by Guy Arnold
ERITREA
The Eritrean war of secession was one of the longest and hardest fought in Africa. The Ethiopian army mounted eight major offensives against Eritrea between 1973 and 1988 and was driven back each time with heavy losses. In 1982 Operation Red Star involving 140,000 troops resulted in 40,000 dead and wounded; despite their apparently overwhelming military strength, backed by the Soviets and Cubans, they failed to capture the northern strongholds in Eritrea. In 1987–88 the EPLF launched a series of attacks on the Ethiopian army, inflicted heavy casualties and broke through its front. On tour of the front line Mengistu arrested a number of officers and had Brig. Gen. Taiku Taye shot in front of his men ‘pour encourager les autres’ although the incident led to a collapse of morale. On 17 March 1988 the EPLF launched a general offensive and in a series of battles claimed to have killed 18,000 Ethiopians, captured a further 6,000, wiped out an armoured brigade and taken several cities, including Af Abet, a principal Ethiopian depot and garrison town. The defeats of early 1988 were sufficiently severe to force Mengistu to call for volunteers throughout Ethiopia and to demand that every Ethiopian should contribute a month’s wages or pension towards the costs of the war. More to the point, he reached an agreement with Somalia to restore diplomatic relations, which allowed him to airlift troops to the north from the 150,000 stationed on the Somali border.
The EPLF did not attempt to hold onto the towns it had captured but withdrew its forces to the countryside. By the end of 1988, despite the calls to the nation to rally behind the war effort and the transfer of troops from the Ogaden front to the north, the Ethiopian army was demoralized and on the defensive, holding its last line in Eritrea from Asmara to Massawa on the Red Sea. Parallel with these defeats the regime adopted increasingly brutal tactics. It decreed that the territory along the coast to the north of Massawa was a free-fire zone and anything mobile in it was attacked from the air: this was the grazing area for Eritrean nomads and the policy was to starve them into submission. Elsewhere in Eritrea the Ethiopians adopted scorched-earth tactics and systematically devastated the countryside. According to relief agencies, from March to August 1988 between 350,000 and 500,000 Eritreans from Massawa to Keren were forced to flee their homes. During the famine of 1984 and the second one of 1988 Mengistu prevented foreign relief agencies working in Eritrea and stopped Ethiopian agencies from doing so as well. The famine of 1988 affected seven million people throughout Ethiopia. In April 1988 Mengistu expelled all foreign aid workers from the northern provinces on ‘security’ grounds, claiming that Ethiopian relief organizations could handle the crisis. Although it had begun as a Marxist organization the EPLF gradually softened its stance through the 1980s, particularly as the USSR was giving its full support to Ethiopia while Sudan and Saudi Arabia were prepared to assist the EPLF. It changed its attitude further as it witnessed the failure of Marxism elsewhere in Africa. However, it was distrustful of outside supporters, except for Somalia which had been unwavering in its solidarity. The EPLF always managed to obtain the weapons it required, including large amounts of arms captured from the Ethiopians.
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE EPLF
During the 1980s the EPLF developed into one of the most efficient of all the liberation movements that Africa spawned in the second half of the century. The organizational outreach of the EPLF was not limited to Eritreans within Eritrea; an important source of political and financial support as well as recruitment was among Eritreans who had fled the country. These included refugees in Sudan, those who had moved into Ethiopia as well as the Eritrean communities in the US and Europe. Refugees accounted for the largest number of Eritreans outside the country and the great majority of these came from the Muslim communities. Sudan acted as the main transit route to other continents and at the time of liberation there were over 600,000 in Sudan. EPLF strength was derived, in part, from the destruction of the other liberation movement, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), and this was assisted by the EPLF alliance with the TPLF. ‘The defeat of the ELF in the 1981–82 civil war was also a product of military co-operation between the EPLF and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), an important component of the EPLF’s strategy of seeking allies among political groups opposed to the Dergue.’14 Despite the break in their relations in the mid-1980s, the strength of the TPLF in Tigray, which was a major staging post for Ethiopian offensives against Eritrea, and military co-operation between it and the EPLF in the late 1980s and in the final assault on the Mengistu regime, the alliance was of the utmost strategic importance. This alliance made possible EPLF operations deep into Ethiopia. The EPLF became a highly centralized and disciplined military and political organization with spheres for initiative allocated to the cadre, battalion, brigade and divisional commanders. The EPLF also faced a non-military challenge in the 1980s, that of famine, and succeeded in turning this challenge into opportunities for its development, particularly in the arena of international legitimization, so that it expanded its governmental role in dealing with the problem despite Ethiopian opposition.
US POLICY TOWARDS ERITREA
US ‘plans’ for Eritrea that had been formulated and changed from the 1950s onwards depended upon what happened in Ethiopia. The EPLF realized that it could not assume automatic US support for an independent Eritrean state once Mengistu had gone and that Eritrean independence, in the end, would be determined by the Eritreans alone. Chester Crocker, US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, was a consistent critic of President Carter’s African policy and had opposed Andrew Young’s line that in the light of African nationalism, US policy should back African solutions to African problems. Instead, he said, ‘African nationalism is fuelled by an infusion of communist military equipment.’ He continued: ‘… in Africa’s increasingly militarized context, a policy of support for African solutions may in fact amount to support for military solutions imposed by other external powers’.15 Policy-makers in Washington understood that states or movements in developing countries could be authentically anti-imperialist only in alliance with the world revolutionary movement, especially the USSR and the socialist community. In the Carter years analysts began to advocate support for ‘communist’ states in Asia and Africa which ‘demonstrate independence from Moscow and willingness to contribute to overall stability’. At the same time these analysts called for measures to ‘restrain and… isolate’ revolutionary democratic regimes like those of South Yemen and Ethiopia.16 Increasingly, through the 1980s, the EPLF came to distrust the policy objectives of both the US and USSR. Cold War complexities always had to be taken into account. Thus, in 1980, ‘Egypt supplied the EPLF with Soviet-made weapons it had acquired when it enjoyed good relations with the USSR. It provided them to the EPLF pursuant to an understanding with Washington on this matter.’ Similarly, ‘The Ba’athite government of Iraq, formerly abused in the EPLF media, now provided material support, including pharmaceutical and medical assistance. In 1980, Iraqi transport planes were to fly wounded EPLF fighters from Kassala, Sudan, to Baghdad for treatment.’17
Crocker advocated a policy based on US interest and argued that even food be used ‘as a tool for the promotion of… US interest – either developmental or political’. His Africa policy recommendations for the 1980s included the following statement: ‘In the coming decade, policy makers will need to develop a more careful calculation of the means-ends relationship in African policy. At the same time, the case for an activist regional policy must be based more explicitly on clearly defined American interests that can be understood and supported at home.’18 The Reagan administration saw support for the Eritreans as a means of countering Soviet and Cuban support for the Ethiopian regime. Peter Duignan, of the Hoover Institution, said: ‘Our basic objective ought to be to push the Ethiopians back to their old borders. They don’t belong… in Eritrea.’ This was to reverse the US line of 20 years previously when it had supported Haile Selassie’s federation. ‘The US now took several other steps which were a threat to Ethiopia. These were the est
ablishment of a base at the Kenyan port of Mombasa, the increase of military assistance to the Sudan, the supply of sophisticated weapons to Saudi Arabia, and the escalation of US military presence in North Yemen… The forces in collusion with US imperialism included the EPLF in Eritrea and the TPLF in northern Ethiopia. The EPLF had once again resumed parading as a “Marxist” organisation. The TPLF also claimed to be “Marxist” and socialist oriented.’ The author of these statements makes the following point about US policy. ‘The policy planners in Washington fully realized that “Marxist” or “socialist” was of no consequence as long as these movements were anti-Soviet.’19
The EPLF leader Issayas Afewerki said in an interview in April 1984 that the EPLF would negotiate a settlement in Eritrea but not necessarily with the ‘present regime’ in Ethiopia. Eritrea under the EPLF ‘can allow’ Ethiopia ‘an outlet to the sea’ and establish ‘economic, social, cultural and other ties’. This would not be possible with the present (Mengistu) regime but ‘with a genuine government that does represent the Ethiopian population’. In 1985 President Reagan asserted that in Ethiopia ‘… 1,700 Soviet advisers are involved in military planning and support operations along with 2,500 Cuban combat troops’. According to the New York Times, one of ‘Reagan’s five trouble spots’ was Ethiopia, where ‘Eritrean rebels seeking secession or substantial autonomy are fighting Soviet-backed government forces. Government is also fighting insurgents in Tigre’.20 By 1989 the defeat of the Ethiopians appeared certain and this was assured when in 1990 Massawa was captured and the EPLF invested Asmara. Issayas Afewerki could say with conviction early in the year that ‘victory is only months away’. Even so, the EPLF stood by its promise that it would not proclaim an independent Eritrea until the issue had been submitted to the people by referendum. The final offensive came in 1991. ‘After 30 years of armed struggle and 20 years of intense military conflict, Eritrea had attained de facto independence and had facilitated the establishment of a government in Addis Ababa that was not opposed to an independent state. Independence had great costs: around 65,000 fighters had died, 10,000 were disabled, an estimated 40,000 civilian deaths were directly associated with the fighting and around 90,000 children were left without parents.’21
SOMALIA
At the end of the 1970s the Carter Administration in the US decided to back Somalia as part of its Cold War manoeuvring in the Horn. In August 1980 Washington and Mogadishu concluded an accord under which the US installed a military base at Berbera and supplied Somalia with millions of dollars of credits for the purchase of defensive arms. Subsequently, according to Newsweek, the Reagan Administration was prepared to seek ‘expanded military assistance for the Somalis and not being too fussy whether some of the weapons find their way to Somali insurgents operating inside Ethiopian territory’. Early in 1981 the Reagan Administration considered ‘ending Somalia’s diplomatic isolation on the question of the Ogaden by backing Somali territorial claims within well defined limits’.22 Thereafter, as another commentator points out, ‘For a decade from 1978, even as Barre hardened repressive measures, the US spilled US$800 million into the country, one quarter for military “aid”, in exchange for its own military access to ports and airports. Somalia’s former colonial master, Italy, contributed US$1 billion from 1981 to 1990, more than half of which went for weapons. The value of foreign aid to Somalia soared to US$80 per person, the highest rate in Africa and equivalent to half the gross domestic product.’23 Such figures demonstrate just how easily poor countries that are deemed to be strategically important by the major powers can obtain weapons of war.
Border confrontations between Somalia and Ethiopia continued through the 1980s with the Barre government supporting the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF). In turn Mengistu supported the Somali National Movement (SNM) as well as the Democratic Front for the Salvation of Somalia (DFSS), both of which had been formed in 1981. In neither case did these forces pose real threats to the regimes. Somalia’s insistence upon self-determination for Ethiopia’s Somali population of the Ogaden kept Somalia isolated, since its policy went against the general OAU principle of inviolable borders. Thus, at the 1981 OAU summit Somalia found little support for its stand. In 1985 the DFSS seized a strip of land on the Ethiopian border; however, the movement then became rent with dissensions and the Ethiopians arrested its leader, Col. Abdullah Yusuf. In 1986, following a conference between Ethiopia and Somalia in Djibouti, Ethiopia agreed to scale down its support for the DFSS. A principal complaint of northerners in Somalia (as with southerners in Sudan) was simply that their region was neglected by the government in Mogadishu, which concentrated upon development in the south. The SNM fed upon this discontent and the threat it posed to government became important in 1987. Meanwhile, the government had to face a new refugee problem. Some refugees had returned to Ethiopia voluntarily during the first half of the1980s but a massive new influx took place in 1986 comprised of Ethiopians fleeing Mengistu’s villageization programme and up to 840,000 had to be accommodated.
During 1987 dissidence in the north increased dramatically and the SNM launched a number of attacks from bases in Ethiopia against government positions in the north. In May 1987 the SNM claimed for the second time in the year that it had captured Hargeisa, Burao and Berbera. This claim, however, was denied in Mogadishu and was not borne out by the facts. However, fierce fighting in 1988 reduced Hargeisa and Burao to rubble; an estimated 50,000 people lost their lives and 400,000 refugees fled into Ethiopia. In Hargeisa, which was a government centre, 14,000 buildings were flattened and a further 12,000 heavily damaged. When in mid-July government forces recaptured Burao they found it had been wrecked. This phase of the war in the north was estimated to have cost the government the equivalent of 40 per cent of its annual revenue. By November 1988 government forces were generally in control though there was more fighting in Hargeisa. The government forces did not feel secure and Somalia was reported to be importing nerve gas from Libya.
The situation did not improve in 1989. Barre attempted to improve his image in the wake of the 1988 civil war in the north by visiting a number of Arab countries while his Prime Minister, Muhammad Ali Samate, visited Western Europe and the US. But the SNM continued to gain control of more of the north and Barre’s authority began to disintegrate. On 30 August 1989 the government announced it was prepared to hold multiparty elections although this did not halt the decline in Barre’s fortunes. Despite his efforts to win foreign support, the granting of an amnesty for those involved in the May-July uprising of 1988 and the release of some prisoners, Barre did not offer the SNM either a ceasefire or talks and by the end of the year the SNM was laying siege to a number of northern towns while Barre was becoming increasingly isolated. His regime by then had become notorious for repression. At the end of 1989, the problem was what would happen when the Barre regime collapsed as everyone then assumed would soon happen. In January 1990, the American human rights group Africa Watch claimed that government forces had killed between 50,000 and 60,000 civilians over the previous 19 months and driven about 500,000 into exile. The majority of these were Isaqs from the dominant northern clan. Barre’s position continued to deteriorate through 1990 as most of the country came under the control of various, often unconnected, rebel groups. The SNM controlled most of the north, the United Somali Congress (USC) was active in the centre of the country and the Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM) in the south while the capital, Mogadishu, was increasingly terrorized by armed gangs. Barre’s government, indulging in human rights abuses, faced growing internal instability and declining foreign support and now lacked any capacity to solve problems. In May 1990 the publication of the ‘Mogadishu Manifesto’ number one, signed by 114 prominent politicians and intellectuals, called for Barre’s resignation. A second, similar manifesto followed and in June 45 signatories of the first manifesto were arrested. On 6 July presidential guards fired on the crowd in the Mogadishu football stadium when it jeered at a speech by Barre and 60 people were killed.
By December 1990 the USC had taken control of parts of Mogadishu, 500 people were killed in two days of fighting and the President was reported to be holed up in a bunker under siege from rebel forces. In January 1991 he fled the country, leaving chaos and civil war behind him.
President Barre’s mark on Somalia’s star-crossed future was indelible. His army abandoned 40,000 weapons and hundreds of millions of live rounds to the guerrillas. Vast arms and weapons dumps were parcelled out among clan leaders, putting into their hands the ability to rule Somalia by force, as warlords. The toys divided, these new warlords could begin reaching for power for the sake of their clan – just as Barre, the exemplar, had done with his. And they could perpetuate their own terror.24