Mengistu / Murambatsvina / Zanu PF and his extradition ?

The Zimbabwe government on Tuesday said it would discuss the case of former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam with Addis Ababa only, rejecting calls by the opposition and civic groups to hand him back to his country for trial. (Pic Mengistu in his Ethiopian heyday)

Tichaona Jokonya Minister of Information and government spokesperson says, "We have an embassy of Ethiopia here ... we will respond when the embassy raises it [Mengistu's extradition]."

Jokonya spoke after the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) civic alliance on Tuesday urged President Robert Mugabe to follow the example of Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo -- who handed over former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor for trial -- by extraditing Mengistu to Ethiopia.

Speaking separately, the spokesperson of the main faction of the MDC, Nelson Chamisa, said Mengistu should be taken back to Ethiopia not only so he could face trial for human rights abuses there, but also to stop him from imparting some of his crude methods to Mugabe and his government.

"What Nigeria did to Taylor is what Zimbabwe should do to Mengistu," said Chamisa.

He added: "What is even disturbing [in Zimbabwe's case] is the fact that he [Mengistu] is the mastermind of Operation Murambatsvina which displaced millions of Zimbabweans."

However Ambassador Vickie Huddleston, Charge’ d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa is unlikely to register a US change of heart having been responsible for getting him out of town in 1991. Dictator Melese is safe for a bit longer

There is no difference between Mengistu and Melese when it comes to its opponents. Both kill and believe in terrorizing people to stay in power.

Ethiopians will held both dictators acountable and sending Mengistu to Melese is like sending a thief who is disarmed to another armed thief.

Is a comment on an Ethiopian expat website which seems to be a common theme, the only difference meles kills in hundreds not thousands.

Despite calls by the international community, lead by the United States, for an arms embargo on the region, Russia has sold Su-27 fighters and Mi-24 attack helicopters to Ethiopia and MiG-29 to Eritrea, Bulgaria has shipped 100 or more surplus T55 tanks and China, Multiple Rocket Launchers to Ethiopia, while Eritrea has scoured the arms markets for new equipment. An impoverished Ethiopian economy has been further raided to provide the Ethiopian armed forces with arms worth over $300 million in the last two years.

In Harare, Ex President of Ethiopia Mengistu lives in the lap of luxury in the Gunhill suburb, with 24-hour security from the police VIP protection unit and the CIO at the Zimbabwean taxpayers' expense.

The Mugabe government has allocated Mengistu two large farms, one in Mazowe and another in Norton. Mengistu owns a separate home in Bluffhill.

He drives at least six luxury cars, including a Mercedes Benz, a Toyota Prado, a Toyota Avensis, a BMW and a twin-cab truck. Mengistu enjoys a special fuel scheme from the state's National Oil Company of Zimbabwe for personal use and for his farms, and his vehicles are serviced free of charge at the central mechanical equipment department.

In 1995, Mengistu survived an attempt on his life when an Eritrean, Solomon Ghebre Haile Michael, and Abraham Goletom Joseph tried to assassinate him at his Gunhill residence. The two were arrested and subsequently sentenced to 10 and five years' imprisonment respectively.

Mengistu was said to be concerned when the MDC nearly won the 2000 parliamentary elections and the 2002 presidential elections. Mengistu is said to have then made plans to relocate to either China or North Korea, but he knew very well that he would not get the same comforts as he did in Harare.

It is therefore in his interest that Zanu-PF rules forever.

Mengistu and Operation Murambatsvina

Sources claimed to be withing Zimbabwe's feared Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) say that Mengistu, now acts as President Robert Mugabe's security adviser, warned the Zimbabwean leader that the swelling slum and backyard population in Zimbabwe was creating a fertile ground for a mass uprising.

Called very extravagantlyOperation Murambatsvina, the controversial home-demolition exercise left at least 700 000 people homeless and affected another 2,4-million people, according to a report by United Nations special envoy Anna Tibaijuka.

first suggested the slum clearance idea to Mugabe in February, at one of the regular meetings he holds with the president and other senior security chiefs from the army, the CIO and the police.

After Mugabe accepted the idea, it was followed by several weeks of meticulous planning. Operation Murambatsvina began in May, a few weeks after the ruling Zanu-PF party trounced the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in a controversial parliamentary election.

Planning Operation Murambatsvina

The first meeting to plan the logistics of the operation was chaired by Mengistu himself at CIO headquarters in Harare, and was attended by defence forces commander General Constantine Chiwenga, Zimbabwe National Army Commander Philip Valerio Sibanda, Air Force of Zimbabwe Commander Air Marshal Perence Shiri, CIO director general Happyton Bonyongwe, his deputy, Menard Muzariri, and director of prisons Brigadier Zimondi. The police were represented by Deputy Commissioner Godwin Matanga.

Mengistu chaired other meetings , during which video clippings of Zimbabwe's 1998 food riots, with footage of mass uprisings in the Ukraine, Yugoslavia and Ethiopia, were shown to the group, which called itself Operation Murambatsvina's "high command".

After a series of meetings of the "high command", the group later met government ministers, mayors and administrators sympathetic to the government, such as Harare Commission chairperson Sekesai Makwavarara and Bindura mayor Martin Dinha, who endorsed the operation.

Mengistu then prepared a final document on the operation, which he submitted to Mugabe. The president endorsed it. Operation Murambatsvina, according to the plan, was to be implemented in phases, starting with flea markets suspected of fuelling economic crimes, mainly illegal foreign-currency trade

Operation Garikai / Hlalani Kuhle

A project to rebuild homes after Operation Murambatsvina was envisaged in Mengistu's plan, though the main objective would be to window-dress the main purpose of the slum-clearance exercise.

This project, later dubbed "Operation Garikai / Hlalani Kuhle ", would naturally not accommodate all the displaced people and would mainly benefit Zanu-PF supporters caught up in the destruction process.

Archbishop Pius Ncube says Garikai / Hlalani Kuhle (Safe and Prosper) is a joke, just lip service. He said the few houses built so far are tiny structures meant for government forces and not families. The archbishop also told us that pastors who had been looking for families which were dumped outside Bulawayo by the government a month ago had found them 130 kilometres away. They had been left in the middle of nowhere with no shelter and no water.

The Minister of State for Policy Implementation in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Cde Webster Shamu, said on 13th April 2006 Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle was irreversible despite challenges facing the programme.

Here is a website with recordings of an interview in Zimbabwe with Mengistu in October 2005

The UK Embassy in Harare tells the reader that Trade has declined from UK exports of £78 million in 1998 to £34 million in 2002, while exports from Zimbabwe have declined from £123 million in 1998 to £86 million in 2002. Elsewhere on the site it says a number of Chevening scholarships are offered to Zimbabweans every year. "We are now inviting applications for the 2004/5 academic year."