Wore negari : a memoir of an Ethiopian youth in the turbulent '70s

Wore Negari is the story of Mohamed Yimam and his friends in times of major social and political upheaval. Throughout the pages of the book, Mohamed narrates the struggle within himself to be a revolutionary like his peers. Sucked into a revolutionary current that he could not withstand, Mohamed flows with events of the seventies to a near disastrous end. In Wore Negari, he looks back and confronts his actions with unflinching honesty. This is a story of brave but misguided youth in their revolutionary fervor. Above all, it is a human story of a family in distress, a country in turmoil, an individual at war within himself, and young people with extraordinary courage who threw everything they had to the cause they believed in. Wore Negari is also a discourse on the major events of the seventies, and the issues that pitted the left against the left, and the civil war that consumed them all. It is a story of survival against all odds and the responsibility the survivor assumes to tell the story to a future generation. Wore Negari attempts to give voice to and tell the stories of youth whose individual bravery and integrity would not otherwise be known by a people for whose "cause" they shed their blood. Contents Acknowledgments Preface Author’s Note Part I: Genesis of Radicalization: Ideological Seduction Dessie Childhood Friends Jimma Harawecha Touring Famine Stricken Areas; Radicalization Takes Root Haile Selassie University Signs of Unrest Membership in a Cell; A Reluctant Revolutionary A Visit to Arsi Haile Selassie is Overthrown The Organizations behind the Changes Working As a CELU Cadre Writing for Goh The Arrest of Aya Covering the 10th African Soccer Cup Haile Fida vs. Yohannes Covering the OAU Extraordinary Summit on Angola Part II: Swept Away by the Whirlwind Sinking Deep in the Quagmire Addis Abeba Spring A House in My Name Health Problems Urban Guerrilla Warfares EPRP’s Unraveling Debre Zeit The Beginning of the End Part III: Prison, Escape and Freedom My Turn Prison, Interrogation, and Escape Life in Addis after Prison Life in Gragn Meda Escape to Freedom Postscript Index