Moscow's Helping Hands

Doing the Kremlin's dirty work" is the way one Western intelligence official refers to them. Another labels them "Moscow's cat's-paws." These derisive descriptions refer to Communist countries that are busily reinforcing Soviet support for Ethiopia with sorely needed arms as well as military and political expertise.

Cuba has been the most prominent of Moscow's proxies, with 3,000 troops in Ethiopia, 19,000 in Angola and about 4,000 in nine other states. In recent years other Communist-ruled nations -- most notably in Eastern Europe --have dispatched elite units to black Africa to serve Soviet foreign policy interests. Presumably, this strategy has been designed to help Moscow maintain a low profile and thus escape being branded a neoimperialist.

The efficient and ideologically rigorous East Germans have apparently been selected as the most trustworthy ally. First sent to Ethiopia last summer, East Germany's forces there now number an estimated 1,000. Senior East German officers assigned to the Ethiopian Defense Ministry helped to reorganize the country's armed forces, and no doubt have contributed to the planning of the current offensive. Other East Germans have been advising the Ethiopians on the military and ideological training of the police, militia, regular armed forces and youth groups. A hard-lining East Berlin Politburo member, Werner Lamberz, headed a delegation that advised Addis Ababa about reconstructing the country's economy on orthodox Marxist lines.

The army and secret police of nearby South Yemen have been learning the latest security techniques from some 2,000 East Germans, assisted by about 4,000 Cubans, some of whom also seem to serve as a kind of Praetorian Guard for the country's repressive Premier Ali Nasser Mohamed. East Germany is also believed to be running three training camps in South Yemen for radical Palestinian commandos. East Berlin has dispatched "Brigades of Friendship," consisting of military, ideological, security and medical cadres, to Angola; in Mozambique, the East German "diplomatic" mission has become the largest in the country, exceeding even that of the Soviet Union. East Germany's increasingly complex African operations are now handled by a special secretariat in East Berlin, headed by Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade Alex Schalk.

Hundreds of Czechs, Hungarians, Poles and Bulgarians are also aiding Ethiopia's forces. Technicians from Prague and Budapest have supervised the arrival of large quantities of weapons, such as AK-47 automatic rifles and machine guns, made by Warsaw Pact countries. Transporting arms and men from Eastern Europe to Ethiopia formerly presented only minor problems, since they were flown from their staging area in Libya over an unsuspecting Sudan. Until they were expelled in May, Russian advisers in Khartoum had tampered with the Sudanese radar network to create a blind spot in its coverage,'in effect creating a "corridor" through which Soviet planes flew undetected.

Ominous though the Soviet presence in Ethiopia may be, Moscow may yet bungle this political opportunity as it has bungled others. Despite heavy political and military investments in Ghana, Egypt and Somalia, the Russians were ultimately tossed out of those countries. They and their cat's-paws may start to suffer if the war on the Horn begins to exact a toll. According to intelligence reports, Cuba's military presence abroad is now so unpopular that troopships must leave Havana at night.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.