Talk:Eritrean War of Independence

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Lead

I didnt realize this was a 30 year war until I read "The war went on for 30 years until 1991..." in the lead. The lead jumps from the "1950s" to 1974 without mentioning that the war began in 1961. Seems to be a lot missing and there is not much in the main part of the article.--NortyNort (Holla) 16:45, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Cuban involvement

Is it really accurate to have Cuba listed as an active participant in this war? According to most sources, Cuba actually declined to intervene in support of Ethiopia, insisting that the Eritrean issue was an internal affair of Ethiopia. In addition, it would be weird if Cuba made a u-turn in this conflict, which could badly harm its image in Africa and its reliability in the eyes of its allies. Indeed Cuba was an ally of Mengistu, and Cuba did involve themselves in the Ogaden War on the side of Ethiopia. But there seems to be limited evidence of direct involvement in Eritrea. Yes, there are some sources that claim they were indeed involved, most of which seems to be based on US government sources, but there are plenty of sources claiming exactly the opposite, which also seems to be more credible. --Te og kaker (talk) 08:52, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Minketorn has added Cuba once again, just like he's done several times previously with different IP adresses/sockpuppet accounts. This time, he does actually add a source which indeed says Cuba were there, from an encyclopedia about civil wars. Still, the fact is that those scholars who have indeed studied Cuban foreign politics or the Eritrean war in debt contradict this statement - and I would find these more reliable than just a general encyclopedia. There are numerous sources that I find more reliable that says just the opposite, namely that Cuba DID indeed cease the support for the Eritreans, but that it still refused to send troops to back Mengistu's forces there, insisting on a political solution. Cuba did indeed have a military presence in Ethiopia from the Ogaden War until the late 1980s - but they were there for training the Ethiopian armed forces, not in order to fight against the Eritreans. It's also true that Cuba's participation in Ogaden did indirectly help Mengistu in Eritrea, because he was able to keep a presence in Eritrea, Tigray and other dissenting regions during the Somalian invasion. Yet, although this indirect support helped Mengistu keep control over Eritrea, this is not the same as a participation in the Eritrean War!

Here are what some sources say about the subject in question:

• Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa by Piero Gleijeses (likely the most prominent scholar of Cuban foreign policy, and the only one to have been granted access to Cuban documents) says: "In the early 1970s, Cuba had provided some assistance and training to the Eritrean rebels, but in 1975, after revolutionaries had come to power in Addis Ababa, Castro had discontinued the aid. He thereafter trod a fine line: while he consistently rebuffed Mengistu's entreaties that Cuban troops help quell the rebellion in Eritrea, the thousands of troops he sent to Ethiopia in early 1978 to defend Mengistu's revolution from the Somali invasion freed up Ethiopian soldiers to fight the Eritreans. Castro urged Mengistu to grant significant autonomy to Eritrea, but Mengistu sought, instead, to crush the rebellion. This impasse–Mengistu doggedly pressing pressing the Cubans to fight in Eritrea and Castro just as doggedly refusing–persisted through the 1980s. Jorge Risquet, Castro's point man for Africa, told East German leader Honecker in 1989, "at no point did Cuban troops participate in operations against the rebels in Eritrea... Nor were Cuban military officers involved in the planning of military operations."" (Gleijeses is definitely a more reliable source than Dixon)
• To Make a World Safe for Revolution: Cuba's Foreign Policy by Jorge I. Dominguez says: "Although Cuba has sacrificed the Eritreans to its support of the Mengistu government, Cuba's past relations with the Eritreans set the limit on the extent of that support and, as a consequence, limited the extent of Cuban influence on the Ethiopian government. Nonetheless, the posting of Cuban troops facing Somali forces freed Ethiopian troops to fight the Eritreans. Cuban military training of the Ethiopian military also proved useful in Eritrea. Thus Cuba provided at least indirect support to Ethiopia against Cuba's former revolutionary allies in Eritrea. By late 1983, Ogaden was under Ethiopian control even though Eritrea was not, and even though other insurgencies had broken out. Cuba judged that it had fulfilled its mission; Ethiopia may also have wanted to save on the cost of supplying the Ethiopian forces. [...] Cuba reduced its troops in Ethiopia from about 10,000 in 1982 to to perhaps 3,000 in 1985. Cuba maintained this level of military support for the Ethiopian government in the late 1980s."
• Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment by Samuel Farber says: "Fidel Castro's support for the Dergue was not only rhetorical: he refrained from becoming directly involved in the Eritrean fighting, but the Cuban government trained and armed the Ethiopian forces and provided logistical support and supplies."
• Opportunities and Dangers of Soviet-Cuban Expansion by Richard J. Payne says: "Eritrea was more of an embarassment for Cuba because it clearly demonstrated a reversal of Cuban policy. Agreeing with Moscow that a negotiated solution giving Eritrea regional autonomy while being federated with Ethiopia is a reasonable solution, Cuba is painfully aware of the contradictions in its position. Having supported the Eritreans against Selassie's Ethiopia and recognizing Eritrean liberation movements as progressive, Castro attempted to minimize his embarassment by resisting Ethiopian pressure for Cubans to become more directly involved in Eritrea with Ethiopian soldiers, on the grounds that the conflict is an internal matter and outside the current ground rules relating to Cuban troops in Ethiopia."
• Cuba - The International Dimension by Georges Fauriol and Eva Loser was added as a source by Minketorn for Cuban troop participation in the article about the Ethiopian Civil War. Yet, we might take a look at what the source actually says, which is actually exactly the opposite: "Although Cuba could refuse to become in a large-scale military operation with the U.S.S.R. (as in Eritrea in 1978), it could not initiate a substantial military operation (as in Angola and Ethiopia) without Soviet approval.". So that is yet another misleading use of a source which actually says exactly the opposite of what Minketorn says (furthermore, today we know that the Cubans did actually intervene in Angola without Soviet approval, and actually contrary to Soviet warnings, so the book is not really up to date either)

Do you want even more sources? I guess that wouldn't change your insistence about adding the false claim that Cuban troops participated in this war though, because you have obviously made up your mind about this and won't change it no matter how much proof you get that this wasn't the case. Previously, your IPs have added blogs as sources and wrongfully cited sources that do not claim that Cuba participated but exactly the opposite to falsely "prove" that Cuba participated. You have even added names of alleged "Cuban military commanders" who don't even exist in the infoboxes of this article and those of battles in this war, to wrongfully back up your claims of Cuban involvement, so you are obviously not very interested in the facts but just obsessed with claiming that Cuba participated. Neither have you ever come with any arguments on this talk either. Why are you so obsessed with adding this over and over again? Could you please stop this disruptive editing? Cuba's refusal to participate against the war against the Eritrean rebels, despite Mengistu's repeated requests, is well-documented. --Te og kaker (talk) 12:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)