CHARLES TAYLOR'S extradition to Sierra Ledne's war-crimes tribunal on March 29, after a brief escape from his villa in Calabar, Nigeria,has made life a little less secure for other former despot im exile. In Zimbabbwe, one of the world's most wanted war criminals, fomer Ethiopian ruler Haile Mengistu Mariam, has enjoyed a pampered existence since 1995, when Robert Mugabe gave hom esylum.
Mengistu, whose brutal Marxist ditactorship tortured and murdered thousands of dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s, lives in a rent-free villa in an affluent Harare neighborhood, owns a fleet od luxury cars and trucks, and gets free fuel and other privileges from the government.
But the Movement for Democratic Change, which wil challenge Mugabeor a successor in the 2008 presidential election, has put Mengistu on notice that "mass murderers will not be welcome here under an MDC govenment," says Welshman Ncube, an MDC leader.
Though Taylor's arrest was hailed by human-rights groups, it also raised concern that an unwelcome precedent may have been set. Nigeria's preident, Olusegun Obasanjo, promised taylor immunity from prosecution in 2003 as part of a deal to get him out of Liberia . But Obasanjo was forced to back down under intense U.S. pressure . In Zimbabwe opponents of the regime fear that Mugabe and other dictators accused of human-rights abuses will be more inclined to dig in their heels in the future.
"Dictators like Mugabe woll be reluctant to relinguish power in any negotiated arrangement," Ncube says, "because there's no guarantee that [such a deal] will be honored."
Doomed Despots? CHARLES TAYLOR
Doomed Despots?
CHARLES TAYLOR'S extradition to Sierra Ledne's war-crimes tribunal on March 29, after a brief escape from his villa in Calabar, Nigeria,has made life a little less secure for other former despot im exile. In Zimbabbwe, one of the world's most wanted war criminals, fomer Ethiopian ruler Haile Mengistu Mariam, has enjoyed a pampered existence since 1995, when Robert Mugabe gave hom esylum.
Mengistu, whose brutal Marxist ditactorship tortured and murdered thousands of dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s, lives in a rent-free villa in an affluent Harare neighborhood, owns a fleet od luxury cars and trucks, and gets free fuel and other privileges from the government.
But the Movement for Democratic Change, which wil challenge Mugabeor a successor in the 2008 presidential election, has put Mengistu on notice that "mass murderers will not be welcome here under an MDC govenment," says Welshman Ncube, an MDC leader.
Though Taylor's arrest was hailed by human-rights groups, it also raised concern that an unwelcome precedent may have been set. Nigeria's preident, Olusegun Obasanjo, promised taylor immunity from prosecution in 2003 as part of a deal to get him out of Liberia . But Obasanjo was forced to back down under intense U.S. pressure . In Zimbabwe opponents of the regime fear that Mugabe and other dictators accused of human-rights abuses will be more inclined to dig in their heels in the future.
"Dictators like Mugabe woll be reluctant to relinguish power in any negotiated arrangement," Ncube says, "because there's no guarantee that [such a deal] will be honored."
- JOSHUA HAMMER