Partners
- African Union Commission - Peace and Security
- African Union - Political Affairs (Human Rights)
- Aegis Trust Rwanda
- Centre for Peace and Development, University of Limerick
- Ethiopian Red Terror Documentation and Research Centre
- Federation of International Human Rights Museums
- Goree Insitute
- InterAfrica Group
- Justice Africa
- Maison des Esclaves
- Sites of Concience
- World Peace Foundation
- Foundation for Human Rights (South Africa)
The Memorial Project
The African Union Human Rights Memorial Project (AUHRM) aims to preserve the memory of mass atrocities, in recognition of past suffering and in the interests of future peace and security. The African Union (AU) established in its constitutive act a commitment to continental cooperation on the basis of human rights principles, constitutionalism, and the responsibility to intervene in the case of crimes against humanity or genocide. The AUHRM will reflect a series of grave crimes committed against Africans, including the appalling case of genocide in Rwanda. Read More...
Alem Bekagn
“I lost many family members and friends to the Red Terror campaign. I am still traumatized by the fear and insecurity that one feels when friends are summoned and led to their death or severely tortured.”
The AUHRM project aims to post a wide range of articles that depict the true nature of Africa's past genocidal history. We would like to encourage our readers to send us stories, commentaries, personal experiences that are relevant to our mission.
AUHRM will be a dynamic site and will evolve in partnership with a network of groups and associations dedicated to the remembrance of atrocities in Africa. The project is still at an early stage and welcomes ideas and comments from potential partners interested in informing the development of the site and extending its reach across the continent. Please contact us at: JLIB_HTML_CLOAKING .
“The site of the construction has its own significance, as it is the former central prison, known as “Alem Bekagn”, which was the location of the 1936 Graziani Massacre, the execution of sixty ministers in the Government of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, and the imprisonment, torture and execution of thousands of Ethiopians during the days of the Derg Regime, especially the Red Terror atrocities of 1977-78 and thereafter. The site is therefore of historic significance for Ethiopia and we see it as our responsibility to honor the memory of the victims of such heinous acts at the Headquarters of the African Union.”
H.E Mrs. Julia Dolly Joiner
The Unveiling Ceremony
"The Memorial places especial emphasis upon those innocent victims of abuses executed or sponsored by African states and leaders such as the Rwandan genocide, the slaughter in cold blood of the senior officials of Emperor Haile Sellassie’s government and the tens of thousands of youth wantonly slain during the Red Terror – two of the many grave crimes against human rights committed here by the military regime. Though there are no doubt the dirty hands of others in these infamous deeds in Ethiopia and Rwanda, what is being singled out for particular attention are serious crimes for which, above all, we ourselves are to blame. This is one reason why it is important that African states and governments collectively resolved to honor the memory of those lost, innocent African lives. What is being recognized at this site today is a deep moral fact about ourselves that no emergent generation of Africans can ever afford to forget."
Professor Andreas Eshete, Chairman, Interim Board of the AU Human Rights Memorial
National Memorials
