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- <text id=91TT1124>
- <title>
- May 27, 1991: Ethiopia:Uncle Sam Steps In
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- May 27, 1991 Orlando
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 36
- ETHIOPIA
- Uncle Sam Steps In
- </hdr><body>
- <p>As the Mengistu regime verges on collapse, the U.S. tries to
- avert a slaughter by brokering peace among the competing factions
- </p>
- <p>By LISA BEYER--Reported by J.F.O. McAllister and Jay Peterzell/
- Washington and Marguerite Michaels/Addis Ababa
- </p>
- <p> With the rebels only 75 miles from the capital, the
- President discredited and the army demoralized, the script would
- seem to be preordained for Ethiopia. Liberia and Somalia have
- provided the worst kind of models in the past year: the
- government falls, blood splatters the capital, thousands flee
- the country, tribes and clans clash, anarchy prevails. This
- time, the foreshadowing has prompted an earnest attempt to
- rewrite the scenario. The chief scribe is the U.S., which until
- recently, when the Soviets became less active in the region, had
- little influence over Ethiopia's quasi-Marxist combatants.
- </p>
- <p> The latest effort to mediate the conflict was sparked by
- what appears to be the imminent collapse of Lieut. Colonel
- Mengistu Haile Mariam's regime. Mengistu, whose 14-year reign
- of terror rivals that of Saddam Hussein, has been written off
- before, only to survive. But since late April, when Tigrean-led
- Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front guerrillas
- pushed as far south as Ambo, putting almost all of northern
- Ethiopia in rebel hands, the consensus has been that Mengistu
- is a goner. "It brought home that the 30-year seesaw of rebel
- victories and then government victories had irretrievably
- dipped," says a Bush Administration official. "This is the end
- game."
- </p>
- <p> The three main groups fighting the government--the
- E.P.R.D.F., an allied group of Eritreans fighting for
- independence and a smaller band of insurgent Oromos--are not
- eager to storm the capital, Addis Ababa, knowing that a
- bloodbath would ensue. Thus the U.S. is attempting to arrange
- a peaceful transfer of power to a broad-based transitional
- government that would rule the country until elections are held.
- </p>
- <p> That would be a far better outcome than a flat-out rebel
- military victory, which would leave the Tigrean faction in a
- dominant position. The group's leaders, once Albanian-style
- Marxists who now espouse a blend of old-fashioned communism and
- American-flavored democracy, are widely distrusted in Ethiopia.
- </p>
- <p> Washington-sponsored talks between the rebels and the
- regime are scheduled to take place in London next week.
- Mengistu, however, is a sticky problem. Those around him,
- sensing a dark future for the government, are keenly interested
- in negotiations. The President is showing signs of stress--he
- needs to take pills to sleep--but he still seems to think he
- can hold out. Says a U.S. government specialist on Ethiopia:
- "He's the type to hang on to the bitter end."
- </p>
- <p> Washington still hopes to persuade Mengistu to step aside
- by turning his own logic against him. The President has claimed
- that he alone represents unity for Ethiopia against the
- secessionist demands of the Eritreans. But if there is no
- political settlement, the Americans will argue, the Eritreans
- are poised to win their independence by force. What's more, the
- U.S. will maintain, Ethiopia can remain intact even with
- Mengistu gone because the Eritreans, to everyone's amazement,
- say they will defer their dream of a separate state.
- </p>
- <p> The last contention is rather weak, since it is unclear
- whether the deferment is only temporary; Eritreans refuse to
- cancel the referendum on independence that they have long
- demanded for their region, which was not a part of Ethiopia
- until 1952, when the United Nations decided it should be
- annexed. Still, given the rebels' single-mindedness about the
- plebiscite in the past, that concession was considered a victory
- for the U.S.
- </p>
- <p> Ethiopia has considerable strategic value because of its
- location on the Red Sea and its proximity to the Arab world. But
- the country, and others in the Horn of Africa, are no longer
- the geopolitical battleground that they were during the cold
- war, when Washington and Moscow backed rival clients in the
- area. U.S. officials maintain that the primary motivation for
- their involvement is humanitarian. Ethiopia is among the world's
- poorest countries, and always under the threat of famine.
- </p>
- <p> However pure its intentions, Washington faces a monstrous
- task in trying to prevent another African slaughter. "The
- chances are still strong that Mengistu will be stupid and dig
- in," laments a U.S. envoy. "Soon enough, the Tigreans will fight
- their way into Menelik Palace, and we'll have a disaster on our
- hands."
- </p>
- <p> The rebels, who charge that government officials will use
- the talks to buy time, concur that the odds are against peace.
- "I don't think [the government] is serious," says Tesfai
- Ghermazien, the Eritrean group's spokesman in Washington, "but
- there is a very slim chance it is, since for all practical
- purposes it has lost the war." Now it is a question of whether
- Mengistu can read that far ahead in the script.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-