TRIBUTE TO MAJOR GENERAL NEGA TEGEGN 

By Ato Wondimu Mekonnen

Upon completion of Army School, he joined the Ethiopian Air Force as an instructor. He trained Air Force officers at Dabre Zait and Jijiga. Returning from Air Force, He was trained Cryptography for one year. 

In 1951, under Colonel Kebede Gebre, Chief Commander of Ethiopian Army Contingent to United Nations Mission in Korea, the then Captain Nega Tegegn became army intelligence and finance officer of Gagnew Shaleqa Division. When the major in charge of army intelligence was forced to return home, Captain Nega Tegegn took full charge of army reconnaissance and inelegance unit for seven months.

Upon return from Korea, the young and promising officer joined The Commercial School of Addis Ababa and earned Intermediate Diploma in Commerce attending four years full time study. In 1957, he was sent to study at Wellington Staff College in India and completed the course successfully. In 1960, he returned to Ethiopia and joined Harar Military Academy as an instructor of Military Administration and Management. 

He was back in Addis Ababa working in charge of Military Education at Ethiopian Ground Force Division when General Kebede Gebre, the United Nations Chief of Staff to the Congo, called upon him to join him for his second UN mission. By then Major Nega Tegegn became officer in charge of chief military operation. 

Upon brilliant completion of his mission to The Congo, he was appointed as a Commander of 5 Battalion, later Commander in chief of 10 Brigade in Eastern Ethiopia, where Ethio-Somali war was aggravating. He was appointed as a Governor of Northern Ogaden during the Emergency Decree. 

During 1966/67 he worked in Addis Ababa Army Ground Force as an officer in charge of Campaign and Education. In the same year, Organisation of African Unity faced a dilemma of whom to admit as an observer representing Angola as two warring functions of freedom fighters, MPLA lead by Augusino Nato and UNITA lead by Olden Robero, were competing for primacy. Major General Nega Tegegn was called upon to lead a field mission to Angola to assess who had grass-root support and the power to smash the colonial rule and represent Angola. After one months field observation, the mission lead by Major General Nega Tegegn filed a report that suggested MPLA was the one to be admitted. Accordingly, MPLA became an OAU observer on behalf of Angola. In 1967, General Nega Tegegn represented OAU, when UN sent a mission to Nigeria to assess the claimed genocide upon the people of Biafra. He stayed there for seven months, right to the end of the civil war.

Major General Nega Tegegn was sent to Britain in 1971 to pursue his higher military education at Royal College of Defense and graduated with distinction. In 1972, he was appointed as the Head of Third Division at Eastern Ethiopia. In 1973 the Lij Endalkachew Mekonnen Cabinet appointed Major General Nega Tegegn as the Governor of Gondar. While he was working in Gondar, the Dergue, lead by Major Mengistu Hailemariam and junior officers overthrow Emperor Haile Selassie I Government and embarked on its destructive policy. General Nega left his governor post of Gondar and started a resistance movement in the area. After eight months of bitter struggle, he passed over to The Sudan in 1975. With two other colleagues he traveled to Europe and formed Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU). From 1975 to 1978 he fought and lead bitter battles against the Dergue. Then he fell out with his colleagues in the organization and left the organization. 

Major General Nega Tegegn is of a book in Amaric: "yeitiopia yerejim zemenat tigilna yezemenawi serawit ameseraret: 1955-1974. Major General Nega lived in Britain in exile starting from 1989 to until he passed away on 14 May 2002. General Nega was one of the wonderful Ethiopian, who won the love and affection of the exiled Ethiopian community in Britain. He will be greatly missed. 

General Nega survives by three children. May his soul rest in peace.

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