In 1973, news of the famine had started to leak. Three professors from Haile Selassie I University (now Addis Ababa University) went to Wello province to assess the situation; they returned with pictures of the dead and dying. An exhibition of these pictures was mounted on campus. Students reacted by fasting, demanding that the university send the money it had saved to the starving provinces. They waged a public awareness crusade, displaying the gruesome pictures to the awe-stricken community, and organizing a campaign to collect food and clothing for the victims of the drought. The students demanded that the regime declare a state of emergency. They initiated a number of demonstrations, including a trip to Wello province that would include the drought-stricken in the mass rally. The monarchy considered this to be the ultimate form of sedition. The police were dispatched to restore order, bullets were fired, and a few young people lost their lives. Soon after, the three professors were dismissed from their posts.
It would be mid-1973 before the government finally acknowledged the existence of famine, and made it clear that it needed, and wanted, help. The World Food Program, UNICEF, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) were all consulted. The government’s position, however, was that if the cost of aid was making news of the famine public, then it would do without the aid. The international agencies pondered this logic, debating whether to save lives or to save face for the Emperor. The decision was to do nothing.
The cycle of cover-ups and indifference finally broke down late in 1973 when an English journalist named Jonathan Dimbleby filmed the crisis. The footage shocked the outside world out of its apathy, and donations from Oxfam, the British Save the Children Fund and others began to trickle in. A total of 14,800 tonnes of grain were distributed among the needy in 1973, barely a kilo a month per person. Even when the floodgates of the food supply finally flew wide open, the needy saw only a trifle, because a good deal of the stuff was diverted, by ever-alert government officials, to local markets. In Jijiga, one could buy bags of imported flour, powdered milk and tins of cooking oil at reasonable prices. The local traders couldn’t compete with the prices or quality of produce offered by the government-official-turned-merchant. The sacks and various containers of donated food had “Not For Sale” printed boldly on them—but that was a note the aid donors had scribbled to themselves, to remind them not to sell it to us.
The end of 1973 was a very busy time for government officials. When they were not busy siphoning off donated food to local markets, they were scurrying to hide the famine-stricken from view, sometimes locking them up in camps, as was the case with the town of Kobbo, where 290 prisoners died of starvation before the authorities decided, a fortnight later, to look into the situation.
On the bright side, 1973 saw the lethargy in the palace lifted. In November of that year, the Emperor finally decided to visit the affected areas. People still held His Highness in high regard. In Wello, the dying combed their hair, straightened their clothes and lined the streets to welcome the entourage. The stones that lined the roadsides were painted white, and green grass was flown in, to serve as a carpet for the King and render the scene less stark. It could not hide the surrounding misery.
The King was truly appalled by what he saw. He was moved enough to disregard his personal security and walk among the crowd to comfort the dying. But he did not promise to alleviate their pain and suffering. His Highness reminded the victims that such acts were beyond human capacity, that they should seek guidance from the Kingdom above. Purchasing the necessary grain would have cost a few million dollars. The Emperor would have liked to help, but he was not a wealthy man. After all, all he had was $1.6 billion, and it was tied up in Swiss banks.
The year 1973 was not a good one for the monarchy. The oil embargo imposed by OPEC had resulted in economic crises the world over: Ethiopia was no exception. The Arab oil-producing countries raised the price of oil by about nine cents a gallon. After careful consideration, the regime decided to raise the price of a gallon of gasoline by twenty-five U.S. cents. The immediate effects of this hike were felt by public transport, primarily taxis. The government wasn’t completely insensitive to the needs of the poor: it decided that taxi fares would remain unchanged.
In Ethiopia, taxis are not a luxury. They are the only reliable and affordable transportation for the urban poor. With a typical fare of ten cents a trip, most couldn’t ask for a better deal. The taxi drivers had a very slim profit margin, and couldn’t absorb the price hike in gasoline without going bankrupt. In February 1974 they decided to strike, shutting down the public transportation system completely. This had a domino effect, igniting a riot that had been in the making since a series of educational reforms was proposed two years before.
The controversial Education Reform Bill, which was proposed in 1972, savaged the modern education system while it was still in its infancy. Education beyond the primary level would no longer be free; there would be no new schools offering a secondary education, severely restricting the number of young people who would study past the primary level; and university education, still an embryo, would be born but wouldn’t be allowed to grow beyond infancy. In answer to a decades-long demand on the part of the teachers for better pay and working conditions, the government offered an all-round solution: their pay would be reduced and their working hours and the number of students per class would be increased. The teachers weren’t amused: 17,500 of them joined the taxi drivers already on strike.
The regime was unperturbed by all the looming crises. As long as the armed forces were behind the throne, why should one lose sleep over such minor details? The military was the best-trained and -equipped fighting machine in Africa; it had long since demonstrated its coercive power by ruthlessly suppressing countless instances of internecine strife.
But 1974 was an ominous year for the monarchy. A mutiny of non-commissioned officers and enlisted men broke out in the province of Sidamo. A broken water pump triggered the revolt. For months, the enlisted men had complained to their officers about a lack of proper drinking water, requesting that their damaged pump be repaired. No solution was offered. Out of desperation they decided to draw their water from the officers’ well, an act that the officers found disrespectful. The enlisted men responded by arresting their officers, refusing to set them free until either the Prime Minister or the Minister of Defence came to inspect their wretched living conditions. The King did not think it appropriate to send a minister on such a trivial mission, dispatching instead a much-decorated general—Lieutenant-General Deresse Dubale. This officer found himself taken prisoner as well, and forced to live alongside the enlisted men, eating the same food and drinking the same water. In a week the general fell ill.
The army uprising was the straw that broke the back of the aristocratic camel. Following the Sidamo mutiny, a second one broke out in Asmara, Eritrea, followed by a third at the headquarters of the Fourth Division in the capital, and another one a few miles away at the Debre Zeit Air Force Installation. The working classes and government employees joined the revolt, students intensified their protests, and the nation was soon riddled with strife. The Emperor made many hasty concessions, but far from having a calming effect, this indicated to many that the monarchy was quickly losing its grip on power.
By the middle of 1974 the question was not whether the monarchy would last the year, but what would replace it. Not only was there no opposition political party—there was no party at all. The only organization sufficiently organized to assume power was the army, and indeed the army did take over. On September 12, 1974, the Emperor was deposed, parliament was suspended, and the door to the unknown was thrown wide open.
The military junta was no more immune to the direction of events than the man in the street, but it declared itself open to ideas. Postal stations were opened for suggestions, and all sorts of dialogues were encouraged for the purpose of determining what needed to be done. Ra
dical young Ethiopians flocked from self-imposed exile abroad to make their mark on history. Political prisoners were freed from the penitentiaries to play a role in the dawning of the new era.
Barely six months after assuming power, and only weeks after announcing a vague form of “Ethiopian Socialism,” the junta nationalized all banks and thirteen insurance companies, with no financial compensation for the owners; a month later seventy-two industrial and commercial companies were added to this list. Another month passed before the most sweeping and far-reaching measure of all was taken: all rural land became the property of the state, the peasant being granted only a “possessory” right to the land that he tilled, to a maximum of ten hectares. On July 26, 1975, all urban land and houses not physically occupied by the owners were nationalized. In all, 409,000 houses and apartments became the property of the state.
If the rural land policy had led to the demise of the feudal lords, the urban land policy effectively wiped out the nascent middle class. No one had anticipated such a drastic move; many were too shocked to raise a voice. My own parents had not lost much property due to these measures, but like my peers I was caught off guard and did not know what to think.
Soon after these events, the junta set in motion policies designed to help it administer the country more effectively. Towns were divided up into administrative zones known as kebele to look after the expropriated property and to keep a closer eye on subversive elements. Towards the same end, peasants were urged to form associations, one for each 200 to 250 families.
The junta took over power without bloodshed, and promised the nation that events would run their course without need for the gun. On November 23, 1974, however, fifty-seven officials of the fallen monarchy, two members of the junta, and twelve other military personnel were put to death without any form of trial or any admission that events had got out of hand. The Emperor was still under detention. There were still ongoing negotiations between the junta and His Highness on the spoils of the previous half-century. The Emperor refused to share his tidy pickings, piled up in Swiss banks, with the new upstarts, maintaining that the money saved was for his own brood. Sending the archbishop or priests from the Emperor’s favourite church did no good. It became painfully clear to the junta that it couldn’t, after all, hope to buy that new outfit. Home renovations had to wait. All those glossy catalogues with alluring pictures of machine guns, missile-launchers, armoured personnel carriers and majestic tanks had to be put back on the shelf until new sponsors were found. The junta decided, with a heavy heart, that the supreme ruler had to go. Late in August 1975, one of the Emperor’s prison guards was instructed to snuff the life out of the old monarch. The guard achieved this by using the Emperor’s own humble pillow.
* * *
THE EMPEROR’S DEATH came as a complete surprise to us. Like most people, I was shocked and dismayed, and wondered why anyone would want to kill the one man in the nation admired and respected, despite his recent shortcomings, by all ethnic groups. He was an old man—in his eighties—and frail. Sparing his life would put not only a human face to the junta, but also a humane one.
The junta did not openly admit doing away with the monarch, as it did in many other cases. The truth would become public through word of mouth. But the vulgarity of the news broadcast was no less revolting: the Emperor was familiarly referred to in the equivalent of the French word tu instead of the appropriate, respectful vous. The public reaction must have been overwhelming because in subsequent broadcasts the proper corrections were made.
* * *
SOON AFTER THE November 1974 mayhem, there were wholesale massacres in the provinces. Peasants turned their machetes against their former bosses. For them, the revolution was a movement against Amhara chauvinism. High government officials were done away with in towns and cities with no rhyme or reason, by the officers now in charge of public administration. The judicial system and the courts were indefinitely moth-balled.
The main difference between war and peace used to be that in war the fathers buried their sons, while in peace the sons buried their fathers. The revolution redefined war and peace. I buried my father as I watched the Grim Reaper over my shoulder, making the roll call.
EARLY TO FALL
DAD WASN’T a feudal lord. He wasn’t even of feudal origins. His father, Mr. Altaye, had been lured from his humble hinterland homestead by the high-flown promises of a newly conquered East, but succumbed to illness long before his young family had put down roots. Dad never said how his mother fared after the sudden death of his father, how she adjusted to her new surroundings. His family affairs were seldom discussed at our dinner table.
Dad moved to Jijiga when he came of an age to strike out on his own. Times were hard for someone with small beginnings and unbounded ambition. Dad was frowned upon by conquered Somalis, who resented his hegemonic background, and looked down on by men of his own ethnic group who’d already made names for themselves.
The one welcome break Dad received in his young life was being offered a clerical job in the newly set-up Governor’s Office of Jijiga. Amharic was God’s own choice for the medium of government and Dad, who read and wrote Amharic impeccably, was picked—no questions asked—to fill one of the humdrum positions in City Hall.
Dad became a clerk at the tender age of twenty-one, and a clerk he would have remained for the rest of his life—in the absence of powerful connections—had he not taken a chance and volunteered for assignments farther south. As his career crept up the bureaucratic ladder, he was relocated from one small town to another slightly bigger one. Eventually, he had covered a great deal of the conquered region.
We lived in many towns in Ogaden where there were hardly any Amhara settlers—except for a few administrators, police and army personnel. These towns were quite far from Jijiga, some as far as a thousand kilometres. A highway, laid with gravel and rarely maintained, connected these remote places with the rest of the country. As there were no buses or other modes of civilian transport to serve these areas, the occasional traveller had to buy a seat in one of the few trucks that headed south. But it would be days before the traveller reached his destination, as he would have to catch a number of connecting trucks. Only Somalis can roam these regions at will: all others need to be escorted by the army.
The army convoy left town once every few months. All prospective travellers registered at the army headquarters well ahead of time to book a seat in one of the trucks. The ride was free, with preference given to government employees; those dispatched to enforce the wishes of the King; and prostitutes, who unselfishly rendered their services to the patriots at the front. A single convoy consisted of a hundred or more trucks, dozens of Jeeps armed with high-calibre machine guns, twenty or more cannons towed by the trucks, and thousands of soldiers armed and ready for combat.
* * *
I REMEMBER ONE such convoy. The day before the trip, army trucks are dispatched to collect our belongings. Beds, chairs, chattels and anything without a life of its own is loaded up, and covered with canvas to protect it from the infernal dust of Ogaden, before the trucks head back to the depot. Early the next day we gather with the other passengers at one of many pickup locations, escorted by relations, kissing, crying and wishing us Godspeed. Around midday, the convoy crawls out of town.
Ogaden is like no other region in the country. It is a vast, arid and for the most part flat expanse of land. There is no settled agriculture here, and only a very few buildings have the kind of foundations that promise longevity. No forests either. The sun’s mirage over the horizon, resembling a periphery of ocean, is occasionally punctuated by acacia trees scattered over the landscape. These trees, as indigenous to the region as camels and Somalis, are hostile. They are dwarf trees, flat at the top, but giving little in the form of shade from the unforgiving sun. Their meagre leaves are protected by inch-long thorns, and only camels, goats and a few other animals dare eat them.
A few kilometres out of town the road shows little sign of
use. Weeds sprout between the pressed-gravel tracks, animal skeletons litter the dusty trail, and birds build their nests in the middle of the highway. The convoy makes frequent stops to clear the road, permitting the kids to commune with nature. Mothers can be seen dragging children out and cajoling them to relieve themselves. Mam turns to me and asks: “Are you sure you don’t want to take a leak? We are not stopping again for another hour, so it is either now or in your pants.”
The convoy starts moving again. The same scenery. Ferocious sun. Acacia trees with thorny leaves. A lone nomad dragging a camel loaded with two sacks of charcoal, which he takes to town. Once in a while, a group of Somalis is seen leading a caravan of camels: the soldiers cock their guns; the machine guns on the Jeeps are trained at the nomads; we are instructed to lower our heads. The Somalis, however, show nothing more than curiosity.
Occasionally, wild animals can be seen roaming around. A giraffe nibbling the thorny leaves of an acacia cocks its head above the flat top of the tree. It stares with anxiety at the metallic millipede speeding along the trail. Not believing its eyes, it turns sideways, to focus first through one eye then through the other. Realizing that its senses do not betray it, the giraffe shoots off with angelic speed. A meerkat comes out of its burrow in the ground, shaken awake by the rumbling engines. Unsure of what to do, the meerkat moves back and forth. Then, standing high on its hind legs, the meerkat lets out a wild shriek, following which its brothers and sisters emerge. They stare at the speeding convoy with baffled looks, watch the trailing dust with growing alarm. Shaking their heads in disgust, they plunge back into their burrows in perfect unison.
Notes from the Hyena's Belly Page 11
