The revolutionary endgame of political power: the genealogy of ‘red terror’ in Ethiopia

Abstract

This article critically examines the historical genesis and distinctive features of the political violence known as the ‘red terror’ in Ethiopia in the late 1970s. The tragic process and outcome of the political violence of that period in 1977–1979 have differentia specifica features that need a closer and critical investigation. Despite the casual and general comparative references, as well as one-dimensional description with a catch-all universal concept as ‘genocide’, the political violence in Ethiopia has unique and distinguishable features. The Ethiopian ‘red terror’ is differentiable in many aspects from the Rwandan, Kampuchean, Argentinean, Chilean and Indonesian genocides. First, even though the ‘red terror’ was primarily an institutionalised violence wangled by the military derg regime, it was also a complex and intertwined process in which opposition forces had actively engaged in and contributed for; second, the antagonists and protagonists that were interlocked in power...