The Prescript of Healing must be to Forgive, but to not Forget

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“I ask for a natural death, No teeth on the ground, No blood about the place, It’s not death I fear, But unspecified, unlimited pain”
Robert Lowell

“The Saturday Night Massacre” which occurred 30 years ago today in Addis Ababa Central Prison, heralded the ushering in of random arrests, extra-judicial killings and genocide, the bestiality of which, has no doubt, out Cambodid-Cambodia. The above poem is, therefore, a fitting tribute to all those who suffered and to those who perished during the “Era of Khakitocrats” - that 17 year misrule when the Khaki-uniformed elite of the previous regime not only enjoyed the license to kill, but most shocking of all, made Ethiopians pay a “Corpse Tax” for the bullet that took away the lives of their dear and loved ones. Personally, at the time I was exempted from the “Corpse Tax” because the remains of the victims of “The Saturday Night Massacre” were sprinkled with lime and buried in a mass grave.

Yes, I am well aware that I am writing about a subject that is treated as taboo in my place of residence. Yes, I am well aware that the price one pays for speaking out is to be the merciless vivisection of ones reputation, not to mention the exhumation of the memory of one’s parents and subjecting it to intensive character assassination. Yes, I am going to be intrusive without being abusive. Yes, my article is bound to inspire many while leaving the guilty in a state of perspiration. However, it is a big no to those who might think that I am soliciting sympathy, for I need no sympathy from any one save The Almighty. No, too, to the anticipated accusation that I am giving vent to a pent-up feelings of grudge and resentment, for I have been cleansed from it by the spirit of the Lord.

One topic that all religions agree on is that forgiveness is good for the soul. Even agnostics and nihilist, too, concur with the view of psychologists in that forgiveness has a therapeutic effect on one’s inner well being. Well, this year we were officially told by the Ethiopian print media that the jailed members of the former Dergue had asked Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to arrange appropriate forum for them to apologize to the Ethiopian people. On the face of it, it is an overture worthy of praise. However, an alert public should be able to cross-examine motives. Never forget who we are dealing with. We are dealing with people who had consistently lied and hoodwinked us in the past. They promised us “Yalemenem Dem Ethiopia Tikdem and bequeathed us a gory Ethiopia at war with herself. Khakitocrats vowed “Ethiopia or Death” on Sunday morning only to be seen driving mini-cabs in the streets of London on Tuesday morning. The jailed former Dergue members put up a vigorous defence in the past decade costing the Ethiopian tax payer millions of birr, only to tell us that it is only now that they have come to realise their guilt. What, in essence, they wanted Meles Zenawi to do is arrange a media- studded event where they would have been able to score some brownie points for themselves. This would have been a great insult to the Ethiopian people and I believe the Prime Minister was right in not responding in the affirmative. Even if Meles had wanted to comply with their request, he would not have been able to move his pen. The Ethiopian Constitution has not bestowed upon the Prime Minister the right to intervene in an on-going court case. If the former Dergue members were genuinely interested in offering an apology rather than a publicity stunt, all they needed to do was approach the bench with their request. Alternatively, they could have written a letter and distributed it to the press.

For far too long, the very food we ate even the air we breathed, the few ‘permitted’ books we were allowed to read, the people we met and the people whose burial we attended were all objects of intense political harassment by khakitocrats. To some brush and dustpan mentality, those who did not sing from the same khakitocratic hymn sheet were derided as ‘unpatriotic.’ The unsavoury nature of exile life with blood-stained unrepentant khakitocrats in your midst does not end there. They are there with their imported “Derguism.” Laughable, then, is it not to see an unrepentant Comrade who is alleged to have co-ordinated the death by strangulation of H.H. Abuna Tewoflos play the role of anchorman in the House of the Lord. It’s simply pathetic, is it not, to observe the “Butcher” of Awraja A occupying the position of a Social Worker in a London Borough, while the “Buthcher” of Awraja B is ensconced as, believe it or not, head of a refugee organization. What are we meant to be doing? Are we vegetating or living? Are we meant to stand and stare in fear of rocking the boat? Or are we going to muzzle ourselves? There is an Ethiopian saying: “The grief of one whose mother has just died, and the grief of one whose mother has just gone out to fetch water are not the same.” This legacy of folklore ought to be the guiding principle in this situation.

Hallelujah! Victims of Dergue’s misrule have finally declared an end to khakitocratic hegemony in London and have taken their case to the government of our host nation. We want to highlight the flaw in the indiscriminate, and not the eclective, immigration system that has allowed victimiser and victim to live as neighbours. We would want to ask why Ethiopians are not being treated like their Rwandan and Afghani counterparts by extraditing those who are wanted for crimes against humanity in Ethiopia. H.M. Government, unlike the George Bush Administration, is a signatory of an international agreement on the extradition of the perpetrators of genocide and human rights violations. We want to know what is stopping them from extraditing sanguinary khakirocrats masquerading as innocent Ethiopian British from the United Kingdom to the country where they committed the alleged crime.

Without having to sound pious, we ought to realise that there exists a clear blue sea between forgiving a criminal and ensuring that justice is made to be seen to be done. Christians, who believe what is potent in the New Testament is latent in the Old Testament, appreciate the fact that God used to admonish the Israelites never to forget their crucible while they were in bondage in Egypt. Or try and tell the Jews to forget what happened to them under the Nazis and take note when their reply is bound to be: “While to forgive is divine, to forget is definitely asinine.”

In 1991, by the Grace of God, and the clairvoyance of the government and people of Ethiopia, our beloved nation was spared from revenge killings which have wrecked countries such as Rwanda. More is expected from both the government and people of Ethiopia if we are meant to put our traumatic past behind us. The people have to forgive the perpetrators of the horrendous crimes so that they can be at peace with themselves without allowing that bloody system to rear its ugly face again in Ethiopia. No one expects the Government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to take a leaf from the Israeli Government and mount an Eichman-style operation and bring the Old and New Leaders of the Dergue from Harare and Washington D.C. respectively. On the other hand, the government should be in hot pursuit on those, who have endearingly been named Gilgel Dergotch. Doing nothing is no option. The government ought to realise that Mercy to the criminal is cruelty to society.

May God Continue to Bless Ethiopia!
Mulugeta Aserate Kassa
24th November2004

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