Out of Africa : Political Refugees From Ethiopia End Up on CSUN Soccer Team

As difficult as the recruiting process can be for college coaches, there are rare occasions when all it takes to find a high-caliber athlete is a Sunday walk in the park.

Marwan Ass’ad, Cal State Northridge’s soccer coach, found Matador players Belete Bekele and Teferi Michael precisely that way.

Ass’ad received a phone call from Michael--who had heard of the Matador coach through the soccer grapevine--last spring inviting him to watch a pickup game at a park.

Bekele and Michael, both of whom are from Ethiopia, played at Division I Alabama A&M; in 1989 but left the school and moved to Los Angeles.

“Teferi just called me up and invited me to a barbecue at a park,” Ass’ad said. “A group of Ethiopians play on the weekends and I watched them play.”

Ass’ad was impressed not only with Michael but also his friend, Bekele.

“They are both very good players (but) I really liked Belete,” Ass’ad said. “He was so smooth with the ball. I said, ‘Who is this kid?’ ”

The question was understandable. After all, Division I soccer players with college eligibility remaining are not usually recruited at parks.

But then, the path that Bekele and Michael took to get to CSUN is hardly typical.

Bekele, 23, and Michael, 25, both juniors, are both political refugees from Ethiopia who came to the United States after seeking political asylum in Egypt in 1987.

Bekele, a 5-foot-8, 141-pound starting forward, has four goals for Northridge (8-4)--all in the past six games. Ass’ad called him the “best player on the field” in the Cardinal Classic at Stanford, which was held two weeks ago.

Michael, a 5-9, 156-pound midfielder, has contributed to a defense that has five shutouts in 10 games. He had been hampered by a groin injury for the past two weeks but is again healthy.

Only four years ago, the two had never heard of Northridge.

Bekele and Michael are from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, where they grew up playing soccer, the most popular sport in the country.

“In Ethiopia, all the people grow up with soccer,” Bekele said.

The players met when they were selected to play for the Ethiopian junior national team. Although they didn’t know it at the time, the team would provide the opportunity to seek political asylum.

While Bekele did not personally witness the military conflicts and famines that have plagued Ethiopia for decades, he did hear about political violence taking place in different border regions of the country.

What the two were exposed to, according to Michael, was the Marxist-style military government (the Dergue) that ruled Ethiopia from September, 1974, until its ouster in May.

The Ethiopian revolution of 1974 was followed by a period of near-anarchy that was exacerbated by hostilities on the borders. A power struggle within the Dergue resulted in Ethiopia’s swing toward the Soviet Union as a Cold War ally under President Mengistu Haile Mariam.

“The government was not good over there before the (1991) change,” Michael said. “The military government followed (the Soviet Union) in government. You could not say what you wanted over there.”

Bekele still is reluctant to discuss the political situation he faced in Ethiopia.

Along with Michael, however, he did discuss the series of events that allowed the two to escape their political problems on a Sunday night in Cairo in 1987.

Bekele, Michael and the rest of their junior national teammates were at the end of a weeklong trip to the Egyptian capital.

The Ethiopians had lost to Egypt in a World Cup junior-division, qualifying-round game, but Ethiopia was to have another chance the following week when the teams were to meet in Addis Ababa.

The second game never took place.

Bekele, Michael and 11 other players, more than half the team, decided to stay in Egypt and seek political asylum.

“It was . . . a hard decision,” Michael said. “We would have liked to stay (in Ethiopia). But we couldn’t go back there. There were a lot of things to consider.”

Said Bekele: “We had made up our minds. Myself, I didn’t talk to my family. I just decided to stay after I got in Egypt.”

Michael recalls the game ending at about 6 p.m. in Cairo. The Ethiopian team was scheduled to depart for the airport approximately three hours later to fly home.

There was just enough time to return to the hotel, shower and eat before departing.

Instead, Michael asked a friend who lived in Egypt to arrange to have a car waiting at the hotel.

“I took a shower and then I just escaped,” Michael said. “I didn’t have anything, just a sweat suit.”

Along with four of their teammates, Bekele and Michael simply walked out of the hotel and were driven away.

Next came four other Ethiopian players who, along with the first group of six, ultimately went to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to seek political asylum.

Michael, who like Bekele decided that he would not return to Ethiopia while in Egypt, did not even have time to inform his parents.

Bekele, Michael and the eight other players eventually were granted political asylum and came to the United States. All of them have maintained contact and they are reunited annually at a weeklong Ethiopian soccer tournament that takes place in a different U. S. city each summer.

Three other players who left in a separate car that night in Cairo were not as fortunate.

“Three guys didn’t know where to go and they went to the police station (in Cairo),” Michael said. “They (the police) took them to the Ethiopian Embassy, and they deported them.”

To be granted political asylum, Bekele, Michael and the others had to go through a series of interviews to determine the type of political situation they faced in Ethiopia.

“They wanted to make sure we had a problem back home, political problems,” Bekele said, “We were lucky, (the process) only took six months. Some people have to wait five or six years” to be granted political asylum.

Once the paper work was completed and sponsors were arranged for each person through the United Nations, all 10 players flew to the United States in December, 1987, with Bekele going to Las Vegas and Michael to Los Angeles.

The transition to American society and culture was not difficult, they said.

“The whole thing is different and . . . new, but I had heard about it and I was ready for that,” Bekele said.

According to Bekele and Michael, there is a considerable Ethiopian population in the United States and it was through an acquaintance that the two were contacted by Salah Yousif, a professor at Alabama A&M; who also coaches the school’s soccer team.

Bekele and Michael enrolled at Alabama A&M; in 1988 but had to sit out the soccer season because they had never taken Scholastic Aptitude entry tests.

The two helped Alabama A&M; to a 15-5 record in 1989 but decided to leave Normal, Ala., for Los Angeles soon after.

Said Bekele, who, like Michael, was a reserve at Alabama A&M;: “(Alabama A&M;) was a good place to go to school but we had a problem with the coaching staff.”

At Northridge, Bekele, an electrical engineering major, and Michael, a physical therapy major, are enjoying the life of college students while at the same time contributing to the CSUN soccer program.

Neither has any regrets about leaving Ethiopia. They say it was a move of necessity.

“We couldn’t go back there,” Michael said.

But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t like to return, at least to visit their families.

“I would like to go back home,” Michael said. “I would like to help my family and my people.”

With the ouster of the Mengistu government by a rebel insurgency, the two are waiting and hoping.

And so is Ass’ad, whose Matadors are trying to reach the Division I playoffs for the first time.

He might want to visit the park more often.