mengistu.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 230

President George Bush Senior also made a series of visits

at the time to Europe to galvanize further support for the war
effort. The Czechs were, after all, best placed to handle anti-
personnel mines and explosives for the Coalition as they had
supplied Saddam with explosive ordinance before the Iraqi
dictator finally decided to devour Kuwait.

President Bush Senior had thus come to Prague to thank

President Havel and the People of Czechoslovakia for their
support. We all availed ourselves of the opportunity to shake
hands and exchange good words with the President at a grand
reception hosted in the splendid hall of the Prague Castle.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 231
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 232

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Fall Of Mengistu

Meanwhile in Ethiopia, the forces of EPRDF were

advancing on Addis Ababa and almost all parts of Northern
Ethiopia except for Asmara where the Second Army was
concentrated, were all in rebel hands. Captain Legesse Asfaw
was appointed President Mengistu’s Representative in Tigray
when every front seemed to have been lost. In desperation,
and, most certainly upon instruction from his boss, allegedly
after having ordered the gruesome bombing of innocent
civilians at Hawzien, he pulled out the entire army from the
Meqelle just before the TPLF marched victoriously into the
Tigrean capital. In the new Millennium, Legesse was being
tried for mass murder.

After the fall of Shire Enda Selassie in 1989, and the

subsequent pull out of the Ethiopian Army from Meqelle,
neither Legesse, nor the docile generals assigned to serve at
his pleasure were able to undo what military strategists
considered was glaring tactical error. President Mengistu was
beleaguered on all fronts.

Consequently, President Mengistu sent off his erstwhile

loyal assistants, Colonel Fisseha Desta, the Vice President of
the State Council and Captain Legesse Asfaw into retirement
and simply made some cosmetic changes in the Council of
State. The new team, as if by design, was eventually left to
surrender hastily to the victorious EPRDF forces. The last
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 233

minute Cabinet reshuffle that brought in Tesfaye Dinka as

Prime Minister and Tesfaye Tadesse as Foreign Minister
could not avert the inevitable downfall of the regime.

In retrospect, few might have thought at the time that the

President had set his mind on fleeing the country when the
going got tough. In fact, the day before he left Ethiopia, the
President had summoned, privately, a Passport Officer, Yared
Meshesha who had served with me in Bonn in the seventies
and instructed him to prepare special service passports for his
entire family.

As President Mengistu’s plane was leaving Addis Ababa

Airport on a Tuesday morning in late May, ostensively for a
tour of army recruitment centres in the South, the new
Foreign Minister Tesfaye Tadesse who was arriving from
Tokyo to take up his post was rushed to a hastily called
meeting of the new cabinet only to learn that the Head of
State had just fled the country.

After President Mengistu’s flight was announced over the

radio, and in not so endearing terms, the army chain of
command broke down completely and EPRDF could not be
stopped. Even the last ditch effort at a negotiated settlement
in London by the new Prime Minister Tesfaye Dinka was
futile. Teferra Haile Selassie, then Ethiopian Ambassador to
the Court of St. James had painstakingly arranged a
respectable forum to facilitate an honourable settlement.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 234

The eleventh hour attempt by a group of intellectuals led

by Professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam that had approached
EPRDF with a suggestion to help establish a caretaker
government and an offer by ex-royalists to form an advisory
council for the victorious forces was too late, because EPRDF
was already the government.
\
Besides, since the US mediation team led by Assistant
Secretary of State Herman Cohen had already wily-nily
recognized EPRDF’s dominance over Ethiopia, the
negotiations became a futile exercise.

On 26 May, as Prime Minister Tesfaye Dinka left for

London for the last-minute negotiations on a fait accopmli
situation, Foreign Minister Tesfaye Tadesse also left for
Nigeria to attend the OAU summit in Abuja. Later on he
returned to New York to join his family.

Following the failed attempt in London at a negotiated

settlement, Tesfaye Dinka, and Dr. Ashagre Yiglettu sought
and were granted asylum in the US. Eventually, Tesfaye
Dinka and Herman Cohen ended up working in the same
office as Senior Advisers to the Global Coalition for Africa,
an entity supported and run by the US government.
Ambassador Teferra Haile Selassie stayed on in London for
some years and produced among other useful works, a well-
researched and useful book on the history of Anglo-Ethiopian
diplomatic relations.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 235

EPRDF forces reached the gates of Addis Ababa in the

early hours of 28 May 1991. As the new rulers advanced on
the Grand Palace, the interim Head of State General Tesfaye
Gebre Kidan had already sought refuge in the Italian
Embassy mainly because it was feared at the time that the
demoralized and retreating army or even the conquering army
of EPRDF would soon round up at JANMEDA, all high
government officials and senior armed forces commanders
and summarily execute them. Fortunately that was not the
case.

After General Tesfaye and Colonel Berhanu Bayih went

unaccompanied into the Italian Embassy They were soon
followed by General Addis Tedla. Hailu Yimenu, Wolle
Chekol and Fasika Sidelil, later on joined the group as the
Derg’s hold on power finally crumbled in total disarray.

Immediately after entering Addis Ababa, the EPRDF

forces called on all former officials to give themselves up and
when the latter did show up the new rulers hoarded them into
the former residence of Crown Prince Asfa Wossen that had
been converted into a political school by the Derg. Soon,
Wolle and Fasika left the Italian Embassy without delay and
gave themselves up to the new authorities. This was
considered a wise move that paid off as they were eventually
released from prison, albeit after several years of detention
without charge.

As I was writing this story, those that had chosen to stay

as long-term guests of the Italian Embassy, were still there. In
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 236

the process two of them had died while still inside the
Embassy, Hailu Yimenu, reportedly by suicide a few days
after the fall of the regime and later on in 2004 General
Tesfaye, in a scuffle with his erstwhile colleague Berhanu
Bayih. Wolle died in 2005 of natural causes as a free man.

After the Transitional Government was set up in 1991,

with the exception of career diplomats Tibebu Bekele, Hailu
Wolde Amanuel, Wossen Beshah, Konjit Sene Ghiorgis,
Sahle Worq Zawde, Assefa Wolde and I, all the others were
recalled. Six months later, the new EPRDF-led government
recalled the rest of us.

When I told my colleagues in the diplomatic corps in

Prague about my recall, all of them were concerned about the
well being of my family, since the situation in Ethiopia was
still volatile. Ambassador Shirley Temple Black was
particularly gracious in offering to help me find my way in
the US should I wish to emigrate there. She had also made
sure that I obtained the necessary visa for all my family. I
thanked her for her kind assistance, but chose to return home.

My decision to return home was reinforced when I heard a

rather moving interview over the BBC given by Colonel
Fisseha Desta, former Deputy to President Mengistu, when he
stated that “had he chosen to spare himself of imprisonment
by the incoming regime, he had all the facilities to flee the
country in good time, but decided to stay, right or wrong,
rather than suffer the agony of life in exile”.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 237
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 238

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Return To The New Ethiopia

By the time we returned to Addis Ababa, our sons Marcos,

Henok and Ashenafi had grown up and they could easily be
integrated into Ethiopian schools. The entire family returned
to Addis Ababa at the end of December 1991, three days
before the deadline given to us and found Bole Airport
heavily guarded by the militants of the new regime. The
driver sent for us from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
processed our entry formalities fast and we settled in our little
home.

My first meeting with the new Foreign Minister Seyoum

Mesfin was pleasant. As we reviewed the situation that
obtained in Ethiopia then, he asked me to stay on and serve,
at least in the interim period, as member of the senior staff. I
agreed and was given back my old job of Director of Press
and Information. I found Seyoum a very agreeable person and
our working relationship soon developed into a lasting
friendship even after I left the Ministry some two and a half
years later.

My other colleagues that were recalled, also demonstrated

unflinching patriotism and returned to Addis, some not so
soon, but only after they had wound up their affairs in the
respective capitals. This pleased our new Minister.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 239

I served in the Ministry until the Eritrean People’s

Liberation Front formally declared itself the independent
Government in Asmara after what most observers agreed and
EPLF itself knew was not really a free and fair referendum.
Meanwhile in Addis Ababa, mass dismissals of professionals
and academics that had long service records were the order of
the day. Soon, I was to be no exception.

Thus, in the absence of Foreign Minister Seyoum,

apparently without the knowledge of his Deputy Dr. Tekeda
Alemu, Prime Minister Tamrat Layneh, then at the height of
his political power, reportedly ordered the separation from the
Ministry of many career diplomats. Prime Minister Tamrat
was himself to fall out of favour later on. At the time, Tekeda
expressed his total surprise at my sudden dismissal, and
Seyoum could not undo what was already a fait accompli.

The new Prime Minister, though trying to come to grips

with the art of governance and statecraft, had several
challenges for which he was obviously not well prepared. In
addition, influential Eritreans still serving in Addis Ababa
were candid about their desire to see Ethiopia at the service of
Eritrea and spared no efforts at depriving the new government
of human and material resources.

It was public knowledge that they even went as far as

advising some gullible members of EPRDF to destroy all
ordnance and military hardware inherited from the last
regime since, as they claimed, the era of peace had set in after
the combined victory of EPLF and EPRDF.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 240

That proved to be a tactical ploy, since the Eritrean

President had long-term ambitions to expand his influence at
the expense of Eritrea’s neighbours. Later on this ploy proved
disastrous for Eritrea itself. His attempts against Yemen,
Djibouti and the Sudan were counter productive.

President Isaias might have underestimated the resolve of

the Ethiopian people when in 1998, despite their initial
suspicion of the new rulers, threw in their total support for
EPRDF in the fight against Eritrean aggression. In the
process, Isaias lost to the UN Peace Keepers control of an
area later designated as the so called “Transitional
Administrative Zone”, twenty five kilometres of territory all
along the entire one thousand Kilometre border.

In 2008, the Eritrean regime extended its dispute to the

UN itself forcing the latter to withdraw peace keeping forces
from the area by denying them access and basic facilities and
the United States Administration was considering listing
Eritrea among the state sponsors of international terrorism.
The issue of the border demarcation and compensation for
Eritrean looting of Ethiopian property had yet to find final
settlement. The yearning of the Eritrean people for a peaceful
co-existence with their Ethiopian kith and kin remained
unanswered.

In Ethiopia itself, after 1999, having won the battle, the

people and government were turning their attention to other
priorities, priorities of healing the wounds caused by past
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 241

injustice. After years of internal conflict, a need existed to

confront the past. The people were entitled to know what
precipitated the wave of vengeance and mayhem that swept
across the country in seventeen years of rule by a military led
dictatorship.

How was it that the people of Ethiopia came to turn on

each other with such ferocity? Why did so many abandon
traditions of community and peaceful co-existence? Why
were long held and cherished customs and taboos so
wantonly discarded? These questions had to be answered.

Obviously, it would have been only through generating

such understanding that the horrors of the past could
effectively be prevented from occurring again. Knowledge
and understanding were the most powerful deterrents against
the repeat of dictatorial oppression, conflict and war.

Observers agreed that a truth and reconciliation process on

a South African model would have helped. But long drawn
trials of former officials after the demise of the Derg that had
started shortly after the new regime took power, though they
were meant to serve this purpose, could not achieve the
desired level of reconciliation.

The Derg was roundly condemned for its carrying out of

mass killings. Revolution or no revolution, the life of every
individual is sacred and should not be destroyed for want of
political power, for power that could be won through simple
ballots rather than bullets.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 242

The winds of change that swept the globe in favour of

democracy and the rule of law opened new opportunities for
EPRDF’s Ethiopia to strive to enter into a new era of peace
and legality. There was pain and there was gain.

Perhaps a testimony in the late nineteen nineties at the

post Mengistu trials given by Tadelech Haile Michael, widow
of Berhane Mesqel Redda, is illustrative. Tadelech had spent
almost thirteen years as prisoner after the arrest and execution
of her husband. She was pregnant at the time of her arrest and
although the Derg, without conducting any semblance of
legal prosecution, decided that she too should be executed,
some compassionate persons down the line of the
administrative hierarchy simply could not bring it upon
themselves to see a pregnant woman and her unborn child
eliminated, just because a decision had been made. There
were still some courageous persons that upheld basic values,
albeit at their own risk.

During her time in prison, Tadelech was called out again

and again to leave her little baby and proceed to her death,
but when she came out holding her little baby who was crying
all the way, there was no stomach to carry out the order to kill
her and she was spared. The last time around, it was only the
sudden change of political fortunes of the Derg that saved
her.

As she testified before the special court set up by the new

regime, she was factual, but not vindictive. Tadelech, serving
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 243

as the Ambassador of Ethiopia to France in the new

Millennium, and many other victims like her stood taller than
their adversaries when the day of reckoning was at hand.

One was thus hoping that the rule of law was beginning to
make inroads into the daily lives of all Ethiopians, only to be
dashed from time to time by subsequent events such as the
May 2005 post-elections disturbances that made the road to
peace and democratic governance bumpy. The full amnesty
granted in July 2007 to opposition leaders accused of inciting
violence and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment, it
was hoped, would have signalled the beginning of a healing
process for the traumatized people of Ethiopia.

The internalization of a culture of tolerance,

accommodation and reconciliation in Ethiopia continued to
pose serious challenges. Incidentally, Professor Ephraim
Isaac, who was mentioned in earlier chapters of my story,
played an important role in 2007 in tirelessly working for the
process reconciliation through traditional Ethiopian approach
to conflict resolution.

As this book went to print, while the desire for the

establishment of the rule of law had yet to be fully satisfied,
the condition of poverty could not yet be overcome. Coupled
with global food shortages, ethnic, political and religious
parochialism continued to impact on the overall situation in
Ethiopia.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 244

A former Governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia,

Teferra Degefe, who, like many of us was victim of the
cruelty of the Derg, remarked once that “corruption is an
especially aggressive tax with the poor hardest hit by even
small demands for bribes or fees when they want public
services”. Despite the best intentions and some tangible
action by EPRDF, this malaise worsened.

Back in early 1990s, while wholesale dismissals of civil

servants were going on, paradoxically, a draft new
constitution for a Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia,
aimed at enhancing the respect for individual and collective
rights, the rule of law and democratic governance was tabled
for a series of panel discussions and public debates sponsored
by Abdul Mohamed’s Inter Africa Group. The Constitution,
though deemed not perfect, was workable. The debate on
good governance continued.

The new Ethiopian leaders beginning with Prime Minister

Meles Zenawi down to those at district levels engaged the
public in open debates in matters of development and
governance. Live broadcasts of uncensored and sometimes
heated parliamentary debates became the norm, unseen in the
country’s long history. The new spirit of transparency in
governance, reconciliation and renaissance for Ethiopia
publicly professed in the new millennium was hoped to
enhance conditions that would make the next fifty years
better than the last fifty.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 245
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 246

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Call To Humanitarian Services

Upon leaving the Foreign Ministry in March 1993, I was

contemplating my next move in life when in fact I felt more
and more a calling for humanitarian service. The human
rights situations in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa needed
to be addressed and I believed that my experiences in
journalism and diplomacy could be useful. I felt I had a
calling to pursue these causes as I had already been doing so
during my Red Cross years.

Thus, I began my new career as a consultant and

simultaneous interpreter at Abdul Mohammed’s Inter Africa
Group that was at that time organizing the public debates on
the draft constitution for a Federal Democratic Ethiopia.
Eminent professors were invited from several European
countries, Asia and North America as resource persons. Dr.
Samuel Assefa was one of them.

This was followed by a string of international consultancy

jobs. I began working as a consultant on food security for
UNDP and on a GTZ project for re-integration of displaced
persons, particularly those that had been affected by the
draconian expulsions of Ethiopians that were residing in the
former northern Ethiopian province, Eritrea when Isaias
Afeworqi and his rag-tag army entered Asmara.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 247

For this task, I spent a number of days in Meqelle, capital

of Tigray visiting camps set up for those internally displaced
compatriots and conducted a series of interviews on their
backgrounds and on what they wished to do to start a new
life. The stories they told me of their individual ordeal when
they were expelled from their homes in Asmara and other
Eritrean towns was reminiscent of the Jewish people’s
suffering.

At that time, the government in Addis seemed, in the view

of many observers, beholden to the Eritrean President’s
moods and did not seem inclined to expose the atrocities
committed by a regime that it had helped attain power in the
first place. I also visited camps in Nazareth and Addis Ababa
where victims of Eritrean expulsions told similar horror
stories.

Although some western NGOs were aware of this state of

affairs and tried to provide food and other assistance to the
displaced Ethiopians, western media were silent about what
was going on in Eritrea after a so called independence from
Ethiopia, particularly when it came to human rights abuse.
The Eritrean President was their darling.

In the wake of EPLF’s entry into Asmara, thousands of

unarmed Ethiopian soldiers left the city intact and managed to
find refuge in the Sudan. On their way to the western border,
however, several of them were brutally dealt with by EPLF
combatants. A Sudanese diplomat who flew over western
Eritrea at the time recounted to me the story of horror that he
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 248

witnessed as a number of retreating Ethiopian soldiers were

simply massacred by EPLF militants.

After having gathered all the data and facts that would
support an eventual reintegration project, I engaged the
services of a good friend and a first rate social scientist, Adey
Befeqadu, to write up the project. GTZ found the work
convincing and after having redesigned the draft project to
meet EU standards, it was submitted to Brussels whereupon
substantial assistance was obtained.

After this brief interlude as a consultant in Addis Ababa, I

travelled to New York in January 1994. While I was visiting
the UN Headquarters, an old friend from University days,
Alemayehu Mekonnen, introduced me to a German Human
Resources Officer of the Field Operations Division who
immediately offered me a job as elections observer in South
Africa. Frederic De Klerk’s government, the last Apartheid
regime, had already released Nelson Mandela from his prison
on Robben Island and new elections had to be conducted
under UN auspices.

My friend Tesfaye Tadesse, who after the fall of the

former regime in Addis had been appointed by the then UN
Secretary General Perez de Cuillar as Director of the Anti-
Apartheid Division, was now preparing to take up another
post as Chief Executive Officer of the UN Office on the
border between Iraq and Kuwait. After all, through years of
struggle, the Apartheid dossier was nearing its closure.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 249

At the UN, which for years has been at the forefront of the
fight against Apartheid, it was finally decided to facilitate the
first free and fair elections in South Africa. The situation
seemed very volatile. The experiences of veteran diplomats
were needed to assist in the electoral process, especially as
there was increasing concern with regard to peace and
reconciliation at every level of South African society.

For those of us former Ethiopian diplomats that included

Ambassadors Berhanu Dinka, Hailu Wolde Amanuel as well
as Alemayehu Seifu, Fisseha Yohannes and I, who were
recruited for this historic task, it was time to savour the fruits
of our many years of effort and finally bury the abominable
Apartheid system into the dustbin of history.

Upon arrival in Johannesburg, I had a brief audience with

the Special Representative of the Secretary General, Lakdar
Brahimi and his Deputy, Angela King. I was then
immediately deployed to Eastern Cape Province and operated
from our regional office in Port Elizabeth. My work with the
peace committees in every constituency in the province went
on very well and the working relations that we developed
with the former South African Home Affairs Minister Delpurt
were cordial. South African nationals working for the
Electoral Commission performed superbly and made our
work easy.

Although at times serious challenges transpired in the

process, the first post Apartheid elections in Eastern Cape and
indeed in all of South Africa were concluded relatively
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 250

peacefully. Our mission was accomplished on May 5, 1994

culminating in the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as first
President of Post Apartheid South Africa. That was a UN
success story. Besides the colourful diploma awarded to me
and my other UN colleagues, the best recognition for the
several years of struggle we had waged was that finally South
Africans were enabled to take their destiny into their own
hands. The events that unfolded in 2008 when African
immigrants, traders and refugees that had settled in South
Africa were beaten and robbed on uncontrollable scale by
xenophobic South African gangs were certainly not the
reward that other Africans had expected from their South
African brothers and sisters.

While South Africa was celebrating the dawn of a new

era, and as my colleagues and I were leaving Johannesburg,
Rwanda was engulfed in its biggest humanitarian crisis
following a few months earlier, the worst genocide the
African continent had ever known. Hutu soldiers had drawn
the attention of the international community away from the
successes of peaceful South African elections, to problems of
refugees and internal displacement resulting from the
genocide perpetrated on the Tutsi minority. When the
Rwandan Peoples Forces led by Colonel Paul Kagame
liberated the country from the Interhamwe forces, the need
for humanitarian assistance to returning refugees was
overwhelming.

Highly placed officials in the Geneva-based Office of the

High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), particularly
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 251

Burundian Nicholas Bwakira and Ethiopian UNHCR Special

Envoy Chefiqe Dessalegn were coordinating assistance to
Rwandan refugees that were returning from Congo. UNHCR
needed our Red Cross expertise in refugee care to assist
Rwandan returnees from Goma in the DRC and rehabilitate
health care centres in Rwanda.

Dr, Dawit, who was experienced in refugee care and had

already been in touch with the UN soon presented a rapid
deployment plan to UNHCR that would engage African
humanitarian workers to assist Rwanda. Thus, Dr. Dawit,
assisted by Costantinos Berhe-Tesfu and myself and with the
unreserved backing of Bwakira and Chefiqe, started
mobilizing in June 1994 resources for quick intervention in
Rwanda and set up the first African indigenous non-
governmental organization, Africa Humanitarian Action
(AHA). Dawit and Costantinos had, at that time, lost their
high profile Red Cross jobs in the string of wholesale
expulsions conducted on the orders of Prime Minister Tamrat
Layneh.

My first assignment by AHA was thus to serve as field

operations Director in Rwanda where the 1994 genocide had
already claimed the lives of over one million people. We
immediately formed a team of medical doctors, nurses and
administrators and set about recruiting other personnel with
the help of our contacts in the OAU and in the UN Economic
Commission for Africa. We all arrived in Kigali in early July
1994, where the US army had just taken control of Kigali
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 252

Airport. Elsewhere in Rwanda, the Tutsi-led RPF was

conducting mopping up operations.

Our first task in Rwanda was to literally help clean up

streets and health centres of stench from dead bodies in a
number of sites. We also assisted in the creation and setting
up of the new Ministry of Social Reinsertion and
Rehabilitation, working closely with the United Nations
Mission in Rwanda, UNAMIR, and the UN Country Team.
The new Rwandan government led by Colonel Paul Kagame
was very supportive.

In Rwanda, besides physical reconstruction efforts, we

developed a program for psychosocial trauma management
that was initiated by Dr. Laqech Dresse and supported by
UNIFEM. Soon UNICEF, under the leadership of a Canadian
Humanitarian Activist, Nigel Fisher, also took the lead in
assisting those victims of genocide and terror that needed to
be not only physically rehabilitated, but also psychologically
treated.

In our fieldwork in Rwanda, I was assisted by Dr. Yonas

Tegegne, a very able Ethiopian General Practitioner, Dr. Ba
of Guinea, Dr. Charles of Senegal as well as our health
officers and dedicated nurses drawn from Malawi, Ethiopia,
Kenya and Benin. They all practiced their learned skills with
passion and compassion.

Our presence in Rwanda made a big impact on

humanitarian activity and was highly appreciated by our
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 253

hosts. Our networking with the UN Country Team and indeed

with Kagame’s government was so effective that Ethiopian
Force Commanders in the UN Mission felt we were their
Embassy in Kigali. It was a pleasure to work for the same
cause of peace with our compatriots who we found, to our
pride, were fully dedicated to helping the people of that
unfortunate country.

Our successful humanitarian intervention in Rwanda

prompted UNHCR to invite us to carry out the same kind of
refugee care programs in Uganda and Angola. AHA
Management Board decided that I should open our new field
mission in Angola that also meant working in the dangerous
UNITA held-areas in the Zambezi River valley bordering
Zambia.

In Luanda, AHA’s work was highly appreciated by the

government, which in fact designated the Minister of Social
Insertion, Albino Malungo, to be our main interlocutor and
facilitator. The authorities in the rebel-held areas also
cooperated in our efforts to rehabilitate the much needed
health centres.

My bitter sweet moment came in December 1995, while I

was coordinating rehabilitation work in Cazombo, in the
Moxico province, and I received two calls from Addis Ababa.
The first was to inform me that my father Aleqa Shiawl-
Kidanekal had passed away and I was expected for the
funeral. The second call was from UNICEF in New York for
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 254

me to take up the post of Regional Adviser on vulnerabilities

and emergencies, based in Abidjan, the Ivory Coast.

Thus, I rushed back to Ethiopia from the remote Angolan

provincial town of Cazombo and as communications and air
links were difficult I could reach Holetta only on the third day
after the burial of my father. Though belated, my arrival in
Holetta was a comfort to my aging stepmother, Mama Fanaye
who in fact died only two years later.

The UNICEF assignment was another demanding task, but

more interesting as it entailed field research and analyses and
I took the offer without any hesitation. Notwithstanding my
new move, I remained Board Member of Africa
Humanitarian Action. AHA was a labour of love and
continued to develop into a viable international NGO with
wider networks and activities in the Continent. The Gold
medal for humanitarian service awarded to us the founding
members, at its tenth anniversary in 2004, was recognition to
the dedicated services of the entire AHA staff and supporters.

In Abidjan, I met Dr. Carel de Rooy, a Brazilian of Dutch

extraction who was the Emergencies Coordinator. Together
we developed, through a year and a half of laborious
research, an internal handbook on emergency forecasting and
preparedness.

I crisscrossed the length and breadth of west and Central

Africa that the project covered and came up with a product
that was much appreciated by the then Regional UNICEF
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 255

Director, a former Norwegian Cabinet Minister, Thorild

Skardt and the Executive Director of UNICEF, Carol
Bellamy.

My Brief stay in Abidjan had also its fringe benefits.

There I met, besides my former colleague Ambassador
Wossen Beshah, my old friend Tamrat Kebede who had taken
up a position as Research and Development Officer at the
African Development Bank and my friend from Debre
Berhan and University College days Alemayehu Seifu, the
Administrative Officer of the Bank as well as Arega Worqu,
Secretary General of the African Coffee Organization and
other prominent Ethiopians. As a small, closely-knit
Ethiopian community in Abidjan, we led a happy life in
tranquil and relatively well-developed city that was then
unaffected by the turmoil prevailing in the rest of Africa.
Years later, however, I was dismayed to see Abidjan
deteriorating into chaos as warring military factions tore Cote
d’Ivoire into two unmanageable halves, north and south.

In December 1996, just as the election for a new secretary

general of the United Nations was underway at the General
Assembly, upon the recommendation of Nigel Fisher, by now
UNICEF’s Head of Emergency Operations and his deputy
David Bassiouni, I was tasked to make a series of
presentations in New York on our findings of emergency
forecasting research in west and central Africa.

After arrival in New York, I began to brief various

agencies on our work in West Africa. In one of the sessions,
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 256

as I began to brief a small gathering at UNDP, participants

sent to that meeting by the Department of Humanitarian
Affairs, DHA took keen interest. They immediately informed
Under-Secretary General Yasushi Akashi that DHA needed to
set up an Early Warning Unit and that I would be the
appropriate person to head it. I thus got inducted as a senior
officer in the UN Secretariat without ever having sought nor
applied for such a high-level job and a formidable challenge.

In the meantime the General Assembly denied Egypt’s

Boutros Ghali a second term and with the requisite support,
the distinguished international civil servant from Ghana, Kofi
Annan, was elected Secretary General. I knew Kofi when he
served in Ethiopia as a young UN official in the sixties
charged with human resources at the UNECA. I was happy he
got the job.

Kofi Annan and I did not meet again until after I joined
the UN some thirty years later. Nonetheless, I have been
observing his rise to fame and glory and always regarded him
as a role model. Soft spoken, astute and compassionate,
endowed with the sharp diplomatic skills, he embodied the
best of what African tradition could offer to the rest of the
world.

Kofi Annan grew steadily in his job as an international

civil servant in the personnel, administrative and financial
spheres, and after a brief and controversial period as Head of
UN Peace Keeping, he was elected in 1996 at the UN General
Assembly as Secretary General.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 257

The first term for the new Secretary General was smooth.
He was widely respected as confidence-builder and a trusted
leader, endowed with qualities that made the choice easier for
the Nobel Committee to award him the coveted Peace Prize.
He gave leadership on a number of issues and worked
tirelessly to reform the U.N. On many important issues, he
was way ahead of the membership.

In his second term, however, Kofi Annan was caught up in

controversies when he publicly declared the Iraq war illegal.
Critical members of the Security Council that had put up the
“coalition of the willing” to dismantle the Saddam Hussein
regime, did not lend him the support he required. He had,
however, ensured UN presence in Iraq despite all the dangers
and hardship he knew that UN staff would face in being
deployed there. At the same time, Kofi ably carried the
unconditional support of the so-called Third World and
represented African wisdom and human compassion in the
exercise of his duties.

Kofi Annan has remained the quintessential world

statesman and mediator. He patiently steered to a peaceful
end, temporarily at least, the negotiations following the post
election crisis in Kenya in 2008. It was a matter of great pride
for Africa that Kofi succeeded in his effort to bring the
opposing parties in Kenya to their senses and agree to form a
grand coalition government.

In this noble task, Kofi managed to spare the people of

Kenya continuation of the agony that they had endured in
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 258

over two months of ethnic-centred violence that had irrupted

at the beginning of the year. Thanks to the efforts of Kofi and
his team that included Graca Machel, Kenyans could finally
wish themselves a “Happy New Year”, belatedly, in March.

As this book was going to print, Kenyans were still trying

to heal the wounds and come to terms with their own
situation to put in place a lasting solution and a constitutional
framework that would ensure sustained democratic
development. Kofi was a happy guest of honour at the
inauguration on April 2008 of the Grand Coalition
Government for Kenya. President Kibaki and Prime Minister
Odinga could thus turn their attention to the task of nation
building.

Back in 1996, Many Ethiopian diplomats who knew

Kofi’s predecessor, Boutros Ghali, had no reason to regret the
latter’s departure from that high office since they perceived
the Egyptian Secretary General as the one person responsible
for Ethiopia’s problems with regard to the Nile waters. They
felt Ghali worked tirelessly for Egypt’s attempts at hegemony
over the Horn of Africa and for the dismemberment of Eritrea
from Ethiopia.

As I began my work in New York in March 1997, my able

colleagues, Elizabeth Kassinis, US citizen of Greek origin,
Adeel Ahmed of Pakistan and Frank Sedlak, another US
citizen as well as my Assistant, Justine from Haiti, soon set
about building a database for emergency forecasting and what
later on became the Humanitarian Early Warning Systems
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 259

(HEWS). The model was soon adopted and improved upon

by other departments within the Secretariat and we
coordinated our diverse efforts through the Framework for
Coordination.

Our Senior Supervisor, Mr. Yasushi Akashi, a soft spoken

Japanese Diplomat, would politely ask where the next
humanitarian crisis was likely to occur and I together with my
immediate supervisors, Chinese born UN technocrat Ed Tsui,
and the sharp Pakistani Deputy to Mr. Akashi, Fareed
Shaukat, would bring to the Under Secretary General’s
attention the likely scenario which most of the time was
accurate.

Not long after I joined DHA, Mr. Akashi went into

retirement to take up Presidency of the Hiroshima Foundation
in his own country. Brazilian-born Sergio Vieira de Mello, a
younger and flamboyant career UN official, who was then
Deputy to Ms. Sadako Ogata of UNHCR, was appointed to
take over Mr. Akashi’s post.

Sergio began his new assignment with reforming DHA,

later renamed the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA. From his past African
experience, he had learnt to work closely with the OAU and
in his new capacity he wanted to cement even closer
cooperation with the Continental Organization.

Thus, in June of 1998, Sergio appointed me as Liaison

Officer of OCHA with the OAU. This new appointment
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 260

provided me with two-year tenure as a United Nations

international staff and UN Humanitarian Affairs
representative in my own country.

Regarding my own country Ethiopia and the newly

created African state of Eritrea, no one, apart from President
Isaias Afeworqi himself, knew well in advance that relations
that began so well with the new regime in Addis would go
sour that fast.

On the morning of the 11th of May 1998, I had a coffee

meeting in New York with Ambassador Haile Menqerios of
Eritrea when suddenly he got a call from Asmara telling him
that his President had ordered and carried out an attack on
Ethiopia. Both Haile and I had always discussed how the two
parts of former Ethiopia could come together again for a
collaborative and peaceful future.

That sudden twist of fate shocked us and the unfolding

events in the Horn of Africa took both of us by surprise. As it
turned out, although Haile served Isaias at the UN, he could
not continue to ignore the obvious. Eritrea’s aggression was
illegal. He also got disaffected and defected when Isaias
started throwing into prison all those EPLF veterans that he
considered a threat to his grip on power.

When Under-Secretaries General, Sir Kieran Prendergast

and Sergio De Mello jointly proposed to Secretary General
Kofi Annan that the two departments should open a special
UN office in Addis Ababa to liaise with the Organization of
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 261

African Unity and the Economic Commission for Africa, I

was given another challenging assignment.

Mamadou Kane, a veteran Mauritanian diplomat and I

were sent to Addis Ababa in June 1998 to undertake the task
of monitoring activities related to political and humanitarian
issues and follow up on agreed strategies between the UN and
the OAU.

Though the then Secretary General of the OAU, Salim

Ahmed Salim was very helpful as a friend to both of us, the
first two years of the establishment of the office were
challenging. The OAU itself was undergoing a long-overdue
restructuring process and no senior staff could find adequate
time for serious engagement with the new UN Liaison Office.

The Ethio-Eritrean war had already broken out and there

was a lot of work to do. Our networking with all key players
helped us ensure that the UN Secretary General, through his
Algerian-born UN Special Envoy, Mohamed Sahnoun, was
fully engaged in the peace process that led to the Algiers
agreement in 2000.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 262

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Serving The Human Rights Cause

In the late nineties and in the new Millennium, I was also

occasionally tasked by the Turin-based UN Staff College and
sent to various parts of the world as trainer in Early Warning
and Preventive Action. It was during one of those training
sessions while in Mombasa that I got a call from Mary
Robinson, High Commissioner for Human Rights to join her
team in Geneva. After our brief discussion in her office, Mary
appointed me her Senior Communications Adviser and
Spokesman for the World Conference against Racism.
Working with Mary Robinson, with her Deputy Bertie
Ramcharan, and with the World Conference Team headed by
our Indian Executive Coordinator, Jyoti Shankar Singh was a
great learning experience.

I had first met Mary Robinson in 1994 when, in the

aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, she, as President of
Ireland, came to Kigali to see for herself the plight of the
people. We all noted then that she was a brave and humane
leader. Mary, the compassionate leader that she was, was the
first Head of State from the North to come to Africa at the
time and express solidarity with Somalis and Rwandans. The
NGO group that I coordinated as Chairperson had an
extensive panel discussion with President Robinson and she
impressed us all as a person that really cared.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 263

In the eighteen months before the Conference in Durban

in September 2001, Jyoti and I worked together in the
planning of all the regional preparatory seminars in Warsaw,
Dakar, Bangkok, Santiago and Brussels. There were also a
series of Bureau meetings in Geneva where documents and
draft resolutions had be negotiated and worked out. In the
process we could mobilize the support and full involvement
of famous film stars, CNN anchors, civil society
organizations the world over and indeed all governments
except those former colonial powers that could not accept the
notion of reparations for past handling of slaves and
minorities.

The US in particular was sensitive to several points in the

draft resolutions for Durban, as it was facing mounting
demands of astronomic proportions for reparations from
African Americans to redress historical injustices that their
forefathers had suffered due to slavery.

Then there was the issue of the Middle East, where the
Simon Wiesenthal Foundation and other Jewish organizations
were putting up a fight against Palestinians who they accused
of trying to convert the World Conference into a forum to
question Israel’s very existence.

Notwithstanding all these complications, the World

Conference served as a reminder to the International
Community that if real peace were to be achieved in the
world, issues of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and
related intolerance had to be tackled in earnest.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 264

Despite strong opposition by the United States and Israel,

the two states that finally boycotted the Durban Conference,
Mary Robinson and her team rose up to the challenge of
rallying support for a workable declaration and plan of action.
Though they came long after the Durban Conference,
Apologies offered to the Aborigines by the new Australian
Government in 2008 and the nomination of Young Senator
Barak Obama as the first black Democratic Party candidate
for President of the United States, were but the result of long
years of struggle against racism.

In the processes leading up to the World Conference in

Durban, Mary Robinson conducted a two-year long
aggressive media campaign and elaborate networking with
key players all over the world. The Millennium Conference at
the UN in particular gave the High Commissioner the
opportunity to rally the support of almost all known
Hollywood film stars and leaders from all over the world.
Secretary General Kofi Annan took the leading role in
promoting the ideals of the World Conference.

Over one hundred and fifty world leaders, religious

leaders and Presidents of Parliaments signed the High
Commissioner’s Vision Declaration. As the High
Commissioner’s Public Affairs Officer for the Conference, it
was my honor to meet the leaders and facilitate the signing of
the Declaration.

At the Conference itself, Ritz Khan, former CNN news

anchor as well as other internationally renowned
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 265

representatives of TV networks and famous film stars Danny

Glover, Harry Belafonte, the Reverend Jessie Jackson and
other important personalities were on hand to assist our team
in the successful holding of the World Conference.

South African and most international daily papers and

electronic media were not only supportive in widely
disseminating the daily proceedings of the Conference, but
were kindly commenting on my own performance as Media
Liaison for the World Conference.

Upon completion of our project for the World Conference,

Mary Robinson encouraged me to apply for an up-coming
post of a Regional Representative and Director of the United
Nations Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Central
Africa for which Bertrand Ramcharan, the Deputy High
Commissioner, had already laid the foundations.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 266

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Human Rights And Central Africa

The United Nations General Assembly had decided in

1991 to respond to a growing demand from the eleven
member states of the Economic Community of Central
Africa, ECCAS, for the establishment of a centre for human
rights and democracy. The push for it came not from
mainstream human rights activists, but from those working
on conflict prevention, peacemaking and peace-building in
the region.

The UN Department of Political Affairs had also nurtured

active interest in the peace and security of the region. Bertie
was tasked with leading the process with the Head of the
Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner,
Bacre Wali N’Diaye, to assist him.

The one person I knew from my New York days before I

joined the Office of the High Commissioner was Professor
Bertrand Ramcharan. During his six years in the Office of the
High Commissioner, Bertie always provided strong and
learned leadership and supported us enthusiastically in the
discharge of our responsibilities. He loyally assisted Mary
Robinson in steering the 2001 World Conference.

Bertie, a native of Georgetown, Guyana, had begun his

UN career as a human rights expert some thirty years ago. He
joined Ms. Robinson as Deputy in November 1998 and
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 267

served in many important functions. Prior to his assignment

as Deputy High Commissioner, he had served as Director in
the Department of Political Affairs and rendered valuable
services. As a seasoned intellectual of international repute
and of very high academic standing, his knowledge of Africa
is deep. He continued to serve as Deputy to Sergio de Mello
when the latter took over from Mary Robinson in 2002.

When Sergio and four other UN colleagues were killed in

a terrorist attack on the UN office in Baghdad in August
2003, Secretary General Kofi Annan named Bertrand
Ramcharan High Commissioner ad interim at the level of
Under-Secretary General. Bertie discharged his
responsibilities ably with skill and diligence that the crisis
situation required.

The Yaoundé Centre that I directed had therefore the

fullest support from Bertie. He and his family, particularly his
gracious wife Lily and his son Robin, have always remained
loyal friends.

Since the 1960s, Central Africa has witnessed conflicts in

almost all the countries of the sub-region, and those engaged
in peace-making and peace-building realized that one of the
keys to future prevention of conflict lay in promoting respect
for democracy and human rights in the sub-region.

This realization led ECCAS to call for the establishment

of the Centre. Bertie Ramcharan thus spelled out clearly the
challenge that lay in building upwards through groundwork
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 268

with Government agencies, educators, judges and the legal

profession, law-enforcement agencies, the military and other
professional groups offering at the same time a library and
research base for educators and human rights promoters.
This, he rightly felt, would deepen the quest for human rights
promotion and protection within the region.

There were sensitivities in ECCAS and indeed on the part

of the French government about the Centre. Initially Bertie,
and later on my staff and I, had to engage in diplomatic
efforts to help lay the basis for smooth working relations for
the future. Personal diplomacy helped, and as the first
Director of the Centre, I did my job in building up good
working relations with General Sylvain Goma, Executive
Secretary of ECCAS, a former Prime Minister of the
Republic of Congo and also with key figures like the Prime
Minister of Cameroon, Peter Mafani Musonge, Minister of
State for Foreign Affairs, Francois Xavier Ngoubeyou and the
colourful Foreign Minister of Gabon, Mr. Jean Ping, who in
2004 was elected President of the General Assembly and
Chairperson of the African Union in 2008.

Other key players in the region have also been helpful.

The UN Resident Coordinator in Cameroon, British born
Patricia De Mowbray, was very instrumental in rallying the
UN Country team in supporting the Centre’s activities.

During the Centre’s inaugural conference of Ministers of

Justice and Presidents of Supreme Courts in March 2002,
presided over by High Commissioner Mary Robinson, the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 269

French representatives did not want the UN to have the

limelight. For historical reasons, their diplomats felt they
were exclusive owners of any political process in the region
and did not make our start easier.

Since France was at that time funding a few human rights

related seminars and workshops elsewhere, Mary Robinson
decided that a representative of the French government be
invited to attend the ceremony as a matter of courtesy.
However, when the French envoy, a former Minister, Bernard
Stasi, came to Yaoundé, his Ambassador, Jean-Paul Veziant,
insisted that Stasi be given the role of a keynote speaker. This
I rejected outright, telling him that the High Commissioner
came to Cameroon for exactly the same purpose and that
there could only be one keynote address. Finally I suggested
that Stasi could be allowed to read a message from President
Chirac, should he have one. By doing that we were able to
satisfy the Envoy’s desire for visibility and the highly
publicized inaugural ceremony went very well.

The Yaoundé Centre was thus a result of hard work by my

colleagues in Geneva, particularly Bertie and our Africa
Coordinator Tokunbo Ige of Nigeria. My staff in Yaoundé,
notably Dr. Musifiky Mwanasali of DRC, Oumar Ba of
Mauritania and Fatou Thiam of Senegal as well as our local
assistants Dorothee Ndoh and Marie Claire Simo of
Cameroon did an excellent job. The Centre worked to fill the
gap in the struggle for a noble cause in a sub-region that has
seen searing conflicts and was wracked by poverty and poor
governance.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 270

The challenges of taking forward the human rights agenda

in such a situation were indeed manifold. Still, as Bertie
Ramcharan was to comment later on, the Centre set about
these challenges with grit and with conviction. For those of us
in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
what we believed would count was whether educators,
professional groups and civil society in the region came to
see the Centre as an institution of value. To our satisfaction,
they did.

During my missions to the member states of ECCAS,

what struck me was the enormous richness of every one of
them. Eight out of the eleven countries produced petrol. The
exceptions were the Central African Republic, Rwanda and
Burundi. Yet, tarmac roads connected none of the capitals in
the sub-region. None of the countries was able to sustain an
airline worth its name.

In Central Africa, as indeed in many countries of the Third

World, it seemed to me that leaders chose their voters and not
the other way round. The voters were simply forced to mark
the ruling party candidates in the ballots and cast their votes
into boxes that were most often stuffed with extra pre-marked
ballot papers. Thus, one never failed to notice the glaring lack
of requisite commitment on the part of the leaders in the
region to ensure respect for the rule of law, economic and
cultural rights for the peoples whose fate they could
decisively change. Leaders were creative in finding ways to
perpetuate their hold on power. Sadly, as in other parts of
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 271

Africa, here too, the best of their educated citizens lived in

the Diaspora in Europe and America, choosing greener
pastures rather than rendering themselves vulnerable to the
whims of their leaders.

Bertie had stressed from the very beginning that quality

and pragmatism would be decisive. We left the final
judgment to the over one thousand persons of all walks of life
that we had trained in the first two years of the Centre’s
existence, in raising their capacity in the area of human rights
and democracy. We laid the basis for future generations of
human rights activists to draw benefits from the services of
the Yaoundé Centre. Already, as this book went to print,
some of our former interns were taking up ministerial and
other leading positions in their respective countries.

When we had our one of regular regional peace and

security consultations with member states in January 2204 in
Brazzaville, I had an informal meeting with the Foreign
Ministers of the two Republics sharing the River Congo,
Rudolf Adada from Brazzaville and Leonard Okitundu from
Kinshasa. I said to them: “Look, the shortest distance across
the river between Kinshasa and Brazzaville is just three
Kilometres. Yet both of you, being wealthy states, could
easily dedicate one-day’s production of petrol for the
purposes of building a bridge; why is this not possible?”

Both of them smiled and told me that the plan had been on
the drawing board for a long time now and all that is needed
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 272

was to convince the leaders. I was wondering why they were

hesitant to press such issues with their leaders.

In view of the lack of trust that is pervasive among leaders

in the sub-region, promoting trust and strengthening
confidence-building measures remained formidable
challenges. The leaders always felt insecure of their future if
they left their office in good time since they suspected that
they would either be killed or at the mildest lynched by their
own people once they left their seats of power. According to
my Colleague, Ambassador Nateus Maria Rita of Sao Tome
and Principle, the people, meaning succeeding generations of
leaders never took care of their predecessors that were
disposed to leave office in good time. Thus fearing the fate
that awaits them once out office, invariably all despotic
leaders remained prisoners of their own power. Incidentally,
the small island state of Sao Tome and Principe is one of the
very few countries in Africa where past Presidents were
allowed to live freely and were treated with dignity.

In a region where conflicts continued, economic

integration remained slow and political integration minimal,
perhaps more than in any other part of the continent. This
meant continued lack of a regional locomotive to provide
effective leadership to realize a viable political and economic
union. At the national-level, invariably in all countries,
institutional capacities needed to be strengthened further for
implementing integration. Yoseph Assefa, Director General
of African Insurance Association who was based in Duala at
the time also faced the same frustrating problems in his area
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 273

of operation, i.e., in the modernization of insurance and

banking.

Though still not full-proof, former UN Secretary

General’s Kofi Annan’s efforts for a lasting solution to border
disputes between Cameroon and Nigeria were exemplary and
could be replicated to deal with emerging disputes between
Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and Gabon. All these countries
had simmering disputes over common frontier areas and
territorial waters that are endowed with natural resources.

The priority issue in Central Africa, however, remained

the empowerment of the populations to be beneficiaries of
their natural resources. Genuine grievances by ordinary
people, especially demands for a better allocation of critical
resources were rarely heard or ever addressed.

The vast majority of the people most visibly in Angola,

Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Chad, Cameroon and both Congo
and DRC were increasingly disconnected from the leadership
in nearly all matters that affect their livelihood. This was true
to a large extent also in the relationship between the top
echelons of power and middle level officials.

This state of affairs continued to encourage worsening

corruption in the mildest sense and, in worst cases led to
violence as a means to be heard or to access resources. The
strategic importance of the region, which borders the Gulf of
Guinea in terms of world energy supplies, could not be
underestimated. Peaceful development needed to be
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 274

undertaken in earnest before the people demanded their God-

given rights through violence.

Advocating for the respect and protection of human rights

in similar situations was a daunting task. However, the
achievements of the UN, which were by no means negligible,
continued to give us some hope. Later on, unfolding
situations such the one in Darfur posed challenges of
formidable proportions.

Bertie, knowing my earlier experience in the Sudan

assigned me to in May 2004 to be part of the Human Rights
Fact Finding Team in the wake of the crisis that unfolded in
the western region of Darfur. I could thus see first hand the
intricate problems that beset the region. I had seen Darfur in
the seventies when I was serving as the ranking Ethiopian
diplomat in the Sudan. I was happy to play a role in the new
UN challenge.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 275
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 276

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Darfur, The Millennium Challenge

Darfur is a large area, 256,000 square kilometres in size,

constituting the western region of Sudan, nearly three
quarters the size of Ethiopia. It is home to an estimated five
million people, made up of a complex tribal mix. Though
endowed with yet untapped resources, large areas of Darfur
have been prone to drought and desertification, intensifying
demands on its more fertile lands. In recent decades, areas of
Darfur have been subject to sporadic inter-tribal clashes over
use of resources.

Following mounting concerns regarding respect for human

rights in Darfur in early April, the Acting High
Commissioner decided to send a mission to Sudan to hold
discussions with the authorities and to assess the situation on
the ground in Darfur. The Sudanese dragged their feet in
granting permission for the mission to take place
immediately, but finally relented and our team arrived in
Khartoum on 20 April 2004. We did our assessment in the
next ten days and returned to Geneva in early May.

For me, although I have kept contact with several

Sudanese friends after I had left the Sudan in 1975, seeing the
country after nearly thirty-two years was like dropping on
another planet. Khartoum had changed beyond my wildest
imagination. Despite the civil wars that the country had to
endure over the years, the oil wealth has also been used to
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 277

develop infrastructure, agriculture and industry. With out the

wars, a lot more could have been achieved. In all these years,
despite the lingering internal problems, the generosity,
friendliness and self-assertive posture of the people have not
changed.

We visited the refugee camps and sites along the Chadian

border with Sudan, interviewed refugees to obtain a better
understanding of the humanitarian and human rights
situation. We established from our findings that the people of
Darfur continued to endure a severe human rights and
humanitarian crisis that the International Community should
address without delay.

From early 2003 on, fighting had intensified in the region

following the emergence of two armed groups, the Sudan
Liberation Army (SLA) and later the Justice and Equality
Movement (JEM), and the commencement by them of
hostilities against the Government. Broadly speaking the SLA
and JEM share an ethnic background. They come primarily
from the Zaghawa, Fur and Masaalit tribes. They also
appeared to share similar political demands, which were
essentially for the Khartoum authorities to address.

It was felt at the UN that it was the manner of the response

by the Government of Sudan, which led to the current crisis
in Darfur. Following a string of SLA victories in the first
months of 2003, Khartoum appeared to have sponsored a
militia composed of a loose collection of fighters of
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 278

apparently Arab background, mainly from Darfur, known as

the “Janjaweed”, to repel the rebel attacks.

The conflict that appeared to have been an ethnically

based rebellion had been met allegedly with an ethnically
based response, building in large part, on long-standing but
largely hitherto contained tribal rivalries. In certain areas of
Darfur, the Janjaweed were said to have supported the regular
armed forces in attacking and targeting civilian populations
suspected of supporting the rebellion, while in other locations
it appeared that the Janjaweed played the primary role in such
attacks with military in support.

During our meetings with President Omar Al-Bashir,

Vice-President Thaha and the Foreign Minister, Dr. Osman,
our team strongly advised that it would be futile to engage in
denials of a situation that was so evident and gave
recommendations on how to satisfy the demands of the
international community for a speedy resolution of the
humanitarian and human rights problems in Darfur.

In the midst of all this, some resident western diplomats in

Khartoum, among them the British High Commissioner,
wanted us to provide them with a scoop to their capitals, and
asked us if they, as donors, could get a glimpse of our report
before we had even submitted it to the Acting High
Commissioner in Geneva. We told them that Abu Dhabi was
also a donor and wondered whether they wished that we
showed the report also to their Arab colleagues before the
High Commissioner saw it and made it available to the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 279

Security Council. Our diplomatic interlocutors knew the

procedures, but all the same, they tried. Instead, before we
left, we held a debriefing session at the UN Office in
Khartoum with invited donors including UK representatives.

The full report of our findings was submitted to the Acting

High Commissioner who presented it to the Security Council.
The Council later on passed a resolution calling on the
government of Sudan to address the problem immediately
and enable access for the delivery of humanitarian assistance
to victims of the conflict. The council’s call fell short of
describing the Darfur situation as genocide. This did not
satisfy US demands for an outright condemnation of the
Sudanese Government. The US had called for the deployment
immediately of international peacekeeping forces.

On the 9th of June, 2005, shortly before the Summit of the

African Union, AU, in Addis Ababa, upon instruction by the
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, I joined
the mission to Darfur lead by the African Union Chairperson,
Alpha Omar Konare. Professor Konare, a former President of
Mali is a great team leader and wherever we went he posed
detailed questions to our Sudanese interlocutors and gave
them the same considered counsel that the UN human rights
team had given them one month earlier.

During our visit to the three provinces in Darfur, where

my friend Dr. Dawit was also invited to join representing
AHA as an African civil society organization, Chairman
Konare launched the deployment of the first batch of the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 280

African Union Observer Mission to help the Sudanese in

tackling the crisis within the context of collaboration between
the African, European Union and US before the situation
could get out of hand.

It was at this juncture that the new High Commissioner for

Human Rights, Justice Louise Arbour of Canada, who had
already been named to the post in May of that year, took up
her new assignment in Geneva. Justice Arbour was actively
involved in the Rwanda genocide trials in the late nineties
and was very much aware of what the Darfur situation would
portend for the future of human rights protection and
promotion in Africa. She therefore made it her first priority,
only two days after she took up her new post, to attend the
AU summit in Addis Ababa.

This mission provided the new High Commissioner with

the opportunity to size up the Sudanese first hand and impress
upon them the need for a speedy resolution of the Darfur
crisis. At the same time, she could network with the key
actors in the continent. As she was to comment at the end of
the Summit, her first mission as High Commissioner was
baptism in fire.

We had advised Ms. Arbour that it would help if she could

visit Darfur as a matter of priority and indeed she toured that
unfortunate part of the Sudan in the month of September
2005, after which she presented her report to the Security
Council on the humanitarian and human rights situation in
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 281

Darfur. The Council took more than enough time to

eventually act on Mrs. Arbour’s recommendations.

What is most surprising is the inaction of the Arab League

that though it also learnt of the contents of the report of the
High Commissioner, in all its frequent deliberations, that
Organization seemed to pretend that the Darfur problem
never existed and never offered, officially at least, any wise
counsel to the Government of Sudan. But then no diplomat
worth his career was surprised because the Arab League,
since it was set up in 1945 with the aim of co-ordinating the
relations and activities of its members, has allowed them only
to discuss matters of Arab concern and express differences of
opinion.

When compared with the Organization of African Unity/

African Union that has achieved a great deal in the struggle
against colonialism and Apartheid, and has involved itself in
peace keeping in Darfur and elsewhere in Africa, the Arab
League has turned out as little more than a talking shop. Its
focus has been inter-Arab conflict that set Syria, close allies
with Iran, against its pro-Western rivals, Saudi Arabia and
Egypt. Backed by American arms and aid, the latter pair
dominated the Arab League since its inception. Apart from
pomp and ceremony of its regular summit meetings, the Arab
league has found no adequate time to consider in all
seriousness the conflict and the human rights situation in
Darfur.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 282

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Assignment In Baghdad, The Last Days Of Saddam Husain

When I arrived in Baghdad in October 2005, Saddam

Hussein had already been captured and his trial was under
preparation. Though my assignment was principally to draft
the strategic plan for UN activities in Iraq, my human rights
background and my particular interest in the fate of that
unfortunate country and indeed that of Saddam Hussein,
could not keep me away from following closely the events
that unfolded in Iraq until I accomplished my mission one
year later.

The West saw Saddam Hussein as: President, politician,

dictator and the enemy, depending on the times. For
observers who witnessed the circus surrounding his trial,
what his adversaries did not fully realize was that he was also
a true showman and brilliant media manipulator. The
Baghdad courtroom was like the Big Brother house such as
the one depicted in George Orwell’s “1984”, with extra
bombproof reinforcements and retina scans in the roofs. The
proceedings were watched by millions of people who seemed
not to take it seriously but were nonetheless gripped by the
spectacle. The trial demonstrated that Saddam, once the
feared dictator, now vanquished by the Coalition, was back at
centre stage.

The Baghdad court proceedings were supposed to draw a

line under the Coalition’s involvement in Iraq, lay the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 283

cornerstone for the rule of law and usher in the rehabilitation

into the modern world of Iraq’s twenty six million people.
Instead, they strengthened Saddam’s supporters, gave new
faith to Saddam’s like-minded friends, believers in Arab
Socialism, the Ba’ath Party in Syria, creating divisions across
the Middle East.

In theory, due process should have reduced Saddam to a

common man guilty of heinous crimes. But by putting him on
exhibition in a Baghdad courtroom, the US-led coalition
unwittingly enabled him to fulfil his own prophecy that he
would one day demonstrate his patriotism and courage by
giving his life for his country and his people. Saddam’s
performance in the dock acted as a narcotic on the nation he
once ruled. A hypnotist could not have done a better job. For
the Iraqis it was all very real. During the proceedings,
beginning his first formal defence, he used the opportunity to
call on all Iraqis to ‘resist invaders’ and praised the
insurgency as ‘resistance to the American invasion’. When he
was reprimanded for using the proceedings as political
platform, he replied quickly: "Had it not been for politics, I
wouldn’t be here".

On the first day of the trial Saddam warned: ‘I do not

recognise the body that has authorised you {the court} and I
don’t recognise this aggression.’ He repeatedly stated the
same every time he rose to defend himself.

The US established the mechanism for the trial, gathered

witnesses, managed its security and orchestrated the media
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 284

coverage. But for diplomatic purposes, they could not run it

themselves, and in handing it over to the Iraqis, many
observers thought that they lost control of its proceedings and
its outcome. Saddam himself, until his death by hanging,
appeared more focused and physically fit.

While I was in Baghdad, venturing beyond the Green

Zone was risky - a sad and shocking experience. There were
daily killings, bomb attacks and these escalated throughout
and after Saddam’s trial. Alarm sirens were sounded most of
the day and during intermittent rocket and mortar attacks that
targeted the Defence Ministry, a site near DIWAN School
building that served as the provisional UN offices, every one
of us had to wear helmets and bulletproof vests, and,
assemble in designated shelters. Everyone in Baghdad was at
risk - except Saddam who was perhaps the most heavily
protected person in the whole world. His masterstroke has
been making himself hard to kill. His trial was intended to be
fair, but he manipulated it in his cunning attempt to
compromise every possible outcome.

The wider implications for politics in the Middle East,

particularly in Iraq itself, of the hanging of Saddam Hussein
were difficult to predict. If the trial were abandoned it would
have been dismissed as a mockery. If it were transferred to
The Hague, his lawyers would have claimed a moral victory,
regardless of the outcome.

Ever since the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958 by

Colonel Abdul Kharim Qassim, a judicial extravaganza has
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 285

accompanied every regime change in Iraq. Qassim’s Ba’athist

coup was marked by mass arrests of supposed Zionists, their
confessions broadcast nationwide while their bodies swung
from gallows in Baghdad’s Liberation Square. Saddam’s
presidency was inaugurated 11 years later by the discovery of
a new nest of traitors, with well-publicised accounts of
remorse and executions all round. The condemnations have
been filmed since 1958 - The coerced admissions and grisly
executions of yesteryear do not of course compare directly to
Saddam’s trial and subsequent execution by hanging.

In 200, though justice was always a stated goal of the

Coalition of the willing, no senior lawyer in said the coalition
ever considered adequately whose justice was being pursued.
Every trial has always reflected the principles of the authority
staging it. While traditions of dictatorship resonated among
Iraqis, the US and its proxies had to insist on such things as
due process - if only to satisfy the folks back home. The
result was a divide between Iraqi and western expectations.

Even the suggestion that the trial be exported to The

Hague was no solution, for that ignored why Iraq was hosting
it in the first place. Its primary purpose was not to find facts
or hear from victims, South African truth commission-style,
but to punish guilt, educate the Iraqi public – and satisfy
expectations of victims of Saddam’s repressive rule.

A significant legacy has been in 1945 with a warning

uttered by Robert Jackson, the then US chief prosecutor at
Nuremberg: “If you are determined to execute a man in any
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 286

case, there is no occasion for a trial.” Events in the Green

Zone in 2006 led me to conclude that the trials were clearly
aimed at prosecuting Saddam very publicly to death.

In 1945 Sir Winston Churchill, then Prime Minister of

Britain, initially opposed the prosecution of senior Nazis,
arguing that they should be dealt with on capture. It was
Joseph Stalin of the USSR, who, bent on showmanship,
demanded a public judicial hearing. Historians concluded
then that legalism worked at that time only because it was
imposed over the heads of a vanquished nation, Germany.

The new Iraq, after the demise of Saddam, however, was

supposedly a sovereign ally of the US and its citizens were
theoretically the beneficiaries of justice borne out of their
liberation from Saddam’s dictatorship, not its targets.
Saddam’s crimes certainly deserved to be addressed in
strictly legal terms. International observers of events in post-
Saddam Iraq agreed that the former dictator’s trial was more
of a show rather than a human rights milestone. Under the
circumstances, could it have been different?

The closing of my diplomatic and international civil

service carrier, my last assignment as Head of Strategic
Planning for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq
(UNAMI) thus coincided with the a new chapter in Iraq, with
the country engulfed in daily violence and killings that
proliferated into un-manageable sectarian strife. Towards the
end of my mission Iraq was a country broken and
disintegrated. Kurdistan in the north asserted itself as an
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 287

independent state in all but name. To the south the Shiite

religious parties had created an Islamic regime parts of which
were run by fundamentalists reminiscent of Afghanistan’s
former Taliban rulers. The Sunni Arab centre remained sort
of a political vacuum, where, to the extent that there is any
local authority at all, it belonged to tribal sheikhs, former
Ba’athists and al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, Iran formerly a sworn
enemy of Iraq had emerged as a strongest ally. The situation
was exacerbated by intensified attacks, ceaselessly launched
by Al Qaeda terrorists. The Mehdi Militia organized by a
powerful Shi’a cleric, Muktada El Sadr, on the one side, and
the Sunni militia on the other, continued fighting.

At the end of my mission to Iraq, the Special

Representative of the UN Secretary General, Ashraf Qazi, his
deputy Michael Schulenberg, Chief of Staff Fareed Zarif, my
colleagues and the rest of the staff gave me a warm farewell
and I can never forget the special send off given to me by the
Fijian UN Guard Unit with whom I had nurtured brotherly
relations. They had prepared a special surprise parade in my
honour on the office grounds and sang moving songs and
showered me with special gifts. After all, the United Nations
was all about the nurturing of peace, brotherhood and
international understanding. I felt honoured and privileged to
have been part of the great community at the service of world
peace - the UN staff.
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 288

EPILOGUE
I wrote this book to tell my story and to tell the story of
my country Ethiopia in the last half a century; to describe as
fairly as I could and as witnessed them first hand, the forces
that were competing to subdue its brave people. I also
intended to explain the challenges faced by the new
generation and to give young and aspiring Ethiopian
diplomats a sense of what it is like to be one, under all the
circumstances that I attempted to describe.

While writing, I found myself travelling back in time,

reliving my childhood, my boyhood and my adult life. I
recounted my story feeling as I did then and now. When I was
born, Ethiopia had just come out of the ravages of Italian
occupation and was struggling to reconstruct itself and
advance into the modern era of educational and technical
progress.

In the process, Ethiopians have seen regimes come and go

and had to endure seemingly endless civil wars and
aggression from none other than their immediate neighbours
to the north and the east. The problems of underdevelopment
and poverty are still with us. The struggle for good
governance is ongoing.

Having made the observations that I enumerated in this

story, I feel that educated Ethiopians should strive to leave
behind a legacy of serious struggle for the socio-economic
transformation of the Country. One would hope to see a time
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 289

when there is no more talk of hunger, misery and war in

Ethiopia. Though Ethiopians should continue to cherish the
modest achievements of the past, taking a hard look into the
future and our role in shaping it must predicate our history.

I think it was in the post revolution era in France that one

young man asked an elderly citizen what he, the elderly
person was doing during the French Revolution; the elderly
man had a simple answer: “I survived.” I too have survived
the ups and downs of the last half a century, grateful to the
Almighty for all the blessings and lessons of life.

In my work and experience at home, in public service and

international service, the UN in Abidjan, Addis Ababa, New
York, South Africa, Central Africa, Geneva, Iraq, Nairobi and
elsewhere, besides the added advantage of being gainfully
employed, my work assignments helped me bring up my
children in a sound international environment and gave me
the opportunity to know Africa and appreciate its problems,
feel for my fellow Africans and continue to struggle for our
well-being. It has also helped me broaden my knowledge of
the Middle East, especially the intricate problems related to
the on-going violence in Iraq and Lebanon.

One of my sons, Henok, educated at the prestigious

Sorbonne University in Paris, entered into the diplomatic
service immediately upon his return to Addis Ababa. I felt
gratified that my son, through dedicated service to his
country, was already making his mark as one of the new
generation of promising diplomats in the Ethiopian Foreign
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 290

Ministry, an institution I loved and whose services I had

never wanted to leave

Fully aware that the struggle for democracy, justice and

the respect for human rights in the world and particularly in
my own country will not be achieved overnight, I continue to
be hopeful that success will be achieved in these and other
fields of endeavour. Like compatriots of this generation,
future generations of Ethiopians will continue to face
considerable challenges.

Diplomacy during the time of Emperor Haile Selassie was

focused on defending the traditions of the crown and
territorial integrity, on the liberation of Africa, on adherence
to collective security in the world and on building the
foundations of modern education at home. It knew no bounds
as the Emperor could interact with diverse partners such as
King George V, Queen Elizabeth II, Churchill, Roosevelt,
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, De Gaulle, Adenauer,
Shah Pahlevi, Marshal Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ben Bella,
Jomo Kenyatta, Nikita Khrushchev, Salazar, Nehru, Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto, Chou En Lai and Mao Tse Tung.

During the military regime that followed, diplomacy was

about dismantling the remnants of feudalism while cementing
international solidarity with those that proclaimed their
partisanship with the working class. It, therefore, focused
mainly on relations with leaders of the Soviet Union and its
client states in Eastern Europe, as well as with China, Cuba
and the then socialist Yemen. That approach did not bear the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 291

desired fruit, because internally it tried to emulate the

repressive nature of the Soviet Union and externally it was
conducted at the expense of the good relations with the
western world that were painstakingly built over several
decades by the Emperor. In terms of economic benefits, the
policy of the Derg was detrimental since it deprived Ethiopia
of vital Western investment and economic corporation. The
regime had also to struggle against all odds, to ensure
territorial integrity and unity of Ethiopia. The Derg’s focus
was mainly on beefing up the war machine.

Diplomacy of today’s Ethiopia, I observed, is aimed at

promoting and supporting world peace, forging African unity
and creating conducive environment for economic
development at home and in the region. Economic
development and International Corporation with all possible
partners has become the focus of the new Millennium’s
foreign policy. Although challenges posed for Ethiopia by
well-known state sponsors of terrorism and Islamic
fundamentalists across its eastern border are enormous calling
for better military preparedness, independent approach to
international relations as practised by Emperor Haile Selassie
and his predecessors, in so far as they promoted world peace
and Ethiopia’s legitimate interests, have been revived.

The challenges of re-engineering relations with Eritrea

and, indeed, with all Ethiopia’s neighbours cannot be
underestimated. The ups and downs of Ethiopia’s fortunes
may have, albeit temporarily, deprived the country of the
 THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 292

required arsenal of qualified diplomatic practitioners, but

there is a great hope of revival in the new dawn.

I continue to serve and another first in my career has just

occurred. In 2007, I was nominated by the Government of
Ethiopia and tasked by the Council of Defence Ministers of
the region to put in place the groundwork for a viable
administrative system for the Secretariat of the Nairobi-based
East African Standby Force Coordination Mechanism
(EASBRICOM), an institution designed to facilitate peace
keeping and conflict management in the Eastern African
Region within the framework of the African Standby Force
(ASF) of the African Union.

I have had a lucky life and I have been blessed with a

family and close friends dedicated to the services of country
and society. My humble beginnings have helped me
withstand the trials of life setting in the process an example, I
hope at least for my sons. I remain fortified by the belief that
a new dawn has finally arrived for my beloved country,
Ethiopia.
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 293
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 294
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 295

INDEX Atnafu Abate, Col. 109-159

Abebe Aregay, Ras, 27,30,89 Ayneshet Teferi 120,
Abdul Mejid Husain 100,309 Ban Ki Moon 314
Abdul Mohamed 253 Be'alu Girma 33-135-194
Abeba Kifle-Egzi, Woizero, 45,65 Bedilu Duki, Maj. General, 12,13,156
Abebe Biqila, Captain 57,71,85 Begashaw Gurmessa, Corporal 139
Abebe Kebede, 158 Bekele Geleta, 203, 213, 218
Abebe Engidasew 205 Belafonte, Harry 274
Abraham Gebre Mariam, 13 Ben Bella, Ahmed, President 42,299
Abraham Kidane, Dr. 53 Bereket-Ab Habte Selassie, Dr 110
Abulqassim, Major 113,115 Bergmann Pohl, President 233
Addis Tedla, General 207, 244 Berhane Gebray, Dr. 56
Admasseh Zeleqe 149, 150,160 Berhane Mesqel Redda, 35,100,154
Afeworq Tekle, Maître Artiste, 35-,151,205 Berhanu Bayih 77-245
Ahadou Sabure 100,160 Berhanu Dinka 127-267
Akashi, Yasushi 265,268 Brezhnev, Leonid,General Secretary 146,182
Aklilu Habte Wold, 42,90, 102,106 Bismark, von 44,45,49
Al-Bashir, Omar287 Brahimi, Lakdar, 258
Alemayehu Haile, Captain 114 Brandt, Willy, Chancellor, 59,77,159
Alemayehu Melaku 14 Bulcha Demeqssa 119
Alemayehu Mekonnen 257 Botho, Prince 213
Alexander Dubchek 67 Bush, Sr., President 239
Ali Aref, Prime Minister 127 Boutros Ghali, 265,267
Alpha Oumar Konare, President 288 Callaghan, James 237
Alula Abate 55 Carlsson, Ingvar 195
Amaha Aberra, Dejazmatch 55 Carel de Rooy 263
Amaha, General 224 Cohen, Herman 243
Amanuel Made Michael 135 Costantinos Berhe Tesfu, Dr3,204, 260
Aman Michael Andom, General 33, 111-115 Cunhal, Alvaro 188
Amanuel Gebre Selassie, Dr.4, 39-55 Daniel, Colonel 136,146
Anders Wijkman 195 Dawit Abdou, Ambassador 103,105
Araft, Yasser 207,311 Dawit Wolde Ghiorgis, Major 175,216
Arbour, Louse 289 Dawit Zawde, Dr. 3,258,203,304
Argaw Ahmedeh 16 Debebe Haile Mariam, General 30,80
Arpad Gonz, President 236,308 Deragon Haile Melekot 55,60,61
Aseffa Ayene, Gen. 26,79, Dejene Hileteworq 38
Aseffa Wolde, Ambassador, 233,245 Deresse Dubale, General 80,107
Asfa Wossen, Crown Prince 25,29,99,244 Desta Gebru, Woizero 118
Asfaha Wolde Michael, Bitwoded 27,65,77,80 Diallo Telli 166
Ashenafi Teferra Shiawl 4, 306 Ed Tsui 268
Ashenafi Shifferaw 159 Elizabeth II, Queen 69,299
Aske, Dr. 60,62 Eguale, Gebre Yohannes Dr. 55,77,82
Asnaqe Getachew 148, Embibel Ayele, General 180
Andreas Eshete 12 Endalkachew, Lij 19,106,110-118
Asrat Desta, Colonel, 11,171,197 Ephraim Isaac, Professor 22,23,24,254
Assefa Lemma, Major, Ambassador 4-150 Erhardt, Ludwig 59
Erler, Fritz 59
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 296

Eshetu Chole, Dr. 35,100 Hagos Legesse 39

Eyassu Mengesha, Gen,. 102,119 Haile Fida, Dr. 33,52,120-153
Ezra Gebre Medhin, Professor. 22,37,38 Haile Gebre Selassie, Major 86
Fanta Belay, General 224,225 Haile Menqerios, Ambassador 269
Fareed Zarif 298 Haile Selassie, Emperor 10-300
Fasika Sidelil 3, 186,216,244 Hailu Wolde Amanuel, Ambassador 14,135,245
Fasil Nahom, Dr. 23 Harold Wilson, Prime Minister 64,69
Feleqe Gedle Ghiorgis, Colonel-Dr. 176 Hassan Gouled Aptidon, President 127
Fidel Castro, President 115146,174,207-212 Heath, Edward, Prime Minister 64
Heinrich Luebke, President 60
Fiqre Selassie Wogderess, Captain. 121-306
Heinz Demezier, Prime Minister 233
Fiqru Kidane 84
Henok Teferra Shiawl 3-1176,222-303
Fisseha Desta, Colonel 207-241,245
Hirut Befecadu 58-82,1176
Fisseha Geda, 176-306 Hiruy Amanuel, Ambassador 3, 46,80
Fisseha Yimer, Ambassador 233 Hiruy Tedla 52
Fitigu Tadesse, Dr. 58,114-189 Honeker, Erich General Secretary 229-334
Frank Lemke 45,56,70 Iban Aba 69
Gamal Abdel Nasser, President 42,89,94,299 Idris, King, 92
Ganapathi, Mr. 14 Ismael Hassan, Ambassador 123
Gebre Admasu 19 Isaias Afeworqi, President 53,61,99, -269
Genet Aw’alom 38 Jafar Nimeiry, President 1103,114,122
Germame Neway 26-29 Jamal Mohamed 103
Getachew Shibeshi, Major 123 Kagame, President 259,261,311
Getachew Wolde Mariam, Captain 3,10,125-167 Kasahun Dender, 3
Ghaddafi, Muamar, President 95-312 Kassa Kebede, Ambassador 212
Ghandi, Indira, Prime Minister 131 Kassa Wolde Mariam, Dejazmatch 3, 148-158
Giap, General 66 Kaunda, Kenneth, President 207
Girma Alemu 82,100,166 Kebede Bezunesh, Dejazmatch 7
Girma Beshah 3 Kebede Gebre, General 27-117
Girma Mengistu 105 Kebede Wagaye, Brigadier 26-169
Girma Neway, Gen. 131, 171,206 Kebedech Erdachew 189
Girma Shibeshi 204 Kenenisa Bekele, 76
Girma Wolde Ghiorgis, President 218 Kennedy, John, President 222,299
Girmachew Tekle Hawariyat, 4,160,182, Kenyatta, Jomo, President 69,299
Giscrad d’Estang, President 237 Ketema Yifru 3,74-164
Goitom Wolde Mariam, Dr. 52,60 Khan, Riz 273
Gorbachev, Mikhail, General Secretary 195-229 Kifle Wodajo, Dr. 3,93,119,126-141,198
Gorfu, Gebre Medhin 148,160 Kifle Yitbarek 14
Goshu Wolde, Colonel 90,195,200,217 Kim Il Sung 207,211,213
Gowan, Yacubu, Gen., President 68 King, Martin Luther 66,68
Graham Tyre 61 Kiros Alemayehu, Colonel 128
Graca Machel 267 Kissinger, Henry, Dr. 237,309
Granzw, Brigitte, Dr. 51,53 Kofi Annan 265-313
Grazziani, Marshal 7, 89 Konjit Sine Ghiorgis, Ambassador 233,245
Guebeyehu Firissa 34 Krenz, Egon 229
Günter Schabowski 231 Kwame Nkrumah, Dr., President 42,43,93,210
Gustav Husak, President 67,207 Legesse Asfaw, Captain 184,208-246
Habte Mariam, Assefa, Dr. 51 Lemma Gutema, Commander 217-220
Habte Selassie Tafesse 56,197 Lemma Kibret, Brigadier, 12,
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 297

Lemma Frew 29 Nessibu Taye, Colonel 184

Lieu Hsiao Chi, President 132 Netsanet Asfaw 56
Lolobrigida, Gina 86 Ping, Jean 277,313
Mahateme Selassie, Blatten Geta 148 Obasanjo, General 237,309
Mairegu Bezabeh 131,171,187 Ojukwu, Colonel 68
Mama Mersha 156 Palme, Olav 195
Mamadou Kane 270 Qazi, Ashraf, Ambassador 296
Mamo Tadesse 148,150 Ramcharan, Bertrand, Prof. 271,274-278
Mamo Wolde, Captain 71,85 Saddam Hussain, President 98,238,266,291-296
Mansour Khalid, Dr. 103 Sahle Worq Zewde, Ambassador 245
Marcos Teferra Shiawl 3 81-310 Sahlitu Ketsela 156
Martha Tadesse 190,199 Salim Ahmed Salim, Dr. 270
Mary Robinson 209,271-311 Samuel Assefa, Dr. 165,255
Mehari Measho 206 Samuel Beyene, General 151,158
Mekonnen Habte Wold 17,27 Sasahulish Kidane 9
Mekonnen Demissie 40,70 Schaeffer, Dr. Ulrich 44,49,60
Mekonnen, Dr. 205 Scheel, Walter 86,100
Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister 91,253-310 Schmidt, Helmut 59,237
Melke Tsedeq, Abuna 153 Schmitz-Wenzel, Hermann, Dr. 213
Menassie Haile, Dr. 63-93 Schulenberg, Michael von, D r296
Menelik II, Emperor 14,70,183 Sydney, Poirier 86
Mennen, Empress 25 Seifu Mahateme Selassie, 158
Mengesha Seyoum, Ras 122 Seifu Tekle Mariam 12,34
Mengisteh Desta, Ambassador 122 Senedu Gebru, (Woizero) Dr. 78-165
Mengistu Haile Mariam, President 91-307 Sergio Vieira de Mello 268,277,
Mengistu Neway, Gen. 25,29,34 Seyoum Heregot, Dr. 147,148
Merid Mengesha, Gen. 25,26, 28 Seyoum Mesfin 3,92,141,247, 310
Merid Negussie, General 224,225 Sharayev, Anatoly 181,
Mesfin Wolde Mariam, Professor 33,198,243 Shaukat, Fareed 268
Michael Emru, Lij 29, ,111,124 Shiawl Kidaneqal, Aleqa (Senior Pastor) 7, 182, 183
Million Wolde Mesquel 199 Shimelis Adugna 101
Miruts Yifter, Captain 85 Shimelis Mazengia 185, 186,192
Moges, Major 137 Singh, Jyoti 271
Moges Tekle Michael 33 Sissay Habte, Major 128,129
Mohamed Al Amoudi, Sheik, Dr.16 Skardt, Thorild 264
Mohamed Mirghani 103 Solomon Berhanu 156
Molla Zegeye 156 Solomon Enquay, Dr. 22
Mohamed Sahnoun, Ambassador 270 Stalin, Joseph, 295
Mulatua Haile Selassie 56,60 Starauss, Franz-Joseph 59
Mulugeta Asrate 143 Tadele Yidneqachew 3,83
Mulugeta Luleh 3,21 Tadelech Haile Michael, Ambassador 251
Naraian Eswaran 87 Tadesse Metcha 10
Nebure Id Ermias Kebede 161 Tadesse Gebre Kidan, Ambassador 205,233
Negede Gobezeh, Dr. 52,120, Tadesse Terefe, Ambassador, 20
Negussie Desta 71 Tadesse Yaqob 148
Negussie Habte Wold 63 Tamrat Kebede 3,155,255
Negussie Mengesha 12,81,86 Tamrat Layneh 248,260
Negussie Roba 85 Tamrat Wolde mariam, Lt. 138,140,158
Nelson Mandela 257,259 Tauschoe. Dr. 30,31
THE NEW DAWN - Teferra Shiawl Kidane-kal 298

Tedla Bairu, Dejazmatch 52,53 Vaclav Havel, President,236,239

Teferi Bante, General 10,120,125 Von Stupnagel, Ambassador 38,
Teferi Buzuayehu 23 Wehner, Herbert 59
Teferra Shiawl-Kidaneqal, Ambassador 1-318 William Wright 20,
Teferra Tizzazu, Dr.28, 38 Woineshet Kebede Wagaye, 3, 8-309
Teferra Worq Kidane Wold, Tsehafe Tiizaz 158 Wolde Mesqel Qostre, Dr. 85
Teferra Degefe 253 Wolde Ab Wolde Mariam 73
Teferra Haile Selassie, Ambassador 242,243 Worqneh Gebeyehu, Colonel 29
Tegegne Yetesha Worq 67 Wossen Beshah, Ambassador 128,245,263
Teka Tulu, Col. 184 Yidneqachew Tesemma 43,66,83,166
Tekola Dejene 234 Yeshash Worq Yilma, Princess 194
Temple-Black, Shirley, 238,245 Yesus Worq Zafu 25,40,43,44
Tekeda Alemu Dr 3, 248 Yidneqachew Tessema 74,92,93,188
Tesfaye Dinka 216,223,238,243 Yilma Deressa 90,148
Tesfaye Gebre Egzi, Dr 77 Yilma Kassaye 234
Tesfaye Gebre Kidan, General 136 137, 244 Yohannes Kifle 33
Tesfaye Maru 234 Yohannes Mengesha 123
Tesfaye Tadesse Gebre Heywot 3-242 Yohannes, Major 138
Tesfaye Tadesse Wolde Medhin 125,153 Yhannes Misikir, Major 29,30
Tesfaye Tequame 155 Yonas Tegegne, Dr. 261
Tesfaye Wolde Selassie, Colonel. 194 Yoseph Assefa 281
Teshome Gebre Mariam 77,148,160 Yoseph Kebede Wagaye, Dr 79
Teshome Teklu, Dr. 12,71,81 Zerfu, Balambaras 180,181
Teshome Tesfaye 195 Zewde Abate, Dr. 12
Teuscher, Wolfgang 54 Zewde Gebre Heywot, Bitwoded 148
Tibebe Yemane-Berhan, Dr. 205 Zewde Gebre Selassie, Dej. Dr. 112
Tibebu Bekele, Ambassador 4,233,245 Zewde Haile Mariam, Ambassador 18,55
Tibebu Shifferaw, Lieutenant, Ambassador 131 Zewde Retta 41
Tilahun Gizaw 35 Zewdu Tadesse 80,90
Tito, Marshal 299 Zewdineh Yimtatu, Dr. 207
Triki, Ali. 91 Zewditu Tesfaye 44-119
Tsehay Feleqe 203,218 Zulfikar Ali Bhutho 299
Tsega Amanuel 46 Zhuvkov, Thodor 207
Ulrich Fick, Reverend 44,56