Mengistu Haile Mariam
Mengistu Haile Mariam ( Amharic መንግስቱ ኃይለ ማርያም ; * May 21, 1937 in Addis Ababa ) was the head of state of Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991. His dictatorial regime pursued the goal of establishing Ethiopia as a socialist state and was supported by the Soviet Union.
Political career
Mengistu was one of the officers who overthrew the Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 . Although several groups were involved in the coup, the Derg was able to hold its own with Mengistu.
On February 11, 1977, he became head of state and chairman of the Marxist Derg after killing his two predecessors. Mengistu's term of office was characterized by a one-party dictatorship based on real socialism and a massive militarization of the country, financed by the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries , as well as by Cuba .
Between 1977 and 1987 in particular , over 100,000 “class enemies”, opponents of the regime or people who wanted to oppose expropriations and coercive measures were imprisoned and tortured in a campaign known as “ Red Terror ”, tens of thousands were killed or “disappeared”. More recent estimates call "at least half a million deaths". Therefore Mengistu was referred to by many of his people - not only by relatives of the victims or survivors or witnesses - as the "butcher of Addis".
The state socialism was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the state form with the promulgation of a constitution in the style of the Soviet Union, the creation of the Politburo and the founding of the Workers' Party of Ethiopia in 1984. The goal was the introduction of the classless society . All externally managed companies were nationalized without compensation.
On September 10, 1987, Mengistu became president under the new constitution , and the country was renamed the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia . Only one party was allowed to participate in the first parliamentary elections since the 1973 elections .
Mengistu's government faced enormous difficulties during the 1980s, most notably periods of drought , famine - especially that of 1984/85 - and uprisings, largely triggered by the radical restructuring of society. In particular, the forced resettlement of farmers and further interventions by the state in agriculture, trade and production created considerable supply problems, as agriculture and the distribution of goods largely came to a standstill in large areas. This resulted in massive resistance movements among the population, to which ethnic conflicts arose, especially in the northern regions of Tigray and Eritrea.
In May 1989, during a state visit by Mengistu Haile Mariam to the GDR, there was an attempted coup in Ethiopia, which was quickly put down.
In 1989, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) merged with another ethnically-based opposition movement to form the Revolutionary Democratic Front of the Ethiopian Peoples (EPRDF). In May 1991, the EPRDF troops marched on the capital Addis Ababa with the help of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) . Mengistu blamed Mikhail Gorbachev for the failure of his government because he had allowed the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus ended support for Ethiopia: "This counterrevolutionary liar destroyed the Soviet Union and left the world to the Americans."
Trial and sentencing
Mengistu fled the country along with around 3,000 Derg members and was granted asylum in Zimbabwe . He lives in the Gun Hill suburb of Harare, under the protection of the Zimbabwean government, despite repeated attempts by Ethiopia to obtain extradition to bring him to justice. Several former Derg members were sentenced to death in absentia .
On December 12, 2006, Mengistu and eleven co-defendants were found guilty of more than 211 counts, including genocide , manslaughter and embezzlement, by the Addis Ababa Supreme Court after a 12-year trial in absentia . He was sentenced to life imprisonment on January 11, 2007 . On May 26, 2008, the Supreme Court changed the life sentence to a death sentence in a new ruling against Mengistu, who was still in exile .
Mengistu was not extradited from Zimbabwe or South Africa , where he had been staying in the meantime. Even Amnesty International had opposed extradition, since it can not be assumed that a fair trial, but also in vain asked South Africa to "make Mengistu a fair trial". Mengistu currently (August 2018) still lives in Zimbabwe.
Personal
Mengistu Haile Mariam is married to Webanchi Beshaw and has four children.
Web links
- Literature by and about Mengistu Haile Mariam in the catalog of the German National Library
- Information about Mengistu Haile Mariam at the Swiss association TRIAL
- Ethiopian Dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. In: Human Rights Watch , November 24, 1999.
Publications
- Founding congress of the Labor Party of Ethiopia, 6. − 10. September 1984. Main report presented by Mengistu Haile Mariam, Chairman of the PMVR and COPWE, Supreme Commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Dietz Verlag Berlin 1986. ISBN 3-320-00685-1
- Greetings to the XI. Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany . (in: Minutes of the XI. Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Dietz Verlag Berlin 1986. ISBN 3-320-00663-0 )
- Greetings from the Labor Party of Ethiopia to the XI. Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. (in: Minutes of the XI. Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Dietz Verlag Berlin 1986. ISBN 3-320-00663-0 )
- We have saved thousands of lives . In: Der Spiegel . No. 34 , 1986 ( online interview with Ethiopian President Mengistu Haile Mariam about the future of his country).
- Everything except the atomic bomb . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 1995 ( online interview with Ethiopia's former dictator Mengistu about friends, traitors and the overthrow of his regime).
Footnotes
- ↑ Amnesty International: Ethiopia and Eritrea: The human rights agenda. In: AFR 25/009/1991. Amnesty International, November 1, 1991, accessed February 6, 2020 .
- ↑ Ethiopian Dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam (Human Rights Watch, 29-11-1999). February 11, 2009, accessed February 6, 2020 .
- ↑ Africa: “Everything except the atomic bomb” - DER SPIEGEL 27/1995. Retrieved February 6, 2020 .
- ↑ Spiegel Online : Rogue Heads of State: Potentates, Despots and Tyrants in the Pillory - Mengistu Haile Mariam . August 30, 2006
- ↑ BBC News : Court sentences Mengistu to death . May 26, 2008
- ↑ Amnesty against extradition Mengistus ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Operation Theodoros . In: Der Spiegel . No. 22 , 1991 ( online ).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mengistu Haile Mariam |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Ethiopian politician, head of state of Ethiopia (1977–1991) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 21, 1937 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Addis Ababa , Ethiopia |