Mengistu Haile Mariam

Mengistu Haile Mariam (born in 1937 with Walayata in Ethiopia) was Head of State of Ethiopia of 1977 with 1991. It incorporated the Armée quickly and was graduate military academy in 1966.

Mengistu took part in the inversion of the Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. The Famine in the province of Wollo, the advanced age of the Emperor, his bad information of the situation by the official buildings, combined with the claims of the students calling of the reforms and the economic crisis due to the embargo of OPEC on the oil of 1973, were right of the popularity of Selassie and contributed to the come to power of the Derg. The Emperor was assassinated the following year on the orders of Mengistu.

Leadership

In 1974, Mengistu belongs to the officers who reverse the emperor Haïlé Sélassié at the time of a coup d'etat fomented by Derg, revolutionary junta of Marxist type which seizes the power. After a terrible purging within Derg in 1976, Mengistu becomes Head of the State and uncontested leader of Derg in 1977.

Thus, Mengistu reached officially the presidency of the Ethiopia in 1977 after the execution of its two predecessors. Under its reign, Ethiopia accepted assistances of the Soviet Union, other States left with and the Warsaw Pact Cuba.

From 1976, the bloody purgings followed one another against the " against-révolutionnaires" supposed whereas the students were sent in the campaigns, weapons with the hand, to preach the fine words of the new mode. One spoke about red terror . Tens of thousands of people - of which thousands of children and teenagers - there lose the life under often atrocious conditions.

Of 1977 with 1978, the rebellion is repressed. Mengistu qualified the acts of guerillas carried out by its opponents of the revolutionary Parti the Ethiopian people (PRPE) of white terror campaign . The PRPE denounced the red policy of terror of Mengistu.

The countryside of Mengistu against the factions opposed to the government begin with a speech made on the Place from the revolution in the middle of Addis-Abeba. It includes Eritrean the secessionists groups (Liberation popular front of Érythrée and Front of release of Érythrée), the monarchists of the democratic Union of Ethiopia, the Front of release of the people of Striped the (FLPT) and the Front of Release of Somalia Occidentale (FLSO) in its fight against the PRPE. In answer to the guerilla, Mengistu granted to the forces anti-insurrection the right to carry out the arrest, with detentions like with the execution of the insurrectionists.

The military victories of the UDE with Begemder were reperdues when the party divided, whereas it was going to take the old capital Gondar. The army of the République of Somalia intervened to assist the FLSO in the area of the Ogaden and was about to capture Harrar and Dire Dawa when the allies of Somalia, the the USSR and Cuba, were turned over to take the defense of Ethiopia massively. Derg pushed back the Somali invasion and inflicted losses with the Eritrean secessionists and the FLPT. At the end of the Seventies, Mengistu was with the head of the second army of sub-Saharan Africa, including naval forces and air important.

After having eliminated its rivals within Derg and its enemies from the PRPE, Mengistu scrambled itself with the other Marxist independent group, the socialist Mouvement side-Ethiopic (MSPE), at the origin its ally. It feared, with reason, that its members testify to more honesty to their party and the Marxist ideology that in Derg and with itself. In 1978, Mengistu had eliminated any trace from opposition coming from the PRPE and the MSPE in three bloody purgings, the first aiming at the PRPE, the second the MSPE and the third the last disturbing elements of the two groups.

Communism and isolationism

Mengistu adopted philosophy Marxist-Leninist during the years 1970. The Marxism was then very popular in Africa and in a big part of the Tiers-monde among the nationalists and the revolutionists. With the beginning of the year 1980, Ethiopia adopted a constitution inspired of the Soviet constitution and saw the formation of the hard-working Parti Ethiopia. During this period, all the companies belonging to foreigners were nationalized without financial equalizations. The September 10th 1987, Mengistu became a civil president under the new constitution and the country took the popular name of Democratic republic of Ethiopia .

Its government faced many difficulties during the years 1980, of which floods, severe Famine S (in particular that of the years 1984 - 1985) and insurrections (in particular in the area of the Tigré and in Érythrée. The Mengistu government tries to camouflage the famine of 1984, in the north of the country, before making use of it to move of force of the thousands of villager in the areas of the south. Officially, to save them hunger. Actually, to empty the zones held by the rebellion. This relocalization would have made 100.000 victims, according to certain estimates. The dictator will be driven out capacity in 1991 by the revolutionary democratic Face of the Ethiopian people, of current the Meles Zenawi Prime Minister. Swiss association Trial (Swiss Association against impunity) recalls that “these 17 years of reign knew many violations of the human rights” like “the use of napalm and cluster bombs against the civilians in the rebellious areas and the recourse to the famines like weapon of war”.

In 1989, the Front of release of the people of Striped the amalgamated with another movement of opposition ethnist to form the revolutionary democratic Front of the Ethiopian people (PDRPE). In May 1991, the forces of the PDRPE went on Addis-Abeba.

The escape in Zimbabwe

On arrival of the rebellion in Addis Ababa in 1991, Mengistu flees with the Zimbabwe and obtains the political asylum in his/her friend Robert Mugabe of which it had supported the independence guerilla in Southern Rhodesia in the Seventies. He would be also holder of a Zimbabwean diplomatic passport. He is placed in a surprotégée villa of the district of Gunhill.

However Mengistu would have continued to act, by organizing a brutal eradication of the Bidonville S of the capital in May 2006, making 700.000 homeless people and 2,4 million people affected by this purging.

These last years several attempts of the Ethiopian government to make extradite Mengistu failed.

The lawsuit for genocide

The December 12th 2006, it is at the end twelve years of legal procedure that Ethiopian justice recognizes Mengistu Haïlé Mariam (absent), culprit of Génocide during the years of " terror rouge" , for reasons not only ethnic but such political, in fact for conspiracy in order to destroy a political group and to kill out of the individuals in all impunity by the installation of commandos of killers of which the goal is of " to decimate, torture and destroy groups of opponents to the régime".

December 28th, Mengistu is condemned, by Contumace, with a sorrow of life imprisonment.

As of the advertisement of its judgment, Zimbabwe reaffirmed that the authorities of the country would not deliver " the Mengistu" comrade; with Ethiopian justice.

Several former Ethiopian high ranking officials, having to answer of 211 criminal charges, were also condemned to died by Contumace by the High Federal court. All, except for one only, were recognized guilty of genocide. The instruction of the lawsuits concerning the posterior years with red terror, in particular for the bombardments of villages to the Napalm and forced displacements of country populations did not lead yet.

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