Mengistu Haile Mariam (Amharic: መንግስቱ ኃይለ ማርያም?, pronounced ; born 27 May 1937) is an Ethiopian politician who was the most prominent officer of the Derg, the Communist military junta that governed Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987, and President of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1987 to 1991. Effectively a dictator, he oversaw the Ethiopian Red Terror of 1977–1978, a campaign of repression against the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party and other anti-Derg factions. Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe in 1991 at the conclusion of the Ethiopian Civil War, and remains there despite an Ethiopian court verdict finding him guilty in absentia of genocide. Some estimates for the number of deaths his regime was responsible for are as high as 1.285 million.
Read more about Mengistu Haile Mariam: Early Life, The Rise of The Derg, Leadership in Ethiopia, Claims of Genocide in Ethiopia, Memoirs