12 February 1975 the ELF liberated 700 prisoners from Sembel and 300 prisoners
from the notorious prison in Adi Khualla.The operation was organized and
coordinated by Martyr Saeed Saleh who was killed by an EPLF assassination squad
in 1983.
The event was adequately narrated at its 5th anniversary in issue No .39 of The Eritrean Newsletter (of the ELF) of 1980 in a form
of an interview conducted by Woldeyesus Ammar with Martyr Woldedawit Temesghen.
The story Woldedawit told in that interview about the prisoner release
operation and the life of political prisoners in the 60s and 70s is so
important part of our modern history and its continued struggle that this
webstite wished to present it today for wider reading, including the
new generation.
Woldedawit Temesghen and Seyoum Ogbamichael joined the
ELF as teenagers and it was at the tender age (in the range of 18-20 years)
that they became part of Eritrea’s growing population of political prisoners in
1965.
In the interview reproduced below, Woldedawit
(was killed by EPLF thugs in Kassala in 1985) tells many interesting accounts like the
following:
· 11
political prisoners that were scheduled to be executive on 15 February 1975
were saved because the ‘Great Escape’ occurred three days earlier on 12
February.
· Woldedawit
estimated that he and Seyoum could have talked politics to more than 25,000
short- and long-term prisoners between August 1965 and their release in
February 1975.
· “We
were dubbed double traitors – of the Christian [faith] and of “mother”
Ethiopia...Our host in the Central Prison was the notorious murderer Major
Tecle who christened us with epithets like ‘the Two Danger Boys’ ... I remember
the day we were taken to the Central Prison, [Major Tecle] personally
asking us our religion and occupation. We [Seyoum and I] answered: “religion,
Christians, occupation – freedom fighters.” He then ordered his secretary to
register: ‘Religion: Moslems. Occupation: bandits! ‘”
· The
ordeal political prisoners faced in the 1960s and 1970s included: “locking us
in morgues for several days in the company of decaying bodies of ELF
suspects[killed during torture]; throwing us into very cool and muddy cells
with hands and legs under heavy chains; taking us to the outskirts of the city
and asking us to tell the ‘whole truth’ or choose burial in the graves we
dug during the nocturnal investigations”.
· “Of
the political prisoners we found at the Central Prison, eight were sentenced to
death, 20 to several years and the rest were awaiting their sentences. Our
roommates during the early years included Ahmed Feraj (hanged) Seyoum (hanged),
Embaye Hidru and Major Belai. Hamed Ibrahim Timbar, Adem Turkai, Ahmed Awad and
other ELF fighters who languished in the prison for years and years without
being sentenced. K know many political prisoners who spent over ten years until
they were freed by the ELF in February 1975. When the authorities fail to
establish even a fake ‘crime’ against a political prisoner, they leave him
alone in the prison – just forget taking him to court”.
· It
may now sound strange and foolish but we wished to be hanged at that time
so that most of our schoolmates and friends would commit themselves to the
struggle. The then Eritrean prosecutor Amanuel Amde-Michael (Derg’s
Deputy Premier in 1975) was strongly calling for a death sentence on me and
Seyoum and we were not registering any objection. When the final sentence was read
in the court, we were asked whether we would like to appeal. We said no and
immediately started thinking about what to do in the prison for the next ten
years.
· [Malnutrition]:
At one time, doctors attempted to refuse giving us any medical help before the
government ordered better food to the emaciated bodies in Sembel, Adi Khualla
and other prisons. I remember the time when most of us could not stand because
of hunger and we were crawling on our bellies like small babies … I cannot
describe the prison conditions in full. I can only remember them for myself.
· “Many
of the man-killers in the prisons were Eritrean nationals who sold their skin
and honor for pay. The names Tewolde Tedla, Majors Tecle and Fasil, Captains
Gabar, Sibhatu, Estephanos, Mengisteab and Seargent Kibrom will long ring in
the former prison inmates in Eritrea. History will not absolve them. The
traitor Tewolde Tedla was the number one enemy of the political prisoners of
the sixties and early seventies.
Source: Nharnet.com archives
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