Mengistu's defence of Red Terror opens
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Your support makes all the difference.Nine years into the trial of former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and his regime, defence lawyers finally opened their defence yesterday against the 209 charges of crimes against humanity during what was called the Red Terror in the late 1970s.
The trial of Mengistu and 69 of his aides has become a lesson in the challenges of resurrecting a local justice system to prosecute crimes committed by a former dictator and his government, and how local courts can't always cope.
While no one knows for sure how many people Mengistu's Marxist regime, which ruled between 1974 and 1991, killed during the purge of suspected opponents, experts estimate the number to be 150,000. Human Rights Watch called the Red Terror "one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed".
Rebels, led by Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minister, seized power in 1991, and Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe. The government then began planning trials, which started in December 1994 and were hailed as "Africa's Nuremberg". Mengistu is being tried in absentia. But the courts are inefficient - 1,017 people have been convicted, 6,426 are awaiting trial and more than 3,000, like Mr Mengistu, live in exile. The Information Minister, Bereket Simon, said: "Given our inefficiency in the judicial system... we need to overhaul it." The trial is expected to last several more years.
* The UN refugee agency has evacuated staff from western Ethiopia and hospitals in the area have been overwhelmed after violence left 30 people dead over the weekend. Attacks on aid workers were related to a dispute over land chosen by the government for 87,000 Sudanese refugees. Residents of the area have repeatedly rejected plans to build a fifth refugee camp.
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