Another Soviet Push for Power

A couple of simmering wars get a lot hotter

The echoes of Angola are unmistakable: a prolonged and bitter civil war, a Soviet airlift of arms in support of an unstable military regime, increasing numbers of Russian and Cuban advisers, ragtag battalions of tribesmen bloodying each other with modern weapons supplied by outside powers. Now the battlefield is Ethiopia and the high-stakes pawn is the strategic Horn of Africa, which commands the shipping routes through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

After some hesitation, Moscow has jumped forcefully into the internal wars between its Ethiopian client, the Marxist regime headed by Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, and the rebel forces that have captured chunks of Ethiopian territory in Eritrea on the Red Sea and the Ogaden region bordering the Somali Democratic Republic. In mid-December, big Antonov and Ilyushin transport planes began wheeling into the airport at Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. The airlift, which appears to be concluding, has brought iri $850 million worth of arms, including T-34 tanks, field guns, heavy mortars and light missiles. U.S. officials believe Moscow has also supplied a number of fighter planes, possibly including advanced MiG-23s.

Some 1,000 Russians and 2,000 Cubans arrived with the hardware, and they may not all be just advisers: both Eritrean and Somalian rebel forces claim to have captured Cuban combat troops. Underscoring Moscow's new urgency about the battle of the Horn, Raul Castro, Fidel's brother and Cuba's Defense Minister, arrived in mid-January, apparently to help Mengistu run his dual war against the rebels and his political opponents in Addis Ababa.

It may not be an easy task. In Eritrea, where rebel forces control 90% of the territory, fighting has swirled for weeks in and around the important port of Massawa (pop. 30,000). Rebel positions downtown have been bombed by Ethiopian pilots flying not only MiG's but also U.S. jets left over from the days (before May 1977) when the Addis Ababa regime was a U.S. friend. According to Western eyewitnesses, Soviet warships have been lobbing shells into the city. Most of Massawa's civilians have fled to the nearby hills, where they live in makeshift shelters, in desperate need of food and medical supplies.

Five hundred miles to the southeast, Colonel Mengistu's forces have begun a counteroffensive in the Ogaden region. Last fall ethnic Somali tribesmen, aided by Somalia, overran most of the Ogaden, in what Somalia claims is a liberation war to clear out the Ethiopian "colonizers." Now the fierce but poorly equipped Western Somali Liberation Front is badly overextended, and Somalia claimed last week that Ethiopian forces had launched a major attack out of Harar, one of only two towns in the area that the Ethiopians hold.

Why Moscow decided to enter the conflict so strongly and publicly in support of the shaky Ethiopian regime is not clear. The Soviets have a history of miscalculation on the Horn: following the overthrow of Haile Selassie in 1974, Moscow saw a chance to weaken U.S. influence in the area and for some reason thought it could curry favor with its new friends in Addis Ababa without antagonizing Somalia's President, Mohamed Siad Barre, who had been the Kremlin's closest ally in northeast Africa. But angered by Moscow's growing involvement with Ethiopia, a traditional Somali enemy, Barre kicked the Russians out of his country last November and closed down the big Soviet military base on the Red Sea at Berbera.

The Russians may want to establish a new base at Massawa, though Moscow already has naval and air facilities in both South Yemen and Aden. Ethiopia could prove to be a mini-Viet Nam for the Russians even though, as the second most populous nation in black Africa (pop. 29 million), it offers them a more attractive springboard than Somalia from which to jump into African affairs and establish a strong presence along the Persian Gulf tanker routes.

Though U.S. officials are now seriously concerned about the Soviet and Cuban buildup in Ethiopia, Washington has resisted repeated Somalian requests for military aid. Somalia's position is difficult for the West to endorse wholeheartedly: as the aggressor in the Ogaden, it has embarrassed the Organization of African Unity, whose charter forbids any breaching of established borders. Says one U.S. African expert: "Sending military aid now would open a Pandora's box."

That situation could change should Ethiopia invade Somalia. In that event, the Shah of Iran and Egypt's Anwar Sadat have already offered to help. Somalia is meanwhile getting "nonmilitary" financial assistance from West Germany, partly out of gratitude for the decision to allow West German commandos to fly into Mogadishu and rescue 86 hostages in the Lufthansa hijacking last October. For the moment, the West is backing the OAU committee which is seeking a negotiated settlement to the Ethiopian-Somalian conflict. Says an African diplomat in Nairobi: "It's a difficult question but not insoluble. The important thing is to provide an alternative to the terrible bloodshed that is coming." -

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