I Didn't Do It for You (24 page)

The Korea episode underlined a wider truth. Positioned on one of the world's key waterways, close to the oil-rich nations on which Western prosperity depended and to the bubbling political cauldron of the Middle East, Ethiopia, America's policymakers came to believe, could either bring further chaos to a volatile region or act as a stabilizing anchor. As a Christian ruler hemmed in by Moslem regimes, the Emperor was clearly a natural Western ally. His defiance of Italian Fascism meant he enjoyed enormous kudos in the developing world. Here was a man who could play the role of wise elderly statesman, mediating between the West and the inexperienced politicians emerging to lead Africa's former colonies, a seasoned moderator who could swing delegates' votes in America's favour within international organizations like the UN.

This was not quite as nebulous a role as it sounds. In the post-war years, a vibrant debate raged on the nature of nationhood in Africa, whose territory had been clumsily hacked into states by 19th-century colonial powers indifferent to ethnic realities on the ground. Left-wing thinkers like Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, regarded in the West as a dangerous radical, called for the creation of a United States of Africa. Haile Selassie, in contrast, was anxious to preserve existing frontiers, however clumsily drawn. His conservative school of thought won the day when the Organization of African Unity (OAU), initially largely funded by the Emperor, was set up in Addis in 1963. ‘The Emperor's signal biggest contribution to African history is the creation of the OAU in Addis and the drafting of an OAU charter,' says Chester Crocker, former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa. ‘There was to be no messing with inherited boundaries. The Latin doctrine of
uti possedetis
(‘boundaries shall stay as they are') was very Ethiopian in its conception. But it also served the conservative interests of a number of other African leaders who were desperately insecure
about how they were going to keep the new states together.'
¹⁰

While endorsing a principle that set colonial boundaries in stone, African delegates in Addis chose to turn a blind eye to the most blatant charter violation of all, committed embarrassingly close to home. The border Italy had drawn around Eritrea at the turn of the century had been erased by the very nation championing the principle of frontier inviolability. This act of hypocrisy would not be lost on the EPLF, which would come to regard the OAU with utter contempt during the long years of exile. As far as the Americans were concerned, however, Haile Selassie had delivered once again, shoring up a fragile continent.

Israel, a fledgling state whose survival was a key concern to the US, with its influential Jewish lobby, provided another rationale for American support. Israeli aircraft could only access the African hinterland by flying over the Horn. Given Moslem hostility to the Jewish state, Ethiopia, a country whose foundation myth elided with Israel's own, was the natural spot for El Al aircraft to refuel as they worked their way down the African coast to Johannesburg.

Airspace was not the only issue. Strategists urging Washington in the 1960s and 1970s to increase its military aid to Ethiopia sketched out a doomsday scenario in which, left to its own devices, the Addis government lost control of Eritrea to Moslem insurgents, who promptly joined the Arab camp and cut off Israel's shipping lifeline through the Red Sea. It was a farfetched sequence of events which sidestepped the obvious fact that Arab states were already,
without
Eritrean participation, perfectly placed to mount such a blockade, but were generally more interested in increasing trade with the West than mounting ideological embargoes.
¹¹
Yet the Israel-as-hostage scenario was still being bandied around to justify support for Addis in the mid-1970s, when it had become clear that a Christian-
dominated rebel movement–the EPLF–had seized the initiative from the Moslem ELF in Eritrea, removing a key element in this imaginary equation. Crocker still defends it. ‘How could the Israelis, given the sense of total isolation they often feel, be sure that some Arab coalition wouldn't shut off access to the Red Sea?' he argues. ‘It might be a worst case scenario, but that's what strategic planners cater for. After all, Nasser did shut down the Suez Canal. “Never again”, was the feeling.'
¹²

None of these considerations would have carried much weight, of course, had it not been for the little matter of the Soviet Union, the looming threat that formed the backdrop to all strategic thinking at the time. In the 1950s, Secretary of State Dulles had dreamt up the concept of a Northern Tier of anti-Communist states that would serve as a bulwark against Communist expansionism. Why not create a Southern Tier of loyal allies in the Middle East, a secondary line of defence that would keep Communism out of the area and guarantee Western access to the oil-rich Persian Gulf? Haile Selassie adroitly volunteered Ethiopia for the role. ‘That type of argument made it possible for the secretaries of state and defence to “find” that the defence of Ethiopia was essential to the defence of the free world,' John Spencer recalled in his memoirs.

Woven together, the various factors combined to form a conviction in Washington–as deep-rooted as it was amorphous–that Ethiopia and its increasingly restless northern province somehow ‘mattered' to the US. American thinking on the Horn could be summarized as what one sceptical expert astutely labelled ‘the geometer's approach to strategy'.
¹³
Take a compass, stick a point in the country under consideration and draw progressively larger concentric circles. Slapping your hand to your head, you then exclaim: ‘My God, this country's so close to Israel, to the Gulf, to the entire Middle East. It
must
be important!'

If the approach was premised on implausibilities and questionable assumptions, that was hardly unique to Ethiopia. The same logic would be applied around the globe during the Cold War era on similarly specious grounds and with equally damaging results–remember how Vietnam's political future was deemed of vital American interest? For the geometer's approach has a lethal characteristic: it tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. By ruling that a backward African nation with few natural resources, far from obvious US zones of interest, was in fact a key ally, Washington helped ensure Moscow reached a parallel conclusion, first in neighbouring Somalia–desperate to match Ethiopia in its military build-up brigade for brigade–and then, when the opportunity presented itself, in Ethiopia itself. A nation's significance, like a diamond's value, lies purely in the eye of the beholder. By deciding the Horn mattered to the West, Washington guaranteed that the region became important to the East, sentencing it to disastrous superpower interference for decades to come.

 

Haile Selassie had succeeded in establishing the principle of Ethiopia's usefulness, but the price charged for Kagnew was to be the object of heated discussion.

Under the 1953 base rights agreement, in which Washington was granted near-sovereign rights over the various ‘tracts', the US agreed to build up Ethiopia's army, providing training and equipment for three divisions of 6,000 men–a deal worth $5m. But this, in the Emperor's eyes, only marked the beginning. He was aiming for an army of 40,000–a force, American military experts judged, totally out of proportion for a country facing at this stage of its history no significant external challenges. With its underdeveloped economy, they pointed out, Ethiopia would be unable to support an army of that size unaided. It would be
better off with a lightly equipped mobile force that could be sent swiftly to crush uprisings in the provinces. ‘No encouragement should be given to expand or modernize the Ethiopian forces,' the Pentagon advised.
¹⁴

Their argument made sense, but Haile Selassie steamed on regardless. Africa would rarely throw up another leader so skilled at getting what he wanted from what might be regarded a position of weakness. The years spent waiting for the throne to come his way, the humiliating exile in Bath, had taught the Emperor the value of patience. ‘A Shewan swallows years after he chews,' runs an Amharic proverb. Having seen off both Mussolini and Churchill, Haile Selassie knew that persistence can be the politician's most formidable weapon. Loudly demand an immediate answer, and the response risks being set in stone. Press quietly and relentlessly, and you will eventually get your way, for your opponent will grow weary of the debate.

At every meeting with a US ambassador, during every trip to America, the Emperor's ministers and diplomats would complain that their country was being neglected, its determination to support Washington in the global battle against Communism sorely undervalued. By allowing Kagnew Station to operate, they argued, Ethiopia was putting herself at enormous risk, laying herself open to the threat of punitive action by anti-Western Arab neighbours. The very least Washington could do, surely, was to give her loyal ally the weapons to defend herself and put down that pesky Eritrean insurgency. Out of their depth, American negotiators floundered and succumbed. ‘By the time our leaders were dealing with Haile Selassie, he'd been in that job for 15 years. Most of our people had been in their jobs for just 18 months,' recalls Crocker.
¹⁵

Crocker, who was later to negotiate with Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, another supposed bastion in the fight
against Communist infiltration, far preferred the Haile Selassie way of conducting business. ‘Every conversation with Mobutu was unpleasant because you were reminded of all the things you had not done for him. It was like buying an antique map on the banks of the Seine, a haggling match, really down in the gutter. The Emperor had a more dignified way of doing things. He was very skilled.' But, at heart, the two African leaders' tactics were based on the same simple principle: Squeaky Wheel Syndrome. The potentially unreliable ally always wins more aid than the nation that falls neatly into step behind its chosen superpower. Like Mobutu, Haile Selassie immediately understood that the most effective method of grabbing Washington's attention was to flirt with the enemy.

The blackmail game followed an established routine. Faced with none-too-subtle hints from Ethiopia–Addis was disappointed, Addis was keeping its options open, Addis felt betrayed–a nervous American ambassador would fire off telegrams to Washington urging military spending in Ethiopia to be increased, fighter jets supplied, a navy established. The State Department would back the ambassador, only to find its way blocked by the Pentagon, which would point out that the US had more pressing commitments closer to home. The Emperor would then make a high-profile visit to the Eastern bloc, returning laden with promises of Communist funding. Another batch of anguished messages would fly across the Atlantic–which ambassador wanted, after all, to be remembered as the man who ‘lost' Ethiopia?–and the order from a panicked Washington would go out: more military aid for Ethiopia.

The manoeuvre worked superbly in 1959 when, angered by US support for the British notion of a Greater Somalia, Haile Selassie garnered $100m in credits during a visit to the Soviet Union. Appalled, Washington stepped up its military training
programme in Ethiopia to cater for the desired 40,000-strong force. ‘Rent' on Kagnew was now costing Washington $10–12m a year in military aid, in return for which a grateful Haile Selassie agreed to cede an additional 1,500 acres of land. No one would have guessed it from the peeved expressions on the faces of Ethiopian dignitaries arriving in Washington, but Ethiopia, soaking up to 60 per cent of US military aid to Africa, was the superpower's biggest aid recipient on the continent.

The Emperor's expectations stretched well beyond the military. He wanted Washington to take the lead in transforming feudal Ethiopia into a modern state blessed with schools and universities, hospitals and clinics, its own national airline. Given that he was regularly spending between 25 and 30 per cent of his budget on defence–a staggering percentage given that his foreign friends were already footing most of the military bill–he could not fund these projects himself. Washington must provide, and so it did. Not only was the US Ethiopia's major economic partner, buying 70 per cent of its coffee, but it funded agricultural colleges and locust control centres, veterinary projects and commodity improvement schemes. It used its clout to ensure the World Bank and other financial institutions lent Ethiopia hundreds of millions of dollars, sent Peace Corps volunteers to teach in Ethiopian schools, and educated thousands of young Ethiopians in its American universities. The ties that bound the two countries together were being wrapped ever tighter. And the extent to which Washington was ready to go to ensure its favourite's survival was about to demonstrated in concrete form.

 

In December 1960, two weeks after the Emperor had left Addis on an extended tour of South America, his Imperial Bodyguard took control of the airport, rounded up the royal family and
key ministers in the Imperial Palace, and cut communications with the outside world.

The coup attempt was, ironically, the by-product of the very US-funded modernization drive Haile Selassie had launched. Returning from military academies and Western universities–where their courses were often generously paid for by the Emperor himself–a generation of young officers and bureaucrats looked at its own hidebound society, the nepotistic royal court, and judged it all stale and corrupt. Watching Africa's newly-independent states kicking into life, promising their citizens rights and benefits unknown in Ethiopia–supposedly the freest of African nations–these young men felt the status quo had become intolerable. Disappointed and bitter, they blamed their frustration on their former sponsor, the very man who had opened their eyes to Ethiopia's backwardness.

When, on the first day of the coup, the Crown Prince Asfa Wossen
¹⁶
went on the radio to denounce the fact that life for the average Ethiopian had not changed for three millennia–that Queen of Sheba vision of history once again–and promised radical change, it seemed as if Haile Selassie was already history. US diplomats ordered the embassy's classified files shipped up to Kagnew Station for safekeeping.