Ethiopia in for the kill
Anthony Mockler
The Ethiopians will never give up Eritrea. They have always considered it (unlike the southern Galla lands and the Somali conquests) an integral part of their territory; and, therefore, they have always regarded those Eritreans fighting for independence not just as rebels but as traitors. On this point — even if only on this point — the policies of the former Imperial and the present Marxist regimes are identical.
The Eritreans will now never voluntarily admit Ethiopian domination. They have been united, despite their intricate racial and religious differences, by the successful periods of colonial rule: first by the Italians, who introduced Western civilisation, culture and education, and then by the British who gave them a taste for political parties, an independent judiciary and an efficient civil service. As a result, the Eritreans became a far more sophisticated people, both culturally and politically, than the Ethiopians.
At the end of last year it looked as if the Eritreans were on the verge of final victory after fifteen years of struggle. Their guerrillas controlled the countryside and, in approved Maoist fashion, began in early 1976 to encircle the towns. By this time, the Eritrean Liberation Front, the ELF, founded when Eritrea was 'annexed' in 1962, basically Muslim and conservative, had spawned two rival groups — the EPLF, Eritrean Popular Liberation Front, mainly Christian and Marxist-Leninist, and the much smaller ELF-PLF, the personal following of Osman Saleh Sabeh, formerly the best-known spokesman of the ELF. At this time the ELF had about 22,000 armed men, the EPLF 12,000, and the ELF-PLF two to three thousand. In other words the ELF was — and still is — by far the most important of the three competitive movements.
Naturally enough, it was when the Ogaden war broke out and the Ethiopians were crumbling in the deserts of the East that the Eritreans launched, a year ago now, their strategic offensive. They had already in April taken Tessenei on the Sudanese border, thereby opening up totally the supply route via Kassala to their supporters in Khartoum. On 6 July the EPLF took Decamere, on 8 July the capital of Bogos province, the mountain stronghold of Kcren, where 6,000 Ethiopian. troops sur rendered; and on 4 August Deksa. On 14 August the ELF took Adi Quala, on 24 August Mendafera, and on 31 August in a combined action with the ELF-PLF the important lowland town of Agordat. By mid-September the Ethiopians controlled only Asmara, Massawa, Adi Caieh and the town of Barentu eighty miles to the West. The EPLF then set up a semi-government in Keren; the ELF countered on 13 December by capturing the very strongly held Adi Caieh. Both movements then closed in for the kill. By Christmas the EPLF had taken the land approaches to Massawa and were driving the Ethiopians across the causeway onto Massawa Island. The ELF meanwhile had encircled Asmara which could only be supplied by air. It looked as if it would all be over in a question of days.
However the Ethiopian troops of the Second Division held out in this apparently hopeless situation far more vigorously and viciously than the Italians had done in similar circumstances in 1941, when, on the fall of Keren, Asmara was feebly declared an open city and Massawa Island was stormed by the Free French Foreign Legionaries in a matter of hours.
This time frontal assaults by the Eritreans on Massawa and Asmara failed dismally; in January this year Russian ships appeared and bombarded the land approaches to Massawa; large Russian transport planes flew supplies and reinforcements into Asmara; meanwhile in the Ogaden the Somalis were driven back. Massawa held, Asmara held — and, way out on a limb, Barentu held.
Last week, it seems, the Ethiopians finally launched their long-expected counter-attack. There have been false alarms before: 'peasant armies' twice herded to the rescue by Mengistu in traditional Ethiopian style, only to disintegrate — and rumours of break-outs over the past few months. But any serious Ethiopian move has been bedevilled by the quarrel between their Russian and Cuban allies, the Cubans declaring in February that Mengistu was not entitled to use Cuban 'specialists' against Eritreans who should be allowed self-determination, and Pravda in mid-March definitively coming out for the centralists against the rebels who were 'objectively helping the realisation of imperialist designs.'
It is now four months since Ethiopia's total victory in the Ogaden; and it has taken, as might be expected, those font; months to sort out these ideological du: ficulties among the allies and the logistica' difficulties among the armed forces. Foar months is in any case the likely time Of Ethiopians would need before turning serr ously from one theatre of war to the next; my view is that their counter-offensive, despite the fact that it is now the rainy sea; son in the highlands, will be decisive an" successful, though nothing like as swiftlY successful as their counter-offensive was the Ogaden. Two of their columns are, " seems, reopening the road between Asmara and Massawa; they have, in other words, broken the siege of both cities. A third has recaptured Adi Caieh (and therefore, Pre' sumably, Decamere) and will be moving on to Adigrat. This means that the old strada imperiale, from Addis Ababa right act° the country to Asmara, and then down tt° Massawa, the most important highwaY the empire, will be opened up again reinforcements can be poured in by roan. The next stage clearly is to relieve Barentu; this may have to wait till after the rains. nin meanwhile a fourth column is reported t° be moving north from Urn Haggar on the Sudanese border. If this fourth color° moves up to Tessenei, closing the road t.°, Kassala and cutting off supplies, which the obvious objective, it will itself be ii)3 position subsequently to relieve Batenitut from the West. The recapture of Agorua.11 and Keren, squeezed from both sides, then only be a matter of time. The temptation for the Eritreans, havnitog come so close to total victory, will be „d stand and fight — first, outside Asmaraa", Massawa and then, more decisively, th.5 towns they hold. By tradition Ethiopians (and in this sense Eritreans are EthioPian, too) yearn for a decisive major battle an; despise guerrilla warfare. To go back to thA hills (in any case denuded of food at exposed to the vicious attacks of the Ethior".. air force) and give up their hard-0'; ground will be almost too much for thi, leaders to ask of their followers, althongo perhaps their only hope of salvation is ts remember and put into practice the fath°;11)13 maxims that Mao laid down for Pell" t. warfare: 'Enemy advances, we rerreae Enemy halts, we harass. Enemy tires, wA, attack. Enemy retreats, we pursue' anu„ again in his words, 'to avoid absolutely 0 strategic decisive engagement which stakes the destiny of the nation.' But if a 'strategic decisive engagethetibte does take place, as I believe it will, and if t v Eritreans forget the maxims (whichther') ,seem to have followed religiously so Afa and, allowing themselves to be trapPeu positional warfare, are defeated and dees, mated by the superior Ethiopian foree e then the Eritrean rebellion will, for the rn"of being, be over. There are vast nurnhers refugees already in the Sudan —just as the' are vast numbers of refugees from the °VI den victory in Djibouti and Somalia; and in the case of a collapse of the Eritreans, many any more will no doubt join them, leaving an enipty land for the Ethiopians to reoccuPY. But this is not just a hollow victory: the disintegration of Ethiopia, which
seemed inevitable a year ago, will have been dramatically reversed. And Ethiopia, backed by the USSR, will emerge as the dominant military power in the whole region — truculent, edgy, proud, aggressive, vengeful and very possibly expansionist.
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