A Convicted Genocidal Dictator

The year 2006 has been an awful one for despots. In March, the former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, died of a heart attack, awaiting the end of his war crimes trial in a prison cell in The Hague, Netherlands. In November, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity by a court composed of his former subjects, and he remains in the dock on genocide charges against the Kurds. And on December 10, the former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, passed away, while just two days later, the former communist ruler of Ethiopia, Mengistu Haile Mariam, was found guilty of genocide in absentia by a court in Addis Ababa.

Despite the Ethiopian court's ruling, Mengistu remains safely ensconced in Zimbabwe — where I visited in August — under the munificent eye of his fellow tyrant, Robert Mugabe. He has been a welcome resident there for the past 15 years, an affront to both the Ethiopian people and humanitarians everywhere,

The horrors of Mengistu's Ethiopia ought to be recalled. In 1977 through 1978, he launched what he called the "Red Terror" against his opponents. Tens of thousands of people "disappeared." Human Rights Watch called it "one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed in Africa," which, considering the recent history of the continent, is a notable achievement. Then, while 1 million Ethiopians perished in a 1984 famine — the spark for the international Live Aid concerts that poured millions of dollars into Mengistu's coffers — Mengistu flew in plane-loads of whiskey to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his rule.

In May 1991, as anti-government rebels encircled him, Mengistu flew to Harare where Mr. Mugabe granted him asylum on "humanitarian" grounds. Ever since, he has lived in a Harare mansion, though a Zimbabwean exile Web site has reported that for protective purposes, the government has relocated him to a remote location on the Zambian border. Mengistu has worked as a security adviser to Mr. Mugabe, and is alleged to have assisted in the planning of the summer 2005 "Operation Wipe Out Trash," a devastating, politically motivated campaign of urban destruction that left an estimated 700,000 people homeless. A spokesman for Mr. Mugabe last week said, "As a comrade of our struggle, Comrade Mengistu and his government played a key and commendable role during our struggle for independence and no one can dispute that."

Among persistent calls for Mengistu's extradition, South Africa, ostensibly the democratic force for good in the region, has been most notably absent. That country even allowed him to visit a Johannesburg hospital in 1999 for medical treatment. At the time, a South African government spokesman said, "There is no way we will turn our back on a man who is sick. … we are a humane country." Apparently, that humanity doesn't extend to Mengistu's victims. And just a day after Mengistu's conviction, South Africa's Foreign Ministry assailed Israel for not granting access to a United Nations Human Rights Council mission to Beit Hanoun led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who in the past has compared the Jewish state to both apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany.

There is a silver lining in Mr. Mugabe's hosting Mengistu in Zimbabwe. By offering Mengistu aid and comfort, Mr. Mugabe's generally bad behavior has now crossed the border — much like the thousands of people who flee his totalitarian wasteland each week with nothing but the clothing on their backs.

It is true that Zimbabwe and Ethiopia do not have a formal extradition treaty. But it will nevertheless prove difficult for Mr. Mugabe's African allies to stomach his generous treatment of Mengistu. This is not one of the frequent instances of Mr. Mugabe spiting the West. Mr. Mugabe stands in defiance of a decision rendered by a fellow African nation that is central to its integrity as an independent state: the deliverance of justice against a former leader who grossly abused his power and is responsible for the deaths of over a million of his countrymen. Mr. Mugabe knows that acceding to Ethiopia's extradition request would legitimate the rule of law and government integrity generally, things that he has worked to destroy in his own country.

The situation calls to mind that of Idi Amin, who from 1971 to 1979 is estimated to have killed about half a million people in Uganda. A Muslim, he found refuge in Saudi Arabia in 1980 and lived a luxuriant lifestyle on the Saudi royals' dime. Approaching death, his "favorite wife," Madina, asked the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, if it would be possible for her husband to return to Uganda to die. He told her that if Amin ever stepped foot in his country, he would "answer for his sins."

Mr. Mugabe, too, has many sins to answer for: the theft of thousands of acres of productive farmland from rightful owners; the slaughter in the 1980s of some 20,000 Ndebeles, the rival tribe to his Shona, and the widespread misery, starvation, and death that his rule has wrought, especially in the past several years. Should Mr. Mugabe ever face justice, those responsible for his fate can now add the sheltering of a convicted genocidal dictator to the rap sheet.

Mr. Kirchick is assistant to the editor in chief of the New Republic.