Mengistu Exposes Crisis Of Expectations IN GNU

Written by CZ Editor

Saturday, 07 February 2009

The crisis of expectations with the new government seems to have started before it has even been inaugurated.
An Ethiopian reader of changezimbabwe in Los Angeles, G. E. Gorfu , wrote to the editor saying how pleased he was to read the report that Mengistu's extradition from Zimbabwe is high on the MDC's agenda and that the MDC will not allow Zimbabwe to be "…a shelter for purveyors of injustice."
The statement was attributed to MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa, but before we had even published Mr Gorfu's letter, there was a swift retraction.

Mr Gotfu had said: "That was a wonderful music to the ears so of many Ethiopians at home and in Diaspora, who waited patiently for seventeen years for a reversal of fortune of this tyrant.
"I appeal to you in the name of justice and the friendship of the peoples of Ethiopia and of Zimbabwe to extradite Mengistu so that he can join in prison his fellow tyrants that caused the cruel death and torture of so many innocent Ethiopians.

"It is totally unjust that he should live in relative freedom in Zimbabwe while those who obeyed his orders and executed his commands remain imprisoned.
"May the friendship between the peoples of Zimbabwe and the people of Ethiopia live forever, and I am sure the extradition of this butcher, Mengistu, will go a long way towards cementing that friendship."

The MDC has since retracted the statement and said only that it would seriously consider extraditing Mengistu if it were forming a government by itself.
According to ZimOnline, Chamisa said: "But what we are going to have is a government of national unity, and decisions there will have to be reached through some consensus and I don't know whether that's going to be possible."
Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe in 1991 following an armed uprising against his rule and was granted political asylum by his old friend, Mugabe.

The Zimbabwe government last year said it would not extradite former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu who was sentenced to death by his country’s supreme court for human rights abuses during his 17-year reign.

Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said Mengistu would remain under the protection of the government, pointing out that the former dictator gave valuable support to nationalists fighting for Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain.
This is just but one example of the many expectations of MDC supporters that are unlikely to be me because of the kind of coalition government that has been formed.
With almost equal representation in Parliament and Zanu (PF) having a majority in the Senate, Zimbabweans will have to learn to lobby their MPs for their causes than expect the politicians to just take up their issues as a matter of course.