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Ethiopia The Derg, the Soviet Union, and the Communist World
Apparently sensing that the Mengistu regime was in
desperate trouble, internal and external enemies took action
to hasten its demise (see
External and Internal Opponents,
ch. 5). Most important, civilian opposition groups began to
wage urban guerrilla campaigns to demoralize and discredit
the Derg, and Somalia committed regular troops to assist
ethnic Somali living in Ethiopia's Ogaden region in their
efforts to separate from Ethiopia. Simultaneously, the
Somali government expressed concern over the growing Soviet
and Cuban presence in Ethiopia. Until then, Somalia had been
an ally of the Soviet Union. After the Somali National Army
(SNA) invaded the Ogaden region in July 1977, the Soviet
Union withdrew its 1,000 advisers from Somalia. In November
Somalia announced that it had abrogated the 1974 Treaty of
Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union and that it
had suspended diplomatic relations with Cuba. At that point,
the Soviet Union adopted Ethiopia as its main ally in the
Horn of Africa. In late November, it launched a massive
airlift and sealift of arms and other military equipment to
Ethiopia. Over the next several months, about 17,000 Cuban
and 1,000 Soviet military personnel arrived in the country
and were deployed to the Ogaden front. This aid turned the
tide in favor of Ethiopia by early 1978.
As had the regime of Haile Selassie, the Derg accorded its
international image and territorial integrity the highest
priority in its foreign policy. Opposition groups had forced
the regime to rely extensively on the Soviet Union to
maintain itself in power and to preserve the country's
territorial integrity. From 1977 to 1990, Soviet military
assistance to Ethiopia was estimated to be as much as US$13
billion. However, by 1987 there was evidence that the Soviet
Union had decided to cut back military assistance to
Ethiopia and to press for political solutions to that
country's several civil conflicts. By that time, there were
fewer than 1,800 Soviet advisers in Ethiopia and a total of
about 2,000 advisers from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
East Germany, and Poland. Furthermore, all Cuban troops in
the Ogaden had withdrawn, and the Cuban military presence in
Ethiopia had dropped to fewer than 2,000.
Although Ethiopia was dependent on the Soviet Union for
military assistance and sided with it in the international
diplomatic arena, Addis Ababa on numerous occasions
demonstrated its independence in the area of domestic policy
and international economic policy. For instance, the Derg
procrastinated in setting up a vanguard party despite Soviet
pressure to do so. Once the party was formed, it was
dominated by former military personnel, again contrary to
Soviet wishes. In the economic sphere, Addis Ababa had close
aid and trade relations with the West and pursued a
pragmatic investment policy.
Although Mengistu eschewed any talk of Ethiopian-style
glasnost, Ethiopia could not escape the global impact of
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms. When Mengistu
visited the Soviet Union in 1988, Gorbachev told him that if
Moscow's support were to continue, the Soviet Union would
have to see dramatic changes in Ethiopia's agricultural
priorities, coupled with political liberalization. The
Soviet leader also refused to continue unqualified military
and economic support of the Mengistu regime. A combination
of economic realities and Soviet pressure encouraged the
Mengistu regime in 1989 to retreat at least partially from
its dogmatically statist approach to economic development
(see
Role of Government, ch. 3). By late 1990, the SovietEthiopian alliance had ended. As a result, Addis Ababa
looked to several other nations, including Israel and China,
for military assistance. None of these nations, however, was
capable of replacing the amount of military equipment the
Soviet Union had supplied to Ethiopia.
Data as of 1991
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