Ethiopia Fizzled Coup

Pomp and circumstance was the order of the day at Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport as Ethiopia's Marxist President, Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, gave a group of progovernment dignitaries a pep talk and then flew off for a four-day state visit to East Germany. But within a few hours of his departure early last week, a group of senior army officers were in revolt against Mengistu's rigidly Marxist twelve-year-old regime.

The attempted coup began when rebel officers seized the Defense Ministry. Major General Haile Giorgis Habte Mariam, the Defense Minister, refused to join the revolt and was killed. There were reports of MiG-21s and helicopter ( gunships screeching over the capital and of tanks and armored personnel carriers converging on the ministry. Meanwhile, in Asmara, the northern provincial capital and Ethiopia's second largest city, Mengistu's Second Army, some 150,000 strong, was in mutiny. In sympathy with the rebellion, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front announced a two-week cease-fire in its 27- year-old war of secession.

Within a day, Mengistu rushed home to restore control. He cut off his country from the outside world, closing airports and telecommunications lines. By week's end the President announced that the coup had failed and vowed that his forces would "liquidate" the traitors. According to the State Ruling Council, most of the conspirators had surrendered. But the toll of the insurrection was high: nine generals, including the air force commander and the army Chief of Staff, had died.

Though he retains control for the moment, Mengistu's position is likely to remain precarious. His Soviet-supplied army is one of the largest and best equipped in Africa, but it has suffered what one Ethiopian officer called "disastrous, bloody chaos." Last March it was trounced by rebels from the Tigre People's Liberation Front, which has been fighting the government for twelve years. One year earlier, 19,000 government soldiers were routed by Eritrean forces.

Army officers say they are demoralized by political mishandling of military affairs and by worries of eventual weapons shortages as Moscow pressures Mengistu to settle the civil war. Much of the civilian population would also like to see their leader deposed. People were particularly angered when Mengistu ordered the forced conscription of 100,000 boys, some as young as 13.