Captain Alemayehu Haile (died 3 February 1977) was a member of the Derg, the military junta that ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987.
[2] After the reorganization of the Derg announced on 29 December 1976, Alemayehu became Secretary-General, "a post with such ill-defined limits that it could confer vast powers.
However, according to LaFort, Almayahu made a critical mistake by underestimating or even despising Mengistu; "it was out of the question that he would passively accept his personal elimination and the defeat of his views.
At a meeting between Mengistu and his opponents, who included not only Alemayehu Haile but chairman General Tafari Benti and a number of leading members of the Derg, military soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Asfaw rounded them up and arrested them.
Mengistu afterwards broadcast on Radio Ethiopia that Almayahu and his dead compatriots had attempted a "fascist coup d'etat in the capital identical to what had taken place in Chile", and labeling them "fifth columnists" of the Ethiopian Democratic Union and Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party rebel groups.