Transcription
It is a war of unthinkable alliances. Israelis, Cubans, and Russians backing Ethiopia, armed with American WEAPONS against Arab-supported Somalis fighting with Soviet guns. Living proof that Cubans are actively involved in fighting Ethiopia's war. Few of these men are likely to survive.
Strategically, Somalia's coastline is one of the most important in the African continent. The Indian Ocean beats against Mogadishu's harbor walls in the south, whilst further north, she has a complete view of the mouth of the Red Sea. It's an importance which wasn't lost on the Russians who, when a military coup brought the present Somali government to power in 1969, stepped in to sew up their first-ever defense deal with a black African state. The Soviet influence here is strong. Wall posters in the heart of Mogadishu have a distinctly anti-western capitalist air about them.
But it's in more than cultural terms that the Russians have left their mark. Massive arms shipments and a heavy influx of Russian personnel have turned the army here into one of the strongest in Africa. In civilian life too, the Somali government have followed the Soviet road to socialism with fervor. There are numerous self-help schemes in operation across the country, building schools and hospitals. Everyone working on these projects is doing it unpaid. Many who work as civil servants or shopkeepers in the mornings turn out here in the afternoons to make cement or dig ditches. There is an almost infectious enthusiasm for it all. This primary school will be finished only 4 months after the project started.
Well, this apparently happy coexistence between Russians and Somali took a turn for the worst when last April, after the Ethiopians had kicked out their American backers, the Soviets decided to move in in their place. For the Somales, it was devastating. The Russians were moving in with their oldest enemy.
The conflict stems from the shifting lifestyle of many Somali, something British and Italian boundary makers failed to take account of back in the 1880s. For in setting the boundary between Ethiopia and Somalia, they cut a line through the heart of these nomadic peoples who wander hundreds of miles oblivious of frontiers. The maps left 2 million Somali nomads in the Augaden region well inside Ethiopia. For 17 years, the West Somali Liberation Front have been fighting to win back the territory and reunite the Somali people. Headquartered in the heart of Somalia's capital, the front's leader, Abdullah Hassan, accepts that they've intensified the war in recent months, precisely because the problems posed for the Ethiopians in changing from American to Russian weaponry leave them at their most vulnerable. And by all accounts, heavy losses have been inflicted upon the Ethiopians. The Russians here, far from pleased with developments, transferred several top diplomats with an intimate knowledge of Somalia's military secrets straight across to Ethiopia. It was at this moment 6 weeks ago that President Siad Barry, worried that the Russians might suddenly cut off his arm supply, published a shopping list of weapons he needed from the West. The British initially expressed interest, but it soon emerged that the Somali government was anxious to maintain whatever links it could with the Soviets. And since then, the British and others have said they won't supply weapons that are likely to fuel the fighting in the Augaden. Russian ships are still at anchor off Moadishu, and diplomatic sources say that until very recently, Soviet arms were still coming ashore. But this week, the head of national security here, a keen Moscow man, has been reported as saying those supplies have now stopped. This may in part explain why after dark last Sunday, a Soviet plane arrived to ferry the Somali president to Moscow. The Russians are playing for high stakes. They want both nations on Africa's horn to pursue Soviet-style socialism and fit into their global plan. The Somali want the war in the Ogden settled on their terms with the reunification of the Somali people. If the Russians won't help them do that, then it's anyone's guess what happens next. Jon Snow, news at 10, Moadishu.
>> These children were born a thousand miles from here on the edge of the Augaden. 3 years ago, the nomadic families from which they all come suffered in one of the worst droughts the African continent has ever known. 15,000 of their brothers and sisters died. Half a million of the camels on which they depended and untold numbers of cattle, sheep, and goats. The children are just some of the 120,000 nomads who've been resettled in stationary homes in the heart of Somalia's fertile plains. 25,000 live in this particular project. Women who so recently lived in tents now help mix concrete for their more permanent homes. Moving the nomads to these rice patties involved one of the biggest airlifts of civilians ever undertaken. And it was the Russians who laid on the transport and the cash. Most of these people had never even seen a plane when the first of the 10 Antinov troop carriers landed on a makeshift runway in their dried-up scrub land. Over 100,000 were eventually lifted out of the drought zone. It was an achievement that brought instant respect and regard for the Russians here. Something that certainly didn't come amiss as the Soviets bartered for bases along Somalia's strategic coastline. The patty fields were hewn out of the bush by Russian-built bulldozers that are still here expanding the project today. The machines that lie idle in the tractor yard here bear witness to the scale of the Russian investment in the project. The men who drive the machines aren't Russians but nomads who, as recently as 3 years ago, had never even seen a car. Irrigation of the project is by vast Russian-supplied pumps. Abdul Gadier is in charge of this one. As a nomad, he says he'd have been terrified of such a thing back home. A few miles south from the settlement, the Russians have invested again. This time in a bid to prevent the desert creeping across these fertile plains. Sand dunes have been known to cover a couple of miles in a year in Somalia. And so, amid the thorn tree fences, Russian botanists helped the Somali to find plants that, with the minimum of rain, would take root here and anchor the dunes. As the grass began to grow here, so the Russians must have glowed with the success of what was their first adventure into Black Africa. But they didn't do it for nothing. They wanted and got naval bases on Somalia's coastline, which gave command to the mouth of the Red Sea and part of the Indian Ocean.
The hatred with which the villagers of Kafo abused the name of Ethiopia's leader, Colonel Ningisu, as we arrived in this market square seemed to underline that the Ethiopians are unlikely ever to govern here again. Away from the square, the symbolic lion of Ethiopia with teeth of spent cartridges is now surmounted by a liberation soldier. In our 500-mile tour of the Augaden, we saw no sign of an Ethiopian presence, just the aftermath of their leaving. The key to the Ethiopian collapse in the Ogden lay here at Godde, 120 miles from the Somali border. It was amid the poverty of the region, a palatial air base with a runway big enough to land a jumbo. Its American-made anti-aircraft guns are now manned by men from the liberation front. The Ethiopians didn't make much of a fight for it. They left a feast of unused American-supplied rockets and bombs and beyond, hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of weapons and ammunition. The American sign of friendship underlined the source. For though that bond of alliance has now been broken by the Ethiopians, there was no sign here that the new Soviet replacements had started to get through when God fell six weeks ago. But pride of place for the liberation forces here was not the air base, but what was once Haile Selassie's provincial palace. Now riddled with bullet holes, only the old man's effigy and cast iron survives intact. On the way from God, an Ethiopian civil airliner brought down by rebel gunfire two months before the August victories. Suspected by the liberation forces of being a troop carrier, the telltale state of the planes inside revealed that Ethiopia had indeed used her civil airline to ferry troops. Between each garrison town, there are virtually no roads. There is, in fact, little sign of Ethiopian investment beyond the vast military expenditure that was needed to maintain their hold on the Augaden. The burnt-out shell of an American-supplied Ethiopian tank here at Kebra Dea and three charred bodies inside bear witness to more of a fight here in what was the Ethiopian army's Augaden divisional headquarters. Once again, the ammunition and plenty of hardware still intact. But around the hilltops, more devastation. The aftermath of a battle in which the now Soviet-backed Ethiopians had to use old American-supplied weapons against a liberation movement now no longer supported by the Russians but still armed by them. And beyond the debris and the barbed wire, the nomadic peoples around whom it is all being fought. Amid the giant ant hills, we came across them with their camels and flocks, some of the remotest people in Africa. But even here, the shepherds police their flocks with guns. Even here, they know about the war and feel about it too. For when I asked who they would prefer to govern their country, it was Somalia. And once more, the almost inevitable "Down with Misu." At the next town of Galadi, under massive guard, 200 Ethiopian soldiers captured in the fighting there. Unhappy, disillusioned faces. There were many who, when they joined the army in Addis Ababa, can have had little idea that this would be how it would end. For thousands of their colleagues have now died or, like them, been captured in Ethiopia's wars, both here and in Eritrea to the north. Around the cooking cauldrons, a handful of Ethiopia's peasant militia. The 300,000 force of villagers raised in a desperate bid to reverse the war's trend. It is to the north of here that the running battle is now being fought. All accounts we heard were of the bloodiest fighting with appalling casualties and devastation. And now, the Ethiopian offensive designed with Vietnam-style airlifts of Soviet weaponry to win back at least some of the ground lost to the Somali. This was as far as we were allowed to go. So that the precise position at the front is far from clear. But whatever the picture at the front, it does seem that in the Ogadeen itself, the Somali are here to stay. And what that does to Russian designs in the Horn of Africa is unclear. What is certain is that so long as the fighting continues in this strategic corner of Africa, this must remain one of the world's potential flash points. Jon Snow, News at 10 in the Augaden.
Although Egypt and Iraq are already sending daily shipments of stockpiled Soviet arms, and Saudi Arabia is putting up the money for them, the Somali's problem is that they need more. President Barre's shuttle around Arab capitals stems from the Soviet decision to cut military supplies here and to devote all efforts to supporting Ethiopia in the war. The Somali had hoped that with the prospect of the Russians being tossed out of here, the West would step straight in to replace them. Somalia's strategic position has always been of high interest to the West. But though the phones have rung at the American embassy and other Western diplomatic posts here, the answer has been an absolute no. Diplomatic observers here see the reply, in the aftermath of Vietnam, as another example of Western determination to keep out of new zones of conflict. And yet, without a new and productive ally, the Somalis dare not entirely sever their links with the Russians. Hence the somewhat bizarre sight of Russian military advisers and their families continuing to relax on the seafront here, whilst many of their former colleagues advise and equip the Ethiopians on the other side in the war in the Augaden. But though the Russians still survive here, they are under very real pressure from the Somalis. Senior Arab diplomatic sources here say that the Soviet embassy has called many of the Russians who were up-country back to Mogadishu because their personal security could no longer be guaranteed. It is then ships laden with sensitive Arab cargos that now queue at the port here. For in failing to win a backer in the West, the Somalis must continue to rely upon Soviet-made weaponry. And the only sources outside Russia are the Arab states like Egypt that were over-supplied by Russia during the Middle East war. Arab diplomatic sources here say that even so, there isn't enough equipment to make good the Russian cutoff. The fighting in the Oaden is now absorbing massive quantities of hardware, and it is questionable how long the Somali liberation forces can be maintained at this pitch. With the Ethiopians boasting a new offensive, concern is being expressed here that with superior Ethiopian air power, it's only a matter of time before that offensive is felt inside Somalia. Already, Hesa, Somalia's second biggest city, has been subjected to air attacks. The Arab League is pledged to come to the defense of Somalia if her territory is threatened. So that the prospects of this conflict becoming further internationalized are growing daily. Jon Snow, News at 10, Mogadishu.
The battle was not so much for the town as for the hills and the pass to the mountains beyond. Jigjiga marks the gateway to the highlands controlling the only road to Harar and the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa beyond. It was the headquarters for the Ethiopian army's third division. Thousands of men in five army camps around the town. They included an entire tank corps, many of whose tanks lie abandoned between the town and the mountains beyond. Tanks almost intact, as many of the Ethiopians fled to the safety of the hills. There were the bodies of some who never made it. As military commanders took us over some of the equipment left behind, we could still hear radio reports out of Addis Ababa claiming that the Ethiopians were still here. Another forsaken Ethiopian tank seemed to reproduce the pattern from further south in the Augaden. Despite the strength of their weaponry, the Ethiopians hadn't stayed to fight. In the vital Karamada pass above Jigjiga, no sign of battle remnants, and the Somali have now pushed on some 40 miles across the plateau beyond. By dawn light, for fear of air attacks, 15 miles above Jigjiga was as far as they would take us. But looking back at the pass, its military significance was clear. Back in the town itself, some of those who'd fled to the bush during the fighting were out celebrating. As in other battle centers we'd visited in the Augaden, they were out with branches, sticks, and guns, chanting abuse against the departed Ethiopians.
>> It was the British who finally handed the town to the Ethiopians in 1948. And though in a British survey 15 years ago, these people had voted not to remain under Ethiopia, the international community couldn't agree what to do about it. And so it's waited until now, with the Somali taking advantage of an Ethiopia weakened by inner turmoil and by her change of defense dependence from America to the Soviet Union. At the main Ethiopian tank base, our first view of Russian-supplied armaments. Two tired Soviet tanks. The Somali Liberation Front claimed these were part of the first batch of elderly Russian tanks supplied back in April. The Ethiopians have meanwhile claimed that any Russian tanks belong not to themselves or the liberation forces, but to the Somali regular army. But with no markings, it was an impossible claim to substantiate. All across the base, there were ammunition dumps like this one, piled high with mainly American-supplied rockets, shells, and mortars. And once more, for the first time, we saw alongside Soviet ammunition. An additional sign that perhaps by now, Soviet equipment is at last getting through to the Ethiopian front line. Empty boxes from each of the superpowers symbolizing the millions of pounds that each has been prepared to supply to fuel a war in which both participants are amongst the most impoverished nations in the world. Carefully laid out nearby, the remnants of what the liberation force claimed was a downed Ethiopian F5 fighter bomber. Tail fins, nose cone, and rockets from planes which the Israelis are said to be helping to keep airborne. As local children train for their turn, it is a war of unthinkable alliances. Israelis, Cubans, and Russians backing Ethiopia, armed with American weapons against Arab-supported Somalis fighting with Soviet guns. The fighting now is at Harar, some 60 miles beyond these hills. The Somali are within sight of their objective. The Soviets are airlifting massive quantities of arms into the Ethiopian force there. But from what's happened here, the Soviet aid seems to have done little to mend the shattered state of Ethiopian morale. And military observers are saying that it'll take direct involvement by Soviet or Cuban personnel to stem the flow of the Somali advance and the collapse of the Ethiopian Empire. Jon Snow, News at 10. Jigjiga.
The commanders who have been involved in the fighting around Harar painted a picture of appalling carnage. They talked of a massive Cuban and Soviet-backed Ethiopian bombing and shelling offensive which started a week ago, of battles in which they had seen no infantry on the other side, of listening in to Russian radio communications from tank to tank, and of barges of heavy artillery advancing towards them. They talked of the swamping of Somali positions around Harar, and for the first time, of tactical withdrawals on their side. One commander talked of having seen white men, possibly Russians, killed in the action. A number of Cubans, too. Private Orlando Carlos is 20. He was captured when his seven-man Cuban unit came under Somali attack. He appears to have been the only one to have survived. Talking to him, he appeared far more concerned about what his masters in Havana might think of him than what the liberation forces might do to him. Alone, under heavy guard, ready to return to his prison, he was at least living proof that Cubans are actively involved in fighting Ethiopia's war. The Somali see his presence as a sharp reminder of the level of the Soviet and Cuban commitment to return the Augaden to the Ethiopians. If they succeed, they stand to win rich strategic rewards in the Horn of Africa. The Shabelli River is the Augaden's lifeline. The key crossing place of the river is this old British-built Bailey bridge at Godde. And it is here that a new Agoden war front threatens to develop. 300 meters south of the present front line, Godde's massive 2-mile long runway sliced through the scrubland is the only proper airfield in the Ogden. Captured from the Ethiopians six months ago. Now that the fortunes of the war have turned, it is here that the Russian and Cuban-backed offensive will have to strike if the whole of the Agoden is ever to be restored to Ethiopian control. And with the intensification of the war, large-scale mobilization here, recruits being lectured in preparation for Cuban paratroopers intent on opening up the airfield as a base to launch an offensive on the southern Oaden. There are daily exercises now around the airfield to confront a possible landing. Many of these men, as they learn the discipline of drill, won't stay here long. Such is the toll on the front that some are having to be moved up into the front line with as little as two months' training. Women too are preparing for combat. But once more, it is infantry combat that they're trained for. In the face of the battalions of Russian-supplied tanks and artillery, they will have little to fight with beyond these automatic rifles. Though infantry charges like this had considerable effect against the demoralized Ethiopian army 6 months ago, in the face of the new odds, few of these men are likely to survive. It is fast becoming a war of machines. And with Western refusals to supply, it is machines that the Somali are now desperately short of. Godde is then the key to this vast country of the southern Agaden. And if the Ethiopians are to win the whole war, then they're likely to insist that the Russians and the Cubans assist them to recapture this too. Jon Snow, news at 10 in the Augaden.
Demonstrating at what was once the Ethiopian-Somali border, there was this time a marked absence of the men and of the guns that we had seen on our last visit here 5 months ago. Despite the ferocity of their slogans, it was an indication of the drain of manpower in this thinly populated area. Relief agencies have already started to prepare for what they fear could be a massive exodus of refugees across this border. Should the Ethiopians recapture the Somali-populated Augaden, the terrain is often arid and mountainous. When they were here, the Ethiopians had to depend upon a handful of garrison towns to defend their fragile hold on the territory. Kalafo is one such town. The garrison fort set above the main buildings. Below, the people demonstrating once more their determination that the Ethiopian army should not return to police their town. Ethiopians have called upon these Somali to surrender or face annihilation. Though they can have little idea of what is coming, there was little sign that any would agree to give up. Beyond a band of new recruits from the town, a band was being drilled in preparation to resist the impending Cuban-backed attack. But with only a handful of guns, most were only equipped with sticks to face the full weight of Ethiopia's Russian armor. The commitment of Somalia's regular forces is mainly at the front line in the north. If that is broken, it will be these men who will have to face the second phase of the Ethiopian attempt to recapture the Augad. The military commander here still harbors a full hope that the West will in some way intervene to save his people. "We are asking openly, kindly, to the world, lift by peace-loving nations, to help Somali Liberation Front." >> From a high point on the garrison fort, soldiers are posted to warn of attack. Sitting with them, looking out, it is impossible to ignore how open they are to the highly sophisticated Soviet-devised maneuvers which are already in use to beat back the Somali front line in the north. The defenses here then are very limited. And if the Russians intend that the Ethiopians should recapture the whole of the Agadeen, then, given these Somali people's determination to resist, the casualty toll threatens to be appallingly high. Jon Snow, news at 10, Kalafo in the Augaden.
>> The queue at this barracks on the edge of Mogadishu stretched well down the main road by midday. Some were proving a little too enthusiastic to get to the front line and had to be restrained by army officers. And there were plenty anxious to inform us why they were joining. >> "I'm a volunteer. I like to fight in order to liberate my country." >> "But what can you do? I mean, do you know how to fight?" >> "I will take my gun and go now to the front. Unless I will liberate my country." >> "And what about the rest of the people?" >> Amid the noise, actually registering your name for service wasn't easy. Inside the barracks, a program for some 5,000 men and women was already underway. The only heavy weaponry upon which training was taking place was this elderly Russian anti-aircraft gun. A high percentage of women have signed on in the past few days, and there is little doubt that the Somali president's appeal for volunteers has touched off an emotional, if somewhat impractical, response. Jon Snow, ITN Mogadishu.
Traveling up on a captured Ethiopian army truck, the strategic Karamada pass marked both the frontier to the Augaden plains behind us and the gateway to the mountainous region beyond in which the war is now raging fiercest. Along the way, almost abandoned villages from which it is claimed the population has fled, terrified by the low-flying Ethiopian aircraft, which occasionally strafe the villages on their way to military targets beyond. By day, those people that do remain live out among the hillside rocks, only returning home under cover of darkness. Here we left our vehicles, camouflaged against air attack, to continue our journey to the front on foot. It is on this sector impossible to motor vehicles, and because some of the trek was overlooked by Ethiopian positions, our 12-mile hike was completed at night. First light revealed the terrain over which the deciding battles in the war are being fought. 6,000 feet up. This was a command point overlooking the town of Fiamro from which the Somali were forced back last month. The town now represents the Ethiopian front line. The Somali commander here claimed to have 2,000 men ranged across the hills overlooking the town and on a radio command could order any one group to open fire. There was little evidence that any of these men was actually seeing the enemy in his sights. The firing seemed more to remind the Ethiopians of the Somali presence. This sector involves an infantry operation in which the Somali can well hold their own. It is the artillery and aerial bombardment around Harar, Babili, and Deredawa that, with Cuban soldiers and Soviet advisers, is winning the war for the Ethiopians. But it is that bombardment on the other fronts east and west of here that is swinging the war in the direction the Soviets want it. And the people from these areas of sharpest involvement are even now starting the long trail south towards Somalia. These people were part of a group of around 800 just arrived in Jigjiga from Harar. If the Soviet-backed endeavor succeeds in recapturing the Augaden, the refugee agencies already here assessing the position fear an exodus of tens of thousands of the Somali people who populate the region. They might almost have been arriving for a victory parade. In fact, they were coming to hear the president speak for the first time since last week's Somali losses in the Augaden. Coming to terms with defeat at the hands of Cuba and the Soviet Union is presenting very real difficulties. Victory cheering was still the pattern, as in this enormous Chinese-built stadium. The electric scoreboard flashed up the slogans that were to be chanted next. The president's arrival was accompanied by surging security. And as if to divert everyone's mind, a game of football was provided. Though President Barre gave all the appearances of studying the game, his mind cannot have been far from the carnage on the battlefront of the past few days and the enormous uncertainties of the future. When the crowd had settled, his speech was of a continued commitment to back the liberation forces in the Augaden, and only a glancing reference to his forces having been pushed back in certain places. Intensive behind-the-scenes bargaining is going on by both superpowers in a desperate bid to win influence here in the aftermath of a Somali defeat. Staying in room 27 in this hotel behind me, a very senior Algerian diplomat allegedly with a message from Moscow transmitted via their ally, President Boumediene of Algeria. The Russians are perhaps surprisingly still here in Mogadishu, though 3,000 or more were thrown out. An embassy staff of 10 remain, and amongst them, Ambassador Samsenov, chief architect of the Soviet presence here at its peak 3 years ago. It is strongly argued he wouldn't still be here if the Soviets didn't cling to a hope that they can still restore some influence here. Down the road, the Americans too are involved in high-level maneuvering. The Somali ambassador to Washington has arrived, reportedly bearing an American deal of a massive injection of defensive weaponry once Somali regular forces leave the Augaden. Jon Snow, news at 10, Mogadishu.