The Red Terror

Another mass-murdering tyrant is found guilty:

Former Ethiopian ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam has been sentenced to life in prison on genocide charges.

The former leader was found guilty last month after a 12-year trial, although he is living in exile in Zimbabwe.

After his conviction, Zimbabwe said it would not extradite him and many fear he will never face justice.

In a notorious campaign - known as the Red Terror - thousands of suspected opponents were rounded up and executed and their bodies tossed on the streets.

From an earlier BBC profile:

The president's dream was to turn Ethiopia into a Soviet-style workers' state.

Thousands of intellectuals, professionals and other perceived opponents of socialism and the regime were killed during the "Red Terror" years.

At the time, the country was embroiled in a war with Somalia, which was armed and backed by the Soviet Union. Mengistu encouraged Moscow to switch sides.

An alliance was formed, which saw the Soviet Union pour more than $10bn of military aid into the country during the 1980s.

For years, Mengistu relied on the Soviet Union for his economic thinking.

He saw himself as a Third World champion of communism. Alongside portraits of Lenin, Engels and Marx, he hung huge portraits of himself leading the masses to victory.

He spent much of his leisure time reading Marxist-Leninist tracts and wore Soviet-cut military jackets and caps.

Bob Geldof never told us about that.

Comments

[James Hamilton]

The version of events I've heard is more favourable to Geldof: apparently, he let fly at Mengistu in a private meeting, one he completed alive purely because his translator quietly declined to render his words accurately. Geldof hated Mengistu and had nothing but contempt for him.

[Andrew lale]

Funny, but not only is Mengistu absent from the narrative of African history according to the dominant Chatterati, but also every other piece of evidence which would show the interested observer why Africa is as it is. Who cares if Geldof hated Mengistu? He still deprived millions of British people a genuine picture of Ethiopia, one which would have perhaps led to a different all-round view of the world as a consequence. Playing God with the TV viewer is a crime against truth. But then Geldof and all those on the left who believe they can take the truth and mould it for our eyes and ears are only following the example of their heroes in Moscow and Beijing.