U.S. News & World Report

March 3, 1980

Another Place Kremlin Is Bogged Down

Americans as heroes? That's the view of guerrillas fighting Soviet-backed forces to a standstill on a barren Ethiopian battlefield.

Travel 300 miles into the forbidding Ogaden region with Somali rebels and it becomes clear that this is one more isolated corner of the world where Soviet military adventurism is getting Moscow into deep trouble.

Here, as in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union is fighting what could be a no-win war against fiercely independent tribal guerrillas who are determined to drive out the Russian intruders.

Operating far behind enemy lines, rebel forces of the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) control the countryside and keep Ethiopian troops bottled up in base camps, together with Cuban combat forces and Soviet advisers. There are now 13,000 Cuban soldiers and up to 2,000 Russian advisers in Ethiopia.

A land laid waste. Soviet strategy has been to maintain control of the major towns and to bomb everything and everyone that moves in the bush. Destruction of water holes has driven about 1 million ethnic Somali civilians from the Ogaden into Somalia itself, and the region is pockmarked by deserted and bombed-out villages.

Yet the insurgents are on the offensive and plan to step up the fighting. Two Russian convoys were destroyed in early February, according to guerrilla leader Hussein Mohamed Nur. He says: ''Morale of the Ethiopians is very low. Even the Cuban troops know they are waging an unjust war.''

People of the Ogaden, ethnic Somalis, have been fighting for independence--or at least for the right to join Somalia--ever since the region was turned over to Ethiopia at the end of World War II. They and regular Somali Army units were decisively defeated in a 1977-78 war by Ethiopian troops armed, trained and assisted by Cuban forces and Soviet advisers. But the guerrilla war continues, and Communist forces now are hurting, just as they are having trouble quelling another rebellion by secessionists in the northern

province of Eritrea.

Traveling mostly at night to avoid Communist air strikes, an American reporter finds no evidence at all of an Ethiopian-Soviet presence. All major roads are mined, and the Russians and Ethiopians must supply their isolated garrisons by air.

Guerrillas are armed only with light weapons, mostly captured from the Ethiopians. ''All we need is antitank weapons, artillery and medicine, and we will drive out Russians and Cubans,'' Nur says. ''But even if we don't get help, we will continue to fight, and eventually we will win.''

One sign of the shifting tide of war is the increasing number of Ethiopian deserters. Stories told by three of them at a guerrilla base hidden in the mountains are typical.

According to the Ethiopians, they were forcibly drafted into the Army and were told they must stay in the Ogaden until the war was won. They said they were fed every other day. They also told of a large Cuban presence. One deserter said his camp of 1,200 men included 400 Cubans. Another's 900-man unit had 250 Cubans and 50 Russians and East Germans.

The deserters claimed that there is rising dissatisfaction among Ethiopians with the Marxist rule of Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam and his Russian sponsors and predicted that the Army eventually will rebel against him.

Guerrillas here are waiting for the rainy season to begin in two months when they say they will begin attacking the enemy's fixed positions instead of waiting for the Russians and Cubans to venture out of their base camps.

In the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, rebels are optimistic that they will get more aid from outside, especially from Arab nations. Says Abdullahi Hassan Mohamoud, the WSLF secretary-general: ''All Arabs fear the Russians now, and we are ready to fight the Soviet drive to conquer the world.''

Reports that the U.S. is to take over former Soviet naval facilities at the port of Berbera in Somalia have bolstered the spirits of the guerrillas, and an American is greeted at their camps with a hero's welcome. They are convinced that American military ties with Somalia will result in U.S. support.

''The Americans in Berbera will be a definite advantage for us,'' Nur says. ''It will make Somalia more secure psychologically, and this will enable us to get more aid from Mogadishu.''

Mohamoud shares these hopes but says: ''The most important thing is recognition. We were arbitrarily given away to Ethiopia by the British. We have the right to self-determination, and we want the world to know it.''

Washington's worries. The war in the Ogaden is a thorny problem for the U.S., which does not recognize Somalia's claim to the province. Neither does the Organization of African Unity, which opposes any help for the WSLF.

It is unlikely that the Soviet surrogate regime in Addis Ababa will soon consolidate its control over the country. The rebels are aware of Mengistu's troubles and are anxious to take advantage of his weakness. This could be embarrassing to the U.S., which, by arming Somalia, would be indirectly helping the guerrillas. But rebels would welcome such a situation.

''The United States should learn from what the Russians did in Vietnam,'' says a WSLF officer. ''Just give us weapons, and we will make the Russians pay for their misadventures, just as Soviet arms enabled the North Vietnamese to make the Americans pay in Indo-China.''