The African Union Human Rights Memorial

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    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.”

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    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.

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    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 .

    Click here to view Partner organizations.

“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

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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

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Kenya

Monday, 13 February 2012 22:25
Super User

Lari Memorial Peace Museum, 
Photo: Annie Coombes

26th of March 1953 marked an indelible mark in the history of Lari. On that fateful night, the nationalist struck the royalists killing over a hundred and fifty individual. Houses were burnt, animals were killed as well. Lari witnessed a bloodbath.

The following morning was even worse. The colonial government came down for revenge. Many were killed within the villages and others taken into the nearby Kiriita and Uplands forests where they were short dead. Others were killed at Lari police station. Later on, a court was opened at Githunguri for trials on the suspected Mau Mau adherents. The trials continued up to mid 1954 where many were sentenced for hanging. A generation was lost as a result of the killings.

The internal wounds have kept the community in pain, suspicion, hatred and separation between the two sides (nationalist and loyalists) from one generation to the other. The pain of the internal wounds has refused to go. The wounds and painful memories linger in them as if they happened yesterday. It has remained an indelible mark ever since.

The Lari Memorial Peace Museum was started in year 2001 and registered on 29th May the same year. The Organization grew as a commitment to fight the hatred, suspicion, pain and the many unhealed internal wounds that kept the Lari community since the 1953 infamous Lari massacre and documenting this history.

The small, young museum which has an exhibition of the massacre photos and cultural artifacts is opened Monday to Friday with no entry fee charges.

As a peace building organization, the museum has other projects which include the cycle for life project, Inter-ethnic youth exchange project, computers for peace project, HIV/AIDS project and provision of sanitary towels to school girls in selected areas.

For more information, please visit amanikenya.com.

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