Third World Don't Call Us, Friend, We'll Call You

By Jill Smolowe

Where do events in Eastern Europe leave the Third World? Up the creek.

That glum editorial comment from Zimbabwe's Sunday Mail aptly reflects the view of many Soviet Third World clients toward the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Although most Third World states were never considered much more than pawns in the cold war waged between Washington and Moscow, membership in the Soviet orbit had its privileges. For decades, military, economic and political support flowed to those nations that dutifully toed the Marxist-Leninist line. Now, while the rest of the world gasps with delight -- checkbooks in hand -- at the political and economic changes sweeping the East bloc, Soviet-supported Third World countries see their interests being knocked further down the list of international priorities.

Most distressing for many Soviet clients is the "new thinking" that is shaking Moscow's foreign policy. The growing superpower rapprochement has curbed the rivals' appetites for backing regional wars and propping up shaky governments to gain an ephemeral geopolitical advantage. In dire economic straits itself, Moscow has grown disenchanted with a strategy that annually pumps well over $19 billion into the Third World -- two-thirds of it in military assistance and much of it not repaid -- for little or no dividend.

The emerging Soviet policy cuts back expensive military commitments in favor of cheaper political solutions, with Moscow exhorting Third World allies to adopt glasnost- and perestroika-style reforms. "The Third World," says Andrei Kozyrev, a senior Soviet Foreign Ministry official, "suffers not so much from capitalism as from a lack of it." What this means for Moscow's Asian, African and Middle Eastern clients is a drying up of crucial economic and military funds -- and a shift in their own attitudes.

Last December tiny Benin in western Africa dropped Marxism-Leninism as the state ideology and vowed to support private enterprise. Nicaragua, which over the past year has watched Moscow turn off the arms spigot, is in the final throes of an election process that, whatever the outcome, shows promise of being a legitimate democratic exercise. Even Libya's erratic Muammar Gaddafi, a regular Soviet arms customer, is cultivating closer ties with moderate Arab leaders. Most Soviet client states are making similar adjustments to accommodate the fast-changing times. A look at some of the most important:

Ethiopia. As one of the troika of African states -- with Angola and Mozambique -- that remain most closely aligned with the East bloc, Ethiopia's regime has had scant luck with Marxism-Leninism for some time. More than a year ago, Moscow warned officials in the capital, Addis Ababa, that its multimillion-dollar military-assistance package would be significantly cut when the current agreement expires next year. Since then, the last of several thousand Cuban soldiers have departed, more than one-third of the 2,500 Soviet military and development advisers and their dependents have pulled out, and it is rumored that East Germans who ran the government's intelligence network have also returned home.

The pullback comes at a hazardous time for President Mengistu Haile Mariam, who continues to battle Eritrean secessionists in the north and two rebel armies in Tigre province. As Soviet aid withers, Arab countries are increasing their military and economic assistance to the Eritreans, who claim to be running up military gains. In search of a new patron, Mengistu re-established diplomatic relations with Israel last November after a 16-year hiatus. Now dozens of Ethiopian officers are being trained in Israel, which is also providing Mengistu with small arms.

Mozambique. President Joaquim Chissano is showing much more pragmatism than Mengistu. Last summer Chissano's government abandoned the Marxist-Leninist credo that his Frelimo Party has embraced since it came to power in 1975. Transformed from "a vanguard of the worker and peasant alliance" to "a party of all the Mozambican people," the ruling group has stepped up market reforms that it initiated in the mid-1980s. Last January Chissano introduced a draft constitution that embraces universal suffrage, a secret ballot, direct election of both the President and the parliament and the reintroduction of private ownership of land. The new plan is expected to be adopted by the People's Assembly before the middle of this year.

Chissano's change of heart is timely, given a Soviet announcement that it will remove all military advisers from Mozambique by the end of 1990. Bulgarian, Czechoslovak and other East European advisers and technicians are also said to be returning home. With some 3 million people facing possible famine conditions, Mozambique is hustling to find a new source of help -- and apparently has fixed its sights on Pretoria. In a recent letter to South African State President F.W. de Klerk, a group of Mozambican intellectuals that included several hard-line Communists wrote: "We view as positive the changes happening in your country." The subtext: Please send money.

Syria. For almost as long as President Hafez Assad has aimed for military parity with Israel, the Soviet Union has been only too willing to help. For years Moscow has supplied Damascus with interceptors, attack bombers, surface- to-air missiles, tanks and artillery. But Moscow is now seeking to recast its role as troublemaker in the Middle East to that of peacemaker. In November the Soviet Ambassador to Syria, Alexander Zotov, suggested that Damascus abandon its dream of parity and instead embrace "reasonable defensive sufficiency." Zotov acknowledged that one motive for the decision to pursue a less aggressive approach was Syria's $15 billion military debt to Moscow.

For Assad, the threat is that Moscow's pullback will lead to deepening isolation. Syria, already something of a pariah among Arab states for its support of Iran in the gulf war, felt even more lonely after other Arab leaders decided to resume relations with Egypt. Last December Assad moved to break his diplomatic quarantine by agreeing to restore relations with Cairo. With a foreign debt of more than $10 billion in addition to obligations to Moscow, Assad needs the help of well-heeled Arab brethren.

Afghanistan. Of all Moscow's Third World client states, only Afghanistan shares a Soviet border. Hence, it is the sole client to pose an immediate security problem. That fact helps explain Moscow's continued patronage for the Najibullah regime in Kabul, despite the Soviet withdrawal of its occupying forces from Afghanistan a year ago. Moscow's fear is that the country could become a springboard for Islamic revolutionaries eager to penetrate Soviet Central Asia. By U.S. Government estimates, Moscow's concern translates into a monthly dole of $200 million to $300 million, most of it in military assistance.

Najibullah, who has proven himself an able politician and administrator, is adjusting his own policies to accommodate Moscow's changing world view. He has refashioned his Soviet-installed regime over the past three years, to obscure its Marxist-Leninist lineage, and offered free elections, to be monitored by the United Nations. He has embarked on reforms that include support for a market-based economy. Najibullah's homage to glasnost has included the opening of an Islamic university and publication of a list of Afghans killed by his hard-line predecessors. And he has reached out to rebel mujahedin factions with moderate proposals that offer a degree of self-rule, even though important insurgent leaders so far are not buying. Be that as it may, a Soviet diplomat in New Delhi says Najibullah has shown himself to be in step with President Mikhail Gorbachev's new thinking.

Viet Nam. Nowhere, perhaps, has the Soviet Union more emphatically demonstrated a determination to put a kinder, gentler face on its foreign policy than in Viet Nam. Last September, under pressure from Moscow, Viet Nam withdrew most of its remaining 26,000 troops from Cambodia (though last week there were reports that several thousand Vietnamese troops and military advisers have since returned). The Soviet Union has also begun reducing its muscle at the former U.S. military and supply base at Cam Ranh Bay. Two weeks ago, the Soviet Foreign Ministry announced that Moscow was removing its MiG- 23s and TU-16 long-range bombers, while Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov said that Soviet air strength at the base would be reduced to five planes.

Eager to retain Moscow's approval and economic support, the Hanoi government is dancing with some vigor to Gorbachev's new tune. The geriatric government of Communist Party Secretary-General Nguyen Van Linh has reduced its armed forces by 500,000 troops over the past two years. Economic reforms begun in 1987 have included devaluing the currency, slashing subsidies for state enterprises and permitting a free market to blossom. The results have been encouraging. Last year Viet Nam exported more than 1 million tons of rice, the largest shipment in decades. But a U.S. trade embargo remains intact, and Viet Nam's Soviet and East European trading partners are looking elsewhere for hard-currency deals. Hence Viet Nam, which owes Moscow $16 billion, is desperately courting foreign investors.

North Korea. Call it a mission of desperation. Last November North Korea's President Kim Il Sung paid a clandestine call on his comrades-in-arms in Beijing. His agenda included begging for aid and trying to block South Korea's diplomatic overtures to the changing communist world. Echoing an earlier rallying cry by Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu, Kim also called unsuccessfully for a "united front" against "antisocialist forces." Ceausescu is now dead, the victim of his own intransigence. The dictatorial Kim's response to communism's waning fortunes has been to retreat ever deeper into his well-fortified shell.

By year's end, Moscow's five-year, $13.6 billion aid package for Pyongyang will expire, and future funding is likely to be reduced as Soviet interests turn toward cultivating cash-rich Seoul. But Kim, 77, is proving himself more obdurate than ever. Overtures between the divided Koreas were scotched last December when Pyongyang imposed last-minute conditions on a long-awaited exchange of cultural performers and families. This month North Korea announced that it would halt all contacts with Seoul to protest upcoming joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Meanwhile, more than 500,000 North Korean troops remained deployed along the border with the South. Whatever Gorbachev says, unless illness or death overtakes him, Kim may very well be the last dictator to turn out the lights in the communist bloc.

With reporting by Dean Fischer/Cairo, Marguerite Michaels/Nairobi and Elizabeth Tucker/Moscow