[4] The Derg took power in the Ethiopian Revolution following the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1974, marking the end of the Solomonic dynasty which had ruled Ethiopia since the 13th century.

Mengistu Haile Mariam still lives in Harare, Zimbabwe, despite an Ethiopian court verdict which found him guilty of genocide in absentia.

[17] As an ambitious young soldier, he attracted the attention of the Eritrean-born General Aman Andom, who raised him to the rank of sergeant and assigned him duties as an errand boy in his office.

The imperial regime found him too popular with the soldiers, especially after his commendable military exploits in the engagement against the Somali army at Tog Wuchale during the 1964 Ethiopian–Somali Border War.

Prime Minister Aklilu Habte Wold removed the general affectionately known to his men as "the desert lion" from army duties and assigned him as a senator, a job he hated very much as he recounted to his author, but could not refuse without arousing the Emperor's ire.

General Haile had actually written a secret report to his superiors to put a close watch on Mengistu and not give him a raise in the military ranks.

A few years before his second departure for training to the US he was in conflict with the then Third Division commander General Haile Baykedagn whose policy of strict discipline and order did not sit well with Mengistu.

Returning after his training, he was expected to command the ordnance sub-division in Harar, but was prevented by General Haile Baykedagn who cited his previous insubordination.

[17] When he took power, and attended the meeting of Derg members at the Fourth 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!

As a result, power came into the hands of a committee of low-ranking officers and enlisted soldiers led by Atnafu Abate, which came to be known as the Derg.

Mengistu was originally one of the lesser members, officially sent to represent the Third Division because his commander, General Nega Tegnegn, considered him a trouble-maker and wanted to get rid of him.

There is no doubt that the Derg under Mengistu's leadership ordered the execution without trial of 61 ex-officials of the Imperial government on 23 November 1974, and later of numerous other former nobles and officials including the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abuna Theophilos, in 1977.

[26] The Derg subsequently turned against the socialist student movement MEISON, a major supporter against the EPRP, in what would be called 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.

and then produced three bottles filled with a red liquid that symbolized the blood of the imperialists and the counterrevolutionaries and smashed them to the ground to show what the revolution would do to its enemies.

They were systematically murdered mainly by the militia attached to the kebeles, the neighborhood watch committees which served during Mengistu's reign as the lowest level local government and security surveillance units.

[31][32][33] Military gains made by the monarchist Ethiopian Democratic Union in Begemder were rolled back when that party split just as it was on the verge of capturing the old capital of Gondar.

The Derg government turned back the Somali invasion and made deep strides against the Eritrean secessionists and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) as well.

By the end of the seventies, Mengistu presided over the second-largest army in all of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a formidable air force and navy.

After coming to power, 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.

All rural land was nationalized, stripping the Ethiopian Church, the Imperial family, and the nobility of all their sizable estates and the bulk of their wealth.

First came the Battle of Afabet in March 1989, a defeat at the hands of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, with 15,000 casualties and the loss of a great deal of equipment.

On 16 May 1989, while Mengistu was out of the country for a four-day state visit to East Germany, senior military officials attempted a coup, and the Minister of Defense, Haile Giyorgis Habte Mariam, was killed; Mengistu returned within 24 hours and nine generals, including the air force commander and the army chief of staff, died as the coup was crushed.

In May 1991, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) forces advanced on Addis Ababa from all sides, and Mengistu fled the country with 50 family and Derg members.

Mengistu has claimed that the takeover of his country resulted from the policies of Mikhail Gorbachev, who in his view allowed the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the termination of its aid to Ethiopia.

An assassination attempt against Mengistu occurred on 4 November 1995, while he was out walking with his wife, Wubanchi Bishaw, near his home in the Gunhill suburb of Harare.

[38] The Ethiopian ambassador to Zimbabwe, Fantahun Haile Michael, said his government was not involved in the assassination attempt, and that he heard about the incident from the media.

[5] Michael Clough, a US attorney and longtime observer of Ethiopia, said in a statement:[44] The biggest problem with prosecuting Mengistu for genocide is that his actions did not necessarily target a particular group.

They were directed against anybody who was opposing his government, and they were generally much more political than based on any ethnic targeting.Some experts believe hundreds of thousands of university students, intellectuals, and politicians (including Emperor Haile Selassie) were killed during Mengistu's rule.