I Didn't Do It for You (45 page)

2
FO 371/80957

3
Colonel Maurice Petherick MP, February 6, 1945; FO 371/46070 J 563

4
First issue of
New Times and Ethiopia News
, May 5, 1936

5
Letter to Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, February 1936. Richard Pankhurst,
Sylvia Pankhurst: Counsel for Ethiopia
, Tsehai Publishers, 2003, p 38

6
Author's interview

7
Author's interview

8
Sylvia Pankhurst: Counsel for Ethiopia
, p 20

9
Kwame Nkrumah,
Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah
, Thomas Nelson and Sons, Edinburgh, 1957

10
In Jamaica, followers of Rastafarianism went even further, hailing Ras Tafari as the living God. While Haile Selassie was always reluctant to publicly offend the Rastafarians by denouncing their faith, as head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church he, like most Ethiopian Christians, would have regarded it as sacrilegious

11
Author's interview

12
Sylvia Pankhurst: Counsel for Ethiopia
, p 126; FO 371/24639

13
Sylvia Pankhurst: Counsel for Ethiopia
, p 113

14
FO 371/35841

15
New Times and Ethiopia News
, December 9, 1944

16
FO 371/46070

17
Sylvia Pankhurst: Counsel for Ethiopia
, p 236; FO 371/63217

18
In Patricia Romero,
E Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical
, Yale University Press, 1987, the author interviewed Musa Galaal, a young Somali student who met Sylvia in the 1950s. He found Sylvia so ‘pro-Ethiopia she considered all of Africa to be Ethiopia'. Unaware she was championing a rigidly Amhara version of history, she insisted all Somalis were, in fact, Ethiopians. ‘What could you be that is better than being an Ethiopian?' she asked him, causing great offence

19
FO 371/108261

20
In an interview with the author, Spencer recalled several disputes over infrastructure with the British authorities. ‘What made me quite angry was that they took the dry dock installation and shipped it off to Pakistan. I said “Surely this belongs to Ethiopia?” but they shipped it off anyway.' He said most of his information on the British dismantling in Eritrea came from Sylvia, but he found her radicalism alarming. ‘She was really an aggressive person, far too aggressive.'

21
Author's interview

22
FO 371/96811

23
In
Eritrea: A Colony in Transition: 1941–1952
, Oxford University Press, 1960, author Trevaskis, who served as a British colonial officer in Eritrea, lets slip the fact that after 1941 Eritrean gold production plummeted from 17,000 to 3,000 ounces a year following British and American removal of mining equipment whose replacements were ‘difficult and often impossible to obtain' and that the Eritrean fishing industry was similarly crippled by the requisitioning of irreplaceable equipment
WO 230/131 5343528–This file contains a fascinating extended correspondence over the future of the ropeway. It shows British officials in Asmara campaigning energetically for the pylons and cable to be sold to companies in Burma, Sudan and Palestine, only to be reined in repeatedly by civil affairs officers in London who warned that as a ‘caretaker' administration, Britain would stand accused of looting if a sale went ahead. The tireless persistence with which the British courted foreign buyers says legions about attitudes in Asmara. In the event, the ropeway remained in place despite their efforts, only to be sold by Haile Selassie's son-in-law after Federation
See also
, FO 371/102667 for Foreign Office correspondence on Sylvia's claims, ADM1/19588 for the original 1946 British military
debate about disposing of Massawa's assets and FO 371/96804 for evidence of Haile Selassie's unhappiness at the destruction

24
‘Four Power Commission of Investigation for the Former Italian Colonies, Volume 1: Report on Eritrea', 1948, FO 371/69360

25
FO 371/27558, FO 371/27541, WO 230/57. These files' contents are cogently summarized in Richard Pankhurst, ‘Post World War II Ethiopia: British military policy and action for the Dismantling and Acquisition of Italian Factories and other Assets, 1941–2',
Journal of Ethiopian Studies
, vol 29, no 1, 1996

26
E Talbot Smith in early 1943;
see
Harold Marcus,
The Politics of Empire. Ethiopia, Great Britain and the United States. 1941–1974
, The Red Sea Press, 1995, p 15

27
KC Gandar Dower, ‘The First to be Freed: British Military Administration in Eritrea and Somalia', Ministry of Information, 1944

28
ibid

29
Dr Catherine Hamlin,
The Hospital by the River
, Macmillan, 2001

30
Author's interview

Chapter 7 ‘What do the baboons want?'

1
John Spencer,
Ethiopia at Bay: A Personal Account of the Haile Selassie Years
, Reference Publications, 1984, p 354

2
Ethiopia at Bay
, p 23

3
Ethiopia at Bay,
p 134

4
Ethiopia at Bay,
p 135

5
Report of the UN Commission for Eritrea, Fifth Session, Supplement No 8 (A/1285), Lake Success, New York, 1950, p 3

6
First Confidential Report, February 17, 1950, Eritrea I, Series 2, Box 1, File 1, Acc A/269, UN Archives, New York

7
March 2, 1950, Eritrea I, Series 2, Box 1, File 1, Acc A/269

8
FO 371/80984

9
FO 371/80985

10
In
Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Federal Experience
, Transaction Publishers, 1997, historian Tekeste Negash challenges the notion that
shifta
activity was funded from Ethiopia, presenting it as a purely Eritrean phenomenon. His thesis, however, clashes with the views of British officials of the day such as Stafford and Trevaskis and Italian diplomats. It is also rejected by older Eritreans and Ethiopians
I interviewed who lived through those years and were in no doubt Addis Ababa lay behind a deliberate campaign of destabilization

11
FO 371/80984

12
FO 371/80985, Letters from Brigadier FG Drew and Frank Stafford

13
Fourth Confidential Report, March 7, 1950, Eritrea I, Series 2, Box 1, File 1, Acc A/269

14
ibid

15
FO 371/80985, Letter from Brigadier Drew, March 7, 1990

16
FO 371/80985, March 16, 1950

17
Fourth Confidential Report

18
Sixth Confidential Report, April 1, 1950

19
Yohannes Okbazghi,
Eritrea, A Pawn in World Politics
, University of Florida Press, 1991, p 147

20
Report of the UN Commission for Eritrea

21
June 7, 1990, Eritrea II, Series 2, Box 1, File 2, Acc A/269, UN Archives

22
In
Ethiopia at Bay
(pp 232–9), John Spencer gives an exhaustive account of the back-room deals that preceded the drafting of the key UN Resolution

23
Final Report of the UN Commissioner in Eritrea, General Assembly, Official Records: Seventh Session, Supplement No 15 (A/2188), Vol 4, p 4

24
FO 371/81043

25
Final Report of the UN Commissioner in Eritrea, p 11

26
Ethiopia at Bay
, p 243

27
December 30, 1950 Imperial address

28
Author's interview

29
Author's interview

30
Final Report of the UN Commissioner in Eritrea, p 21

31
Final Report of the United Nations Commissioner in Eritrea, General Assembly, Official Records: Seventh Session, Supplement No 15 (A/2188), Vol 4, p 50

32
On page 236 of his autobiography, Spencer claims that during consultations in New York, he and Aklilou were privately assured the UN would be divested of all further jurisdiction' once the Federation was introduced. But in his interview with the author, Spencer told a different story. He acknowledged Matienzo stipulated that any change to the Federation would have to be approved by the UN and that Ethiopia's eventual abrogation was ‘illegal'

33
In a February 26, 1952 public address, for example, Matienzo said the panel of legal experts found ‘that as the Federal Act is an international instrument, the regime established under that Act cannot be altered without the concurrence of the General Assembly'. There are many such mentions in his draft reports and speeches of the period, stored in the UN Archives.
See also
S-0721-0009-01, S-0721-0003-09, S-0721-0003-10, S-0721-0003-11

34
Ethiopia at Bay
, p 244

35
Author's interview

36
Author's interview

37
Author's interview

38
Author's interview

39
Author's interview

Chapter 8 The Day of Mourning

1
WO 97/2817

2
Tekeste Negash,
Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Federal Experience
, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, 1997, p 83

3
FO 371/102655;
Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Federal Experience
, p 82

4
British officials, who described Tedla Bairu as a ‘megalomaniac', also regarded him as corrupt. A February 19, 1954 report to London states that the chief executive had accepted ‘property and a coffee plantation in Ethiopia from the Emperor and acquired a large concession near Cheren which had been purchased…with funds loaned by the State Bank of Ethiopia under the recommendation of the Ethiopian authorities'. Bairu was also drawing a $10,000 salary, a huge amount in Eritrea at the time. Eritrea VII, Jan–July 54, Series 2, Box 2, File 4, Acc A/277, UN Archives

5
Andargachew Messai, March 28, 1955 opening address at the First Regular Session of the Eritrean Assembly

6
Journal of Eritrean Studies
, vol IV, nos 1 and 2, 1990

7
Ethiopian and Western histories routinely refer to a parliamentary ‘vote' in favour of dissolution. This infuriates Eritreans, who insist the motion was passed by ‘acclamation', a method obviously susceptible to manipulation. Having interviewed two men who were inside the chamber that day, I am satisfied no vote was ever staged. The same conclusion is reached by Bocresion Haile, author of
The Collusion on Eritrea
, 2001, who interviewed many of those present that day

8
Richard Johnson to State Department; James Firebrace and Stuart Holland,
Never Kneel Down: Drought, Development and Liberation in Eritrea
, The Red Sea Press, 1985, p 21. Looking back on the event nearly four decades later, Herman Cohen, US assistant secretary of state for Africa, had no hesitation in describing it as a ‘unilateral coercive takeover by the Ethiopian regime'. ‘It had all the trappings of a Stalinist operation, with troops surrounding the building while parliament was in session…In retrospect it was disgraceful that the United States did not protest,' he wrote in
Intervening in Africa: Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent
, Macmillan, 2000

9
WO 97/2817;
Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Federal Experience
, p 80

10
Cordier letter April 5, 1954. Eritrea VII, Jan–July 54, Series 2, Box 2, File 4, Acc A/277, UN Archives. The words ‘not sent' are scrawled on this letter. Whether it was ultimately sent or not, the draft sheds devastating light on Cordier's thinking

11
Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Federal Experience
, p 131

12
SO265 EOSG/OSG Jan 1, 1961–Dec 31, 1973, UN Archives

13
Between 1985 and 1991, this role was performed by Dr Bereket Selassie, who labelled it ‘Mission Impossible'. The future author of Eritrea's constitution would occasionally attach himself to the Somali delegation to gain access to the UN General Assembly and generally did all he could to irritate the Ethiopian delegation. He was arrested at least three times for his pains