July 23, 1998
By RAYMOND BONNER
Two African countries that had seemed to be on the road to peace and the beginnings of prosperity are buying expensive weapons in preparation for a full-scale war that many officials fear will involve peasant armies and result in instability and another crisis in the Horn of Africa.
The buying spree by Ethiopia and Eritrea -- for helicopters and pilots and rifles and bullets and so on -- is a setback for President Clinton, who has tried to prevent the conflict, which has simmered since May.
The World Bank, Japan and other aid donors that had been smiling on both countries in recent years fear that a war and heavy military spending will seriously impede nascent economic development.
Desperate to head off a war, the Clinton administration has decided that it will suspend sales of weapons and war materiel to the two countries, U.S. officials said this week.
The action is quite unlikely, however, to keep the peace. Ethiopia and Eritrea are having no trouble finding countries that are willing to sell weapons, notably China, Bulgaria and Ukraine, arms bazaars where the only question is, "Can you pay?"
China, long a major arms supplier in Africa, has shipped Ethiopia rifles and ammunition, and more has been contracted for, U.S. officials said. For the Eritreans at least nine Ukrainian cargo planes loaded with Bulgarian-made Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition and grenades have arrived in the last week, according to Western officials and accounts in the Bulgarian press.
The Bulgarian company that flew the weapons, Air Sofia, has 10 additional flights scheduled for the next few days from Burgas, Bulgarian port, to Asmara, the Eritrean capital, aviation officials in Turkey said Wednesday. Turkey has given permission to fly over its territory.
Air Sofia, which has been accused before of transporting smuggled weapons and other goods, declined to answer questions.
Although the Clinton administration is alarmed about the prospects of war, it has not tried to stop those countries from selling to Eritrea and Ethiopia, U.S. officials in Washington and Europe said.
It is not clear that the administration would have any success if it tried to stop the shipments. "We could at least make some noises," an administration official said.
The relative ease with which Eritrea and Ethiopia are able to procure weapons reflects the sprouting of buyers' markets, particularly in former communist countries, and an absence of international agreements to control the spread of light weapons.
One nonproliferation agreement, the so-called Wassenaar Arrangement, which was concluded two years ago with U.S. support in the Dutch city for which it is named, has proved largely ineffective at stopping weapons transfers.
Shooting between Ethiopia and Eritrea broke out in May, when Eritrean troops marched into a small rocky area just inside Ethiopia that both countries claim. But the feud is just as much about economics. Last year Eritrea introduced its own currency, leading to a punishing trade war.
And Ethiopia retains its intense desire for a Red Sea port, which it lost when Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia and became independent in 1993.
For years rebel Ethiopian and Eritrean armies had fought together against the Marxist dictator of Ethiopia, Mengistu Haile Mariam, who was overthrown in 1991. Since then both countries, under pressure from the World Bank and other international donors, had substantially reduced their armies and military budgets. But now both are growing as they prepare for war.
"Both sides are recruiting and training, heavily," a U.S. official said, adding that most recruits are peasants, who will be thrown into the front lines. "Each will have to have a rifle and at least one bullet."
The United States has sought to broker a peace, with senior American officials, including Susan Rice, assistant secretary of state for Africa, shuttling between the capitals. Last month Clinton called the heads of both governments, with a plea to find a peaceful resolution.
Bringing in arms from Bulgaria, China and Ukraine "makes a mockery of this whole peace process," said Patrick Smith, editor of a newsletter, African Confidential, in London.