The Derg’s Diary of Repression, 1976

A correspondent has forwarded to me a copy of a fascinating publication. (Thanks JM!) It's a magazine published by the PMAC on the second anniversary of the revolution in September of 1976, which means it dates from the period before Mengistu consolidated his power, and from the period of escalating internal violence and repression on the cusp of all out war between the Derg and the EPRP.

The publication is already a defense of the Ethiopian “Man In Uniform,” the rationalization for the military control of the revolution. As such, it is preoccupied with defending the revolution against “reactionaries” and calling for revolutionary unity. It does not name its enemies. An introduction from the Provisional Military Administrative Council itself says, “If members of the Ethiopian Armed Forces had not taken the necessary measures to safeguard the unity which is as precious as life to them whenever the situation so demanded, it is an incontrovertible truth that our Revolution would not have assumed its present form, shape, and direction.....The Struggle Continues! Reactionaries Will Be Liquidated! The People Will Be Victorious!” 

The photo-filled publication concludes with a several-page “Diary of the Revolution.” However, the diary soon becomes a list of executions. I'm not naive, I understand that revolutions are acts of political violence. The state is an institution of political violence itself. These are part of the basic understandings of Marxism, and recognition of these facts is not glorification of bloodshed. But this diary from the PMAC itself should set aside the notion that the EPRP instigated the violence which was soon directed against it.

To be honest I didn't have the heart to retype this increasingly disturbing list, so I am presenting scans of the last five pages. If you click on the photos, they should enlarge enough to be readable, at least on a computer monitor or tablet.

The deposition of the Emperor on September 12, 1974,  is on the first of these pages. The coup against Aman Mikael Andom is noted on November 23, with the mass executions of members of the previous regimes noted the next day. The execution of Meles Tekle is noted on March 19, 1975.  And of course the execution of Major Sisay Habte who we have been discussing here appears on July 13, 1976. As the months pass, the list of revolutionary achievements — and let it be clear, many of these were quite legitimate and impressive — alternate with an increasing number of repressive acts. It is not clear from most of this Diary, of course, which of these incidents involve actual opponents of the revolution, like the EDU, versus those who advocated civilian control of the revolution, like the EPRP.