Word: somali
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Ethnic Interest. Somalia's interest in Djibouti is primarily ethnic, for the majority Issa tribe in the territory is Somali-speaking. Ethiopia's stake is economic: 60% of its foreign trade moves via Djibouti's deepwater port; a rickety, 60-year-old railroad connects it with Addis Ababa. Both countries deny any annexation designs, but neither trusts the other's disclaimers. Nor do Djibouti's new rulers. Says Ahmed Dini, 45, president of the newly elected National Assembly: "The Somalis and Ethiopians are at swords' points now, but what is to prevent them some...
...Ethiopian Democratic Union (E.D.U.) are fighting for a non-Marxist civilian government and deny charges that they plan to restore a monarchy under Haile Selassie's sole surviving son, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, 60, who is now in London. About 1,000 shiftas-armed nomads of the Western Somali Liberation Front-periodically mount hit-and-run attacks along the Somali frontier...
Mengistu also faces the possibility of war with Somalia for control of the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas, whose 215,000 citizens last week voted for independence.* Mengistu fears that Somalia will encourage the territory's Somali-speaking Issa majority to cut the railroad linking Addis Ababa with the port of Djibouti, through which moves more than half of Ethiopia's foreign trade. Unless he can work out a deal with Somalia's President, Muhamed Siad Barre, Ethiopia may have yet another combat zone on its frontiers when the territory becomes the Republic...
...regime is embattled on several fronts. One is the northern province of Eritrea, where the Sudanese-supported Eritrean Liberation Front, after more than a decade of fighting, claims it controls two districts and has Ethiopian forces pinned down in other urban areas. Another is the Somali border, where Ethiopians and Somalis have quarreled. Meanwhile the French Territory of Afars and Issas, with its key port of Djibouti, which provides an Ethiopian rail link to the sea, gains independence from Paris next month. Both Ethiopia and Somalia covet...
...Mozambique (500-600), Tanzania (500), Somalia (650) and, for the past month or so, Uganda (about 100). In Mozambique the Cubans help with sugar growing and perhaps with the training of Rhodesian guerrillas. In Somalia, on the Horn of Africa, they advise the army as well as the Somali guerrillas who are active in the neighboring French territory of Afars and Issas (otherwise known as Djibouti), which is set to become independent this summer. And now, judging by Fidel Castro's current swing around Africa, they seem to be extending their influence to Ethiopia as well...