ETHIOPIA & PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR
9146 OU27 - Ethiopia - Civil War Again
As I have explained elsewhere, the Orrumo Liberation Front (OLF) had not participated in the Ethiopian civil war. However, it still confidently expected to take over the post-war government; since they thought they represented the largest tribe, in a tribal nation. They discovered to their horror, however, that the TPLF (the Tigrayan's own liberation front) had changed to itself into the EPRDF which was covering the whole country, including the Orrumo people. The Tigrayans, to be fair, actually incorporated the OLF into their government. They didn't see that it was necessary to have opponents fighting each other in the government. Rather they wanted to bring everyone under a broad tent working together. This was though a very sophisticated concept by western standards, and the Americans never understood it.
Indeed, one significant fact I learned from the whole process was that Americans don't see democracy being about one man one vote, but about competing party politics. The Ethiopian government was intent on bringing the whole country into the democratic process, allowing every single individual to have their own say and influence on decisions. In this way, the decisions were taken at the lowest level and then gradually passed up through the various regional councils until it reached the government. I well remember personally sitting in the middle of a dusty street in Tigray province, with the village council, discussing national politics and then taking the decisions which would then be passed up to the regional government. I thought this was a superb example of democracy, but the Americans hated it. The Americans didn't recognise democracy unless there were competing parties fighting each other - the very reverse of the Ethiopians' principles. As a result, the Americans supported the OLF in principle, and in practice, even though the former had almost no support; even in their own heartlands. The OLF took this US support as meaning they were the major party, not least because they had spent the past decades lobbying politicians in Washington.
Matters eventually came to a head when the OLF demanded to take over the government. They had no mandate for this, but they saw it as being theirs as of right. When this was denied them, they then took their representatives out of the government. Even worse, from their point of view, they also brought their troops out of the camps. When they had moved back into Ethiopia, after the war had ended, they managed to gather together a number of troops. Most of these were in fact mercenaries, made up of the defeated Derg troops. These, something like 40,000 in total against the government's 50,000, were housed in camps around the country At this point those troops were moved, by the OLF, out into the country to restart the civil war.
I was made aware of this development when I was called by James Glaze into the embassy. His brief was that, having been in contact with the other ambassadors, they recognised that the OLF had no grounds for fighting inside government and certainly not for taking their troops out to fight military battles. However, the western ambassadors were clear that their own governments would have a very different attitude. As soon as the western governments, in particular, heard about it they would want to interfere. Thus the major decision that the western ambassadors, as a group, put to me was that they simply wouldn't tell their governments what was going on; but would hope that the Ethiopian government was able to suppress the rebels before anyone noticed.
It accordingly was to be my job to not merely notify Ethiopian government that this was the case, but to ensure that the effective suppression of the OLF military force happened as discretely as possible!
What made this all the more difficult was that James, despite our friendship, could not say as much directly. He couldn't tell me directly what he wanted -- just in case I repeated this. So for a couple of hours we endlessly talked around the subject, until I was totally confident what really wanted me to do, though I knew full well that I was on my own. If things went wrong then he would deny that our conversation had ever taken place in this way.
The gist of my instructions was that the ambassadors would allow the governments to round up the OLF and end the new war. However, this had to happen as quickly as possible and news of this hadn't to leak out onto the front pages of the newspapers in the west. In particular, I remember that his one quote was "...for god's sake don't let then send in helicopter gunships!"
I then went off and talked to Seeye, who I felt more comfortable with talking about such things, where Meles tended to be more formal. I explained the position to Seeye exactly as it had been told to me, in effect setting down rules of engagement for the new Civil War.
Over the next two to three weeks those of my students who were in the army disappeared, to fight the war against the OLF.
At the end of that time, Seeye came to see me. The result was written all over his face. He was grinning from ear to ear. The war was at an end, and his words were memorable: "We didn't use helicopter gunships. We didn't even use heavy weapons or armoured vehicles. All we did was go out into the jungle with our Kalashnikovs. They [the OLF] had been in the jungle for 17 days. We had been there for 17 years. Guess who won!" I was delighted to be able to report this back to the ambassadors, and as far as I'm aware their governments never realised what had happened in Ethiopia. It had been one of biggest battles of the decade. There were something like 100,000 troops fighting in the jungle, yet nobody in the west has heard about it -- let alone were there any newspaper headlines. I guess it was my greatest achievement. It probably saved the lives of many tens of thousands of people. Had the other nations become involved, as they did elsewhere in Africa, it would have become a bloodbath.
In fact matters had been even simpler, and the government even more inventive; Seeye was always a master strategist. Most of the rebel troops had been rounded up by farmers, who were 100 percent behind the new government. The most significant difference, though, had been made by the fact that the government had ‘suddenly’ decided to pay out the pensions of the ex-Derg forces. Remembering that a large proportion of OLF fighters were recruited from the Derg forces, these deserted in their thousands - to collect their pension. It doesn't matter how you win wars, just along as you win with the minimum casualties. As far as I can make out, even though more than 100,000 troops were involved, only a few hundred of them had been killed.
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