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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:From Apologist to Critic: The Dilemma of Bealu Girma
Author:Adera, TaddesseISNI
Year:1995
Periodical:Northeast African Studies
Volume:2
Issue:1
Pages:135-144
Language:English
Geographic terms:Ethiopia
Eritrea
Subjects:separatism
literature
Literature, Mass Media and the Press
About person:Bealu Girma
External link:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/northeast_african_studies/v002/2.1.adera.pdf
Abstract:In April 1984, Bealu Girma, a well-known Ethiopian writer and journalist, 'disappeared' after being last seen driving his car in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). It is widely believed that he was abducted by the security police. Bealu Girma was Vice-Minister of Information at the time of his abduction. He had just published a novel in Amharic, 'Oromai' ('Enough'). This novel pictured the Mengistu government as corrupt, greedy, avaricious and maladministered. For the most part, however, the focus of the novel is on the war in Eritrea. It indicts the government of Mengistu for its failure to provide Eritrea with leadership and organization, especially during the so-called Red Star Campaign in 1981. Mengistu then boasted that he would put an end to the region's 20-year-old secession movement with a 90-day military campaign against the EPLF (Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front). The government claimed that operation Red Star was a success, but Girma saw things differently, and expressed this view in his novel. For this he paid with his life. Bibliogr.
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