Mengistu Haile Mariam

Mengistu Haile Mariam
File:Mengistu1.gif
President of Ethiopia
In office 10 September 1987 – 21 May 1991
Preceded by	Haile Selassie (Emperor)
Succeeded by	Tesfaye Gebre Kidan
Vice Chairman of the Military Administrative Council
In office 15 September 1974 – 9 September 1987
Personal details
Born	1937

Mengistu Haile Mariam (IPA: /məngɨstu hajlə marjam/) (born 1937) was the military leader of Ethiopia from 1977-1991. During much of the period, Ethiopia was ruled by the Provisional Military Administrative Council. In 1987, the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was formed under the leadership of the Workers Party which Mengistu headed.

In December 2006 an Ethiopian court found Mengistu guilty of genocide in absentia for his role in a domestic terrorism campaign known as the Red Terror (1977-1978). In January 2007 he was sentenced to life imprisonment He avoided having to serve the sentence, however, because he had fled to Zimbabwe in 1991, and Zimbabwe refused to extradite him.

Family history

Unsubstantiated but widely believed accounts maintain that Mengistu is a direct descendant of Empress Zewditu's maid and Dejazmach Kebede Tesemma, an aristocrat known for his involvement in a series of court intrigues, on his mother's side. Kebede was chief of Zewditu's household in the 1920s, and a confidante of the Regent, Ras Tafari Makonnen, later Emperor Haile Selassie (There is no literature to support this, however in Mengistu's last interview, he does mention that he knew Kebede Tesemma but denies a blood relationship.)

The then "Azazh" Kebede met Mengistu's grandmother, Totit, while she was an umbrella bearer to Zewditu. They had a romantic relationship in defiance of court custom and Mengistu's mother was born. Kebede's uncle prostrated himself before the queen and took the blame. Zewditu ordered Totit to leave the palace. The child was brought up at Kebede's home.

Zewditu died in her palace two days after her Gondare husband, Ras Gugsa Wole, was killed in battle at Anchim, in Meket. Ras Gugsa had rebelled against the central government, particularly against the regent, and had proceeded to march on Addis Ababa ignoring pleas and orders from his wife to halt. The Empress had been severely ill with diabetes and flue like symptoms, and it is not certain whether the news of her husband's death accelerated her demise, or if as the diplomatic communities messages to their home governments indicated, that she had been immersed in a barrel of fridgid Holy Water for a cure to releave a high fever and had gone into shock and died. Conspiracy theorists allege that her Swiss born doctor,Dr. Haner, was suspected of carrying out an assassination at the behest of Dejazmatch Kebede Tessema in the service of Tafari Makonnen who became Emperor Haile Selassie. It is pure speculation however, as most sources agree that the Empress was already gravely ill with her diabetes and a flu like illness that had raised a serious fever for several days.

Mengistu's grandmother was still alive when he seized power, and had become an Orthodox nun. Supposedly, on the special orders of her grandson, the nationalization of land did not apply to her. She continued to own the land near the Holotta Military School just 30 miles from Addis Ababa, which Zewditu had granted her for services prior to her expulsion from the palace in 1928. Popular legend however states that the elderly nun did not thank her grandson for this favor, and indeed used to curse him for deposing the Emperor.

Mengistu's father was a former slave who was in the service of an aristocratic sub-provincial governor, the Shoan landowner Afenegus Eshete Geda. Eshete encountered Mengistu's father, Haile Mariam, while he was on a hunting expedition at the administrative district of Gimira and Maji (in Southern Ethiopia), then under the governorship of Dejazmach Taye Gulilat (Taye Gulilat was a direct male line descendant of the House of Solomon and in terms of the traditional succession to the throne, had superior claims to being Emperor than either Lij Eyasu or Haile Selassie who were both female line descendants). Afenegus Eshete Geda was the half-brother of Dejazmatch Kebede's wife, Woizero Yitateku Kidane, and it was through this connection that Mengistu's parents are alleged to have met.

Early life

As a child Mengistu endured derogatory comments about his appearance, rooted in the Konso background on his father's side. He grew to distrust all light-colored Ethiopians. When he took power, and attended the meeting of Derg members at the 4th Division headquarters in Addis Ababa, Mengistu exclaimed with emotion:

In this country, some aristocratic families automatically categorize persons with dark skin, thick lips, and kinky hair as "Barias" (Amharic for slave)... let it be clear to everybody that I shall soon make these ignoramuses stoop and grind corn!

The rise of the Derg

Mengistu was one of a committee of low ranking officers and enlisted soldiers known as the Derg who in 1974 overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie. Selassie's regime had lost public confidence within Ethiopia following a famine in Wollo province, a famine that was highlighted for the outside world in a BBC-produced documentary by Jonathan Dimbleby.

Haile Selassie died the following year. It is rumored that Mengistu ordered the strangulation of the Emperor, but Mengistu has denied these rumors. Though several groups were involved in the overthrow, the Derg succeeded to power. However there is no doubt that the Derg under Mengistu's leadership ordered the deaths without trial of 61 ex-officials of the Imperial government on November 23, 1974, and later of numerous other former nobles and officials including the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Tewophilos, in 1977. Mengistu himself has aknowledged that the Derg ordered these deaths, but refuses to accept blame saying he was personally not for the deaths. Members of the Derg have contradicted him in interviews given from imprisonment saying he inspired and was in full agreement with their decisions.

Leadership in Ethiopia

Mengistu formally assumed power as head of state and Derg chairman in 1977. The transition of power resulted in the execution of two of Mengistu's predecessors as head of state (Atnafu Abate and Teferi Bante). Under Mengistu, Ethiopia received aid from the Soviet Union, other members of the Warsaw Pact, and Cuba.

Civil Conflict and Red Terror

From 1977 through 1978, a rebellion against the government ensued, lead primarily by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP). Mengistu cracked down on the EPRP and other revolutionary student organizations in what would become called the "Red Terror." The Derg subsequently turned against the socialist student movement MEISON, a major supporter against the EPRP, in what would be called the "White terror."

The EPRP's efforts to discredit and undermine the Derg and its MEISON collaborators escalated in the fall of 1976. It targeted public buildings and other symbols of state authority for bombings and assassinated numerous Abyot Seded and MEISON members, as well as public officials at all levels. The Derg, which countered with its own counter-terrorism campaign, labeled the EPRP's tactics the White Terror. Mengistu asserted that all progressives were given "freedom of action" in helping root out the revolution's enemies, and his wrath was particularly directed toward the EPRP. Peasants, workers, public officials, and even students thought to be loyal to the Mengistu regime were provided with arms to accomplish this task. [5]

Mengistu's decision resulted in fratricidal chaos. Many civilians he armed were EPRP sympathizers rather than supporters of MEISON or the Derg. Between early 1977 and late 1978, it has been estimated that roughly 5,000 people were killed. In the process, the Derg became estranged from civilian groups, including MEISON. [6] From 1975-1978, Mengistu Haile Mariam was alleged to be responsible for the 7th worst genocide in world history. Around 1,500,000 Ethiopians were claimed to be the victims of the Derg genocide.

Military gains made by the monarchist EDU in Begemder were rolled back when that party split just as it was on the verge of capturing the old capital of Gondar. The army of the Republic of Somalia unleashed aggression upon Ethiopia in the Ogaden region, and was on the verge of capturing Harrar and Dire Dawa, when Somalia's erstwhile allies, the Soviets and the Cubans, launched an unprecedented arms and personnel airlift to come to Ethiopia's rescue. The Derg government turned back the Somali invasion, and made deep strides against the Eritrean secessionists and the TPLF as well. By the end of the seventies, Mengistu presided over the second largest army in all of sub-Saharan Africa, and a formidable airforce and navy as well.

Embracing Marxism

In the 1970s, Mengistu embraced the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism, which was increasingly popular among many nationalists and revolutionaries throughout Africa and much of the Third World at the time. Some have argued that Mengistu, who his commanders did not consider to be an intellectual, was more of a nationalist that a convinced Marxist, but that Marxism provided the best ideology for those trying to resist the dominant world powers, a policy that had been skilfully followed by previous Ethiopian leaders not least Emperor Menelik II.

In the mid-1970's, under Mengistu's leadership, the Derg regime began an aggressive program of changing Ethiopia's system from a mixed feudo-capitalist emergent economy to an eastern bloc style command economy. Shortly after coming to power, all rural land was nationalized, stripping the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Imperial family and the nobility of all their sizable estates and the bulk of their wealth. During this same period, all foreign-owned and locally owned companies were nationalized without compensation in an effort to redistribute the country's wealth. All undeveloped urban property and all rental property was also nationalized. Private businesses such as banks and insurance companies, large retail businesses, etc were also taken over by the government. All this nationalized property was brought under the administration of large bureaucracies set up to administer them. Farmers who had once worked on land owned by absent landlords were now compelled to join collective farms. All agricultural products were no longer to be offered on the free market, but were to be controlled and distributed by the government. Almost immediately agricultural and industrial production plummeted and the economy began to suffer. An already desperately poor country was soon to be rated the poorest of all.

In the early 1986, under Mengistu's direction, Ethiopia adopted a constitution modelled after that of the Soviet Union and saw the establishment of the Marxist-Leninist Worker's Party of Ethiopia (WPE), now the country's ruling party. On September 10, 1987, Mengistu became a civilian president under a new constitution, and the country was renamed the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Those members of the Derg who still survived all retired from the military and as civilians made up the Central Committee of the Polit Bureau of the WPE.

Policies

After the overthrow of imperial rule, the provisional military government dismantled the feudal socioeconomic structure through a series of reforms that also affected educational development. By early 1975, the government had closed Haile Selassie I University and all senior secondary schools and had deployed some 60,000 students and teachers to rural areas to participate in the government's Development Through Cooperation Campaign. The campaign's purposes were to promote land reform and improve agricultural production, health, and local administration and to teach peasants about the new political and social order.

Primary school enrollment increased from about 957,300 in 1974/75 to nearly 2,450,000 in 1985/86. There were still variations among regions in the number of students enrolled and a disparity in the enrollment of boys and girls. Nevertheless, while the enrollment of boys more than doubled, that of girls more than tripled. However many critics say most of the statistics provided during Mengistu's regime were inaccurate since no neutral body or international organization was allowed to validate them and there was a political aim for the regime to appear productive in general. With most of the rebel controlled northern Ethiopia regions as well as parts of Somali & Oromo regions out of the government's control, most of its claims were not perceived to be comprehensive.

The number of senior secondary schools almost doubled as well, with fourfold increases in Arsi, Bale, Gojam, Gonder, and Welo. The prerevolutionary distribution of schools had shown a concentration in the urban areas of a few administrative regions. In 1974/75 about 55 percent of senior secondary schools were in Eritrea and Shewa, including Addis Ababa. In 1985/86 the figure was down to 40 percent. Although there were significantly fewer girls enrolled at the secondary level, the proportion of females in the school system at all levels and in all regions increased from about 32 percent in 1974/75 to 39 percent in 1985/86.

Among the revolutionary government's successes was the national literacy campaign. The literacy rate, under 10 percent during the imperial regime, increased to about 63 percent by 1984. In 1990/91 an adult literacy rate of just over 60 percent was still being reported in government as well as in some international reports. As with the 1984 data, it several wise to exercise caution with regard to the latest figure. Officials originally conducted the literacy training in five languages: Amharic, Oromo, Tigrinya, Welamo, and Somali. The number of languages was later expanded to fifteen, which represented about 93 percent of the population.

By 1974 it was clear that the archaic land tenure system was one of the major factors responsible for the backward condition of Ethiopia's agriculture and the onset of the revolution. On March 4, 1975, the Derg announced its land reform program. The government nationalized rural land without compensation, abolished tenancy, forbade the hiring of wage labor on private farms, ordered all commercial farms to remain under state control, and granted each peasant family possessing rights to a plot of land not to exceed ten hectares. The land reform destroyed the feudal order; changed landowning patterns, particularly in the south, in favor of peasants and small landowners; and provided the opportunity for peasants to participate in local matters by permitting them to form associations.

In 1975 the government disestablished the church, which was a substantial landholder during the imperial era, and early the next year removed its patriarch. The PMAC declared that all religions were equal, and a number of Muslim holy days became official holidays in addition to the Christian holidays already honored.

Starting in 1975, the government embarked on the formulation of a new health policy emphasizing disease prevention and control, rural health services, and promotion of community involvement and self-reliance in health activities. The ground for the new policy was broken during the student zemecha of 1975/76, which introduced peasants to the need for improved health standards.

A number of countries were generous in helping Ethiopia meet its health care needs. Cuba, the Soviet Union, and a number of East European countries provided medical assistance. In early 1980, nearly 300 Cuban medical technicians, including more than 100 physicians, supported local efforts to resolve public health problems. Western aid for long-term development of Ethiopia's health sector was modest, averaging about US$10 million annually, the lowest per capita assistance in sub-Saharan Africa. The main Western donors included Italy and Sweden. The UN system led by UNDP and including such agencies as FAO, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNIDO, UNFPA and WHO, continued to extend assistance as they had to the Emperor's regime. In the early 80s, at least one UNDP representative, a former minister in a Caribbean country, had the credibility to get access to Mengistu, and may have moderated his excesses in some instances. The World Bank also continued to provide assistance during his rule doubtless recognising the surprisingly conservative and prudent fiscal discipline the regime tried to follow.

Famine and insurrections

Ethiopia had never recovered from the previous great famine of the early 1970s, which was the result of a drought that affected most of the countries of the African Sahel. The famine was also caused by an imbalance of population which was concentrated in the highland areas, which were free of malaria and trypanosomiasis. Both the Emperor's and Mengistu's regimes had tried to resettle people in the lowlands, but the Mengistu regime came in for heavy international criticism on the grounds that the resettlements were forced. In fact the government did offer peasants inducements to re settle but coercion may also have been involved.

There has been an approximately decade long cycle of recurrent droughts in this part of east Africa since earlier in the 20th century and by the late 1970s signs of intensifying drought began to appear. By the early 1980s, large numbers of people in central Eritrea, Tigray, Welo, and parts of Gonder and Shewa were beginning to feel the effects of renewed famine. [7]

A drought that began in 1969 continued as dry weather brought disaster to the Sahel and swept eastward through the Horn of Africa. By 1973 the attendant famine had threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian nomads, who had to leave their home grounds and struggle into Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, and Sudan, seeking relief from starvation. By the end of 1973, famine had claimed the lives of about 300,000 peasants of Tigray and Welo, and thousands more had sought relief in Ethiopian towns and villages. [8]

The Derg's limited ability to lead development and to respond to crises was dramatically demonstrated by the government's reliance on foreign famine relief between 1984 and 1989. By 1983 armed conflict between the government and opposition movements in the north had combined with drought to contribute to mass starvation in Eritrea, Tigray, and Welo. Meanwhile, drought alone was having a devastating impact on an additional nine regions. This natural disaster far exceeded the drought of 1973-74, which had contributed to the demise of the Haile Selassie regime. By early 1985, some 7.7 million people were suffering from drought and food shortages. Of that number, 2.5 million were at immediate risk of starving. [9]

As it had in the past, in the mid-1980s the international community responded generously to Ethiopia's tragedy once the dimensions of the crisis became understood, although the FAO had been warning of food security problems for several years before the famine hit. Bilateral, multilateral, and private donations of food and other relief supplies poured into the country by late 1984. In 1987 another drought threatened 5 million people in Eritrea and Tigray. This time, however, the international community was better prepared to get food to the affected areas in time to prevent starvation and massive population movements. According to library of Congress studies, "many supporters of the Ethiopian regime opposed its policy of withholding food shipments to rebel areas. The combined effects of famine and internal war had by then put the nation's economy into a state of collapse."

Asylum in Zimbabwe

In May 1991, EPRDF forces, which had help from the Saudis and the US, advanced on Addis Ababa and Mengistu flee the country with 50 family and Derg members and lots of money including his Rolls Royce. He was granted asylum in Zimbabwe, as an official guest of Robert Mugabe, the president of that country. He left behind almost the entire membership of the original Derg and the WPE leadership which was promptly arrested and put on trial upon the assumption of power by the EPRDF. Mengistu feels that the takeover of his country resulted from the policies of Mikhail Gorbachev for letting the Soviet Union dissolve and hence cutting off its aid to Ethiopia.

Mengistu still resides in Zimbabwe, despite attempts by Ethiopia to seize him to face trial by the current Ethiopian authorities.

Mengistu has been accused by some people of influencing Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

Genocide allegations

Mengistu was tried in an Ethiopian court, in absentia, for his role in the killing of nearly 2,000 people during the Red Terror. Mengistu's charge sheet and evidence list was 8,000 pages long. The evidence against him included signed execution orders, videos of torture sessions and personal testimonies.

The trial began in 1994 and ended in 2006. Mengistu was found guilty as charged on 12 December 2006, and was sentenced to life in prison in January 2007. [10] It should be noted that Ethiopia defines genocide as intent to wipe out political and not just ethnic groups. In 2005 the Ethiopian regime massacred hundreds of students. Workers and opposition leaders were charged with "attempted genocide." The Zenawi regime that tried Mengistu has been criticized for its repressive policies. [11] 106 Derg officials were accused of genocide during the trials, but only 36 of them were present in the court. Several former members of the Derg have been sentenced to death. [12]

Zimbabwe has refused to respond to Ethiopia's request that Mengistu be extradited, which has permitted Mengistu to avoid his Ethiopian life imprisonment sentence. Mengistu supported Robert Mugabe, the long-standing President of Zimbabwe, during his leadership of Ethiopia.

literature

• Ulrich Schmid: Aschemenschen. Berlin, 2006 Template:De icon

External links

• "Mengistu defends Red Terror", BBC News, December 28, 1999.
• "Timeline of "Red Terror", U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 1989.
• "A U.S. Strategy to Foster Human Rights in Ethiopia", by Michael Johns, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder # 692, February 23, 1989.
• "Ethiopian Dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam", Human Rights Watch, November 29, 1999.

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