As Rebels Surge in Ethiopia, Its Capital Fears a Harsh Fate. By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times Published: March 23, 1991

As Rebels Surge in Ethiopia, Its Capital Fears a Harsh Fate

By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times

Published: March 23, 1991

An eerie tension has enveloped this city as Ethiopians watch what may well be the death throes of their 16-year-old Government and nervously consider what they fear is imminent: anarchy and bloodshed in the capital.

Startlingly fast rebel victories against Ethiopia's Army, one of Africa's largest, in the last several weeks have put rebel forces 90 miles from the capital and 30 miles from the Government's only remaining port, Assab.

Two of the country's main food-producing provinces, Gondar and Gojjam, fell this month without a fight from the army. The Government's last remaining air base, at Bahir Dar, with direct access to the country's north has fallen. A vital and symbolic bridge over the Blue Nile Canyon was easily captured 10 days ago, and diplomats here are speaking of the army's collapse.

President Mengistu Haile Mariam, who holds on although he is widely disliked by his people and accused of human rights abuses by Western governments, is reported by Western diplomats to be roaming what is left of his country in a helicopter, trying desperately to revive the morale of his troops. Several weeks ago, diplomats say, he sent his wife and children to Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, where he is said to have bought property.

Government officials say their situation is not nearly as dire as the picture painted by many Ethiopians and diplomats here. But despite this official line, it seems clear that the latest rebel gains are a grave and perhaps final threat to the Government, which already faces a bankrupt economy and the prospects of widespread hunger that the United Nations has said could match the famine of 1984-85.

For Ethiopians there are no sources of information in the Government-controlled press about the collapsed war effort. But piecing snippets together from foreign news broadcasts, seeing foreign diplomats send their families home and deciphering the flood of rumors about a reign of terror by the President in his own Cabinet, Ethiopians say they know things are bad. But they say they do not know how long it will take for a finale, whether weeks or months.

And while the rebel groups are coordinating their military offensive, the postwar cohesion of any government, and indeed of the country, is far from certain.

"The town is loaded with guns," said one Ethiopian, who watched the crumbling of the Government of Emperor Haile Selassie and the bloody takeover of Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu's revolutionaries in 1974. "Everyone who knows how to use a weapon has one. Some have side arms. Others keep bigger weapons at home."

This man and several other Ethiopians said they feared that they would again see something like the "red terror" of 1977, when thousands were slaughtered in Addis Ababa by Marxist extremists -- with the difference that this time other political elements would be involved. "There are a lot of people with a lot of grudges," the man said.

The Mengistu Government has been under pressure from two main rebel groups, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and the Tigrean People's Liberation Front. Talks in Washington last month between the Ethiopian Government and the Eritrean front failed to make progress. Immediately after they ended, the rebel groups began their offensive.

The Eritrean rebels' main goal is the secession of Eritrea, the northeastern province of Ethiopia, a cause they have been fighting for for 31 years. The group controls all of Eritrea except the capital, Asmara, and a bit of land around it.

The Tigrean front, based in the province of Tigre, has been trying to topple the Government since Colonel Mengistu came to power. The group holds the provinces of Tigre, Gojjam, Gondar, most of Wallo, parts of Wallaga and most of northern Shoa.

Western military analysts say the two groups have been coordinating their military actions for the last two years. They are also discussing the shape of a transitional government. Eritrean Leader in U.S.

Diplomats familiar with the discussions say the Tigrean front will probably hold the main positions in such a government, with the Eritrean group dealing with what would then become a separate Eritrea. The leader of the Eritrean front, Issaias Afewerki, has been in the United States for the last month trying to cultivate political contacts.

The political orientations of the groups are not exactly clear. The Eritrean front started with a Marxist outlook that appears to have since been modified. But in their broadcasts, the current leaders of the Tigrean front espouse hard-line Marxism. Last year, one Tigrean leader spoke of Albania as a potential model for Ethiopia.

It is the tough Marxist language and the talk of purges among the current Government bureaucrats that make not only the bureaucrats but also many educated Ethiopians outside the Government nervous. "The T.P.L.F. sounds as bad as this lot," said an Ethiopian who was imprisoned by the present Government. "This is a country without alternatives."

Government officials who are receiving foreign dignitaries insist that a surprise military success is in the works. Foreign Minister Tesfaye Dinka told the French Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, who visited here Thursday, that the Ethiopian Army would prevail, Mr. Kouchner said.

But there seems no avenue for Colonel Mengistu to seek help. The national treasury, which has been spending about 60 percent of its money on the war effort, is empty, Western economists said. Fuel rationing, 18 liters a week for civilians with cars, is in force because the Soviet Union asked Ethiopia to pay for fuel in hard currency.

The last 10-year military agreement with the Soviet Union, which American military experts say pumped about $11 billion in arms into Ethiopia, ended last year. The Soviet Embassy in Addis Ababa is reported to have sent home some of its staff. East Germany, which used to bail the Ethiopian leader out of military crises, is also not available to help this time.

The United States has tried in the last year to encourage the Mengistu Government to negotiate with the rebels, and during the Persian Gulf crisis wooed the Ethiopians for their support in the Security Council. But Washington has shown distaste for the Government and gives it no economic development aid because of Ethiopia's Marxist philosophy -- although Addis Ababa officially disavowed that line last year -- and its human rights abuses.

After Colonel Mengistu halted the emigration of the remaining 20,000 Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa several weeks ago, a Western diplomat said he was convinced that the move was an attempt to squeeze aid from Israel. The emigration program resumed last week. Enlisting the Students

Last Saturday, apparently in an effort to shore up the army and remove a source of tension, Colonel Mengistu turned to the 10,000 students of Addis Ababa University. He visited the campus, which is dominated by a vast library opened by Robert F. Kennedy, and told the students that they were being enlisted in the army.

People at the university said the military knew that the students would be hopeless soldiers. But in fact, the sign-up was a way of "getting rid of a tinderbox," a Western diplomat said.

The sudden collapse of the army -- "the endgame," as a Western diplomat put it -- has significantly affected the international humanitarian effort that is trying to deliver tens of thousands of tons of food to avert famine. For a second year, northern Ethiopia has been hit by drought, made worse by the constant fighting. The United Nations World Food Program estimates that 6 million of Ethiopia's 50 million people need food aid this year.