Imperial colonel who rules in Addis

Press, 9 December 1981, Page 24

Imperial colonel who rules in Addis

Despite seven years of Marxist discipline, the centre of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, retains many of the features of its one-time imperial glory. Women still skitter about in the latest fashions from Pans and New York. Nightclubs and hotels are jammed with rich young Ethiopians and Gulf Arabs, who ignore the midnight curfew. On Sundays, the Coptic churches are full.' The ghost of Emperor Haile Selassie must raise an eyebrow. If the new regime has given little attention to these survivals of the past in Audis and other cities, this is largely because it has been so preoccupied with fighting the secessionists in Eritrea, Tigre and the Ogadeen — and with eliminating, sometimes in bnter guerrilla fighting, the rival factions that challenged its control of the revolution. Its deal with Sudan's President Numeiri has now helped to bottle up most of the Eritrean rebels in their bases in Sudan. Eritrea's provincial ■capital, Asmara, is now at last so firmly in the Government's hands that foreign visitors can be safely taken it see it; and some of the Eritrean refugees who fled from last year’s fighting. are beginning to return. From these battles Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam has emerged unchallengeable from Right or Left, inside or outside tne Dergue. the ruling military council. Although ne spurns the old imperia) palace winch is now used as a- guesthouse for visiting heads of State, the autocracv mat it symbolises continues..

From ‘The Economist/ London

“Mengistu is every bit an emperor,’’ one foreign diplomat told your correspondent “Even members of the Dergue quake at his summons.” The surest sign of the colonel’s power can be seen in his resistance to Russian demands that a communist party patterned along Soviet lines should be established. • He fears that the creation of such a party would give the Russians more control of the administration, through the political cadres they have trained, and would eventually mean the elimination of the Dergue. In 1978 and 1979 the Russians tried to make the Dergue authorise a new party based on the three Marxist groups that sprang up after the 1974 revolution: The attembts failed because the three groups' leaders urged Colonel Mengistu and his fellow-soldiers to return to their barracks. Many of these leaders have since been eliminated. The Russians are trying to increase the pressure, by demanding immediate payment for the $2 billion worth of arms they have sent to Ethiopia since the beginning of 1980. With over half of the Budget devoted to defence, Colonel Mengistu will be hard pressed to settle this bill. Many observers in Addis believe that his recent alliance with Libya and South Yemen was concluded largely for the sake of the lavish funds that Libya’s Colonel Gadaffi offered. So far, however, Colonel Mengistu has merely set up a commission, known as Copwe, wnose assignment is to organise a new party, but whose real

purpose may be to delay t the arrival of any such party by talking interminably about it. With its formation all existing parties were disbanded, and so was the ■ office which had been responsible for training political cadres. Copwe is to screen all applicants for membership of the new party, so helping to weed out Colonel Mengistu’s opponents. Although 79 of Copwe’s 93 members are soldiers loyal to the colonel, the others include several former members of the civilian Marxist parties that opposed his seizure of power in 1977. Their inclusion may have been deliberate, since bickering between civilian and military Marxists is already helping to obstruct the organising of a party. However, it is also an illustration of the fact that the colonel now feels able to permit some relaxation of his gnp Dissent is sometimes permitted nowadavs within both the Dergue and tne army: It is said in Addis that delegations which bring complaints to Colonel Mengistu are no longer shot, as they were liable to be only last year. There appears to have been no punishment of a group of militia officers who recently complained about the pay and living conditions of their troops in Tigre. A group which baldly urged the Dergue to resign in favour of Copwe was merely imprisoned. The Soviet presence is not conspicuous in Addis Ababa. Few of the Russians are seen outside tneir compound, a group of prefabricated bungalows north ot tne city. The

East Germans, who set up the Dergue’s internal security machine, live in a hotel in central Addis behind a cordon ot armed guards. Some diplomats estimate that 3500 Cuban soldiers have been sent home this year. The 8000 who remain are kept near areas of potential combat, well away from the capital. Colonel Mengistu s pre-occu-pation with the military operations and with Copwe has crippled the administration, because most officials are afraid to make any decisions without a ruling from above. Occasionally, however, local actions are taken that undermine the regime’s plans. Last month, for example, the headquarters of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church was seized by a local committee just wnen ■the Dergue was negotiating an aid deal with the Netherlands, the church s sponsor. In Eritrea, a local cadre recently ordered the execution of a rebel leader who was about to negotiate with tne Government. This kino of fumbling may of course, Drove convenient at times. Thus. Finance Ministry officials claim that it is local officials wno are obstructing the settlement of compensation ■ claims made from abroad ir regard to industries that have been nationalised. The regime is responding slowly to Russian demands for the establishment ot State farms. Results from the lane reforms of 1975. which redistributed almost 3M acres to peasants, have been mixed. Although most peasants now get more food for themselves production nas fallen oy aimosi a third — rougniv the same amount as was formerly taxer by the landlords.