An Ethiopian court has found the former President of Ethiopia, Mengistu Haile Mariam, guilty of genocide (albeit in absentia), after a trial lasting twelve years.
If you know anything about him, then this can only be good news. The man was a nasty scourge on Africa in the 1980s and that is being polite.
He came to power in Ethiopia in 1974, after overthrowing the Emperor, Haile Selassie, after he failed to come to grips with a poor harvest. It's believed that he had Selassie quietly executed the following year.
The havest escalated into a famine, which by 1984 reached holocaust proportions. In the meantime, Mengistu started a campaign of terror against his opponents. Bodies were left dumped on the streets and video tapes were made of opponents being tortured. During the Ethiopian famine of 1984, Mengistu denied that the famine was ravaging the country, and UN Aid workers stated that the President was using planes to send in whisky in order to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the revolution. In a documentary on Live Aid some years back, it was said that when Bob Geldof met Mengistu in early 1985, he called him a c**t to his face. I personally hate that swear word but in this case I don't think it even covers the contempt that Mengistu has natrually generated.
And where is our old friend now? Well living in exile in Zimbabwe wouldn't you know! Surprise, surprise!
3 comments:
There is an excellent Ethiopian Portal website that you might be interested in:
http://www.EthioPortal.com
Check it out. I really love this website.
Cheers,
While our PM and the US President are wondering about which country to attack next to remove brutal dictators, Zimbabwe should be top of the list
True. The trouble is, where do you go with this. Just about every continent has them!
Post a Comment