Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 9. April 24 1978

Liberation War begins

Liberation War begins

Ethiopia's forcible annexation of Eritrea ignited the war of national liberation which had begun a year earlier. Now over 90% of Eritrea has been liberated by the combined forces of the Eritrean People's Liberatión Front (EPLF), a Marxist - Leninist revolutionary organisation, and the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) a nationalist organisation.

EPLF controls the north, east and centre, while ELF holds the western, lowlands and sections of Eritrea's border with Tigre province. EPLF forces have cleared the entire highway between Massawa and Asmara and have begun concentrating around Massawa. Apart from Massawa and Berentu, the only towns still in Ethiopian hands are Asmara, the southeastern port of Assab and a small garrison at Adi Caieh.

If Eritrea should be completely liberated, the Soviet Union will have lost an expensive gamble for control of the strategic Horn of Africa—Red Sea region. Taking advantage of the dispute over the Ogaden between Ethiopia and Somalia, a problem originating from colonialism, the Soviet Union has poured in arms, money, "military advisers" and Cuban mercenaries to prop the fascist Mengistu regime. The Horn of Africa sits astride important sea lanes to West Europe and the United States. The Horn juts out into the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, overlooks the 20 mile wide Strait of Bab el-Mandeb and, beyond that, the Red Sea which stretches north to the Suez Canal.

The sea route passing near the coast of Somalia carries 70% of the strategic raw materials imported by West Europe, including over 50% of West Europe's imported oil and one fifth of US oil imports. Control of the Red Sea — Horn of Africa region would give the Soviet Union considerable leverage over its superpower rival, the United States. But without Eritrea's ports the Soviet Union will have lost its more than $1,000 million investment, as its gamble has cost it Somalia's Berbera and Ethiopia is landlocked.