The materials
presented here as part of a collection of recently
declassified documents from the former
Eastern bloc begin to shed
invaluable light on the intricacies and
evolution of former Soviet,
East German, and Cuban interpretations
of and influence on the
politics of the Horn of Africa between
1977-1978. The word begin
is emphasized because, at the same time,
these documents are far
from comprehensive in that a number of
very critical events and
developments during this period find scant
or no mention. Some of
these issues will be mentioned in this
commentary. Nevertheless,
reviewing these documents, it will be
difficult indeed to underplay
the crucial significance of the East-West
standoff which served as
the context in which the former USSR and
its allies comprehended
and attempted to shape the politics of
the region. Ultimately, this
prism led to the gradual choice of cultivating
close ties and
rendering decisive support to the military
government in Ethiopia
beginning in 1976. In turn, this
choice molded that regime and
guaranteed its survival until 1991 when
only the end of the Cold
War and diminished Soviet support coupled
with the Eritrean and
Tigrean liberation front victories led
to its collapse.
The publication of these documents should therefore serve as a
valuable stimulus for international scholarship
on superpower
involvement in Africa during the Cold
War and also arouse scholars
on Ethiopia in particular to reexamine
and enrich conventional
wisdom about the political history of
the Mengistu era.
Furthermore, the fact that the country
now has a completely
different leadership which is not tainted
with the atrocities of
Mengistu and the Derg means, at least
theoretically, that it will have
nothing to lose by collaborating in international
research efforts and
releasing pertinent documents from Ethiopian
archives (unlike
Angola for example). On the contrary,
such a collaboration would
not only enable the new Ethiopia to take
deserved credit from the
international scholarly community, but
also to reap the intellectual
reward of a better understanding of a
regime that it fought so
gallantly and with immense sacrifice to
topple.
My specific comments on these documents will focus on three
major themes—Soviet influence on: (a)
the military regime; (b) the
Ethio-Somali war and; (c) the Eritrean
secessionist movement.
I. Soviet relations with the PMAC
Soviet interest in winning a position of strength on the Horn of
Africa dates from the 1960s. Probably,
the major explanations are
related to the area’s strategic value.
First, two important
international confrontations cut across
the Horn: the Arab-Israeli
conflict, and the Sino-Soviet rivalry,
whose geographic expression
involved the whole area stretching from
the Western Pacific, to
Southeast and South Asia, and into the
Indian Ocean littoral. Also,
the Horn’s strategic location along East-West
communication and
transportation routes enables it to serve
as a critical vantage point to
command or interdict oil shipments from
the Middle East and
elsewhere. Furthermore, in the post-colonial
setting, newly liberated
African states had increasingly become
targets for Marxist-Leninist
ideological expansion to alienate “Western
imperialist states.” As
Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev had once
remarked, “Africa [had
become] a main field of battle for communism.”1
Moreover, in one
of the documents published here, Cuba’s
Fidel Castro reinforces this
idea in an April 1977 meeting with his
East German counterpart,
Erich Honecker, by stating that “in Africa
we can inflict a severe
defeat on the entire reactionary imperialist
policy. We can free
Africa from the influence of the USA and
of the Chinese . . .
Ethiopia has a great revolutionary potential
. . . So there is a great
counterweight to [Egyptian President Anwar]
Sadat’s betrayal in
Egypt . . . We must have an integrated
strategy for the whole
African continent.” Thus, the Soviet
Union along with its allies
apparently hoped to anchor themselves
firmly on the Horn in an
attempt to position themselves to play
important political and/or
military roles in the whole volatile region.
Nevertheless, at the beginning of the Ethiopian Revolution in
1974, Moscow was slow to react to the
overthrow of imperial rule
and the military takeover in Addis Ababa
led by the Provisional
Military Administrative Council (PMAC)
or Derg. This hesitancy
might be explained by a legitimate Soviet
reluctance to antagonize
Somalia, especially in light of recent
setbacks the Sudan and Egypt,
where Moscow had lost influence in spite
of massive economic and
military aid to these countries.
It must be remembered here that
Somalia had a territorial dispute with
Ethiopia over the Ogaden and
that the USSR, at this time, had already
cultivated a strong presence
in Somalia. That presence was cemented
with Gen. Mohammed
Said Barre’s successful military coup
in October 1969 after which
he turned his country’s orientation sharply
toward Moscow, signing
a Soviet-Somali Treaty of Friendship and
Cooperation in 1974.
Under the treaty, the Somali government
was generously supplied
with military aid and the Soviets acquired
access to the strategic port
of Berbera. With all this at stake,
Moscow had reason to be prudent
in assessing the PMAC’s reliability before
considering a new
commitment.
The PMAC, on the other hand, had two serious problems of its
own which inhibited it from seeking an
immediate embrace from
Moscow. One was that initially it
was unclear about its ideological
preference and international orientation.
An illuminating account of
this confusion is provided by Major Dawit
Wolde Giorgis, a high
ranking official of the military regime
who later defected to the
United States and wrote a book.
In it he stated that the PMAC was
so “ignorant in the realm of ideology
that at one point in the early
stage of the revolution delegations were
sent to Tanzania,
Yugoslavia, China, and India to shop for
one for Ethiopia.”2 It is
important to note that the Soviet Union
was apparently not even
considered as a possible source of ideological
inspiration by the
military rulers at an early stage.
The other problem was that the Council engaged in three major
successive rounds of bloody power struggles
before Mengistu
emerged as the uncontested leader.
In providing a very short
account of these struggles, an important
point to underline at the
outset is that unlike some of the contenders
he ultimately managed
to annihilate, Mengistu had neither educational
exposure to nor
interest in communist ideology and/or
the Soviet Union prior to the
PMAC’s formation. As he admitted
in one interview, his first
encounter with Russians happened only
after the revolution. Perhaps
one of his phenomenal abilities lay in
his capacity to understand
quickly and adopt new ideas when they
served a useful purpose in
his quest for power.
The first round of weeding out opponents was carried out in
November 1974 when Gen. Aman Andom, the
first PMAC
chairman, along with a few other members
of the Council and more
than 50 former high-ranking officials,
were summarily executed,
shocking both Ethiopians and the international
community. The
second round of executions occurred in
July 1976. This time the
victims were active educated officers
within the PMAC, like Major
Sisay Habte and Lieutenants Bewiketu Kassa
and Sileshi Beyene,
who maintained connections with radical
elements among university
students, teachers, and labor organizers
and who were instrumental
in initially steering the Council to the
Left from its original
nationalist orientation. A major
restructuring of the PMAC in
December 1976, when its members voted
to strip Mengistu of
power and institute “collective leadership,”
served as the prelude to
the third and decisive round of killings.
The architects of the
restructuring included respected PMAC
members like the nominal
chairman who succeeded Aman Andom: Gen.
Teferi Banti, Maj.
Alemayehu Haile and Capt. Mogus Wolde
Michael. Again,
especially the last two, like those mentioned
earlier, were important
figures in introducing socialism to the
Council. However, on 3
February 1977 Mengistu embarked on a sudden
and swift
retaliation. With the help of the
chief of the palace security force
commander, he essentially carried out
a mafia-style coup by simply
ambushing and executing the ringleaders
of the restructuring who
were unsuspectingly preparing for a regular
Council meeting in the
palace grounds. The following day
he was “unanimously voted”
chairman by the remaining PMAC members.
The documents from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU) and Socialist Unity Party of [East]
Germany (SED)
presented here begin with activities dating
from early February
1977. Notably, the first two documents,
the memorandum of
conversation between Soviet Counselor-Minister
in Ethiopia S.
Sinitsin with the Political Counselor
of the US Embassy in Ethiopia
Herbert Malin as well as the CPSU’s Third
African Department
Report on Somali-Ethiopian territorial
disputes are both dated
February 2, i.e., one day before Mengistu’s
bloody coup. It will be
recalled that at the time it was widely
reported that the USSR
Ambassador to Ethiopia Anatolii Ratanov
was the first person to
congratulate Mengistu immediately after
the carnage, leading to
speculation by some Western authors that
the Soviets might have
had a hand in the affair by providing
intelligence support or, at least,
had prior information and might have provided
tacit approval before
the killings occurred.3 If that
were the case, certainly these
documents shed no light. In fact,
the first document distinctly
mentions the visit of an Ethiopian delegation
to Moscow in July
1976 and the resulting joint Soviet-Ethiopian
communique as the
prelude to closer ties between the two
countries after the Ethiopian
revolution. On the Ethiopian side,
that delegation was led by
Mogus, one of the casualties of Mengistu’s
coup. It seems the
Soviets would have been unlikely to highlight
this information had
they known about the impending events.
Of course, one can also
argue that given that the Soviet Counselor-Minister
was dealing
with his American counterpart, disinformation
would have been the
order of the day.
It might be valuable to point out a possible Soviet displeasure
with the Ethiopian leadership prior to
the coup which is implied
between the lines of one of the discussions
of the CPSU Third
African Department Report. This
refers to a late-1976 Cuban and
South Yemeni initiative to provide mediation
in the Ethio-Somali
dispute. The report mentions that
the Somali government, while not
rejecting the proposal, had spoken out
in favor of including direct
Soviet participation in the negotiations.
Ethiopia, on the other hand,
the report notes, regarded the mediation
initiative favorably, but “did
not express an analogous wish” (about
Soviet participation) and thus
the Cubans and Yemenis (on their own)
were taking diplomatic
steps to organize mediation. Could
this have been a factor causing
Soviet apprehension about the Ethiopian
leadership’s reliability
prior to Mengistu’s consolidation of power?
The answer at this
point can only be conjecture.
The first head of state from the communist bloc to meet with
Mengistu after his coup was Castro.
He visited Addis Ababa on
March 14-15, just a little more than a
month later. On March 16 he
then flew across the Red Sea to Aden,
South Yemen, to co-chair a
joint Cuban-Yemeni mediation effort to
settle the Ethio-Somali
dispute to which Somali’s Barre as well
as Mengistu were invited.
It is not clear from the documents whether
this meeting had been
prearranged before the coup or whether
it was hastily scheduled
after it. Whatever the case, a few
weeks later, on 3 April, Castro
went to East Berlin to report about his
African mission and consult
with the East German leader Erich Honecker.
The transcript of that
meeting presented here records Castro’s
vivid first impressions
about Mengistu, revealing the latter’s
apparent success in winning
over both the heart and support of the
Cuban leader in such a
relatively short time. Castro spoke
of Mengistu as a “quiet, honest,
and convinced . . . revolutionary leader
. . . an intellectual
personality who showed his wisdom on February
3.” His massacre
is portrayed and condoned as “a turning
point in the development of
the Ethiopian revolution when . . . a
consequential decision was
made to meet the challenge by rightists”
in the PMAC. To the
extent that the communist states shared
information with each other
and with Moscow to devise and coordinate
policy, as it is assumed
they did, Castro’s account provided an
excellent report card for
Mengistu. Furthermore, as it is
known from other sources that
Castro later flew to Moscow to report
on his trip, one may presume
that he presented the same glowing assessment
of Mengistu to the
Soviet leadership.
Mengistu also indulges in a diplomatic contribution to widen the
emerging rift between Somalia and the
socialist states by
discrediting the revolutionary potential
of its leadership. In one
record of conversation held on March 18,
his head of foreign affairs,
Maj. Berhanu Bayeh, quotes the Egyptian
newspaper Al-Ahram to
point out to Sinitsin the possibility
of Somalia joining Sudan, Egypt
and Syria in a unified political command.
He adds that Barre had
been on record declaring that Somalia
achieved its revolution
independently and can acquire help from
other countries besides the
Soviet Union and its allies. Given
the recent Soviet loss of Egypt
and Sudan, this information was probably
intended to arouse
Moscow’s apprehension.
Supporting his own professed commitment to Marxism-
Leninism and the Soviet Union with practical
deeds, at the end of
the following April Mengistu ordered the
closure of the U.S.
communications station in Asmara, the
U.S. Information Service
(USIS) center, and the American military
assistance advisory
offices, and abrogated the Ethio-U.S.
Mutual Defense Assistance
Agreement—the official treaty of alliance
with the United States
dating from 1953. It is also remarkable
how Mengistu was
apparently successful in projecting himself
to the Soviets as a
genuine, pro-Soviet, revolutionary leader
constantly challenged by
nationalist elements within his own Council.
In one May 1978
conversation report, Rotislav Ulianovskii,
an influential senior Third
World policy analyst in the CPSU, instructs
his East German
counterpart Friedel Trappen, arguing:
Mengistu deserves to be regarded by us
as a man who represents
internationalist positions. By contrast
to him, Berhanu Bayeh and
Fikre Selassie as well as Legesse Asfaw
and others are marked
by nationalism although they are faithful
to him . . . I emphasize
again, we have to apply maximum caution,
circumspection and
tactfulness toward Mengistu so that the
nationalists will not grasp
him by the throat.
According to the views of many Ethiopians, including former
insiders in the Mengistu regime such as
Dawit (cited above),
nothing could be further from the truth
except for the remark on
loyalty. First of all, between February
and November 1977
Mengistu had consolidated absolute power.
Secondly, he was raised
and trained in the traditional Amharised
Ethiopian military tradition
and therefore, by background, the most
ardent nationalist of them
all. After the revolution he had
repeatedly and successfully
maneuvered between dressing up as an ideologue
and as a
nationalist whenever each was politically
expedient. Mengistu
evidently fostered this misperception
apparently to bolster his own
image (as an internationalist) and, at
the same time, to limit
demands and pressures from the socialist
community.
Interestingly, Mengistu’s regime repeatedly employed the “China
card” to attract Soviet support.
In one document discussing
Ethiopia’s desire to acquire U.S.-manufactured
arms from Vietnam
with Soviet help, Berhanu emphasizes that
“in contrast to the past
the PMAC intends to consider this issue
with the Vietnamese
directly, rather than running to the People’s
Republic of China
[PRC] for mediation.” The reference
to the past alluded to the
leftist elements of the Military Council
who were liquidated in the
coup. In another conversation report,
in July 1977, Cuba’s military
specialist in Addis Ababa, General Arnoldo
Ochoa, conveys to
Soviet Ambassador Ratanov that Mengistu
had personally assured
him about the decline in Ethiopian-Chinese
relations following the
PMAC’s finding that the PRC was providing
military assistance to
the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front
(EPLF). Mengistu, according
to Ochoa, had explained the decision to
limit all relations with
Beijing to the minimum and to devise measures
against Chinese
ideological penetration in Ethiopia.
That same month, yet another
conversation record, this time between
Mengistu and Ratanov,
reveals Soviet apprehension about the
dissemination of anti-Soviet
(Maoist) literature in Addis Ababa.
That September, the Ethiopian
Foreign Minister Felleke Gedle Giorgis
“especially dwelled on the
Chinese position on the Ethiopian Revolution”
in his talks with
Ratanov. Admitting to PRC economic
aid at the initial stage of the
revolution, he noted the changing Chinese
stand as the revolution
deepened (perhaps alluding to the forging
of closer ties with the
USSR). China then began to render
comprehensive assistance to
Somalia during the military conflict.
By February 1978, according
to a joint report by the CPSU Third Africa
Department and the
Political Department of the GDR Embassy
in Moscow, the Soviets
noted (presumably with satisfaction) Beijing’s
hostile attitudes
toward the Ethiopian leadership as well
as the minimal popular
support enjoyed by pro-Maoist groups in
the country.
Another noteworthy issue discussed in three documents concerns
“Operation Torch”—an alleged imperialist
conspiracy spearheaded
by the CIA to assassinate Ethiopian leaders
and destabilize the
revolution in September-October 1977 with
the help of regional
forces hostile to the country. Again
allegedly, Ethiopian authorities
received a letter revealing the pending
plot from unknown sources in
Africa and then conveyed this threat to
the ambassadors of the
socialist countries. A few days
later, the Permanent Secretary of the
Foreign Ministry, Dawit Wolde Giorgis,
visited the Soviet embassy
and provided a copy of the letter to Ratanov.
Interestingly, Dawit
mentions this incident in his book.4
He notes an unsuccessful
attempt by the Ethiopian government to
verify the letter through
follow-up inquiries and describes the
great sense of panic and
suspicion it had created in the Foreign
Office. Moreover, while he
alludes to the possibility that the letter
may have been fabricated, he
unfortunately does not state a likely
source. The mysterious letter
provides the names of two American officials,
alleged masterminds
of the plot, with their ranks and positions
at the U.S. Embassy in
Nairobi, Kenya. If it is true, as
Paul Henze asserts in this
publication, that even the names are fictitious,
it is odd that the
Ethiopian authorities convened a socialist
ambassadors’ meeting in
panic instead of easily verifying through
elementary diplomatic
inquiry and concluding that it had been
a fabrication. The theory of
a charade—a make-believe drama enacted
on false information—
will thus have to include the Ethiopians
as well as Soviet authorities
as actors if it is to be considered a
plausible explanation.
In addition, a few other documents provide accounts of some
early reservations the Soviet Union and
its allies had about
Mengistu’s handling of certain issues.
It should be noted that in
earlier Western writings, some of these
reservations were usually
associated with a later period, after
Gorbachev assumed power in
Moscow in 1985. But as early as
December 1977, a conversation
between the East Germans and Ratanov points
toward the need for
Ethiopia to adopt a mixed economy along
the lines of the Soviet
NEP (New Economic Program) of the 1920s.
The leadership’s
perception of the national bourgeoisie
as an enemy of the revolution
and the alienation and exclusion of this
group as well as of the
liberal-minded functionaries of the state
apparatus from the
economy and national life is criticized
as a dangerous trend with
negative consequences. In another
conversation the following
February, a central player in the CPSU’s
Africa policy group, Boris
Ponomarev, expressed his concern over
extremes in the Ethiopian
Revolution—the mass executions of prisoners
and the government’s
Red Terror—directing the transmittal of
these concerns to Mengistu
using various channels.
Finally in this section, the issue of Moscow’s relentless prodding
of Mengistu to set up a Marxist-Leninist
vanguard party to
institutionalize the revolution as well
as to transform the country
into a reliable Soviet ally is a subject
addressed by many authors and
the focus of my own study.5 Primarily
because of Mengistu’s
resistance, and to the disappointment
of the Soviets, the party didn’t
come into existence until 1984. Two documents
presented here refer
to Soviet anxiety about repeated delays
from the Ethiopian side in
accepting the arrival of “a specially
selected group of experienced
CPSU comrades” to help in the party formation
process. One of
them notes that “Mengistu apparently has
no concept of the
cooperation with the advisers [and that]
it is necessary to convince
him that they could be a real help and
relief.” Obviously, at this
early stage in the revolution, the Soviets
did not realize that
Mengistu was intentionally preventing
Moscow’s infiltration into his
power structure before completing a prolonged
process of weeding
out potential contenders and adversaries.
II. Ethio-Somali War
A substantial number of the documents presented here address
the Soviet bloc’s involvement in the conflict.
Indeed, for Moscow,
Barre’s aggression against Ethiopia, which
began in early 1977
under the guise of a Western Somali Liberation
Movement and
which escalated into full-scale intervention
the following July, was
both a welcome event and a potentially
dangerous development. On
one hand, it provided the Soviets with
the opportunity to rapidly
penetrate Ethiopia, the prized state of
the Horn, while, on the other
hand, it entailed a potentially painful
risk of losing another state
where Moscow had already built a presence:
Somalia. The
documents help in tracing Moscow’s policy
in the region which
began in 1976 as a strategy of courting
“Socialist Ethiopia” without
disturbing its longstanding friendship
with Somalia. By 1978 it had
gone through a complete somersault with
the Soviet ejection from
Mogadishu and its entrenchment in Addis
Ababa after a massive
supply of arms which decided the outcome
of the conflict in favor
of Ethiopia. My comments, however,
will only briefly focus on
three particular issues.
One is on the 16 March 1977 Cuban-Yemen effort at creating a
Marxist-Leninist confederation consisting
of Ethiopia, Somalia, and
South Yemen. In his meeting with
Honecker the following month,
Castro provides a detailed report about
the attitudes of the two
leaders, Mengistu and Barre, toward the
proposal. Mengistu is
referred to in glowing terms while Barre
is described as a chauvinist
whose principal idea is nationalism, not
socialism. The report
vividly shows Castro trapped as a victim
of his own ideology.
Having erroneously assumed an absolute
connection between
perceived global trends—depicting socialism
as the world’s
dynamic force—and the local situation
in the Horn, he had expected
a successful outcome to his efforts.
His sharp disappointment in
Barre’s personality, on which the report
dwells, should have been
subordinated to the more crucial realization
that national and ethnic
rivalries peculiar to the region had doomed
the confederation from
the outset. Also in this document,
the Cuban leader, perhaps for the
first time, forcefully raised the impending
dilemma facing the Soviet
bloc in the Horn of Africa. He tells
Honecker, “I see a great danger
. . . if the socialist countries help
Ethiopia, they will lose Siad
Barre’s friendship. If they don’t,
the Ethiopian revolution will
founder.” Faced with an either/or
situation within six-eight
months, Moscow bet on Ethiopia at the
risk of irretrievably losing
Somalia.
Another issue warranting mention is a probable justification for
the Kremlin’s massive air- and sealift
of military equipment (worth
about one billion dollars), 12,000 Cuban
combat troops, and about
1500 Soviet military advisers to Ethiopia
in November-December
1977. This measure immediately followed
Somalia’s unilateral
abrogation of the 1974 Treaty of Friendship
and Cooperation with
the USSR. Why was such an overwhelming
show of force
necessary? Moscow’s apparent objective
in this spectacular move
was to guarantee the swift and decisive
end of the Ethio-Somali war
with a quick and unconditional withdrawal
of Somali forces from
Ethiopian territory. Two documents,
the joint memorandum of the
CPSU Third Africa Department and the Political
Department of the
GDR Embassy in Moscow, and the Soviet
Foreign Ministry/CPSU
CC International Department report on
the Somali-Ethiopian
conflict, shed light on a probable motive:
“to avoid a situation
analogous to the one in the Middle East”—where
Sadat was taking
his own spectacular initiative in making
an unprecedented visit to
Jerusalem—from arising in the Horn.
According to the documents, the Soviet Union wanted to avert at
all costs the internationalization of
the conflict and the possible
involvement of the UN Security Council
which it believed would be
in the interest of Western powers.
Such an outcome, Moscow
argued, would be possible if an armistice
were reached without the
withdrawal of Somali troops from occupied
Ethiopian territory
while Western powers simultaneously pushed
for Security Council
involvement. A takeover by the Security
Council, moreover, would
delay a resolution of the conflict in
a similar fashion as in the
Middle East, possibly increasing the danger
for superpower
confrontation as the West and other unfriendly
states demanded
Soviet exit from the region as a precondition
and blame it for
causing the conflict. The significance
of this logic is better
appreciated when recalling Sadat’s dramatic
announcement in early
November that he would visit Israel.
It was a move that crushed
plans for multilateral talks on the Middle
East at Geneva and
suddenly removed the Soviets from a direct
role in the Arab-Israeli
peace talks. In the face of such
a setback, Moscow apparently
showed its determination to anchor just
at the other end of the Red
Sea from Saudi Arabia in a desperate attempt
to balance, in some
degree, the loss of influence in Egypt
by consolidating a strong
presence in the greater Middle East conflict
zone.
The final issue of interest in this section addresses one of
Mengistu’s first reactions about the possible
Soviet use of Ethiopian
port facilities in the likely event of
the Somalia’s denying Moscow
access to the port of Berbera. He
addresses this issue with Ratanov
in a conversation dated 29 July 1977.
He, interestingly, doesn’t
provide a clear cut commitment to provide
the USSR access to its
ports. Instead he states an understanding
of the Soviet dilemma:
rendering military assistance to Ethiopia
at the risk of losing its
opportunity in Somalia. He also
articulates Ethiopia’s revolutionary
indebtedness and obligation to take Moscow’s
interest in the region
into account. The document doesn’t
make clear whether he was
responding to a Soviet request; but, particularly
if he raised the issue
on his own initiative, the fact he makes
such an indirect
commitment appears to have been subtle
and timely maneuver to
attract Moscow toward Ethiopia.
III. The Eritrean Secessionists
An interesting paradox in the Ethiopian revolution can be noted.
With the exception of the Ethiopian Democratic
Union (EDU) (an
entity associated with the remnants of
the Selassie era), the other
four major organizations which struggled
to topple Mengistu’s
regime all ironically professed allegiance
to Marxism-Leninism, just
like their principal adversary.
While two of them, the Ethiopian
People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and
the All Ethiopian
Workers’ Movement (MEISON), all but perished
during the violent
confrontations of the late 1970s, the
other two, the Eritrean People’s
Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Tigrean
People’s Liberation Front
(TPLF) ultimately succeeded in coordinating
their efforts to
renounce Marxism after the late 1980s,
dislodge Mengistu from
power in 1991, and establish two independent
states—Eritrea and
the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia—by
1993-1994.
To what extent these various (previously?) revolutionary
organizations had forged parallel relations
with Moscow and other
socialist countries remains an interesting
question to explore. The
EPRP claims to have established contacts
with the CPSU as early as
1972.6 MEISON had purportedly developed
links through
associations with European Communist parties
in the 1970s.7 Until
the Ethiopian revolution, the EPLF had
been openly assisted by
countries like Cuba, possibly offering
indirect ties to Moscow. The
TPLF, as an organization founded after
Ethiopia joined the Soviet
orbit, probably didn’t have any relations
with the USSR, but it went
on record as advocating Albanian-style
socialism, thus relations
with Albania or China are not altogether
inconceivable. The few
documents presented here shed some light
on Soviet and East
German links with the EPLF and its much
smaller rival organization
in Eritrea—the Eritrean Liberation Front
(ELF)—in the context of
the two socialist countries’ efforts at
facilitating mediation with the
Mengistu regime. In particular,
in 1978 the East Germans had
arranged two direct high-level talks between
Mengistu’s
representative, Berhanu Bayeh, and EPLF
leader Issaias Afeworki,
the results of which were promptly communicated
by Honecker to
Brezhnev.
What is clear from these documents is the fact that the EPLF had
apparently maintained well-established
contacts with the SED and
Issaias talked directly with Honecker
as a leader of a revolutionary
party. This level of contact may
well not have been to Mengistu’s
liking. On the other hand, Moscow
apparently exhibited sensitivity
to the views in Addis Ababa in that the
ELF and its leader Ahmed
Mohammed Nasser were less closely linked
with Moscow through
the USSR’s Solidarity Committee.
Moreover, in one of the
documents, Ulianovskii rejects an East
German proposal that Issaias
meet with him in Moscow so that the CPSU
could exert pressure on
the EPLF to compromise with Mengistu.
Nevertheless, it is clear
that both Berlin and Moscow had apparently
coordinated a
concerted effort at finding a political
solution to the Eritrean
problem by pressuring both the government
of Mengistu as well as
the rebel movements toward constructive
dialogue. The results,
however, had not been encouraging.
In conclusion, the documents presented here are indeed
important contributions to the study of
the politics of the Horn
during 1977-1978 in the context of the
Cold War. Their value is not
so much in the amount of “new” information
they present, although
there is some. Rather, they are
priceless in providing unique first-
hand insight into the perceptions and
attitudes of the major actors
involved in the decisions that shaped
political outcomes.
Interestingly, the documents from the Russian archives appear to
have been carefully selected to elide
significant “blank spots” even
on the issues and period covered.
By contrast, the former East
German materials, though limited in number,
seem more insightful
in the concentrated details they provide
on one issue in particular:
the Ethio-Eritrean high-level mediation.
Nevertheless, within the two-year period covered in these
documents there are significant issues
that find scant coverage.
From the Soviet side these include materials
pertaining to Moscow’s
intelligence assessment and possible involvement
during the
Ethiopian power struggle; relations with
organizations other than the
PMAC; military reports from General Petrov
and others in the
Ogaden; and early military planning involvement
in Eritrea. From
the East German side, materials related
to its assistance in
restructuring the Ethiopian security services
would be of high
interest. Beyond 1978, Soviet and
other socialist countries’
involvement in the Ethiopian vanguard
party formation process
would, of course, be of critical importance.
1 Cited in P. Margushin, “Sovetskii
Soyuz v Afrike,” Novoe
Russkoe Slovo, 4 October 1979.
2 Dawit Wolde Giorgis, Red Tears:
Famine, War, and Revolution
in Ethiopia, (Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press,
1989), 21.
3 Robert Patman, The Soviet Union
in the Horn of Africa
(Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), 193; Rene
Lefort, Ethiopia: An Heretical Revolution?
(London: Zed Press,
1983), 206.
4 Giorgis, Red Tears, 35-36.
5 Ermias Abebe, “The Vanguard Party:
Imperial Instrument of
Soviet-Third World Policy (1976-1986),”
Ph.D. Dissertation,
University of Maryland (College Park),
1994.
6 See EPRP founding member Kiflu
Tadesse’s The Generation,
(Silver Spring, MD: Independent Publishers,
1993), 98.
7 Bereket Habte Selassie, “Political
Leadership in Crisis: The
Ethiopian Case” Horn of Africa 3:1 (Jan.-Mar.
1980), 7.