Bekele Geleta, Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent
New York, N.Y. — My father explained to me early on in life that, to get ahead, you need to start at the top. To answer these questions, I interviewed Bekele Geleta. Bekele is Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
As expected, he made me get it. First and foremost, he is an incredible man. I am drawn to thought leaders and global citizens, and he defines the essence of both.
International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies
His moving and dramatic personal story augments the idea of the Red Cross Red Crescent’s latest campaign, “Our world. Your move.” I will write about the campaign shortly. But for now, Bekele.
Bekele was a political prisoner in Ethiopia and restarted his life in Canada as a refuge in the early 90’s. There is a riveting account of his life in the Ottawa Citizen, in the country he sought refuge years ago.
The Citizen describes his life in Ethiopia in the late 1970’s: married with a young son, managing the Franco-Ethiopian Railway at the age of 34. Over 3,000 employees reported to him. Then, all hell broke loose. The Ottawa Citizen reports:
October 1978, inside the main police station in Addis Ababa. Bekele is hanging upside down, his feet being beaten bloody by interrogators. They insist he belongs to the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF); he insists he doesn’t. He is a civil servant, not a politician or an activist.
It does not matter. Bekele has been caught in another purge… of the socialist dictatorship... in an effort to eliminate the OLF. Many of his friends and relatives have been arrested.
“At that time there were roundups in the country, lots of killings left and right,” says Bekele. “Anybody who was reported to be politically anti-government was rounded up and sent to prison.”
Finally he is brought before a special investigator, who declares a sentence of five years in jail, no trial.
Bekele is transferred to the Central Prison in Addis Ababa, known informally as Karcheli prison. The inmate population numbers in the thousands, with as many as 1,500 political prisoners alone.
Pickpockets, activists, academics, businessmen, murderers, civil servants — all are
penned together behind the imposing walls and iron bars of the prison building in the city’s
downtown, “right behind the offices of the Organization of African Unity,” says Bekele.
When he first arrives, he is put into a cell with 200 inmates and two hole-in-the-floor toilets. There are no chairs, no tables, no beds except for some mattresses on the floor.
Eventually, at age 40, he gets out of prison and finds himself working for relief agencies, ending up with the Red Cross. This story is riveting, but already written.
“From that time forward, I became a Red Crosser,” Bekele told the Ottawa Citizen. “I strongly committed to spend my life making a difference in people’s lives.”
It did not happen that way. Promoted first to secretary general of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, Bekele was later called into service for the government.
Shortly after, the political climate became unstable and he was forced to make a difficult decision to protect his family.
He fled with his family to Canada where he lived as a refugee.
Two years later the IFRC hired him to head its Africa department. He moved up the ladder quickly, today serving as its Secretary General.
Many in the Red Cross world believe Bekele is particularly suited to the task.
A gentleman with a courtly manner and a twinkle in his eye, Bekele is nevertheless said to be shrewd and driven.
One needs such traits when dealing with the complex challenges of vulnerability, disaster response, and coordination of tens of millions of volunteers covering all corners of the globe.
Let’s start with the basics:
- The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is the world’s largest humanitarian network.
- The Movement is neutral and impartial, and provides protection and assistance to people affected by disasters and conflicts.
- The Movement consists of almost 97 million — that is not a typo — volunteers, supporters, and staff in 186 countries.
- Signatory governments to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols (1977, 2005) have given the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) a mandate to protect the victims of international and internal armed conflicts.
- Such victims include war wounded, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants.
- The Movement has three main components: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the 186 national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies – like the American Red Cross.
- The world is big, so I will only focus on what I have seen. For example the hospital in Galle, Sri Lanka, where the organization I founded — Orphans International Worldwide [www.orphansinternational.org] — began a program in the wake of the Tsunami.
- Or the massive response of the Red Cross Red Crescent I saw when I was building Orphans International Sumatera after the Tsunami in Indonesia.
- Or the excellent job done by Societies from around the world — including the American Red Cross — at our neighbor to the south, Haiti, which suffered four hurricanes last fall.
I was there in Jacmel, Haiti, visiting our kids at Orphans International Haiti, and saw my old friend Matthew Marek, the American Red Cross director there.
He was so exhausted from disaster response I failed to recognize him. That, to me, is the Red Cross.
The International Red Cross Red Crescent Movement is in Geneva and its 150-year history.
It is its founder, Henry Dunant. It is also Bekele Geleta, Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. My interview with Bekele will be posted in the Huffington Post.
The IFRC is also the 186 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies that comprise the Movement, including the American Red Cross and its staff.
I have interviewed David Meltzer, Senior V.P. of International Services for the American Red Cross and will present his thoughts shortly. Then it is staff in the field like Matthew Marek in Haiti.
Bekele. David. Matthew. And 97 million volunteers, supporters, and staff around the world. This is the humanitarian team of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Get involved Our world. Your move.
Interview with Secretary General of Red Cross & Red Crescent (May 7, 2025); originally published in The Daily Kos (July 21, 2009)
