2007年VOA标准英语-Former Ethiopia Leader Mengistu Handed Life Sen（在线收听）

By Alisha Ryu
Nairobi
11 January 2007

In Ethiopia, former communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam has been sentenced to life in prison on genocide charges and other crimes committed during his brutal 17-year-long rule. But as VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu reports from our East Africa Bureau in Nairobi, it is unlikely he will ever serve a day of his sentence.

 
Mengistu Haile Mariam (file photo) 
The sentencing of Mengistu Haile Mariam marked the end of a 12-year struggle for government prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the dictator known widely in Ethiopia as "the butcher of Addis Ababa."

The lesser sentence of life imprisonment surprised prosecutors and relatives of genocide victims in the courtroom, who had expected Mengistu to receive the death sentence because of the serious nature of his crimes.

But freelance journalist Les Neuhaus, who was in court in Addis Ababa, says there was little visible outrage when the sentence was handed down.

"There were a lot of people, who were not happy with the situation, but I think these folks are resigned to the fact that they are not going to see any tangible justice done," he said.

That is because the former Ethiopian dictator has been in exile in Zimbabwe since 1991, when he was overthrown by rebels led by the current Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

Meles' government was able to convict Mengistu in absentia last month. But Neuhaus says it has been unable to get him back to Ethiopia to face justice.

"There have been requests for the extradition of Mengistu to Ethiopia. But that has been completely ignored by Robert Mugabe, the leader of Zimbabwe," Les Neuhaus said.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch organization criticized Mugabe's protection of Mengistu, saying it was a clear case of one dictator protecting another.

 
Former members of the Marxist regime, who were sentenced along with former leader and Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, 11 Jan 2007
Seventy-two other people had been put on trial, but only 33 defendants were in court for sentencing.

The majority received life-in-prison and four others received sentences of up to 25 years in prison for their role in one of the bloodiest chapters in Ethiopian history.

Mengistu led a pro-Soviet Marxist-Leninist military junta, known as the Derg, which deposed Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.

From 1977 to early 1978, Mengistu launched a campaign, widely referred to as the Red Terror, to wipe out an anti-government rebellion. Thousands of suspected opponents were rounded up and executed without trial.

Another deadly side effect of the Red Terror was that severe famines crippling the country were kept secret from the international community.