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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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081092
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK, Page 14WORLDBack from Moscow
East Germany's Honecker returns to a unified land -- and criminal
charges
The clenched-fist salute and the pinched smile were familiar,
but the performance was mere bravado. Erich Honecker, 79, once
the leader of the defunct German Democratic Republic, made a
small show of defiance as he walked out of the Chilean embassy
in Moscow after seven months spent in asylum there. Only a
small crowd of supporters were on hand as he left for Berlin,
where he can expect to stand trial on 49 charges of
manslaughter. The indictments stem from the deaths of East
Germans trying to flee across the old inter-German border, a
zone that Honecker ordered fortified with mines and trip-wired
"scatter guns" in the 1970s. The communist leader's extradition
was the result of months of arduous negotiations between
Germany, Russia and Chile, and it finally came about after
personal talks between German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Chilean
President Patricio Aylwin. The trial is unlikely to start until
October at the earliest, but many fear it could prove
politically messy, even stirring up unwanted memories of the
Nuremberg trials. Meanwhile, newly discovered East German
military files reveal that at least 350 people, double the
previously known number, died while trying to reach the West.
According to German television, the former communist regime
covered up some of the fatalities by telling families of the
victims that their loved ones escaped successfully.