Fidel Castro was a supporter of the Marxist–Leninist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, whose regime killed hundreds of thousands during the Ethiopian Red Terror of the late 1970s, and who was later convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. Cuba provided substantial military support to Mariam during the latter's conflict with the Somali dictator Siad Barre in the Ogaden War (July 1977–March 1978), stationing around 24,000 troops in Ethiopia. Castro explained this to Erich Honecker, communist dictator of East Germany, by saying that Siad Barre was "above all a chauvinist".