Mengistu Haile Mariam Quotes


Henceforth we will tackle our enemies that come face to face with us and we will not be stabbed in from behind by internal foes... To this end, we will arm the allies and comrades of the broad masses without giving respite to reactionaries, and avenge the blood of our comrades double - and triple - fold.


Context

Mengustu seized power in a coup. However his Marxist Dictatorship was very unpopular and a civil war soon started. The poorly armed opposition used guerrilla warfare insurgency techniques. Since the government was hated by most people there was much support for the guerrilla in the villages and countryside. Mengustu adopted a policy of genocide. The areas of the country which were sympathetic to the revolutionaries were then systematically starved by the government withholding food and attacked by allies who he armed.


Citations

Mengistu Haile Mariam, President of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Dictator & Convicted Genocide Perpetrator, Statement, February 5, 1977, Quoted by Dawit Wolde Giorgis, Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, .

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

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Mengistu Haile Mariam
Mengistu Haile Mariam
  • Born: May 21, 1937
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Mengistu Haile Mariam is an Ethiopian soldier and politician who was the president of Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991 and General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Ethiopia from 1984 to 1991. He was the chairman of the Derg, the socialist military junta that governed Ethiopia, from 1977 to 1987, and the President of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) from 1987 to 1991.