In his memoir የዲፕሎማሲ ፋና (Yediplomasi Fana), Teruneh Zenna vividly describes the harrowing experience he spent detained at the Sendafa Police Training School in 1969 after participating in the “Land to the Tiller” demonstration.
When the police arrived, those of us who decided not to run were arrested and taken through the palace to Sendafa. Upon arriving at Jubilee Palace, we shouted, “Haile Selassie thief!” so the emperor could hear us. It was a daring act of defiance at the time. So, what awaited us at Sendafa was a severe punishment. We were regularly beaten and ill-treated. We had to rise at ten in the morning, then lie on our stomachs on the unforgiving stone floor and crawl. They beat us on the back with clubs. When we got tired, they tossed us into a pit designed for punishing prisoners. For a week, we had no right to receive food from our parents and were given only a loaf of bread. Although we were liberated not long after due to pressure from students abroad, especially those in America, our bodies were weakened. For me, the pain was not just physical but also moral. After visits were allowed, there was no one to visit me or bring me food or clothing. While others were released on bail, I had no one who could post bail for me. I spent a night alone in the stable, and when I finally went home, my legs were bruised, and I could not put on my shoes. Since I wore the same clothes day and night, soaked with mud, my friends couldn’t recognize me; they mistook me for a beggar.
Teruneh, who would later serve his country as an able diplomat with prestigious posts such as Ethiopia’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Counsellor at the Embassy of Ethiopia in Brussels, and a human rights campaigner as Chief Commissioner of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, vividly recalls the hardships and injustices he endured during his university days—from the initial arrest and bold act of protest at Jubilee Palace to the severe punishment at Sendafa.
Teruneh relates this story with care and wonder, but his point is a larger one. Despite being illiterate, his mother, who lived in the rural Konta district of southwest Ethiopia, had a strong sense of justice and a rebellious streak. When she learned about the incident at Sendafa prison, she asked who had given the order. “Was it the king?” she asked. When I said yes, she responded, “Is there not another king somewhere else? Why don’t you go there?” It was her way of encouraging me to rebel. She also deeply believed in the promise of education.
It encompasses his childhood in the rural Konta district southwest of the country in Jimma town where he did primary and secondary school. It captures the sacrifice of his parents to ensure him a good education, paying tribute to their courage, dignity, and endurance, while also highlighting the thrill of learning and the power of public engagement.
A reflective account of his coming-of-age during the feudal period and the imperial state established after Menelik’s conquest of the southern and western regions of the country, the book provides a capsule lesson in the courage of endurance, inspiring without moralizing or simplifying in hindsight. The memoir is not just a record of Teruneh’s thirty years as a diplomat from a younger and more educated generation, but also an inspiring example to help new generations visualize the possibilities of diplomatic and patriotic engagement.
As we come to learn from the narrative, Teruneh’s father, Zena Tekle Haymanot, was a notable and highly respected noble with great spiritual influence who had several children with four wives. He adopted Amhara names for his family, subscribed to Orthodox Christianity, and financed two Orthodox churches in Konto village. As a local judge and traditional political leader, he played an important role in the village. Unfortunately, he died when Tiruneh was young. After his father’s death, Teruneh’s mother played a significant role in his upbringing, despite her position being reduced from well-off landlord to struggling peasant.
Throughout the memoir, we see the many sacrifices the young Tiruneh made for his education, far away from his parents. With no school in his village, he was enrolled in a school in the neighboring town of Jimma, where his father’s friend, Aba Simel Aba Jobir, took him in. Aba Jobir became a father figure to him, showing more tolerance for differing opinions and a willingness to listen to young people than his own father did.
After completing his primary and secondary education in Jimma, he headed to the capital and joined the Prince Baede Mariam Pilot Project Secondary School of Haile Selassie I University for his 12th-grade education. He then enrolled at the University, where he graduated in Economics and Political Science in 1973.
During his university days, he participated in student activism, advocating for land reform legislation and joining demonstrations demanding that land be given to the tillers and property to the workers. His thesis focused on the tenant system, drawing from his experiences and those of his parents. He explained how the tenure system perpetuated inequality, with a small group of landowners holding significant power over vast tracts of land, while the majority of the rural population worked as tenants with limited rights and security.
“The correct solution to the lot of the tenants lies in the very roots of the tenure system. And the best and long-term solution to this tenancy problem is the redistribution of the land,” he wrote.
He argued that semi-feudal systems are characterized by entrenched power structures where land ownership is concentrated among a small elite who are resistant to changes that would diminish their control and wealth. “It would indeed be naive to expect a semi-feudal government, such as ours, to willingly redistribute the land. Since rights to the land represent political power, land redistribution would mean undermining the government’s position.”
(This is the first part of the article; the second part will follow soon.)
