Ethiopia Rejects Reagan’s Charges on Soviet Bloc Aid

UNITED NATIONS —  Ethiopian Foreign Minister Goshu Wolde on Friday rejected President Reagan’s “vicious” charges that 1,700 Soviet advisers and 2,500 Cuban combat troops are in Ethiopia, but he expressed hope that U.S. famine relief will keep coming.

Lt. Col Wolde’s complaints came as the limousines thinned out at the United Nations, normal traffic resumed in New York and the world body settled back to its normal routine after a tumultuous 40th anniversary celebration that ended Thursday.

In response to President Reagan’s address to the General Assembly on Thursday, Wolde read a letter of protest which he said he had sent to U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, because, he said, protocol prevented a direct reply to Reagan.

The President had proposed that conflicts between guerrillas and Soviet-backed governments in Angola, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Nicaragua as well as in Ethiopia should be placed on the agenda at next month’s U.S.-Soviet summit in Geneva. He also pointed out that the governments in those embattled countries maintain their control with Soviet military assistance.

Wolde challenged Reagan’s statement. “The President’s allegation that there are 1,700 Soviet advisers and 2,500 Cuban combat troops is as baseless as it is vicious,” the letter said.

Number Secret

Asked how many Soviet advisers there actually are in Ethiopia, the foreign minister said “a few hundred” and added that the number of Cuban advisers is the same. None of the foreign advisers are combat troops.

Wolde, who studied at Yale Law School in the early 1970s, just before the Marxist revolution which deposed Emperor Haile Selassie, refused to say how much military aid his government receives. “That’s a state secret,” he declared.

But he cited projects ranging from a hydroelectric dam to technical schools which the Soviet Union had donated.

Wolde said he is “very thankful for the massive aid” sent by the United States in the past two years to alleviate the catastrophic famine in his country.

He said food production was on the rise, but “there will still be a shortfall this year.” “I do hope the American government and people will continue to send help,” he added.