Ethiopia’s current ruler not any better than Mengistu

Publication Date: 6/2/2008

I refer to your question – “Where is justice?” – about the comfort the former Ethiopian dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, lives in Zimbabwe under the protection of another dictator Robert Mugabe (DN May 29, 2008). The question would have been more pertinent had you just mentioned in passing, the abuses the current Prime Minister, Mr Meles Zenawi, metes out on his own countrymen. Folks, have a look at this litany of docudrama-like piece of information that you decidedly left out in your editorial: The Ogaden region, which is predominately inhabited by Somalis, is undergoing according to international NGOs, an operation aimed at torching villages and hanging sympathisers of the local rebel group, Ogaden Liberation Front. Reports abound about villagers complaining about government troops killing young men, women, children. During Ethiopia’s 2005 general elections, police killed about 193 protesters when the government-manipulated electoral commission declared victory for Mr Zenawi’s ruling party. Opposition leaders, who claimed they had won the election outright, decided to stay away from their seats in parliament. Mr Zenawi’s regime arrested more than 100 opposition politicians and charged them with treason. They were only released when the international community pleaded for their release, after spending two years in jail. Ethiopian troops are being killed in Somalia almost every day by landmines, fighting or by Somali insurgent snipers. Imagine how many more are being injured. They could run into their hundreds. If sending innocent soldiers into a sure fire killing field for no good reason is not a crime, what is a crime? A large chunk of the country’s troops is fighting Eritrea, in a barren town called Badme. Thousands of soldiers from both sides were killed in the 1998-2000 useless war. If that is not a crime what is? Your editorial was really bereft of any comparison between the past, where Mengistu oppressed Ethiopians for opposing his rule, and the present, when a Western-backed Zenawi commits human atrocities against the same people who suffered under Mengistu and expected a change. In 1991, when Mr Zenawi’s ragtag militias drove out Mengistu from the capital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopians were made to believe that a new era had dawned for them. How wrong were they! About 17 years of Zenawi’s rule has produced no single free newspaper in Ethiopia and the opposition feels insecure as ever. The past of Mengistu has almost caught up with the present of Zenawi! Even, those in the know believe present abuses in Ethiopia eclipse, in terms of intensity and brutality, those of Mengistu, who employed old styles of punishment, like mainly secretly assassinating opponents. According to international NGOs, the government is starving residents in Ogaden, denies reporters access to the semi-arid region and shamefully claims that it is serving justice to Mengistu. What a shame! Only last month, Amnesty International accused the Ethiopian troops, backing Somalia’s titular government, of collective punishment against civilians. It said the troops killed, gang-raped and gouged out eyes of Somalis in a report replete with chilling accounts of witnesses. You reported that, but failed to mention it in your editorial. DUCAYSANE M. MUHUMED, Nairobi