Editing Mengistu Haile Mariam (section)

==Early life==
Mengistu Haile Mariam was born on 21 May 1937 in Welayta,<ref>{{Cite news |date=2006-12-12 |title=Profile: Mengistu Haile Mariam |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6171927.stm |access-date=2024-07-15 |language=en-GB}}</ref> Kaffa<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mengistu Haile Mariam {{!}} Ethiopian Dictator & Revolutionary Leader {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mengistu-Haile-Mariam |access-date=2024-07-15 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> during the [[Italian East Africa|Italian occupation]] of Ethiopia.<ref name="birth-info"/><ref name="kaffa"/> There are conflicting reports about his origins, which are said to be of a slave family from the south.{{efn|The ethnicity of Mengistu's parents is obscure and disputed, with biographers claiming that he was either an ethnic [[Amhara people|Amhara]], [[Konso people|Konso]], [[Oromo people|Oromo]] or [[Welayta people|Wolayta]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shinn |first1=David |title=Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia |publisher=Scarecrow Press |pages=287}}</ref>}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reid |first1=Richard J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BAFREAAAQBAJ&dq=mengistu&pg=PA174 |title=Frontiers of Violence in North-East Africa Genealogies of Conflict Since C.1800 |date=24 March 2011 |publisher=OUP Oxford |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-19-161592-4 |pages=174 |quote=His roots—apparently in a Konso slave family in the south—were somewhat more obscure than those of Tewodros, who at least could claim some kind of noble blood; but they shared a continual anxiety concerning questions over their legitimacy.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Reid |first1=Richard J. |title=Frontiers of Violence in North-East Africa: Genealogies of Conflict since c.1800 |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-161592-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BAFREAAAQBAJ&dq=mengistu&pg=PA174}}</ref>

After the Italians [[East African campaign (World War II)|were defeated and expelled from the country]] in 1941, his parents moved to [[Debre Markos]] where his father Haile Mariam joined Haile Selassie's fledgling army and received the rank of corporal. Corporal Haile Mariam was then transferred to the ammunition's production unit of the imperial army in [[Addis Ababa]]. Mengistu was raised in the household of Dejazmatch Kebede Tesemma (the former governor of Gojjam), where Mengistu's mother is said to have worked as a domestic servant, and his father became Kebede's house guard. Mengistu was raised partially in [[Army of the Ethiopian Empire|Ethiopian Empire Army]] camps around the country and partly within the compound of the aristocratic family.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Ottaway |first1=Marina |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tc0mAQAAMAAJ&q=%22empire+in+revolution%22 |title=Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution |last2=Ottaway |first2=David |date=1978 |publisher=Africana Publishing Company |isbn=978-0-8419-0363-0 |language=en}}</ref> In Debre Markos, Mengistu attended the Negus Tekle Haimanot School where he was known to be a problematic teenager and not serious with his studies, he was later expelled from high school for misbehavior. Mengistu then joined the army at a very young age.<ref name="Henze-290">Paul B. Henze, ''Layers of Time'' (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 290 n. 13. In Mengistu's last interview, he mentioned that he knew Kebede Tesemma, but denied a blood relationship.</ref>