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Ethiopian Red Terror

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Ethiopian Red Terror
The Red Terror: A Fight for Democracy The Ethiopian Red Terror genocide was a very crucial and violent time period for any ethiopian who was suspected to be a supporter of the EPRP (Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party). The Red Terror was like a modern day Holocaust. The two parties involved were the Dergs and Colonel Mengistu against the political opponents, or EPRP. Mengistu Haile Mariam became the leader of the Dergs, name of his army, because he murdered Emperor Haile Selassie. “The Ethiopian “Red Terror” or Qey Shibir occurred between 1977 and 1978” (RTMM “The Red Terror”). Before, in 1974, the military threw out the former Ethiopian leader and the political power had no one controlling it. Colonel Mengistu took power and ordered …show more content…
“The Red Terror took place at the hands of the Mengistu Haile Mariam’s military junta known as the Derg” (RTMMM- “Red Terror”). The people who opposed the government were tortured or brutally murdered (“Let the Red Terror Intensify”: Political Violence, Governance and Society in Urban Ethiopia, 1976–78). The sad thing about this was they also went for the general people, which was anyone they saw as a threat to their government. The Dergs would classify their victims by if they were slightly educated and being part of an opposition group. They would also target people that were a student, teacher, or worker (The Red Terror). All the people in The Red Terror that were killed were classified as someone that opposed against Mengistu’s beliefs. Before the soldiers murdered or tortured these innocent people, they would have had to classify them to know if the people they were killing were truly …show more content…
Mengistu denied causing this war in defense of a revolution and for ordering deaths during that war. He did not want to be executed for doing all these horrible things to these innocent people. After he thought they were on to him and was going to be found guilty for the genocide, he fled to Zimbabwe. “In 2006, he was sentenced to life in prison and then 2 years later sentenced to death” (The Red Terror). Still to this day are fighting for a democratic rule and

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