Word: ethiopias
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...hammer and sickle and red star are backed by a formidable and growing Soviet presence in Ethiopia. Some 4,000 Soviet advisers, roughly half of whom are attached to Ethiopia's 250,000-strong army, exert a strong influence in both military matters and the running of government ministries. Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam, 41, the U.S.-trained officer who presides over the ruling Dergue, or council, holds frequent meetings in the old Imperial Palace with Soviet Ambassador Konstantin Fomichenko. Ethiopia buys virtually all its oil from the Soviet Union, and since 1977 the Soviets have supplied the country...
...Soviet presence is more than matched by that of its surrogates. Some 11,000 Cuban troops, flown in initially in 1977 when neighboring Somalia invaded the disputed Ogaden region of Ethiopia, still guard the country's vulnerable eastern flank. East Germans are used to train Ethiopia's secret police. Several hundred more Soviet-bloc advisers are expected to be working in government departments and state-controlled industries by year's end. Says a Western diplomat in Addis Ababa: "Ethiopia represents Moscow's greatest success in Africa in more than a decade. It's a prize...
...task of maintaining the boundaries of the old empire is taxing Mengistu's government and its Soviet mentors both militarily and economically. More than 30% of Ethiopia's $1.2 billion budget is allotted to the army and air force, and conscription has been introduced to bolster recruitment for what is already the largest army in sub-Saharan Africa. When Mengistu visited Moscow last year, the Soviets asked for repayment of at least part of the $2 billion they had loaned for arms. The Ethiopian leader reportedly just shrugged his shoulders and told his hosts that his country could...
Although there is little doubt that the Soviets will choose to stay, their pervasive role in Ethiopia is far from fully supported. Traders in Addis Ababa's thriving bazaar, the Mercado, resent Soviet browsers, who rarely have enough money to buy their merchandise. "They keep to themselves and won't even employ Ethiopians as cooks or drivers," complains one resident. That undercurrent of hostility perhaps explains why Mengistu has not tried to impose many East-bloc values on a country whose Western links go back to the arrival of Portuguese explorers in the 16th century...
Meantime, most evidence suggests that the first bloom of the revolution is beginning to wilt. Agricultural output, the key to any improvement for Ethiopia's impoverished peasants, has stagnated: state farms set up after the revolution cover 4% of Ethiopia's arable land and consume 76% of available fertilizer, yet 80% are operating at a loss...