Sticks, Stones and Rockets

For the moment, the Somalia are winning the Ogaden war

"The Ethiopians know they do not belong here. That is why they do not fight well. We are driving them away forever."

So declares Abdullah! Abdi, a Somali military commander in the ugly little war that is being fought today in the Ogaden desert region of eastern Ethiopia. After years of sporadic guerrilla activity, the forces of the Western Somali Liberation Front (W.S.L.F.)--backed by their tribal cousins in the Somali Democratic Republic to the east--have been fighting fiercely since July to wrest the Ogaden from Ethiopia, which has controlled it off and on for 400 years.

The Somalis, a proud, clannish people whose skin is black and whose heritage is Arab, regard the Ethiopians as the most persistent of a long line of colonizers that has also included the Egyptians, British and Italians. Over evening fires, the Somalis often recount the exploits of the revered Ahmed Gurey, perhaps the first of the Somali freedom fighters; he attacked Ethiopians in the Ogaden in the 16th century.

In Ahmed Gurey's day, skirmishes were fought with swords and camels. Today heavy tanks grind through the stony wastes, villages are destroyed by enemy shells, livestock are seized by both armies, and townspeople live in terror of attack from the air. The desert is strewn with burned-out tanks, wrecked artillery, empty mortar casings.

The W.S.L.F. wants to liberate the region from Ethiopian rule and unite it with Somalia, whose President, Siad Barre, is a son of the Ogaden. The front claims that it could raise an army of 400,000--roughly the size of the Ogaden's population--if only it had the weapons, and that is probably true. Every nomad seems to carry a rock, a club or a knife. Some have antiquated rifles, and a few proudly display Soviet-made automatic weapons. They are dressed in rags for the most part, but are highly motivated. Reports TIME Nairobi Bureau Chief David Wood, who visited the fighting zone this month: "A war anywhere else would make these people merely refugees. But the intensity of their hatred for the Ethiopians makes them a formidable foe."

The guerrillas presently control all of the Ogaden, except the important towns of Harar and Dire Dawa (see map). In late August they ended a 15-day siege of the town of Jijiga (pop. 4,000) with a final push that sent 4,000 mutinous Ethiopian troops scurrying off through the nearby Marda Pass. The fighting zone is now more than 50 miles away, but dust-blown little Jijiga is not yet out of enemy range, as Correspondent Wood discovered on his visit there. "Without warning," he reports, "three Ethiopian jets suddenly screamed over the town, pumping rockets and bombs into ramshackle buildings and strafing the dusty streets with 40 mm. cannon fire. In four passes, the jets concentrated on Jijiga's miserably under-equipped hospital, a target they had hit four days earlier. This time they finished the job, killing the hospital's three young nurses and four other civilians, and seriously wounding the town's only doctor."

The Somali hatred for the Ethiopians could hardly be more intense. Husein Liban, a Jijiga elder, recalls how the Somali nomads once killed an Ethiopian policeman who tried to collect a tax that they regarded as unfair. In revenge, he recalls, they "took 35 of our people and shot them. They would cut the breasts of our women to prevent them from suckling our young. When the fighting increased, the Ethiopians took 150 of our people as hostages. They shot them all, including my brother Odowa." Liban proudly claims to have been a guerrilla for 31 of his 71 years. "There is killing and killing," he says "but we are determined to fight on."

The Ethiopians, who are also righting a rebellion in the northern province of Eritrea, receive massive military aid from the Soviet Union. Until recently, Moscow also held Somalia in the iron grip of its friendship; but then it made the mistake of trying to expand its influence in the Horn of Africa by extending aid to both Somalia and Ethiopia, even though the two were ancient enemies. The volatile Somalis were enraged at the Russians' perfidy and stepped up their support for the Ogaden rebels. Meanwhile, the Soviets have reportedly supplied Ethiopia with MiG-21s and MiG-23s, heavy artillery and rocket launchers.

The Somalis, by contrast, lack the arms to wage a prolonged desert war. Despite some limited help from the Arabs, they may soon run low on fuel, spare parts and ammunition. Earlier this year, the U.S.--an ally of Ethiopia's during the late Emperor Haile Selassie's day--had thought of improving its ties with Somalia by sending some military aid. But after the Somali drive on the Ogaden began in July, Washington decided that it had better stay out of this murky conflict. The Somalis accuse the U.S. of breaking its word--although, in fact, no firm commitment was ever made.

How will it all end? "The last victor is always the one with the most resources," observes a diplomat in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. "The Somalis control the Ogaden, but how will they maintain it? The Somali people now think the W.S.L.F. is some kind of superman. There will be great disillusionment if the front should lose." Perhaps, as has happened so many times before, the war will end in a stalemate of exhaustion. But given the passions of the Ogaden, the chances are that, after an interval, the fighting will begin again.

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