Soviet Help Sought on Ethiopia Aid Issue

The United States is asking Moscow to help pressure Ethiopia’s Marxist government to let food supplies through to 2 million people in northern Ethiopia who are threatened by starvation, the White House said Thursday.

Last week, the Ethiopian government ordered foreign relief workers to leave the northern provinces of Tigre and Eritrea because rebels in those areas control much of the countryside. The government also has said it plans to take over relief distribution, displacing the private agencies now doing the job, on the grounds that foreigners would be in danger.

“There are more than 2 million people at risk in that part of the country,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. “The President has expressed his concern privately and publicly.”

Fitzwater said Secretary of State George P. Shultz intends to raise the issue with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze either in Geneva this week or next week in Moscow.

“Our ambassador in Ethiopia has been working to try to arrange food aid by any means possible, but we’ve been unsuccessful to this point,” Fitzwater said.

Alan Woods, director of the Agency for International Development, said at a news briefing that other nations aiding Ethiopia are also trying to persuade Mengistu Haile Mariam’s regime to allow distribution of food to continue as before.

“We also are concerned about the Ethiopian government’s stated intention to take over the relief operations,” Woods said. “This raises the potential of expropriation of our relief food and vehicles by the Ethiopian government. Regardless of its stated purpose, this is an extremely serious matter.”

‘Open Roads, Open Risk’

The AID director said food donated by foreign countries is distributed by volunteer organizations, who prefer an “open roads, open risk” policy with no army escort or other government involvement.

“If the Ethiopian government takes over those assets, they lose what protections they have had under United Nations auspices and could become subject to legitimate attack by the rebels,” Woods pointed out.

“We also are greatly distressed by reports from a high-ranking diplomat in Addis (Ababa) that the government of Ethiopia has decided not to distribute relief supplies outside of Makale and Asmara (capitals of Tigre and Asmara provinces) and that only party members, civil servants and their families and other loyal cadre would be allowed to receive aid at those refugee centers,” he added.

The AID chief emphasized that “our commitment to assisting the people of Ethiopia remains firm,” but he said future action will have to be judged “shipment by shipment.” The United States has committed 268,000 tons of food relief and $112 million to Ethiopia--$92 million to pay for food and the rest to cover transportation to Ethiopian ports and distribution within the country--since relief operations began last October.

Woods said he plans to ship at least 37,000 tons to the northern port of Massawa before the end of April, however, to build up a buffer stock in the event that distribution can be resumed.

Robert McCloskey, director of the Washington office of Catholic Relief Services, said the order barring foreigners from the two northern provinces would have less effect on his organization than on others. He said all Catholic Relief workers in the north--140 to 150--are Ethiopian.

“We have told the government, however, that we would refuse to turn over our work to the (government) Rehabilitation and Relief Service,” McCloskey said. “And other agencies have done the same, as far as I know.”

For the International Committee of the Red Cross, a Swiss agency that has played an important part in the relief program, the ban on foreign workers has already meant suspension of all operations in the north.