Skip to content

Mengistu Haile Mariam Quotes

born 1937 Ethiopia

Mengistu Haile Mariam (born 21 May 1937) was the communist leader of Ethiopia (1974-1991) during the Ethiopian Civil War, and the most prominent member of the Derg, the military junta responsible for the deposition of Haile Selassie. Since his overthrow, he has been granted asylum in Zimbabwe by Robert Mugabe.

Ethiopia

Random Mengistu Haile Mariam quote

10 quotes

I am a revolutionary; my life is dedicated to freeing the people.

David A. Korn (1986)

If I had resigned on my own accord, to whom would I have transferred the reigns of power?

We fought them when they sought to dismember the nation. Is this why I should seek exoneration?

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.

Ethiopia did not have the same problem [of corruption]. African leaders looked at us with envy.

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!

We did not even know his name.

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.

Edmund J. Keller (1991)

Mugabe fought and liberated his country from colonists. But I am here as a guest of the Zimbabwe people. I am not a personal guest of Mugabe. And veterans of the liberation struggle are well aware of this fact.

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.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Mengistu Haile Mariam (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.