Heads Of State

"I congratulate my fellow countrymen, gallant soldiers, my Pashtun and Baloch brothers and the workers of Asia, Africa, Europe and the US on the first birthday of the Saur Revolution. The Saur Revolution is not limited to the workers and soldiers of Afghanistan. It is the revolution of the workers and oppressed masses of [the] whole world. This revolution, which was carried out by armed soldiers under the leadership of the Khalq Party, is a great success and a victory for workers all over the world. The great October Revolution of 1917 shook the whole world. That revolution is a source of guidance and inspiration for our revolution, which once again has begun to shake the planet."

"We want to create a society in which our workers and farmers can afford to appear in handsome attire and enjoy a good life and health; we want this kind of society."

""I did not want to be Premier in the first place. I only accepted because Bourguiba pleaded with me to accept." - Interim Premier of Tunisia Tahar ben Amar"

"Give us arms! Give us arms!"

"Nasser's Cairo radio on Bourguiba: "the same destiny as Nuri as-Said," (the Iraqi premier who was assasinated)"

"Bourguiba's Neo-Destour Party paper, the L'Action: "To be respected in 1958 one can no longer be a friend of the West. The day that Bourguiba decides to follow the path set by Nehru, Tito and Nasser, Tunisia will no longer be lied about and attacked. She will be wooed.""

"Bourguiba warning the French: "it will mean war. ... Today I am the President of the Republic, but I will be the first to join the Maquis. ... Tunisia is always ready to turn the page. ... I have promised the Tunisian people that the French army will go, If I fail, I will be swept away.""

""a dangerous maniac who actually thinks he might become a figure in world affairs." - French Resident General"

"El Massa from Beirut: "Turn to Cairo, O Habib. Turn to the Arab Republic, to the camp of neutralism and to dignity and sovereignty.""

"Bourguiba is terribly awkward, but he said what most of us believe. The Egyptians take millions from the Communists and have the nerve to call us lackeys for accepting a penny from America."

"How many times, have I had to seat women whom I received at audiences next to me, rather than facing me, in order to avoid general embarrassment? Nothing should compel us to suffer such trials. It puts the nerves of men and the modesty of women to a severe test."

"Bourguiba on people who patronized the Zéro de Conduite (Zero for Conduct), nightclub: "Practice a shameful exhibitionism in morbid and degrading dances.""

"You are wrong. The state and its existence are essential before everything else. All this preoccupation with liberty is not serious."

"Bourguiba on Ramadan's effect on Tunisia: "Stagnation, weakness and decadence ... beautiful custom ... pretext that paralyzes our activity.""

"I have carried this abscess too far, Tunisia is going through a difficult period. Freedom is dangerous."

"Bourguiba quoting Muhammad: "Break the fast, and you will be stronger to confront the enemy. ... humiliating backward condition of our country.""

"At the moment of a revolution there is no question of setting up a democracy like that in America. If they accuse me of dictatorship, I accept. I am creating a nation. Liberty must be suppressed until the end of the war in Algeria—until the nation becomes homogeneous."

"The only Jews who interest us are our fellow citizens. ... Basically and profoundly, we are with the West."

"While I am alive, not a hair on Jewish heads will be touched."

"When a house is on fire, the neighbors' duty is to put it out. ... I hate colonialism, not the French."

"We have the proof that our disagreement with the U.A.R. is more than a simple misunderstanding."

"They struggle to cut hands and heads and we struggle to keep heads high and hands raised."

"The relationship between a woman and a man is built on the basis of mutual respect .. The woman is not required to bury herself in life because the man is unable to control his instincts like animals .. The woman raises the man's face, hair, height, width, smell, and even the voice of her is roughened, but the woman has learned to control her instincts. The man is also required to rise to the level of the woman."

"Yes, I am Western, and I will remain so."

"I do not think that the time is right to talk about democracy in its absolute concept. Arab societies marginalized their modern thinkers and scholars for the elders who stopped their time before fourteen centuries, which is the difference between us and them .. Therefore, it was necessary to work on spreading a more realistic culture in which modern science has a more open place. Take, for example, if we asked the Tunisian people (he meant former President Bourguiba then and not now) to hold a referendum on his position on women's education, then I can assure that 99.99% will refuse her education."

"I will impose women's freedom and rights by the force of the law, and I will not wait for the democracy of a people duped by male culture in the name of religion."

"Bourguiba on Gamal Abdel Nasser: "not aware of the danger of Communism. Once the Iron Curtain drops, there is no escape.""

"From the beginning however, there was resistence to Portuguese mastery over Kotte. While Dharmapala was alive there were two major revolts, one led by Akaragama Appuhamy in 1594, and the other by Edirille rala in 1594-96."

"Some of the very heroic and colourful figures in our history are sons of Sabaragamuwa - Parakramabahu I, born in Dedigama, the warrior King Rajasinghe I also known as Sitawaka Rajasingha, Edirille Rala born in Colombo and baptised Domingo Corea, who returned to the village of his ancestors Atulugama near Sitawaka and turned against the Portuguese."

"Great Warriors like Mayadunne, Veediya Bandara, Seethawaka Rajasinghe, Vimaladharmasuriya I, Senarath, Rajasinghe II, Nikapitiye Bandara and Edirille Rala who fought the Portuguese to preserve our territorial integrity and kept the Portuguese at bay despite all odds."

"Dominicus Corea had a posthumous son, Lewis Corea who became the Dissawe of Uva. Sir Paul Peiris wrote that `With the disappearance of Dominicus Corea, came a short lull in military operations of which the Portuguese officials availed themselves to give free rein to that rapacity which so frequently disgraced their careers in the East’. Dominicus Corea was succeeded by his brother Simon, as Dissawe of the Sat Korale, Kotte and Sitawaka."

"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 is a barbaric and cruel creature who becomes happy with the death of human beings."

"Africa's downfall has always been the cult of the personality. And their names always seem to begin with M. We've had Mobutu and Mengistu and I'm not going to add Meles to the list."

"And now that Thou has restored to me the knowledge of Thyself, O Lord, let thy pardon fall on me, since Thy infinite mercy is not better known in anything than in pardoning a Dismas (the traditional name of the good thief) on the Cross and a Dominicus Corea on the gallows. If in Hell there is room for sinners, in Heaven also there is room for penitents."

"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."

"Menghistu had the problem of coming from... a very dubious background socially of coming from the South West of the country from a border region he didn't have good Ethiopian credentials. Good blue blood of any kind. There were rumors in later years that supposedly he had descended from some Ethiopian emperor, but there was no evidence whatsoever that this was the case. Therefore Menghistu felt necessary to prove his nationalism and he had to prove he was as tough as anybody else and he was desirous of protecting Ethiopia's interests."

"He (Veediya Bandara), went and stopped at the Seven Korale. By this time, the ruler there was a war hero. He was Edirimanne Suriya, better known as Edirille Rala. He had made Mudukondapala, a place close to Kurunegala, his capital city. When he saw Commander Veediya Bandara, he was delighted and welcomed him with all love and respect. He was well treated. Then both of them broke into conversation. This leader Edirille Rala, just like Veediya Bandara, was an erstwhile enemy of the Portuguese. As such, this meeting of theirs was extra special. Both of them were enemies of the King of Sitawaka as well. This common feature was something to be happy about. The main aim of Veediya Bandara too, was chasing away the Portuguese from Sri Lanka."

"When as an American emissary I met him in September 1977 in his office in the Menelik Palace, I was struck at how much darker he was than his portrait on the wall behind him. The fact that he was more Negroid than the average Ethiopian highlander gave him an inferiority complex."

"The suffering of the Ethiopian people was to some extent ameliorated by support from the Soviet Union, to whom Mengistu had offered up his country as a satellite state, although much of the Soviet aid was spent on military expenditure. When the Soviet Union began to flounder in the mid-1980s, the withdrawal of aid meant that Mengistu’s response to the devastating famine of 1984-5 was entirely ineffectual. When news of the famine first broke, the regime condemned it as enemy propaganda; but it was only international aid that prevented the death toll rising beyond the already shocking figure of 1 million. In 1991 Mengistu was finally deposed by the Ethiopian Revolutionary Democratic Front, a military coalition of opposition groups, as well as Eritreans and Tigrayans. Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe. In December 2006, after a 12-year trial, an Ethiopian court convicted Mengistu in absentia of genocide — the death of untold millions — and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Meanwhile, the former dictator continues to live in comfort in Zimbabwe, on a large ranch."

"Ethiopian communists were hardly more effective in setting up a stable regime. Stirrings in the armed forces against Emperor Haile Selassie led in 1974 to the formation of the Co-ordinating Committee (Derg). This body steadily stripped the Emperor of his powers. Its own members were deeply divided and its first leader Lieutenant General Aman Andom was killed in factional strife. The radical wing of the Derg, headed by Major Mengistu Haile Mariam, took dictatorial control. Mengistu declared rural land to be ‘the property of the Ethiopian people’ and distributed it to peasant cooperatives. He quickly moved to a communist ideological commitment. Supporters of the Imperial regime resisted him even after the murder of the Emperor in August 1975. Ethnic groups, especially the Eritreans and the Somalis, fought to secede from the Ethiopian state. Mengistu also confronted opposition in the Derg. His response was to conduct a Red Terror. This finally lost him financial aid from the USA, which supported him against the Soviet-backed Eritrean rebels; but by then he could count on support from the USSR, which had ceased to favour the Eritrean rebels. In February 1977 Mengistu killed his surviving rivals and critics in the Derg. Finance, arms and military advisers in large quantities were transported to Ethiopia from Moscow. Cubans too were dispatched. Ethiopia had become a geostrategic outpost of world communism in the Horn of Africa."

"By 1977 Mengistu, with ruthless efficiency, had established himself as the leading force in the army, and in the Dergue. As Ethiopia adopted an aggressive approach to neighbouring Eritrea, Mengistu shot a fellow Dergue member who had argued for a more cautious foreign policy. He personally purged the Dergue by executing rivals and opponents with a machine-gun. He also ordered the assassination of any other former comrades who stood in his way, and in 1987 declared himself president for life. As president, the first changes that Mengistu implemented made some progress in dismantling Ethiopia's archaic, almost feudal land system. But the mass forced relocations of people to new collective agricultural settlements proved disastrous, and caused further tragedy. Mengistu not only killed his own people but fought a long and bloody war with his rival leftist dictator Mohamed Siad Barre of Somalia. Hundreds of thousands died."

"Although the Derg’s fighting capacity increased, the basic difficulties of communist rule got worse. Eritreans and Somalis kept up the struggle against a government which used brutal methods of suppression. Economic mismanagement was severe. Whole regions of the country experienced famine. The assault on religion and social customs caused enormous resentment. Mengistu even annoyed his Soviet advisers. They thought his propensity for political violence counter-productive; they were also disappointed by his failure to construct a communist party, mobilise the ‘masses’ and resolve inter-ethnic enmities. The continual executions were regarded as undesirable. Mengistu had built a confinement ward almost to rival Pol Pot’s in the lunatic asylum of communist politics. Far from being controllable, he had used Soviet and Cuban assistance more or less as he liked."

"Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam helped overthrow Emperor Haile Selassie, seized power in Ethiopia; murdered his own ministers with a machine-gun, imposed a brutal Leninist tyranny and repressive police-state, ordered the murder of millions of his countrymen and created, by policy and blunder, a famine that killed millions more. He ranks as one of Africa’s most disastrous monsters."

"From now on you must pray for your people and yourself three times a day."

"He was able to read and write like a well bred man."

"Until its overthrow in 1991, Mengistu and the Dergue was responsible for the deaths of millions of Ethiopians. In an echo of Pol Pot’s brief regime in Cambodia in the later 1970s, hundreds of intellectuals, particularly those with any association with the old regime, were rounded up and shot in order to purify the country in the name of revolution. The rival Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party suffered particularly over the following years — membership was enough to secure abduction and near certain death. The Dergue governed by cultivating an atmosphere of fear and paranoia. Local committees, called ‘Kebeles’, were set up across Ethiopia, with the power to monitor and name potential ‘enemies of the revolution’. The names of suspects were then filed by the central administration and soon rounded up by militiamen in the pay of the regime. Many bodies turned up the following day, or weeks later; others were never found. In the event that the bodies were returned for burial, the Kebeles demanded that the victim’s family pay for the cost of the bullets used to kill their loved one."

"Mengistu seemed to symbolize the revolution. He was the baria, the slave who overthrew the master, the member of the conquered tribe who got even with the conquerors, the poorly educated son of a servant who rose against the intellectual elite."

"For me and for many others, Mengistu was the best choice [as chairman of the military council] for several reasons. He had come from a poor family background and was not an Amhara, the dominant ethnic group under Haile Selassie. As a person and as a junior officer he represented our rejection of past values. He would bring about a greater sense that all Ethiopians were equal, an end to class arrogance and racism. Many of us felt he would embody the spirit of the Revolution and symbolize the change we wanted to bring about."

"Mengistu strikes me as a quiet, honest and convinced leader who is aware of the power of the masses. He is an intellectual personality who showed his wisdom on February 3. The rightists wanted to do away with the leftists on February 3. The prelude to this was an exuberant speech by the Ethiopian president in favor of nationalism. Mengistu met this challenge. He delayed the meeting of the Revolutionary Council by one hour and had the rightist leaders arrested and shot. A very consequential decision was taken on February 3. The political landscape of the country changed, which has enabled them to take steps that were impossible before them. Before it was only possible to support the leftist forces indirectly. Now we can do so without any constraints.*"