To the Editor:
Your otherwise excellent Jan. 23 editorial on "Africa's Hidden Wars" was flawed by a serious factual error.
It is true that when Guinea or the Sudan blame their troubles on "neocolonialists" or "imperialists" they are talking nonsense aimed at discrediting the local opposition. But when Haile Selassie accuses "outside nations and groups" of fomenting rebellion in Eritrea, he refers quite accurately to the considerable aid, amounting to millions of dollars a year in arms, to the Eritrean Liberation Front.
The Times should not equate Ethiopian problems with those of its neighbors: The situations in all these countries may indeed be hidden, but they nonetheless defy simplistic generalizations.
Daniel Pipes
Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 23, 1971
