Desta was a member of the faction opposed to Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam. At a February 3, 1977 meeting between Mengistu and his opponents, who included not only Lt. Colonel Asrat but chairman General Tafari Benti and a number of leading members of the Derg, gunfire erupted leaving both Asrat and Tafari, as well as six other leaders of the Derg dead. Mengistu afterwards broadcast on Radio Ethiopia that Lt. Colonel Asrat and his dead compatriots had attempted a "fascist coup d'etat in the capital identical to what had taken place in Chile", and labeling them "fifth columnists" of the Ethiopian Democratic Union and Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party rebel groups.