Word: ethiopia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...strategy are evident everywhere, from the prominently displayed statues of Lenin and paintings of Stalin in Addis Ababa to the controversial policies that are creating peasant cooperatives across the countryside. A new constitution, to be adopted later this year, will enshrine the Soviet-oriented ruling Workers' Party of Ethiopia as the "guiding force of the state and the entire society." Says a Western diplomat: "Under the new constitution, Mengistu will have more power than the late Emperor." Meanwhile, more than 5,000 Soviet, East European and Cuban advisers are stationed throughout the Ethiopian armed forces and government ministries...
...face of such realities, Mengistu, 45, is trying to fashion a policy that combines the rigors of socialism with capitalist flexibility. While he is moving Ethiopia toward a centralized, state-controlled economy, he welcomes private foreign investment. At present, most of the country's crops are privately grown and some industry is in private hands. Associates say that from the moment Mengistu became chief of state nine years ago, the Chairman, as he is known, has been a nationalist first and a Marxist second. Now Mengistu is reaching the zenith of his influence at home and abroad. "Ethiopia...
...country," says Gunter Verheugen, African-affairs spokesman for the West German Social Democratic Party, "then Mengistu might be able to accomplish his dream of making the country self-sufficient in food and improving the standard of living of his people." That is not likely in the foreseeable future. Ethiopia's standing army of 300,000 soldiers is the largest in black Africa, but it remains vulnerable to guerrilla actions. A lightning strike by the Tigre People's Liberation Front in February freed hundreds of imprisoned rebels. Government forces have met heavy resistance in Tigre and adjacent Wollo province. The Oromo...
...military problems in Ethiopia are compounded by unresolved conflicts with Somalia to the east and Sudan to the west. Sudan gives sanctuary to Ethiopian rebels, and Addis Ababa retaliates by supporting Sudanese guerrillas. Somalia has long been at odds with Ethiopia over the Ogaden, a hilly desert region of Ethiopia that juts deeply into Somalia's midsection...
...Ethiopia's deepest fears center on the U.S. The African nation's leaders are worried that the Reagan Administration may back rebel forces against Addis Ababa, just as it supports contra efforts to oust the Marxist-Leninist Nicaraguan regime. Yet officials in Washington, which provided $282 million in emergency aid to Ethiopia last year, say they have no wish to topple Mengistu. Notes a senior diplomat: "We've told the Ethiopians that we would like to engage in a serious dialogue with them. Every time we propose a place and a time, we are rebuffed...