Prior to broadcasting the program, Solomon Kifle (VOA program producer and interviewer) requests parents to exclude children from listening to this gruesome and extremely shocking torture story
Ato Habtamu starts his interview by saying you know In Ethiopia under the current regime if you ask or advocate for democratic rights, freedom and equality, your fate is one of the following 1. You End up in prison 2. You get killed or 3. You end up as a refugee in another country.
Once I was taken to the central prison (Maekelawi in Amharic) I was subjected to excessive torture that caused me physical and psychological trauma. Extreme physical and mental scar have been inflicted on me by the regime.
Question-1: Were there times when you were subjected to solitary confinement in a dark room
Answer: The central prison has eight sections, sections one to eight
Section seven and eight are by far the most atrocious. Section eight is built underground with no windows and natural light so it is complete darkness. It is also extremely cold in there. It has four cells; the cells can sometimes be filled with cold water to make you even colder. Furthermore, the cells are standing or sleeping cells so if you stand you have no room to stretch hands and legs and if you sleep on one side you have no room to change positions.
The second section is section seven where I spent most of the four months when I was at central prison. Here the cells are very small but they purposely stuff people over capacity forcing you to basically pile on one another. The cell is right between two toilet rooms called “tawla” and “Siberia” toilet rooms, both toilets have intolerable stench, and below the cells a built-in big water tank. Early on we were like thirteen to fifteen in one cell then after a while they took some people out and five of us remained.
Question-2: We hear the major problem in Ethiopian prisons being toilet deprivation. How many times a day, were you allowed to use toilet rooms with in a day.
Answer: In my four months in Siberia, we could use toilets two times in twenty-four hours. One was very early in the morning at 6:00 AM then the next one was at 6:00 PM. Whether you are ready or not that is your only chance and you must train your body to urinate and excrete with in assigned time. There were three toilets, and despite how many people are in the cell, you are given fixed time as a group. If you are ten you are given ten minutes which means each person has an average of say one minute to relieve himself. You have no chance to go to toilet for another twelve hours, between those hours you are back into an extremely cold and very dark cell, the only cloth you have is the one you came to prison with, you are not given any additional cloth.
As we are deprived of toilet use we were allowed a one-liter plastic bottle for emergency purposes. Using the bottle, we are always mindful not to fill it up, if that happens you are in big trouble and most of the time you must force yourself to hold it until your assigned toilet time and that is extremely painful. Because of that your bladder could be out of use very easily, so developing a bladder issue is very common. In addition to getting interrogated and being subjected to different torture techniques daily, I had to always use my plastic bottle very carefully to urinate and hold on to my urine. Thus, I have suffered excruciating pain and damage to my bladder.
The only other time you get out of the cell is when they take you out for interrogation. Even then you will be taken through a very dark tunnel. When you are interrogated, unless you tell them what they want you to say they have several heinous and extremely harsh techniques to make you suffer.
Question-3: In your opinion, among all the horrible torture techniques used on you can you describe one to three that are the most extreme.
Answer: It is difficult for me or anyone else to understand the level of cruelty practiced in that place.
(a) Crucifixion Room: They have a room where they have a hanger to crucify you like Jesus Christ. Whenever one of us are taken for interrogation the first question posed to you when you come back to the cell is, were you crucified?
(b) Forearm Hanger: They also have a room with a setup where you are hanged by your forearms. Then a two-liter plastic bag filled with water will be tied to your testicles. I do know people who had to endure that kind of torture and have suffered complete testicular damage. Due to privacy reasons, I will not name those guys but I wouldn’t mind discussing names and addresses of those people who suffered such inhumane treatment to those who are interested in collecting evidence.
(c) Swollen testicles: Another technique they use for interrogation is where the interrogator sits directly in front of you. Your legs are cuffed and your hands are cuffed behind then they tie strings on your testicles and pull the strings and due to the intolerable pain, you will be forced to lean towards the interrogator. At that time, they will hit you hard with a rubber/wood baton or copper rods and push you back. Then, they will ask you to admit you are collaborating with a group, will ask you confess to anything they want. Due to the above-mentioned torture techniques, some people end up with swollen testicles, then walking or sleeping, any movement including closing your legs becomes extreme painful, thus people scream all day and night.
(d) Making You Unconscious: There is a small and very cold instrument they put in the middle of your head they kind of slap you with it from the back at which point you completely lose consciousness. If you are lucky to wake up, you will not remember what is done to you or things you have said. You will have no recollection whatsoever and takes a long time to recover, there are some people who never had a chance to wake up.
(e) Forcing You to Urinate on yourself: They also do finger or sharp pinching on your kidneys on the left and right side to make you urinate on yourself.
(f) Interrogators urinate and defecate on prisoners: When some people were put under control prior to coming to the central prison, their face is completely covered and they were taken to an unknown location. This happened to some of the guys, they were tied to a chair and left in a dark room and interrogators urinate and defecate on them from top. The place is filled with urine and feces and has unbearable stench. They put protective clothing including masks to protect themselves but they humiliate and mentally and physically torture you. Those guys were then asked to sign statements prepared by the interrogators after which they were brought to the central prison. Some who were forced to sign after being subjected to that cruel, inhuman and horrifying experience include, Abebe Wergesa, Lenjisa Alemayehu and some people from Gonder area including Angaw Tegegne, Abaye Zewdu, Engida Awayehu. There are also some air force members that I know who were subjected to that horrible treatment.
There are other horrible and despicable things done to me in that place that my Ethiopian background will not allow me to discuss in public. Those are taboo for anyone be it Christian or Muslim or any other religion who grew up in my culture.
He also told the Judge about other horrendous crimes perpetrated on him including
(b) One day he was being tortured so much, his body couldn’t take it, and he couldn’t hold on to his urine anymore which resulted in him urinating on the carpet. TPLF interrogators made him kneel and lick his urine.
(c) And the fact that they pulled his nails with a wrench, and extracted his nails.
When we heard that cruelty from Bahiru in court we were all questioning what an era we are living in?
One thing all of us who went through the central prison experience agree upon is that the TPLF regime in Ethiopia has abused our body with batons beyond belief and used demoralizing and psychologically damaging humiliation techniques to hurt and damage our brains and crush our bones. The very sad thing to me is the fact that our forefathers have fought to keep the freedom of this country, the country that these criminals are leading now from foreign invaders, however while their grand children deserve to be treated as descendants of hero’s we are being punished by the current government as if we are criminals that don’t belong to that land, and that is a very pathetic situation.
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