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Ethiopia urges S.Africa to extradite former dictator

11:25 a.m. Nov 26, 1999 Eastern
ADDIS ABABA, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Ethiopia on Friday urged South Africa to extradite former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam to stand trial for human rights atrocities he allegedly ordered during his brutal period of rule. Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe in 1991 just before rebel forces seized the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. He travelled to South Africa earlier this month to receive treatment for a heart complaint.
``We call on the government of South Africa to extradite Mengistu to Ethiopia, so that he can stand trial for the genocide and gross human rights violations he committed,'' government spokesman Haile Kiros told Reuters. Ethiopia has no extradition treaty with South Africa ``but to let go such a person...would not be fair,'' he said.
A group of radical soldiers took power in a military uprising in 1974, overthrowing Emperor Haile Selassie and setting up a new government, known as the Dergue. The former emperor died in custody in murky circumstances a year later.
Mengistu was a leading figure in the Dergue from the beginning and, after a violent internal power struggle, he took over as head of state in early 1977. He then launched a ``Red Terror'' campaign against rival Marxist factions, and thousands of people were killed over the next two years.
Mengistu is one of 3,000 Dergue officials who fled Ethiopia in 1991 and are now being tried in absentia.
The charges against him include the killing of 1,823 identified victims, bodily harm to 99 identified victims and the enforced disappearance of 194 others.
Mengistu's government has also been blamed for the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians during the civil war against rebels in the northern Ethiopian provinces of Tigray and Eritrea. Eritrea became independent after the rebels took power.
In an attempt to deprive the rebels of support, Mengistu forcibly resettled some 700,000 northern peasants in the west of the country where most of them perished from hunger and disease.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.