Until a few months ago, guerrilla activity in the northern Ethiopian province of Eritrea amounted to little more than an occasional attempt to hijack an airliner. The Ethiopian government scornfully referred to the predominantly Moslem members of the Eritrean Liberation Front as shifta (bandits), and Emperor Haile Selassie dismissed their activity as "insignificant."
Suddenly the guerrilla war has come to life. Last November the rebels devastated two villages in western Eritrea. At Debre Sila they killed 52 villagers and burned 200 houses. At Ademdem they ordered residents into their homes, set fire to the village and shot everyone who tried to escape. Both villages, significantly, were Christian. At about the same time, commandos ambushed and killed an Ethiopian general on a narrow canyon road. Last month they blew up two gasoline trucks only five miles from Asmara, the provincial capital, and ambushed and killed an American soldier from Kagnew Station, the giant U.S. military-communications base.
Arab Front. The seeds of the current revolt lie deep in Eritrea's history. A field of battle between Arabs and Ethiopians since the 8th century, it became an Italian colony in 1885 and remained one until 1941. After World War II, Eritrea was turned over to Ethiopia under a United Nations mandate. In 1962 the last shreds of autonomy were stripped away when it was integrated into the Ethiopian empire.
The Liberation Front was organized twelve years ago as an organization of both Christians and Moslems. Increasingly, however, it has become an Arab socialist front, with headquarters in Damascus; hundreds of Christians, mostly Copts, have deserted the movement in recent months. Many of its members receive training in Aden or even in China; they return by crossing the Red Sea in dhows or by slipping across the 1,000-mile Sudanese border.
The front's 3,000 combatants have the run of the Eritrean countryside but do not control it. Says an Ethiopian division commander, Brigadier General Merid Bayene: "They are trained to ambush, but they can't stand and fight for more than two minutes in one spot."
The Ethiopian government has responded to E.L.F. tactics by declaring a state of emergency and placing most of Eritrea, with its 2,000,000 people, under military rule. Asmara, a sunny city of stucco buildings and broad piazzas that is perched atop a 7,600-ft. plateau, shows few signs of trouble. But the calm ends at the city limits. In the hope of denying food to the guerrillas, the army is moving much of the rural population, Viet Nam-style, into some 200 "fortified villages." Rebel activity has fallen off sharply since the army offensive began three months ago, but even a ranking Ethiopian officer admits: "All we're doing is alienating the countryside, making the population more bitter than it was before."
Enduring Feudalism. Even without guerrilla warfare in Eritrea, Haile Selassie's ancient empire is haunted by grave troubles. Its 25 million people, a fusion of Semites, Hamites, Nilotics and Bantus, have an average per capita income of $63 per year (one of the lowest in the world). Only 7% can read. Nine out of every ten Ethiopians are subsistence farmers, and 60% of these are tenants on feudal estates. Cities are haunted by bands of beggars and thieves.