Description: Transcript of a meeting between East German leader Erich Honecker and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, East Berlin (excerpts) regarding Castro’s visit to Somalia and Ethiopia, criticizing Siad Barre and discussing the need to help the revolution in Ethiopia

Tran­script of Meet­ing be­tween East Ger­man leader Erich Ho­necker and Cuban leader Fi­del Cas­tro, East Berlin,
3 April 1977 (ex­cerpts)

Min­utes of the con­ver­sa­tion be­tween Com­rade Erich Ho­necker and Com­rade Fi­del Cas­tro, Sun­day, 3 April 1977 be­tween 11:00 and 13:30 and 15:45 and 18:00, House of the Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, Berlin. Par­tic­i­pants: Com­rades Her­mann Axen, Werner Lam­berz, Paul Verner, Paul Markowski (with Com­rades Edgar Fries and Karl­heinz Mobus as in­ter­preters), Car­los Rafael Ro­driguez, Os­many Cien­fue­gos, Raul Valdez Vivo, Jose Abrantes Com­rade Erich Ho­necker warmly wel­comed Com­rade Fi­del Cas­tro and the Cuban Com­rades ac­com­pa­ny­ing him to this in­ter­nal con­ver­sa­tion on be­half of the Cen­tral Com­mit­tee.

We are very pleased about your visit to the GDR and the opportunity to exchange views about the result of your visit to several African and Arabian countries. On behalf of the Politburo I want to repeat that we consider your visit to these countries as important. I ask Comrade Fidel Castro to take the floor.

[first 16 pages omit­ted–ed.]

State­ments by Com­rade Fi­del Cas­tro: […] Be­fore my de­par­ture from Aden we dis­cussed with the PDRY lead­er­ship the need to do every­thing pos­si­ble to ar­rive at an un­der­stand­ing be­tween So­ma­lia and Ethiopia. I was well re­ceived in So­ma­lia. I had asked them not to have any pub­lic demon­stra­tions. Siad Barre was very friendly dur­ing our first din­ner. Prior to my ar­rival, I had re­ceived his re­ply to a let­ter of mine re­gard­ing the ques­tion of re­la­tions be­tween So­ma­lia and Ethiopia. I had also sent an en­voy to So­ma­lia for dis­cus­sions with Vice Pres­i­dent Saman­tar and In­te­rior Min­is­ter Suleiman. Saman­tar held to left­ist po­si­tions, while Suleiman was a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the right wing. The dis­cus­sion of our rep­re­sen­ta­tive with him was very se­vere.

I had al­ready re­ceived con­sid­er­able in­for­ma­tion in the PDRY re­gard­ing the sit­u­a­tion in So­ma­lia. The power and in­flu­ence of the right­ist group con­tinue to in­crease. The In­te­rior Min­is­ter, Suleiman, is do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to bring So­ma­lia closer to Saudi Ara­bia and the im­pe­ri­al­ist coun­tries. Saman­tar is los­ing in­flu­ence. Every­thing seems to in­di­cate that he is be­ing dri­ven into a cor­ner by the right.
My first evening I wanted to clar­ify my thoughts about Siad Barre and the So­mali rev­o­lu­tion. No se­ri­ous po­lit­i­cal dis­cus­sion took place at this din­ner; [Siad] Barre ex­plained to me the evo­lu­tion of the So­mali rev­o­lu­tion. The next day, we had an ex­ten­sive sight-see­ing pro­gram. We went to a Cuban-built mili­tia train­ing cen­ter, an agri­cul­tural school, a school for no­mad chil­dren, etc.

We were taken around for hours, al­though we had not yet had a po­lit­i­cal dis­cus­sion, and a mass demon­stra­tion had been sched­uled at noon in the sta­dium. I un­der­stood that they wanted to avoid such a con­ver­sa­tion prior to the demon­stra­tion. As the demon­stra­tion be­gan, Siad Barre and I had still not had a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion, and be­cause of this I was very care­ful. Siad Barre was very ar­ro­gant and se­vere; maybe he wanted to in­tim­i­date us.
In my speech to the mass meet­ing I talked about im­pe­ri­al­ist pol­icy in the Mid­dle East, the re­ac­tionary role of Saudi Ara­bia, and the ac­tions of other re­ac­tionary pow­ers. I did this even though I knew that there was a con­sid­er­able trend in the coun­try in fa­vor of closer re­la­tions with these coun­tries. I talked about the PLO’s strug­gle, the Ethiopian rev­o­lu­tion, and the Libyan rev­o­lu­tion, and of pro­gres­sive Al­ge­ria that they want to iso­late. I talked about Mozam­bique, and only at the end about how im­pe­ri­al­ism is do­ing every­thing to re­verse the pro­gres­sive or­der in So­ma­lia.

Siad Barre in­tro­duced me to par­tic­i­pants of the mass meet­ing with­out say­ing a po­lit­i­cal word. Be­fore the mass meet­ing they had played half of a soc­cer game. It is un­known whether the soc­cer game was sim­ply an ap­pendage to the demon­stra­tion or vice versa. My speech went against the right wing ten­den­cies and sup­ported the left wing. We ob­served that al­most all of the Cen­tral Com­mit­tee mem­bers ap­plauded, with the ex­cep­tion of Suleiman and his peo­ple. Saman­tar was very sat­is­fied, and even Siad Barre seemed con­tent. Nev­er­the­less, the mass meet­ing was not broad­cast live on ra­dio or TV.
Only that evening did we be­gin to dis­cuss spe­cific prob­lems, at my res­i­dence. It was clear to me that we had to be care­ful be­cause surely the in­te­rior min­is­ter had in­stalled bugs. This same evening Siad Barre fi­nally talked about Ethiopia. He com­pared it to the Tsarist Em­pire and said that Ethiopia was the only sur­viv­ing colo­nial power. Thanks to Lenin’s wis­dom, the Tsarist Em­pire had dis­ap­peared, but it lived on in Ethiopia. He had pro­posed to the Ethiopi­ans, some time ago, to es­tab­lish a fed­er­a­tion or even a uni­fi­ca­tion of the two coun­tries. Ethiopia had not re­acted then, but was now it­self propos­ing this so­lu­tion.

He spoke very en­thu­si­as­ti­cally about his ef­forts to reach a so­lu­tion with Ethiopia. I used the oc­ca­sion to tell Siad Barre that I would travel to Ethiopia the next day and asked him if he would be will­ing to meet with Mengistu. He agreed. The next day I flew on to Ethiopia. We had ear­lier agreed that there would be no great re­cep­tion for me, since at the time they were still fight­ing the civil war. Shots con­stantly rang out. Mengistu took me to the old Im­pe­r­ial Palace and the ne­go­ti­a­tions be­gan on the spot. I found the in­for­ma­tion that I al­ready had to be con­firmed. We con­tin­ued our ne­go­ti­a­tions on the fol­low­ing day.

Nat­u­rally we had to take ex­ten­sive se­cu­rity pre­cau­tions. The Ethiopi­ans had come up with a di­vi­sion, and I had brought a com­pany of Cuban sol­diers with me. The day of my ar­rival there were ru­mors of a coup. It did not hap­pen.
I de­vel­oped the im­pres­sion that there was a real rev­o­lu­tion tak­ing place in Ethiopia. In this for­mer feu­dal em­pire, lands were be­ing dis­trib­uted to the peas­ants. Each farmer got 10 hectares. There were also re­forms in the cities. It was es­tab­lished that each cit­i­zen could only own one house. Plots were made avail­able for hous­ing con­struc­tion.
There is also a strong mass move­ment.

In the cap­i­tal, 500,000 peo­ple can be rapidly mo­bi­lized. In Feb­ru­ary, our study del­e­ga­tion, af­ter in­spect­ing the army di­vi­sions, had de­ter­mined that of the hun­dreds of gen­er­als, all but two should be chased out. The of­fi­cers and NCOs have taken over the lead­er­ship of the coun­try. Cur­rently, the lead­er­ship is con­sid­er­ing cre­at­ing a Party. There is a harsh class strug­gle against the feu­dal­ists in the coun­try. The pe­tit bour­geois pow­ers are mo­bi­liz­ing against the Rev­o­lu­tion. A strong sep­a­ratist move­ment ex­ists in Er­itrea. Threats are com­ing from the Su­dan, while So­ma­lia claims 50% of Ethiopi­a’s ter­ri­tory.

There have been bor­der clashes in this area for 500 years. Mengistu strikes me as a quiet, se­ri­ous, and sin­cere leader who is aware of the power of the masses. He is an in­tel­lec­tual per­son­al­ity who showed his wis­dom on 3 Feb­ru­ary. The right­ists wanted to do away with the left­ists on 3 Feb­ru­ary. The pre­lude to this was an ex­u­ber­ant speech by the Ethiopian pres­i­dent in fa­vor of na­tion­al­ism. Mengistu pre­empted this coup. He called the meet­ing of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary Coun­cil one hour early and had the right­ist lead­ers ar­rested and shot. A very con­se­quen­tial de­ci­sion was taken on 3 Feb­ru­ary in Ethiopia.

The po­lit­i­cal land­scape of the coun­try changed, which has en­abled them to take steps that were im­pos­si­ble be­fore then. Be­fore it was only pos­si­ble to sup­port the left­ist forces in­di­rectly, now we can do so with­out any con­straints.
I asked Mengistu whether he was will­ing to meet with Siad Barre in Aden. We agreed. Af­ter con­clud­ing my talks I flew on to Aden. Siad Barre had ar­rived in Aden that morn­ing. Mengistu did not ar­rive un­til the af­ter­noon. I had a con­ver­sa­tion with Siad Barre in which he bared his claws. He told me that if Mengistu was a real rev­o­lu­tion­ary he should do as Lenin, and with­draw from his ter­ri­tory.

Siad Barre took a very hard po­si­tion. I asked him whether he felt that there had been no real rev­o­lu­tion in Ethiopia and that Mengistu was not a real left­ist leader. He told me that there had been no rev­o­lu­tion in Ethiopia. While in Mo­gadishu he had shown me a map of Greater So­ma­lia in which half of Ethiopia had been an­nexed. Af­ter my talk with Siad Barre, I told Mengistu about Bar­re’s at­ti­tude, and asked him to re­main calm. I al­ready felt bad about hav­ing in­vited Mengistu to Aden while there was still a pow­der keg sit­u­a­tion back in his coun­try and that in such a tense sit­u­a­tion he was to hear out the So­ma­l­is’ ter­ri­to­r­ial de­mands.
With re­gards to my ques­tion about the sit­u­a­tion of the Ethiopian army, Mengistu said that there were still dif­fi­cul­ties but that he did­n’t think that there was an acute dan­ger of a coup. When the meet­ing started, Siad Barre im­me­di­ately be­gan speak­ing. Siad Barre is a gen­eral who was ed­u­cated un­der colo­nial­ism. The rev­o­lu­tion in So­ma­lia is led by gen­er­als who all be­came pow­er­ful un­der colo­nial times. I have made up my mind about Siad Barre, he is above all a chau­vin­ist. Chau­vin­ism is the most im­por­tant fac­tor in him. So­cial­ism is just an outer shell that is sup­posed to make him more at­trac­tive. He has re­ceived weapons from the so­cial­ist coun­tries and his so­cial­ist doc­trine is [only] for the masses. The Party is there only to sup­port his per­sonal power.
In his case there is a bizarre sym­bio­sis of rule by mil­i­tary men who went through the school of colo­nial­ism and so­cial ap­pear­ances. Some­thing about so­cial­ism ap­peals to him, but over­all there is still a lot of in­equal­ity and un­fair­ness in the coun­try. His prin­ci­pal ideas are na­tion­al­ism and chau­vin­ism, not so­cial­ism. His goal is old fash­ioned pol­i­tics: sweet, friendly words. Siad Barre speaks like a wise man; only he speaks. He is dif­fer­ent from the many po­lit­i­cal lead­ers that I know. [Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent An­war] Sa­dat, [Al­ger­ian Pres­i­dent Houari] Boume­di­enne, [Mozam­bique Pres­i­dent Samora] Machel, [An­golan Pres­i­dent Agostinho] Neto and many oth­ers are strong char­ac­ters. They can also lis­ten and do not take a dog­matic at­ti­tude.

One can speak with them. Siad Barre re­ally thinks that he is at the sum­mit of wis­dom. Un­til now every­thing has gone smoothly for him. The Ital­ians and the British made him a gen­eral. The rev­o­lu­tion was ac­com­plished in a minute, with hardly a shot fired. He put on a so­cial­ist face and got eco­nomic aid and weapons from the So­viet Union. His coun­try is im­por­tant strate­gi­cally, and he likes pres­tige. Barre is very con­vinced of him­self. His so­cial­ist rhetoric is un­bear­able. He is the great­est so­cial­ist; he can­not say ten words with­out men­tion­ing so­cial­ism.
With this tone he be­gan to speak in the meet­ing with Mengistu. He be­gan giv­ing a lec­ture on Ethiopia and de­manded from Mengistu to do as Lenin had done: do away with the Ethiopian Em­pire. Mengistu re­mained quiet; he said that Ethiopia was ready and will­ing to find a so­lu­tion and that there needed to be the first con­crete steps on both sides to achieve a rap­proche­ment.
Siad Barre the­atri­cally re­sponded that he was dis­ap­pointed with Mengistu and that he dis­played the same at­ti­tude as the Ethiopian Em­peror. The Ethiopian rev­o­lu­tion­ary lead­er­ship had the same men­tal­ity as Haile Se­lassie. The meet­ing had be­gun at 11 PM and a so­lu­tion was not in sight. [Cuban Vice Pres­i­dent] Car­los Rafael Ro­driguez then pro­posed the es­tab­lish­ment of a stand­ing com­mis­sion with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Ethiopia, So­ma­lia and the PDRY to find ways to a so­lu­tion. All the other par­tic­i­pants drafted us against our will into this com­mis­sion.
Siad Barre car­ried on with his great wise man act, as the great So­cial­ist, the great Marx­ist. At the same time he spoke dem­a­gog­i­cally as only one mem­ber of the “col­lec­tive lead­er­ship” with a man­date from the Polit­buro and the need to con­sult with them on all mat­ters. Af­ter a brief re­cess for con­sul­ta­tions with his del­e­ga­tion he pro­posed di­rect talks be­tween Mengistu and him­self.
Mengistu, who had al­ready be­come more in­sulted and mis­trust­ful dur­ing Siad Bar­re’s pre­vi­ous state­ments, said that he was will­ing to do so, but not at this time. First the ques­tion of the com­mis­sion had to be re­solved. We con­tin­ued the meet­ing at 3.15 in the morn­ing. Siad Barre had pre­pared the text of an agree­ment in which the idea of the com­mis­sion was ac­cepted but which di­rected that its main pur­pose should be to solve the out­stand­ing ter­ri­to­r­ial ques­tions be­tween So­ma­lia and Ethiopia.

The com­mis­sion would thus take this ap­proach from the start. How were the Ethiopi­ans sup­posed to re­act to such a provoca­tive pro­posal? Dur­ing the break I had spo­ken with Mengistu, who did not hide his re­jec­tion of Siad Barre. I also spoke with Siad Barre and asked him whether he was re­ally in­ter­ested in find­ing a so­lu­tion. He said that Mengistu would have to an­swer that. He went on with his rev­o­lu­tion­ary rhetoric, about how real so­cial­ists, rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies, and Marx­ists could not deny re­al­i­ties.

He said that Mengistu was in fact a dras­tic man, one who has taken dras­tic mea­sures: why could he not de­cide sim­i­larly dras­ti­cally right here and now to re­solve the ques­tion? In this set­ting I was faced with the com­pli­cated ques­tion of ei­ther speak­ing my mind about Siad Bar­re’s po­si­tion or keep­ing it to my­self. I con­cluded that I had to speak out for the fol­low­ing rea­sons:

1. Keep­ing quiet would have meant en­dors­ing the chau­vin­is­tic pol­icy of So­ma­lia, and its con­se­quences. It would also have meant sup­port­ing the right­ists in So­ma­lia.
2. Not re­spond­ing to Siad Barre would mean that any sub­se­quent aid from so­cial­ist coun­tries to Ethiopia, no mat­ter how small, would be termed by Siad Barre as a be­trayal.
3. In what kind of a sit­u­a­tion would this put the PDRY, about to sup­port Ethiopia with tanks, trucks and ar­tillery with the help of a So­viet ship?

In ad­di­tion, Siad Barre had not only been in­sult­ing, he was re­sort­ing to sub­tle threats. At a cer­tain point he said that one could not know where all of this could lead. Be­cause of this, I spoke up. I ex­plained that Siad Barre did not be­lieve that there had been a real rev­o­lu­tion in Ethiopia, that the events of 3 Feb­ru­ary had to­tally an­swered this ques­tion and that Mengistu was a rev­o­lu­tion­ary leader.

I went on to say that we con­sid­ered the events in Ethiopia as a rev­o­lu­tion, that the events of 3 Feb­ru­ary were a turn­ing point, and that Mengistu is the leader of a pro­found trans­for­ma­tion. I de­clared that we could not pos­si­bly agree with Siad Bar­re’s po­si­tion. I said that Siad Bar­re’s po­si­tion rep­re­sented a dan­ger to the rev­o­lu­tion in So­ma­lia, en­dan­gered the rev­o­lu­tion in Ethiopia, and that as a re­sult there was a dan­ger of iso­lat­ing the PDRY.

In par­tic­u­lar I em­pha­sized that Siad Bar­re’s poli­cies were aid­ing the right wing in So­ma­lia it­self in its ef­forts against so­cial­ism, and to de­liver So­ma­lia into the arms of Saudi Ara­bia and Im­pe­ri­al­ism. I said that these poli­cies were weak­en­ing So­ma­li­a’s re­la­tions with the so­cial­ist coun­tries and would have to lead to the col­lapse of the rev­o­lu­tion in So­ma­lia.

I ap­pealed to Siad Bar­re’s and the en­tire So­mali lead­er­ship’s sense of his­tor­i­cal re­spon­si­bil­ity. I said that I did not think that this would come to a war be­tween So­ma­lia and Ethiopia but that I was wor­ried, since war would be a very se­ri­ous thing. I do not be­lieve that there are peo­ple who would pro­voke a war be­tween the peo­ples.
Im­me­di­ately af­ter my speak­ing so frankly, Siad Barre took the floor. He said that he would never want war and that as a so­cial­ist and rev­o­lu­tion­ary he would never take this path. If the so­cial­ist camp wanted to cut it­self off from So­ma­lia then that was the af­fair of the so­cial­ist camp. I had put pres­sure on him, Siad Barre, but not de­manded from Mengistu, to come to this meet­ing.
Now, I pointed out that I had sup­ported the sum­mit be­tween Siad Barre and Mengistu but did not talk about Siad Bar­re’s in­sults vis-a-vis Mengistu. I said that Cuba had no in­ten­tion of cut­ting it­self off from the So­mali Rev­o­lu­tion, rather, we sup­ported it. The whole meet­ing ended with­out any re­sults.
If we now give our aid to Ethiopia, Siad Barre will have no moral right to ac­cuse us of be­trayal, etc. I told him very clearly that there was a rev­o­lu­tion in Ethiopia and that we had to help it. In any case I had de­tected dur­ing my meet­ings with Siad Barre a cer­tain ir­ri­ta­tion on his part with the So­viet Union. He was ag­i­tated that the So­viet Union was not de­liv­er­ing spare parts or trac­tors and that oil came too late from the So­viet Union, in spite of re­peated promises. The So­viet am­bas­sador has ex­plained the state of af­fairs to us. The So­ma­lis were re­peat­edly chang­ing their minds about their re­quests, which had de­layed the mat­ter. In ad­di­tion, un­for­tu­nately the So­viet oil tanker had sunk on its way to So­ma­lia.
As I told Siad Barre this, he called the So­vi­ets liars. He said this was not the po­si­tion of the So­viet polit­buro, but rather the re­sult of sab­o­tage by bu­reau­crats. His ir­ri­ta­tion and crit­i­cism of the So­viet Union also showed in other cases. He went on to say that there was not enough drink­able wa­ter in his coun­try and that cat­tle were dy­ing, the ba­nanas were ripen­ing too late, all be­cause the pumps pro­vided by the So­vi­ets did not work.
Be­cause of this at­ti­tude of Siad Barre I see a great dan­ger. That is why I con­sid­ered it ap­pro­pri­ate to give you my im­pres­sions truth­fully, with­out eu­phemisms.
I wanted to dis­cuss my point of view frankly. The so­cial­ist coun­tries are faced with a prob­lem. If they help Ethiopia, they will lose Siad Bar­re’s friend­ship. If they do not, the Ethiopian Rev­o­lu­tion will founder. That was the most im­por­tant thing about these mat­ters.

[com­ments on south­ern Africa, omit­ted here, are printed ear­lier in this Bul­letin–ed.]
There were sev­eral re­quests for mil­i­tary aid from var­i­ous sides: [Libyan Leader Moam­mar] Qadaffi, Mengistu, and the Con­golese lead­ers. Dur­ing our stay in Africa we sent [Cuban Vice Pres­i­dent] Car­los Rafael Ro­driguez to Moscow to con­fer with our So­viet com­rades and to Ha­vana for con­sul­ta­tions with our lead­er­ship. In or­der to find the best so­lu­tion we must think through this ques­tion calmly and thor­oughly and con­sider it in terms of the over­all sit­u­a­tion of the so­cial­ist camp. Above all we must do some­thing for Mengistu.

Al­ready we are col­lect­ing old weapons in Cuba for Ethiopia, prin­ci­pally French, Bel­gian and Czech hand-held weapons. About 45,000 men must be sup­plied with weapons. We are go­ing to send mil­i­tary ad­vis­ers to train the Ethiopian mili­tia in weapons-use. There are many peo­ple in Ethiopia who are qual­i­fied for the army. We are sup­port­ing the train­ing of the mili­tia. Mean­while the sit­u­a­tion in Er­itrea is dif­fi­cult. There are also pro­gres­sive peo­ple in the lib­er­a­tion move­ment, but, ob­jec­tively, they are play­ing a re­ac­tionary role. The Er­itrean sep­a­ratist move­ment is be­ing sup­ported by the Su­dan, Saudi Ara­bia, and Egypt. Ethiopia has good sol­diers and a good mil­i­tary tra­di­tion, but they need time to or­ga­nize their army.

Mengistu asked us for 100 train­ers for the mili­tia, now he is also ask­ing us for mil­i­tary ad­vis­ers to build up reg­u­lar units. Our mil­i­tary ad­vi­sory group is ac­tive at the staff level. The Ethiopi­ans have eco­nomic means and the per­son­nel nec­es­sary to build up their army. Ru­mors have been spread lately that the re­ac­tionar­ies will con­quer As­mara in two months. The rev­o­lu­tion in Ethiopia is of great sig­nif­i­cance. With re­gard to mil­i­tary aid for the PR Congo and the Libyans we have not yet come to a de­ci­sion.
I had con­sul­ta­tions with Boume­di­enne in Al­ge­ria and asked for his opin­ion. He as­sured me that Al­ge­ria would never aban­don Libya. Al­ge­ria is very con­cerned with the sit­u­a­tion in the Mediter­ranean be­cause of its se­cu­rity in­ter­ests. It is in fa­vor of sup­port­ing Libya, as long as mil­i­tary aid is con­fined to the so­cial­ist camp. That is not only a ques­tion be­tween Cuba and Al­ge­ria. If we suc­ceed in strength­en­ing the rev­o­lu­tion in Libya, Ethiopia, Mozam­bique, the PDRY, and An­gola, we have an in­te­grated strat­egy for the whole African con­ti­nent.
Al­ge­ria would move closer to the so­cial­ist camp.

It bought 1.5 bil­lion rubles of weapons from the So­vi­ets. Boume­di­enne thinks that Sa­dat is to­tally lost to us. In Syria there is also no left­ist move­ment any more, ei­ther, es­pe­cially af­ter the Syr­i­ans de­feated the pro­gres­sive pow­ers and the PLO in Lebanon.
[In­dian Pres­i­dent] In­dira Gandhi gam­bled away the elec­tions. In Africa, how­ever, we can in­flict a se­vere de­feat on the en­tire re­ac­tionary im­pe­ri­al­ist pol­icy. One can free Africa from the in­flu­ence of the USA and of the Chi­nese. The de­vel­op­ments in Zaire are also very im­por­tant. Libya and Al­ge­ria have large na­tional re­sources, Ethiopia has great rev­o­lu­tion­ary po­ten­tial. So there is a great coun­ter­weight to Egyp­t’s be­trayal. It might even be pos­si­ble that Sa­dat could be turned around and that the im­pe­ri­al­ist in­flu­ence in the Mid­dle East can be turned back.
This must all be dis­cussed with the So­viet Union. We fol­low its poli­cies and its ex­am­ple. We es­ti­mate that Libya’s re­quest is an ex­pres­sion of trust. One should not re­ject their re­quest. Cuba alone can­not help it.

[re­main­der of con­ver­sa­tion omit­ted–ed.]
[Source: Stiftung “Archiv der Parteien und Massenor­gan­i­sa­tio­nen der ehe­ma­li­gen DDR im Bun­de­sarchiv” (Berlin), DY30 JIV 2/​201/​1292; doc­u­ment ob­tained by Chris­t­ian F. Os­ter­mann and trans­lated by David Welch with re­vi­sions by Os­ter­mann.]

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