TPLF Ghost Concentration Camps Exposed

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OIN, December 1, 2000

A high ranking security chief is bombarding the Ethiopian airwaves from the Eritrean capital, Asmara, in several interviews he gave in Amharic and Tigrinya to the Voice of Eritrean radio. Fiseha  Haile Mariam Tedla, the ex-security chief who recently defected to Eritrea had a lot to say about the several underground concentration camps the TPLF government maintains throughout the country, and the rampant nepotism, corruption and embezzlement of funds within the TPLF rank.

According to the Indian Ocean Newsletter (ION) of November 25, 2000, Fiseha Haile Mariam Tedla was an employee of the government security department and had been a member of TPLF since 1978.  He is a Tigrayan from Tembien, and was working under the Ethiopian chief security officer Kinfe Gebre Medhin.  Now, from the Eritrean capital, the ex-security chief is accusing Meles of favoring Tigrayans from Adwa. The ION quotes the ex-security chief as saying that the practice was clear-cut in the security department, where several service chiefs were believed to be from Adwa: Mesfin Gebre Michael (a.k.a. Weteto), Mekonen Gebre Mariam (a.k.a. Wedi Kobel), Getachew Teferi, Wolde Selassie Wolde Mariam, Issayas Wolde Giorgis (whose father owns the Assen hotel in Adwa and whose sister, Awtash, holds an important position in Addis Ababa Rent Houses Administration), and Meres Alemayehu.

Fiseha has also unveiled the existence of a special branch in the security known as Liyu Tibeka that is solely composed of Tigreans and headed by Makonnen Gebre Mariam of Adwa.  According to the defector, this group has its headquarters in Addis Ababa behind ECA building, and works outside the framework of existing law and constitution and is responsible for all egregious human rights violations.

Although the TPLF government vehemently denied the existence of such detention camps, what Fiseha revealed confirm's what Oromia Support Group (OSG) has always been saying regarding the existence of secret prisons in Ethiopia.  Many opposition political forces in the past have also been complaining about TPLF holding political prisoners in solitary detentions all over Ethiopia, including the capital Addis Abeba, where several residential villas serve as ghost concentration camps. Fiseha, as the first high-ranking TPLF security official whistle-blower confirms all such allegations.

According to the ex-security chief, the ruling party maintains literally "underground cells", fox holes dug deep for prisoners to be kept apart in the dark, and incommunicado.  The ex-security chief reveals through several interviews on the Eritrean radio that the TPLF continues to hold thousands of political prisoners in solitary detention at Adet prison in Axum and Agbe prison in Tembien, both in hot and arid zones, plus Kaliti prison near Addis, and in Zwai prison where thousands of Oromo prisoners are held.

Several media sources report that the government also maintains such prisons in the Humera region, and in Dukem the arms depot dug into a mountain by the derg has been turned into a secret prison.  Many of the political prisoners in such secret cells come from members of opposition organizations like the OLF, SLF, EPRP, and other Southern opposition forces, as wel as dissident members of the TPLF/EPRDF.

The ex-security chief also exposed the rampant corruption, nepotism and embezzlement of funds within the TPLF rank.  He gives some names very close to the top officials that are becoming wealthy through corruption, including Nikodimos Zenawi (Meles Zenawi's brother), Azeb Gola (Meles Zenawi's wife and head of Mega Net), and Benyam Seyoum (Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin's son).  Several sources close to the ruling clique confirm the defector's contention that such corruption disproportionately benefiting the highest TPLF party echelon has created resentment among the rank and file of the TPLF.

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