By Desta Joy
It is no wonder that the possible pardoning of former Derg officials has become a subject of heated controversy among Ethiopians. After all, it is about bunch of people who used (misused) the whole state machinery to brutalize and terrorize the whole country for seventeen long years! After all it is about people who were at the helm of a regime that unsparingly annihilated thousands Ethiopians of all walks of life, probably the summary execution of the top officials of the Imperial regime being the most high profile case. It would be downright wrong, however, to think that the case of those anonymous Ethiopians who were brutally murdered during those trying days is less important.
The vexing question now is whether pardoning those people would be unjust. Some victims’ families (well, if at all there is a family that had not been victimized by the regime) believe pardoning these criminals would be a mockery of justice. Indeed, their pain cannot be overstated. In the nature of things, their opposition to the possible pardon seems to muster sympathy and support. Tekola W. Hagos wrote, with his usual passion and eloquence, but also disturbingly:
[i]n case of those brutal murderers who are under the control of the Ethiopian Government, individuals who had spilt so much innocent blood, execution should be carried out by hanging them from Bole Airport to Meskel Square and also in other Squares, on electric power poles.’’
Such demands are disturbing not because the crimes the convicts are responsible for are any less horrendous, but rather because such kind of punishment serves none of the purposes of criminal punishment, and is, perhaps a little too backward. So, although the author argues otherwise, such vehement desire to see them hanged in public squares are animated by sense vendetta rather than yearning for justice. Yet, it should not be surprising that those who personally witnessed those atrocities feel more strongly towards the perpetrators than those of us who were either not born at the time or were just too young to comprehend what was going on.
Having sad that let me state what I think are critical issues:
1. First, criminal justice is inherently a public affair (not an issue between the perpetrators and victims). It becomes even a national issue when the crime involves not just theft, robbery, or other ordinary crime, but rather genocide (which Derg officials are convicted of) perpetrated by an entire regime over many years practically against the whole nation. My argument is that the crimes committed decades ago had national character. Whether pardoning the convicts (who are ‘vegetating’ in prison anyway) has any national significance at this point in time is something else altogether.
2. Accordingly, it is unequivocally wrong to try to ‘privatize’ the issue. It must be clear to everyone that justice is a function of rules and principles, not feelings (as the writer quoted above has argued). If we are talking about modern criminal justice, the feeling of victims (or towards perpetrators, for that matter) is a completely irrelevant concept.
3. Therefore, the question of whether pardoning Derg officials is just or unjust should be judged based on rules, principles, and its socio-political significance to the nation’s present and future, if any.
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])