Mengistu Haile Mariam Quotes
May 21, 1937
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I am a revolutionary; my life is dedicated to freeing the people.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in David A. Korn (1986) Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union, Southern Illinois University Press, page 61
When we planned our country's economic development, we had the strategic objective of our Revolution in mind. It was not planned for economic development [to be] solely an end in itself. There are some who have forgotten that the sole basis of our revolutionary struggle was the ideology and politics which we follow...
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in John M. Cohen (1987) Integrated Rural Development: The Ethiopian Experience and the Debate, p. 213
One of the fundamental preconditions of successful socialist construction is to ensure the people's readiness to defend themselves from the ravages of probable regional or global wars on the basis of the balance of forces generating from the basic contradictions of our epoch.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in Edmund J. Keller (1991) Revolutionary Ethiopia: From Empire to People's Republic, Indiana University Press, p. 212
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!
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in Dr. Paulos Milkia's "Mengistu Haile Mariam: The Profile of a Dictator", reprinted from the February 1994 Ethiopian Review
[Haile Selassie] was 80 years old and a very weak man. We tried our best to save him but we could not keep him.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in "Mengistu defends 'Red Terror'", in BBC News (28 December 1999)
[Haile Selassie] died a natural death, as far as I know. I can't deny that there were many of my men who would have been glad to kill him with their bare hands to avenge the fathers and brothers they had lost due to him. The doctor looking after him told me nothing about any deterioration in his health, so there was no way I could personally ascertain what happened.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in Riccardo Orizio, Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators, (Walker and Company, 2003), p. 145
When [Nelson Mandela] was in prison I admired him for his moral strength...Of his period in power I can see few results. Apartheid no longer exists, at least to all appearances, but no one understands what the new government in South Africa is doing.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in Riccardo Orizio, Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators, (Walker and Company, 2003), p. 148
I'm a military man, I did what I did only because my country had to be saved from tribalism and feudalism. If I failed, it was only because I was betrayed. The so-called genocide was nothing more than just a war in defence of the revolution and a system from which all have benefited.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in Riccardo Orizio, Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators, (Walker and Company, 2003), p. 150
If I had resigned on my own accord, to whom would I have transferred the reigns of power?
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in "Mengistu blames Meles for helping Eritrea at UN to split Ethiopia: Mengistu Haile-Mariam speaks", in Jimma Times (30 July 2010)
We did not even know his name.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in "Mengistu blames Meles for helping Eritrea at UN to split Ethiopia: Mengistu Haile-Mariam speaks", in Jimma Times (30 July 2010)
We thought that the proletariat would eventually run the world. But it is the Americans who have assumed that position... The American people have changed.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in "Mengistu blames Meles for helping Eritrea at UN to split Ethiopia: Mengistu Haile-Mariam speaks", in Jimma Times (30 July 2010)
Ethiopia did not have the same problem [of corruption]. African leaders looked at us with envy.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in "Mengistu blames Meles for helping Eritrea at UN to split Ethiopia: Mengistu Haile-Mariam speaks", in Jimma Times (30 July 2010)
Mengistu seemed to symbolize the revolution. He was the baria, the slave who overthrew the master, the member of the conquered tribe who got even with the conquerors, the poorly educated son of a servant who rose against the intellectual elite.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— David Ottaway (1978) Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution, Africana Publishing Company, p. 135
After Mengistu consolidated his power in 1978, his personality gradually began to change. His ability to listen and his patience faded away. We could now see these qualities were pretences only; he had been putting on his best behavior in his bid for support.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— Dawit Wolde Giorgis (1989) Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, The Red Sea Press Inc., p. 48
Everything Mengistu has done since 1977 has been to place himself in a position of uncontestable power. Neither Haile Selassie nor any of the previous emperors had this insatiable thirst for power.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— Dawit Wolde Giorgis (1989) Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, The Red Sea Press Inc., p. 56
Mengistu does not understand the meaning of self-determination, either historically or in the abstract. He cannot conceive of a nation as anything but an absolute centralized authority, totalitarianism, for his rule is nothing less than that now.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— Dawit Wolde Giorgis (1989) Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, The Red Sea Press Inc., p. 112
From now on you must pray for your people and yourself three times a day.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— Mother Teresa, as quoted by Dawit Wolde Giorgis (1989) Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, The Red Sea Press Inc., p. 213
When as an American emissary I met him in September 1977 in his office in the Menelik Palace, I was struck at how much darker he was than his portrait on the wall behind him. The fact that he was more Negroid than the average Ethiopian highlander gave him an inferiority complex.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— Paul B. Henze (2000), Layers of time: a history of Ethiopia, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, p. 290
Mengistu is a barbaric and cruel creature who becomes happy with the death of human beings.
Mengistu Haile Mariam— Major Kassaye Aragaw, as quoted in Captain Tesfaye Riste (2009), Misekerenet Bebaale Seltanatu Andabet.
We fought them when they sought to dismember the nation. Is this why I should seek exoneration?
Mengistu Haile Mariam— As quoted in "Mengistu blames Meles for helping Eritrea at UN to split Ethiopia: Mengistu Haile-Mariam speaks", in Jimma Times (30 July 2010)
