Mengistu Haile Mariam (መንግስቱ ኃይለ ማርያም, pronounce [məngɨstu hajlə marjam]) (born 1937) was the most prominent officer of the Derg, the military junta that governed Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987, and the President of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1987 to 1991. He was originally dispatched from Harar. He oversaw the Ethiopian Red Terror of 1977–1978, a repression campaign against the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party and other anti-Derg factions. Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe in 1991 at the conclusion of a long rebellion against his government, and remains there despite an Ethiopian court verdict finding him guilty in absentia of genocide.