Word: ethiopia
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...says Mohammed Abu Baker, 21, a partisan in a bitter civil war that rages today on the politically volatile Horn of Africa. On one side is the army of Ethiopia's despotic military rulers, who are struggling to hold together the empire of the late Haile Selassie, whom they deposed in 1974. On the other are the 4 million people of Eritrea, Ethiopia's northern province. But also involved in the drama are the Soviet Union, Cuba, most of the Arab states, and the U.S.-and at stake is who will eventually control the strategic oil routes...
...onetime Italian colony that was captured by the British in 1941, Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia, under a United Nations decision, in 1952 and a decade later was formally annexed by Selassie-an action that the Eritreans still regard as outright colonialism. Their outrage sparked a tiny guerrilla uprising that eventually became a full-scale war, perhaps the largest war now being fought anywhere in the world. In the process, reports TIME Correspondent Dean Brelis after touring the savanna and highland battlefront, the Eritreans have built an extraordinarily effective fighting machine of at least 25,000 men equipped with artillery...
Among outside powers, who supports whom in the conflict? To keep track of this, you need patience, a scorecard-and a map. Eritrea is backed by neighboring Sudan, which has long been at odds with Ethiopia and which provides most of the Eritreans' supplies via truck convoys. Radio Ethiopia regularly beams anti-Sudanese broadcasts to Khartoum, threatening to behead Sudanese President Jaafar Numeiry if and when the Ethiopian peasant army manages to roll into Sudan. In response, Khartoum-based Radio Eritrea advises Ethiopians: "We surround your troops in every city they illegally occupy. The war is doomed...
...other Arab states-Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Kuwait. The Arabs have always tended to favor the Eritreans over the Ethiopians because they wanted the region to be Arab-oriented. Today the Arab states support Eritrea for an additional reason: the Soviets support Eritrea's enemy, Ethiopia. The Arabs are anxious that the Horn of Africa should not become a Russian zone of influence...
...past three years, the Soviet position in the region has undergone a diplomatic battering. The Russians have lost the important role they once played in both Egypt and Sudan, but have built a new bastion in Ethiopia. (The U.S., at the same time, has strengthened its ties with Cairo and Khartoum but, with the fall of Haile Selassie and the rise of the leftist military regime in Addis Ababa, has lost out there.) The Soviets have given the Ethiopians $100 million in military aid, while Libya's Strongman Muammar Gaddafi-ever the Arab world...