$Unique_ID{COW01291} $Pretitle{228} $Title{Ethiopia Chapter 4D. Foreign Relations} $Subtitle{} $Author{Harold D. Nelson} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{states ethiopia military ethiopian united soviet relations american aid foreign} $Date{1980} $Log{} Country: Ethiopia Book: Ethiopia, A Country Study Author: Harold D. Nelson Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1980 Chapter 4D. Foreign Relations The major change in Ethiopia's relations with foreign powers since the revolution has been its alignment with the Soviet Union. Haile Selassie's government had cast its lot with the West, and its chief supplier of aid had been the United States followed by other Western states and multinational institutions such as the World Bank (see Emerging Role in World Politics, ch. 1; see Foreign Trade, Aid, and Balance of Payments, ch. 3; see United States Aid, ch. 5). The change did not take place immediately after the overthrow of the old regime. But by 1977 the Soviet Union had demonstrated its willingness to supply arms, military advice, and personnel, and Cuba had sent combat troops and training specialists (see Soviet and Cuban Aid, ch. 5). The decisionmakers in matters of foreign relations had been Mengistu and the members of the PMAC Standing Committee during the years since 1974. In 1980 the role was being assumed by the new COPWE executive committee, which Mengistu chaired. Unlike the PMGSE's (see Glossary) Marxist-Leninist domestic policy, which has not adhered to all of the Soviet precedents, the regime's foreign policy has increasingly followed guidelines established by Moscow. United States and Western Europe In the first two years of the new regime, the PMAC seemed to anticipate the continuing economic and military support of the United States and other noncommunist powers and international institutions. Its members were used to American military equipment, and some had received American training in the United States. In fact there was little overt change until 1977 when a complex set of actions and reactions that began in 1976 led to a breach between Ethiopia's new rulers and the United States and, to a lesser extent, some other noncommunist countries. From 1975 to 1978 Ethiopia's military government generally was unwilling to sign new economic development assistance projects with the United States. Disagreements arose in 1976 concerning the terms of American Foreign Military Sales (FMS) credits agreements, and a new credit agreement was not signed. Military equipment programs that had averaged US $10 million annually under the empire were increasing after the revolution in response to the emperor's request in 1972 that his armed forces be modernized. The program, largely cash sales rather than grants, was to be US $26 million in fiscal year (FY) 1976 and US $62 million in FY 1977. A disagreement with the Ethiopian government arose in 1976, however, over an additional US $60 million of ammunition, which Mengistu needed for replacement of stocks expended in the various Eritrean campaigns, and over the rate of deliveries which, as in the Ethiopian case, generally tended to lag behind expectations in all countries receiving American military aid. As a result, by mid-1976, Mengistu entered into military equipment procurement talks with the Soviet Union and signed the first hardware purchase agreement with Moscow in December. In 1976 the United States showed some signs of reconsidering its support of Ethiopia. Its assistant secretary for African affairs told a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in August that the United States was keeping its Ethiopian policy under constant review and described the PMAC as "unstable, prone to violations of human rights, incapable of managing Ethiopia's deteriorating economy, and beset by insurgencies and incipient insurgencies." The United States government was particularly concerned about human rights and Ethiopia's failure to compensate American citizens and corporations for property seized since 1975. The United States abstained in several votes in international lending organizations to demonstrate the concern. Independently of these developments, technological advances in the satellite and communications fields had made the communications station at Kagnew increasingly unnecessary, and early in 1977 the United States informed the Ethiopian government that it would close down the station and withdraw the remaining personnel by September 30. The Ethiopians had always made a close psychological connection between the communication station and American military assistance and viewed the two as inextricably linked. The demise of one was interpreted as leading to the inevitable demise of the other in the near future, and this was enhanced by the disputes over military sales credits and military equipment deliveries from earlier years of the revolution. By December 31, 1976, Ethiopia decided not to continue to make the scheduled repayments of the 1974 and 1975 military sales agreements, and no further repayments had been made as of mid-1980. This default led to the invocation of the Brooke Amendment (see Glossary) in February 1979 terminating all further new economic assistance projects to Ethiopia, because it was over a year in default in obligations to the United States. While the Brooke Amendment was temporarily lifted in 1980 by the application to the arrearages of balances held by the United States for Ethiopia, it was to be reimposed by Washington in January 1981, unless the payments that had been due in December 1979 and January 1980 were made. In February 1977 Secretary of State Cyrus Vance testified before a congressional committee that the United States proposed to eliminate grant military assistance to three countries, of which Ethiopia was one, on the grounds that they had persistently violated human rights. Because of Ethiopia's extensive foreign exchange reserves deriving from large receipts from the high prices of coffee (the result of the 1975 frost in Brazil) and worldwide United States policies of eliminating grant military assistance to countries other than those with which the United States had multilateral treaty commitments, most of the American military equipment assistance programs to Ethiopia had already been converted to cash sales rather than grants. Vance's statement, which came just after the consolidation of power in Mengistu's hands earlier that month-an event publicly hailed by the Soviet Union-and Mengistu's confirmation that Ethiopia would seek arms from the "socialist countries," aroused Ethiopian nationalism and appeared to be a direct attack on Mengistu. In April 1977 immediately preceding Mengistu's trip to the Soviet Union in May to negotiate additional arms deliveries, the military regime ordered the closure of four American agencies: the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG-already down to forty-seven persons), the Kagnew Communications Center (manned by a few civilian technicians and scheduled to close by the end of September 1977 in any case), the Naval Medical Research Unit, and the United States Information Service (USIS). The closure order stated in part: "The existence of an American Military Assistance Advisory Group is useless at a time when the American government takes every opportunity to create hatred against revolutionary Ethiopia by depicting her as a country in which human rights are violated." The USIS was said to be "transmitting the cheap culture of imperialism." The Mengistu government also unilaterally abrogated the 1953 Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement, and the United States was thus without legal authority to deliver the US $75 million of military equipment for which Ethiopia had already made about US $12 million in deposits. When the Somali invaded Ethiopia in mid-1977, the military regime claimed that the United States, its traditional ally, had deserted Ethiopia in its hour of need and national crisis by not replacing the war reserves of ammunition expended in Eritrea and by not delivering the military equipment in the pipeline. The Ethiopian government's violations of human rights, its continued efforts to impose a military solution on the Eritrean problem, and its unilateral abrogation of the 1953 bilateral agreement left the United States with no other recourse than to suspend all further military assistance. Ethiopia responded to the decision not to continue shipments of military equipment, but it ignored its unilateral abrogation of the 1953 agreement. At the end of May 1977, the Ethiopian government ordered the reduction of the remaining United States embassy staff by one-half and ousted American military attaches. American personnel attached to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were not affected by the cuts, and they continued to administer ongoing programs. In July 1977 the United States House of Representatives omitted Ethiopia from the foreign military aid bill that it sent to the Senate as there was no bilateral agreement in force. A few days later the United States Department of State announced that the sale of military equipment to Somalia had "in principle" been authorized, a decision to which Britain assented. Called in by the Ethiopian foreign minister, the American and British charges d'affaires gave assurances that their countries respected "the unity and territorial integrity" of Ethiopia. In fact, the offer of arms to Somalia was withdrawn shortly thereafter when evidence of that country's involvement in the Ogaden fighting proved overwhelming. By mid-1977 relations between Ethiopia and the United States were at a low ebb. Nevertheless, communications of a sort continued. The Ethiopians were anxious to obtain military equipment already paid for and in the hands of freight forwarders. Two Americans, one from the National Security Council and one from the Department of State, visited Ethiopia in September to discuss the state of bilateral relations. But the United States maintained an arms embargo on both Ethiopia and Somalia to avoid exacerbating the conflict. On January 14, 1978, Ethiopia threatened to break relations with the United States in reaction to a statement by President Jimmy Carter two days earlier in which he criticized Soviet involvement in the Horn. Carter accused the Soviet Union of having first armed both Somalia and Ethiopia and then providing massive shipments of arms to Ethiopia, thus contributing to the war in the Ogaden. The Ethiopians considered the statement supportive of Somalia. The cool climate notwithstanding, three high-ranking United States officials talked to Mengistu in Addis Ababa in February 1978. The only outcome was an agreement to accept a new American ambassador, who was approved in mid-May. (The United States had been represented by a charge d'affaires for almost two years.) Simultaneously, Washington released for shipment to Ethiopia the nonlethal equipment (trucks and some spare parts) hitherto withheld. The language of Mengistu and other official and semiofficial sources remained anti-Western in tone, but anti-American references temporarily diminished. Washington praised Ethiopian restraint in the Somali situation, but continued to deplore the Soviet and Cuban presence in Ethiopia. The United States also provided refugee and famine relief assistance. Pursuant to the February agreement, American Ambassador Frederic L. Chapin arrived in July 1978. (Ethiopia's embassy in Washington had remained in the hands of a charge d'affaires after an Ethiopian ambassador sent to Washington in 1977 refused to return to Addis Ababa for consultation.) Chapin told Mengistu that the United States was prepared to provide a substantial program of economic development assistance, provided the PMGSE could provide the United States with some help on the issue of compensation for nationalized property. Mengistu, in reply, reiterated that his country wanted friendly relations with the United States. On the afternoon that Chapin presented his credentials to Mengistu, the PMGSE approached the American embassy to conclude the first new economic development project since 1975, a US $4 million resettlement project that had been awaiting signature for two years. The project was duly signed on July 31, but two days later the PMGSE arrested one of the three USAID technicians in the field on charges which were disputed by the Americans. The technician was later cleared by Ethiopian Public Security but was not allowed to resume his work as a pulse breeder with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research. By November 1978 all three USAID technicians had left the country, charging harassment. In February 1979 Washington, charging the Ethiopian government with failure to pay its arrearages on the FMS credits, invoked the Brooke Amendment. A comprehensive American offer to solve the compensation and military claims issues was brushed aside. An invitation by the American ambassador (endorsed by Secretary Vance) for a high level PMGSE delegation to come to the United States to discuss the whole range of bilateral relations was rejected in a letter from the Ethiopian foreign minister in June. The Hickenlooper Amendment (see Glossary) was invoked by Washington on July 5, claiming there was no prospect of any progress on the compensation issue. All USAID projects were phased out by March 5, 1980, and the United States subsequently voted against loans to Ethiopia in international lending organizations, in accordance with the Gonzalez Amendment (see Glossary). Ethiopia was also removed from the list of countries that enjoy special tariff advantages. American humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia continued and reached a level of US $31.5 million in FY 1979 both bilaterally and through multilateral and private organizations. This assistance attracted little attention in Ethiopia. The collapse of the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, and American efforts to obtain access to additional military facilities in the Indian Ocean area in Oman, Kenya, and Somalia produced a strong adverse reaction from the PMGSE in late 1979. In late February 1980 Mengistu denounced American efforts to secure military facilities as part of a plan to destabilize various governments in the area. Moreover any action resembling a rapprochement between the United States and Somalia tended to be perceived by the PMGSE as American support for Somali designs on the Ogaden, despite the United States government's recurrent and express disavowals of such intentions in Washington and through its ambassador. Anti-American attacks appeared routinely in Ethiopian media on issues ranging from racial relations in the United States, the alleged nefarious activities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worldwide, and American domination and colonialist policies in Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Mengistu bitterly attacked the April 1980 mission to rescue American hostages in Iran in a letter to that country's President Bani Sadr, which was prominently featured on the front page of Ethiopia's official English language newspaper, the Ethiopian Herald. The culmination of the deteriorating relations between the PMGSE and the United States came when the PMGSE asked for the recall of Ambassador Chapin. Washington publicly denied that there was any basis for the request and strongly supported its ambassador's conduct, leading to a new anti-American attack by the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Ethiopian Herald. Chapin returned to Washington in July 1980, leaving the embassy in Addis Ababa in the hands of a charge d'affaires. In many respects Ethiopian relations with other noncommunist industrial states resembled those with the United States. But the sharp exchanges and the move from close relations to hostility occurred a little less frequently. Ethiopia's dire economic situation and the unwillingness of the Soviet Union and its allies to provide economic assistance in substantial quantities led the PMGSE to continue to seek some aid from the West, particularly the European Economic Community (EEC). Although the PMGSE reacted to European commentaries on the violent nature of its political processes and on the role of the Soviet Union and Cuba in Ethiopia, it made less of them than it did of similar comments emanating from American official and unofficial sources. Britain was confronted first when it concurred with a tentative United States proposal in 1977 to send arms to Somalia and again when The Times of London in March 1978 gave prominence to a long report on the Red Terror (see Human Rights, ch. 5). Although the British foreign minister told the Ethiopian ambassador to London that Britain did not propose to cut off relations on that account, he told the diplomatic corps in London that Soviet and Cuban involvement in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa was a threat to world peace. The Ethiopian ambassador walked out. In general Britain was perceived as the headquarters for Ethiopian dissidents in exile. The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was also subject to criticism in 1978, despite considerable West German economic aid and its role in training and supplying the Ethiopian police. Its military attache was described as unnecessary and was expelled in early 1978. The West German training school was occupied by troops of the People's Militia apparently in a dispute over the schools' exemption from teaching Marxism-Leninism. West Germany's extension of a large credit to Somalia for economic and social development (in direct response to Somali assistance in recovering a Lufthansa aircraft hijacked to Mogadishu by terrorists in 1978) was interpreted in Addis Ababa as support for the purchase of arms by Somalia, and the West German ambassador to Ethiopia was asked to leave. In general Ethiopia reacted most strongly to any action by a noncommunist country that could be interpreted as giving aid and comfort to Somalia, and virtually all members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) were perceived as giving such support. Nevertheless by the end of 1978 it had become clear that the range and quantity of aid the Soviet Union and its allies could (or would) provide were limited. The PMGSE expressed a desire to reestablish relations with noncommunist countries capable of furnishing aid, but little concrete action had occurred by mid-1980. The Communist World When the PMAC came to power in 1974, the Soviet Union was the primary supplier of arms and diplomatic support to the putatively socialist state of Somalia. A Soviet offer to supply arms to Ethiopia was looked at askance by the new regime which, like its predecessor, saw Somalia's interest in the Ogaden as a threat. Moreover, the Soviet Union had close links with Middle Eastern states that supported Eritrean secessionists, and Moscow had expressed sympathy with the Eritrean cause during the regime of Haile Selassie. By 1977 the Soviet Union-whatever its initial hopes of wielding general influence in the Horn-had decided that Ethiopia offered a better return for its investment than did Somalia. The Ethiopian military regime, in need of quickly delivered arms, arranged to get them from Moscow. At about the same time, Ethiopian relations with East European states, ranging from the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) to Yugoslavia, became progressively closer. All were prepared to offer help and supported the progressive imposition of Marxist-Leninist principles on the Ethiopian society. The East Germans were the most important providers of economic and technical aid, and there were substantial numbers of them engaged in these tasks and as advisers on matters of internal security. The ties between the Soviet Union (and other East European states) and Ethiopia have become close over a period of several years. Mengistu visited Moscow in late 1976 and again in May 1977 not long after he had firmly established his power. A twenty-year treaty of friendship was signed during his visit in November 1978. The treaty took effect in April 1979 and was followed by a revitalization of a much earlier Soviet loan agreement concluded under Emperor Haile Selassie but was scarcely drawn upon. Soviet Premier Kosygin was the guest of honor at the ceremonies celebrating the fifth anniversary of Ethiopia's revolution in September 1979. The PMGSE in recent years has supported Soviet foreign policy initiatives and has criticized all of Moscow's opponents whether China or the United States and its NATO allies. Cuba also has played an important role in Ethiopia. The Soviet arms and other military equipment sent to roll back the Somali guerrillas and the regular Somali army units in the Ogaden were in large part used by Cuban soldiers, and both were an essential element of that victory (see Soviet and Cuban Aid, ch. 5). The Cubans initially may have been more sanguine than the Soviets about the possibility of bringing Somalia and Ethiopia under the same banner. But they adapted quickly to Somalia's recalcitrance, and by 1978 were fully involved in the Ogaden war. Cuba has refused to permit its units to become engaged in the Eritrean war and is believed to have stressed the desirability of a political solution to the conflict. Cuba had previously given aid and moral support to the Eritrean secessionists. Nevertheless, Cubans are understood to have operated the Asmera control tower, to have serviced Soviet aircraft used against the Eritreans and, according to some accounts, to have flown combat sorties. In addition, Cuba provided economic, technical, and scientific aid and has been responsible for the education in Cuba of substantial numbers of young Ethiopians. Agreements for cooperation in these fields were signed in 1978 and 1979. On these occasions communiques were issued or speeches were made in which each leader made much of the other's commitment to revolutionary socialism and the like. The rhetoric suggested a personal tie between Castro and Mengistu-somewhat warmer than that likely to exist between the Ethiopian leader and any Soviet counterpart. The links between Ethiopia and the Soviet Union have been accompanied by Ethiopian approval of Soviet-supported states well outside the African and Red Sea context where Ethiopia has concrete interests. Specifically Mengistu has given his support to Vietnam and the Vietnamese-dominated regime in Kampuchea and was one of the few non-Soviet bloc countries to endorse at the UN General Assembly Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. Ethiopia's support for Soviet policies and its virulent attacks on American approaches appear to be part of the payment for continued massive Soviet military assistance. Ethiopia's relations with China have been another matter. In general, China continued its modest aid to Ethiopia after the revolution and tended to express its approval of the military regime's activities. Although it maintained a low profile and continued its roadbuilding activity, China criticized the Soviet and Cuban presence in the Horn. By 1978, when Ethiopian relations with the Soviet Union were well established, Mengistu included China as one of "thirteen reactionary countries" that had "directly or indirectly launched a concerted assault against us." China was also accused of having cooperated with the West in supporting Somalia in the Ogaden. In March 1979 the PMGSE closed the Chinese news agency in Addis Ababa and expelled its two correspondents, who were accused of "spreading malicious propaganda against the Ethiopian revolution." Exchanges on matters such as sports and civil aviation continued, but the relations between Ethiopia and China were barely cordial in 1979, and public attacks on the Asian country and its leadership frequently caused the Chinese ambassador to walk out of major public celebrations or not attend them. African States Ethiopia's relations with other African countries have continued to reflect attempts to maintain an African leadership position established by Haile Selassie before the present regime came to power. After World War II, when many African territories achieved independence, the emperor had developed a strong interest in external affairs, especially in African matters. He had become the senior figure in the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and from the organizations' headquarters in Addis Ababa had achieved international acclaim as the continent's leading elder statesman. His intra-African foreign policy had centered primarily on a determination to protect Ethiopia's territorial integrity. In consonance with the emperor's perception of his country as a Christian island in a Muslim sea, major concerns centered on relations with the neighboring Islamic states of Somalia and Sudan. The maintenance of good relations with the neighboring enclave that once had been French Somaliland protected Ethiopian use of the strategic port of Djibouti, which, with the railway that connected it to Addis Ababa, served as Ethiopia's main route of foreign commerce. Since the downfall of Haile Selassie and his government, the military regime's approach to foreign affairs has lacked the diplomatic finesse and respected status that died with Haile Selassie. But the PMGSE did not have the late emperor's vast experience. Protection of territorial integrity has remained a basic requisite of normal relations with all foreign countries, particularly African neighbors. The PMGSE's rise to power and its promotion of the Ethiopian Marxist-Leninist revolution drew favorable response from most members of the OAU. At the same time, a number of countries grew more cautious after 1977, when a major Soviet and Cuban presence began to materialize. By 1979 Mengistu's regime had indicated that Ethiopia's relations with the rest of Africa were predicated on a desire to maintain "international solidarity." Addis Ababa remained the site of the headquarters of the OAU, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), and other multilateral African organizations, although there were repeated rumors that one or more organizations might move elsewhere, particularly during the period of urban terrorism in 1977-78 when many international meetings were moved out of Addis Ababa to calmer places. Since 1974 the Ethiopian government has exhibited a rather cavalier attitude toward these organizations, unilaterally tripling the rent of international agency employees. Given their heavy investments in fixed assets, both organizations have decided to stay in Addis Ababa despite much grumbling and some offers by other African countries to relocate the headquarters elsewhere. Whatever the governmental views of particular black African states on the domestic policies and actions of the military regime-or the role in Ethiopia of the Soviet Union and its East European and Cuban allies-the OAU and most of its member states supported the Ethiopian government with regard to the Somali invasion of the Ogaden in 1977, which violated the OAU principle of the sanctity of existing borders. The Eritrean issue was more complex, and the OAU has been unwilling to enter this dispute. Problems with Somalia have been among the thorniest issues in Ethiopia's relations with African countries. Clouded by perennial conflict over a large undemarcated segment of frontier, the issue is exacerbated by broader historical claims by each country to the Ethiopian Ogaden. The area long has been part of the eastern neighbor's "Greater Somalia" design. The contested issue caused an outbreak of armed hostilities in the early 1960s and the Somali invasion of 1977-78 that brought massive Soviet military aid and Cuban troops in response to Ethiopian pleas for support (see Foreign Military Assistance; Areas of Conflict, ch. 5). Since 1977 a virtual state of war has existed between the two countries, and major battles were fought in June and July leading to a renewed withdrawal of regular Somali national army forces from the Ogaden. The withdrawal also coincided with agreement in principle with the United States government to provide additional military access to air and naval facilities, an agreement that had been delayed by American concern over the level of Somali involvement in the Ogaden. The conflict between the two countries was compounded by the presence in Somalia of roughly 700,000 Ethiopian refugees in camps and perhaps as many more outside (see Refugees: Crisis Revisited, ch. 2). Kenya, Ethiopia's southern neighbor, has entered into a bilateral agreement with Ethiopia but has remained wary of Somali intentions inasmuch as part of its territory is included in the "Greater Somalia" goal. As of 1980 concern for the commonly shared threat had resulted in moderately close relations between the governments in Addis Ababa and Nairobi. Relations with Sudan, with which Ethiopia shares its longest frontier, have been complicated by the fact that the Muslim Sudanese share the cultures-and problems-of both the Arab and African worlds. Incipient tensions have existed over the Eritrean conflict since the 1960s when thousands of Eritrean refugees began fleeing to safety in Sudan. By 1980 their total had reached about 400,000, a situation that placed considerable economic strain on the Sudanese. Disruptive issues that have arisen periodically have included mutual accusations that each country was harboring elements intent on hostilities against the other. Ethiopia has often accused Sudan of allowing its territory to be used as a base for the military activities of Eritrean secessionist forces. Sudan has countered that Ethiopia's military forces have violated the border in pursuit of fleeing Eritreans and have bombed and shelled Sudanese villages. In 1976 deteriorating relations approached a state of war between the two countries after an attempt on Sudanese President Jaffar al Numayri's life by dissidents thought to have been trained in Ethiopia. Although relations had greatly improved in 1980 and some bilateral issues had been resolved, Mengistu and his government were still watched carefully by the Sudanese. Numayri, like most other neighbors, appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable over the Soviet and Cuban presence in Ethiopia and the communists' plans for the Horn. Numayri's apprehension was founded to some degree on his own country's disillusionment with short-lived Soviet support in the early 1970s. Relations with Djibouti since it achieved independence in June 1977 have been clouded by the effects of the wars in the Ogaden and Eritrea. The PMGSE has continued to warn against perceived Somali intentions to annex the vulnerable ministate and has assured Djibouti that it would provide military protection in such an eventuality. At the same time, however, several thousand refugees from the PMAC's Red Terror campaign of the mid-1970s have been sheltered in Djibouti. The country's Afar people thus have been divided in their attitudes regarding the Ethiopian government and its own intentions. By mid-1980, however, diplomatic and commercial relations between Ethiopia and Djibouti were much improved. Middle Eastern States The new regime inherited a policy of relations with the Middle Eastern states that was complicated by the support a number of them provided the Eritrean secessionists. Some of them-Syria and Iraq, for example-initially approved of the revolutionary direction of the PMAC, but they argued for a peaceful solution to the Eritrean problem and continued to support the secessionist movement. Egypt and others gave military and economic aid not only to the Eritreans but also to Somalia. Only two countries-Libya and Yemen (Aden) gave apparently complete support to the PMAC, although they too had previously aided the Eritreans. In the late 1970s and early 1980, this support consisted of withholding aid for the Eritrean separatists and establishing economic cooperation of various kinds with the Ethiopians, including arrangements for a joint Libya-Ethiopia shipping operation. Libya and Yemen (Aden) would not go so far as to provide direct military aid for the Ethiopian attack on the Eritrean secessionists, preferring to offer themselves as mediators in the dispute. But they were the only Arab states to remain clearly sympathetic with the Mengistu government. The PMAC seemed to consider Yemen (Aden) as the only Arab state politically compatible with Ethiopia in the region of the Red Sea and the Horn. Israel, fearing complete Arab control over the Red Sea area and the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, was prepared initially to give military and other aid to the new regime. That aid continued until 1978 when Moshe Dayan made knowledge of its existence public. The publicity, which was embarrassing to the PMAC in its relations with Libya and Yemen (Aden), precluded any hope for the improvement of Ethiopia's relations with other Arab states and led to the expulsion of all Israelis from Ethiopia. * * * Despite the relative scarcity of objective literature on the subject, a number of books and periodical articles provide a basis for further analytical study of Ethiopian political developments since 1974 and the start of the revolutionary process. Marina and David Ottaway's Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution offers a detailed and balanced analysis of political and social events that occurred between 1974 and 1977 when, as correspondents for the Washington Post, they were asked by the military government to leave Ethiopia. An equally valuable source for understanding the Ethiopian political situation is Conflict and Intervention in the Horn of Africa by Ethiopian political scientist Bereket Habte Selassie. His periodical article "Political Leadership in Crisis: The Ethiopian Case" contains material based on the book's fuller treatment of the subject. A reliable insight into the provisional military government's rise to power in 1974 and the complex struggles it had endured through 1979 are contained in the two-part series of articles "The PMAC: Origins and Structure" by Pliny the Middle-Aged (the author's real name remains anonymous to protect his sensitive sources). A valuable comparison of the government at local levels before and after the 1974 revolution is provided in Ethiopian Provincial and Municipal Government: Imperial Patterns and Postrevolutionary Changes by John M. Cohen and Peter H. Koehn. Their monograph contains an informative foreword by British writer Patrick Gilkes, an authority on Ethiopian political affairs. John Markakis' article "Garrison Socialism: The Case of Ethiopia" is MERIP Reports No. 79 offers a critical evaluation of the realities of the revolution. John W. Harbeson's articles, "Socialist Politics in Revolutionary Ethiopia" and "Socialism, Traditions, and Revolutionary Politics in Contemporary Ethiopia," give somewhat sympathetic treatment to the relevance of the revolution to the country's social and political needs. A rather general outline of Ethiopian foreign policy as of 1977 is reviewed in The Horn of Africa in Continuing Crisis by Colin Legum and Bill Lee. The subject of foreign relations through mid-1979, emphasizing Soviet gains in the area, is dealt with insightfully by Steven David in his article "Realignment in the Horn: The Soviet Advantage." (For further information see Bibliography.)