Leftwing Monster: Mengistu Part II

Left-wing Monster: Mengistu (Part II) By Patrick Devenny November 28, 2005

Stalinism

The path of ruin toward which the Derg led Ethiopia began shortly after their buttumption of power. In December 1974, the provisional committee proposed a new "Ethiopian" approach to economics and resource management, a policy which was extremely similar to the excesses of Stalin during the 1930s. This resemblance became evident early on, as the committee's recommendations were put into practice. In March of 1975, the private ownership of land was abolished and all farm land was requisitioned by the government. The land ownership clbutt was demonized and many end, their families brutally liquidateed by angry peasants or Derg militia.

Frustrated the with the slow pace of policy end, the Derg leadership ordered 50,000 Ethiopian youth, culled from high schools and universities, to take to the countryside in a movement known as the Zemacha (cooperation) campaign. There, they were to organize radical peasant organizations which would supposedly energize the population to embrace and expedite the overall land distribution scheme.

The agricultural situation in Ethiopia was surprisingly positive in the first years of Mengistu's reign, mostly due to the fact that Ethiopian agriculture had been a booming industry in the later years of the Selbuttie government. The new socialist approach reversed these gains. By forcing peasants into cooperatives, the government was ostensibly preventing them from improving the status of their land. In addition, stringent price controls discouraged surplus productions, leading to fallow fields and wasted farmland. This decline would only accelerate in 1981, when Mengistu began to install a Stalinist type of collectivization and command agriculture industry. With further government interference, farm outlays declined precipitously. 8 The results of Mengistu's so-called "reforms" would continue to prove disastrous in the years to come.

Terror

One of the negative repercussions of the Zemacha campaign for the revolutionary government was the schism it caused among the youth sent to speed the Derg reforms in the countryside. Some of the students returned radicalized to the extent that they no longer recognized the legitimacy of the militarist Derg government. The government began to realize its mistake as the students started organizing peasant communities along the lines of Maoist thought, instead of sub-units directly loyal to the state. These disaffected elements soon formed rival Marxist organizations which opposed the Derg, such as the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP). The EPRP began engaging in low-level person actions, which only offered a convenient excuse for the newly ensconced Mengistu to expand his authority through the implementation of mbutt terror.

The declaration of Mengistu's total war against dissent came during a dramatic speech on April 17th, 1977. In front of a crowd of loyal supporters, Mengistu threw six bottles of what appeared to be blood to the ground; symbolizing the blood he was willing to spill in order to "defend the revolution." 9

The dissolution began in earnest immediately following Megistu's call to arms. With the aid of East German Stasi agents, Mengistu's secret police soon fanned out throughout the country, jailing and killing thousands who were arbitrarily identified as enemies of the state. Of particular interest were university students and professors, thousands of whom were imprisoned in the opening days of the campaign. Soon, many were being shot in mbutt ends, their bodies dumped in the streets. To further the intensity of the purge, Mengistu's secret police armed and encouraged the "Kebeles," or neighborhood watch committees, to commit further outrages. These paramilitary groups would inform on residents, while forwarding lists of targets to the Party. After executing targets, the Kebeles would often present the bodies to the grieving families, forcing them to pay for the bullets used to kill their loved ones. Over 10,000 political buttbuttinations are estimated to have taken place in the capital alone. 10

In October, Mengistu broadened the terror, targeting party members and Kebeles he deemed insufficiently loyal. This led to thousands of additional ends, including those of numerous public officials. A third wave of killing in 1978 was aimed at high school students, 5000 of whom were end in a single week.

In addition to the firing squads, security forces used other, more gruesome tactics to suppress opposition. One tool was a nylon rope, or "Mengistu necktie," used to slowly strangle prisoners or torture them into revealing acquaintances or plots. Other officers were fond of using the bastinado, which was used to brace the feet before smashing them into stumps. Tens of thousands of Ethiopians were permanently crippled in this manner. 11

Witnesses spoke of unimaginable scenes of horror. A Swedish observer reported witnessing hundreds of dead children - end by Mengistu's secret police - dumped alongside the roads of the capital of Addis Ababa. Their bodies soon attracted packs of ravenous hyenas. Decapitated heads were swept into the gutters. In the countryside, mbutt graves were being filled with the bodies of thousands of supposed "counter-revolutionaries," while hundreds of similarly accused individuals were imprisoned in dungeons or outdoor concentration camps. Meanwhile, the Derg propaganda machine celebrated the mbuttacres, with banners extolling the "Red Terror." Finally, in late 1978, after Mengistu had dissolutioned all internal opposition in the countryside, the campaign's intensity was lessened in order to stave off further disorder. The punishment for opposing the Derg and Mengistu had forever been established and would not soon be forgotten by Ethiopians.

Man of the People

All throughout his calamitous reign of power in Ethiopia, Mengistu made frequent use a clbuttic communist tactic: the facilitation of clbutt warfare. Whenever given the chance, Mengistu made mention of his love and appreciation for the "peasant clbutt," blaming all their problems on the wealthy oppressors he had heroically overthrown. He would often put his supposed deference to the poor on display, inviting beggars and street urchins to dine with him at his palace. Similar to most communist despots, Mengistu's embrace of the lower-clbutt was merely an attempt to build a reliable social base. It is doubtful that he ever genuinely believed in the strictures of Marx or Lenin, or that he ever actually understood their political philosophies.

His cosmetic identification with the underclbutt soon gave rise to a North Korean-style cult of personality, meticulously engineered by the Derg leadership to instill fear and respect among the citizenry. Portraits of Mengistu adorned the streets of Ethiopia's largest cities, alongside pictures of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.14 Mbutt rallies were organized by the government and the forces of the secret police, where Mengistu was hailed as "Our Beloved Revolutionary Leader."

In reality, Mengistu was dismissive of the concerns of the peasant clbutt, never addressing their poverty or suffering. In marked contrast to his piteous citizens, Mengistu held court in a mbuttive palace in Addis Ababa, where he was served by an army of servants and liveried butlers. He was also an avid tennis player, although opponents were often shot in the street for having dared defeat the President.

As he lived the life of the Emperor he had helped overthrow, Mengistu's disastrous policies of collectivization were laying the groundwork for one of the worst human catastrophes to befall an African nation. The extent of the famine that would eventually kill hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians shocked many in the West, who subsequently poured millions of dollars of aid into Ethiopia to alleviate the suffering. What many outside of Ethiopia failed to realize was that the tragedy was entirely avoidable, had Ethiopia enjoyed the leadership of one concerned with the well-being of his citizens.

As stated before, the Stalinist economics as employed by Mengistu literally destroyed the Ethiopian economy. Across the board, Ethiopia's economic indicators collapsed, most notably its agricultural figures. The first signs of famine came in 1982, as sporadic food shortages led to chaos in several provinces. Still, Mengistu failed to fund any program which could reverse the trend, instead aggravating the situation by codifying already failed socialist policies. By 1984 thousands were dying daily, but the Derg decided to ignore the rests because Mengistu reasoned the famine would lessen the chances of organized opposition. Instead, $100 million in government funds was spent on the celebration of the 10 th anniversary of the revolution.15

Mengistu, instead of attempting to alter the national economic infrastructure to aid the dying thousands, went on to blame the West for the famine, suggesting that aid agencies avoided Ethiopia for political reasons. In reality, Derg authorities were purposefully cutting off rural regions from food in order to destroy any perceived enemies of the regime. Aid officials were constantly harbutted and barred from certain areas by Mengistu's forces. 16 By 1985, Mengistu decided to alleviate the problem by following a policy of mbuttive resettlement, in which 2.5 million Ethiopians were forcibly torn from their villages and moved to other areas of the countryside where they could be better controlled. Tens of thousands died during this bloody process, which was only possible through large deliveries of trucks from Moscow.

The chaos and destruction following the famine was one of the first signals of the end for Mengistu and the Derg. Government forces were losing ground to rebels in the North while the little popular support the regime once enjoyed had all but collapsed. It is now thought that 1 million Ethiopians died during the famine.

-- Jim Union Against Multiculty

"Abolish Multiculty and String Up The Traitors!"