A small crowd of children and old women were gathered in the
road leading to Trinity Cathedral, behind Parliament. The Emperor was back from
his visit to Nigeria
and had gone to pray. This may be his normal practice, or it may have something
to do with the fact that Brigadier Sandford died yesterday, 22 January, aged
89.
We went to catch a glimpse of His Imperial Majesty as he
left the cathedral. Outside the gate the police were behaving in an
unnecessarily violent fashion, beating the onlookers back with heavy wooden
sticks. There seemed to be no justification for the actions of the police, as
the crowd was really very small. The Emperor's limousine stopped outside the
gate of the cathedral and several high-ranking army officers jumped out and
joined the police in beating back the small crowd. The Emperor simply sat in
his car and seemed quite unconcerned at this treatment of his loyal subjects,
who had been applauding and ululating enthusiastically.
The officers got back in the car and it drove on towards
where we were standing. An old woman carrying a prayer-stick knelt down to try
to give a letter to the Emperor as he passed. A policeman pushed her and she
fell, her letter falling to the ground. The Emperor's face was grimly
indifferent, even though his car nearly ran the woman down.
Thousands of students marched through the centre of Addis Ababa today,
carrying placards and chanting demands for land reform and freedom of
expression. Their demands were specific: that the killer of Telahun (the
ex-President of the Students' Union) should be brought to court and that the
ex-Prime Minister should be hanged, as well as the other Ministers. They did
not approve of the new Prime minister: "Hang the lot of them!" was
the theme of their chant. Later, military jeeps packed with soldiers of the
regular army tried to pacify them. A loud-hailer was used to convey the message
that all the armed forces were co-operating with the new Prime Minister and
that they approved of the choice. This was the first time that such a
demonstration and protest march had taken place in Addis Ababa . Would the army mow them down?
The situation was unpredictable. I filmed the march and noted down
some of the slogans and chants:
"Let there be a public voting system!"
"The Ethiopian public will win!"
"The political prisoners must be set free!"
"Hang Aklilu!"
"The spark of freedom has just been seen!"
"The Army is for the People!"
"Bring back all the money that is in foreign
banks!"
"Until the public can vote, let the military take
over!"
"Let us have freedom of speech!"
We were playing a game of six-a-side cricket in the grounds
of the General Wingate School .
We could hear what we thought were rifle shots ring out at
regular intervals. We carried on playing, regardless. Stiff upper lip.
While we were happily batting or fielding, the Derg was apparently in the process of executing sixty ministers, nobles, military and police chiefs and other members of the Imperial Government.
The sound of shooting continued in the distance. We didn't
know what was going on; we were more interested in the sound and direction of a
cricket ball being hit. My unscreened face had been badly burned and blistered by the UV rays of the sun at that high altitude (7546 feet or 2,300 metres). I lost several layers of skin. A painful and permanent reminder of that terrible, violent day, which became known as
Bloody Saturday. The executions at Akaki prison continued well into the night.
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