In 1988, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter visited Addis Ababa to
consult with Ethiopian dictator Mengistu. On a subsequent visit to the
region President Carter met with Eritrean and Tigrayan revolutionary
leaders, who had been engaged in a 30-year war with the Ethiopian
government. At the invitation of both sides, for 12 days in September 1989
President Carter presided over peace negotiations between the Ethiopian
government and the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) at The
Carter Center, marking the first time the parties agreed to negotiate without
preconditions in the presence of a third party mediator.
These negotiations were reconvened in Nairobi, Kenya, in November
1989. After making some progress, the parties continued to fight, and in
May 1991, Tigrayan forces reached the capital city of Addis Ababa,
forcing Mengistu to flee the country. In May 1993, Eritrea became an
independent nation.
A 1991 conference of the leading forces in Ethiopia set the course toward
full democracy under President Meles. Subsequently, all but President
Meles' Tigrayan groups withdrew from the transition government, and the
1992 elections were flawed. In February 1994, President Carter invited
all
sides to the Ethiopian dispute to The Carter Center for dialogue on how
to
move the country along the road to democracy.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MOSCOW, MENGISTU, AND THE HORN:
DIFFICULT CHOICES FOR THE KREMLIN
by Paul B. Henze
The Russian and East German documents reproduced here
constitute a useful contribution to the
history of the Horn of Africa
during the critical events of 1977-78.
They provide insights into the
Soviet relationship with the authoritarian
leaders of Ethiopia and
Somalia at that time, Chairman Mengistu
Haile Mariam and
President Mohammed Siad Barre, as well
as into the motivations of
these men and some of their associates.
Both Mengistu and Siad Barre were stubborn and ambitious
leaders who confronted the Kremlin with
difficult choices, which it
tried to avoid for as long as possible.
Siad comes across as a more
blatant liar than Mengistu, who appears
to have been more
genuinely devoted to “socialism.”
While Siad seems totally
mendacious and devious in his manipulation
of the Soviets,
Mengistu is shown with his back to the
wall. He was determined to
win Soviet support by vigorously professing
his loyalty to
“socialism” and making clear his readiness
to serve Soviet aims
throughout the Horn and in the world at
large. The documents
occasionally reveal Soviet concern that
Mengistu and his Derg
associates were moving too fast, and these
concerns were sometimes
expressed to him. But as the Horn
crisis developed, they became
more concerned about preserving Mengistu’s
power than Siad’s.
The reason, undoubtedly, is that Ethiopia
was a much more
important country than Somalia.
The Soviets originally established
themselves in Somalia because they were
unable to do so in
Ethiopia.
To those knowledgeable of the details of Ethiopian history
during this period, enthusiastic Soviet
references to the “decisive
action” Mengistu took on 3 February 1977
are noteworthy. In spite
of repeated protestations of peaceful
desires, these references show
that Soviets had no reservations about
approving violence as a
means of settling differences. Though
there are no explicit
references to this action in these documents,
Soviet Ambassador
Anatolii P. Ratanov was reliably reported
at the time to have been
the first to congratulate Mengistu after
the spectacular bloodbath in
the Derg when several challengers of Mengistu,
most notably Head
of State Teferi Bante, were shot.
As a result, Mengistu emerged
into the open as the dominant figure as
Chairman of the Provisional
Military Administrative Council (PMAC),
i.e. the Derg.
The documents provide useful information on the activities of
Cuba as junior partner to the Soviets
in Ethiopia during this period.
A long near-verbatim report from the archives
of the former German
Democratic Republic of a meeting between
Fidel Castro and Erich
Honecker on Castro’s return from Africa
in early April 1977 gives
us vivid detail that confirms what has
long been generally known of
Castro’s unsuccessful effort to mediate
the developing Horn crisis in
mid-March 1977. A subsequent briefing
by Soviet Ambassador
Ratanov of Cuban Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa provides
a remarkably
frank, and not entirely positive, appraisal
of Ethiopia’s military and
political predicament and performance
as of mid-summer 1977.
The Soviet Union was remarkably uncreative in its efforts to deal
with the situation provoked by Siad Barre’s
attack on Ethiopia.
Siad felt his way cautiously at first,
operating behind a facade of
what he claimed were only guerrilla operations.
But by July 1977,
Somalia was openly invading Ethiopia with
regular military forces.1
Nevertheless, Somali officials adhered
to the pretense well into 1978
that the operation was entirely the initiative
of guerrillas. Even
though Soviet officials in both Somalia
and Ethiopia had to be well
aware of what was happening, Moscow—on
the surface at least—
persisted on the course adopted early
in the year: trying to bring the
Somalis and Ethiopians together to compose
their differences. Long
reports by Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister
Leonid Ilychev of almost
four weeks of meetings with a Somali delegation
in Moscow from
late July through the third week of August
chronicle an elaborate
charade of negotiations. Unfortunately
the documents available to
us here do not include parallel reports
of dealings with the Ethiopian
delegation that was in Moscow during the
same period, but it
appears that the Somalis and the Ethiopians
never even engaged in
preliminary face-to-face talks.
The reason why is easy to see in
written statements each delegation gave
the Soviets of its country’s
position, for neither left any room for
compromise or even
discussion with the other.
While the independence of erstwhile French colony of Djibouti
caused immediate worry, both Ethiopia
and Somalia behaved with
caution. Ratanov did not react to
an offer by Mengistu to support
intervention in Djibouti. Ethiopia
lacked the strength to intervene
alone.
The biggest problem looming in the background of the
discussions reported in these documents
is Eritrea. It was already
the most intractable problem of all for
Moscow in its relations with
Mengistu. Ethiopian military performance
in meeting the Somali
invasion was inhibited by the predicament
which Mengistu had got
himself into in Eritrea. The Soviets
were not impressed with the
performance of Mengistu’s army in Eritrea.
An East German
document from December 1977 reveals what
appears to be
Ambassador Ratanov’s irritation at Mengistu’s
intransigence on
Eritrea as well as the hope that somehow
a basis for negotiation with
the rebel movement there might be developed.
This became a major
Soviet aim during the next decade and
led to repeated East German
efforts (and some Italian Communist attempts)
to bring Eritrean and
Ethiopian Marxists together.
In response to Mengistu’s urgent pleading, the Soviets agreed
during July 1977 to send in urgently needed
transport equipment to
enable the Ethiopians to utilize some
of the tanks and guns the
Soviets had already provided as a result
of agreements reached
during Mengistu’s December 1976 and May
1977 visits to Moscow,
but the Kremlin was still apparently hoping
to limit its commitment.
Politburo minutes of 4 and 11 August 1977
confirm decisions to
provide Ethiopia support to defend itself
against Somalia, but details
have not been declassified. This,
nevertheless, appears to be the
point at which, de facto, Moscow finally
made an irrevocable
decision to opt for Ethiopia over Somalia.
Whether or not Ambassador Ratanov agreed with Moscow’s
continued insistence on further efforts
to bring the Somalis and
Ethiopians together in negotiations at
“the expert level,” he followed
Moscow’s orders and repeated this position
as late as 23 August
1977 in a meeting with Cuban Ambassador
to Ethiopia Perez
Novoa. The Soviets were even more
hesitant on the question of
manpower, for the main purpose of this
meeting with the Cuban
envoy was to chastise him for permitting
Cuban Gen. Ochoa to
promise Mengistu that more Cuban technicians
would be coming:
“The decision to send Cuban personnel
to Ethiopia does not depend
on Havana, but on Moscow.” Ratanov
expressed the Soviet fear
that a large-scale introduction of Cubans
into Ethiopia could
provoke the Eritreans or Somalis to call
in troops from supportive
Arab countries such as Egypt.
Taken as a whole, these Russian documents seem to have been
made available to give a picture of a
well-intentioned and relatively
benign Soviet Union confronted with a
situation it neither
anticipated nor desired. The Soviets
are shown to be surprised by
the crisis, reluctant to choose between
Ethiopia and Somalia, and
trying to delay hard decisions as long
as possible. This does not fit
with the general atmosphere of Third World
activism characteristic
of the Soviet Union at this time.
While there seems to be no reason
to question the authenticity of the documents
themselves, there are
obviously large gaps in this documentation.
We find nothing about
differing views among Soviet officials
or various elements in the
Soviet bureaucracy, nor about different
interpretations of
developments between the Soviet establishments
in Mogadishu2 and
Addis Ababa. We see no reflection
of options and courses of action
that must have been discussed in the Soviet
embassies in the Horn
and in Moscow as the crisis intensified.
We get no comparative
evaluations of officials with whom the
Soviets were dealing in
Mogadishu and Addis Ababa.
The documents also lack any direct reference to intelligence. It
is
hard to believe that Soviet officials
did not receive extensive KGB
and GRU reporting from agents in both
Somalia and Ethiopia.
There is, in fact, good reason to believe
that the Soviets were re-
insuring themselves during this period
by maintaining contacts with
political groups opposed to Mengistu in
Ethiopia as well as
opponents of Siad Barre in Somalia.
They, the East Germans, the
Cubans, and perhaps other socialist countries
must also have had
contacts among Eritrean factions.
We do find tantalizing references
to opposition to the Derg and to the strain
under which Mengistu
found himself as a result. At times
the Soviets seem to be more
apprehensive of Mengistu’s staying power
than U.S. officials were
at the time.
The final portion of Ratanov’s 18 March 1977 meeting with
Berhanu Bayeh sheds indirect light on
attitudes among the Ethiopian
public. Major Berhanu asks to have
the Soviets arrange for a
scholarship for his younger brother to
study in Moscow and explains
that the young man has been unable to
complete his work at a
prestigious Addis Ababa secondary school
because, as the relative
of a Derg member, he became the object
of harassment by other
students. Even at this relatively
early stage of the Derg’s history, its
popularity with the student population
seems to have been quite low.
Nevertheless, most of the basic questions about Soviet policies
and calculations during 1977 which I identified
as still needing
clarification in my discussion of this
period in a 1991 study3 remain
open so far as these documents go.
The Russian documents stop,
for the most part, at the point when hard
Soviet decisions about
action and implementation began to be
made: at the end of
September 1977. For example, they
shed no light on how these
decisions were arrived at and carried
out, or how risks were
assessed. The massive airlift and
sealift of Cuban troops and
equipment that startled the world from
November 1977 onward, or
the decision to send General V. Petrov
to Ethiopia to oversee
operations against the Somali forces,
get scant mention, as does
Mengistu’s “closed” or secret trip to
Moscow in October 1977 at
which the imminent Soviet-Cuban military
effort was undoubtedly
the chief topic of conversation.
[Ed. note: Both are mentioned in
passing in the 3 April 1978 Soviet Foreign
Ministry background
report on Soviet-Ethiopian relations printed
below; a generally-
worded Soviet report to the East German
leadership on Mengistu’s
trip is also included.] Likewise
these documents are devoid of
reference to the decision to shore up
Ethiopian forces by transferring
South Yemeni armored units to Ethiopia
in late summer 1977 to
blunt the Somali advance.
The most curious aspect of this batch of documents concern
three that deal with “Operation Torch”—an
alleged American plot
to assassinate Mengistu and attack Ethiopia
from Sudan and Kenya.
Ethiopian leaders presented what they
described as documentation
of the plot to Soviet-bloc diplomats in
early September 1977, and
claimed that it was planned to be launched
on 1 October 1977. The
text of the description of the plot, supposedly
conceived and
directed out of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi,
reads like a fourth-rate
pulp thriller. Nothing in it, including
the names of the American
officers who were supposedly directing
it, bears any relation to
known or plausible facts. Perhaps
the oddest feature of “Operation
Torch” is its lack of direct connection
with Somalia or with Eritrean
rebels.
If the Soviets actually took this “report” seriously, why did they
not challenge all the countries supposedly
cooperating in mounting
it—Kenya, Sudan, and the United States?
It bears all the marks of a
disinformation operation of the kind that
the Soviets (often through
Bulgaria or Czechoslovakia) frequently
undertook during this
period. Whatever specific purpose
it was designed to serve is
unclear. One possibility is that
it may have been intended to
heighten the paranoia of Mengistu and
his Derg colleagues and
make them more amenable to Soviet manipulation.
In its crudity, it
is insulting to the intelligence of the
Ethiopians. They did not take it
seriously enough to bring it to the attention
of the United States
toward which they were showing some warmth
at this very period in
hopes of getting previously ordered military
equipment and spare
parts released. It is hard to believe
that a seasoned and experienced
officer such as Ratanov was not engaging
in a charade in reporting
this grotesque scheme and discussions
of it with senior Ethiopian
officials to Moscow.4
Limited as they are in what they reveal of the debates and actions
of Soviet officials in Ethiopia, Somalia,
and Moscow in 1977-78,
these Soviet-bloc documents are worth
more detailed examination
and analysis, a task which I hope to undertake
at greater length and
also encourage others to do. More
such documents may eventually
become available, as well as a potentially
rich collection of
Ethiopian materials from this period that
has been assembled in
Addis Ababa for use in the trial of former
Derg officials (the future
status of these documents is unclear,
but it is to be hoped that they
will be made available to scholars).
Access to these materials, as
well as additional U.S. government documents
still awaiting
declassification and still-inaccessible
Cuban and other sources, may
enable a far better understanding of the
Horn of Africa Crisis of
1977-78.
1 Though Siad told me on meeting with
him in Mogadishu in
September 1977 that Somalia had no regular
military personnel in
Ethiopia, the United States never took
his claims seriously. Neither,
so far as we can tell, did the Soviets.
2 Moscow had up to 4000 advisers in Somalia
as of the beginning
of 1977. There was also a sizable
Cuban presence in Somalia.
3 Chapter 5, “Crisis and Degeneration”,
pp. 133-167 in The Horn of
Africa from War to Peace (London/New York:
Macmillan, 1991).
4 I served as the officer responsible
for Horn affairs in the U.S.
National Security Council during this
period. No scheme remotely
resembling “Operation Torch” was ever
considered by the U.S.
Government.