all, contending that the Soviets ordered him to do so. Castro always maintained that he took the decision to launch Operation Carlota himself in response to an appeal from Neto and that the Soviets were in fact opposed to Cuban intervention in Angola, which took place over their opposition. Traveling to Angola, Castro celebrated with Neto, Sékou Touré and Guinea-Bissaun President Luís Cabral, where they agreed to support Mozambique's Marxist–Leninist government against RENAMO in the Mozambican Civil War. In February, Castro visited Algeria and then Libya, where he spent ten days with Gaddafi and oversaw the establishment of the Jamahariya system of governance, before attending talks with the Marxist government of South Yemen. From there he proceeded to Somalia, Tanzania, Mozambique and Angola where he was greeted by crowds as a hero for Cuba's role in opposing apartheid South Africa. Throughout much of Africa he was hailed as a friend to national liberation from foreign dominance. This was followed with visits to East Berlin and Moscow. In 1977, the Ogaden War broke out over the disputed Ogaden region as Somalia invaded Ethiopia; although a former ally of Somali President Siad Barre, Castro had warned him against such action, and Cuba sided with Mengistu Haile Mariam's Marxist government of Ethiopia. In a desperate attempt to stop the war, Castro had a summit with Barre where he proposed a federation of Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Yemen as an alternative to war. Barre who saw seizing the Ogaden as the first step towards creating a greater Somalia that would unite all of the Somalis into one state rejected the federation offer, and decided upon war. Castro sent troops under the command of General Arnaldo Ochoa to aid the overwhelmed Ethiopian army. Mengistu's regime was barely hanging on by 1977, having lost one-third of its army in Eritrea at the time of the Somali invasion. The intervention of 17, 000 Cuban troops into the Ogaden was by all accounts decisive in altering a war that Ethiopia was on the brink of losing into a victory. After forcing back the Somalis, Mengistu then ordered the Ethiopians to suppress the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, a measure Castro refused to support. Castro extended support to Latin American revolutionary movements, namely the Sandinista National Liberation Front in its overthrow of the Nicaraguan rightist government of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in July 1979. Castro's critics accused the government of wasting