WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.399 I want you to imagine for just a second walking 00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:04.980 into a building. Okay. And when you usually walk 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:07.500 into a historical museum, you probably have this, 00:00:07.580 --> 00:00:10.140 you know, set expectation in your head. Right. 00:00:10.199 --> 00:00:12.400 Like softly lit display cases. Yeah, exactly. 00:00:12.439 --> 00:00:14.980 You expect the neat little informational plaques 00:00:14.980 --> 00:00:19.000 and the sort of quiet, distant reflection on 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:22.239 a pass. Very sanitized. Very. But imagine walking 00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:25.160 through those doors and being immediately confronted, 00:00:25.379 --> 00:00:27.960 not with polished summaries, but with the raw, 00:00:28.019 --> 00:00:30.859 visceral, physical evidence of survival and absolute 00:00:30.859 --> 00:00:34.500 tragedy. It is completely jarred. Oh, it shatters 00:00:34.500 --> 00:00:36.920 that expected distance between the observer and 00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:39.579 the history. You are no longer just a spectator 00:00:39.579 --> 00:00:41.700 reading a timeline. You're actually standing 00:00:41.700 --> 00:00:43.799 in the room with the physical remnants of the 00:00:43.799 --> 00:00:46.420 events. Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today we are 00:00:46.420 --> 00:00:49.219 focusing our lens on the Red Terror Martyrs Memorial 00:00:49.219 --> 00:00:52.340 Museum, which is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 00:00:52.820 --> 00:00:55.859 And we have a massive, complex web of history 00:00:55.859 --> 00:00:58.729 to untangle today. We really do. Our source material 00:00:58.729 --> 00:01:01.770 is this incredibly concentrated Wikipedia entry, 00:01:01.909 --> 00:01:04.049 complete with all its deeply layered historical 00:01:04.049 --> 00:01:06.569 link data. It's like an iceberg, where the museum 00:01:06.569 --> 00:01:08.810 itself is just the tip, and underneath is this 00:01:08.810 --> 00:01:12.469 sprawling, decades -long civil conflict that 00:01:12.469 --> 00:01:15.599 reshaped the entire Horn of Africa. So our mission 00:01:15.599 --> 00:01:18.640 today is to explore how a nation actually goes 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:22.079 about memorializing a devastating internal conflict 00:01:22.079 --> 00:01:25.640 and to help you understand the sheer scale of 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:28.599 what this museum represents. Though, before we 00:01:28.599 --> 00:01:30.900 jump into the timeline, we really do need to 00:01:30.900 --> 00:01:33.319 set a vital ground rule for this deep dive. Good 00:01:33.319 --> 00:01:35.719 point. Because the history we are unpacking covers 00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:38.260 the Ethiopian Civil War, the actions of the Derg 00:01:38.260 --> 00:01:40.719 government, various rebel factions, and even 00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:42.739 the sweeping geopolitical impacts of the Cold 00:01:42.739 --> 00:01:45.359 War. Right. We want to make it explicitly clear 00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:47.379 to you, the listener, that we're not taking any 00:01:47.379 --> 00:01:49.519 political sides here. Not at all. We are acting 00:01:49.519 --> 00:01:52.200 entirely as impartial guides. Our goal is just 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:54.420 to convey the factual viewpoints and historical 00:01:54.420 --> 00:01:57.099 events exactly as they are documented in the 00:01:57.099 --> 00:01:59.340 source material. We're just looking at the architecture 00:01:59.340 --> 00:02:01.400 of this history to understand how these events 00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:04.670 unfolded. OK, let's unpack this. The Red Terror 00:02:04.670 --> 00:02:07.150 Martyrs Memorial Museum was established relatively 00:02:07.150 --> 00:02:11.849 recently in 2010. And what is actually inside 00:02:11.849 --> 00:02:15.509 this museum is staggering. It really is. We aren't 00:02:15.509 --> 00:02:17.229 just talking about abstract art installations. 00:02:17.550 --> 00:02:20.330 The museum houses displays of actual torture 00:02:20.330 --> 00:02:22.590 instruments used during the era. Yeah. There 00:02:22.590 --> 00:02:25.069 are skulls and bones. There are wooden coffins. 00:02:25.069 --> 00:02:28.490 And perhaps most confronting, they have the actual 00:02:28.490 --> 00:02:31.610 bloody clothes of the victims displayed. right 00:02:31.610 --> 00:02:33.469 alongside their photographs. What's fascinating 00:02:33.469 --> 00:02:36.909 here is the psychological impact of that specific 00:02:36.909 --> 00:02:39.789 curation strategy. Yeah, talk about that. Well, 00:02:39.810 --> 00:02:42.509 when a museum chooses to display the tactile, 00:02:42.789 --> 00:02:45.289 bloody artifacts of a conflict rather than just 00:02:45.289 --> 00:02:48.210 relying on text plaques, it fundamentally changes 00:02:48.210 --> 00:02:50.310 your relationship to the information. It really 00:02:50.310 --> 00:02:51.969 does. It's one thing to read about historical 00:02:51.969 --> 00:02:54.430 violence, but it's completely jarring to realize 00:02:54.430 --> 00:02:57.710 they bypassed those sanitized glass display cases 00:02:57.710 --> 00:02:59.949 of documents and just hung up the clothes people 00:02:59.949 --> 00:03:02.770 died in. That is a heavy, deliberate choice that 00:03:02.770 --> 00:03:05.189 completely refuses to let the visitor intellectualize 00:03:05.189 --> 00:03:08.490 the violence. It forces you to physically confront 00:03:08.490 --> 00:03:12.150 the reality of the Red Terror. By presenting 00:03:12.150 --> 00:03:14.949 the tactile remains of the victims, the museum 00:03:14.949 --> 00:03:18.530 grounds the historical data in undeniable human 00:03:18.530 --> 00:03:21.159 suffering. You can't treat it as just a chapter 00:03:21.159 --> 00:03:23.520 in a textbook. No, you really can't. And what's 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:25.780 really interesting is how the museum chooses 00:03:25.780 --> 00:03:28.400 to guide visitors through this heavy reality. 00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:32.080 They offer free tours, and the guides on these 00:03:32.080 --> 00:03:34.439 tours don't actually start the story with the 00:03:34.439 --> 00:03:36.840 violence of the Red Terror itself. They make 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:39.219 a highly specific choice about where to begin 00:03:39.219 --> 00:03:41.199 their historical narrative. They start it with 00:03:41.199 --> 00:03:43.770 a birthday party. A birthday party. Out of all 00:03:43.770 --> 00:03:46.110 the places to start a narrative about a devastating 00:03:46.110 --> 00:03:50.150 civil conflict, a lavish royal birthday seems 00:03:50.150 --> 00:03:53.050 almost counterintuitive. Emperor Hail Selassie's 00:03:53.050 --> 00:03:55.789 80th birthday celebration, to be exact. And if 00:03:55.789 --> 00:03:58.150 we connect this to the bigger picture, that starting 00:03:58.150 --> 00:04:02.000 line makes perfect, albeit tragic. How so? You 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:03.580 have to look at the contextual background of 00:04:03.580 --> 00:04:06.300 Ethiopia in the early 1970s to understand the 00:04:06.300 --> 00:04:08.259 friction of that moment. You have this incredibly 00:04:08.259 --> 00:04:11.659 lavish, highly publicized royal birthday celebration 00:04:11.659 --> 00:04:13.780 happening for the emperor. But look at what is 00:04:13.780 --> 00:04:15.830 going on in the background. During that exact 00:04:15.830 --> 00:04:18.649 same period, the country is in the grips of the 00:04:18.649 --> 00:04:22.529 Wallow Famine, which lasted from 1972 to 1975. 00:04:22.889 --> 00:04:24.829 Hundreds of thousands of people are starving 00:04:24.829 --> 00:04:27.170 in the northern provinces. Widespread, devastating 00:04:27.170 --> 00:04:29.990 famine. And compounding that, you have the global 00:04:29.990 --> 00:04:34.209 1973 oil crisis severely impacting an already 00:04:34.209 --> 00:04:37.189 fragile agrarian economy. Wow. So everything 00:04:37.189 --> 00:04:39.970 is just piling up. Exactly. And simultaneously, 00:04:40.050 --> 00:04:43.889 there is rising vocal opposition from groups 00:04:43.889 --> 00:04:46.430 like the Ethiopian student movement who are out 00:04:46.430 --> 00:04:49.170 there protesting the feudal land system and the 00:04:49.170 --> 00:04:51.910 severe inequality. Right. So starting the museum 00:04:51.910 --> 00:04:54.189 tour with the 80th birthday isn't some random 00:04:54.189 --> 00:04:57.370 chronological choice. It establishes the stark, 00:04:57.529 --> 00:05:00.649 massive inequality that acted as the catalyst 00:05:00.649 --> 00:05:03.149 for everything that followed. It's the ultimate 00:05:03.149 --> 00:05:05.740 boiling point. You have a monarchy completely 00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:08.259 insulated from the desperate reality of the general 00:05:08.259 --> 00:05:12.019 population and the tension just snaps. The timeline 00:05:12.019 --> 00:05:14.939 of events shows a rapid monumental escalation. 00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:18.160 Those boiling tensions culminate in the 1974 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:20.819 creeping coup d 'etat. And then you have this 00:05:20.819 --> 00:05:24.459 incredibly brutal pivot point known as the massacre 00:05:24.459 --> 00:05:27.740 of the 60. That event is absolutely crucial. 00:05:28.319 --> 00:05:30.540 for understanding the transition of power. Let's 00:05:30.540 --> 00:05:33.339 get into that. The 60 refers to 60 top officials 00:05:33.339 --> 00:05:35.519 of the emperor's government. We're talking to 00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:38.680 aristocrats, military commanders, cabinet ministers, 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:42.040 and even members of the royal family. In November 00:05:42.040 --> 00:05:45.339 1974, they were executed without trial. Wait, 00:05:45.399 --> 00:05:48.540 so they just executed the entire upper echelon 00:05:48.540 --> 00:05:50.639 of the previous government in one fell swoop? 00:05:50.699 --> 00:05:52.889 Yes. just completely wiped out the leadership 00:05:52.889 --> 00:05:55.829 structure. It was the clear, violent signal that 00:05:55.829 --> 00:05:58.370 the old world was dead and the Ethiopian empire 00:05:58.370 --> 00:06:00.189 collapsed. And what happened to the emperor? 00:06:00.410 --> 00:06:03.269 The emperor, Hel Selassie, was deposed and died 00:06:03.269 --> 00:06:05.310 under highly suspicious circumstances shortly 00:06:05.310 --> 00:06:08.470 after. So out of this absolute chaotic collapse, 00:06:08.750 --> 00:06:10.910 a new power structure takes ultimate control. 00:06:11.389 --> 00:06:13.689 The Derg. For those who might not be familiar 00:06:13.689 --> 00:06:16.470 with that term, what exactly was the Derg? Derg 00:06:16.470 --> 00:06:19.129 simply means committee or council in Amharic. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:23.060 Officially, it was the Provisional Military Administrative 00:06:23.060 --> 00:06:25.560 Council. Okay. It was a military agenda that 00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:27.740 initially formed to investigate corruption in 00:06:27.740 --> 00:06:30.439 the military, but it quickly absorbed all state 00:06:30.439 --> 00:06:33.420 power. They officially embraced Marxism -Leninism, 00:06:33.540 --> 00:06:37.160 abolished the monarchy, and began radically restructuring 00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:39.819 Ethiopian society. And it is the Derg government 00:06:39.819 --> 00:06:42.399 that initiates the period the museum actually 00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:46.259 memorializes. the Red Terror. Right. So once 00:06:46.259 --> 00:06:49.060 the Derg actually takes power, how does the state 00:06:49.060 --> 00:06:52.100 transition from a military coup into this era 00:06:52.100 --> 00:06:54.300 of the Red Terror? It was a brutal consolidation 00:06:54.300 --> 00:06:57.500 of power. The Red Terror or Kishabir was a violent 00:06:57.500 --> 00:06:59.660 political campaign primarily taking place between 00:06:59.660 --> 00:07:04.019 1976 and 1978. It was defined by extreme systematic 00:07:04.019 --> 00:07:07.339 state violence aimed at eliminating any and all 00:07:07.339 --> 00:07:09.740 political opposition. This wasn't just about 00:07:09.740 --> 00:07:11.959 fighting rival armed groups. Urban guerrilla 00:07:11.959 --> 00:07:14.120 warfare had broken out in the streets of Addis 00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:16.399 Ababa, and the state's response was absolute 00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:19.319 suppression. The museum displays detail the harsh 00:07:19.319 --> 00:07:21.899 treatment of prisoners from this specific era. 00:07:22.259 --> 00:07:25.579 We are talking about arbitrary arrests, where 00:07:25.579 --> 00:07:28.480 suspected opponents, often students and young 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:30.839 intellectuals, were pulled directly from their 00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:33.480 homes. And then the torture, which is why those 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:36.279 specific instruments are on display. The state 00:07:36.279 --> 00:07:38.939 utilized terror as its primary mechanism for 00:07:38.939 --> 00:07:41.699 maintaining control. And the scale of the executions 00:07:41.699 --> 00:07:45.079 was horrific. Families were often forbidden from 00:07:45.079 --> 00:07:47.819 mourning their dead. In some documented cases, 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:49.959 they were even forced to pay for the bullets 00:07:49.959 --> 00:07:52.139 used to execute their loved ones before they 00:07:52.139 --> 00:07:54.329 could recover the bodies. Here's where it gets 00:07:54.329 --> 00:07:56.310 really interesting, though. Because within that 00:07:56.310 --> 00:07:59.209 absolute darkness, the museum tours make sure 00:07:59.209 --> 00:08:01.250 to highlight a detail from the source material 00:08:01.250 --> 00:08:04.290 that I just find incredible. The guides don't 00:08:04.290 --> 00:08:06.189 just focus on the victimization and the brutality. 00:08:06.689 --> 00:08:09.449 They specifically explain to visitors how the 00:08:09.449 --> 00:08:11.910 prisoners manage to secretly communicate among 00:08:11.910 --> 00:08:15.209 each other. Ah, the whisper of resistance. It 00:08:15.209 --> 00:08:17.930 is astounding to think about. I mean, even in 00:08:17.930 --> 00:08:20.529 the absolute worst conditions imaginable, surrounded 00:08:20.529 --> 00:08:22.709 by the very torture instruments we were talking 00:08:22.709 --> 00:08:25.870 about, human beings still found a way to connect. 00:08:26.149 --> 00:08:28.670 They really did. They were tapping codes on Rawls, 00:08:28.730 --> 00:08:31.069 passing hidden messages, maintaining some kind 00:08:31.069 --> 00:08:34.529 of secret network. It is this undeniable spark 00:08:34.529 --> 00:08:37.509 of human resilience that the museum ensures is 00:08:37.509 --> 00:08:40.429 remembered alongside the tragedy. I want you 00:08:40.429 --> 00:08:43.529 to really imagine the immense courage that required. 00:08:44.350 --> 00:08:47.029 You are a prisoner in a DERG facility. You know 00:08:47.029 --> 00:08:49.610 the exact capabilities of the state holding you. 00:08:49.690 --> 00:08:52.669 Yeah. You know the severe fatal consequences 00:08:52.669 --> 00:08:56.629 if you are caught communicating. And yet you 00:08:56.629 --> 00:09:00.049 still take the risk to whisper or to tap a code. 00:09:00.149 --> 00:09:02.889 To maintain those secret networks under the direct 00:09:02.889 --> 00:09:05.110 looming threat of the torture instruments displayed 00:09:05.110 --> 00:09:08.350 in that museum elevates the victims. They aren't 00:09:08.350 --> 00:09:10.470 just mere statistics of the Red Terror. They 00:09:10.470 --> 00:09:12.789 were active, courageous participants in their 00:09:12.789 --> 00:09:14.759 own survival. So what does this all mean for 00:09:14.759 --> 00:09:17.240 the rest of the country? Because to fully grasp 00:09:17.240 --> 00:09:19.360 the weight of this museum, we have to pull back 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:21.740 and look at the broader timeline. The Red Terror 00:09:21.740 --> 00:09:25.200 was a specific, horrific period in the late 70s, 00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:28.120 but it was situated within a much larger, agonizing 00:09:28.120 --> 00:09:31.100 conflict, the Ethiopian Civil War, which spans 00:09:31.100 --> 00:09:35.240 from 1974 all the way to 1991. We are moving 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:38.320 from the confines of the museum walls. to a conflict 00:09:38.320 --> 00:09:41.659 that consumed an entire nation for 17 years. 00:09:41.940 --> 00:09:45.120 It is a massive expansion in scale. And to understand 00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:46.980 this without getting lost in the weeds, we have 00:09:46.980 --> 00:09:49.539 to categorize the chaos. Okay, let's break it 00:09:49.539 --> 00:09:52.159 down. This wasn't simply a two -sided war of 00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:54.899 the government versus one rebel army. It was 00:09:54.899 --> 00:09:57.700 a deeply fractured landscape. On one side, you 00:09:57.700 --> 00:10:00.039 have the government forces versus the Derg, and 00:10:00.039 --> 00:10:02.220 later the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. 00:10:03.610 --> 00:10:05.610 arrayed against them is an incredible variety 00:10:05.610 --> 00:10:08.009 of rebel groups. It's a literal alphabet soup 00:10:08.009 --> 00:10:11.090 of factions. You have the EPRDF, the Ethiopian 00:10:11.090 --> 00:10:13.070 People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. You 00:10:13.070 --> 00:10:15.009 have the Tigray People's Liberation Front, or 00:10:15.009 --> 00:10:18.129 TPLF. You have the Oroma Liberation Front. You 00:10:18.129 --> 00:10:20.450 have Eritrean rebels, including the Eritrean 00:10:20.450 --> 00:10:22.590 Liberation Front and the Eritrean People's Liberation 00:10:22.590 --> 00:10:25.009 Front. With so many splintered groups, how did 00:10:25.009 --> 00:10:27.370 this landscape become so fractured? This raises 00:10:27.370 --> 00:10:29.490 an important question, and it requires looking 00:10:29.490 --> 00:10:32.129 at the deep -seated historical roots of the region. 00:10:32.519 --> 00:10:34.919 This fracturing didn't happen in a vacuum. You 00:10:34.919 --> 00:10:36.639 have to look at systemic ethnic discrimination. 00:10:36.700 --> 00:10:39.159 Right. Going way back. For a long time under 00:10:39.159 --> 00:10:41.659 the Ethiopian empire, political and cultural 00:10:41.659 --> 00:10:44.700 power was heavily centralized and dominated by 00:10:44.700 --> 00:10:47.960 specific groups. Marginalized ethnic groups like 00:10:47.960 --> 00:10:51.240 the Oromo people formed liberation fronts to 00:10:51.240 --> 00:10:53.059 push back against that historical suppression. 00:10:53.559 --> 00:10:56.740 And then there's the incredibly complex issue 00:10:56.740 --> 00:11:00.139 of Eritrea. Exactly. You cannot look at this 00:11:00.139 --> 00:11:02.600 civil war without looking at the legacy of Italian 00:11:02.600 --> 00:11:06.019 colonialism. Eritrea was an Italian colony from 00:11:06.019 --> 00:11:09.159 the late 19th century until World War II. After 00:11:09.159 --> 00:11:11.860 a period of British administration, the UN federated 00:11:11.860 --> 00:11:15.879 Eritrea with Ethiopia in 1952. But Emperor Haile 00:11:15.879 --> 00:11:17.919 Selassie eventually dissolved that federation 00:11:17.919 --> 00:11:20.820 and annexed Eritrea entirely. So that just lit 00:11:20.820 --> 00:11:23.379 the match. That historical loss of autonomy sparked 00:11:23.379 --> 00:11:25.500 an independence movement that raged alongside 00:11:25.500 --> 00:11:28.639 and intertwined with the broader Ethiopian civil 00:11:28.639 --> 00:11:31.659 war. And hanging over all of these localized 00:11:31.659 --> 00:11:34.919 conflicts, fueling the fire, is the overarching 00:11:34.919 --> 00:11:37.840 shadow of the Cold War. Oh, absolutely. The Horn 00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:40.580 of Africa was a major geopolitical chessboard. 00:11:41.220 --> 00:11:44.220 Because the Derg embraced Marxism -Leninism, 00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:46.899 they eventually received massive backing from 00:11:46.899 --> 00:11:49.360 the Soviet Union and Cuba. The scale of that 00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:51.820 backing is wild. We're talking about billions 00:11:51.820 --> 00:11:54.299 of dollars in military hardware and thousands 00:11:54.299 --> 00:11:56.679 of Cuban troops actively supporting the Ethiopian 00:11:56.679 --> 00:11:59.980 government. Meanwhile, various rebel groups receive 00:11:59.980 --> 00:12:02.399 support from different regional and global players, 00:12:02.600 --> 00:12:04.779 depending on the shifting alliances of the Cold 00:12:04.779 --> 00:12:07.379 War. So internal civil wars were turned into 00:12:07.379 --> 00:12:10.480 brutal proxy battlegrounds. Precisely. Which 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:13.419 brings us to the civilian toll of this 17 -year 00:12:13.419 --> 00:12:17.220 war. It is a relentless list of suffering. Let's 00:12:17.220 --> 00:12:18.980 break down some of the major events that occurred 00:12:18.980 --> 00:12:20.960 during this time because terms like villagization 00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:23.200 get thrown around, but the reality of what that 00:12:23.200 --> 00:12:25.840 means on the ground is terrifying. Villagization 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:28.940 was a massive forced relocation program engineered 00:12:28.940 --> 00:12:31.679 by the Derg. The government forced millions of 00:12:31.679 --> 00:12:33.919 rural farmers to abandon their traditional scattered 00:12:33.919 --> 00:12:36.639 homesteads and move into clustered planned villages. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:39.740 Was this to modernize farming or was it entirely 00:12:39.740 --> 00:12:42.830 about control? It was ostensibly framed as a 00:12:42.830 --> 00:12:45.750 way to provide modern services, but practically 00:12:45.750 --> 00:12:48.879 it was a mechanism of state control. It allowed 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:51.879 the government to extract grain quotas, implement 00:12:51.879 --> 00:12:54.740 agricultural collectivization, and isolate the 00:12:54.740 --> 00:12:57.659 rural population from royal insurgents. But it 00:12:57.659 --> 00:12:59.879 completely disrupted traditional agricultural 00:12:59.879 --> 00:13:02.379 cycles. Completely. Which directly contributed 00:13:02.379 --> 00:13:04.940 to the next catastrophic event in the sources, 00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:10.360 the 1983 to 1985 famine. This is the famine that 00:13:10.360 --> 00:13:12.720 sparked global outrage and the Live Aid concerts. 00:13:13.059 --> 00:13:15.600 Right. While there were severe droughts, the 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:17.820 famine was massively compounded by the government's 00:13:17.840 --> 00:13:20.500 military strategies, the disruption from villagization, 00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:22.759 and policies that restricted the movement of 00:13:22.759 --> 00:13:25.759 food. Hundreds of thousands of people died. It 00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:28.000 was a multidimensional crisis. You had military 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:30.480 conflict, political terror, engineered social 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:32.799 restructuring, and catastrophic environmental 00:13:32.799 --> 00:13:35.200 failure all happening simultaneously. And the 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:37.399 military tactics used against civilians were 00:13:37.399 --> 00:13:40.639 brutal. We see atrocities like the Hazen Massacre 00:13:40.639 --> 00:13:44.000 in 1988. The Hazen Massacre is a grim example 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:47.600 of the war's escalation. Hazen was a market town 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:50.320 in the Tigray region. On a market day, when the 00:13:50.320 --> 00:13:52.960 town was packed with civilians, government forces 00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:56.440 unleashed a brutal aerial bombardment using helicopter 00:13:56.440 --> 00:13:58.980 gunships and fighter jets. That's horrifying. 00:13:59.220 --> 00:14:02.539 The goal was to root out the TPLF rebels, but 00:14:02.539 --> 00:14:04.860 the result was the slaughter of thousands of 00:14:04.860 --> 00:14:07.629 civilians. It was a turning point that actually 00:14:07.629 --> 00:14:09.850 drove massive popular support toward the rebel 00:14:09.850 --> 00:14:12.049 forces. It feels like the entire country was 00:14:12.049 --> 00:14:14.830 enduring layer upon layer of trauma for decades. 00:14:15.169 --> 00:14:17.970 But this incredibly long and complex civil war. 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:21.600 does finally grind to a halt. It does. In 1991, 00:14:21.899 --> 00:14:24.419 a coalition of rebel forces led primarily by 00:14:24.419 --> 00:14:27.940 the EPRDF actually advances on Addis Ababa. The 00:14:27.940 --> 00:14:30.799 Derg regime collapses. But just to hail a Mariam, 00:14:30.879 --> 00:14:32.980 the leader of the Derg flees the country. And 00:14:32.980 --> 00:14:34.980 this marks a total transformation of the region's 00:14:34.980 --> 00:14:36.759 political landscape. Following the fall of the 00:14:36.759 --> 00:14:39.100 Derg, we see two major historical shifts detailed 00:14:39.100 --> 00:14:41.860 in the sources. First, we see the eventual Ethiopian 00:14:41.860 --> 00:14:44.480 Red Terror trials. Which was an attempt to hold 00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:46.700 the Derg members accountable for the atrocities 00:14:46.700 --> 00:14:48.940 committed during their rule. It's actually a 00:14:48.940 --> 00:14:51.639 rare instance of a domestic court trying its 00:14:51.639 --> 00:14:54.879 own former leaders for human rights abuses. And 00:14:54.879 --> 00:14:57.919 second, we see Eritrea finally achieving its 00:14:57.919 --> 00:15:00.759 independence, literally changing the map of Africa. 00:15:01.019 --> 00:15:02.440 I want to bring this back to you, the listener. 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:05.379 With all these dates, factions, geopolitical 00:15:05.379 --> 00:15:09.019 proxy wars, and shifting borders, why does understanding 00:15:09.019 --> 00:15:11.340 a place like the Red Terra Martyrs Memorial Museum 00:15:11.340 --> 00:15:14.129 matter today? Yeah. What's the core takeaway 00:15:14.129 --> 00:15:17.149 here? It matters because this museum is a profound 00:15:17.149 --> 00:15:20.690 physical example of how a society attempts to 00:15:20.690 --> 00:15:23.509 process a complex, multilayered trauma. How they 00:15:23.509 --> 00:15:26.190 grieve on a national level. Exactly. The victims 00:15:26.190 --> 00:15:29.110 of the Red Terror are often referred to as Ethiopia's 00:15:29.110 --> 00:15:31.210 lost generation. They were students, teachers, 00:15:31.450 --> 00:15:33.590 intellectuals, the people who would have built 00:15:33.590 --> 00:15:36.230 the country's future. The museum is a mechanism 00:15:36.230 --> 00:15:38.929 for honoring that lost generation. It ensures 00:15:38.929 --> 00:15:43.019 that the specific human cost. The individuals 00:15:43.019 --> 00:15:45.279 who were pulled from their homes, who communicated 00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:48.919 in secret codes, who died in those clothes, is 00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:51.740 not erased or overshadowed by the broader, sweeping 00:15:51.740 --> 00:15:54.820 political histories of the Cold War. It anchors 00:15:54.820 --> 00:15:57.740 the history in truth and memory. It demands that 00:15:57.740 --> 00:15:59.899 we don't look away from the human element. And 00:15:59.899 --> 00:16:01.580 that actually leaves me with a thought that I 00:16:01.580 --> 00:16:04.539 really want you to mull over. Right now, as we've 00:16:04.539 --> 00:16:06.580 discussed, the museum offers these incredible 00:16:06.580 --> 00:16:09.980 free tours. And those tours are guided by people 00:16:09.980 --> 00:16:12.399 who can verbally explain the history. They can 00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:14.340 personally tell you about the stark contrast 00:16:14.340 --> 00:16:17.240 of Hale Selassie's birthday or explain exactly 00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:19.500 how the prisoners tapped out their secret communications. 00:16:19.899 --> 00:16:22.820 They bring a living, breathing voice to the tragedy. 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:26.029 They do. But what happens decades from now? When 00:16:26.029 --> 00:16:28.330 the survivors, the people who actually lived 00:16:28.330 --> 00:16:30.370 through the Red Terror and remember the sounds 00:16:30.370 --> 00:16:33.549 of the prisons, are no longer around to give 00:16:33.549 --> 00:16:37.090 those tours, will the silent artifacts, the display 00:16:37.090 --> 00:16:39.809 cases of skulls, the wooden coffins, the bloody 00:16:39.809 --> 00:16:42.509 clothes be enough to carry the full heavy weight 00:16:42.509 --> 00:16:44.990 of the truth on their own? It's something to 00:16:44.990 --> 00:16:46.929 think about as we consider how history survives 00:16:46.929 --> 00:16:49.610 us. It really is a vital question about the future 00:16:49.610 --> 00:16:51.509 of memory. Thank you for joining us on this deep 00:16:51.509 --> 00:16:53.629 dive. Stay curious and we will catch you on the 00:16:53.629 --> 00:16:53.970 next one.