Who commits crime in Ethiopia?

Crime in Ethiopia

What is crime? Briefly defined crime is a word used to describe varieties of illegal activities committed both by certain citizens of a nation or national governments on its own people. During invasion of one nation by another, crimes could also be committed in various forms.

What types of crimes could there be? Crimes may be committed in several different forms the following being just a few: genocide, murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, etc, etc.

Genocide is a crime usually committed either by a government on its own people or during invasion of a sovereign country by another foreign power, where a certain group of people belonging to a certain religion or tribe is completely wiped out summarily. Such an act was committed when Italians invaded Ethiopia in 1935-36 just prior to the Second World War. Italy then used the international prohibited poison gas to undermine the vigilant opposition of Ethiopians against colonialism. The mustard gas bombs contained a corrosive liquid which, when exploded, emitted lethal vapors that penetrated the human skin and produced both internal and external lesions that ultimately killed the victims.

As a result of a failed assassination attempt by two Ethiopian freedom fighters on Rudolfo Graziani, the leader of the invading Italian army, on February 19, 1937, the Blackshirts, the Italian fascist occupation army, unleashed a ferocious terror, where the atrocities included beheading, burning down houses, disemboweling pregnant women and summarily wiping out of all educated men and women including religious figures such as monks and priests. Graziani proudly telegrammed his superior Mussolini where he said “nothing anymore remained” of the priesthood of the medieval Debra Libanos Monastery. That is a naked form of genocide committed on Ethiopians by the Italian army with a full knowledge and backing of the government in Rome.

The Degue Government of Ethiopia led by Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam, after overthrowing the aging Emperor Haile Sellassie I in 1974, unleashed yet another round of crime against his own people. In its so-called Red Terror, the Dergue targeted anyone who opposed the military regime or was suspected of having any link with or sympathy for the EPRP, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party, the main opposition party then, regardless of age, religion, gender or ethnicity. To intimidate its political opponents the Degue’s killing squads left the corpses of their victims on public streets for many hours often with notices around their necks labeling them as counter-revolutionaries. Worse still, the Dergue prevented bereaved families from mourning these so-called “counter revolutionaries”. In some cases, the families were required to participate in state-organized public demonstrations supporting these extra-judicial killings.

The Dergue regime was toppled by a nationalist group called the EPRDF, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, on the 28 of May 1991. But that didn’t make the political situation better. Crimes continued to be committed by the new government consisting entirely of a minority national group who is using the principle of “divide and rule” to stay on power. Despite the genocidal trial against Dergue members, EPRDF itself has committed an act of genocide on the Anuak people, a minority group in the south-west of Ethiopia, the Oromo people, the largest national group in the country, and the Amharas, the next largest national entity in the country. Mass arrests, beatings, tortures and extra-judicial killings are everyday activities in the present day Ethiopia. Radio and TV jamming are major activities of the government. Journalists are imprisoned in mass. Political opposition party leaders are imprisoned and harassed. Thus crimes committed by the government itself far outweigh those petty crimes committed by individual citizens.

From among petty crimes worth mentioning, we have pick-pocketing, “snatch and run thefts, including from occupied vehicles, highway robbery, including carjacking by armed bandits, kidnapping for money, sabotage on railways. Even here there are crimes master-minded and instigated by government backed bandits so as to make the crimes appear as committed by opposition fighters.

We can therefore conclude that crimes are frequently committed by governments against the people than individual citizens committing crimes. Even those who are engaged in pick-pocketing and snatching are dictated by conditions of survival.