Mengistu Haile Mariam

Dictator of Ethiopia (1977–1991)

• Born: 1937
• Place of Birth: Walayitta, Ethiopia

Mengistu, leader of Ethiopia between 1977 and 1991, emerged as the most dominant figure from a bloody power struggle within the junta that toppled the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Mengistu unleashed a wave of radical changes that thoroughly restructured traditional Ethiopian society. His fourteen years of rule were characterized by gross violation of human rights, widespread civil wars, devastating famine, and domestic policies that decimated the country’s economy and severely compromised its political stability.

Early Life

Not much is known about the early life of Mengistu Haile Mariam. From what can be verified, he was born in 1937 in Walayitta, southern Ethiopia. His father was a corporal in the Ethiopian army. Mengistu, whose formal education did not go beyond middle school, joined the Junior Signal Corps of the army in his early teens to be trained in radio communication. He was later selected to attend the Holeta Military Academy and graduated as a second lieutenant in 1957. Mengistu also attended US military training programs at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and at the Aberdeen Training Grounds in Maryland. Upon return he was assigned to the third army division in Harar, where he served as a major in the armament depot.

Although bright, Mengistu was said to be quarrelsome and prone to frequent clashes with his superiors. This could explain why he was assigned to an armament depot rather than a command position after his early training. His career with the third army division in Harar was marked by his disgruntlement over having a dead-end job, heavy drinking, and frequent brawls.

Life’s Work

Mengistu’s life took a dramatic turn in the spring of 1974 when widespread civilian protest and army mutiny shook Emperor Haile Selassie I’s government. Mengistu was one of about one hundred officers and enlisted men chosen by their respective military units from various parts of the country to go to Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to represent the military’s grievance. It is likely that Mengistu’s superior officer nominated him to represent the unit not because of Mengistu’s popularity but simply to get him out of the unit. Once the group arrived in the capital, it declared itself a committee called the Dergue and began to represent itself as the official body of the armed forces.

Initially the Dergue’s role was largely limited to submitting petitions and making representations to the emperor for an increase in military pay. However, continuing civilian protest and the inability of Haile Selassie’s government to manage the growing unrest appears to have emboldened some Dergue members. Over the course of the summer of 1974, this military group began to amplify the causes of the various revolutionary factions in the country and made more and more demands on the government. Gradually, the group abandoned its frequent assertions of loyalty to the crown and began to openly vilify it, catapulting the Dergue into the center of Ethiopian politics.

Mengistu won attention in the Dergue through his fiery speeches in the committee hall, and he was elected to chair Dergue meetings. Under his uncompromising leadership, the Dergue emerged as the most powerful force of the hitherto unfocused and spontaneous movement against the now-discredited regime of Haile Selassie. Throughout the summer, Mengistu’s group continued to make radical public demands, imprison key government officials, and render the monarchy impotent by whittling its institutional and structural foundation.

On September 12, with Mengistu as leader, the military junta overthrew the aging Haile Selassie and declared itself the Provisional Military Administration Council. Aman Andom, a popular general, was elected as head of state. Mengistu and his fellow hardliners in the Dergue were hoping to use the popular general as a symbol of the power of the Dergue clique, but Aman’s desire to exercise real power created a conflagration in the Dergue. Mengistu and his group moved quickly before General Aman had time to consolidate his authority. Under Mengistu’s leadership, the Dergue ordered the execution of Aman and sixty other generals and ministers of the old regime on November 22.

The fate of General Tafari Benti, Aman’s successor as head of state, was no different. Mengistu considered Tafari an obstacle to his own rise to power and succeeded in having the general and several other rivals in the Dergue executed on February 3, 1977. Mengistu was declared head of state one week later.

Once in power, Mengistu declared Marxism-Leninism the state ideology, reversed the country’s traditional alliance with the United States and joined the Soviet bloc, and initiated radical reforms that included the nationalization of land, industry, and urban housing. At the same time, Mengistu waged a ruthless campaign of terror against his civilian opponents. Aided by his civilian Marxist advisers, Mengistu built a fearsome organizational apparatus of repression. Tens of thousands of Ethiopia’s urban youth fell victim of Mengistu’s so-called Red Terror. Although Mengistu had become an avowed Marxist by this time, the targets of his repression were mostly the left-wing opposition to military dictatorship.

The mushrooming of ethnic secessionist movements that threatened to split the country, as well as an invasion from Somalia in 1977, allowed Mengistu to justify his murderous policy and to pose as the champion of national unity. Assisted by the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, Mengistu carried out a massive military buildup. He reversed the Somali invasion in 1978, but various insurgencies continued to fester throughout the country. Continuous war, persistent drought, and misguided agrarian policy brought the country to the verge of collapse by the end of the 1980s. With the Soviet Union itself crumbling, Mengistu’s regime was isolated internationally and besieged internally. An abortive coup against Mengistu in May 1989 led to the arrest and execution of large numbers of generals and other senior military officers. With its leadership decimated and a lack of popular support, the Ethiopian military crumbled in the face of massive insurgent attacks from all directions.

As the insurgents closed in on the capital, Mengistu fled the country on May 21, 1991, and sought refugee in Zimbabwe. Among the many insurgent groups that proliferated in the Ethiopian countryside, two were instrumental in administering the coup de grâce, or deathblow, to Mengistu’s regime. The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), which had been fighting for the independence of Eritrea, Ethiopia’s northern-most province, took full control of that region, while its ally, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which had assembled under it an amalgam of other ethnic guerrilla groups, entered Addis Ababa on May 28 and declared itself the government of Ethiopia under the name of the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

Ethiopia asked Zimbabwe to hand Mengistu over so that he could be tried for genocide. When Zimbabwe refused to extradite Mengistu, Ethiopia tried Mengistu in absentia starting in 1994. In 2006 he was found guilty and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment in 2007. Mengistu's prosecutors appealed his sentence before Ethiopia's supreme court, however, saying that the sentence was too lenient. Their appeal succeeded and the supreme court sentenced Mengistu to death in absentia in 2008.

In late 2011 Tsehai Publishers in Los Angeles published Mengistu's memoir, Tiglatchn (Our struggle); in early 2012, Debteraw, a website affiliated with the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP), protested against the publication of Mengistu's memoir by scanning it and distributing it online for free, saying that Mengistu should not profit from his crimes. Mengistu remained in exile in Zimbabwe. While he kept a relatively low profile, in 2018 it was widely reported that a controversial meeting in Zimbabwe between Hailemariam Desalegn, the prime minister of Ethiopia between 2012 and 2018, and Mengistu had occurred and been photographed. As of 2024, Mengistu continued to reside in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Significance

Mengistu was tried in absentia for genocide. Although the Ethiopian government sought his repatriation, the Zimbabwean government of Robert Mugabe, in power until 2017, steadfastly refused to extradite him. Zimbabwean officials have claimed that they have offered a safe haven for Mengistu under advice from the United States.

Mengistu decisively changed the cultural and ideological orientation of the Ethiopian state. His fourteen years of Stalinist rule were characterized by savage repression that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Ethiopia’s educated youth. Several thousands more were tortured and imprisoned or were forced into exile. Massive war mobilization coupled with misguided agrarian policy such as collectivization and peasant resettlements led to the collapse of food production and massive starvation. It is estimated that more than one million peasants died as a result of Mengistu’s policies and actions.

Bibliography

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