Birds of a feather - Mugabe and Mengistu
An Ethiopian court yesterday found exiled former Marxist ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam (and 70 other high ranking suspects) guilty in absentia of genocide, ending a marathon 12-year trial. Mengistu is a pretty horrible individual - this from the International Herald Tribune:
Mengistu, 69, ruled Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991, which included some of the darkest days of the country’s history, when government soldiers rounded up tens of thousands of students and intellectuals and brutally killed them in a campaign called the “Red Terror.” Human Rights Watch labeled it “one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed in Africa.”
Mengistu is thought to have killed many of the victims with his own hands, including Ethiopia’s last emperor, Haile Selassie, who was strangled in bed.
And this from the Washington Post:
In the 1977-78 “Red Terror” campaign, the most notorious of Mengistu’s purges, suspected opponents were executed by garrotting or shooting. Bodies were tossed into the streets.
[...]
According to the court ruling, Mengistu’s government directly killed more than 2,000 people, including 60 top officials, ministers and royal family members executed by firing squad. About 2,400 people were tortured, the court said.
Many, however, say this is the tip of an iceberg.
Witnesses told the court family members who went to morgues to collect bodies of loved ones were asked to pay for bullets that killed them. Gizaw Tefera said soldiers who killed his father cut his head off and offered it for auction at a market.
“No one wanted to buy my father’s head,” he said in 2000.
An Argentine forensic expert said some remains exhumed from mass graves showed victims were killed by garrotting.
“We found green nylon ropes knotted tight around their necks,” forensic expert Mercedes Doreth said in 2002.
Evidence at the trial included signed execution orders and videos of torture sessions.
Mengistu and his officials face sentencing on December 28. Ethiopia defines genocide as intent to wipe out political and not just ethnic groups.
Mengistu is also held partly responsible for the Ethiopian famine in 1984-85 that claimed one million lives:
For months before the scale of the famine became known, President Mengistu denied its existence and flew in planeloads of whisky to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the revolution. Via The Times
And where is this awful man? He’s living it up in Zimbabwe, a ‘guest’ of Robert Mugabe. The Zimbabwean government have said today that they will not extradite him, so Mengistu will not be held accountable for his crimes. Besides, he seems to be making himself useful to the government. In an article we wrote earlier this year we pointed out something few people are aware of:
When General Halle Miriam Menghistu, who had imposed a brutal form of dictatorship on Ethiopia and been directly responsible for starving many of his citizens to death, needed a place of asylum to escape justice in his own country Mugabe was quick to provide it. What is less well known is that he arranged for Menghistu to become a consultant to the CIO [Central Intelligance Organisation]. No doubt the former dictator found the income useful and the CIO could benefit from his wide experience in suppressing dissent.
Let’s all say it together now - 1, 2, 3 … ‘Birds of a feather flock together’, and ‘leopards don’t change their spots’.
UPDATE:
I almost can’t belive my eyes at the title of this just spotted IOL article: Zimbabwe hails Mengistu’s role in liberation.
And the words of praise:
“As a comrade of our struggle, Comrade Mengistu and his government played a key and commendable role during our struggle for independence and no one can dispute that,” William Nhara, a spokesperson for President Robert Mugabe’s government, said.
“The judgment is an Ethiopian judgment and will not affect his status in Zimbabwe. As far as we know there is no extradiction treaty between Harare and Addis Ababa.”
How shameful of the Zimbabwean government to miss the real point of the issue - by that I mean the tens of thousands killed. As if what Mengistu did during the liberation struggle wipes clean the slate of his crimes against humanity. Erm… no…!
December 13th, 2006 16:08
Shocking and disturbing!!
December 13th, 2006 18:42
Lets sing together one more time — ‘their days are numbered.’ Would it not be the best if they garrotted each other before we got hold of them - for hell hath no fury like a grieving widow - it burns like a furnace - it seeks to engulf its on. Watch the space ………!
March 18th, 2007 14:59
Have no time to comment just now, but please keep in touch. I have worked as a teacher in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe and have much to say about the relationship between the two dictators and the british role in zimbabwe
May 29th, 2007 11:12
When Zimbabwe obtained its independence, the legendary Bob Marley performed a celebratory concert in that country for the liberated people. As a devout Rastafarian, Bob Marley always cited the Christian example and righteous words of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. How tragically ironic that the dictator of Zimbabwe - Robert Mugabe - now harbors Mengistu, the godless communist murderer of the great Haile Selassie. And do not forget that Fidel Castro supplied Mengistu with thousands of Cuban troops to assist him in his reign of “red terror.” But as evil and hideous as all of this is, God and righteousness will always prevail. Millions around the world listen to the spiritual music of the legendary Bob Marley. And Millions of Rastafarians worldwide continue to extol the virtue and the wisdom of Emperor Haile Selassie I. So Mugabe and Mengistu are only modern manifestations of Pharoah and Herod, while Haile Selassie and Bob Marley will be perpetually honored for their righteousness, virtue, and Chrisit-like consciousness. ONE LOVE! -Ras Judah-
June 24th, 2007 01:39
I completely agree with Ras Judah.
Mugabe and Mengistu are just minor temporary barbarians. In time, they will be gone. Who will care in 200 years what they did? The world will have new problems then. The things that will live on? One love, the music of Bob Marley and the teachings of the great Haile Selassie