Behind the Headlines Soviet Anger with Sadat Increases

Soviet anger with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat rose to a new climax of frenzy this week with the visit to China. Moscow’s arch-enemy, of Egyptian Vice-President, Husni Mubarak.

In Moscow’s book, Egypt had committed the most heinous of all sin–it was guilty of “anti-Sovietism.” It was no accident, therefore, that Peking’s warm welcome for the Egyptian visitor should have coincided with the strongest attacks on the Cairo regime since Sadat abrogated the Soviet-Egyptian friendship and cooperation treaty on March 14.

In the immediate aftermath of Sadat’s action, Soviet propagandists contented themselves largely with quoting Arab and other foreign press reports as evidence of the alleged mistake that Sadat was making, That stage has now ended, however, and Soviet officials and writers are now launching their own verbal missiles against him.

The explanations given in the domestic Soviet media partly stem from the need to enlighten Soviet public opinion about this drastic about face by a country for so long the principal beneficiary of Soviet economic and military aid.

Hence the long interview given to radio listeners inside Moscow on April 9 by Vsevolod Sofinsky, head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s press departments. Branding Sadat a traitor to the Socialist and Palestine Arab cause, Sofinsky said that Saudi Arabia had promised to pay Sadat for tearing up the treaty with the Soviet Union.

A MORE SINISTER NOTE SOUNDED

A more sinister note is the frequent claim of unrest inside Egypt itself. A report broadcast in Arabic on April 12 spoke of extensive purges of senior officers in the Egyptian army on the direct orders of President Sadat. Court martials had been formed to end the growing resistance movement in the army, the Soviet broadcast stated.

An earlier Moscow report on March 30 claimed that 17,000 people had been involved in protests in the Nile delta region against soaring prices and unemployment. The disturbances turned into clashes with the police who had used tear gas to break them up.

The Russians are also continuing to wage their polemical battle over Egypt’s new foreign policy. Thus, throughout President Sadat’s tour of Western Europe, Moscow was telling the Arabs that he would return “empty handed” and that his attempt to find alternatives to Soviet economic and military aid was bound to end in failure.

In particular, the Russians were out to scotch Sadat’s claim that they had imposed an embargo on arms supplies to Egypt, a claim which he publicly cited as the reason for dispatching the delegation to Peking. The Soviet army newspaper “Red Star,” quoted by Tass on April 10, termed Sadat’s claims “a blatant lie.” Sofinsky, in the interview of the previous day, asserted that there had been no agreement with Egypt on arms deliveries which had not been fully carried out by the Soviet Union.

An Arabic language commentator quoted Western reports that the Soviet Union had sent to Egypt since the October 1973 war “more than 1100 tanks, 50 to 60 aircraft including MIG-23s which Egypt did not have before, and huge numbers of armored cars, field artillery pieces and anti-aircraft guns.”

Moscow did not state the origin of these figures, which it quoted approvingly. They were, however, the figures put out 24 hours previously by official sources in Israel who, like the Russians,-but for different reasons, were trying to counteract Sadat’s quest for arms in the United States and Europe.

EFFORT TO ISOLATE EGYPT

Soviet propaganda has also reflected the Kremlin’s effort to encircle and isolate Egypt within the Arab world. Prominence has been given to Iraq’s celebration of its own four-year-old friendship treaty with Moscow, to the creation in Tripoli of a Libyan-Soviet Friendship League, to contacts with Jordan, and to the visit to the Sudan by Gen. Kullkov the Soviet army’s chief of the general staff.

Despite the radio war, however, links between Moscow and Cairo have not been entirely broken. Egypt’s hopes to retain Soviet economic support were underlined by the disclosure in Cairo that Zakaria Abdel Fattah, the Minister of Trade and Supply, would visit Moscow for two days on April 25. He would sign a trade protocol for 1976 (initialed last December) and discuss the possibility of a long-term agreement for 1977-78 “in the light of the Soviet attitude on easing the financial debt.”

Egypt’s reply to the charge of “anti-Sovietism” is that its is merely reasserting its traditional policy of non-alignment. Hence, the emphasis during President Sadat’s visit to Yugoslavia on preparations for the forthcoming fifth non-aligned states conference in Colombo. But although Yugoslavia is giving Egypt technical military assistance, President Tito was very careful to say nothing in public which might further annoy the already enraged Russians.

Just how angry Russia is will become apparent in the aftermath of China’s offers of arms for the Egyptian forces. One thing is clean the Soviet-Egyptian controversy has done nothing to reduce the wider tensions gripping the Middle East. For Egypt’s only reply to Moscow’s taunts may ultimately be to prove actively that it is still in the forefront of the battle against Israel.