TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/030590/0305009.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 11.3 KB | 239 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 26

THIRD WORLD

Don't Call Us, Friend, We'll Call You


Cuba is not the only Soviet client looking at cutbacks in
military and economic aid. Across Asia, Africa and the Middle
East, other regimes experience hard times

By JILL SMOLOWE -- Reported by Dean Fischer/Cairo, Marguerite
Michaels/Nairobi and Elizabeth Tucker/Moscow


    "Where do events in Eastern Europe leave the Third World?
Up the creek."

    That glum editorial comment from Zimbabwe's Sunday Mail
aptly reflects the view of many Soviet Third World clients
toward the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Although
most Third World states were never considered much more than
pawns in the cold war waged between Washington and Moscow,
membership in the Soviet orbit had its privileges. For decades,
military, economic and political support flowed to those
nations that dutifully toed the Marxist-Leninist line. Now,
while the rest of the world gasps with delight -- checkbooks
in hand -- at the political and economic changes sweeping the
East bloc, Soviet-supported Third World countries see their
interests being knocked further down the list of international
priorities.

    Most distressing for many Soviet clients is the "new
thinking" that is shaking Moscow's foreign policy. The growing
superpower rapprochement has curbed the rivals' appetites for
backing regional wars and propping up shaky governments to gain
an ephemeral geopolitical advantage. In dire economic straits
itself, Moscow has grown disenchanted with a strategy that
annually pumps well over $19 billion into the Third World --
two-thirds of it in military assistance and much of it not
repaid -- for little or no dividend.

    The emerging Soviet policy cuts back expensive military
commitments in favor of cheaper political solutions, with
Moscow exhorting Third World allies to adopt glasnost- and
perestroika-style reforms. "The Third World," says Andrei
Kozyrev, a senior Soviet Foreign Ministry official, "suffers
not so much from capitalism as from a lack of it." What this
means for Moscow's Asian, African and Middle Eastern clients
is a drying up of crucial economic and military funds -- and
a shift in their own attitudes.

    Last December tiny Benin in western Africa dropped
Marxism-Leninism as the state ideology and vowed to support
private enterprise. Nicaragua, which over the past year has
watched Moscow turn off the arms spigot, is in the final throes
of an election process that, whatever the outcome, shows
promise of being a legitimate democratic exercise. Even Libya's
erratic Muammar Gaddafi, a regular Soviet arms customer, is
cultivating closer ties with moderate Arab leaders. Most Soviet
client states are making similar adjustments to accommodate
the fast-changing times. A look at some of the most important:


    Ethiopia. As one of the troika of African states -- with
Angola and Mozambique -- that remain most closely aligned with
the East bloc, Ethiopia's regime has had scant luck with
Marxism-Leninism for some time. More than a year ago, Moscow
warned officials in the capital, Addis Ababa, that its
multimillion-dollar military-assistance package would be
significantly cut when the current agreement expires next year.
Since then, the last of several thousand Cuban soldiers have
departed, more than one-third of the 2,500 Soviet military and
development advisers and their dependents have pulled out, and
it is rumored that East Germans who ran the government's
intelligence network have also returned home.

    The pullback comes at a hazardous time for President
Mengistu Haile Mariam, who continues to battle Eritrean
secessionists in the north and two rebel armies in Tigre
province. As Soviet aid withers, Arab countries are increasing
their military and economic assistance to the Eritreans, who
claim to be running up military gains. In search of a new
patron, Mengistu re-established diplomatic relations with
Israel last November after a 16-year hiatus. Now dozens of
Ethiopian officers are being trained in Israel, which is also
providing Mengistu with small arms.


    Mozambique. President Joaquim Chissano is showing much more
pragmatism than Mengistu. Last summer Chissano's government
abandoned the Marxist-Leninist credo that his Frelimo Party has
embraced since it came to power in 1975. Transformed from "a
vanguard of the worker and peasant alliance" to "a party of all
the Mozambican people," the ruling group has stepped up market
reforms that it initiated in the mid-1980s. Last January
Chissano introduced a draft constitution that embraces universal
suffrage, a secret ballot, direct election of both the
President and the parliament and the reintroduction of private
ownership of land. The new plan is expected to be adopted by
the People's Assembly before the middle of this year.

    Chissano's change of heart is timely, given a Soviet
announcement that it will remove all military advisers from
Mozambique by the end of 1990. Bulgarian, Czechoslovak and
other East European advisers and technicians are also said to
be returning home. With some 3 million people facing possible
famine conditions, Mozambique is hustling to find a new source
of help -- and apparently has fixed its sights on Pretoria. In
a recent letter to South African State President F.W. de Klerk,
a group of Mozambican intellectuals that included several
hard-line Communists wrote: "We view as positive the changes
happening in your country." The subtext: Please send money.


    Syria. For almost as long as President Hafez Assad has aimed
for military parity with Israel, the Soviet Union has been only
too willing to help. For years Moscow has supplied Damascus
with interceptors, attack bombers, surface-to-air missiles,
tanks and artillery. But Moscow is now seeking to recast its
role as troublemaker in the Middle East to that of peacemaker.
In November the Soviet Ambassador to Syria, Alexander Zotov,
suggested that Damascus abandon its dream of parity and instead
embrace "reasonable defensive sufficiency." Zotov acknowledged
that one motive for the decision to pursue a less aggressive
approach was Syria's $15 billion military debt to Moscow.

    For Assad, the threat is that Moscow's pullback will lead
to deepening isolation. Syria, already something of a pariah
among Arab states for its support of Iran in the gulf war, felt
even more lonely after other Arab leaders decided to resume
relations with Egypt. Last December Assad moved to break his
diplomatic quarantine by agreeing to restore relations with
Cairo. With a foreign debt of more than $10 billion in addition
to obligations to Moscow, Assad needs the help of well-heeled
Arab brethren.


    Afghanistan. Of all Moscow's Third World client states, only
Afghanistan shares a Soviet border. Hence, it is the sole
client to pose an immediate security problem. That fact helps
explain Moscow's continued patronage for the Najibullah regime
in Kabul, despite the Soviet withdrawal of its occupying forces
from Afghanistan a year ago. Moscow's fear is that the country
could become a springboard for Islamic revolutionaries eager
to penetrate Soviet Central Asia. By U.S. Government estimates,
Moscow's concern translates into a monthly dole of $200
million to $300 million, most of it in military assistance.

    Najibullah, who has proven himself an able politician and
administrator, is adjusting his own policies to accommodate
Moscow's changing world view. He has refashioned his
Soviet-installed regime over the past three years, to obscure
its Marxist-Leninist lineage, and offered free elections, to
be monitored by the United Nations. He has embarked on reforms
that include support for a market-based economy. Najibullah's
homage to glasnost has included the opening of an Islamic
university and publication of a list of Afghans killed by his
hard-line predecessors. And he has reached out to reb el
mujahedin factions with moderate proposals that offer a degree
of self-rule, even though important insurgent leaders so far
are not buying. Be that as it may, a Soviet diplomat in New
Delhi says Najibullah has shown himself to be in step with
President Mikhail Gorbachev's new thinking.


    Viet Nam. Nowhere, perhaps, has the Soviet Union more
emphatically demonstrated a determination to put a kinder,
gentler face on its foreign policy than in Viet Nam. Last
September, under pressure from Moscow, Viet Nam withdrew most
of its remaining 26,000 troops from Cambodia (though last week
there were reports that several thousand Vietnamese troops and
military advisers have since returned). The Soviet Union has
also begun reducing its muscle at the former U.S. military and
supply base at Cam Ranh Bay. Two weeks ago, the Soviet Foreign
Ministry announced that Moscow was removing its MiG-23s and
TU-16 long-range bombers, while Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai
Ryzhkov said that Soviet air strength at the base would be
reduced to five planes.

    Eager to retain Moscow's approval and economic support, the
Hanoi government is dancing with some vigor to Gorbachev's new
tune. The geriatric government of Communist Party
Secretary-General Nguyen Van Linh has reduced its armed forces
by 500,000 troops over the past two years. Economic reforms
begun in 1987 have included devaluing the currency, slashing
subsidies for state enterprises and permitting a free market
to blossom. The results have been encouraging. Last year Viet
Nam exported more than 1 million tons of rice, the largest
shipment in decades. But a U.S. trade embargo remains intact,
and Viet Nam's Soviet and East European trading partners are
looking elsewhere for hard-currency deals. Hence Viet Nam,
which owes Moscow $16 billion, is desperately courting foreign
investors.


    North Korea. Call it a mission of desperation. Last November
North Korea's President Kim Il Sung paid a clandestine call on
his comrades-in-arms in Beijing. His agenda included begging
for aid and trying to block South Korea's diplomatic overtures
to the changing communist world. Echoing an earlier rallying
cry by Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu, Kim also called
unsuccessfully for a "united front" against "antisocialist
forces." Ceausescu is now dead, the victim of his own
intransigence. The dictatorial Kim's response to communism's
waning fortunes has been to retreat ever deeper into his
well-fortified shell.

    By year's end, Moscow's five-year, $13.6 billion aid package
for Pyongyang will expire, and future funding is likely to be
reduced as Soviet interests turn toward cultivating cash-rich
Seoul. But Kim, 77, is proving himself more obdurate than ever.
Overtures between the divided Koreas were scotched last
December when Pyongyang imposed last-minute conditions on a
long-awaited exchange of cultural performers and families. This
month North Korea announced that it would halt all contacts
with Seoul to protest upcoming joint U.S.-South Korean military
exercises. Meanwhile, more than 500,000 North Korean troops
remained deployed along the border with the South. Whatever
Gorbachev says, unless illness or death overtakes him, Kim may
very well be the last dictator to turn out the lights in the
communist bloc.