Haile Fida

Haile Fida languished in prison for some time, until at last he was executed; the circumstances of his death are unclear, but Andargachew Tiruneh states that he was killed two years after his arrest, in 1979.

Unable to defeat each other with words, the opposing groups resorted to violence. The first victim was Theodore Bekele, MEISON member and leader of the All-Ethiopia Trade Union, who was killed 25 February 1977. This was the start of the Red Terror, during which hundreds died and ended with the defeat of the EPRP; the few who survived fled Addis Ababa for Mount Asimba.

He soon came to the notice of not only the Derg, who were in need of both civilian supporters and advisers in Marxist-Leninist theory, as well as to the notice of its leading member, Mengistu Haile Mariam. In December 1975, the Derg secretly created what became known as the Provisional Office for Mass Organizational Affairs (POMOA), and Haile Fida was made its chairman. The goal of POMOA was not only to build support amongst the general public, but to reach out to other leftist civilians. It was while chairman of POMOA that Haile Fida drafted the Program of National Democratic Revolution, a document which replaced the patriotic but vague motto Itiopiya Tikdem ("Ethiopia first") the Derg had used as their guiding principles with a Maoist vision for Ethiopia. Relying on the revolutionary alliance of the proletariat, the peasantry and the progressive petit-bourgeoisie, the trinity of feudalism, imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism would be destroyed and eventually a People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia established. Mengistu announced the adoption of the National Democratic Revolution at a mass demonstration 20 April 1976.

Despite the departure of the EPRP, conditions did not improve for either Haile Fida or MEISON. On 10 July 1976, a coup to remove Mengistu failed, and Sisay Hapte, who had been the Derg's chief liaison with the civilian Left, was executed three days later along with over 17 accomplices. Then towards the end of 1976, a struggle broke out between Mengistu and MEISON, after which Mengistu began to systematically replace all of its members in the government. Tensions increased when 11 March 1977 in a ministerial reshuffle MEISON failed to acquire any positions. Then on 14 July management of POMOA was taken from the party. Haile Fida and the rest of MEISON knew that the next blow would be bloody, and acted first: on 19 August the leading figures of MEISON and some 500 cadres went underground. Mengistu denounced the party in a speech five days later, and on 26 August Haile Fida with several other leaders were captured outside of Addis Ababa, and detained in the Old Gebbi, where the Derg had made its headquarters; a number of the other MEISON leaders were killed either on the spot or in subsequent shoot-outs. Only Negede Gobeze managed to escape the Derg, and found sanctuary in Yemen.

Meanwhile, Haile Fida strengthened his ties with the Derg. August 1975, he joined Sisay Hapte, chairman of the Derg's Political Affairs Committee, in negotiating with six Arab countries over the increasing problems with Eritrea.

Haile Fida was born in Jimma Arjo, East Wollega Zone and grew up in Nekemte, East Wollega. Haile Fida was studying in France since the early 1960s, and had acquired a Marxist ideology that was closer to the Soviet version than to the New Left; Haile studied MA in sociology and social anthropology and PhD in philosophy at the Institut Universitaire de France. Rene LeFort states that he was a fellow-traveller of the French Communist Party. He returned to Ethiopia soon after the start of the Ethiopian Revolution, sometime in 1975, having answered the Derg's appeal for all educated Ethiopians to return home to help modernize the country. With Negede Gobeze, who had also been studying abroad in France, he opened the "Progressive Book Store" near the campus of Haile Selassie University (now Addis Ababa University), which made the basic texts of Marxism-Leninism available to Ethiopians. "The store", note the Ottaways, "a dilapidated old house, was swamped by students, and each new shipment of books was immediately sold out."

Haile Fida (Amharic: ኃይሌ ፊዳ, Oromo: Haaylee Fidaa, c. 4 April 1939 – c. 4 April 1979) was an Ethiopian politician and a leader of the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (popularly known as "MEISON", after its Amharic abbreviation መኢሶን). His most significant accomplishment was drafting the Program for the National Democratic Revolution on behalf of the Derg.