Word: mariam
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...frightened capital (pop. 1 million) begins long before that. Shortly after sunset, armed members of the city's 291 kebeles (neighborhood associations) take to nearly deserted streets seeking "class enemies of the broad masses" -meaning opponents of the brutal Marxist regime of Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam and his military administrative council, known as the Dergue. Scouring slum areas of the capital, kebele patrols kick open doors of mud huts in search of objects that would prove subversive intent. Among them: typewriters and field glasses. Justice is often administered on the spot-with a bullet. Foreign diplomats estimate that...
...slim lieutenant colonel with a sharklike grin named Mengistu Haile Mariam. An avowed Marxist, he was one of a coterie of officers who finally deposed Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie in September 1974. Today, at 39, he has emerged as the top man in Ethiopia's 60-member junta, largely by pressing a campaign of arrests and killings that rivals even Ugandan Field Marshal Idi Amin's considerable efforts in this area. Mostly, Mengistu's efforts have been aimed at half a dozen rebel organizations, including a full-fledged guerrilla force fighting for independence in Eritrea...
...week, Castro had already stopped in Algeria, Libya, South Yemen and Somalia, a desert land where Soviet influence is particularly strong. From there, he proceeded to Ethiopia, Somalia's neighbor and archenemy. His presence in Addis Ababa must have pleased the current military boss, Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, since Castro is the first head of state to visit Ethiopia since the country's squabbling junta (known as the Dergue) dumped the late Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. Mengistu was believed to have asked Castro for military aid, but there were no indications of how Castro responded. Even...
...shortly followed by an announcement of the execution of Brigadier General Teferi Benti, 55, Ethiopia's chief of state, and eight of his supporters in the Dergue. Significantly, the broadcasts took pains to mention that the two most powerful members of the Dergue, Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam and Lieut. Colonel Atnafu Abate, had survived the shooting "safe and sound." Here was a tip-off that the incident was not a coup against the military council itself but more of a power struggle within the Dergue between Mengistu and Atnafu and pro-Benti officers...
...first hint of trouble had come only six days earlier, when Ethiopia's press announced that Major Mengistu Haile Mariam, whose name was previously unknown, had been the "true moving force" behind the nine-month-old "creeping coup" against Haile Selassie...