Talk:Mengistu Haile Mariam

message: There is nothing to support the allegation that Mengistu Haile Mariam's mother was a household servant.  Indeed, there have been published accounts in the aftermath of the fall of the Derg regime, that Mengistu's mother may well have been the illegitimate daughter of a high ranking Crown Councilor and nobleman, Dejazmatch Kebede Tessema, allegedly born from a brief dalliance with a personal attending slave girl of Empress Zauditu.  Allegations that Mengistu was the Dejazmatch's son have been publicly denied by both the nobleman's family, and by Mengistu himself, but allegations that he is the Dejazmatch's grandson have been pointedly avoided by all parties.  What is especially interesting in this, is that Dejazmatch Kebede Tessema was generally believed to be an illegitimate son of Emperor Menelik II, although the Emperor never claimed him as such, nor did the Dejazmatch publicly claim to be his son.  Rumors and innuendo (both published and unpublished) asside, there is no published or verbal basis for the allegation that Mengistu's mother was a domestic servant in any capacity.  Dejazmatch Kebede Tessema, along with Ras Imiru, was the one of only two Crown Councilors to avoid execution or imprisonment, and continued to recieve their pensions, after the fall of the monarchy in 1974.
: I have added a citation from Paul B. Henze, who was the US Ambassador to Ethiopia & was quite familiar with Mengistu. In one point in his Layers of Time, he comments that Mengistu's illustrious parentage was a popular rumor in Addis Ababa -- but I can't find the reference at this moment. (Although on p. 316, he refers to Kassa Kebbede, Dejazmach Kebede Tessema's son, as "Mengistu's putative half-brother", & in a footnote offers enough detail to show that the two were quite close as children. -- llywrch 23:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No title

message: Didn't Mengistu continue to be referred to as "Lieutenant Colonel" or some such even while exercising power as military dictator, a la Nasser and Qadafi? Ellsworth 01:00, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rank 

message: this article doesnt contain much about his rise to power or his plot in the murder of the King of Kings. DId he get married does he have children all of these things should be included. As it stands it is very "gappy" --86.132.117.250 22:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of rise to power 

message: I've just done a NPOV and copyedit of this article, and cut down the extremely overlong family history section. The article remains seriously unbalanced and requires much more information (properly referenced) on Mengistu's career. His family background is of little interest to an encyclopedia entry beyond a very brief mention, and anyway it seems to be highly controversial and largely based on rumour. -- TinaSparkle 18:45, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV, copyedit, etc

message: According to Mengistu's BBC profile, he was born "in 1937 in Walayitta, Ethiopia", not in '41. Doldrums 17:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: also confirmed by Britannica, Columbia encyclopedia, MSN Encarta. Doldrums 17:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Then you should change it, no ? RaveenS 18:15, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the English sources claiming he may have been born in 1941 is . I suggest us to mention both dates. Cmapm 18:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: how about changing it to '37 (as "better" sourced) and retaining the '41 in a footnote or in brackets? Doldrums 20:06, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You have my agreement :-))RaveenS 21:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I think, there's no matter, whether brackets or a footnote. As to contents of brackets/footnote, in my opinion there should be something like "May, 1941 in Addis Ababa" or "May 21 or May 27, 1941 in Addis Ababa". Cmapm 23:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  date of birth 

message: During this period, tens of thousands of Mengistu's political opponents disappeared. Mengistu has subsequently been tried and convicted for genocide for his role in these disappearances
This is unsubstantiated and lacks perspective. The Library of Congress study shows 5000 deaths between 1977-78. Moreover, these deaths occurred because forces sympathetic to the terrorist "Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party" got a hold of weapons:
Many civilians he armed were EPRP sympathizers rather than supporters of MEISON or the Derg. Between early 1977 and late 1978, roughly 5,000 people were killed. In the process, the Derg became estranged from civilian groups, including MEISON. By early 1979, Abyot Seded stood alone as the only officially recognized political organization; the others were branded enemies of the revolution. 
copy and paste: 
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+et0145) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.110.138.95 (talk) 22:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Library of Congress is wrong on this point. The data points to far more than 5000 deaths; basically every other source I've read refers to tens of thousands being killed. EPRP was enemy number one to the Derg—it would make no sense for Mengistu to arm their civilian sympathizers. After EPRP was crushed was when the Derg turned on MEISON. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 01:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yom, which sources are these? What figure does Amnesty International (or similar groups) provide? -- llywrch 23:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The best way to go about this in the article is to rewrite the section to indicate that there is a difference in data coming from different sources.  Ie, say "While the LOC says this, Amnesty Intl says this..." and so on rather than us trying to figure out which data is more or less correct.  We are not the judges. If there is a controversy around the data in question, then that controversy should be discussed in the article. --Strothra 00:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious information 

message: Please, everyone, calm down. I have added a dove template at the top of this page. Bearing in mind the the controversial nature of this article, it must be sourced from formal published sources only. Wikipedia has a good article on how to determine this: WP:RS. Discover the Networks may be an interesting site but it doesn't meet these criteria. Sorry. 
Often, this article is changed to give the impression that charges of genocide against Mengistu are unsubstantiated, without proper evidence. On other occasions, allegations are added against him, also without proper evidence. Please try to remember, whatever side of the debate you're on, that Wikipedia is not a soapbox. It is of no concern to us here whether anyone is good or bad, guilty or innocent. 
If you can't keep a cool head about Mengistu, you should not be writing about him for an encyclopedia. A more appropriate place to air your views might be a blog or an Ethiopian discussion forum. -- TinaSparkle 17:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Calm, and a note on sources

message: Amnesty International estimates that a total of half a million people were killed during the Red Terror of 1977 and 1978
This does not pertain to the trial. Mengistu was not charged for killing half a million people. He was charged for killing 2000 people. Had there been sufficient evidence showing that Mengistu was responsible for half a million people killed, then it surely would have been presented by the biased court.
:Not necessarily.  Mengistu's trial seems to have been modeled at least to some extent after Saddam Hussein's trial that immediately preceded it.  In that trial, they had a basket full of 5,000 accusations against the man for all his evil deeds in Iraq.  He was convicted of crimes against humanity on the strength of only the first of these, without even having to get into the biggest ones.  That was an incident where he only had about 120 dissidents killed.  Of course in the gassing of Halabja that he was also responsible for, some 7000 Iraqi Kurdish people perished, but as I said, the trial didn't even have to go that far.  The very first incident considered, the incident at Dujail was enough to convict him. I don't really know the details of Mengistu's trial, but it may have been a similar case where he was charged with killing "only" 2000 people because that's all they needed to prove he is a mass murderer. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 03:45, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trial 

message: There isn't much (anything, actually) in this article on Mengistu's foreign policies and foreign relationships.  The U.S. was luke warm on him for a while, then turned hostile to him under Reagan, as I understand.  Also he had some good allies among African leaders, and a few who did not particularly like him.  Live Aid should also probably be worked in, given what a huge event that was--and all for Ethiopia during his leadership.  Just some minor suggestions for additions.  AfricaEditor 00:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you, AfricaEditor. I did add something about Live Aid here a few months back but it disappeared during a phase of POV wars, reflected on this talk page under "Genocide", at the top. It seems odd not to mention the significance of the famine that inspired Live Aid, bearing in mind the international prominence of that story. I am not sure what has been written in the press and in published works about Mengistu's leadership during that period, but I'm sure it would be pertinent to this article to have something about it. I'll look around. -- TinaSparkle 08:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Foreign relations

message: This article was automatically  assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 23:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: Reads like a fiction not like an encylopedic article about a dead person, that too a former leader of a country. Specualtaion without WP:RS sources that is in a language not neutral. Taprobanus (talk) 23:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Biography section

message: Taken from the article:
: Around 1,500,000 Ethiopians were claimed to be the victims of the Derg genocide.1,500,000 Ethiopians killed in the Derg genocide
I had a look at the Scaruffi website, & all that it there is an unsourced list of politically-motivated mass murders with unattributed figures. I could find no reason to believe that the figure of 1.5 million victims was plausible, unless we include all of the dead from the 1984-5 famine, the military and civilian dead of the Ogaden War, the military and civilian dead of the Eritrean War of Independence, & the military and civilian dead of the Ethiopian Civil War -- & maybe not even then. No one doubts that many were unjustly killed under Mengistu's rule; but the estimates I have seen point point to a lower number -- about 150,000, a tenth of what this source claims without explanation. -- llywrch (talk) 20:10, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed claim 

message: I was under the impression that appeals courts (at least in the United States) were not able to increase the sentencing penalties. I take it this is different in Ethiopia. If someone has more info on the Ethiopian legal system, the section about the appeals court decision would benefit from more contextualizing. (Are such sentencing changes common in Ethiopia?) Also, what was the reason for the increase in the sentence? (Why did the High Court think death was a more appropriate sentence than the life-in-prison verdict from the previous courts?)-- 128.104.112.147 (talk) 22:10, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The justice system in Ethiopia does not always follow the practices of the US or European legal systems -- to put it delicately. Even some Ethiopians are not happy about this difference. -- llywrch (talk) 06:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change of sentence upon appeal 

message: Does anyone know Mengistu's ethnicity? --83.78.108.251 (talk) 23:34, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethnicity 

message: After this complaint was posted at the "Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents" page, I removed two unsourced, potentially libelous paragraphs about Mengistu's family members from the article  and a sentence about Mengistu's childhood.  The complaint appeared to focus on information that the article sources to the Paul B. Henze and Bahru Zewde sources. Someone with an interest in the subject may want to review that information for accuracy. Someone may also want to find sourcing for the passages that I removed, but also think about whether they violate WP:BLP whether or not they can be accurately sourced (I don't have an opinion about it). -- Noroton (talk) 17:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, just noticed how old Mengistu is. His grandmother must be deceased. Hard to find a BLP violation there. -- Noroton (talk) 18:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complaint about the accuracy of the "Early life" section, passages removed 

message: Amnesty International estimates that a total of half a million people were killed during the Red Terror of 1977 and 1978
::Please cite a publication issued by Amnesty International where this claim is made. Because I've looked around Google Books, etc, and nothing supporting the above statement is to be found. If nothing is cited, then it will be removed.
"In May 1977 the Swedish general secretary of the Save the Children Fund stated that "1,000 children have been killed, and their bodies are left in the streets and are being eaten by wild hyenas."
::This is a primary source coming from an organization that does not have expertise on Ethiopian history or politics. It's not a reliable source.
"The evidence against him included signed execution orders, videos of torture sessions and personal testimonies."
::Legal proceedings against Mengistu are controversial, and we're not supposed to take sides like has been done with the above statement. 
::The article is in need up clean-up.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.239.90.10 (talk) 22:04, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly - time to replace the nonsense with credible claims. Out of the vast amount of incriminating evidence, wiki just had to pick out the most ludicrous bits.81.171.71.134 (talk) 21:51, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claims 

message: The whole paragraph beginning with "Mengistu followed his father and joined the army,..." is nearly unintelligible due to the author's obvious lack of English skills. I'd edit it myself, but English isn't my mother tongue either, and at many points, I simply fail to comprehend what the author tried to tell us... could somebody help?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.150.152.145 (talk) 17:22, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs editing 

message: Please provide sources for the entire section about Mengistu's relationship with General Haile Baykedagn in the "Army" section of this article: 
"A few years before his departure for training to the US he was in conflict with the then 3rd Division commander Geneara Haile Baykedagn who apparently hated the sight of him. It was said the general once said to him that he would "...chew him like chewing gum and make him suffer". At the time the Ordnance group was offered military technical training support in a large scale compared to other units of the Imperial Army. Despite his hatred, the general was obliged to release him and Mengistu went for six months' training in Maryland, USA. Returning after his training, he was expected to command the Ordnance Sub-division in Harar. Mengistu, without doubt, met General Haile Baykedagn, the man who treated him badly as a prisoner among other commanders, and later murdered him with the 60 ministers and generals."
There are no sources given for the quote or the assertion that General Baykedagn threatened or disliked Mengistu, nor does it provide sufficient evidence that the general's murder on November 23rd was "revenge" for Mengistu's alleged treatment by the general, which is implied. If this cannot be proven via valid sources, it needs to be removed.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by SalamMT (talk • contribs) 00:47, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relationship to General Haile Baykedagn 

message: There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages. 
The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion. 
Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:04, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion|Request for Comments]] 

message: I think the 500,000 estimate for the victims of Derg terror may be apocryphal. The estimate seems much higher than more conventional estimates and the original source is conspicuously missing. I think that the weight of the claim requires that the original source be cited, at the very least. The sources that are cited do not seem particularly realiable, at least in my opinion. For example the The World Was Going Our Way does not cite an Amnesty report, but rather Le Livre Noire du Communism pp 748-758, which is an extremely vague reference for a specific claim. I have not been able to find the 500K figure in the English edition of the Black Book of Communism. The casual BBC (British Broadcasting that is) reference is too lightweight for such a claim. In any case, the best source on what Amnesty says is Amnesty itself.
Suspicions are further heightened by the fact that 500,000 refers to total war dead in other sources.
I am in no position to say which number could serve as a credible replacement for the 500K figure, but the HRW/AfricaWatch report may serve as a good starting point. -Gucci81.88.116.27 (talk) 18:10, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I should add that this and other articles on DERG era generally fail to adhere to WP policy on exceptional claims:[]. For example the claim that the famine took over 1 million lives relies on a very lightweight source. Reliable sources indicate half this number (so I had to replace a 2 million from the Black Book of Communism, with "400,000-590,000" from HRW's Alex DeWaal in Ethiopian Civil War over a year ago). It's a persistent problem, one that's intertwined with the failure to adhere to NPOV. Gucci81.88.116.27 (talk) 18:54, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amnesty international's "estimate" of terror victims. 

message: In the "Leadership in Ethiopia" section, there are a number of paragraphs that do not contain any citations whatsoever. —howcheng  {chat} 20:20, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  section needs more references 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Mugabe can't be protecting Mengistu or advising him on security matters any more, since Mugabe has been forced out of office. Does the article need an update to the section on his exile? Largoplazo (talk) 00:54, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Post-Mugabe update 

message: At one point we are told "Mengistu became the most amazing member of the shadowy Derg". In what way "most amazing" - like, you know, this totally awesome dude?! If so, this would be a purely subjective (and above all imprecise) value judgement, which surely has no place in a Wikipedia article. Or does the writer really mean "most prominent", or "most powerful", or something else again? If so, this suggests he or she is not a native English-speaker. The use of "shadowy" to describe the Derg also strikes me as somewhat sensationalist - perhaps "hitherto obscure"?89.212.50.177 (talk) 09:57, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, there's no question, that language was inappropriate. See WP:NPOV and WP:Puffery. Someone else has removed "amazing" and I deleted "shadowy". Largoplazo (talk) 12:34, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "most amazing", "shadowy" 

message: Recently a bunch of IP users have been squabbling over whether Mengistu's father is either Oromo or Amhara, which is an issue that never really graced this article until they began excessively editing it to be as such. Should we put a disclaimer about that in the article? puggo (talk) 15:23, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethnicity of Mengistu's father 

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message: Why isn't it so much talk about how mengustu torted and slaughtered my Eritrean people for years?! And why didn't he suffer the same outcome as my bleeding people?! He should definitely be in hell now. 85.226.166.82 (talk) 23:37, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: And also, why do you all think that the west/the CIA didn't eliminate mengustu?! It's because he was already doing there dirty job; rinsing out Africa people population in the same manner as colonisation slaughterer metods, that's why! 85.226.166.82 (talk) 23:50, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eritrean people