Editing Mengistu Haile Mariam (section)

===Political conflicts===
{{main|Red Terror (Ethiopia)}}
Resistance against the Derg ensued, led primarily by the [[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 (Ethiopia)|Red Terror]]".<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Mengistu Haile Mariam {{!}} president of Ethiopia |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mengistu-Haile-Mariam#ref704010 |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=3 June 2018}}</ref> The Derg subsequently turned against the socialist student movement [[All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement|MEISON]], a major supporter against the EPRP, in what would be called the "[[White Terror (Ethiopia)|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.<ref name=LOC-web>[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/ettoc.html A Country Study: Ethiopia] (US Library of Congress)</ref>


In a public speech in April 1977, Mengistu shouted "Death to counterrevolutionaries! Death to the EPRP!" and then produced three bottles filled with a red liquid that symbolized the blood of the imperialists and the counterrevolutionaries and smashed them to the ground to show what the revolution would do to its enemies.<ref>{{cite book |last=Leonard |first=Thomas M. |title=Encyclopedia of the developing world |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=New York |year=2005 |page=739 |oclc=60705727 |isbn=1-57958-388-1}}</ref> Thousands of young men and women turned up dead in the streets of the capital and other cities in the following months. They were systematically murdered mainly by the militia attached to the [[kebele]]s, 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.<ref>[https://www.hrw.org/legacy/english/docs/1999/11/29/ethiop5495.htm Ethiopian Dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam] [[Human Rights Watch]], 1999</ref> In May 1977, the Swedish general secretary of the [[Save the Children|Save the Children Fund]] stated that "1,000&nbsp;children have been killed, and their bodies are left in the streets and are being eaten by wild [[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."<ref>[[Stephane Courtois]], et al. ''[[The Black Book of Communism]]: Crimes, Terror, Repression''. [[Harvard University Press]], 1999. pg. 691</ref> [[Amnesty International]] estimates that up to 500,000 people were killed during the Ethiopian Red Terror.<ref name="books.google.com">[https://books.google.com/books?id=4eSR1rHg5_YC&pg=PA457 ''The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World''] by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, pg 457</ref><ref name="US admits helping Mengistu escape">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/575405.stm US admits helping Mengistu escape] [[BBC]], 22 December 1999</ref><ref name="Devil pg 151">''Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators'' by Riccardo Orizio, pg 151</ref>[[File:Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam throws red bottle in emotional speech.jpg|thumb|Same Mengistu's speech. Moment during which he is throwing bottle with blood. |left]]Military gains made by the monarchist [[Ethiopian Democratic Union]] in [[Begemder]] were rolled back when that party split just as it was on the verge of capturing the old capital of [[Gondar]]. The army of the [[Somali Democratic Republic]] [[Ethio-Somali War|invaded Ethiopia]], having overrun the [[Ogaden]] region, and was on the verge of capturing Harar and [[Dire Dawa]], when Somalia's erstwhile allies, the Soviets and the Cubans, launched an unprecedented arms and personnel airlift to come to rescue of Ethiopia. The Derg government turned back the Somali invasion and made deep strides against the [[Eritrean War of Independence|Eritrean secessionists]] and the [[Tigray People's Liberation Front]] (TPLF) as well. By the end of the seventies, Mengistu presided over the second-largest army in all of [[sub-Saharan Africa]], as well as a formidable [[Ethiopian Air Force|air force]] and navy.