Alcances

In 1975, Washington received feelers of friendship from a very unexpected quarter in that region - Somalia. At the time the US administration was battling with the Congress to get approval for funds for the expansion of Diego Garcia to counter the Soviet presence in the Indian Ocean, Somalia is said to have indicated through Saudi Arabia that it was ready to expel the Soviet Union from Berbera if the United States could provide it with the economic and military aid it was receiving from Moscow.

According to the testimony of a former American ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins, to a Senate subcommittee on multinational corporations, Saudi Arabia had agreed to finance military and economic assistance programmes in Somalia as a means of eliminating the Soviet

presence there. Saudi Arabia offered to take over economic-aid

projects being financed by Moscow, and to buy US arms for Somalia as substitutes for Soviet weapons then being delivered. Akins said that the Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, turned a deaf ear to the

49

offer. The apparent reason for Kissinger's lack of interest was that

the Congress might not have approved funds for the expansion of Diego Garcia facilities if the Soviets - the official rationale for building the Diego Garcia base - had been expelled from Berbera at that time.

Senator Stuart Symington observed that some American officials

were determined to establish a military base on Diego Garcia

49

'Testimony of James Akins, Former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia' in

Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy, pp

'regardless of whether the Soviets had a base in Somalia or not'. Senator Church came to the conclusion that the 'circumstantial evidence would suggest that there was a connection between the desire of the administration to persuade the Congress to establish Diego Garcia and the convenience of a continued Russian presence in Somalia as the basic

51 justification for the base'.

Writing in the Congressional Record on 6 May 1976, Senator John

Culver stated that in ' its headlong rush to build the base at Diego

Garcia' the administration had resorted to dirty tricks. He accused

the Ford Administration of having 'consistently ignored the explicit

guidance of the Congress to seek mutual naval arms limitation

52 agreements with the Russians before proceeding with construction'.

Some sections of the US Congress felt also in 1976 that the administration was not interested in limiting the superpower arms race in the Indian Ocean. The Ford Administration was accused of reverting 'to the old cold war formula of military expansion and manipulation through secrecy and deception to frighten Congress and the American

53

people into concurrence'. Senator Culver, in particular, called for

'full-scale investigation by Congress of the administration's military 54

expansionist policies and cold war coverup in the Indian Ocean'.

Somalia's interest in forging closer relations with the US stemmed

50

Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign P o licy, p 431. 51

Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign P o licy, 433. 52

Congressional R e cord, 6 May 1976. Congressional Record, 6 May 1976. 53

54

from a number of factors. First, it was increasingly coming under the influence of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which had sponsored its membership of the Arab League and which wanted to reduce Soviet influence in the

Red Sea region. Second, with the fall of Haile Selassie in Ethiopia,

Somalia thought the main obstacle in its relations with the US had been removed. Third, it was apparent that some friction was developing in Somali-Soviet relations, and Somalia wanted to get rid of the Soviets.

Finally, the Portuguese African empire started collapsing in 1974, the year Somalia's President Siad Barre acceded to the chairmanship of

the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Sensing American concern

about the ideological character of the liberation movements in

Mozambique and Angola, Barre wanted to use his position as spokesman for the African continent to move politically closer to the US.

It was against this background that in 1975, apparently without notifying Moscow, he invited a US Congressional delegation to visit Somalia and ascertain for itself his claims that there was no Soviet military base in the country. But the Congressional team, headed by

Senator Dewey Bartlett, found that there were Soviet facilities at

B e r b era.^

On its tour of Berbera, the delegation was escorted by Barre's son-in-law, who was also head of the all-powerful National Security

Services, Colonel Ahmed Suleiman. Although Barre had promised Senator

55

Soviet Military Capability in Berbera, Somalia, pp 21-22. See also Visit to the Democratic Republic of Somalia, Report to the Committee on Appropriations, US Senate, by Members of the Fact-Finding Team Sent to

Bartlett that his team could 'go to Berbera and see anything [it] 56

wanted', a Soviet commander prevented Suleiman and the Congressional

delegation from visiting the communications receiver and transmitter

57

sites. The Soviet commander's action indicated that the Soviets

controlled the communications facilities at Berbera, and that those

facilities might have operated exclusively for the Soviet Union.

Barre's invitation of the Americans might have been made either in total ignorance of what the Soviet Union actually had at Berbera or it was just a calculated move to expose Soviet facilities at Berbera. It is, however, doubtful that Barre did not know of the existence of Soviet facilities there. One conjecture is that Barre was unhappy with the Soviet relationship and probably wanted the world to know what the

Soviets had at Berbera. Barre's other motive was to try to improve

relations with the United States.

The initial itinerary of Senator Bartlett's delegation included a

stop in Saudi Arabia, 'but that stop was eliminated at the direct

request of the State Department'. With hindsight, it has been assumed

that the State Department did not want the delegation to learn from Saudi Arabia the offer to 'buy' the Soviets out of Somalia. Somalia would not have invited the US Congressional delegation if it had not wanted closer relations with the US.

The previous year, in October 1974, President Barre had told

56_{Visit to the Democratic Republic of Somalia, p 6.}

57

Soviet Military Capability at Berbera, pp 15-16. 58

4 4 5.

President Ford in Washington that he desired to have close relations with the US. And in July 1975, Barre told Senator Bartlett's delegation that he had invited it to Somalia 'not necessarily to see Berbera but

that the Congressmen would witness Somalia's struggle to improve

conditions within the country and thereby improve the relationship between Somalia and the United S t a t e s ' . ^ If at that time Barre did not want to embarrass Moscow, at least he wanted to improve Somali-US relations and possibly place them on a par with Somali-USSR relations.

As was stated earlier, the United States tried to increase its military presence in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s by establishing a base on Diego Garcia. In 1975, the US Congress approved $15*8 million 'for a permanent naval base' on the i s l a n d . ^ This was after Secretary of Defence, James Schlesinger, had presented to the Congress on 10 June 1975 aerial photographs allegedly showing major Soviet facilities under construction at Berbera. Schlesinger contended: 'It is evident that the USSR is in the process of establishing a significant new facility, capable of supporting their naval and air activities in the northwest Indian Ocean'.^

In 1974, the then Director of the American CIA, William Colby, had warned the Congress that 'should the United States have a substantial increase in its naval presence in the Indian Ocean, a Soviet buildup

C

p

faster and larger... would be likely'.

-^Visit to the Democratic Republic of Somalia, p 6.

^ L a u r e n c e Stern, 'Saudi Offer of Aid Reported', The Washington P o s t , 5 May 1976.

r a

Visit to the Democratic Republic of Somalia, pp 5-4*

The question one might ask is: Why did this competition take place the Horn during the era of detente? One reason is that that level of

airy was consistent with Kissinger's and Brezhnev's views of

ente. Both of them argued that detente did not rule out competition the Third World. Another reason is that during the period 1974-76,

Horn was, in relative terms, a low priority area for both

erpowers. Rivalry in such an area would not, therefore, seriously ect the relationship between the US and the USSR.