In this country, some aristocratic families automatically categorize persons with dark skin, thick lips, and kinky hair as "Barias" [Amharic for slave]... let it be clear to everybody that I shall soon make these ignoramuses stoop and grind corn!

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

I am a revolutionary; my life is dedicated to freeing the people.

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.

We thought that the proletariat would eventually run the world. But it is the Americans who have assumed that position... The American people have changed.

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

When we planned our country's economic development, we had the strategic objective of our Revolution in mind. It was not planned for economic development [to be] solely an end in itself. There are some who have forgotten that the sole basis of our revolutionary struggle was the ideology and politics which we follow.