Mengistu Haile Mariam sentenced to death by an Ethiopian court
May 26th, 2008
Zimbabweans and freedom lovers around the world will not be the only people watching the Presidential run-off scheduled for next month with concern and their hearts in their mouths.
Mengistu Haile Mariam, former ruler of Ethiopia, has a vested interest in Zanu PF staying in power; he was sentenced to death today, by a Ethiopian court. Responsible for the deaths of thousands of Ethiopians, Mengistu Haile Mariam has avoided prosecution because he fled to Zimbabwe and enjoyed the protection of Robert Mugabe and the Zanu PF government.
This from Wikipedia:
Col. Mengistu gave a dramatic send-off to his campaign of terror. He shouted “Death to counterrevolutionaries! Death to the EPRP!” and then produced two bottles of what appeared to be blood and smashed them to the ground to show what the revolution would do to its enemies. Thousands of young men and women turned up dead in the streets of the capital and other cities in the following two years. They were systematically murdered mainly by militia attached to the “Kebeles,” the neighborhood watch committees which served during Mengistu’s reign as the lowest level local government and security surveillance units. Families had to pay the Kebeles a tax known as “the wasted bullet” to obtain the bodies of their loved ones. In May of 1977 the Swedish general secretary of the Save the Children Fund stated that “1,000 children have been killed, and their bodies are left in the streets and are being eaten by wild hyenas . . . You can see the heaped-up bodies of murdered children, most of them aged eleven to thirteen, lying in the gutter, as you drive out of Addis Ababa.” Mengistu Haile Mariam is alleged to be responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Ethiopians between 1975-1978.
There was a time when he probably thought his future was secure and that he had dodged accountability for his crimes; when Zanu PF looked rock-solid and his friend Robert a guarantor for a long and happy life, albeit exiled from his home country.
I wonder where he can go instead and at what point he’ll decide to jump ship rather than risk a possible future under an MDC president? How many other dubious leaders are there currently in the world who care enough about Mengistu Haile Mariam – a man who was last in leadership 17 long years ago – to give him a safe haven?
I think the moral for all wannabe dictators watching these stories unfold is that there is no way to be sure – EVER – that a dictator will not be held accountable for crimes against humanity. Today’s safe-haven for despots could be tomorrow’s liberation story. And where does that leave the despot then?
Ethiopia’s supreme court on Monday sentenced to death former Marxist ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam, granting a prosecution appeal that argued a life sentence he was given for genocide was unequal to his crimes.
But Mengistu, who has lived a life of comfortable exile in Zimbabwe since he was driven from power in 1991, is unlikely to face punishment unless Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe loses a run-off election next month.
“Considering the prosecution’s appeal that a life sentence was not commensurate to the crimes committed by the Mengistu regime, the court decided to sentence him to death,” the court said in its ruling.
The prosecution in July appealed the life sentence handed to Mengistu in January 2007, when he was found guilty of genocide in absentia for the thousands of people killed during his 17-year reign. (via Reuters)
May 26th, 2008 17:26
I love it! We should all email Ethiopian websites and activists around the world and point out that their pursuit for justice is linked to Zimbabwe’s fight for freedom.
I think we should suggest that they do what they can to help Zimbabweans in their struggle.
I love it when good triumphs over evil. I hope that man is trembling in his bed at night. If I were him I would hand myself over to The Hague because at least they don’t stretch necks.
May 26th, 2008 20:16
Justice is at last served. the hundreds of innocent lives lost by the fascist have been compensated
May 26th, 2008 21:45
Tomorow it will be for Meles(Leges) Zenawi.
because everthings gose step by step.Dictators are dictators.
May 26th, 2008 22:01
Mengistu murdered my family, threw me in jail, confiscated my property, and exiled me from the nation I love. But what you people in Zimbabwe do not understnad, as disgusting as he is, that he is an Ethiopian. The man that needs to be shot is, Meles Zenawi, the imposter hater, who divided our nation, into ethnic bantustans, and celebrated the secession of his native Eritrea. He steals everything that he can lay his hands on, and plunged our nation into a surrogate war in Somalia. In short, the overwhelming majority of Ethiopians despise him, he is nothing but a modern day minority black Afrikaner, who is torturing the majority day and night.
May 26th, 2008 22:28
Justice, pure and simple. Well, it’s been two in a row, wonder who the 3rd will be?
May 26th, 2008 22:39
I am an ethiopian and would like to tell you that your assumption about Mengistu’s sentencing being a fulfillment of justice for Ethiopians betray your ignorance of current African realities. The dream of Ethiopians like yours is a dream of democratic future, where there could be rule of law and respect for human rights! Not a retributive justice of dictators using the law to settle score on each other. Our current rulers are worse than Mengistu. So please do not frustrate solidarity of cause of Ethiopians with Zimbabwians by such uninformed view about Ethiopia.
May 26th, 2008 23:25
I am sure Morgan Tsvangirai will not pass Mengistu to the other Mengistus. The current Ethiopian government itself is not clean from crimes, divisive politics and bloodshed and they do not have independent court that will determine any political cases. I am not saying Mengistu is innocent. I am saying this is not a judgement by an independent court. Furthermore, Mengistu helped not Mugabe, but Zimbabeweans.
May 27th, 2008 00:03
the current leader in ethiopia named Meles zenawi killed atleast 500,000 Ethiopians. he killed atleast 1,000 more ethiopians than mengistu killed but the meles zenawi controlled court is trying to hide the current genocide by dramatizing past crimes by mengistu. MDC is too smart and it will never handover small hitler (mengistu) to big hitler (meles zenawi)
May 27th, 2008 00:13
It is easy to see from the comments written by some Ethiopians that those who excuse or oppose extrdition of Mengistu, one of the most vile dictators of Africa is telling that those who were linchpins and torturers are freely roaming all over the world and still spewing their hate.
Ethiopia has moved on since the dark days of the “Red Terror” of Mengistu Hailemaria. Those were the days when children were exucuted and strewen in the streets of cities and towns to scare their brothers and sisters and the people in general to submission.Those were the days when parents were to pay money to the government for the price of the buletts used to exicute their children. Those were the days when young boys and girls exicuted by the government were not allowed to be burried and they rotted on the streets and some times they were eatten by animals as the testimony of Save the Children confirms. How can any one condone these crimes against humanity unless they were party in the commision of the crime?
What is happening in Zimbabwe by the senile cotogenerian dictator with the mentorship of another well known and convicted brute dictator Mengistu Hailemariamis hear renching to watch. It is reawkening of the pain and nightmare situation we in Ethiopia went throgh during the days of Mengistu.
May all the democrats and peace loving people of Zimbabwe triumph over the evil subjugation of Mugabe and his mentor Menistu the blood sucker.
May 27th, 2008 00:38
Too many Ethiopians are either delusional or plain moronic, to allow their political bias to distort realities of the past. There is no comparing between the murderous Derg led by Mengistu and our current government on God’s earth. I think is utter lunacy, and great disrespect to the thousands of victims that were brutally murdered by the Derg. JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED AT LAST. PLEASE DO NOT POLITICIZE THIS
May 27th, 2008 00:58
Hi everyone
Ive just seen an article that the zimbabwe thugs are taking the villager’s I.D’s.
Surely this has to be stopped. Instilling so much fear in people. If they dont vote for zanu pf they will be hunted down, if they dont vote all together they will still be hunted down, or their names will be used for rigging purposes.
This is not fair, how can this be a free and fair election.
Anyone with suggestions.
May 27th, 2008 04:47
I think what ever happenned it have happenned.the best way for our country is to forgive & look unto the future of our country.there is nothing that our country can benefit by excuting these old guys.in my own opinion,I think that we must forgive each other & go forward with the flourishing development & democratization endeavors.
May 27th, 2008 08:57
Finally justice is done to the tens of thousands of Ethiopians murdered by one of the most savage and vicious man of the 20th century.
May 27th, 2008 09:06
Dear Visitors of this website.
Do not be mislead by the foul cry against PM Meles. What he has done and is trying to do for the country is open and clear to the whole world. Wonderful achievements! Mistakes here and there? Of course, who does not have them?
The criers may be the hands of Mengistu and his leutenants who were overlooked in order to focus on the architects of the Red Terror or who had escaped to criminals’ safe havens.
FS
May 27th, 2008 09:43
Mugabe i hope you are reading this.You are the next whether you like it or not time is ticking away you will go down with your pal Mengistu.Viva Justice! 27 June is very bad day for you because 28 is the day of reckoning and you know what 28 stands for.
May 27th, 2008 10:13
@Yele
Mengistu Haile Mariam is living a wonderful and protected life in Zimbabwe.
If Morgan Tsvangirai is serious in his intention to reform the rule of law and the democratic processes inside the new Zimbabwe, I challenge him to announce immediately his intention to sign up to the Rome Statutes relating to the prosecution and conviction of persons like this. It will also convince his people that he is happy to be exposed to an international set of conventions that will hold him accountable for his treatment of his fellow countrymen.
May 27th, 2008 10:33
Aklog
It is clear that mengistu should be asked for what had been doing during his power. The question is who is now asking him? does the ethiopial high court independantly come to this jugment? I do not think. It is the influence of current government. So in near future both the judges and the the cheif goverment(Meles and Bereket)will be asked
May 27th, 2008 11:11
Ethiopians long believed that no tyrant would be worse than Mengistu when they grudgegly gave the benfit of the doubt of the present Woyane/TPLF despotic regime led by Meles Zenawi.It was a rude/nightmarish awaking. Not only a crueal andtribalist junta but a vengful anti Ethiopia entity whih instituted a bantustan tribalist state sturcture. No Ethiopian except its own followers and opportunist elements pay any attention to this farce. It is like Hitler condemning Stalin and vise versa. Meles Zenawi and his party are worse enmies to the Nation of Ethiopia as Mensgistu was to his political opponents. Two wrongs does not make one rRIGHT. wHEN THE RULE OF LAW PREVAILS, JUSTICE WILL BE RENDERD. UNTIL THEN THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.
May 27th, 2008 15:15
The next one who will be sentenced a death penality is Meles Zenawi and his gangster TPLF members that has killed, abused, and harassed many civilians for the last 18 years. Mengistu was only a dectator that was killing his opponents however meles and his gangsters are a dictators that are killing innocents and that has no respect and love for their country either. Meles has given Eritrea along with Asseb with no hesitation and now he is giving our land to Sudan with no hesitation. Time will reveal, May God Bring these meles and his TPLF gangsters to justice and show us their death sentence which is the minimum they pay for the crimes they have done. Hope God will show the Ethiopian people as it did fro mengistu.
May 28th, 2008 09:29
The Pol-Pot of Africa has received his commeuppence. This is a good day for Ethiopian justice. Those who oppose this sentence are his henchmen who have found refuge in the very countries they themselves were condeming along with Mengistu during their bloody years in power.
Our joy over the sentence is doubled by the fact that the Ethiopia that Mengistu had left to die anexcruciating death has now picked up her peaces and is in the midst of an economic transformation. Any attempt by the international network of former “kakitocrats” – former kaki-uniformed Mengistu’s henchmen – to equate our democrat Meles with their Herod is as futile an excercise as trying to square a circle.
Ethiopians have now clinched their hope on an MDC win in Zimbabwe’s election rerun to secure the return to Ethiopia of the man who has out-Herod-Herod in his killing spree.
The blood of tens of thousands of Africans is crying out “Come-on ZIMBAWE,ZIMBABWE!”
May 28th, 2008 11:12
Mengistu H.Mariam was one the worst humanbeings who appears in the Ethiopian lomg history. The trajedy of our beloved country and its downtrodden masses is it went from the frying pan to the fire by the nest usurper of state power namely Weyane/TPLF.The trial of these fascists for the last 17 yrs and now death sentence is a political drama orchastrated to hoodwink the international community and the gulliable local audience. Weyane/TPLF has mastered the art of deception and diversionary tactics by always picking a joker from its political deck of cards. How one squrae the very regime who throw his democraticaly elected party leaders,members of the freemedia and leaders of civic org.to jail and charged the for treason and genocide a fewyears ago and aplauad this verdict by this criminal and despotic regim? Mengistu and the dergue era war crimnals are at large because of the continuation of injustice by woyne/TPLF regime. JUSTICE IN THE ABSENCE OF RULE OF LAW IS A FARCE.
Weyane invade other country(somalia) and claims, its for Ethiopian territorial and national security, while at the same time surrender or cede Ethiopian land to Sudan. For Woyene/TPLF everthing is for SELL, for political ppower.
The struggle will continue until we libertae our country!!
May 28th, 2008 11:17
Ya justice should always prevail.i think the current ethiopian government has send another signal to the bunch of dictators around the world including our geriatic Mugabe
May 28th, 2008 15:54
Ethiopians have withstood tremendous social and political upheavals in the last fifty years. They survived numerous devastating famines, rabid military regimes as well as the onslaughts of Arab countries. In the guise of liberating the country from the vice like clutches of the brutal military regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam, mistakes were made in 1991 by allowing a subversive rebel leader, Meles Zenawi to lead the country into the ground, and who also seems bent on surrendering away Ethiopian territories to neigbouring countries. His idea of democracy is highly questionable. But Mengistu, who has led a life of luxury and protection under Mugabe, has now been finally sentenced to death on appeal for the untold political killings and crimes against humanity for which he was responsible. He should be extradited at the earlist opportunity to face his punishment. He has killed for his country in abundance, now let him die for it.
May 28th, 2008 19:16
New post on the arrest of Bemba appeared on the site URL below.
Text included in this post if link fails.
http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/i/1105/05-25-2008/20080525042009_08.html
Jean-Pierre Bemba, who fled to Europe in 2007, was taken into custody at his home in a suburb of the Belgian capital late Saturday, one day after the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant, court spokeswoman Sonia Robla said.
Bemba, who is about 45, is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as head of a militia that allegedly committed atrocities in Central African Republic’s conflict in 2002-2003, the court said.
He was to appear shortly before a Belgian judge, the first step of the process to bring him to The Hague that was likely to take more than a week, Robla said.
It was the first arrest in an investigation opened last year, following a request by the Central African Republic in 2004 to the court to look into allegations of mass rape and other crimes during the conflict, including by Congolese rebels under Bemba’s control. The court’s preliminary investigation uncovered widespread killings and a huge number of sexual violence cases.
Bemba had full authority for all political and military decisions by his militia, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, the court said. Others shared responsibility, it said, indicating that more indictments were possible.
“There are no excuses for hundreds of rapes,” Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in a statement. “There are no excuses for the rape of a little girl, with her parents watching. There are no excuses for commanders ordering, authorizing or acquiescing to the commission of rapes and looting by their forces.”
Central African Republic has suffered decades of army revolts, coups and rebellions since it gained independence from France in 1960. Poor and landlocked, the nation of 3.6 million is governed by President Francois Bozize.
Various fighting forces were inside the country when Bozize attacked and captured the capital in 2003 while ex-President Ange-Felix Patasse traveled overseas. They included Bemba’s Congolese rebels.
Although the case grew out of the African government’s allegations against Patasse and his commanders, the court is not limited to investigating just one side of the conflict.
Moreno-Ocampo’s office presented evidence against Bemba to the U.N. panel of judges on May 16, charging him with six counts of rape, torture, pillaging and outrages against personal dignity.
An arrest warrant was hastily issued on Friday after court officials learned
May 28th, 2008 19:30
Comrades, Colleagues and supporters of Freedom.
It appears that the international community is getting to grips with the outstanding allegations against the African despots and criminals who have lived in style and with impunity for the last 20 years.
I hope candidates for this treatment will start considering their options over the next few weeks. !!!!
January 5th, 2009 13:09
hello sir i am one of the 46th cadet officeres from harar.how are you doing at all?i just waana say as long as i know you did not do any thing wrong while you were in power.i wish if i have a chance to hear from you.
all the best.