MENGISTU HAILEMARIAM: NO SAFE PLACE FOR DICTATORS - FOUND GUILTY OF GENOCIDE

By Tecola W. Hagos

EDITORIAL:

Finally, Mengistu Hailemariam, the little fraction of a man with enormous appetite for murder and mayhem, was found guilty of genocide, crime against humanity, murder, abuse of power et cetera on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 in a trial held in Addis Ababa fifteen years after Mengistu run away, abandoning his bloody government, in 1991 in fear of the EPRDF forces on his heels. Mengistu Hailemariam, ended up in Zimbabwe in1992, and has been living in the suburb of Harare for the last fifteen years under the protection of President Robert Mugabi of Zimbabwe , another brutal African dictator. As a commentary on Mengistu�s personality, the Ethiopian Government Prosecutor should have added a charge of abandonment of governmental authority and cowardice to the many charges he brought against Mengistu!

Mengistu Hailemariam, also known widely among Ethiopians as the �Butcher of Addis Ababa,� over a period of seventeen years in power, had committed genocide, crime against humanity, murders, torture and illegal detentions, et cetera on biblical scale. His government was known for its corruption and human rights violations the world over. Based on uncontestable well documented facts, several international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, Africa Watch, et cetera had reported the murder, torture, and/or long detention of millions of Ethiopians through out the time Mengistu and his associates were in power. The human rights activist Alex de Waal [Evil Days: Thirty years of war and famine in Ethiopia, New York: Human Rights Watch, (1991)] puts the number of Ethiopians who were either murdered or died of famine (due to government failed economic policy that is directly the workings of Mengistu Hailemariam and his associates and collaborators) over half a million. Others put the number of Ethiopians who died of famine alone during Mengistu�s disastrous and violent reign well over a million.

Although Mengistu Hailemariam tried to project himself in speeches as a fearless leader, at the end he proved to be a common criminal and a coward just like all brutal dictators and ended up abandoning his associates in crime and his government trying to save his own miserable blood socked life from the vengeful wrath of the people of Ethiopia whom he violently abused, murdered and tortured through out his nightmarish rule of seventeen years of tear and blood. It is a fact that Ethiopians have suffered from prolonged and relentless system of government and social abuse. In that process of very many centuries, Ethiopians have increasingly become despondent and lethargic ever caught in a downward spiral of poverty and ignorance. It will require profound and revolutionary change of both individual and political relationships and a new perspective about the role of leaders in order for Ethiopians to survive as a people and a nation.

Ethiopia as a nation, and Ethiopian citizens individually and as a community suffered greatly during Mengistu�s reign of terror. The �Red Terror� was officially started as a political program by Mengistu and Meison (POMOA) in September of 1976, specially targeting members of the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party (EPRP), the remnants of the Ethiopian Aristocracy and their supporters, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary Ethiopians accused of �anti revolutionary� sentiments. The �Red Terror� program actually was incubated by Meison a year earlier in 1975 just before they decided to work with the Derg in an effort to counter the infiltration of EPRP of the leadership of the Derg, which they feared would destroy their ambition to lead Ethiopia using the Ethiopian military forces as their tool. Thus they embraced Mengistu and gambled their political future with a viper that ultimately destroyed them too.

The leaders of Meison targeted their rivals, the members of the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party (EPRP), exposing the members of the EPRP to the security forces of the Derg. POMOA, an organization was officially established in April of 1976, but was fully functional since 1975 as an unofficial body doing political mass mobilization and organization work. POMOA�s leadership and the majority of its members were all Meison members, including Haile Fida and Negede Gobeze and was an organization that terrorized and brutalized hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians throughout Ethiopia . The shameful cooperation of the leaders of Meison, such as Haile Fida, Negede Gobeze and several other members of that horrible organization, with Mengistu in the implementation of the �Red Terror� must never be forgotten nor forgiven or excused. To the utter shame of the current Ethiopian opposition movement, we find such disgusting Meison leaders such as Negede Gobeze in positions of leadership in the current �Opposition� organizations.

We find also Mengistu�s majordomo (domestic staff), the vicious Kassa Kebede in respected position with the �Opposition.� On reflection, the Opposition seems to have been manipulated and supported by both Mengistu and Mengistu�s former officials and beneficiaries from his corrupt economic system. One of the coordinators of such grand design behind the effort of the Opposition to replace the EPRDF and Meles Zenawi in particular by the Opposition was none other than Kassa Kebede. Many honorable and good intentioned Ethiopians with impeccable record of decency were suckered into the diabolical scheme of the invisible resurgence movement of Mengistu Hailemariam and his former officials and collaborators. Due to the violence and divisive leadership, and stupid government policy of Meles Zenawi, we have had in Ethiopia, for some time now, a fertile political ground whereby any opposition political seed sown or accidentally dropped, even corrupted ones like that of Mengistu and supporters, could germinate and grow into a formidable political plant. In fact, an acquaintance of mine, who seems to know his way around in the bafflingly intricate Ethiopian political labyrinth, has been telling me that Mengistu has a political comeback ambition. I have heard few deranged Ethiopians sighing with nostalgia and wishing for the leadership of Mengistu Hailemariam. What a shame!

Despite the fact that the Government of Meles Zenawi unduly delayed the trial and conviction of Mengistu Hailemariam and such other brutal men, Ethiopians that suffered as victims and the families of those murdered by Mengistu and collaborators would have some relief of their pain in the conviction of Mengistu Hailemariam. Just because the Government of Meles Zenawi and Meles Zenawi himself and his associates have committed similar atrocities (however considerably less in magnitude) as that of Mengistu and his government, it does not invalidate the present conviction of Mengistu Hailemariam. After all, lest we forget [as a group it seems we suffer such amnesia of our recent history], let me remind us all that Mengistu murdered Emperor Haile Selassie, Prime Ministers Aklilu Habtewold and Endalkatchew Mekonnen, and sixty other high government officials that comprised of great patriots of the Italian war. He murdered also the Patriarch of the Orthodox Ethiopian Church , unheard of crime in the long history of Ethiopia . In short, Mengistu�s brutal murder and violence did reach every Ethiopian family of what ever social statue and economic standing. The streets of Addis Ababa and the streets of very many other urban centers around the nation flowed with the blood of tens of thousands of innocent Ethiopians men and women, young and old. Thus, the trial and conviction of Mengistu Hailemariam is a landmark case, even if the trial was conducted in absentia. It sets good precedent and a clear warning to all would be dictators and the current ones included.

Being encouraged with such development, I dare suggest a new platform for Ethiopia . It is absolutely necessary to restart a new opposition movement free of leaders who have a history; Ethiopians should be especially free of all individuals who were in leadership position in Meison, Workers Party of Ethiopia, and the Government of Mengistu Hailemariam. This list of �untouchables� must include also leaders of the EPRP, former leaders of TPLF or EPRDF, and OLF, as well as all leaders of ethnic based political organizations.  It has become more and more obvious that Ethiopia is in great economic and social crisis. Nothing short of a total revaluation of everything Ethiopian would give us a chance at survival.

The type of poverty one encounters in Ethiopia is unheard of else where in the world. The moral and ethical crises facing Ethiopians is monumental. The paradox of our situation is such that of the entire crisis facing Ethiopia , the least difficult to overcome is the political leadership in the person of Meles Zenawi and his new power base of aradas and mahle safari associates. TPLF of old is dead and effectively neutered and what ever seems to be in existence is a shallow shell lined with a few corrupt apparatchiks worth not much. What is formidable is the underlying structure of the aradas and mahle safaris that may persist for the next fifteen years using the Ethiopian military as its great tool of oppression. We are definitely entering into a new era of untested political waters. Even if we succeed to change the current Ethiopian government, we will still be faced with monumental problems of poverty, ignorance, the utter breakdown of a moral social life, and ethnic division. Nevertheless, the conviction of Mengistu Hailemariam, the brutal dictator, will bring some closure to the lives of millions of Ethiopians, and in itself I consider it to be an omen in Ethiopia �s bleak future.

Tecola W. Hagos

December 13, 2006