(Book Review)
Book:Yemesewaetnet Ashara (A Legacy of Scarification)
Author B.General Kebede Gashe
Number of Page 310
Published in 2019
In its modern history, Ethiopia has not attained peace and stability. Political upheavals and rampant conflicts are still the nation’s common features.
To defend the nation from external invaders and to maintain the nation’s territorial integrity intact, the Ethiopian Defense Forces have been exerting unrestrained efforts and paying sacrifices for the last six decades.
Brigadier General Kebede Gashe is one of the veterans of the Ethiopian army who dedicated a major segment of his life to preserving the nation’s territorial integrity. While he was a teenager, he joined the army as a boy scout in 1945 and came across various challenges and bureaucratic hurdles in his career. A few years back, he wrote a book entitled “A Scarification Legacy.” The 310-page book is substantiated by many illustrative pictures that testify to his military training engagement and career.
While very young, he became a radio operator, a technician in the maintenance of radio apparatus, an instructor in a radio communication training center as well as an expert in military curriculum preparation and study and research center.
In 1956, he joined the 16th course at the Hoteta military training school and graduated as sub-lieutenant. An outstanding candidate, he received a monarchial belt from Emperor Hailasilasie I. He also attended various military courses in several countries, including the USA, India, and USSR, and was awarded certificates and Diplomas from various colleges.
After he returned from the USA from 1974 to 1975, he briefly served as liaison officer team leader of the Ethiopian Dispatched Army in South Korea under the auspicious of the United Nations Security Council.
When he returned back from Korea, in Ethiopia revolution had broken out and the military junta led by Col. Mengistu Hailemariam was assuming power. Following the political reshuffling, a new military structure had been introduced.
Taking the situation as a good opportunity, the historical enemies of Ethiopia triggered a proxy war by using Somalia as an instrument and invaded territories in the South and Eastern parts of the country.
In the Northern Front, in Eritrea, the war which had been simmering unabated for thirteen years since the abolishment of the federal act in the era of Emperor Hilasilasie reached its climax stage.
In 1978, the then Colonel Kebede Gashie was appointed as the commander of the 4th infantry brigade. During that time the Somali invading army led by President Zyad Bare armed with sophisticated weapons, encroached 700 kilometers on the Ethiopian territory in the eastern front and 300 kilometers in the southern front. The invading army off guard attacked the fragmented units of the Ethiopian army and police stations and easily occupied vast territories. During those trying times discussions had been taking place among the members of the Dergue, members of higher officials of the Ministry of Defense and army commanders from various fronts concerning repelling back the invading army and taking counter-offensive measures.
Soon after his arrival, Colonel Kebede visited the brigade’s headquarters and obtained vital information from various ranking officials concerning the enemy’s positions, its intentions, and how to intercept the incursion forces. The invading army in the Dolo front advanced to Filtu town, and the Moyale front fortified itself in the Kedaduma Mountains and targeted the Moyale-Addis Ababa Road with short-range mortars and artillery and hampered the vehicles’ movement.
Later after the establishment of the Southern Command, he was promoted to the rank of commander of the Fourth Infantry division
The book tells us that when the Somali army invaded Ethiopia it had 7th, 12th, 16th, and 36th motorized brigades under one command, four artillery battalions, and four anti-aircraft units. The objective of the Somali army on the eastern front, among others, was to occupy Giggiga, Harar, and finally DireDawa and later to disrupt the Ethio –Dijibuoti railway line and to cut Ethiopia from the port of Djibouti.
On the southern front, it aimed to control the mountainous places starting from Karamara Mountain near Giggiga town up to the Bale Mountains to control Dolo town and to intercept the possible counter-offensives in the Ogaden front. To repel the intruders from the Southern front, the fourth infantry division led by Colonel Kebede took a mission from the Southern Command and prepared itself for the final offense.
However, as to the book, the decade’s long bones of contention between the Imperial Guard unit and that of the army infantry division surfaced. Some members of the imperial guard regarded Colonel Kebede as chauvinist. They wrongly thought him contemptuous towards them due to their less academic background. According to the book, the root cause of the misunderstanding between Colonel Kebede Gashie and Colonel Demisie Bulto was this mistrust that lasted for decades. The mutual mistrust hampered the nation’s ambition to establish strong military institutions and have officers with strong professional integrity.
The entrenched misunderstanding between the two officers had courted its negative impact on the final war against the invading army on the Sothern front. However, the commander of the division launched his offense by crossing the Kenyan border after he obtained the official’s consent and completely defeated the invading army and controlled the whole territory in the Southern front.
In 1985, Colonel Kebede was promoted to the rank of commander of Holeta military school with the rank of Brigadier General and two years later he was appointed commander of the “Mekit” command under the command of the second revolutionary army in Eritrea. The command was formally established as 506th Task Force during the Red Star campaign launched against the Eritrean Liberation Army in 1982, the 6th Nebelbal Divission and the 14th infantry division had been under its command and its headquarters was deployed in Asmara.
Officers engaged in the northern front for decades were fed up. There was an intention to replace them with new energetic officers. His transfer to the Northern Front was due to the aforementioned reason. However, as to the book, the mentioned statement was a pretext and the true motives of his assignment in Eritrea were the deep-rooted conflict and hatred mounted between General Kebede and his rival members of the Imperial Guard.
His rivals took the chance as a good opportunity to avenge him by deploying his army in the restless battles going on in that region. The rift created among the high-ranking military commanders created a good opportunity for the rebels to take preemptive measures against the army.
Gneral Kebede was acquainted with Eritrea when it was federated with Ethiopia in 1955. At that time, the 12th brigade, led by Colonel Abebe Gemeda, was deployed in that region to ensure peace and security, and he served the army in the rank of corporal. When he returned to the region 34 years later, the military situation was different. The number of the Rebel army, its organization and its arms were tremendously changed qualitatively and quantitatively. Even on some fronts, the army was outnumbered by rebel forces regarding manpower. On the part of the government, there were many divisions, cores, and commands with sophisticated weaponry, including infantry, air force, and naval forces.
After he was appointed commander, he visited the front lines and fortifications of the army and identified the strengths and weaknesses of the divisions and brigades under his command. The major shortcomings of his army were that the vastness of the warfronts patrolled by his army and their number were disproportional. Due to uninterrupted war, the number of the army was dwindling, and the army was psychologically fed up. For rectification measures, he reported the hurdle to the Second Revolutionary Amy Commandeer General Regasa Jima, who was a member of the former bodyguard army, and due to the above-mentioned reasons, the two generals were at the loggerhead. The response given to General Kebede fell on deaf ears.
From time to time, the two commanders’ relations deteriorated. The rebel forces’ assault on the army increased. Thus, the army incurred heavy damages. According to the book, finally, the Commander of the Second Revolutionary Army and his subordinates blamed and scapegoated General Kebede for the repeated defeat of the army and the upper hand the rebels got on the battlefront.
And they accused him with the other army commander General Tariku Leayne. General Tariku was blamed for disobedience. He was also accused of detaining military vehicles that delivered logistics as captured items by his army. Based on the baseless prosecution while General Kebede Gashie was relegated from his rank and expelled from the army with no pension, General Tariku Line was sentenced to death and executed by the order of the Commander in Chief of the Army Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam.
The book exposes factors that contributed to the defeat of the army among others, lack of sufficient capacity to command the battle on the part of the officers, problems related deploying experienced commanders, lack of sufficient spare parts, fuel, and lubricants for tanks and military vehicles.
The introduction of the joint chain of command which combined commander, political cadres, and military security officials demoralized commanders because their decision power was compromised by military science-ill-trained cadres. While the commanders were professional the rest were junior officers with a lack of combating experience.
Moreover, the deep-rooted political crises in addition to making the rebels obtain the upper hand, resulted in the downfall of the regime.
Sadly, B.General Kebede Gashe had passed away recently.
BY ABEBE WOLDEGIORGIS
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 23 NOVEMBER 2024
