"We will fight until there is only one bullet and one Eritrean left. After that, Ethiopia can take our country back."
So says Mohammed Abu Baker, 21, a partisan in a bitter civil war that rages today on the politically volatile Horn of Africa. On one side is the army of Ethiopia's despotic military rulers, who are struggling to hold together the empire of the late Haile Selassie, whom they deposed in 1974. On the other are the 4 million people of Eritrea, Ethiopia's northern province. But also involved in the drama are the Soviet Union, Cuba, most of the Arab states, and the U.S.—and at stake is who will eventually control the strategic oil routes of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
A onetime Italian colony that was captured by the British in 1941, Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia, under a United Nations decision, in 1952 and a decade later was formally annexed by Selassie—an action that the Eritreans still regard as outright colonialism. Their outrage sparked a tiny guerrilla uprising that eventually became a full-scale war, perhaps the largest war now being fought anywhere in the world. In the process, reports TIME Correspondent Dean Brelis after touring the savanna and highland battlefront, the Eritreans have built an extraordinarily effective fighting machine of at least 25,000 men equipped with artillery and rockets. They control at least 85% of the province and all but 300,000 of its people, and their eventual victory appears assured. Says Ahmed Mohammed Nasser, 32, chairman of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), largest of the three Eritrean nationalist movements: "I cannot tell you what day or what year we will be independent. But I am sure Eritrea will become an independent state. That is why our people are fighting."
The Ethiopians fear that the loss of Eritrea could become the first important step in the disintegration of their country. They have been training 200,000 peasant militiamen to make a sort of human-wave assault on Eritrea, reinforcing the 25,000 hard-pressed regular troops on duty in the province. But the Eritreans are far more highly motivated. "We didn't see any reason to fight and die here," explained one of the 500 Ethiopians who surrendered during their recent losing battle for the city of Tessenei. "The Eritreans wanted a victory, and they got it. We want to go home."
Two Tanks. Two years ago, the Eritrean forces had no vehicles at all; they relied on hundreds of camels for transporting supplies and ammunition and for evacuating their wounded. Today they have trucks, Land Rovers, an ambulance and two tanks, most of them hijacked from the Ethiopians. The Eritreans have learned to combat Ethiopian airpower effectively with everything from rifles and machine guns to captured missiles and conventional antiaircraft guns. In the territory they control, the rebels run schools, clinics, plantations and even small factories. At present, they are engaged in an all-out offensive to capture what they do not yet control: the provincial capital of Asmara and four other cities and towns.