Word: ethiopian
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After some hesitation, Moscow has jumped forcefully into the internal wars between its Ethiopian client, the Marxist regime headed by Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, and the rebel forces that have captured chunks of Ethiopian territory in Eritrea on the Red Sea and the Ogaden region bordering the Somali Democratic Republic. In mid-December, big Antonov and Ilyushin transport planes began wheeling into the airport at Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. The airlift, which appears to be concluding, has brought iri $850 million worth of arms, including T-34 tanks, field guns, heavy mortars and light missiles. U.S. officials believe...
...easy task. In Eritrea, where rebel forces control 90% of the territory, fighting has swirled for weeks in and around the important port of Massawa (pop. 30,000). Rebel positions downtown have been bombed by Ethiopian pilots flying not only MiG's but also U.S. jets left over from the days (before May 1977) when the Addis Ababa regime was a U.S. friend. According to Western eyewitnesses, Soviet warships have been lobbing shells into the city. Most of Massawa's civilians have fled to the nearby hills, where they live in makeshift shelters, in desperate need of food...
Five hundred miles to the southeast, Colonel Mengistu's forces have begun a counteroffensive in the Ogaden region. Last fall ethnic Somali tribesmen, aided by Somalia, overran most of the Ogaden, in what Somalia claims is a liberation war to clear out the Ethiopian "colonizers." Now the fierce but poorly equipped Western Somali Liberation Front is badly overextended, and Somalia claimed last week that Ethiopian forces had launched a major attack out of Harar, one of only two towns in the area that the Ethiopians hold...
...Moscow decided to enter the conflict so strongly and publicly in support of the shaky Ethiopian regime is not clear. The Soviets have a history of miscalculation on the Horn: following the overthrow of Haile Selassie in 1974, Moscow saw a chance to weaken U.S. influence in the area and for some reason thought it could curry favor with its new friends in Addis Ababa without antagonizing Somalia's President, Mohamed Siad Barre, who had been the Kremlin's closest ally in northeast Africa. But angered by Moscow's growing involvement with Ethiopia, a traditional Somali enemy...
...financial assistance from West Germany, partly out of gratitude for the decision to allow West German commandos to fly into Mogadishu and rescue 86 hostages in the Lufthansa hijacking last October. For the moment, the West is backing the OAU committee which is seeking a negotiated settlement to the Ethiopian-Somalian conflict. Says an African diplomat in Nairobi: "It's a difficult question but not insoluble. The important thing is to provide an alternative to the terrible bloodshed that is coming...