There are clues to Mulugeta Abai's Ethiopian past. One of them is the job he has chosen for himself in Toronto at the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture. Clients say he offers them comfort, that he is perceptive, kind, and always determined to help. But behind his murmurs of understanding, there is his own vivid recall, and behind his sympathy there are the shifting sheets he returns to each night, tossing in nightmares he refuses to share with his wife.
He was born in 1953 in the northern Ethiopian province of Tigray, the first of seven children, with plenty to eat and nice clothes to wear. His father, a lower-court judge, sent his sons to boarding school and impressed upon them the importance of education. Later, when university recruiters suggested Abai try a career in teaching, it fit: "Teaching is like nurturing a plant. You see the children grow."
Abai married at 21, and would have four sons. Eventually he was promoted from school principal to district educational director in the province of Gondar. But this quietly rewarding life was unfolding against a backdrop of political upheaval that would eventually envelop and destroy it.
In 1974, the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by the Dergue, a leftist populist movement led by the military. Under the slogan of "bloodless revolution" the new leaders promised a more democratic society, with land redistribution and a socialist approach to community services. But brutal political in-fighting and the rise of Mengistu Haile Mariam transformed the Dergue from liberators to executioners.
"A lot of people were being executed. I think we were the lucky ones, even to stay alive," he says. As a high-ranking education official in the midst of student uprisings, he was accused of being a ringleader. He was arrested and released a few times. Once two of his cellmates were taken out and shot, their bodies tossed into the street.
Abai can still see and smell it all with tremendous clarity — the bulky outline of the prison, the dull desperation, the glorious, pitiful sense of accomplishment at having lived one more day. But where did he put the anger, the frustration, the sense of injustice?
"I had those feelings, but you cannot articulate them. You have to keep all that to yourself," he said. "You age very quickly. It's hopelessness, really. That's what it creates."
Ironically, imprisonment failed as a deterrent to would-be challengers of Mengistu's dictatorship. It hardened their resolve.
For more than 20 years, what happened next remained Abai's secret. He shares his story as a testament to what the human spirit can endure.
Abai hesitates at first, but once he begins to speak of the past, he cannot stop. With each sentence, his face contorts and he cries. Yet slowly, his hunched shoulders straighten and widen, imperceptibly at first and then forcefully. He is sitting up, relieved and emboldened by speaking the truth.
The Ethiopian jail cells to which Abai is dragged are small, fetid and crammed with prisoners, many starving and delirious. The floors are filthy, caked with layers of insects and human excrement. With as many as 60 people in one cell, many must take turns lying on the ground to rest. Anyone who falls ill in the middle of the night is left suffering.
One evening, Abai listens as the names of almost 50 prisoners are shouted out and one by one they are led away. There is no sleep as the roll call of death drones on — university students, teachers and medical doctors escorted to slaughter. In the morning, there are only six men left. The silence is so deep that the buzz of a single fly is deafening to Abai. "They took them and killed them, all of them. Some of them were very innocent. Very, very innocent," Abai says, his voice quavering in disbelief.
In the cell, Abai and his fellow survivors wait, unable to sleep, dreading their own end. Abai! Abai! His name is being called.
There is, first, the horror of hearing friends die and the torment of being unable to help them. Then there is physical pain — the soul-piercing agony of being twisted and beaten.
Handcuffs are clasped around his wrists and a metal pole thrust through his locked hands and feet, so he's forced to curl in a fetal position. Two men, muscled and mean, hoist the pole and suspend Abai from the ceiling, spinning him like a trussed turkey on a barbecue spit. The soldiers take turns lashing the soles of Abai's feet with leather whips, while a third yells and screams, demanding the names of his co-conspirators. Time dissolves.
For Abai, a teacher who has poured his life's energy into educating young people, there is an even greater horror: the third torturer is one of his former students. "He pretended to be the good guy. It was brutal. I taught him in grades seven and eight. That's a betrayal."
For 22 months, Abai was held in jail, tortured and traumatized. Then, inexplicably, Abai was released. His old job was gone, but he was moved to another district near the national capital of Addis Ababa and demoted to school principal. The following year, he was tipped off that Mengistu's men were again looking for him. He bolted in the middle of the night, leaving behind his parents, his wife and his four sons. "I believed I had no choice," he says.
It took Abai 17 days of walking and hitchhiking through the night, and hiding in churches or in the brush during the day to reach the Sudanese border. He quickly found a job teaching English in refugee camp schools run by the Sudan Council of Churches. He was eventually granted asylum in Australia and Canada and arrived in Vancouver in 1983. He was certain his family would be imprisoned and tortured if authorities had any clue of his whereabouts, so Abai didn't contact them. Although he visited his Ethiopian family in 1991, the year Mengistu was ousted, and again in 1996, he and his wife eventually divorced.
Of a dozen close friends, only he and one other, now living in the United States, made it out of Ethiopia alive. "Every time I remember my friends, every time I see their children, I feel guilty for surviving when others have perished."
It is that conundrum, perhaps, that underlies Abai's spiritual transformation. Although he was raised in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, he'd never embraced Christianity in a meaningful way until he was imprisoned. It was behind bars that he found faith.
"I think I survived because somebody higher up protected me. I could easily have given the names of my associates and friends. I could easily have destroyed a lot of families. I was able to keep that information intact and to save a lot of lives; I don't think I did it by myself. Somebody else somewhere was helping me be strong."
He rejects the possibility that he simply may have been more resilient, both physically and psychologically, than he realized. "No, it was beyond anything I could have done. It was God."
Abai remarried in 1994 and he and his new wife have two daughters. He has already brought two of his sons to Canada from Ethiopia, and helped them complete university. He dreams of reuniting his entire family.
And now, every day on the job, Abai works to repair the damage by replacing bad experience with good. When victims come to him, he listens. He works to restore what was taken from them. "I encourage people to take the steps that they are comfortable with to start the healing process."
Now free in Canada, why does he spend his weekdays reliving the torture?
"It has given me an excellent opportunity to heal," he said. "You have to see the positive side as well. Why does one survive while others perish? We were 54 in a room, only six or seven of us were left."
And that has left Abai with a profound sense of responsibility. "I should work very hard to prevent such things from happening and to help people who have had similar experiences move from that victim environment and be productive citizens."
Yet this teacher, this restorer of souls and keeper of faith, has a long journey ahead of him. "I get the courage to continue from the love and responsibility I have towards my children. I also draw courage from the many people who have gone through horrible experiences. I admire their resiliency and will to live."
Now he is committed to being there for his two young daughters. And some day, he hopes, all of his family will understand that the pain of his torture pales in comparison to his missing their youth. "I hope they will understand. Time will tell."
