Ethiopians asked for mercy

2004-02-01 17:17

Addis Ababa - Thirty three former government officials on trial for genocide have asked Ethiopia's people to forgive them for crimes they committed during the former regime of exiled dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.

"We, the few who are being tried for what had happened, realise that it is time to beg the Ethiopian public for their pardon for the mistakes done knowingly, or unknowingly," they said in a letter to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, published on Sunday by Ethiopia's Reporter.

"We are the people who remain from the regime, our actions had the support of the majority of the people who benefitted, while we believed it was also the cause of the civil war that has consumed the life of the people and destroyed property," the letter said.

Dated last August 13, the letter was signed by former vice-president Colonel Fisseha Desta, former prime minister Captain Fikersellasie Wegederesse and Major Melaku Tefera, widely known as the "Butcher of Gondar", a town 800 kilometres north of Addis Ababa.

"Even though we were the sworn servants of the regime of the emperor to protect it, when the people showed their dissatisfaction against the regime, we decided to side with them, instead of protecting it," it added.

Of the 108 people believed to have participated in the alleged genocide, only 66 were either arrested or surrendered in May 1991, when Mengistu was ousted by Meles, and 33 others have so far died in prison.

Ethiopia has since 1994 been conducting trials of people accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, particularly during the Red Terror period, when tens of thousands of Ethiopians were killed or disappeared.

Nearly 5 200 former soldiers and communist activists are due to be tried by the courts, about 2,200 are currently in prison in Ethiopia, while several key accused are to be or have been tried in absentia.

Mengistu, who has lived in Zimbabwe since fleeing in 1991, was convicted in absentia. The trials that are due to be concluded next year, Ethiopian judiciary sources said.

Although the Ethiopian parliament is discussing a new bill to empower the president to pardon convicted people, the current constitution bars anybody convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity from benefitting from the presidential prorogative of mercy.

- AFP