Eritrean Fighters Against Barrage

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Liberation forces on captured Soviet tank The USSR has consistently supported the proposal that Eritrea should be granted independence ... We base our argument on the fact that all peoples have a right to self-determination and national independence.' Thus spake the representative of the USSR at the United Nations in 1950.

Last year two Soviet generals commanded the forces which swept into Eritrea from neighbouring Ethiopia.

They aimed to subjugate Eritrea to the military dictatorship of the Derg, by crushing into the ground the struggles of the Eritrean people for national liberation.

The annals of Stalinism are filled with the record of crimes that the Kremlin bureaucrats have committed against the international working-class and the oppressed masses of the world.

But even in such company, few betrayals have been so naked and vicious as this latest outrage.

In 1950 the Soviet ambassador proclaimed that:

"the United Nations must take a decision which will satisfy the longing of the Eritrean people for independence and freedom from national oppression."

Today to 'satisfy' that longing, the Soviet leaders send their tanks, helicopters, bomber jets and military advisors to Col.. Mengistu and the butchers of the counter-revolutionary Derg.

Acting under direct instructions from the Kremlin, Castro and the Cuban bureaucracy-the 'left' face of world Stalinism-send troops to strengthen and train the armies of the Ethiopian military dictatorship.

The main target of this massive military machinery is now the people of Eritrea.

But this counterrevolutionary war has not been ended with the swift and brutal success desired (and expected) by the forces of reaction.

The Eritrean people have not been defeated-the war* has barely begun.

Last year's offensive was not the first launched by the Derg, but all their previous moves had proved futile.

Far from advancing, the occupation armies were continually driven back and hemmed in.

While the Eritrean Liberation Front held its positions, the Eritrean Popular Liberation Army of the EPLF made spectacular advances through 1977 and the early months of 1978.

The EPLA liberated far larger areas of rural Eritrea, and above all seized control of a large number of important towns..

This wave wave of success culminated in July 1977 with: the liberation of Keren, the third city of Eritrea and a base of crucial strategic importance in conventional warfare.

By • June 1978, the position of the Ethiopian forces was extremely vulnerable.

The Derg controlled only Asmara and Massawa-the capital and the major port of Eritrea. Both cities were under constant and heavy siege, with fighting in the outer areas.

The vital road linking them was in the hands of the liberation forces for long periods, when the Ethiopian army could supply Asmara only from the air.

Using Massawa as a base, Soviet warships bombarded coastal areas while MIG jets strafed villages and camps..

Flying in Cuban advisors, the Derg tried to break out of Asmara with the colossal army it built up in the city.

But all these attempts failed, and a new strategy had to be devised.

Problems

The war in Eritrea far from the least of Derg's problems, but others were numerous serious enough themselves.

The frontiers of the Ethiopian state were was the the and in established at the turn of the century, as the invading imperialists from Britain, Italy and France met the armies of Menelik who was then expanding his feudal empire.

• As the rule of the Ethiopian empire passed from Menelik's successor, Haile Selassie, to the Derg, the many oppressed nationalities within its borders continued and strengthened their struggles for self-determination.

Above all, the Somalis in the Ogaden rose in a major insurrection, which was crushed only with the use of Cuban troops and Soviet military strategists.

At the same time the Derg came under growing pressure from • a working-class whose militancy had not been stamped out by all the atrocities of the 'Red Terror' Louder and louder EPLA women's militia demands were raised for wage increases to keep pace with the headlong inflation of the war economy. In these conditions of gathering siege, the Ethiopian military dictators fixed on the necessity of destroying the struggles of the Eritrean people.

They reckoned on a swift military victory to secure them access to the Red Sea ports, to consolidate their territorial base, and to allow them to turn their attention to the slow crescendo of opposition within Ethiopia.

The Derg was guided in all these decisions by the Stalinist bureaucracies who had established for themselves a comfortable place as the power behind the throne. All three aims fell squarely in line with the African ambitions of the Kremlin and Havana bureaucracies.

The Derg bragged that the 'glad tidings of victory over the Eritrean secessionists' would be broadcast on September 12 1978 at the celebrations to mark the fourth anniversary of its dictatorship.

But the Stalinists and bourgeois nationalists who gathered for this witches' sabbath were fed on empty lies and the stale reports of hollow victories. The Derg's offensive had foundered.

In June of last year an Ethiopian army of 80,000 troops massed in Tigre on the border with Eritrea. Their commanders were wo Soviet generals-one, Petrov, had earlier directed the war in the Ogaden.

At this time the Cuban troops were involved in containing armed resistance in other areas of Ethiopia, especially in the Ogaden where the West Somali Liberation Front had reorganised to wage guerrilla warfare.

Ranged against the Derg's army were the forces of the Eritrean Popular Liberation Front, the Eritrean: Liberation Front and the smaller Tigrai Popular Liberation Front.

The strategy of the invaders was to smash through these defences and link up with a second army planned to break through the siege of Asmara..

The united forces would then mop up any localised resistance and spread their control over the whole country.

This The EPLF launched number of successful attacks on the waiting army, causing heavy losses and forcing a delay in the Ethiopian advance.

Even when the Derg's army was finally able to move into action, they made no progress until after a month of intense fighting..

Then they were able to break through the positions of the ELF, seizing towns and major strategic positions.

This move left the EPLF forces engaged on the southern front in a position of isolation, facing the danger immediate encirclement.

They were forced to make a tactical retreat by withdrawing from the southern front and from the towns of. Dekemhare, Segneiti and Digsa.

Still controlling the countryside, they switched to a phase of guerrilla warfare in this area and by this means seriously hampered 00 Ch the Ethiopian advance and prevented the opening of routes vital to the invading army.

Further north around Asmara, the Derg was preparing the next blow in its assault. No less than 60,000 troops were assembled in the city, which had been converted into an arsenal of advanced military equipment.

On August 12, the first attack began on the northern • front but was driven back in disorder. This was followed by an attack on the western front, which ended in the battle of AdiYacob.

Again the Ethiopians were driven back by a counter-attack in which the EPLF captured large quantities of arms and a tank.

Repeated attempts to break out of Asmara followed these failures, until August 23 when the Derg and • its Soviet advisers abandoned the northern front and concentrated all their efforts on the west.

Here they were able to break through lines held by the ELF, and moved to seize the road to Keren, hoping to divide the EPLF forces and capture the city.

On August 28, the EPLF counter-attacked Mekerca. The Ethiopians bombarded the field with explosives and napalm, but for all their superior numbers and equipment they were defeated decisively The EPLF inflicted heavy losses on the enemy forces, and captured not only large quantities of heavy artillery, but also tanks and four armoured vehicles.

The first phase of the Derg's offensive had ended in humiliating defeat.

Despite the significant advances in the border area, which had effectively knocked out the ELF in the short-term, Keren remained firmly in the hands of the EPLF and the AsmaraMassawa road had not been re-opened.

Armed to the teeth, Asmara remained a citadel of formidable strength.

But it was a citadel still under siege, where the Derg and the Kremlin's generals were forced to sit and devise new means of wiping the struggles of the Entreaz people off the face of the earth.

Continued

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SOCIALIST PRESS, H'ednesday 31 January 1979 Gillian Brear, a staff nurse at Westminster Hospital talks to Socialist Press. tneLow 50)