Cyber Ethiopia

We saw last week that the British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had turned down the Ethiopian Government request to use the machinery of the Four Great Powers in Rome to request the extradition of the two Italian marshals, Pietro Badoglio and Rodolfo Graziani, against whom the UN War Crimes Commission had found a prima facie war crimes case.

Now read on:

Ato Abebe Retta, the Ethiopian Minister in London.

Faced with the well-nigh insuperable difficulty that there were no diplomatic relations with Italy, the Ethiopian Government made one last heroic effort to bring the two Italian marshals to trial. Read the rest of this entry »

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The strategy of food security in Ethiopia is tied with the overall development strategy of Agricultural Development-Led Industrialization (ADLI). This strategy is aimed at structural transformation of the economy in which a high growth of agricultural development is envisaged to raise the share of industry and social services in terms of output and employment. Read the rest of this entry »

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This week’s announcement that the remains of Emperor Haile Selassie are to be buried on November 5th (assuming any complications are worked out) coincides nicely with this article. The remains of Haile Selassie are in the Bata Maryam church now, where Emperor Menelik is entombed, and are due to be buried in the Holy Trinity Church. Here is a description of both churches.

The Mausoleum of Emperor Menelik

Just past the Hilton Hotel and up the hill, there is a big round road that encircles a walled and heavily treed lot. Like most people who live in Addis I went on that road many times. However, it took a long time before I actually visited this great site. Read the rest of this entry »

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The loot from Maqdala seized by British troops in April 1868 was three years later the subject of a dramatic debate in the British House of Commons, on 30 June 1871.

Gold Crown and Chalice

The matter came to the fore when Colonel North, a Member with a military background, raised a remarkable matter: the British troops had seized a solid gold crown believed to have belonged to the Abun, or Head of the Ethiopian Church, and a gold chalice dating back to the reign of Emperor Iyasu I, but not received any prize money for them! Read the rest of this entry »

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We saw last week that the question of two important Ethiopian artefacts, a crown and a chalice, looted by British troops from Maqdala in 1868, was discussed in the British House of Commons on 30 June 1871.

In the course of the debate it was revealed, as we saw, that Lord Napier, the victor of Maqdala, had proposed that this loot be placed temporally in the British Museum, but be returned to Ethiopia as soon as it was known who was replacing Tewodros as ruler.

The House, discussing a motion for the purchase of these two items of loot, waited with great interest to hear what the Prime Minister, the great Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone (who had come to power after the Expedition), was to say. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ethiopian historiography justly pays great attention to the foreign travellers to whom we are indebted for so much information on the country’s past. Insufficient attention is, however, often paid to the Ethiopian guides, informants and advisers whose knowledge lay behind the writings of such travellers.

Our essay for today focuses on a certain Abdallah, apparently from Tegray, who became a servant or slave of the notable French traveller Antoine d’Abbadie (1810-1897), author of a famous Amharic dictionary and many works on the country’s culture. He mentions Abdallah in his “Douze ans de sejour dans la haute Ethiopie”, i.e. “Twelve Years Residence in High Ethiopia”, where he notes that the latter informed him about traditional Tegray ideas on augury: how travellers on a journey would be influenced, and be guided on their progress, by the sight of a bird beside the path, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

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Historical Article on Ethiopia and the International Situation in 1935 Concluded

We took as our text last week a long-forgotten article on the “Italo-Abyssinian Conflict” of 1935-6, published in August 1935, by the notable Hungarian scholar Karl Polanyi. We now come to his conclusions:

“Political or Economic Partition”

Discussing British policy towards Ethiopia in 1935. Polanyi declared that when the English refused to admit that they had made partition agreements in relation to Ethiopia, this should be taken as no more than “shadow fencing”. The protestation that they were thinking “only” of spheres of economic influence, and on no account of political ones, was not convincing when one considered the normal practice of the Great Powers. They normally spoke of “economic spheres” when subsequent events revealed that their true ambitions were political in intent. Read the rest of this entry »

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Now that the return (or should I rather say the non-return?) of the Aksum obelisk in Rome is arousing increasing interest, it may be convenient to look at five important documents.

“One of the Obelisks Should be Brought to Rome”

(1) A telegram of 24 October 1936 from Alessandro Lessona, the Italian Minister of the Colonies, to Marshal Graziani, the Italian Fascist Viceroy of Ethiopia. In this document, Lessona explained that “H.E. the Head of the Government [i.e. his master, the dictator Mussolini] has ordered that… one of the obelisks of Axum should be brought to Rome. The obelisk must reach Rome in time to be inaugurated on 9 May 1937″. That date was the first anniversary of the Duce’s pronouncement of the founding of the Fascist Empire in Ethiopia. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Road from Harar to Jijiga

The road from Harar to Jijiga is quite beautiful, but there are some dangers. From Harar you descend through beautiful hills, forests and neatly planted crops. The largest town along the way is Babile, which is a normal crowded little town in the midst of fabulous rock formations. Someone had the idea of growing peanuts around Babile, and now vendors enthusiastically sell you wonderful fresh peanuts at the side of the road.

Just past the town are the famous Babile rocks, including the ones where one is perched precariously on top of another. The rock formations are spectacular, although it’s not advisable to stop along the road for too long looking at them. Read the rest of this entry »

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We looked last week at five important documents related to the question of the Aksum Obelisk looted from Ethiopia on the personal orders of the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and to this date still not returned, in violation of two international agreements (1947 and 1997).

We turn now to examine nine further historical documents:

1. The Italo-Ethiopian Agreement of 1956

One of the Italian Government’s least honourable acts in the whole obelisk story was the conclusion, on 5 March 1956, of an entirely new Italo-Ethiopian.This document, which shocked many who read it, relegated the question of the obelisk’s return to an appendix, Appendix C, which violated both the letter and the spirit of the Italian Peace Treaty of 1947. Read the rest of this entry »

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