Soviet moves to bolster the Ethiopian military regime, designed to improve its position relative to the United States, have brought Ethiopia and Somalia to the brink of war. In mid-June, guerillas of the Western Somali Liberation Front, backed by Somali army volunteers, moved into the Ogaden, which is fully one-third of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian army has been defeated in a number of engagements. Diplomatic relations between Ethiopia and Somalia have been severed.

The Horn of Africa may seem remote and irrelevant to some of us. But it sits astride important sea lanes to West Europe and the United States Covering an area of some 750,000 square miles, the triangular-shaped Horn of Africa combines barren desert with fertile highland. Its three parts—Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia—have a total population of about 32 million. 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, over 50% of West Europe's imported oil and one-fifth of US oil imports.

At the beginning of this year the Soviet Union was well placed in Somalia. In 1963 - 64 the Somali government became involved in an irregular undeclared war to create a greater Somalia which would combine Somalia, parts of Kenya, the Ogaden and Djibouti. After being approached in 1963, the Soviet Union extended $35 million in military credits to Somalia and military advisers were supplied.

Following the military coup which swept away the old regime in 1969, the new Somali regime turned to the Soviet Union for economic and military and. Now the Soviet Union trains - about 60% of Somali officers and provides almost all Somali military hardware. A number of economic aid projects were provided: secondary schools, a fish cannery, hospitals, a printing plant, a radio station, a milk-prooessing plant and various agricultural programmes. In 1972 the Soviet Minister of Defence, the late Marshall Grechko, visited the capital Mogadishu to sign an agreement to build a hydroelectric power station on the Juba River near Fanole. Simultaneously he obtained the right for the Soviet Union to improve and use the airstrip and port at Berbera. The Berbera base gives the Soviet Union excellent air and naval facilities close to the world's main oil route.

Ethiopia receives Soviet backing

The Soviet Union provoked the present crisis when it moved to shore up the tottering fascist military junta (the Dergue) which runs Ethiopia. In February Mengistu Haile Mariam seized power in the Dergue by murdering a number of its members, including the chief of state Brigadier-General Teferi Bente.

The junta was under attack from all sides. Almost all of Ethiopia's provinces were in violent revolt against it. In Eritrea (a former Italian colony annexed by Ethiopia) the national liberation movement controlled over 90% of the territory.—only a few towns remained in Ethiopian hands. In Addis Ababa the Ethiopian People's Revoltionary Party, a left-wing coalition of workers, students and military personnel, was leading the mass struggle. Mengistu massacred hundreds of students, sympathetic to the EPRP in May of this year in Addis Ababa in mass executions. Parents of the murdered students had to pay $100 to retrieve their bodies.

This massacre produced an incident of self exposure by the Russian aligned Socialist Unity Party at this year's FOL Conference. A move by Mr A. T. Neary (North Island Electrical Workers' Union) to have the conference condemn the massacres was countered by the Socialist Unity Party. Taking in some people. Bill Andersen used the old argument that "you can't trust the bourgeois press" to send the motion onto a higher committee (in this case J. Knox) for investigation in the hope that it would disappear forever without trace. Andersen's real motives were revealed by the SUP's paper "Tribune" which spoke of Neary engaging in "anti-Sovietism in his allegations against the Ethiopian regime".

Soviets want cake and eat it too

In December 1976 the Soviet Union, taking advantage of the cooling of relations between Ethiopia and the United States following the ouster of Haile Selassie, offered the junta $100 million in arms.

Earlier this year the Soviet Union launched a general diplomatic offensive in Africa. Former Soviet President Podgorny headed a 120-man mission which visited four countrios, including Somalia. His yard sweeper Fidel Castro visited seven African countries, including South Yemen, Somalia and Ethiopia. Immediately after his African trip, Castro flew to Moscow to report on its results to Brezhnev.

Castro gave his seal of approval, for what it is worth, to Mengistu's regime, calling it Africa's "first truly Marzist revolution". Cubans were sent to help out the junta. Some have claimed that there are now 3,000 of them in Ethiopia.

A Red Sea pact

During his trip Castro tried to strengthen Soviet influence in the Red Sea area in an interview with Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram in May, Somali President Siad Barre revealed that Castro had proposed a confederation of Democratic Yemen, Ethiopia, Somalia and independent Djibouti. This was designed to destroy the growing unity between Red Sea states. In March the Yemen Arab Republic, the People's Democratic Republic of the Yemen, Sudan and Somalia had met in Taiz to study ways of strengthening their unity and cooperation. They agreed that the Red Sea region should be one of peace and harmony for ever and that the littoral states should consult and coordinate with each other to achieve this aim.

Unity between the Red Sea littoral states strikes a blow at both superpowers, and the Soviet Union in particular which is engaged in agressive expansionism.

Later Siad Barre declared: "Russia is no different from other major powers who are foreigners in the area pursuing what they perceive to be their own interests. What we believe is that the oil lanes must be kept open, free and peaceful. And the people around these seas must take the responsibility to ensure that there is no interference by either superpower".

The Soviet Union has begun its military supplies to the Ethiopian junta. In early June, large consignments of Soviet-made military equipment, including T-34 and T-54 tanks, arrived at the Eritrean port of Assab. This will replace the US military equipment used at present by the Ethiopian forces in its attempt to defeat the Eritrean national liberation movement.

The African Horn in global strategy

Relation between Somalia and the Soviet Union have cooled. Why has the Soviet Union taken this path?

The answer lies in the strategic position of the Red Sea-Horn of Africa region and its relationship to Soviet global strategy. The Soviet Union and the United States are engaged in a struggle for world domination. The Soviet Union is on the offensive and the United States in on the defensive. The focus of superpower rivalry being in Europe, the Soviet Union is trying to outflank Europe in Africa and the Middle East.

The Red Sea-Horn of Africa region is the sea link which enables fleets in the Mediterranean and the Pacific Ocean to co-ordinate with each other. Whichever super power brings this region under its control can either threaten or even cut the maritime transportation route of its opponents, or pose a threat to the Red Sea littoral countries. The Red Sea and its adjacent regions are rich in strategic raw materials, such as copper, oil, zinc, silver and gold.

Postscript: The Christchurch Press of 7th September 1977, carried a story taken from an interview with Colonel Farah of the ruling Revolutionary Socialist Party of Somalia which appeared in a Tehran paper.

Col. Farah charged that 5 countries were involved in helping Ethiopia in the present war. These were Cuba, East Germany, Southern Yemen, Czechoslovakia, and Libya. Troops had been supplied by Cuba, Southern Yemen, and Czechoslovakia. Russian arms and expertise were also being used.

He went on to say that if the Soviet Union continued their present arms ban on Somalia, then Somalia would have no more need for Soviet experts presently in that country.

On Cuba's role he said, "Cuba wants to play the policeman's role in the world and in Africa."

Welcome: Podgorny hugs Tanzania's Nyerrre