Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, who was sentenced to death this week on charges of genocide, will be ‘allowed to leave to a country of his choiceâ€, but will not be handed over to Ethiopian authorities if the Movement for Democratic Change comes into office, party secretary general Tendai Biti said this week.
Mengistu has lived in Harare as a guest of the Zimbabwean government ever since he was overthrown in 1991.
Mengistu is believed to have played a role in the 2006 Murambatsvina clean-up operation after he told Mugabe that the slums in and around Harare were fertile ground for a potential uprising led by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Media reports from that period allege that he told Mugabe to launch a pre-emptive attack on the opposition’s strongholds by destroying the unplanned structures that were a common feature of Zimbabwe’s urban landscape: ‘His idea was that reducing the urban population through such an [operation] would greatly diminish the chances of an uprising,†an intelligence officer told Zimonline in 2006.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian following this week’s judgement by Ethiopia’s supreme court, Biti said ‘Mengistu has no business being in Zimbabweâ€. But, he added, his party does not believe in capital punishment and will therefore not hand Mengistu over to a country in which he could face execution.
‘We wouldn’t hand him over to the Ethiopian authorities. We are not duty-bound to do that — but he can’t stay in Zimbabwe.â€
Mengistu has lived in comfort in Harare’s northern suburb of Gunhill where he enjoys 24-hour VIP protection at Zimbabwe’s taxpayers’ expense.
He owns two farms, one in Mazoe, a prime farming area, and has a fleet of vehicles including a Mercedes-Benz, a BMW and a Toyota Prado, which are serviced by the state at no cost to him.
Soon after Mengistu overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, tens of thousands of people were killed in a period known as the Red Terror.
Thousands of opponents disappeared, others were tortured and killed and buried in mass graves.
Mengistu’s 12-year trial was concluded in 2006 when he was found guilty of genocide in absentia, as Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe refused to hand him over.
He and his senior aides were sentenced to life in prison on charges of genocide.
That sentence was overturned this week by the Ethiopian Supreme Court, changing it to a death sentence.