A Life Devoted to Voice, Mulugeta Gessese Dies at 66

Aug 17 , 2025.

When senior diplomat Meles Alem (PhD) thinks back to his first shifts behind a microphone at a radio, a memory springs up before the static settles. There was a firm and patient figure in Mulugeta Gessese, the founding manager of Fana Radio, a once clandestine voice of an insurgency that eventually took power from the military-Marxist regime of Mengistu Hailemariam (Col.).

“His dedication and sharp eye for talent left a mark on the profession that will outlast him,” said Meles.

It was Mulugeta who nurtured the nervous recruit, helped shape the station’s voice and, in the process, lent shape to modern Ethiopian broadcasting.

Mulugeta, who passed away a few weeks ago, was born during a drought and period of upheaval in the village of Kuiha, 30Km from the town of Meqelle, the seat of the Tigray Regional State. He was the second of eight children in a well-to-do family of traders. Those business trips with his father provided him with stories. Back home, he retold them with a performer’s flair, polished by the books he devoured.

Debate and literature were lifelines for the teenage Mulugeta, yet the public space for both was shrinking fast. That hunger for words collided with the realities of the military regime, a.k.a. the Derge. As his friend Birhanu Ababi remembers, “revoked all democratic rights of gatherings and banned books from public access.”

It was a time of revolution, during which several political groupings, such as the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), confronted the regime, raising arms. Mulugeta’s elder brother, Kiros, a third-year engineering student at Haile Selassie I University, joined the group. He was one of the tens of thousands who did not return home when the military government collapsed in 1991.

At 16, Mulugeta followed, but found his battlefield not in the mountains’ trench lines but on air. He helped build the Front’s clandestine station, the “Voice of TPLF,” a precursor to Radio Fana. With a calm delivery, he pushed out propaganda and news designed to blunt the government’s narrative, modelling himself on Hayelom Araya, a military commander later killed in Addis Abeba in the mid-1990s. Hayelom was remembered for his bravery, compassion and good humour among his comrades.

Teshome Beyene, an insurance expert who once served as a board member of the Addis Abeba Chamber of Commerce, described him as an "emblem of the Meqelite spirit."

"He was larger than life, full of laughter, wit, and warmth," he posted a tribute on his Facebook page.

The work was perilous. During the Red Terror, dark days of affliction unleashed by the military government against urban insurrection, security forces swept up the young broadcaster, labelling him an "anti-revolutionary." He was thrown into prison, this time amid a fresh bout of ethnic profiling. In Addis Abeba, police grabbed him and sent him to Meqelle. Birhanu recalled that word filtered through the cells that Mengistu had planned to visit faminestricken Tigray; unrest flared, and commanders called the prisoners “dangerous dissidents.”

A rather daring operation dubbed "Agazi" was launched by the rebels, led by Hayelom, that eventually freed hundreds of prisoners from a detention centre in Mekelle. Mulugeta was one of them to make it out alive.

In 1991, as Ethiopia transitioned from military rule to the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government, Radio Fana emerged above ground, leaving its mountain caves in northern Ethiopia. Four regional endowment companies – EFFORT, TIRET, TUMSA and Wondo – took ownership of the newly incorporated entity. Mulugeta, appointed as a founding general manager, guided what was to become a multilingual broadcaster, transmitting on an FM band and a television station to audiences stretching from pastoral lowlands to diaspora listeners abroad.

Mulugeta encouraged reporters to leave the comfort of Addis Abeba and file from dusty roadside markets, refugee camps and football terraces, insisting that “every voice counts”. The station’s trademark blend of news, culture and sharp political satire, often penned by Mulugeta himself, brought in advertisers, allowing Fana to reinvest in transmitters and open the country’s first dedicated FM talk-show station, Fana FM.

Journalists recalled him more as a mentor and friend than as a boss. Charisma and openness drew new talent; genuine care held them. Shift rotas were flexible for reporters juggling childcare, and no idea was dismissed until it was thoroughly debated. Meles credits him with demonstrating that radio can pursue social impact as well as ratings. The standards Mulugeta set became the yardstick for another generation.

However, the pull of internal squabbles among the TPLF senior leadership cut his tenure short. As factional splits widened in the early 2000s and disorientation swept the rank and file, he chose to step down, saying the newsroom should remain a “space for truth, not turf.” Successors Weldu Yimesel and Bekele Muleta carried the station forward, but colleagues still credit the blueprint to Mulugeta.

In the words of Meles, Mulugeta is "the father of modern professional journalism."

Radio Fana would later merge with Walta Media & Communication Corporate to form Fana Media Corporation, which operates Fana Television, regional radio outlets and has more than 1,000 staff. The structure of those four endowments, a braid of political and economic interests, remains unusual in the domestic media industry. It traces back to the framework Mulugeta drafted on a typewriter in a cramped office.

Away from broadcasting, he devoted time to Tesfa Goh, a nonprofit he cofounded to support people living with HIV/Aids. At a moment when the virus was cloaked in taboo, he deployed the radio again, airing programmes that challenged myths and promoted education. Later, he pursued a postgraduate degree in business administration in England, refining his instinctive leadership with academic polish.

Mulugeta returned home armed with management theory, introducing performance reviews, newsroom stylebooks and a formal internship scheme for radio journalists. Friends joked that he quoted Peter Drucker, the Austrian-American who expanded the concept of management to include a focus on how businesses operate morally and ethically, as readily as an Amharic proverb. But, staff noticed the schedules ran tighter and the coverage grew broader.

Even near the end, he kept a battered notebook of programme ideas, from profiles of rural artisans to a series exploring the roots of multicultural federalism.

His life, framed by war, censorship, studios and cells, always turned on the same lever. Voice. Whether countering a regime, guiding a newsroom or broadcasting health advice, he believed speech could loosen fear and spark change. That conviction guided him until illness overtook him.

He was laid to rest on August 4, 2025, in a church in Meqelle. He is survived by his wife, a daughter, Mizer, two sons, and six siblings.

“He isn't only my father and best friend," Mizer said. "He was a father to many he took under his wing.”

The domestic media scene is noisier now, with the proliferation of mobile phone-based platforms, social media apps, satellite dishes, and a legal environment still catching up. Yet, amid the scramble, there is space to appreciate the modest studio where a 16-year-old once recalibrated a rebellion’s message. The frequencies have shifted; the principle of telling unvarnished stories has not. Long after the static subsides, the mark he left, with his calm and steady cadence that carried across drought, dictatorship and digital dawn, continues to echo.

“Anything good said about Mulugeta can only be a little," Birhanu, his lifelong friend, said."It's nowhere near enough to praise what he did for broadcasting and the country.”

PUBLISHED ON Aug 17,2025 [ VOL 26 , NO 1320]