WHO IS BERTUKAN?

Translated by Washera_2000 from an interview by Addis Admas.
April 9, 2008.


Q: When and where were you born? Where did you grow up? Where did you go to school?

W/t Bertukan: I was born on April 23, 1966 (E.C.) in the neighborhood of the French legation (Ferensay Legasion) and grew up right here in Addis Ababa. My parents were poor and so I received my primary education at Miazia 23 public school and then joined the Etege Menen High school. From there I joined the Addis Ababa University and received my law degree.

Q: How did you decide to study law?

A: It is a long story. Since I was an only child, there was no one to tell me what career path to follow. My parents were not educated enough to advice me on this matter. Once, when I was in 7th grade, my geography teacher was talking to us about marble and said the AAU law school building was made of marble and that it takes a very good grade to get admitted to that school. That stuck in my mind for a long time. At about the same, I heard on TV about a female Supreme Court judge, I think her name was w/o Atsedework Tekle. Although the benefits of education on the legal system were not understandable to me at that age, these two incidents sparked a desire in me for that profession.

Medical school was the other choice I thought about when I was in 12th grade. My nephew was a medical student at that time and he told me that it was one of the best professions in the country. As a result, I made medicine my first choice and social science as my second. Because my GPA was only 3.6, I did not qualify for medical school. So, I joined the Social Sciences department at Sidist Kilo. During my first year of college, I came to have a better understanding of what area of public service I wanted to be in. So, I made law my first choice and political science my second. I was assigned to law school based on my first year grades.

Q: What kind of a child was Bertukan? Quiet, playful, trouble maker or reclusive?

A: I have never been in a fight. I was the peaceful kind. I avoided conflicts so much that my mom used to think it may be from fear. Overall, I never liked brawls and fights and I never had any altercations with my friends.

I grew up alone at home. My older half brother was about 18, and he moved out when I was still very young. So, I grew up knowing only the good and kind side of life. Even as an adult, I could never think that any one would hate me. Although my parents had limited income, they paid special attention to me as an only child and I grew up with love and affection. As a result, I never knew the origins of fights, hate, or hurtful feelings.

Q: How were you with your school education?

A: As I said, I was educated in the public school system. When I was in elementary school, I was first most of the time. In secondary school I was in a "special" class where the competition was severe and I was some where between 1st and 5th place.

Q: Where did you get a job when you finished law school?

A: Assistant judge at the Federal court.

Q: why did you quit that job?

A: When I decided to study law, my ambition was to find a way to serve society and not to get money or benefits from it. I went to law school with the belief that I can bring about change, I can make a difference and when that difference is tied up with law and justice, I felt I will get personal satisfaction. As I proceeded in my law education and got maturity, I wanted to be a judge to be able to administer justice. At that time, it was very difficult to become a judge right out of law school and my friends used to make fun of me for wanting to be a judge knowing how difficult that was. But, my desire was so strong that I believed I would find a way to do it. And when most of my graduating class was employed as assistant judges I was ecstatic. However, I was deeply disappointed with the injustice that I saw. The legal system was in shambles. Most of the existing judges had been dismissed and were replaced by incapable and inexperienced people. What is now being managed by 20 courts was handled by only four at that time. Prisoners were languishing in jails without any justification. Most were just given a court date way beyond the 48 hour limit. That was a painful experience. But because of my determination to become a judge and my belief that I can make a difference, I stuck to it and served for a little over two years. After that, I was elected to be a judge. My naive belief that things will change with time and that an individual can make a difference to change the system were gradually becoming unrealistic and dim. The injustice I witnessed continued for a long time and it was at its worst when I got involved with Ato Seye Abraha's case. Whenever it appeared to have interfered with political issues law and justice were ignored. There was no fear or hesitation to use whatever power was at their disposal to have their way. For example, when we dismissed Ato Seye's lawsuit and released him, they pointed a gun at him and took him back to prison, right in front of my eyes. That was a scary, bitter and hopeless experience. Because of that, I started receiving administrative coercion and I made a conscious decision to resign.

Q: What did you feel when you gave the order for his release and saw him taken back to jail? Did you feel that the verdict you gave was not correct?

A: I never doubted for a second my righteousness or the correctness of the verdict. Anyone arrested has a constitutional right to be released on bail. We do consider political circumstances a little differently. There is usually a lot of wrangling back and forth. But, it never occurred to me that the decision we took at that time would cause such a huge war-like drama in that courthouse. Above and beyond that, I never thought it possible that a new law would be promulgated within two to there days to justify his detention. We were ready for the consequences of our actions. We took it as a job related consequence. But, I can say that it was a moment that frightened me and made me loose hope in the justice system. I should mention one thing here that I never talked about before. After his illegal detention and second time appearance in our court, our verdict was that Ato Seye should be free to go. When I went home that night, I started receiving threatening phone calls. This one man called and said to me, "we do not appreciate what you did in the Seye case. Neither history nor the government will forget your atrocious act. We will see to it that you will die in a car accident and your corpse will be thrown to the dogs". Such intimidation and political interference in the legal system was truly frightening and uncalled for. At that moment, I realized how the system believed in force rather than justice. That realization was very disturbing and hard to deal with.

Q: During your stay in that job, what are the accomplishments that you are proud of? What are your regrets?

A: I don't think these are issues that can be looked at separately. There were three of us assigned to see criminal cases. Most of our cases were the most difficult federal cases. Some of these included OLF cases or those accused of committing serious crimes. At that time, these people were kept in prison for a long time with an excuse of investigating their case. Their right to be released on bail was not being kept. It was a messy situation and we tried to fix some of this. My belief was to use my profession in a just way and be prepared to pay the ultimate price. The other judge on the chair with me had similar beliefs. Within 15 days we changed the way things were done. If the prosecution brought a prisoner after keeping him/her for more than 48 hours, we would call their supervisors, we would give out warnings or punish them monetarily. We believed that this should be done by all courts. We were aware of the shortage of manpower. But we wanted to protect the constitutional rights of the individual. This kind of practice was unknown before our arrival. As soon as we arrived, we started to play strictly by the rule of the law. We did not allow the police to take more time than the 48 ours to do their investigating and bring the cases to court. This kind of practice was not popular among the government officials. We started receiving warnings and threats and intimidations. Some members of the police would send us messages saying that they would have us caught with secretly placed Hashish (marijuana) in our pockets. Our superiors would use warnings or threats to stop what we were doing. In one instance, Ato Menbere came to my office and asked me why I was doing these things.

Q: What was the issue?

A: An individual in charge of the immigration office allegedly involved in bribery was appearing in our court. After the initial investigation and with the concurrence of the prosecutor, the individual was freed on bail. Ato Mesfin Girma (now diseased), assistant to Minister Weredewold made serious accusations of our act to our supervisor Ato Menbere Tsehay. When Ato Menbere examined the case, he could not find anything wrong with our verdict. The immigration official was released only after Ato Menbere examined the case. This was not the end. This and other issues were added up and a 70 page accusation was leveled against us. There was a demand for our dismissal, but Ato Bereket Simon got involved and asked that our case be reviewed without dismissing us. Ato Abdu Hijira (Comrade Abdu) was assigned to review our case and concluded that we were right in our verdict. We were vindicated and not dismissed. I am proud of standing firm in doing our job, without fear of dismissal or death. That was a memorable and trying time.

Q: Any disappointing decision?

A: I am not sure if the outcome would have been much different in some cases irrespective of what I decided. There were some bank officials accused on issues related to Ato Seye. There were others accused of bribery in the sugar industry. The police never produced enough evidence on these bribery cases beyond some minor indications. So, we gave them seven days to get the case to court. We had agreed to release them if the prosecution did not come with enough evidence. One or two days before the court date, a new law was passed that would prevent their right for release on bail. The case was referred to another court and we were prevented from having a say in the case. What I regret most about that case was not giving the verdict the very day the case came to us. To think that we would have another opportunity to give a verdict on this case was very naive of us. It is also possible that even if we have had a second chance, the final verdict would have been reversed. We all know what happened to Ato Seyoum after he was released on bail. By the way, those businessmen languished in jail for four or five years before their case was thrown out and they were set free.

Some people stay in prison for many years and are released when no fault could be found. Some stay much longer than their case would allow if found guilty and are then released. According to the law of the land, these people could sue the government for reparations or compensations. But, who would do that? When we look at it from that perspective, the legal ramifications are clear for a prosecutor who causes harm to a prisoner by illegal means or keeps him in jail beyond the allowed time before bringing him to court. He can be made to pay compensations for the prisoner. But, what is the situation with our court system? We see things getting worse and not better. It is the government itself that abuses the law and keeps these people in prison for much too long, on tramped up charges or false accusations. It is becoming more and more impossible to find a court which will accept a suit against the government.

When a prisoner is released after seven or eight years of incarceration and no fault is found he says, "thank you for letting me go free. It could have been worse. I could have been in jail for life". This shows that the system has no checks and balances. It shows the lack of trust in the justice system.

Q: What did you learn from the 1992 elections?

A: In the 2005 elections I did run for a sit in parliament. There were 12 of us running for a single sit. It was clear that EPRDF had a better party and government machinery to field many candidates. So, it was clear that they would win. Still, they did not want to give the opposition any opportunity to win. There was massive election fraud. Their election officials and supporters were doing anything they wanted to do. Compared to the 1997 (2005) elections, it was outright stealing. I used to follow it very closely and I am amazed at the greedy way they went about to win. I run a major campaign, distributing leaflets, having town hall meetings, driving around in a car and agitating people to vote for me. I tried to talk to neighborhood elders and women, young people and workers and this allowed me to meet all kinds of people in our society. At that time, people were hopeless about politics and one elderly woman asked me why I joined politics under these circumstances. What difference would I make? Is it to earn the $2,000 Birr salary? Ok, I will vote for you for your sake. There was no belief that the system will change through the ballot box. This allowed me to appreciate the level of political awareness in our society.

Q: What about in the 1997 (2005) elections?

A: To be honest, I had less enthusiasm about it. I was pregnant. and just had my baby and although I was asked to run I could not do it.

Q: How did you join Keste Demena?

A: Around the time of the formation of Keste Demena, Dr Berhanu Nega came and talked to me. I wanted to think about it and took my time to do so. To join a political party and continue the struggle was not an easy decision to make. I was asked to become one of the founding members. But, it took me some time to look into every aspect of the decision. I finally decided that I should continue my struggle from inside the party rather than criticizing from the outside and thus joined them.

Q: What was your stay in prison like?

A: My own profession comes to play in analyzing the prison conditions and how to survive it. I used to look into the case of every prisoner and why it was taking so long to get justice. This was something I had known before, but to see the misery with my own eyes put me in a sad situation. The lack of justice in our legal system was distressing. If you ask me what I learned from this, what I can say is that prison gives you the time to think deeply about issues and analyze them patiently. Since my upbringing has helped me to look into the positive things in life and the good side of people, I had time to ponder about human behavior. It may not be a big mirror in life, but I have seen enough.

You could say it is a place where criminals congregate and talk about their injustice. But, most of the prisoners in Ethiopian jails are innocent and the rest do not have deep-rooted offenses and are not hard core criminals at all. I would sit there and think about human behavior, about how we love each other, how we clash, how we make compromises to balance our different needs, how very minor issues become a reason for division and separation among human beings. Seeing prisoners fighting one day, making up the next day or going to solitary confinement another day, has made me examine in detail how the larger society resolves issues. At the end of the day, it is all about how to accommodate different political opinions and making compromises in the best democratic way possible. I used to sit and think about what I would do in the future. It gave me plenty of time to think and to contemplate. This was the biggest challenge that I ever had in life.

No kind of imprisonment is easy. For me, what was especially difficult to bear was my separation from my daughter when she was only eight months of age. There are family and friends too. But, the relationship with my daughter used to torture me. I missed her. I could not see her growth and development. When she comes to see me in prison, she had no idea what was going on. That would torment me. In addition, I missed my friends and the conversations we used to have.

In prison, you are with people who are completely different from you. That has its difficulties too. But, when you start to think and believe how big and noble our cause was and when you think of the kind of democracy that can be built for our children and grandchildren, far beyond our dreams, it gave you a special strength to continue to give your best. After a certain period of time, I took it as a normal thing. I received a good lesson in how to deal with difficult situations and to build the capacity to think beyond the difficulties.

Thank you W/t Bertukan.

All I can say is that you are the product of the legal educational system. You have gone to prison and come out under the same regime. You have established a political party to fight the alleged injustice and repressions in the legal system. You owe it to yourself and your people to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship..." to accomplish what you set out to do.

Thank you Ato Bereket for your timely and just intervention.

We wish you all success.