Meles Zenawi

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Meles Zenawi (January 2012)
Meles Zenawi (December 2002)

Legesse Meles Zenawi ( Ethiop .: መለስ ዜናዊ ; * May 8, 1955 in Adwa , Tigray as Legesse Zenawi ; † August 20, 2012 in Brussels ) was an Ethiopian politician and Prime Minister from 1995 until his death . His common nickname in Ethiopia was Meles , not Zenawi.

Life

Meles studied medicine at the University of Addis Ababa from 1972 . After the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie and the establishment of the communist dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam , he dropped out of studies in 1974, returned to his home province and joined the newly founded People's Liberation Front of Tigray (TPLF). In 1983 he came to the fore of the movement and from 1989 onwards led a broad alliance of Ethiopian opposition groups. With the support of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) of Eritrea , then part of Ethiopia , this alliance succeeded in overthrowing the Mengistu regime in May 1991.

He became head of the transitional government and had been head of government in his country since the 1995 elections. On May 23, 2010, a new parliament was elected in Ethiopia. The ruling party alliance Revolutionary Democratic Front of the Ethiopian Peoples EPRDF (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front) headed by Meles was awarded victory two days after the election.

From June 1995 to June 1996 Meles was chairman of the Organization for African Unity , now the African Union .

After Meles was first used by Western politicians, e.g. B. Tony Blair , who was supported and praised as "Hope for Democracy in Ethiopia", there have been increasing reports of human rights violations recently . In addition, the massive military armament as a result of the border disputes with Eritrea and the civil war in Somalia , which is costing the already poor country large sums of money. After the elections in May 2005, he was criticized for his harsh crackdown on demonstrators who protested the circumstances surrounding Zenawi's re-election. Many opposition protesters and critical journalists were arrested and some are still in prison, and the opposition's rights to participate in parliament have been severely restricted. During Zenawi's government, there were systematic human rights violations against political opponents and demonstrators, who were imprisoned in the former Maekelawi prison and subjected to torture and arbitrariness there. On the other hand, there has been progress in agriculture and the food situation of the country, which has suffered from numerous famines in the past.

On December 24, 2006, he declared war on the Somali Union of Islamic Courts and bombed Somali cities that are under the control of the Union of Islamic Courts. He justified this with the acute threat to the national security of Ethiopia.

On the evening of August 20, 2012, the head of government died in a Brussels hospital as a result of an infection.

Web links

Commons : Meles Zenawi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ethiopia: Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has died. FAZ , August 21, 2012, accessed on August 21, 2012 .
  2. ↑ Markus M. Haefliger, NZZ Online from August 21, 2012: Uncertainty after the ruler's death , accessed on August 21, 2012
  3. ↑ a b dapd : Ethiopia's head of government died in Brussels . August 22, 2012. Retrieved August 22, 2012
  4. ↑ a b c Ethiopian Embassy in Berlin, Meles Zenawi's curriculum vitae ( Memento of the original from December 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on May 9, 2012 (en) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aethiopien-botschaft.de
  5. ↑ Peter Biles, BBC News from August 10, 2005, Profile: Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi ( Memento of the original from September 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on May 9, 2012 (en) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / news.bbc.co.uk
  6. ↑ Governing party declared the election winner  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. derstandard.at, May 25, 2010@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / derstandard.at  
  7. ↑ Uduak Amimo, BBC News of May 17, 2010, Profile: Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi , accessed May 9, 2012 (en)
  8. ↑ Amnesty International , Country Report Ethiopia 2010 , accessed on May 9, 2012
  9. ↑ BBC News, April 14, 2000, Ethiopia rejects war criticism , accessed May 9, 2012.
  10. ↑ BBC News, October 19, 2006, Ethiopian protesters 'massacred' , accessed May 9, 2012 (en)
  11. ↑ BBC News, June 11, 2007, Ethiopian protest leaders guilty , accessed May 9, 2012 (en)
  12. ↑ Welt Online of April 16, 2012, Weg vom Image des Hunger-Land , accessed on May 9, 2012
  13. ↑ netzeitung.de of December 24, 2006, Ethiopia declares war on Somalia's Islamists ( memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 9, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Meles Zenawi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Legesse Zenawi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ethiopian politician, Prime Minister of Ethiopia
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Adwa
DATE OF DEATH 20th August 2012
Place of death Brussels