Bookish, Politicking Diplomat Rests

Dawit Yohannes was a reader. He loved all things political, as might have been evident from the fact that he was the first speaker of parliament with the advent of the federal republic system.

He loved reading to the point that he took up four books at a time. He would read one at his personal library; another at the dining table during meals; yet another during coffee breaks; and whenever he had time at home, or while on vacation, he would sneak in a fourth.

“He was not an emotional person, but very rational,” says a family member who declined to be named. “Discussions on political issues with him were very interesting.”

Dawit, who passed away on January 28, 2019, in New York, of complications from diabetes, did more than read about politics. He partook in it.

Born in Addis Abeba in 1956, he went to Teferi Mekonnen School. By the time he was four, political resistance was already brewing with the coup attempt on Emperor Haile Selassie under the Neway brothers, lighting a path for the decades of rebellion that would follow.

As Dawit came of age, finished high school and enrolled at Addis Abeba University to study law, a political crisis had already hit the fan. The Emperor was deposed, and a far more brutal regime had been installed. A bookish youth who had already experimented forming political groups in college, Dawit would join other urbanites who were none too pleased with the military junta.

The mid-1970s was a dangerous time for youth that lived in Addis Abeba, especially for those that were around during the Red Terror. He was forced to flee Ethiopia and journey along a path that would bring him into contact with political heavyweights and an opportunity to play a crucial role in the post-1991 Ethiopia.

He escaped out of Ethiopia through Sudan together with three other people, one of whom was Berhanu Nega (PhD), later a prominent politician. Dawit was the first to get a job in exile, thus had to take care of his fellow countrymen, according to the family friend.

True to his form, Dawit, a father of three, is described as caring for friends and family, not shying away from supporting those he could. He once took in a philosophy graduate relative of his, who had become mentally ill and ended up on the streets and her family broken up. He found her in a church after returning from over a dozen years of exile to Ethiopia, took her into his home and raised her children.

An admirer of the musicians Tilahun Gessese, Muhammad Ahmed, Aster Aweke and Rahel Yohannes, he was just as glad to see those that were close to him become happy. At a post-wedding reception he hosted, he was gleeful enough to roll up his sleeves and serve plates to guests, almost 100 of which were present.