The style of Mengistu's exercise of power is very much in the traditional imperial pattern. He really is a sort of second-rate Communist emperor. In March 1988 during my most recent visit to Ethiopia, I found it striking how attitudes toward him resemble attitudes toward previous Ethiopian rulers. But there are important differences between Mengistu and his predecessors. The system is highly authoritarian and paternalistic but much more coercive than the previous regime of Haile Selassie, and much more intrusive in all aspects of life.
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Paul B. Henze, as quoted in James Finn (1990) Ethiopia, the politics of famine, University Press of America, p. 11Mengistu Haile Mariam
» Mengistu Haile Mariam - all quotes »
Everything Mengistu has done since 1977 has been to place himself in a position of uncontestable power. Neither Haile Selassie nor any of the previous emperors had this insatiable thirst for power.
Mengistu Haile Mariam
Major Mengistu Haile Mariam sounds like someone who likes Ethiopia very much, and as someone who has a great love for his country. But he has no love for anyone save for himself. He gives the impression of someone who has dreams for the growth, development and prosperity of Ethiopia, though he doesn't know how development and prosperity come about. He is an extremely cruel person who doesn't know pardon, forgiveness or kindness. He readily listens to what others tell him about someone, then acts upon that information without verifying the truth. He defends those who favoured him... He is very happy when he is flattered, but doesn't trust anyone, and is even suspicious (afraid) of his own shadow. He will do anything to promote his personal interest. He has the good habit of carefully listening to someone else's ideas and subsequently presenting those ideas as if they were his own (as if these ideas originated from him). He is very jealous and suffers from an inferiority complex. My dear friend Major Mengistu Haile Mariam lies a bit too.
Mengistu Haile Mariam
The Emperor of Ethiopia has been deposed by a military coup ... Poor Haile Selassie; over the past few years he'd lost control and the inevitable was bound to happen. I remember his attendance at the monarchy celebrations, how he snatched his hand away when I tried to help him from his car, telling me he could manage well enough on his own, thank you very much. Likewise during the recent drought when thousands of his people were dying he refused all HIM's offers of help, denying that anyone was suffering or even that there was a drought. He saw himself as a mighty ruler, but now the truth has caught up with him. At the Shavand Palace today I could think of nothing but Haile Selassie's fate. Inevitably one is inclined to draw parallels ... They are not reassuring ...
Haile I Selassie
Haile Selassie had surely made many mistakes during his very long tenure, first and foremost his being in a constant limbo between reform and conservatism, without ever having made a definitive decision. But the revolution which toppled him in the name of freedom and progress has revealed itself to be a hundred times worse than his regime; it has caused irreperable damage; has [forced Ethiopia into] a civil war which Haile Selassie had always tried to prevent; it has accelerated rather than halted the disintigration of the country... Whatever the final judgement on Haile Selassie, his image deserves respect and consideration. It's impossible not to feel a sense of great admiration and recognition towards a man who on 30 June 1936, at the Genevan tribune of the League of Nations, denounced the crimes of Fascism to the world and warned that Ethiopia would have been but the first victim of that deathly ideology. For this message, unfortunately unheeded, we are all a bit indebted.
Haile I Selassie
Like twentieth-century Iran, the remnant of the Persian Empire, Ethiopia under Haile Selassie attempted to preserve the absolutist state throught an accommodation with modernizing forces in his own terms without completely subduing traditionalists. This was not a strategy of Haile Selassie's own choosing. Instead, he was overtaken by events and forced to deal with contradictions that were from the very beginning too formidable to be managed in the long term.
Haile I Selassie
Mariam, Mengistu Haile
Marie Antoinette
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