Mengistu Haile Mariam

Mengistu Haile Mariam
Chairman of the Derg and Head of State of Ethiopia
In office 3 February 1977 – 10 September 1987
Preceded by	Tafari Benti
Succeeded by	Position abolished
President of Ethiopia
In office 10 September 1987 – 21 May 1991
Prime Minister	Fikre Selassie Wogderess Hailu Yimenu Tesfaye Dinka
Vice President	Tesfaye Gebre Kidan
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Tesfaye Gebre Kidan
Personal details
Born	(1937-05-21) 21 May 1937 Walayita, Ethiopia
Political party	Workers Party of Ethiopia

Mengistu Haile Mariam (born 21 May 1937) is an Ethiopian politician. He was an important officer in the Communist military junta that governed Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987. He was President of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1987 to 1991.

Mariam was a dictator. It is estimated that he was responsible for 500,000 to over 2,000,000 deaths. In May 1991 Mariam left the country for Zimbabwe. The Ethiopian Civil War ended when he left.

In 2010, Mengistu announced the publication of its memoirs. In early 2012, a manuscript of the memoir, titled Tiglachin ("Our Struggle" in Amharic), was leaked on the Internet. A few months later, the first volume leaked was published in the United States and in 2016, the second volume followed. This time it was published in Ethiopia. Mengistu accused the ERP remains of having published the first volume to sabotage its publication.

In May 2022, Zimbabwe suggested it might extradite Mengistu Haile Mariam to Ethiopia.