Editing Mengistu Haile Mariam (section)

===Political Conflicts===
From 1977 through 1978, resistance against the Derg ensued, led primarily by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_People%27s_Revolutionary_Party Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party] (EPRP). Mengistu cracked down on the EPRP and other revolutionary student organizations in what would become called the "[[Red Terror]]". The Derg subsequently turned against the socialist student movement [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEISON MEISON], a major supporter against the EPRP, in what would be called the "[[White terror]]".

The EPRP's efforts to discredit and undermine the Derg and its MEISON collaborators escalated in the fall of 1976. It targeted public buildings and other symbols of state authority for bombings and assassinated numerous Abyot Seded and MEISON members, as well as public officials at all levels. The Derg, which countered with its own counter-terrorism campaign, labeled the EPRP's tactics the White Terror. Mengistu asserted that all "progressives" were given "freedom of action" in helping root out the revolution's enemies, and his wrath was particularly directed toward the EPRP. Peasants, workers, public officials, and even students thought to be loyal to the Mengistu regime were provided with arms to accomplish this task.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-LOC-web_14-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengistu_Haile_Mariam#cite_note-LOC-web-14 [14]]</sup>

Col. Mengistu gave a dramatic send-off to his campaign of terror. In a public speech in 1976, he shouted "Death to counterrevolutionaries! Death to the EPRP!" and then produced three bottles of what appeared to be blood and smashed them to the ground to show what the revolution would do to its enemies. Thousands of young men and women turned up dead in the streets of the capital and other cities in the following two years. They were systematically murdered mainly by militia attached to the "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kebele Kebeles]," the neighborhood watch committees which served during Mengistu's reign as the lowest level local government and security surveillance units. Families had to pay the Kebeles a tax known as "the wasted bullet" to obtain the bodies of their loved ones.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-15">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengistu_Haile_Mariam#cite_note-15 [15]]</sup> In May 1977 the Swedish general secretary of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_the_Children 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_hyena hyenas] . You can see the heaped-up bodies of murdered children, most of them aged eleven to thirteen, lying in the gutter, as you drive out of Addis Ababa."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-16">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengistu_Haile_Mariam#cite_note-16 [16]]</sup>

Military gains made by the monarchist [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Democratic_Union Ethiopian Democratic Union] in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begemder Begemder] were rolled back when that party split just as it was on the verge of capturing the old capital of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondar Gondar]. The army of the Republic of Somalia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogaden_War invaded Ethiopia] having overrun the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogaden Ogaden] region, and was on the verge of capturing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harar Harar] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire_Dawa Dire Dawa], when Somalia's erstwhile allies, the Soviets and the Cubans, launched an unprecedented arms and personnel airlift to come to Ethiopia's rescue. The Derg government turned back the Somali invasion, and made deep strides against the Eritrean secessionists and the TPLF as well. By the end of the seventies, Mengistu presided over the second largest army in all of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-Saharan_Africa sub-Saharan Africa], as well as a formidable airforce and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy navy].
[[File:Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum, Addis Ababa (26820858566).jpg|thumb|Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum, Addis Ababa ]]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International Amnesty International] estimates that up to 500,000 people were killed during the [[Ethiopian Red Terror]]<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-books.google.com_17-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengistu_Haile_Mariam#cite_note-books.google.com-17 [17]]</sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-US_admits_helping_Mengistu_escape_18-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengistu_Haile_Mariam#cite_note-US_admits_helping_Mengistu_escape-18 [18]]</sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Devil_pg_151_19-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengistu_Haile_Mariam#cite_note-Devil_pg_151-19 [19]]</sup>