March 17, 2004

While thousands of Ethiopians accused of Red Terror crimes are suffering in various prisons in Addis Abeba,Kaliti and other hell holes, reports indicate now that such trials in Tigrai have been concluded. Of the 250 accused 4 have been condemned to life imprisonment, 39 released and the remaining sentenced to more than 10 years (former Tigrai administrator Major Tefera Welde Tensai has been sentenced to 22 years). There is little to rejoice in this for a variety of reasons which we shall cite below and which clearly indicate the ongoing discrimination (government policy) and the negation of due process of law.

1. The Tigrean front (TPLF),the hardcore group making up the EPRDF, is itself accused of taking part in the Red Terror crimes and is not an independent body to sit as a judge and jury.

2. The judges in Tigrai were TPLF loyalists and flatly denied the due process rights of the accused.

3. Most of the accused were indeed cadres and officials of the defunct regime that unleashed the Red Terror against the opposition EPRP but many in the docks were there for fighting against the TPLF on the side of the Mengistu regime. In other words, the ruling front was taking care of its own vengeance and not dealing with the Red Terror.

4. As former cadre and provincial administrator Tesfahun Aweke (sentenced to life imprisonment) clearly exposed, the witnesses were coached and the whole charade that of a kangaroo court.

5.The TPLF/EPRDF is using the Red Terror as a cover for its own political vendetta against those who opposed it or are presently not amenable to accepting it as legitimate.

It is to be noted that many former military and civilian officials like Lt. Colonel Fisha Akale, Brigadier Generals Tilahun Demissie and Kassa Welde Semayat are imprisoned in Tigrai. EPRP leaders like Tsegaye Gebre Medhin, Sitotaw Hussein, Yishak Debretsion, Tekali Haile Sellasie, Belete Amha, Azanaw Demile, Hagos Bezabih,etc were imprisoned in Tigrai but never charged or brought before a court of law and have been "disappeared" since 1991. The same is also the case with Hagos Atsbeha and many other former TPLF members.

The Red Terror was a murderous carnage undertaken in the late seventies by the former military regime mainly against the opposition Ethiopian People's Revolutionary party (EPRP). Credible evidences prove that in Tigrai at least, the cadres of the TPLF "infiltrated" the government's terror organs and murdered (in Mekele, Axum, Shire, Adigrat, etc..) many members of the EPRP and other Tigreans who refused to be members of the TPLF.

SOCEPP