Women's History Month: Martha Mebrahtu

Martha Mebrahtu was an Ethiopian/Eritrean student revolutionary who was killed during a failed hijacking attempt in 1972. This was when airplane hijackings were propaganda actions not designed to take innocent life. On the eve of the attempt, she wrote a manifesto of the beliefs behind her action:

‘We, women of Ethiopia and Eritrea, have made our life ready to participate in a struggle and we would like to explain the nature of our struggle to our sisters and brothers all over the world.
‘Our struggle demands a bitter sacrifice in order to liberate our oppressed and exploited people from the yokes of feudalism and imperialism. In this struggle we have to be bold and merciless. Our enemies can only understand such a language.
‘We, women of Ethiopia and Eritrea, are not only exploited as members of the working classes and peasants, we are also victims of gender inequality, treated as second class citizens. Therefore, our participation in this struggle must double the efforts of other oppressed groups; we must fight harder, we must be at the forefront.
‘We must equally participate in the struggle for economic and social justice that our brothers have waged. We have a responsibility to become a formidable force in the revolutionary army.
‘The rights for freedom and equality are not manna from heaven. We, women, have to be organised and have to make ourselves ready for any armed struggle. This fight will need financial, material and moral support of progressive international women's associations. We reach out to our sisters in other parts of the world so you can help us achieve this goal; we hope your support will reach us as we need it.
‘We affirm our full support for the oppressed people of the world who are struggling to free themselves from imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism and racism! We stand by the freedom fighters in Vietnam, Palestine, Guinea-Bissau and in other African and Latin American countries; we also support the civil rights leaders in North America.
‘Victory to the popular struggle of the people! May the people's movement for freedom in both Ethiopia and Eritrea live forever! My sisters and my brothers, let's keep on fighting!’


This manifesto, and some biographical notes on Martha Mebrahtu, appeared in Pambazuka News in 2011.