Ethiopia admits Cubans are fighting on front-line

Press, 4 March 1978, Page 9

Ethiopia admits Cubans are fighting on front-line

NZPA Mogadishu Cuban and Ethiopian paratroop units have dropped behind Somali lines for the first time in the Ogaden war to disrupt communication and supply lines, Somali guerrilla leaders have said.

The report came shortly after Ethiopia admitted for the first time, after months of denials, that Cubans were fighting with its front-line troops. Senior officials of the Western Somalia Liberation Front said that the troops who parachuted in two drops on about February 24 near the Somali border were wiped out. They said the mixed Cuban and Ethiopian force included tank crews and armoured vehicles, and tanks were dropped with them by parachute, about 100 km north-east of the front-line garrison town of Dire Dawa. In Nairobi, military experts said that although it was impossible to drop a battle tank by parachut'. the Soviet Union had manufactured an airborne assault gun which is self-propelled

■ and specifically designed for ■ such missions. > It has not previously been : reported among the S9OOM s of Soviet military equipment rushed to Ethiopia from To- > viet stockpiles in recent i months. ; The Ethiopian head of , State, Lieutenant-Colonel p Mengistu Haile-Mariam, told , a rally in Addis Ababa on ' Thursday: “The Cubans, re- . nowned for shedding their [lblood anywhere and at any ; time for a just struggle and 1 cause, are bracing them- ’ ; selves with the Ethiopian ' People’s Army at the front ! line.” The Ethiopian leader did not say where the Cubans were stationed. But diplo- ; matic sources in Addis I Ababa say most of them are : facing Somali troops and ! guerrillas in the mountains tjat the northern edge of the II Somali-held Ogaden Desert.

i Colonel Mengistu said the Cuban help was in addition, to unreserved political,! moral, and material support' from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Ethiopian leaders have ; previously said the Cubans jin their country were perI forming only training, advisory, and military duties. I Last week the United ! States said that there were jbetween 10,000 and 12,000 (Cuban soldiers in Ethiopia [and that some 2000 of them | were taking an active comIbat role in the fight against ! Somali forces. A summary of Colonel ;Mengistu’s speech, broadcast live by Addis Ababa radio, was received in Nairobi i from the official Ethiopian i News Agency. ’ The colonel was speaking ion the eighty-second anniversary of Ethiopia’s defeat of an Italian Army at j Adowa, near the border of the northern province of Eritrea.

He said that more than 131 countries were directly or indirectly expanding a war of invasion against Ethiopia. Unless Somalia and its supporters immediately and unconditionally withdrew their forces, the war would be intensified. Answering Somali allegations that Ethiopia planned to invade northern Somalia, Colonel Mengistu said his country did not intend to: take anyone else’s territory. In Rome, the Ethiopian Foreign Minister (Colonel Feleke Ghedle Ghiorgis) has angrily defended the use of Soviet and Cuban aid in the fighting against Somalia. Banging his fist on the table, Colonel Feleke told a press conference: “Ethiopia 1 has the right to ask any I country for help in its j struggle to preserve its ter- ; ritorial integrity.” | Colonel Feleke was on a 'brief stop-over en route; home from a Tripoli meeting; j of Foreign Ministers of the I Organisation of African} Unity. He said the Kremlin, and Cuba had a moral obligation to aid Ethiopia. “The Soviet Union and Cuba are helping us fight an I aggressor in the true spirit I of the United Nations Char-

ter which gives nations a moral obligation to defend any country whose territorial integrity is under attack,” he said.

The Minister repeatedly denied reports that Cuban troops had been moved from Angola to help Ethiopian Government forces fighting secessionists in the northern province of Eritrea, where another war unconnected with the Ogaden conflict has been going on for more than a year.

But the Ethiopian Minister said the guerrilla movements fighting for the independence of the province were being helped militarily by certain regimes which wished to wreck the chance of peace in Eritrea. Insisting that his Government wanted peace in the Horn of Africa, Colonel Feleke accused Somalia of territorial ambitions throughout the region.

“The Somalis, a misguided people with misguided’ leaders, have designs not only on Ethiopian territory but also on Djibouti and Kenyan territory,” he said. Colonel Feleke, who has had talks with the Italian Foreign Minister (Mr- Arnaldo Forlani), denied reports that the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi was acting as a mediator in the Ethiopian-Somali conflict. He refused to comment on the visit of the Somali President (Mr Mohammed Siad Barre) to Tripoli for talks with Colonel Gadaffi, saying simply: “I missed the opportunity of meeting him. I had left Tripoli before he arrived.”