COMMEMORATING FENKEL OPERATION
February 10, 1990
The Antithesis of Warsaw Pact Military Plan of Blitzkrieg, Encirclement & Mop up
Operations of 3 Months Extended to 144 Months
By BrunoFebruary 10, 2022

1INTRODUCTION“Fenkel” is a word in the Tigrigna language used to describe theprocess of pulling something, especially a big stone out of theground.
Having amassed over 250,000 newly armed troops, which
included highly equipped mechanized, naval and air force powermachines on the main Entry Ports of Eritrea i.e., Asmara,Massawa, Assab, Omhajer, Mereb, Tserona, Zalembessa, andthe Red Sea Island of Dahlak, the Warsaw Pact military strategy
was unleashed primarily focused on securing an importantstrategic military location and economic sphere of influence inthe Horn of Africa in 1978.
The military campaign was composed of a carefully built in
military roll-out plan laid out to be put in action on the ground witha strategic objective to destroy Eritrean Peoples Liberation Army
(EPLA) in a period of three months composed of 1) blitzkrieg
attacks, 2) encirclement, and 3) to carry out a mop up operations
on the resultant of the to be dispersed remaining forces.
EPLA was in full control of Eritrea except part of the Port of
Massawa and the capital Asmara which remained in the handsof the enemy and were heavily contested at this particular period.
This military campaign was launched in Ethiopia with a lot ofleftist rhetoric, propaganda and military parades of showing ofmilitary might based on a self-centered economic and security
interest of the Warsaw Pact. This security interest and plan
overrode all other concerns of the independence andsovereignty rights the people of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, andother countries in the region.

2BACKGROUND
Early 1972 a new Warsaw Pact political formula was plannedand planted for the Horn of Africa. Colonel Mengistu
Hailemariam who took over as chairman in 1975, was an officer
who was craftly used as trojan horse when Ethiopian politicallandscape was manicured by Dr. Senay Likke who worked
closely in alliance with the military elites of that period to organizea military coup against the Imperial rule of Haile Selassie. Dr.
Senay worked on this project closely in all his capacity inEthiopia since 1972. A key figure who believed and promoted
what was then called a non-capitalist road of development withclear option of military takeover to bring about socialist reforms
in the feudal Ethiopia and the region. A concept idea that wasthen widely prescribed by the Warsaw Camp to all developing
countries not only Ethiopia.
West leaning chairman of the Ethiopian Military Government,
General Aman Andom was brutally killed for pressing a political3

solution to the Eritrean question in November 1974. Similar
attempts made by Brigadier General Tafari Benti, GeneralGetachew Nadew, Major Sissay Habte and many others that
followed their footsteps were also brutally quashed in 1975 and1976.
The dominant Workers Party of Ethiopia, other less powerfulfactional groups surfaced and an Institute for the Study ofEthiopian Nationalities was established lead by Dr. Ashagre
Yigletu, an Ethiopian educated in Belgrade Yugoslavia andEmanuel Ghebreyesus an Ethiopian with Eritrean origin who
belonged to the radical group of the University of Addis Ababa inthe 60th. Regional autonomy was flouted as a political option andas a solution to the Eritrean question through these kind of
premediated preparations made on the ground in this period.
The principal architect and ideologue of the Military Governmentof Ethiopia since 1972 and the founder of the 40,000 manned
peasant army named “Raza Project”, Dr. Senay Likke was killed
in a palace squabble and rebellion on February 1977. In
response to it, Red Terror was declared officially by theChairman of the Military Government of Ethiopia Colonel
Mengistu Hailemariam as the order of the day in Ethiopia andEritrea. Subsequently, thousands of peace-loving youths weremurdered in cold blood all over Eritrea and Ethiopia. Mengistu
became the saint and the youth of Eritrea and Ethiopia becamethe sinners.
Though EPLA took the initiative and quashed the abovementioned “Raza Project”, Megistu and his main culprits like Dr.
Senay Likke and Dr. Negede Gobeze who were then in active
power continued to rally the famine ridden population of Ethiopia
on the side of the Warsaw pact war campaign by labeling Eritrea
and Ethiopian oppositions as an instrument of imperialism andArab petro-dollar.

4RAPID DEPLOYMENT OF FORCES
From 1941 to 1974 the epicenter of past military campaigns was
the Imperial Government of Ethiopia which was heavily
dependent on NATO military and diplomatic assistance in which
US, Britain, France, Israel and Italy were key. But the shift ofalliance made in 1977 from White House to Kremlin by theMilitary Government of Ethiopia to equip its armed forces with a
new weaponry, know how and technology necessitated fast
deployment programs which was readily committed by theWarsaw Pact nations.
Meantime and in the interim i.e. 1977, while this was in process
Yugoslavia, Turkey, USSR, Cuba, South Yemen, East Germany
and North Korea army filled in the vacuum fast and with ease.
Building up the act of rapid deployment of forces became theorder of the day. The Communist and Socialist parties in Italy
and France also played a significant role during this period as
facilitators and creating the necessary tie-ups. Hence, rapid
deployment of forces from the Middle East, the Caribbean andEastern Europe to East Africa, were put in action successfully,
in few weeks and months, in a scale never seen before in thehistory of Africa.
Many Ethiopian army members and newly recruited personnel
were adispatched, to different fields, both inside and outside thecountry, for various intensive indoctrinations and military training
programs. Poor farmers of Ethiopia were also recruited to thearmy in great numbers under a slogan “Everything to the WarFront”. The famine that prevailed in Ethiopia was extensivelyexploited for military ends.
NO STONE WAS LEFT UNTURNED
East German administration systems of control, locally named
as “Kebele”s, were widely introduced to control the population of5the Horn of Africa and established in remote localities, villages,towns and big cities. The sudden introduction of this systemicindulgences, particularly on the societies of Eritrea and Ethiopia,
had a seismic effect on the weak socioeconomic situation of theregion that was prevailing as a whole.
Warsaw Pact multipronged diplomatic initiatives loaded with asophisticated game play for the containment of the Eritrean
People’s Liberation Army (EPLA) were also unleashed in Berlin,
Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Aden and various capitals ofEurope openly in 1978.
Intelligence works, covert and overt became rampant, all overthe landscape of the political activities of the Horn of Africa. It
was applied with professional skills and was persistently applied
for old cracks to widen and new ones to appear within theEritrean and Ethiopia resistance movements.
Interplay with Eritrean contemporary political figures of that time
were also intensified all over. Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) wascoaxed into a submission through meetings held in Baku City(USSR), Damascus (Syria) and Khartoum (Sudan) and otherplaces in this process. All inhouse efforts and attempts that weremade to bring together the EPLA and ELF forces into a united
front to jointly face the imminent danger were successfully
frustrated through these kinds of heinous activities.
Geopolitics in its crude form started the process of fermenting
religious and ethnic faults of the Horn of Africa, including but not
excluding in Eritrea, by bringing forward a new political gameplay based on “self rule” or what was called then as “regionalautonomy”.
The old colonial divide and rule game, used in the Horn of Africa
in the past, was craftily put in a new bottle with a new label ofsocial justice for people. The number of politicians in the region
who fell in love with this new formula of political solution were not6

few. In Eritrea, when the number of the faction leaders increasedin number, the Military Government of Ethiopia encouraged by
the outcomes, further down graded this political solution option
into “Kolama” (lowlander) and “Degama” (highlander). Various
meetings that were held during this historical period by different
stake holders in the Horn of Africa, Nile Basin and the Middle
East region on the question of Eritrea, including Palestinian andSyrian leadership, were visible facilitating activities that lead
towards these kind of outcomes too.
Though Erich Honecker of East Germany (Berlin) and Leonid
Brezhnev of USSR (Moscow) in the series of meetings whichwere held with political leaders of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia,
in the late 1977 and early 1978, failed to achieve their immediateneed and requirements for a political capitulation of Eritrea andSomalia, but that doesn’t mean, taking all considerations, its
impact on the political landscape of Eritrea was by no means
negligible. By proxy, fifth column activities in the war zones wereenhanced which subsequently led into the fatal and suicidal
demise of the Eritrean Liberation Front in 1980.
Ethiopian journalist Bealu Girma has attempted to capture in his
book Oromay ("No Return") this phenomenal drama of history
that unfolded. It would be a disservice to leave the reader with apicture of this period without mentioning his skillful eye witnessreportage done from a knowledge and observation at a close
range.
October 22, 1978 the Central Committee of EPLF decided on anew strategy to face this military onslaught on its terms, priorities
and local given realities. After deliberating and assessing
carefully all the options availed to EPLA, it was decided in thishistorical meeting to face the unfolding Warsaw war strategy,
mentioned-above, on a selected mountain chains called theNubian Shield or popularly called by the freedom fighters ofEritrea as Sahel mountains. The leadership also approved aroad map for a new military, security, diplomatic, political,7

economic, social setup and preparedness to face the imminent
challenges. Given the political, diplomatic and social local
realities, it allocated its human resources capacity to face theWarsaw war campaign accordingly.
Though this historic move was taken based on a very pragmatic
assessment of the prevailing diplomatic and military build up thatsurrounded Eritrea during this historical juncture, the Warsaw
Pact generals were taken by surprise by the EPLA military preemptive and strategic moves. But unfortunately, it was only aftera total catastrophic failure of more than seven waves of major
military attempts and offensives they made that these generals
to see reality they conducted in the course of ten years. Morethan 223,870 Ethiopian soldiers were put out of action by EPLA
in these engagements which included seven blizkierk attacks,
which resulted in a zero military objectives, which were carriedout seven times from different fronts and major scale until 1983.
EPLA not only did it successfully defeated the enemy on its own
chosen strategic options, it utilized prudently the weaponry andmilitary resources that were usefully disarmed, captured, andskillfully refurbished during the process too. “Face the enemy
with his own gun and bullets” was the cardinal motto of EPLA in
all the battles waged.
In 1983 that the Military Government of Ethiopia invited EPLF tosecret meetings that were led by Security Chief Colonel Tesefai
Weldeselassie. His team consisted of Dr. Alemu Abebe, Dr.
Shiwandagn Belete, Dr. Ashagre Yigletu, accompanied by theirbureaucrats and security staff. The signs for the crumble of themilitary regime were obvious and all over during the course ofthese meetings. Delegation members were at logger head many times
depending on to which faction or party group they belonged. TheAttempt of President Ali Nasir Muhammad of South Yemen andNorth Korea last attempts to save the regime was the lastmanifestations observed during these meetings. President Ali
Nasser worries on ensuing power struggle then in South Yemen,
Eritrea’s perspectives of South Yemen internal politics and8

regional peace were very obvious among regional concerns
observed too. South Yemen and North Korea Army was a majorarmy, mechanized, navy and air force contributor in the Warsaw
Campaign against EPLA too. Though Coup attempt against
Mengistu failed during this period of the war fissures in theinternal system of the Military Government of Ethiopia were vividand rampant.

FENKEL OPERATION
Continuous open democratic dialogue of the rank and file undera tree which predates the long history of the people of Eritrea,
efficient communication, logistics and mobility were key to thesuccessful mobility of EPLA without which the number equation
with the Warsaw Pact forces would have remained an impossible
riddle to tackle. Bringing the operation room and the paramedics
close to the battle fronts was an achieved successful task though
preparation for the threat of the use of chemical weapon
remained another daunting challenge to EPLA.
Using the needle with the same care as a cannon, the knife as ahoe, a flat stone as an oven, a bunker as a home, humbly asking
the lizard and snakes to go somewhere for a human body to takerest, wearing hand remade tight pants, to keep the leg frommaking noise to unnecessarily warn the enemy during the busy
nights, shaped the indomitable brotherhood and high spirit of
the freedom fighters.
During those days, it was not uncommon to hear Bob Marley’sand Tsehaytu Beraki’s music playing in harmony with echoes
reverberating on the trenched spreading on the high mountain
ranges and deep valleys which were inhabited against all odds
by the freedom loving generation of Eritrea.

9On August 1988, after ten years of a heroic and protracted
defensive war of wear and tear which was carried out in theranges and valleys of the Sahel mountains and its environs,
EPLA made a decisive strategic offensive to occupy a major front
surrounding the town of Afabet. Proper preparations that were
carefully made ahead of the offensive greatly contributed to thesuccess of this historic battle. Afabet is a strategic town, which
hosted the masterminds of the war, i.e., Warsaw Pact and their
allies’ command station for ten years. A town located south ofthe mountains of Sahel, which serves as a trade corridor to andfrom the agricultural and resource-rich west and the eastern
coastal lowlands of Eritrea.

10Wuchu, a veteran army commander in the EPLA, introduced thestart-up of the offensive to the rank and file of his division by
naming this battle as an “open-end invitation to a funeral”. BasilDavidson, British historian who witnessed the battle, also named
it “Second Diem Bien Phu”. Both agreed in their statements andassessments that the success of this historic initiative shallchange, once and for all, the gravity of the military landscape inthe Horn of Africa.

This battle heralded and opened a new momentum and valuable
opportunity, for EPLA, to use its seasoned, infantry, mechanized,
naval forces coordinated firepower and the long experience andrich experiences that were accumulated during the long years ofwar. All the lessons accumulated in the past, including but not
excluding the outstretched elite commando forces capability
outside the perimeter of these battle events, were effectively andinnovatively used as an instrument to win this historic battle
decisively.

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The offensive was unanimously welcomed and supported by thelocal population in Eritrea and abroad. Local Ethiopian army,
navy and air force mutinied but were unfortunately crushed
mercilessly in the war fronts and cities.
In 1989, EPLA engaged the remaining heavily armed enemy. It
continuously stretched itself on the coastal lowlands - toeffectively and fully control the Red Sea coast and adjacentIslands. The life-line to the USSR backed Ethiopian army,
Massawa – Asmara – Addis Abeba road corridor, fell into thehands of EPLA. All attempts to recover this post by the enemy
forces were once and all frustrated and crushed.
In 1990, all concentric defensive lines of the enemy, armed tothe teeth, stretching for about 70 to 80 kms, guarding the Port ofMassawa and the strategic USSR submarine nuclear post in theIsland of Dahlak (Nakura) from land, sea and air, were also again
painted with pictures of heroism. Port of Massawa was freed.

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Fenkel Operation and its vibration engulfed East Africa. It
induced White House and Kremlin hotlines to go operational.
Diplomatic pressures of superpowers got intensified. Scudmissiles rained in the freed Massawa Port and its environs but
this time fired only from a distant USSR war ships which wereanchored faraway on the Red Sea, for days. EPLA which wascomposed of men and women fighters stood stead-fast andmade Massawa (“Pearl of the Red Sea”) - the epicenter offreedom. 30% of the fighting force were women.
A new phenomenon started coming to the surface of the region’s
politics during this momentous period. Contra experiences withold sleepers and new operatives came out to the surface of theproxy geo-politics of the Horn of Africa. TPLF and Ethiopian
former elite soldiers trained in US started to gather momentumof relevance to fill in the power vacuum created as a result.
Powerbrokers in line with this new diplomacy were intensified in
the region.US invites EPLF to a series of open peace talk with
the Military Government of Ethiopia. Sudan and other regional
security players also came on board.
All attempts to bring together to the same platform, i.e., EPRP,OLF and other opposition movements were frustrated by TPLF
strategic priorities. To close the chapter of dialogue which wasessential to regional peace, TPLF killed EPRP leader Tsegaye
Gebremedhin and his close colleagues in Mekele 1989.
Regeneration of resistance in Ethiopia and Addis Abeba
prevailed though it was for a short period of time. The need forthe fighting to be concluded in landmass of Ethiopia becameobvious.
With this as an objective the long march of EPLA flanking fromthe north, covering a distance of about 1200 kms from the Portof Massawa, started homing to the main command headquartersof the enemy both in Assab (Eritrea southern port city), Addis
Abeba (Capital of Ethiopia) and from the west another distance13

of about 1500kms from the Port of Massawa homing to theheadquarter of Debrezeit (Main Air force of Ethiopia).

EPLA took the entire East Africa in its canvas and painted apicture of heroism, putting another milestone of solidarity andcooperation in history between the brotherly people of the region.
In 1993, the guns of terrorism were silenced in East Africa by“Operation Fenkel”. The people of Eritrea and Ethiopia werefreed at last.
It would be misleading to leave the reader with history ofoptimism and a picture of enthusiasm of this period. Eritrea haslearned its lesson through an arduous and difficult road ofresistance against injustices which left the country in wanton
distractions, forced immigration, poverty, underdevelopment anda painful mark of more than 60,000 of heroes and heroines who
gave up their precious lives and thousands who were madephysical and mental invalids in defense of Eritrea - in this savage
war - never seen or experienced in the history of the African
continent before.
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Operation Fenkel was a dedicated continued wave ofcompassion and demonstration for truth by people which
included visionaries of every race, sex and creed and is currently
commemorated with great honor every year, on February 10, in
the Port of Massawa Eritrea, the Pearl of the Red Sea.
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