Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Ethiopia's High Court this week found former Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam guilty of genocide. Mengistu, now 70, came to power in a 1974 coup that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie. He and his followers promptly launched the so-called Red Terror, in which thousands of anti-communists were executed, their bodies dumped in the streets. Backed by the Soviet Union, Mengistu also presided over wars with the secessionist province of Eritrea and neighboring Somalia. In 1991, as Eritrea was close to gaining independence, Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, where he still lives. The court convicted him in absentia.
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