The Zimbabwe government on Tuesday said it would discuss the case of former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam with Addis Ababa only, rejecting calls by the opposition and civic groups to hand him back to his country for trial.
Mengistu, who has lived in exile in Zimbabwe since fleeing an armed rebellion that ended his rule in 1991, is wanted in Ethiopia to stand trial for his infamous “Red Terror” campaign in which tens of thousands of opponents of his “Dergue” regime were slaughtered in the 1970s and 1980s.
Zimbabwe has refused past requests by the Ethiopian government to hand over Mengistu for trial.
Minister of Information and government spokesperson Tichaona Jokonya told ZimOnline: “We have an embassy of Ethiopia here … we will respond when the embassy raises it [Mengistu’s extradition].”
Jokonya spoke after the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) civic alliance on Tuesday urged President Robert Mugabe to follow the example of Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo — who handed over former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor for trial — by extraditing Mengistu to Ethiopia.
Obasanjo had resisted calls to surrender Taylor but had said he would give up the dictator and warmonger if an elected Liberian government requested him to do so.
The Nigerian leader kept his word when Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf asked for Taylor, even though Taylor was able to briefly escape from his Nigerian guards before being recaptured.
But Jokonya notably did not say whether Harare would react any differently were Addis Ababa to a make fresh request for Mengistu. The information minister, however, appeared to unwittingly suggest increasing exasperation in government circles at opposition and civic leaders who never miss an opportunity to call for Mengistu’s extradition.
Jokonya said: “We are disturbed by a group of individuals calling themselves democrats trying to usurp the mandates of foreign governments.”
ZimOnline was unable to immediately get comment on the matter from the Ethiopian embassy in Harare.
In a statement the NCA, a coalition of pro-democracy civic organisations in Zimbabwe, said it was unacceptable for the government to use taxpayers’ money to host Mengistu, adding that after the example set by Nigeria the only honourable option left for Harare was to hand over the former Ethiopian ruler.
The civic alliance said: “We believe the only honourable thing to do is to send Mengistu back home … we cannot have [the reputation of] the whole nation tarnished by continuing to keep him here.
“NCA does not mean to say he is guilty or not, but whatever the case is, Ethiopia is the place where Mengistu belongs and he has to first answer the charges that are being levelled against him.”
Speaking separately, the spokesperson of the main faction of the MDC, Nelson Chamisa, said Mengistu should be taken back to Ethiopia not only so he could face trial for human rights abuses there, but also to stop him from imparting some of his crude methods to Mugabe and his government.
“What Nigeria did to Taylor is what Zimbabwe should do to Mengistu,” said Chamisa.
He added: “What is even disturbing [in Zimbabwe’s case] is the fact that he [Mengistu] is the mastermind of Operation Murambatsvina which displaced millions of Zimbabweans.”
Chamisa was referring to information unearthed by ZimOnline last February that the former exiled Ethiopian dictator was the brains behind the brutal urban clean-up campaign last year that left close to a million people homeless after the government demolished shantytown homes and informal business kiosks.
Mengistu, who is said to work as a security consultant to Mugabe, advised the president to pre-empt a possible mass revolt by depopulating opposition-supporting urban areas through the controversial slum-clearing exercise. — ZimOnline.