A recent article about the anniversary of the Red Terror in Ethiopia, the fight against the communist dictatorship and the victory over it, led to reflections.

The author touched upon, but did not develop an important topic - the trial of the regime's ringleaders. But the process in Addis Ababa was a major historical event. "African Nuremberg" proved the reality of retribution. And its significance in history.

In order not to get up twice Rebel troops entered the Ethiopian capital on May 27, 1991. Immediately began the arrests of the communist regime's functionaries who had not escaped. Mengistu Haile Mariam flew to Zimbabwe, a few dozen emigrated in advance. Four hid in the Italian embassy. Eight winners lynched on the first day. All these had to be deducted. But even without them, several thousand communist criminals were imprisoned.

In 1997, the Ethiopian Special Prosecutor's Office. For genocide and red terror, 5198 people were brought to justice. Of these, 2,246 were arrested, cases of 2952 were examined in absentia. 1402 were subject to regional courts, the rest to the federal court in Addis Ababa.

The figures are impressive even in themselves. The number of those involved was more than 10% of the membership of the Ethiopian Communist Party (t. "Workers' Party of Ethiopia"). If proportionally extrapolated to Russia in 1991, there would be about 700,000 Communists to be judged, of which about 300,000 are actually arrested! Including virtually the entire Central Committee, the KGB, the Interior Ministry and the Defense Ministry, the secretaries of the regional committees, the heads of the regional directorates of state security. As we see, the prohibition of the RPE, held the day after the fall of the regime, was not an empty sound. Far from the "trial of the CPSU", arranged by the good Yeltsin.

In order not to get up twice, we estimate and for the day today. Imagine a real arrest of about 90 thousand "Yedros". Of which thousands are judged in the regions, the rest in Moscow.

True, it must be taken into account that the RP, unlike the CPSU / CP of the RSFSR and the EP, was not a mass organization. It was more like the RCP (b) of the early years of Soviet power. A narrow-closed guiding order, assembled along a chain of criminal ties (Mengistu named five friends, those - five more each and t.

The general process began on December 13, 1994. Before the court 46 people appeared. The guilty of killing at least a million Ethiopians and Eritreans. 500 thousand were killed in terror and wars, 500 thousand from hunger. These figures are derived from the most conservative estimates.

Fear to the bench of the Main defendants should be called by name.

Fikr Selassie Vogdress. The second person of the regime. The closest associate of Mengistu, he occupied the same position under him as Goering at Hitler, Molotov under Stalin, Ivanov or Sechin under Putin. The Secretary-General of the Provisional Military Administrative Council (VVAS), the ruling communist junta. Co-author of the political decision on the "Red Terror" in 1977. Supervised public administration issues. He headed anti-insurgency actions in Eritrea and Tigray. Mengistu himself sometimes scolded Voghdesress for deroginess and rudeness.

At the trial, Voghdress justified the regime "by protecting the territorial integrity". Communism, he did not credit, only the struggle against separatism. And the rest was very much like a bitten Soviet gramophone. Continually repeated the spell: "This was the will of the people". Enumerated the enemies: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (FNLF), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Eritrea (NEFE), the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (ENPI), Somalia, the West, North, South, East. Like, enter our position, what should we do? I did not even notice when they stopped talking to him.

Fisseja Desta. The third person of the regime. Deputy Secretary General of the Supreme Armed Forces of Ukraine. Organizer of state office management, curator of party building. Controlled the conduct of special operations. A kind of Bormann under Hitler, Suslov under Brezhnev, Volodin under Putin.

He recalled the times of Mengistu, to put it mildly, without nostalgia: "Absolute power corrupts. Democracy is better than dictatorship ". Complained about corruption and. State security, which kept everyone in awe. It including. At the same time he looked apprehensively at Current Tula, the chief of this state security, dozing on the dock with a cane in his hands. To be seen, he was sincerely afraid, even now. And mercilessly cursed Mengistu: "I left everyone, ran. Should either agree with the rebels, or stay dying. And he is drinking beer in Harare at will! »Teka Tulu. Head of the Internal Security Department of the Supreme Arbitration Court, head of the punitive services. Continuing the analogies, Himmler under Hitler, Beria under Stalin, Patrushev under Putin. The direct organizer of terror, personally gave orders for arrests, torture and executions. He also took care of prisons, was responsible for the most severe conditions of detention of prisoners.

Tesfaye Wolde Selassie. Minister of State Security, partner Teki Tulu. Was engaged in the same, but was more in sight.

Legisse Beline. Head of the Investigative Department of State Security. He sanctioned torture during interrogations, applied them himself.

Legessa Asfau. Deputy Minister of War. He is the Butcher (he has received a nickname from his own). Was considered "the cruellest of the cruel". During the anti-insurgency operations he became famous for his atrocities over the civilian population. For example, ordered to bomb the crowded bazaars. This was a principled statement: "To kill fish, it is necessary to drain the sea".

Melaka Tefare. The closest assistant to Asfau, who tried to outdo the chief in cruelty. In 1991 he fled to Djibouti. But the Ethiopian revolutionaries got it there as Israelis Eichmann. Brought to Addis Ababa - "in shackles, without shoulder straps". At trial he looked dully at the floor. In order not to cross into the eyes of people who personally tortured.

Seleshi Mangesh. Authorized in the northern region of Tigray. Supervised repression in the insurgent region, organized political investigation.

Petros Gebre. Authorized in the Central Shoa Region. Was engaged in the same in the metropolitan region.

Others were ranked lower. Curious people also met there. For example, Colonel Zeleke Zerihoun, Chief of Police in Addis Ababa. Personally arrested and shot for anti-government agitation. Under him were other functionaries of the Party apparatus. Even if they did not directly belong to punitive organs, the culture of unforgiveness The general verdict was announced only in 2008, when they had already spent 17 years. To the top - the death penalty with the replacement for life imprisonment. Mengistu - execution in absentia, without replacement. The middle and lower links, such as Zerihun, were eliminated by 15 years.

Particularly specific episodes of arrests, tortures and murders were considered. But they were clearly defined as a consequence of the totalitarian system. It was in this connection that the essence of the process. The murders of the emperor, the patriarch, the imperial minister, the ultra-left activist, the armed insurgent, the Addis Ababa student, the Eritrean separatist, the conservative parishioner, the Tigray peasant were condemned equally and unanimously. Compelling evidence was published. And completely there was no sanctimonious "mercy" for ghouls.

"Kill the Emperor!" A man was eighty-three years old. What is the point? - rhetorically asked Teshome Gabrimariam Bokan, a former imperial prosecutor, himself served under Mengistu eight years in prison. - People without honor. Infantile baboons ».

"Blood for blood," said 76-year-old medical officer Kebede Admassiye who, in 1977, was killed by two sons and a daughter. Parents did not even know whether their children were members of ENRP (the ultra-left party was really fighting against the communist dictatorship). They only knew that the elder brother was condemning the "red terror", and the younger brother and sister refused to testify against him.

Denial of the defendants was not taken into account. Lawyers' screwdrivers - also. Ethiopian revolutionary justice has gone Nuremberg way. Legislation of the Palacial regime was annulled. The court proceeded from the human understanding of justice. And not from the "laws" by which the defendants themselves have resolved any lawlessness. Genocide is a genocide, terror is terror, murder is murder, torture is torture. And it does not matter whether there were relevant articles in the old CC. It does not matter whether all procedural formalities coincide with obvious guilt. Justice is important, not ritual. For the sake of "letters" one can not sacrifice justice.

The leader of the insurgent Front, who crushed the Mengistu regime, was Meles Zenawi. At the time of the trial he was President of Ethiopia. Here are his words: "We decided to put an end to the culture of impunity". Recognize as a fact that politics in our country is done by a strong hand. Arguments, logic, beliefs are not enough. You will lose, if you only rely on them. The Shot Wins. We are making fundamental changes, we will come to the triumph of the law. And already now at the trial we will prove that there are things for which there will be no forgiveness. It would be nice to get Mengistu. But even without it, the meaning will be clear ".

The prison maintenance was far from being a resort. Criminals have experienced some of what others were doomed to. 117 of them died in custody. Including the leaders of the punitive apparatus Teka Tulu and Tesfaye Volde Selassie. What is most amusing, some people in international human rights protection are also outraged. Like, Tula is an old man, already fifty-nine years old, walking with a cane, has diabetes, his whole beard is overgrown, how can it be so cruel to him? !!. Right on the "Monologue of the Tsar" Mark Twain: "And there are moralists who claim that it is not our duty to destroy us, but a crime".

Comments on "leftist defenders" are superfluous. As they say, they keep silent about this. But some feedbacks met. For example, on Ethiopian Internet forms. The news of the death of Tesfaye Volde Selassie was met approximately like this: "You did not get what you deserved - it's too easy for you to die! Go to hell, bloody rot! "In 2011, the President of Ethiopia Girma Wolde-Giorgis Luka announced the pardon of 16 people who were sitting. They asked to be allowed to spend the "remaining few years of life" in the circle of their families, in memories and remorse. The clergymen also asked for them. Prime Minister Zenawi gave his consent, voiced through the president. Regarding Mengistu, the death sentence is still in force.

There are still two who live 26 years in the Italian Embassy. At first there were four of them. Each of them would decorate the dock. Tesfaye Gebre Kidan - Minister of War and Governor of Eritrea, successor to Mengistu at the head of the state, from the leading figures of the genocide, to the ears in the blood. Addis Tedla - chief of staff, strategist of military terror. Berhan Baie - Minister of Foreign Affairs. Hailu Yimenu - the last Prime Minister.

They ran into the ambassadorial mansion on the night of May 27. Yimena shot himself in a few days. And exactly after 13 years, on June 2, 2004, Baye was killed by Gebre Khidan with a bottle on the head. I remember Yimena - well, word by word. "Infantile baboons". How is it wisely said. But the bloody Gebre Khidan received his death sentence. And without any replacement.

Italy refuses to extradite Tedle and Bayea else as a guarantee that the death penalty will not be applied to them. And nobody gives such guarantees.

Red and black How does the Ethiopian approach differ from what we see to the north?. About countries such as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, what to say. Suppose, in Hungary, there is practically no one to judge. Some hangmen of Stalinist-Rakoshist times were sorted out in the 1950s. And mostly they perished by themselves. Communists in the 1980s impeccably handed over power. Suppose in Prague the Prague party secretary Stepan spent several years after the Velvet Revolution.

But - Poland! Even Stanislav Kochelek, The Bloody Kettle, died at large - you did not have enough evidence, when the whole country knows his role in the shooting of 1970. The murderers of Jerzy Popielushko were imprisoned under Jaruzelski - otherwise it would probably have been for years "and you will prove". Generals Kyshchak, Milevsky, Stakhura, Platek - obvious and well-known killers - got off only by dragging them to court and tedious meetings from which they went home.

Unless in East Germany, Romania and Albania glorified by a special rascal stayed for several years. And then - Milke, Shtoff, Hagen, Dinke, Postellnik, Desculescu, Alia, Aslani, Chuko deserved much more received.

"In a legal state, defendants and lawyers had the full opportunity to use all legal means of protecting and delaying the process," observers stated.. "Helplessness of justice," - so it was the Poles themselves who stole it. Ethiopian justice was not helpless.

And our 1991 year - the CPSU regime collapsed three months after the Mengistu regime - we will not recall in this connection and recall. "No hunt for witches! "One might think that saving the Communist nomenklatura from the court - even symbolic - was the main task of the August Revolution. Well, the witches stayed in perfect order.

Why did Ethiopia act differently? It seems that the answer was partly given by the Soviet ambassador Lev Mironov. "The leaders of the Tigray and Eritrean insurgents were more Marxists than Mengistu," he said.. - They even read Marx. Mengistu - not a line ". Further explains the American journalist John Ryle, a major specialist in Ethiopian political history: "Mengistu was a Stalinist. But so were his enemies. The People's Liberation Front Tigray was oriented not to the Soviet Union, not to China, not to Yugoslavia, but to the most terrible - to Albania ".

Yes it is. The TPLF declared its commitment to the nightmarish ideas of Enver Hoxha. True, I did not realize them in practice for a day. On the contrary, peasant self-government, freedom of production and trade, complete religious tolerance. And after the victory, they explained: like, Albania was taken as a model because it is a mountainous country like Tigray. So it is so, but the mental connection, it seems,. Red and black - the best fighters against foreign dictatorships. As Yulian Semyonov, the character of the fascist son, taught: "Remember: a man is the only one who knows how to take revenge". Angrily Communism effectively helped in overthrowing the communist dictatorship.

There is another point. Again listen to John Reil: "Ethiopia can be compared with another communist empire - the Soviet Union. Imagine that Soviet communism in the same 1991 was overthrown not by Russians in Moscow, but by Ukrainians who captured Moscow ". The war of the CFT was largely an ethnic war - tigers from Tigray against Amhara from Addis Ababa (by the way, the only tiger in Mengistu's circle was Fesseha Desta). The rigidity of the "red" ideology and "black" ethnocentrism has determined much. Including - the court.

The world knows little about African Nuremberg in Addis Ababa.

Much less than the courts for the Yugoslav war or the Rwandan massacre. There is an unpleasant explanation for this. The hellish regime of Mengistu, where, according to the government decision, children were killed in the streets, he was quite a partner in the "civilized world". Who wants to remember this? And again the clear definition of the World Anti-Communism League is recalled: the principle is above the method. And the justice of retribution is also a principle.

Author: Evgeny Bestuzhev.