Word: ethiopia
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...declares Abdullah! Abdi, a Somali military commander in the ugly little war that is being fought today in the Ogaden desert region of eastern Ethiopia. After years of sporadic guerrilla activity, the forces of the Western Somali Liberation Front (W.S.L.F.)-backed by their tribal cousins in the Somali Democratic Republic to the east-have been fighting fiercely since July to wrest the Ogaden from Ethiopia, which has controlled it off and on for 400 years...
Most recently, Ethiopia broke off a major, multi-million dollar HIID contract in 1975, during the leftward shift of the Ethiopian government that followed the deposition of Emperor Haile Selassie...
...also built a missile and naval base at the Somali port of Berbera, which is strategically located near the approaches to the Red Sea. But three years ago, following the overthrow of Haile Selassie, the Soviets began to concentrate on improving their relations with the new junta in Ethiopia-and thus began to alienate the Somalis. The Cubans, who used to back the Eritreans, followed the Russians to Addis Ababa, and today are helping to train Colonel Mengistu's "peasant army...
During the same period, the U.S. has lost out in Ethiopia-the junta expelled the remaining American diplomats and military advisers last April-but has been working hard to improve its relations with Somalia. Along with France, the U.S. has been offering "defensive" arms to Somalia in an effort to wrest the Somalis from the Soviet grip. The French, for their part, are worried about both Somali and Ethiopian designs on Djibouti, which gained independence from France only two months ago. An irony of the current fighting in the Ogaden is that the Somalis are equipped with Soviet-made...
Similar shifts in alignments are taking place to the north, west and east of the Horn. Egypt has thrown off its Soviet influence. So has the Sudan, which is currently aiding the Eritrean secessionists in Ethiopia even though its Soviet-furnished army and air force are short of equipment; the Sudanese suffered considerable losses while putting down an attempted coup last year that allegedly was backed by Libya, the most steadfast of the remaining Soviet clients in the region. Libya, of course, has just finished fighting a weekend war with Egypt, which abrogated its friendship treaty with Moscow only last...