Mengistu Haile-Mariam
Reading about the history of Ethiopia at the moment, so I will nominate: Mengistu Haile-Mariam.
Ethiopia is, famously, the only African country never to be colonised. And after a few stop-start issues (including waiting until 1941 to abolish slavery…) Ethiopia was making great strides in terms of social progress and economic growth.
Ethiopia is, famously, the only African country never to be colonised. And after a few stop-start issues (including waiting until 1941 to abolish slavery…) Ethiopia was making great strides in terms of social progress and economic growth.
Until Haile-Mariam seized control of the country in 1974. Firstly, he started by murdering the deposed leader, because of course he did. Then he instituted the ‘Red Terror’ murdering hundreds of thousands of his countrymen whom he regarded as political dissidents (ie. anyone who was not an ardent communist, but especially the students and intellectual classes). Then he nationalised, well, pretty much everything which then sparked a civil war which raged for several years. Sadly for Ethiopia, he won.
Part of his new ‘Communist Utopia’ was nationalisation and collectivisation of Ethiopia’s productive and fertile farms. This disastrous policy, when tragically combined with a sudden drought, led to chronic food shortages and the infamous 1984 famine where over a million Ethiopians died. The death toll was artificially high because hunger was used by the Derg (his government) as a political tool of repression. He was later rightly charged with genocide.
His regime collapsed in 1991 and he fled to Zimbabwe where he was given asylum and continues to live. He was convicted of genocide in absentia in 2006 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He continues to live a comfortable life in exile.
Amnesty International estimates over half a million people were murdered in the ‘Red Terror’. A further million died in the subsequent famines. The seismic destruction he wrought on the country continues to reverberate to this day. It is all the more tragic for happening in what was otherwise something of an African success story.
But for all of the blood which drenches his hands, few people today even recognise his name.
By Colin Riegels