Mengistu found guilty of genocide

ADDIS ABABA – Mengistu Haile Mariam, the Ethiopian dictator who directed the ‘Red Terror’ against supposed enemies of his Soviet-backed regime, was convicted of genocide in a rare case of an African strongman being called to account by his own country.

Mengistu has been living in exile in Zimbabwe since 1992 and was convicted in absentia after a 12-year trial. He could face the death penalty at his December 28 sentencing, but Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said he won’t deport Mengistu if he refrains from making political statements or comments to the press.The trial focused on Mengistu’s alleged involvement in the killing of nearly 2 000 people during a 1977-78 campaign known as the Red Terror.A panel of judges, sitting before a packed courtroom, convicted him Tuesday of instigating genocide, committing genocide, illegal imprisonment and abuse of power.Mengistu, sometimes called “the butcher of Addis Ababa,” ruled from 1974 to 1991 after his military junta ended Emperor Haile Selassie’s reign in a bloody coup.Some experts say 150 000 university students, intellectuals and politicians were killed in a nationwide purge by Mengistu’s Marxist regime, though no one knows for sure.”I am very happy he has been found guilty,” said Tadesse Mamo, 32, a businessman in the capital.”He killed so many of our intellectuals and our youth, most notably our emperor.”The emperor’s cousin, Mulugeta Aserate, 55, said Mengistu’s men came to his family’s home in June 1974 and took his father away.He was a young boy at the time, and never saw his father again.”They told us that they were taking him to an interview, but I found out later he was summarily executed with 60 others,” Mulugeta told The Associated Press.When deposed in 1991 by rebels led by Meles Zenawi, now Ethiopia’s prime minister, Mengistu fled to Mugabe’s authoritarian regime in Zimbabwe, where his army had helped train guerrillas in their struggle for independence from white rule.The asylum was brokered by the United States and Canada to end the Ethiopian civil war as quickly as possible.Mengistu has been seen in public in Zimbabwe only twice since 1992, once in a restaurant and then browsing in a bookshop.In 1998, he told The Associated Press over the telephone in a rare interview that he was a “political refugee” who spent most of his time “staying at home and reading and writing something about my country.”Nampa-APHe could face the death penalty at his December 28 sentencing, but Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said he won’t deport Mengistu if he refrains from making political statements or comments to the press.The trial focused on Mengistu’s alleged involvement in the killing of nearly 2 000 people during a 1977-78 campaign known as the Red Terror.A panel of judges, sitting before a packed courtroom, convicted him Tuesday of instigating genocide, committing genocide, illegal imprisonment and abuse of power.Mengistu, sometimes called “the butcher of Addis Ababa,” ruled from 1974 to 1991 after his military junta ended Emperor Haile Selassie’s reign in a bloody coup.Some experts say 150 000 university students, intellectuals and politicians were killed in a nationwide purge by Mengistu’s Marxist regime, though no one knows for sure.”I am very happy he has been found guilty,” said Tadesse Mamo, 32, a businessman in the capital.”He killed so many of our intellectuals and our youth, most notably our emperor.”The emperor’s cousin, Mulugeta Aserate, 55, said Mengistu’s men came to his family’s home in June 1974 and took his father away.He was a young boy at the time, and never saw his father again.”They told us that they were taking him to an interview, but I found out later he was summarily executed with 60 others,” Mulugeta told The Associated Press.When deposed in 1991 by rebels led by Meles Zenawi, now Ethiopia’s prime minister, Mengistu fled to Mugabe’s authoritarian regime in Zimbabwe, where his army had helped train guerrillas in their struggle for independence from white rule.The asylum was brokered by the United States and Canada to end the Ethiopian civil war as quickly as possible.Mengistu has been seen in public in Zimbabwe only twice since 1992, once in a restaurant and then browsing in a bookshop.In 1998, he told The Associated Press over the telephone in a rare interview that he was a “political refugee” who spent most of his time “staying at home and reading and writing something about my country.”Nampa-AP