Spectacular attack | Socialist Action 1983

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long Led ly the same?

port, coast battalion occupy fensive.

up their fight.

women, 'People's Photo, EDI F INFORMATION DEPARTMENT VICOTOUSI the rest pian underground.

weaponry, booby trap has backed COnSCIDEs. murder squads.

would undoubtedly have In 1980 the ELF broke ranks. It from several , and blocking their Ethiopians launched Star, with ment perialist Like all their other offensives, in (UK) has chester, Sudan and disarmed ingham movement Eritrea fighting forces inside Eritrea, Perhaps the British CP would care to analyse the USSR, and Cuba, from a similar standpoint, given that for a time they supported the Eritrean's cause and have now switchallegiance, even though Eritrean position has remained exactBy 1984 the EPLF was once more in a strong military position, launching a spectacular attack on the Ethiopian air force at Asmara airwhen one third of the latter's Soviet air power was destroyed. May saw a major battle on the Red Sea with a 15,000 strong Ethiopian defeated. Ine arur na pushed further south to However, there are recent reports of arcas held '77-78. renewed Soviet arms shipments and a possible new Ethiopian Red Star ofClearly a military solution is impossible — the Eritreans will not give Over the years the EPLF have set up mass associations of workers, peasants: students and small traders, these bodies electing from their own members the Assembly' Will respon sibility for civil justice and economic affairs. Price controls and a network cooperalive store. have greatly helped the poor.

Over 80 per cent of Eritreans are still rural dwellers, 30 per cent of these nomads. Land reform has proceeded Hust arcas more slowly in ex-ELF areas where there is opposition from landlords and rich peasants — with access to land for all.

Women now have the right, for the first time in most cases, to own land, and they take a far more central role in economic life: ploughing the land and crop threshing for the first One-third of the EPLF fighters are women Currently the EPLF control only two towns of significant size, and in • dominated by the Ethio. military they work It's up to us to make sure that Eritrea ceases to be Africa's forgotten war as well as its longest.

Many of the captured Ethiopian soliders, most of whom are unwilling have come over to the Eritrean side. Many thousands more are held in unguarded camps. Some who did escape in the : past were executed on return to Ethiopia. This demonstrates the lack of support tol the genocidal war within Ethiopia opposition liberation fronts, the largest of which, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, has very close links with the EPLF.

Prospects for a political settle seem distant, with rival imSoviet interests • The Eritrea Support Committee groups in London, ManGlasgow, Sheffield, BirmNavenour. Write to:

Support Committee, BCM Box 865, London WC1 6XX

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Socialist Action 15 February 1985