Ethiopia: Uncle Sam Steps In

By Lisa Beyer

With the rebels only 75 miles from the capital, the President discredited and the army demoralized, the script would seem to be preordained for Ethiopia. Liberia and Somalia have provided the worst kind of models in the past year: the government falls, blood splatters the capital, thousands flee the country, tribes and clans clash, anarchy prevails. This time, the foreshadowing has prompted an earnest attempt to rewrite the scenario. The chief scribe is the U.S., which until recently, when the Soviets became less active in the region, had little influence over Ethiopia's quasi-Marxist combatants.

The latest effort to mediate the conflict was sparked by what appears to be the imminent collapse of Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam's regime. Mengistu, whose 14-year reign of terror rivals that of Saddam Hussein, has been written off before, only to survive. But since late April, when Tigrean- led Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front guerrillas pushed as far south as Ambo, putting almost all of northern Ethiopia in rebel hands, the consensus has been that Mengistu is a goner. "It brought home that the 30- year seesaw of rebel victories and then government victories had irretrievably dipped," says a Bush Administration official. "This is the end game."

The three main groups fighting the government -- the E.P.R.D.F., an allied group of Eritreans fighting for independence and a smaller band of insurgent Oromos -- are not eager to storm the capital, Addis Ababa, knowing that a bloodbath would ensue. Thus the U.S. is attempting to arrange a peaceful transfer of power to a broad-based transitional government that would rule the country until elections are held.

That would be a far better outcome than a flat-out rebel military victory, which would leave the Tigrean faction in a dominant position. The group's leaders, once Albanian-style Marxists who now espouse a blend of old-fashioned communism and American-flavored democracy, are widely distrusted in Ethiopia.

Washington-sponsored talks between the rebels and the regime are scheduled to take place in London next week. Mengistu, however, is a sticky problem. Those around him, sensing a dark future for the government, are keenly interested in negotiations. The President is showing signs of stress -- he needs to take pills to sleep -- but he still seems to think he can hold out. Says a U.S. government specialist on Ethiopia: "He's the type to hang on to the bitter end."

Washington still hopes to persuade Mengistu to step aside by turning his own logic against him. The President has claimed that he alone represents unity for Ethiopia against the secessionist demands of the Eritreans. But if there is no political settlement, the Americans will argue, the Eritreans are poised to win their independence by force. What's more, the U.S. will maintain, Ethiopia can remain intact even with Mengistu gone because the Eritreans, to everyone's amazement, say they will defer their dream of a separate state.

The last contention is rather weak, since it is unclear whether the deferment is only temporary; Eritreans refuse to cancel the referendum on independence that they have long demanded for their region, which was not a part of Ethiopia until 1952, when the United Nations decided it should be annexed. Still, given the rebels' single-mindedness about the plebiscite in the past, that concession was considered a victory for the U.S.

Ethiopia has considerable strategic value because of its location on the Red Sea and its proximity to the Arab world. But the country, and others in the Horn of Africa, are no longer the geopolitical battleground that they were during the cold war, when Washington and Moscow backed rival clients in the area. U.S. officials maintain that the primary motivation for their involvement is humanitarian. Ethiopia is among the world's poorest countries, and always under the threat of famine.

However pure its intentions, Washington faces a monstrous task in trying to prevent another African slaughter. "The chances are still strong that Mengistu will be stupid and dig in," laments a U.S. envoy. "Soon enough, the Tigreans will fight their way into Menelik Palace, and we'll have a disaster on our hands."

The rebels, who charge that government officials will use the talks to buy time, concur that the odds are against peace. "I don't think ((the government)) is serious," says Tesfai Ghermazien, the Eritrean group's spokesman in Washington, "but there is a very slim chance it is, since for all practical purposes it has lost the war." Now it is a question of whether Mengistu can read that far ahead in the script.

With reporting by J.F.O. McAllister and Jay Peterzell/Washington and Marguerite Michaels/Addis Ababa