Seventy
years ago, Ethiopians won the war against colonial aggression by their
archenemy Fascist Italy. For a people conscious of its history, seventy years
is not far, and for Ethiopians the sorrows, destructions and glories associated
with the five-year war are still fresh in their memories. As a tribute to the
patriotic resistance fighters, this write-up presents their perspective with
the purpose of reminding the current generation some of what our ancestors
approved or disliked in relating to foreign allies. There are two points I wish
to highlight. One of them is that the fighters acknowledged British help, but they
were essentially proud of their own resistance to Italian presence. To the end
of their days, they insisted that they fought a war of invasion from 1935 to 1940/41;
their country was not occupied despite a foreign army that they managed to
dislodge eventually. The other point of emphasize here is that Ethiopians were
aware of contemporary episodes that were used for asserting negative views
about their political processes.
Italy
crushed an Ethiopian army at Maichew in October 1935
and took the capital on 5 May, but the southern Ethiopian war front of Sidamo*, Harar, Arsi and Bale, RasDesta, DajazmachesGebreMatyam and Debay, BeyeneMerid
and others went on fighting until Februray 1937.Ras Imeru,
with members of young standing army cadets, sustained an army and a government
in Wellega and the west until June 1936. In and
around the capital, resistance picked up as guerilla warfare in September 1937
and kept going until 1941. The same type of warfare was conducted in Gojam, Begemder, Wello and parts of Tigre,
more or less throughout the same time. Far from extracting colonial wealth, the
invader had to maintain a substantial fighting force at a heavy cost to Italy itself.
The
United Nations has declared that five-year war as the beginning of World War
II. When it ended in Ethiopia
in 1940/41, it escalated elsewhere because Fascist Italy joined Germany and Japan to
contest world superiority. On top of its provocation in Europe,
Italian air force bombed towns along the Kenyan border and even took Galbat and Kassala on the
Ethiopian Sudanese border in June and July of 1940. In a well-known historical
saga, the British Middle East Command, especially General Platt in Sudan, General
Cunningham in Nairobi
and the French in Djibouti
wanted to use the Ethiopian warriors against the Italians. Their purpose was to
‘mop up’ Italians from their African military bases and secure the Red Sea. The British authorities in Sudan reached
out to the fighters along the Ethiopian Sudanese border, and gave them uniforms and supplies. So did those in Kenya and the
French Djibouti.
How
the British and their agents engaged Ethiopians in dialogue is a fascinating
historical episode that has some relevance to contemporary attempts of
approaching westerners concerning the country. At the time, only a few held the
once wide-spread belief that the League of Nations
would help Ethiopia
against their aggressor. Indeed, those on the side of the British mission
reported that they had difficulty in winning over the confidence of the fighters.
Some were highly suspicious that they would only change one European aggressor
for another. Others distrusted the claim that the emperor was returning with a
British force. Those who finally accepted British offer of help, did so because
they strongly believed that the Emperor would have the upper hand in making
final decisions on Italian or any other European presence in Ethiopia. They
saw the role of the British as marginal to the war effort to throw out the
Italians.
Most
fighters rejected the offer preferring to take their commands from the emperor.
Leaders such as AmorawWubneh
(styled ras by his followers) told the British
in Gedaref “What is the difference to me. White
are White, be they British or Italians or British”. Even news of the
emperor’s imminent arrival in their midst did not help the British mission
that was sent to coordinate the warriors’ efforts. Thus, Lij Belay Zeleke (whose bravery
had obliged his followers to style him “emperor by his own might”)
would not shake hands with a member of the British mission that had reached his
camp in Gojam. In Kenya, General Cunningham had to
restrain some Ethiopian exiles who refused to fight
under the command of British colonial officers. Only the exiles in Djibouti were
happy to fight the enemy as long as the French authorities cooperated with
them.
The
history of the British involvement in the war in Ethiopia adds another interesting
aspect to foreign involvement in the affairs of the country. Once General
Cunningham launched the attack against the Italians, he found that the Italians
were much weakened in the south. He soon reached the centre, and on April 4 had
the Royal Air Force bomb the airport where it destroyed 32 planes; the following
day, he entered the Addis Ababa.
His use of weapons and military force from British territorial holdings in
southern Africa was minimal cost to the
British. The Ethiopian resistance had already carried the critical cost of
dislodging the Italian forces.
Whatever
the British thought they were doing in Ethiopia, the Ethiopians
accompanying them were made to understand that they were only receiving assistance
in their struggle against the Italians. They were easing the advance of the
British columns to the capital and beyond, whether they were coming from the
north and west or from the south. Later, however, the British put a facile
twist of military diplomacy, with a dash of racism particularly from their
military bases of their Southern African colonies, and claimed that their
relationship with the fighters was one of ‘inciting a rebellion’ in
the Italian ‘colony’.
This
was a negation of the spirit of Ethiopian sovereignty, and with General
Cunningham’s dash to enter the capital symbolically expressed it. Haile
Selassie and the resistance fighters were deliberately delayed. The resistance
fighters, including the famous Ras AbebeAregai had hoped to stage a deservedly grand entry into the
capital with the emperor in the lead. The same day that Cunningham arrived in Addis Ababa, Haile Selassie hoisted the
Ethiopian flag in DebreMarkos, Gojam. He and his warriors had to wait for until 5 May
to enter the capital. British friends, who considered the emperor as a symbol
of unity, also lauded that date as important for being the fifth anniversary of
the emperor’s departure into exile five years before.
Once
their forces from Sudan
and Southern Africa overrun Ethiopia, they
set to consolidating their victory over the Italian army. They dismantled its
weapons, looted its administrative centers and took what they could carry to Kenya. The
emperor and his government personnel had to engage in diplomatic maneuvers to
finally get rid of British administrative and military personnel. Some of their
administrative decisions included the attempt at forging territorial boundaries
in the neighboring countries of North East Africa, notably Ethiopia and Somalia.
The
resistance fighters never accepted Italian or any other claim that they had
lost their sovereignty. They rejected British claims to liberate Ethiopia, and resented
that Britain
treated Ethiopia
as an occupied territory. It has to be remembered that the British entered the
war in Ethiopia
as part of their strategy of denying German military holding in Rwanda-Urundi [later Rwanda] and Italian positions to Libya, Somalia, and
Eritrea-Ethiopia. It was neither in aid of policing the region nor philanthropic.
They knew Italy’s
military expenditure was overtaxing it and that even sending troops to Ethiopia in
order to ease internal social and economic crisis had outrun its usefulness as
a propaganda ploy. Italy
was a weak enemy, and the Ethiopian warriors were already giving it a hard
time. As a strategy of making the weakened enemy fragile ever further, helping
the emperor to link with the guerilla fighters was vital.
To
summarize: The historical episodes –the British agents engaging
Ethiopians in dialogue and British involvement in the war in Ethiopia –
have influenced the turn of some events in Ethiopian history. Indeed the
British sentiment of inciting rebellion in Ethiopia was at work when the
British Command in Sudan
sent its agents to engage the Ethiopian warriors in a dialogue for cooperation.
They were talking cross-purpose of what was at stake.The engagement in dialogue underlined
the difficulties in what was to be seen as the rivalry between the resistance
fighters who had stayed in county and the exiles. Those who fought the guerilla
wars looked down on the returned exiles; the latter of course were said to have
the support of the chief exile, the emperor. It was a rivalry that was
reflected in the less than harmonious administration of post-war Ethiopia. Sadly,
a more profound legacy of British involvement in the war emanated from their
subsequent administrative decisions on the basis of their claim that Ethiopia was
their occupied territory. Their attempt at forging territorial boundaries left hostilities
among people in the neighboring countries of North East Africa, notably Ethiopia and Somalia.
Both
historical incidents have been cited also as basis for characterizing
Ethiopians as suspicious of one another, and as a people who lack in coordinating
their own efforts. Perhaps drawing parallels between the experiences of the
resistance fighters had with the British and current generation of Ethiopians
with the global community is unfair. However, there are lessons to be learnt
from their negative consequences. Those heroic resistance fighters also used
their diplomatic skills to dislodge foreign involvement in the name of war. Follow
their example in such involvement in the name of contemporary rivalry for
investment is entirely up to whether we seek to learn from our history.
