Mengistu Haile Mariam

Biography

Mengistu Haile Mariam was born in 1937 in Walayitta in southern Ethiopia, during the Italian occupation; his father later served as a corporal in the imperial army. Expelled from secondary school, he joined the army young, was sponsored by General Aman Andom, and graduated from the Holetta military academy in 1957. He served as an ordnance officer in the Third Division at Harar and trained in the United States at the Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Leavenworth.

In 1974 he was sent as a representative of the Third Division to the Derg, the committee of junior officers that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie, and rapidly outmanoeuvred its senior members. In November 1974 the Derg executed 61 former imperial officials without trial. Mengistu became the Derg's undisputed leader after a shootout in February 1977 in which its chairman Tafari Benti was killed, and he soon had his rival Atnafu Abate executed.

In power he adopted Marxism-Leninism, nationalised land and businesses, and with Soviet and Cuban help repelled the Somali invasion of the Ogaden in 1977-1978. The Red Terror of 1976-1978 against the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party and other opponents killed tens of thousands or more. In 1984 he founded the Workers' Party of Ethiopia as its general secretary, and under a new constitution approved in 1987 he became president of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. His government's policies and wars contributed to the catastrophic famine of 1983-1985, and he survived a coup attempt by senior officers in May 1989.

Facing defeat by Eritrean and Tigrayan rebels, Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe in May 1991. An Ethiopian court tried him in absentia, convicted him of genocide in December 2006, and on appeal in 2008 sentenced him to death. He has continued to live in Harare under the protection of the Zimbabwean government.