The Ethiopian Red Terror genocide was a very crucial and violent time period for any ethiopian who was suspected to be a supporter of the EPRP (Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party). The Red Terror was like a modern day Holocaust. The two parties involved were the Dergs and Colonel Mengistu against the political opponents, or EPRP. Mengistu Haile Mariam became the leader of the Dergs, name of his army, because he murdered Emperor Haile Selassie. “The Ethiopian “Red Terror” or Qey Shibir occurred between 1977 and 1978” (RTMM “The Red Terror”).
Before, in 1974, the military threw out the former Ethiopian leader and the political power had no one controlling it. Colonel Mengistu took power and ordered all the EPRP members to be murdered (The Red Terror). The EPRP supporters got so fed up with the way the Derg treated people they started to rebel against him and eventually overthrew the government in 1991. (The Red Terror) The Red terror in particular has had the most extensive judgement of human rights violations since sometime at the end of the second World War. Classification
Mengistu assumed total administrative, military, and political control of Ethiopia by eliminating his political opponents and silencing people who would contradict against him. “The Red Terror took place at the hands of the Mengistu Haile Mariam’s military junta known as the Derg” (RTMMM- “Red Terror”). The people who opposed the government were tortured or brutally murdered (“Let the Red Terror Intensify”: Political Violence, Governance and Society in Urban Ethiopia, 1976–78). The sad thing about this was they also went for the general people, which was anyone they saw as a threat to their government.
The Dergs would classify their victims by if they were slightly educated and being part of an opposition group. They would also target people that were a student, teacher, or worker (The Red Terror). All the people in The Red Terror that were killed were classified as someone that opposed against Mengistu’s beliefs. Before the soldiers murdered or tortured these innocent people, they would have had to classify them to know if the people they were killing were truly threats. Symbolization As research shows, there were no specific symbols that were given to classify groups.
The Red Terror genocide did have a few group of people named things, like peasants being called Kulaks and the Ethiopian citizens that were revolting called themselves ERPR (The Red Terror). The only symbols were the weapons that the soldiers used because when the citizens looked at them, they knew who they were by the way the dressed and by the weapons they carried around. The Derg had their own emblem to represent who they were and it contained a sun, rope and some kind of weapon they used to torture people with.
Many people fought for their lives against the soldiers, and unfortunately it did not turn out so well. The message of hate toward the non-supporters was spread by Mengistu making public service announcements and some would retaliate in their defense of believing what they thought was right. Dehumanization Mengistu took thousands of men, women, and children that he suspected were opposers and non supporters of his cause.
Many of them were tortured and then killed. Groups of people would have been thrown into churches and then the churches would be torched, which burned the people inside alive. Prisoners were burned, flogged, and hung by the arms” (RTMMM-”Red Terror”). Because the soldiers hated the people for not being on their side, they took it into their own hands and showed them what happens if you do not agree with their leader. People would have also had their fingernails ripped out and men would sometimes have their testicles crushed (RTMM-”Red Terror”). The people were talked to in a very harsh way with a lot of cursing and also by being spat on by the soldiers.
The soldiers had no respect for anyone that they did not agree with because they were taught not to and the soldiers knew they would be punished if they did not do as they were told. Organization The main party that was involved in the extermination was Mengistu, but all of his soldiers did the dirty work. Some soldiers were just following orders while the others were firm believers in what Mengistu was saying, and his teachings (The Ethiopian Red Terror Trials: Transitional Justice Challenged).
The soldiers were doing as they were told and killed the people they were assigned by Mengistu to kill. Some soldiers would had worshipped Mengistu as their leader so much that they religiously killed people. Mengistu had this all organized and planned out by the way he was going to take over Ethiopia. “To this day no one has been able to find the corpse of Emperor Haile Selassie” (The Revolutionary Endgame of Political Power: The Genealogy of ‘Red Terror’). Polarization Through the research, there are no laws prohibiting anyone being separated during this time.
In Ethiopia, if you were Christian, the bride had to be virgin in order to get married and not be shunned by the rest of her family. This was not necessarily a law, it was up to the bride if she would have liked to be dishonored by her family. Also, traditionally in Ethiopia the parents of the groom would have searched for a bride for their son. In Muslim rituals, the husband can have up to 5 wives and have children. If the husband were to die, the brother of the husband would get to marry his widow (The Red Terror).
There were no laws forbidding of moving because some people moved into the mountains to continue their lives as guerilla fighters (RTMMM- ”Red Terror”). There were also no laws forbidding offspring, but they were not thinking about producing any children with what was happening to their world. Preparation/Extermination These mass killings started because Mengistu Haile Mariam supposedly murdered the Emperor and the military threw out the former ethiopian leader around 1977 (The Red Terror). So with these events happening, the political power was up for grabs and Mengistu was the one to get it.
The Red Terror resulted in about 500,00 deaths, there were about 100-150 children a night left outside in the streets for the hyenas to scavenge on” (The Revolutionary Endgame of Political Power: The Genealogy of ‘Red Terror’). The public citizens did not have much say in what went on during this time. Mengistu had them tortured, arrested, or killed due to his power over the Dergs. The citizens would rebel against him by demanding an electing government because they wanted a democratic leader instead of a monarchy ype of leader. Denial Mengistu Haile Mariam said that the famine never happened and he denied the death of former Emperor, Haile Selassie (“Let the Red Terror Intensify”: Political Violence, Governance and Society). Mengistu denied causing this war in defense of a revolution and for ordering deaths during that war.
He did not want to be executed for doing all these horrible things to these innocent people. After he thought they were on to him and was going to be found guilty for the genocide, he fled to Zimbabwe. In 2006, he was sentenced to life in prison and then 2 years later sentenced to death” (The Red Terror). Still to this day are fighting for a democratic rule and freedom. The Ethiopian Red Terror genocide was an event that changed many Ethiopian lives by causing trauma to their loved ones and even the ones that did not survive. Nobody would had even thought of something like this happening to their society. Genocide is taken very seriously today, due to past things that have impacted us just like The Red Terror has impacted so many lives in Ethiopia.
The victims may not have had any family left to cope with, so it was hard on the ones that had no family left. Many of people in this time period struggled to get through their normal days because those “normal” days did not feel normal anymore due to the fact they did not have some of their loved ones. The only thing we can do to prevent this from happening again is to follow the rules and let the people rule. Because of dictatorship, Ethiopia has had mass killings and many people were being tortured for what they believed in.
