Posted on 04/02/2023 9:32:40 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
There’s a reason why “may you live in interesting times” is a curse.
The eras we call a “Terror” — Stalin’s Russia, Robespierre‘s France, Pol Pot’s Cambodia — are pretty interesting.
Ethiopia in the mid-1970’s was one of the most interesting places in the world.
After the Derg, a shadowy committee of leftist officers, toppled the monarchy in 1974, factional violence between Ethiopia’s two main Marxist parties soon came to the fore.
Long story short, All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement (MEISON) backed the Derg — while its rival the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) denounced it as fascistic.
And when Mengistu assumed dictatorial power in February 1977, it was Red Terror on.
It was as dirty as it sounds, “one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by the state ever witnessed in Africa” according to Human Rights Watch. This was the context of Mengistu’s most notorious public appearance, at an Addis Ababa rally later this same month of April 1977 when he theatrically smashed bottles of (apparently) blood while inciting his supporters against “enemies.”....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Starvation there was going on for 2 years before the Live Aid show, a virtue signaling event. Turns out all the money ended up getting stolen.
Live Aid didn’t accomplish anything but it sure felt good!
Was Farm Aid any better?
The USSR used Ethiopia like a cow, sucking all the grain they could to feed Russia while Ethiopians starved.
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