What we now know as the Aksum – or “Rome” – Obelisk was looted on the personal orders of the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. His ambition, as he declared, was to create a new Roman Empire. He had maps made depicting the former Roman Empire which he wished to resurrect. The Emperors of ancient Rome had seized antiquities from ancient Egypt – and his proud (and mad) wish was to copy their example. In the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, in Addis Ababa, you can see, as I have seen, microfilm copies of his original telegrams from Rome, ordering the Fascist administration in Ethiopia to send him one of the great obelisks of \Aksum – and other Ethiopian loot.

The Obelisk was duly taken to Rome – where it was erected, and unveiled on 28 October 1937, as part of the dictator’s celebrations for the fifteenth anniversary of his so-called March on Rome – in fact his seizure of power – and destruction of democratic rights – in Italy. He had hoped to erect the Obelisk earlier in the year, in May: the anniversary of his proclamation of the Fascist Empire in East Africa – but Fascist technology failed to bring the aged Ethiopian stone to Italy in time: the Obelisk was however erected in front of what was then the premises of the Ministry of Italian Africa – where it was to remain for many, many years.

***

The movement for the return of the Obelisk – and of other loot seized from Ethiopia – was launched by the then Ethiopian Government when World War II was still in progress. The major Allied Powers, when drafting a proposed Peace Treaty with Italy, asked the Ethiopians for their views – and Emperor Haile Sellassie’s government responded by submitting a draft of what as to become Asticle 37 of the final Peace Treaty with Italy. You can again trace this, dear Reader, in the microfilms deposited in the Institute of Ethiopian Studies – part of the so-called Rubenson Collection.

The above Article was duly accepted by all the Allied signatories, as well as by Italy herself. The Treaty, signed in 1947, thus specified that all loot taken from Ethiopia to Italy after 3 October 1935 – the date of the Fascist invasion of Ethiopia – should be returned within 18 months.

But restitution was delayed year after year. When a bilateral treaty between Ethiopia and Italy was eventually signed the Italian side declared that they were prepared only to transport the Obelisk from Rome to Naples – not to Ethiopia, as the original Peace Treaty intended. Read, dear Reader, Ato Emmanuel Abraham’s classic memoir, “Reminiscences of My Life” , He was the Ethiopian Ambassador in Rome, and tells how an official of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs – bless his soul! – proposed that the Aksum Obelisk should be retained in Italy, with a little notice to say that it was “a Gift from Ethiopia” – which of course it wasn’t.

The then Ethiopian Parliament was furious at the non-return of the Obelisk – and one Senator in particular – Fitawrari Amede Lemma (whom we later elected as Chairman of our Obelisk Return Committee) – spoke forcefully for Repatriation. A strongly worded resolution was passed demanding the Obelisk’s immediate return to Ethiopia.

***

The movement for restitution passed through various phases. Our own phase began after the Ethiopian Parliament’s resolution – but gained strength when people in Italy, and elsewhere were commemorating the Half Century’s anniversary of the collapse of Fascist rule in East Africa. Our movement, which nay be said to have actually begun in Italy – but rapidly moved to Ethiopia – and the world – was motivated by several quite distinct beliefs and ideas.

Foremost our thinking was the belief that Ethiopia, a founding member of the United Nations, was entitled to be treated as an equal in Post War international relations. We felt that when the Italian Peace Treaty specified return within eighteen months it was unjust and dishonourable, to ignore this obligation year after year. We did not believe that a European Power would have its rights ignored in this way – and we remembered how Ethiopia’s rights had been betrayed by the League of Nations at the time of the Fascist invasion a decade earlier.

We saw too that the Obelisk was one of Ethiopia’s earliest antiquities – and we felt that we were not taking Ethiopia’s historic culture seriously if we ignored a Peace Treaty specifying the return of so important an artifact. Clearly, we felt, restitution should form part of the country’s cultural agenda. Not a few of us felt that though we concentrated on the Obelisk we could not forget that it was not the only cultural object which had been looted from Ethiopia, and that Ethiopia, like other countries, were entitled to the preservation – and possession – of her cultural heritage. And we were inspired, when inspecting it in Rome, to see that an Ethiopian in the city had scrawled on it, in Amharic, the most significant question “Whose Culture is it?”

We saw the Obelisk’s presence in Rome too as a symbol of Fascism – as Mussolini had seen it – and made it – and we felt that the statue should be returned to its natural home, Aksum. Mussolini had ordered, but we would reject those orders: and we felt that we owed this not only to Ethiopia, but also to Italy. So that Italians of the present generation – and the next – would question Mussolini’s claim to have “taken Civilization to Africa”..

Many people asked (some with not a little doubt), “Can it [the Obelisk] really be returned?”
Well it has been – and the very profile of Aksum has for ever been transformed. ***

And now what?

Where do we go from here?

Where do we go now?

We have to complete the implementation of the Italian Peace Treaty by Italy returning that part of Ethiopia’s pre-war “Ministry of the Pen” archive which she still retains, as well as Haile Sellassie’s pre-war little aeroplane Tsehai, called after his beloved daughter, which has been envisaged – by the building’s planner Jaques Dubois as part of Addis Ababa airport decoration.

We have to remember at the same time that Italy was not the only country to loot from Ethiopia – by returning the Obelisk she has however set a good example for Britain to return the loot taken from Emperor Tewodros’s capital at Maqdala in 1868. We should give our support to AFROMET: the Association for the Return of Maqdala Treasures in its demand for restitution.

You will recall, dear Reader, that this – as I showed in a recent article in “Capital” – was the idea of none other then the great 19th century British Liberal, Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone.

Last, but not least, we vow that the re-erection of the Obelisk be followed by the re-erection of the remaining fallen obelisks – as well as by increasing determination in the preservation of the country’s unique cultural heritage.

It is hope that the Return – and Re-erection – of the Obelisk will be an inspiration for Ethiopia’s new Millennium.

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)

The ancient Aksum obelisk, looted on the personal orders of the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and unveiled in Rome in 1937 as part of the fifteenth anniversary celebrations of his seizure of power in Italy – his so-called March on Rome of 1922 – is now at last re-erected in Ethiopia.

The profile of Aksum, Ethiopia’s ancient capital and the historic centre of Ethiopian Christianity, has been irrevocably changed. Hitherto its international profile was that of a single standing obelisk – it now has two. They stand proudly together – as the people of ancient Aksum wished.

The great, newly re-erected, obelisk is the largest – and heaviest, piece of loot ever seized – and returned. Visitors to Aksum can now see a remarkable, carved block of stone which was not only transported almost five kilometres in ancient times from the excavation site to the city of Aksum, but which in modern times was transported a far greater distance – from Africa to Europe by steamer – and then returned from Europe to Africa by air. What would Mussolini say?

It was a remarkable sight, when the last piece of the obelisk was finally flown back to Aksum, to see a tiny black speck in the sky, above the airport. That speck circled us, and became larger and larger – until we saw it as an Antonov – the largest ‘plane in the world. The door in its nose opened, after which the great block of stone slowly slid on rails to an awaiting truck. Full marks to the Italians who finally returned the obelisk so efficiently!

So, many doubters who argued over the last ten years that it was technically or otherwise “impossible” to return the obelisk have been proved wrong. We have dramatic evidence of the meaning of the word “impossible”: It is always very easy to steal something – but “difficult” to return it. Looking down on the puny doubters from its great height of twenty-four metres, the obelisk, if it were human, could afford to smile.

***

An African Dimension

The return – and re-erection – of the obelisk will be recognised as an important chapter in the history of both Ethiopia and Italy. It has, however, also an African dimension to which we will now turn.

The diplomatic initiative for the return of the Aksum obelisk was first launched, I would recall, by the Nigerian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Chief Segun, who at the same time raised the question of the return of the Benin bronzes looted from his own country, and now in Britain.

His initiative was a turning point in the Aksum restitution struggle.

***

A Growing Belief in Africa

There is over the world – and particularly in Africa – a growing belief which may be summarised in the following propositions:

1.The people of any country or nation are entitled to see – and possess – the artistic treasures made by their ancestors – the younger generation should be able to relate to the artistic and other creations of their forebears.

2.That antiquities, if appropriated by force, represent an act of loot, and should be returned, just like items stolen within a country have by law to be returned to their legitimate owners.

3.That conditions in the modern world are such that antiquities can be preserved in any part of the world – they don’t have to be stored in Europe, or any so-called “mother country”.

There is moreover a feeling in many parts of the now independent African continent that countries which in the past fought for their independence should now struggle for the cultural heritage of which they were deprived while under colonial rule. The fight for political independence, it is held, should be followed by the struggle for cultural integrity

The future, it is argued, should witness ever increasing cultural co-operation in which countries lend their treasures for exhibition on the basis of mutual co-operation rather than an imperial – or colonial-style display of mountains of acquisitions taken from foreign lands by force; the display, in a sense, of an Aladdin’s cave of ill-gotten loot.

The above three propositions apply to the Aksum obelisk (and the loot taken from Maqdala by the Napier Expedition of 1867-8), just as, the good Nigerian ambassador insisted, to the Benin bronzes taken from his own beloved country: why shouldn’t they be returned anyway.
Which makes recent developments in Kenya of no little interest.

***

“These are Crucial Aspects of our Heritage” – President Mwai Kibaki

The Kenya Government, we now learn, is currently demanding the return of over two thousand historical artifacts currently held in the British Museum, in London as well as a larger number in other parts of the world. Kenya claims that these articles were acquired during the colonial period when the country was not free. The large list of items requested include skulls, skins of lions of historical interest, spears and fossils. At least three of the spears – made of wood – were used by Kenya Patriots in the Independence Struggle: a struggle fought after all with spear against machine guns.

Dr. Omar Farah, Director of Kenya Museums, has reportedly instructed his staff to draw up a comprehensive list of the many articles which Kenya wants repatriated. Emphasizing that the Kenya Government’s approach to cultural restoration is essentially moderate, he declares: “We want people in Britain to see Kenya artifacts in their own museums – but the most important artifacts must come home”.

President Mwai Kibaki, of Kenya, has given this move his full support. Explaining the issue in characteristically forceful terms, he is quoted as saying: “These are crucial aspects of our history and cultural heritage, and every effort must be made to get them back”.

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)

I am currently writing, dear reader, from cold and windy London, England, where people have been discussing the loot taken from Ethiopia in times past.

The story begins, you will recall, with the rise in the first part of the 19th century of Emperor Tewodros II, a dynamic leader who sought to unify and modernise his country –which was then disunited – as well as falling behind in the struggle for modernisation, Having had some previous contact with two Englishmen, John Bell and Walterr Plowden. who had won his friendship he decided on an approach to the redoubtable British monarch Queen Victoria. He accordingly drafted a friendly letter to the Queen – and entrusted it to the then British consul, Douglas Cameron, with strict instructions that he should take it to London in person. The good consul however, had other ideas. He gave the letter to a servant to take, while he himself went off to the Sudan – where he seemed to be consorting with the Ottoman rulers of that country, who were then seizing Ethiopian territory on the border.

Further difficulties arose when the Emperor’s letter eventually reached London. The British Government was then a close supporter of the Ottoman Empire which it considered a potential ally against the Russians who were regarded as a danger to British rule in India. Not wishing to offend the Ottomans by showing any support for Tewodros, whose territory the latter were over-running, the British Government had the bright idea of leaving Tewodros’s letter unanswered. This did not please the Ethiopian ruler one little bit. A proud man, he had a high opinion of himself, and of his country then struggling for its very existence. He accordingly seized the unfortunate Cameron, and sundry other Europeans who had in one way or other displeased him. The British Government, displeased by the outcome of the affair of the letter, despatched a special envoy to Ethiopia, by the name Hormuzd Rassam, but the latter failed to “pour oil over the troubled water” –and also ended up in detention – at Tewodros’s mountain citadel of Maqdala (then often referred to in Britain as Magdala).

All this greatly peeved the British – largely because they feared that it would damage Britain’s prestige, notably in India and the East. A British expedition, under Robert Napier, was accordingly despatched against Tewodros’s mountain fortress of Maqdala. This led, as was the custom of the time, to extensive looting. Tewodros, a centralising monarch, had collected manuscripts and other treasures from many parts of the country – and these, broadly speaking, were what the British seized. The booty taken by the soldiers was collected from them, and transported – on fifteen elephants and two hundred mules – to the Dalanta plain where they were then auctioned over a period of two days. Many of the treasures thus auctioned were acquired by the British Library and the British Museum, but other items ended up in private hands.

The fate of this loot over the last century or so has often been discussed, and advocates of repatriation have included none other than the renowned 19th century British statesman William Ewart Gladstone, and in modern times, Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

***

Discussion on the loot from Maqdala, dear reader, erupted once again this summer when the British daily newspaper, The Times, published two Letters to the Editor on the subject.
The first of these letters, which appeared on 12 July. Was from Philip Marsden, author of a recent Biography of Tewodros.

Referring to an earlier article on the wealth of the British Museum, Marsden wrote:
“Ethiopian treasure

“Sir, Ben Macintyre (“Let’s all have tickets to the universal museum”, July 10) did not include in his list of disputed treasures at the British Museum the manuscripts, artifacts and religious objects looted from Ethiopia in 1868. Among the hoard are a dozen or so tabots, the small, hidden tablets that form the sacred centre of all Ethiopian churches. Representing both the Ark of the Covenant, and the particular saint of each church, tabots can never be seen by anyone but priests. They are now housed in a locked room in the British Museum, and the key held by an Ethiopian priest in London. It is hard to see how keeping such objects contributes to Macintyre’s notion of a “an encyclopaedic storehouse of universal knowledge”. Such sacred objects do not exist to remind the world of the marvels of cultural diversity, but to form an integral part of belief, worship and identity for millions of individuals.
“Philip Marsden”

The second letter was by the present writer, and was published on 21 July. It reads as follows:

“Returning Loot
“Sir, Philip Marsden (12 July), an accomplished historian of the Ethiopian emperor Tewodros II, does well to raise the long-debated question of the loot taken from Ethiopia by the Napier Expedition of 1867-8. The British Museum and British Library both hold major Ethiopian treasures, and the issue is not likely to go away until restitution is effected: It is significant that the issue, which was previously raised only by isolated Ethiopian and other intellectuals, is now voiced by none other than the Ethiopian Head of State.
“Later this year the great Obelisk from Aksum,looted by Mussolini in 1937, and now returned to Ethiopia, will be unveiled as part of Ethiopia’s Millennium Celebrations. Surely the time has come for Britain to follow the example of Italy – by at long last returning the Magdala loot,
Richard Pankhurst
Professor”

***

From Fascist loot, discussion moved to Fascist monuments, and Ato Yohannes Assefa of the Ethiopian American sent in the following American press-cutting.

It reads as follows:

“Surprised” by fascist monuments in Italy
“Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Italy, on a visit to the north of the country, was puzzled when he was shown that Italy still is celebrating the brutal occupiers of Ethiopia during the fascist regime 1935 as war heroes. The Addis Ababa government is to look into the case.
“Monuments and street names in South Tyrol, or Alpine northern Italy, are still idealising the “Alpini”, Italy’s historic elite mountain warfare soldiers that headed the brutal Italian attack and occupation of Abyssinia …in 1935. Especially, an Alpini monument in the town of Bruneck (Brunico) raised by the fascist regime of Dictator Benito Mussolini, is causing controversy and strongly surprised the Ethiopian Ambassador on a recent visit.”

Bruneck’s Alpini monument commemorates the troops of the so-called “divisione pusteria”, guilty of attacks with poison gas and of numerous murders during the Italo-Abyssinian War. At the command of fascist leaders, thousands of defenceless Ethiopians were brutally slaughtered at the time. Alpini General, Pirzio Biroli, reportedly told his soldiers: “Here you cannot be too much of a robber, murderer and rapist,” and this is also how Ethiopians recall the action of the Alpini.

“The controversial monument was erected in 1936, celebrating the war and the Alpini. But in northern Italy, many groups have fought against this celebration of the fascist government for decades. Before the end of World War II, the first attack on the monument was registered. Since then, the monument had been partly destroyed in 1956, 1959, 1966 and 1979. However, each time Italian authorities re-erected the monument.

“Currently, the Südtiroler Schützenbund – a cultural association of Italy’s German-speaking minority – is leading the battle against the hated Alpini monument. The association managed to invite the Ethiopian Ambassador, Grum Abay, to South Tyrol, where Mr Abay could see the ongoing hailing of Italian war criminals for himself.”

Not only the Alpini monument in Bruneck commemorates the Italian attack on Ethiopia. In the regional capital, Bolzano, a column praising the unlawful war still stands in close vicinity to the city’s large victory monument. Also in Bolzano, streets are still named after the locations of war crimes in Ethiopia and after those who committed them – such as Via-Amba-Alagi and Via-Pater-Giuliani.

“In the course of a cordial two-hour talk, “the Ethiopian ambassador showed surprise at the fact that monuments glorifying the crimes against his people are still to be found in Southern Tyrol,” according to the Schützenbund. “Even though the Ethiopian people have forgiven the Italian occupiers, they will never forget,” Mr Abay was quoted as saying. “The past is the past,” he however added.

“Mr Abay was given much documentation of the presence of fascist monuments and names commemorating the attack on Ethiopia, which he promised to hand over to the President of Ethiopia, Girma Woldegiorgis, and his Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi. By chance, the Ethiopian President had fought together with British units against the fascists during World War II.” Paul Bacher from the Schützenbund explained that, “one is still expecting the Italian state to distance itself unmistakably from past ideologies. A first step in that direction would be the removal of all fascist remnants in the country.”

“Neither in Ethiopia, nor in Italy, have the wounds of the Italo-Abyssinian war totally healed. Only recently, Ethiopia was able to recover the national symbol of the Axum Obelisk, which was stolen by Mussolini’s troops during the war. “Italy has not yet apologised to Ethiopia for its crimes,” Ambassador Abay noted.

“On 3 October 1935, Mussolini started his attack on Ethiopia, and thereby also World War II, as the Abyssinian Empire was a full-fledged member of the League of Nations. The attack on Ethiopia served Italy and Nazi Germany as a test for further warfare, as cruel tactics such as the air dropping of poison gas was practiced.

“The British physician, John Melly, head of the British Red Cross in the war-zone, thus reported horrified and outraged: “This is no war, not even a bloodbath, this is the torture of ten thousands of defenceless men, women and children by bombs and poison gas.” The delegate of the International Red Cross, Marcel Junod, described what he had experienced as aneyewitness: “Everywhere there are lying people. Ten thousands … on their feet, on all limbs I see horrible, bleeding burns.”

“The cruel attacks on civilians were committed by the Alpini elite forces. Other atrocities committed
by the Alpini in Ethiopia included systematic rape, torture and looting, in addition to the methodical slaughtering of the Ethiopian elite.

“The planned charges for war crimes against Italy in an International Court were dropped because Italy switched over in time to the winning side during World War II. Italy paid Ethiopia US$ 25 million in total as compensation for the attack and occupation and never issued an apology”.

***

But we ourselves, Dear Reader, are more interested in the erection of monuments to Ethiopian heroes – and to Ethiopian men and women of the arts and culture – and hope to return to this latter matter in a later article.

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)

We saw in the last article how the original Aksum Obelisk Committee, an entirely private body composed of less than a dozen individuals, albeit people of good will, helped to launch a movement for the return of the Aksum obelisk which Mussolini had looted from Ethiopia a generation or so earlier: Please read on:

The Obelisk Return movement at this time was not without a useful international dimension. Having formerly been Director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies several decades earlier I was on good personal terms with most of the international scholars of Ethiopian affairs, many of whom, when approached, expressed support for our campaign. This enabled me to issue a succession of statements to the essentially sympathetic press – announcing that such and such Ethiopisant was demanding the Obelisk’s repatriation. This helped to keep the issue virtually every week in the public eye.

Such supporters, who rallied to the cause, included Professor Sven Rubenson from Sweden, Professor Angelo Del Boca from Italy, Professors Richard Greenfield, Christopher Clapham and Frederick Halliday from Britain, Professors Donald Crummey, Frederick Gamst, Pascal Imperato, and Alberto Sbacchi from the United States, Maria Rait and Yuri Kobischanov from Russia, Hagai Erlich from Israel, Viraj Gubta from India, Katsuyoshi Fakui from Japan – and many, many others. Support was likewise announced from not a few prominent writers, among them Wilfred Thesiger, Thomas Pakenham, David Buxton, Graham Hancock, and Germaine Greer, as well as Rita Marley, widow of Bob Marley, and Lutz Becker, producer of the remarkable historical film The Lion of Judah, as well as the two leading British historians of modern Italy: William Deakin and Denis Mack Smith. Mrs Winthrop Boswell, an American scholar who had some years earlier used the IES library to study ancient Ethiopian-Irish relations, most generously supplied us with much appreciated “Return Our Obelisk” car stickers. They bore a representation of an Aksum obelisk as reproduced by the Scottsih traveller James Bruce in 1790.

The movement also rallied extensive support among the Ethiopian Diaspora, most notably from Ato Samuel Ferenje in Canada, Dr. Asfawossen Asrate in Germany, and Ato Zaudie Haile Mariam in Sweden, as well as Professors Achamele Debele, Ashenafe Kebede, Ephraim Isaac, Getachew Haile, Syum Gabre Egziabher, and Ato Kassahun Chekole, all in the United States. Support was also received from prominent Americans of Italian decent, among them our friend Professor Pascal Imperato. Many articles on the Obelisk likewise appeared in the Italian media, many supportive ones from the heroic pen of Professor Angelo Del Boca. Other writings on the obelisk, by the present writer and others, also appeared in the Ethiopian Diaspora press, the Ethiopian Review, the Ethiopian Register and others. As well as, in Ethiopia itself, in Addis Tribune and other papers.

***

The Obelisk Return Movement gained further impetus once again as a result of an Anniversary – this time the Centenary of the Battle of Adwa of 1896. In the lead-up to that anniversary Professor Andreas Eshete, Chairman of the Ethiopian Centenary Committee, and an old family friend, seized the occasion to appeal to the Italian Government, on Ethiopian TV, for the monument’s restitution – and was joined by Fitawrari Amede Lemma and several other members of the Obelisk Return Committee. A few days later the Ethiopian Parliament held a Public Hearing on the Obelisk, the first such hearing in its history, at which several of us urged the case for repatriation. We were joined in this by Professor Marco Vigoni, a teacher at Addis Ababa’s Italian School.

Then, on 8 February 1996, the Parliament voted unanimously – to demand the Obelisk’s return – just as its predecessor, the Emperor’s Parliament, had done three decades earlier.

***

The cause of the Obelisk’s restitution, first voiced by a few isolated individuals in different parts of
the globe, had thus at last become official Ethiopian Government policy; and a matter to be discussed at an inter-governmental level – but that is another story.

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)

Part Two

We saw in our previous article that late in the year 1991 three Italian scholars signed a petition for the return to Ethiopia of the great Aksum obelisk looted by the Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini; and that a tiny handful of us responded by drafting a supportive Ethiopian petition – which was quickly signed by some five hundred then prominent Ethiopians, including a former Prime Minister as well as many scholars and figures highly respected in the arts.

This petition, which took many people by surprise, received considerable coverage in the Ethiopian press. Now read on:

One of those enthused by our Petition was the then Nigerian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Chief Segun Ulusola, a notable poet and a good friend who used often to invite us to poetry readings at his imposing residence in what was formerly Prince Sahle Selassie’s palace.

Chief Segun, who was deeply conscious of the Benin bronzes looted by the British, agreed to sign a supportive letter – if I would draft it. The text was immediately written, signed and dispatched, on 11 March 1992. It declared in part:

“Deeply conscious of the importance of Africa’s cultural heritage, and of the struggle for its preservation, we extend our support to the people of Ethiopia in their efforts to obtain the return of the ancient Aksum obelisk now in Rome.
“We are aware that the Aksum obelisk was taken from Ethiopia in 1937 at the personal order of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
“We are no less aware that Italy in the Peace Treaty of 1947 with the United Nations agreed, in Article 37, to return, at her own expense, all articles looted from Ethiopia after October 3, 1935.
“The obelisk, as we all know, has not yet been returned in accordance with that international agreement: it stands in Rome today, as in Mussolini’s day, and we sympathize with the Ethiopian people in their just demand for its return.
“We believe that this monument is important not only for Ethiopia, but for all Africa. It is a creation in which all Africans can take pride.”

Chief Segun, who had discussed the matter with other African ambassadors, arranged for me to meet the ambassador of Zimbabwe. Mr T.A.G. Makombe, who willingly agreed to sign a similar statement. In doing so he wrote to me privately, on 18 March, saying that “the cause has my full personal support, as well as that of my Government and the people of my country”.

Further support for the Obelisk’s repatriation was voiced on 8 July in an entirely unsolicited statement from the prestigious Egyptian Antiquities Department – which was doubtless not unmindful of the loot from Egypt over the years.

All three statements duly appeared in the press.

***

It was at this point that the Ethiopian Government officially entered the campaign. On 7 April, after receiving a copy of Ambassador Makombe’s letter, Ato Seyoum Mesfin, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the then Ethiopian Transitional Government, wrote to me as follows;

“Dear Professor Pankhurst,
“I am writing to express the profound appreciation of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia for the efforts underway to have the Axum obelisk looted by the Italian fascist invaders returned to its rightful owners, the people of Ethiopia.
“Your initiative and the support to this initiative by friendly governments and others is deeply appreciated.
“I can assure you, dear Professor Pankhurst, of the Transitional Government’s whole-hearted and continued support for thus noble cause”.

***

The Aksum Return Committee was meanwhile preparing for the next dramatic stage of the struggle.
The Committee was composed of less than a dozen members, namely Fitawrari Amede Lemma (Chair), Ato Belai Gidey, Colonel Kalewold Abbai, Abba Bokretsion Wolde Gheorgis, Ato Gessesse Araia, Engineer Tadele Bitul, Ato Mammo Wudneh, Ato Solomon Asfaw, and the present writer.

The Committee’s first and perhaps most notable achievement was the great Addis Ababa Stadium Demonstration which was held on 28 May 1992, in the half-time interval of a football match between Ethiopia and Nigeria. It was arranged that a small group of us, headed by the inspiring figure of our chairman, Fitawrari Amede Lemma, should walk around the field, while the Stadium’s loudspeaker broadcast a specially prepared statement, in Amharic, about the obelisk and our demand for its repatriation. We were accompanied by two representatives of the Ethiopian Patriots Association, Fitawrari Ababayu Admas and Qanyazmach Hazen Wondwossen, and two internationally-known sports-champions Miruts Yifter and Deratu Tullu. We carried tall posters, prepared by one of our members, Engineer Tadele Kebret. They bore such slogans as “The Obelisk is Our Heritage”, and “Let Our Obelisk Come Home!” The Engineer also arranged for the Addis Ababa Handicraft School to lend a smallish wooden copy of the obelisk which was also carried round the Stadium.

As we stepped on the field, wearing our “Return Our Obelisk” paper caps, the vast crowd of football enthusiasts were for a moment mystified – and watched in silence, but by the time we were only a little way around the Stadium the crowd was fully in support, shouting repeatedly, in Amharic. “Let it [the Obelisk] Return. Let it Return!”.

***

What was no less remarkable was that the television cameras, which had been filming the football match, continued to operate throughout our demonstration. The result was that within a matter of minutes Television-viewers throughout the length and breadth of Ethiopa knew that the Obelisk’s return was actively demanded.

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)

I write today, dear reader, as one of the founders of the Aksum Obelisk Return Committee. Though our first meeting was held in our house – where we elected former Senator Fitawrari Amede Lemma as our Chairman – my memories are more of the subsequent seemingly interminable meetings in the shop and office of a dedicated Addis Ababa tailor. It belonged to one of the city’s prominent tailors, Ato Tesfaye Zellelew. Sitting in it I recalled, as a student of economic history, that the successful struggle to legalize Trade Unions in Britain had been launched by a Radical British tailor: Francis Place, of Charing Cross. This recollection almost gave me the satisfying feeling that, though the room was dark, our little band of enthusiasts was helping in our minor way to forge history.

***

My memory of the Aksum Obelisk issue had begun over twenty years earlier – in 1969. As part of an on-going study of Ethiopian economic and social history I had reached the period of the Italian Fascist occupation. Driving home at lunchtime one day, Rita and I stopped at the house of our old friend Ato Berhanu Tessema – who was then a member of the Ethiopian Senae – and his German wife Edith. Conversation touched on the point that I had just written an article on the loot taken from Ethiopia by Fascist Italy, and that this had appeared in the French Africanist journal Présence Africaine (no. 72) – at which point Berhanu told us that the Ethiopian Parliament had by coincidence just been discussing that very subject.

Naturally interested we asked him to elaborate. He told us that his fellow Parliamentarians were infuriated by the Italian Government’s failure to return the Aksum Obelisk looted on Mussolini’s orders over a decade earlier. He went on to declare his conviction that the then Italian Government was evading its treaty obligation to return the Obelisk – and that he was concerned that the Parliament’s discussion and resolution had been ignored in the official Ethiopian press.

We decided to publicize the issue by my writing a second article, this time for the Addis Ababa University Teachers’ journal Dialogue in which I would quote the full text of the resolution which the Parliament had just passed. Berhanu accordingly there and then, dictated his translation of the resolution. In it the Parliament demanded the monument’s restitution, and recommended a series of steps to be taken action should the Italian Government fail to respond. The last of these steps specified that “Italy should not be given the honour of a visit by His Imperial Majesty”.

The article, like its predecessor, concluded by recalling that the Obelisk was still in Rome where Mussolini had taken it – and ended by quoting a contemporary Italian writer, Francesco Pierotti, as justifying this on the ground that “we Italians like old stones”. This shocked Rita, who drafted the final comment::”We wonder whether there are not Ethiopians too who ‘like old stones’, especially one fashioned by their fore-fathers”. We accordingly added “Old Stones” to the article’s title which read “The Loss of Ethiopian Antiquities during the Italian Invasion of 1935-6” – and appeared in the journal’s March 1970 issue.

***

Feeling that the Obelisk question should not be forgotten I included reference to it in successive issues of the London-based “Europa” reference work Africa South of the Sahara, which was then widely read in diplomatic circles. – and later raised the matter again in the UNESCO journal Museum, number 149 for 1986.

Such ideas were, however, briskly dismissed by a former Italian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Signor Pastucci-Righi. He observed in the official Italian Government publication Professione Diplomatici that the Ethiopian population “knew nothing of the obelisk” and “attached no sentimental or cultural, let alone economic value to its return”.

And that’s where the matter stood until 1991 – the Fiftieth Anniversary of the fall of Mussolini’s Fascist Empire in the Spring of 1941.

***

Such is the importance of anniversaries in human life that the year 1991 seemed an appropriate moment for many Italians to recall – and re-evaluate – the short-lived Fascist Empire, which had collapsed with the Italian military surrender of Addis Ababa on 6 April 1941.

On the fiftieth anniversary of that historic event the Italian Left-Wing daily newspaper L’Unità published a general historical article on the Occupation. Written by the present-writer it drew attention to the fact that the Obelisk, despite Ethiopian requests, had thus far not been returned.

This article prompted Mr Bruno Renate Imperiali, an Italian Anti-Fascist in Rome, who had lived in Ethiopia in his youth, to write a Letter to the Editor urging the monument’s repatriation – and I proceeded to write a longer, follow-up, article, exclusively on the Obelisk, which appeared in the same newspaper on 1 December 1991.

The question of the Obelisk’s Return thus came alight in Italy. On 28 December two Italian newspapers, L’Unità and La Republica, published the news that three Italian intellectuals, Vincenzo Francaviglia, Giuseppe Infranca and Alberto Rossi, had signed a Petition to the Italian Government, urging the Obelisk’s return to Ethiopia. Their words, which show that the Obelisk Return movement was in no way “Anti-Italian”, as some people have tried to claim, did not fall on deaf ears.

On learning of the Italian petition Rita and I called our old friend Ato Assefa Gabre Mariam Tessema, formerly of the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture, and together we drafted an Ethiopian Petition to echo that of the three Italian scholar:, It read as follows:

“We recall that Italy has the obligation under Article 37 of the Peace Treaty of 1947 to return to Ethiopia all articles looted after October 3 1935, the day of the fascist invasion.

“We therefore endorse the request of the three Italian scholars, and hereby petition for the return of this historic object to its rightful place”.

Assefa then rushed around Addis Ababa in his Volkswagen collecting signatures. A number of enthusiasts – Shiferaw Bekele, Claude Sumner and Denis Gérard in Addis Ababa, Zawdie Haile Mariam in Sweden, Fikre Tolosa in the United States, Hari Chhabra in India, and several Ras Tafarian groups in Britain and elsewhere – shortly afterwards produced supportive petitions, likewise demanding the Obelisk’s return, for which they collected additional signatures.

The Petition was signed in a matter of days by over 500 then prominent Ethiopians. They included a former Prime Minister, Lij Mikael Imru; a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dejazmach Zawdie Gabre Sellassie; the artist Maitre Afewerk Tekle; the historian Ato Tekle Tsadik Mekuria; the playwright Tsegaye Gabre Medhin; and the scholarly banker Tafara Deguefe, as well as many academics of Addis Ababa University, among them Professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam.

This initiative received considerable, on-going attention in the Ethiopian press – and led to the next important stage in the Obelisk struggle: the establishment of a private, entirely unofficial, Aksum Obelisk Return Committee.

***

The first step towards the establishment of the Committee was taken when ex-Senator Fiitawrari Amede Lemma, who had raised the Obelisk issue in the Ethiopian Parliament a generation earlier, approached his neighbour, our mutual friend Artist Afewerk, asking to be put in touch with the present writer. Almost simultaneously a former extension student of mine, the banker and popular historian Belai Geday ‘phoned to propose the establishment of a committee. This was duly sat up, and held its first meeting, on 3 February 1992.

Professor Pankhurst’s ensuing article will chronicle the history of the committee.

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)

Contacts between Africa and Asia, and more particularly between Ethiopia and India, led to the spectacular, and well-documented, movement between the two regions of a number of animals, which, on their arrival, were regarded with great fascination.

***

This development may be traced at least to the early 14th century, when a giraffe from Malindi on the East African coast arrived in China. A painting of the animal, known as a ki-lin, was duly produced, and a China-centric poem was composed in 1416. Duvyandak translates it as declaring:

In the corner of the Western Sea
Truly was produced a ki-lin
With the body of a deer and the tail of an ox, and a fleshy boneless horn
With luminous spots like a red cloud or a purple mist….
It walks in a stately fashion, and in its every motion it observes a motion
Gentle is this animal that in all antiquity has been seen but once.

***

Animal contacts between Ethiopia and India seem to have begun a little later – in the early 17th century when an African elephant of uncertain origin was reported to have arrived in Gujarat, the area of north-western India known for its close relations with Ethiopia – and the home, we may add, of lions.

***

The relationship between Ethiopia and India, in respect of elephants, we may note in an aside, has long been a question of some interest – because the animal is known in the ancient Ethiopian Ge’ez language as nagé, possibly connected with the ancient Indian Sanskrit naga – and because ancient Aksum’s principal export to India was ivory.

But to return to our story: A second elephant arrived in Gujarat some years later, apparently during the reign of the Mugul emperor Akbar (1556-1605). Said to have come from Abyssinia, it was presented to the Mugul monarch by the Gujarati ruler Itmat Khan. Having been brought by sea, it was very appropriately known as a “sea elephant”, and was said to have had “exceedingly long ears”, i.e. in comparison with his Indian cousins, as well as “strange motions” Akbar’s son Emperor Jahanger (1605-1627) later recalled that the “young elephant,,, by degree grew up and was very fiery and bad-tempered”.

***

Another animal, which travelled in the early 17th century – but in the opposite direction – from India to Ethiopia – was a parrot, which was presented, possibly by the Jesuits, to the Ethiopian Emperor Susneyos (1607 -1632). His chronicle proudly states that the bird “spoke the language of the people” – presumably Amharic, as well as Hindi, Arabic, and Romayst, or Poruguese, and imitated the sounds of both cats and horses. The bird, being greatly admired for these accomplishments, was taken to entertain many of the nobles, but was unfortunately soon eaten by a cat.

Several other animals were meanwhile being taken from Ethiopia to India. A third elephant is mentioned in the memoirs of Emperor Jahanger, which reveals that the beast arrived at his court in 1616. The text describes it as “a small elephant from Abyssinia” which they had been “brought by sea in a ship”, and adds: “In comparison with the elephants of Hindustan it presents some peculiarities. Its ears are larger… and its trunk and tail are larger”.

The first known zebra to travel internationally was at about the same time presented by Emperor Susneyos to the Basha, or local ruler, of the Red Sea port of Suakin, who subsequently sold it to a Muslim merchant for two thousand Venetian sequins. It was then transported to India, where it was acquired by Emperor Jahanger. He reports with admiration that that this “ass-like” animal was “exceedingly strange in appearance, exactly like a tiger”, and adds:

“From the tip of the nose to the end of the tail and from the point of the ear to the top of the hoof, black markings, large and small, suitable to their position, were seen on it. Round the eyes there was an exceedingly fine line. One might state that the Painter of Fate, with a strange brush had left it on the Page of the World. As it was so strange, some people imagined that it had been coloured. After minute inquiry into the truth, it became known [however] that the Lord of the World was The Creator thereof”.

This wondrous animal was the source of great interest. At least two drawings of it were produced, one by the Mugul court artist Ustad Mansur, who inscribed it with a statement that it had been “brought from Abyssinia in 1030 AH [1620-1 AD] by the Turks with Mir Jafar”;

***

The expulsion of the Jesuits from Ethiopia by Susneyos’son Empror Fasiladas (1632-1667 ) opened a new era in Ethiopian history – an era in which the country’s rulers turned turned their backs on the West – and opened up relations instead with the East. Seeking to establish stronger, and more direct, relations with the Mugul Empire Fasiladas dispatched his Armenian envoy Murad in 1664 with presents for the Mugul Emperor Aurangzeb. The French traveller François Bernier reports that these gifts included:

“fifteen horses, esteemed equal to those of Arabia, and a species of mule… no tiger is so beautifully marked, and no alacha [fine cloth] of the Indies or striped silken stuff, is more finely and variously syreaked…”

The poor zebra, and most of the horses. unfortunately died on the journey – but its skin was preserved – and impressed all who saw it. The Venetian traveler Niccolao Manucci observed that the creature had been “striped naturally in various colours, so beautiful that a tiger could not be striped in a more lovely manner”, and adds: “of a truth it was a wonderful thing. fit to be presented to any great ruler”.

***

Fasiladas’s pro-Mugul policy was continued by his son and heir Emperor Yohannes I (1667-1682) who dispatched Murad on a further, and apparently much larger, embassy to the East in 1671. After visiting the Mugul capital – with what presents we do not precisely know – the Armenian envoy proceeded to the Dutch East Indies with a letter of greetings to its governor Jan Maetzuyker,
Murad also brought the latter many costly gifts. These were reported by the German scholar Hiob Ludolf to have included four well-bred horses, and two “striped asses of the woods”, i.e. zebras – “so beautiful”, he claims, that “no painter could depict them”.

What happened to these highly prized animals has still to b established: the German traveler Emanuel Nawendorff, who saw them, states that two of them were later sent as presents to the Emperor of Japan.

But there the story ends: what the Japanese monarch and his subjects thought of these tiger-coloured mules we have thus far not been able to discover.

***

The continental movement of animals to and from Ethiopia did not however end there. Early in the 19th century, with the development of commercial capitalism, Ethiopian mules were shipped to the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion. Later, on the eve of the British invasion of Ethiopia in 1867-8, elephants and mules were brought into the country by the British to transport their cannon and military supplies to Emperor Tewodros’s mountain fortress of Maqdala. Later again, towards the late of the 19th it began to be fashionable for Ethiopia’s rulers – beginning with Emperors Yohannes IV and Menilek II – to present a champion lion or elephant to a European King or American President they wished to honour.

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)

The Port of Jibuti, though one of the most important, is also one in the youngest of the Horn of Africa. It came into existence only on account of the railway to Addis Ababa, which was initiated as a result of a Concession which Emperor Menilek granted to his Swiss technical adviser and diplomatic aide, Alfred Ilg, in 1894. Work on the railway was, however, delayed until after Ethiopia’s victory at the Battle of Adwa in 1896 – because the French Government, which held a Protectorate over Jibuti and its environs, was uncertain whether Menilek’s Ethiopia would survive the impending trial of strength with Italy – and were little interested in providing railway and port facilities for the Italian colonial empire which would presumably have emerged had Italy won the Adwa war.

As it was, dear reader, Menilek, you will remember, was victorious at Adwa on 1 March 1896 – and a year and a half later, in October 1897. work on the railway duly began at Jibuti.

The coming of the railway, it has been said, lifted Jibuti out of the sand – and caused it to replace the much older port of Tajurah, which lay little more than a figurative stone’s throw away, on the opposite of the nearby bay.

Jibuti likewise contributed immensely to the modernization – almost indeed to the making – of Menilek’s Ethiopia. Image the transformation in transport wrought by the railway: how much easier it was to carry a steam-engine, a motor-car, a consignment of corrugated iron – or a portly diplomat – by train rather than by mule.

Jibuti, thanks to the railway, became – albeit unofficially – Ethiopia’s principal port; and Jibuti, for its part, would indeed have made slim pickings without the existence of Ethiopia’s export-import trade.

Many Ethiopians were however saddened, at the time of the Italian Fascist invasion of 1935-6, to see the French Government joining the British Government in its Policy of so-called Neutrality which denied arms to both sides – a policy which treated the victim of aggression on a par with the aggressor itself. Jibuti, through which military supplies for Ethiopia’s defence might have come, were, if you will pardon the metaphor, put on ice.

After the Fascist occupation of Ethiopia the question of Jibuti took a new turn, which brings us to the core of our essay today. Mussolini, you may recall, was at this time in a bellicose mood. He had, as he claimed, “conquered” Ethiopia, and was soon to invade Albania. That, however, was not enough. He started making speeches, declaring that Italy – to re-create the Roman Empire – was in immediate need of Nice and Corsica, Tunisia and Jibuti. As for the latter place Fascist writers argued that the port was profiting unduly from Italian enterprise in the newly established Italian Impero. Why, they asked, should the decadent French, with their declining population, benefit from the constructive activities of the victorious Duce? Why indeed!

It was galling moreover when Menelik’s statue in Addis Ababa had been thrown down that Jibuti should still receive an Ethiopian representative, Lij Andagachew Messa, and retain an important square, named after the victor of Adwa – the Place Ménélik.

It is uncertain how popular Mussolini’s new territorial claims were in Italy itself. Fascist Italy’s initial invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-6 had by all accounts generated great excitement – even if this was largely stage-managed. But, as the years rolled by, Ethiopian Patriot resistance continued, and the cost of the Ethiopian war – to which was added the cost of one in Spain – became increasingly apparent. Italians, for reasons of “autarchy”, or Self-Sufficiency, began drinking karkaday (a drink from rose hips) instead of coffee – and Fascist plans for mass Italian settlement in Ethiopia were scaled down.

Enthusiasm for the Empire declined, and growing ties with the unpopular Nazi German regime developed. The voices of Italy’s Anti-Fascists began increasingly to be heard – even though one of them, Carlo Rosselli (whom the present writer met as child), was gunned down on Mussolini’s order in Paris. The Duce’s claim to Nice, Corsica and the rest thus fell in Italy on increasingly unreceptive ears.
Worse still for fruition of these claims it became clear that the French, whether or not decadent, were not prepared to abandon their territories, either in Europe of Africa.

Plans for a Fascist occupation of Jibuti were however discussed in Rome -and plans hatched. A map of the town was included in the semi-official Italian tourist guide of 1938: the Guida dell’ Africa Orientale Italiana. More significantly the Fascist telegraph authorities printed telegraph forms for use in the anticipated Italian imperial port of Gibuti. These forms – one of them here reproduced -bore the Italian royal arms and spelt the expected place of issue as Gibuti, i.e. in the Italian fashion with a G rather than a J (or Dj).

The Fascist East African Empire was , however, paradoxically still largely dependent on the then French controlled port of Jibuti. The telegraph forms for use in the projected Italian-occupied Jibuti were thus shipped via that port to the Italian telegraph headquarters in occupied Addis Ababa.

The “concerned authorities” reckoned, however, without the ingenuity of M. Michel Pasteau of the French-run Chemin de Fer, who arranged for one or more crates of Italian state property to be “accidentally” broken open. The telegraph forms in question – quite an historical curiosity in their way, thus came to light – and the good M. Pasteau long afterwards presented a copy of one to the Institute of Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa.

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)

The Short-lived Clandestine Publication Amda Berhan za Ityopeya

During the Italian Fascist occupation the Ethiopian Patriots, dear Reader, had only limited contact with the outside world. Emperor Haile Sellassie, then living in Bath, England, dispatched the occasional envoy to Ethiopia, and corresponded with several of the more important resistance leaders. My mother, Sylvia Pankhurst, also succeeded in smuggling into the country Amharic supplements of her newspaper New Times and Ethiopia News.

After Mussolini’s declaration of war on Britain and France on 10 June 1940 – and Haile Sellassie’s arrival in the Sudan a month later – the situation changed: the British began producing a field newspaper called Bandarachin (i.e. Our Flag), which is said to have helped to keep the Patriots informed of Allied victories in World War II.

This period also witnessed the publication, in Italian-occupied Addis Ababa, of a today largely forgotten Amharic news-sheet, entitled Amda-Berhan za Ityopeya (i.e. Pillar of Light of Ethiopia) – with which we are today concerned.

The distinction of being the first author to mention this publication belongs to Professor Richard Greenfield, who however refers to it only in passing. In his New History of Ethiopia) he says only that a certain Armenian, Yohannes Semerjibashian, had “started the underground paper Pillar of Light of Ethiopia”. Nothing else. Greenfield gives no details on the “paper”, the existence of which seems to have been ignored by virtually all other writers on the period!

Yohannes Semerjibashian, who lived in Addis Ababa, was prior to the invasion in the employ of the German Legation. His wife, Wayzaro Asada-Maryam Wassan-Yalläah, was a sister of the Patriot leader Blatta Hayle Takla-Aragay, and a relative of the heroic commander Afawarq Walda-Samayat, who died resisting the Italians in the Ogaden in 1935. During the Italian occupation Yohannes Semerjibashian reportedly assisted the Ethiopian Patriots, and later received a medal for this from the Emperor.

Before his death, according to his son Aklilu Werner Semerjibashian, Yohannes Semerjibashian deposited his papers in the American Legation, later Embassy, in Addis Ababa for safe-keeping. The present writer subsequently investigated State Department archives, on Aklilu Semerjibashian’s behalf, made inquiries at the then U.S. Legation, and over the years discussed the matter with several American envoys, and former Legation staff members – but to no avail. Of Yohannes Semerjibashian’s personal papers no trace could be found!

***

Subsequent research, dear Reader, has however established that Amda Berhan za Ityopeya was produced secretly, towards the end of the Italian occupation, by a small group of individuals, who comprised both Ethiopians and Armenians.

There are two somewhat different accounts of the composition of this group. The first version is embodied in a thus-far unpublished tape-recorded interview with the late Armenian historian Avedis Terzian, carried out by the present writer in 1977. The second account is found in a biography of Yohannes Terzian, written by the Ethiopian historian Bairu Tafla, and published in the Armenian Review for 1985.

Those involved in producing the publication consisted, according to Terzian, of three Armenians and two Ethiopians. The Armenians were the afore-said Yohannes Semerjibashian; Avedis Terzian himself, and another Terzian, who had worked in the pre-war Ethiopian radio, and whom we presume to have been Michel Terzian. The Ethiopians were Bezunah Neway, a former director in the Addis Ababa post office – a prominent Catholic who later became director of prisons); and an accomplished traditional scribe, Dasta Alame.

Bairu Tafla’s account differs from the above in that he mentions only one Armenian, the afore-said Yohannes Semerjibashian, but lists no less than four Ethiopians. They were the two above-mentioned personalities, Bezunah Neway, and Dasta Alame (whom he cites as Dasta Alammah), and two others, namely Hayle Takla-Aragay (subsequently a functionary in the Ministry of the Interior, and Mahdärä Salam (later a lawyer).

The two accounts differ also in that Terzian states that the publication ran to only seven issues, while Bairu observes that “at least 12 issues” were “said to have been published”.

Terzian remarks that copies were dispatched to Ras Abbaba Aragay and other Patriot leaders – to brief them on military and other events of the day, while Bairu is more explicit. He states that the publication was distributed “among confidents among the patriots”, and that:

“Liason between Johannes and the outstanding patriots was provided by a certain Habta-Wald who communicated with Abbaba Aragay, Dajjazmach Zawdu Abba-Koran, Kantiba Gäbre Hayla-Sellase, and others, while the soothsayer, Wayzaro Jefare, kept in touch on his behalf with the patriots in Gendabarat as well as with Blatta Takkala Walda-Hawaryat and Dajjazmach Kabbada Bezu-Nah”.

The following is an excerpt from Terzian’s interview – in which he states that he – and Yohannes Semerjibashian

“used to publish a clandestine paper which we sent to the Patriots – which gave them hope because the Patriots had no communication with the world”.

Elaborating on the history of Amda Berhan, Terzian continues:

“The Patriot movement was exceedingly weak – from the point of view of information…
“When the war with Italy and the West [began], when Italy declared war on the West, that same evening I was arrested, considered to be pro-Western, pro-English, or pro-American.
“With quite a group of people we were interned in a concentration camp, [but] fortunately I had good contacts with the German Ambassador who, though a Nazi ambassador, was not a Nazi. He was an old diplomat in Ethiopia… he was very kind to me, and furthermore his interpreter was an Armenian, Mr Yohannes [Semerjibashian], who was my collaborator [i.e. on the paper]. So I was freed on condition that I would not listen to radio; that I would not go to public gatherings, or cinemas, and had to report daily to the [Fascist] Police.”

Turning to his contact with his Yohannes Semerjibashian at the German Embassy, Terzian continues:
“We thought we should do something. We decided to publish a clandestine leaflet using a gelatine duplicator which we made ourselves. We got the gelatine from a printing house, and made a flat thing; and so we said, ‘Let’s give the Patriots good information’. We discussed it with two Ethiopian friends: one was Ato Bezunah Neway, he was one of directors of the old Parcel Post office – a very staunch Patriot. Then we said we need good hand-writing in Amharic – and we discovered a certain Ethiopian. His name was Dasta Alame, who had been a clerk in the Palace – in the old days they did not have printing – they had these fine writers, hand-writers. So we were four. “

“Then we had to have a duplicator. I had a cousin, who was a Terzian, and who had worked in the Ethiopian radio…he was clever with the duplication. We made our duplicating slides, and we began to organise the publication.

“The first thing we did was to contact [i.e. listen to] the BBC because we wanted reliable information. So, as I have said, I had not been allowed to own a radio, but my wife – we had Italian high-standing neighbours – my wife said, “How can I live without music?” They said, “You are right”, and they intervened, and we were allowed to have a radio – provided that we heard nothing but the radio from Rome.

“I discovered that by gradually reducing the volume I could hear a lot [which] other people, eves-droppers, could not follow. So gradually I followed the BBC daily.

“We began with the publication of information that interested the Patriots, We started with the arrival of the Emperor at Om Medla [the Ethiopian settlement on the Sudan frontier]. It was to give them a concrete hope that something was happening – because for many years they had been out of contact…

“There were not many copies [of the paper printed], I think there were perhaps twenty. There were [not] more than twenty copies.

“So we sent them to the Patriot centres. Ras Abbaba, who though he was not the chief of all the Patriots, was the Patriot not very far from Dabra Berhan, in the centre of Shawa. He was considered to be the top man. So we sent him the paper… At first he did not believe [i.e. understand] what it was: whether it was a trick [or] whether it was something false. But when the second one arrived he realized that it was something out of the ordinary; and he gathered all the Patriots; and they have a system of putting up a pole on which they put a burnous – in the old days of decrees – to call the people to a gathering: they used to put up a pole on which they fixed a burnous, you know a dark cape – a woollen cape. And they all congregated there, and it [the paper] was read publicly, and then it was sent from mountain to mountain. They [the Patriots] were very much impressed, because this got more information – I should tell you that unfortunately the British propaganda, which was dropped from Aden, was several months old: they were all just bunches of papers, which did not mean anything because it was not up-to-date.

“So we continued – and something very funny happened. The Italians had organized a local government in Addis, under the Italian administration. They had taken the old Sähafé Tä’ezaz of Emperor Haile Sellassie, and made him Director of an office which they called some Bureau [or other -Terzian, dear Reader, does not at this point remember the name]; and the second-in-command was the brother-in-law of our collaborator, the director of the parcel post. He informed us that the Italians had got hold of a leaflet called Amda Berhan, through their spies in the Patriot’s organization – but to mislead the Italians we had indicated that this was published at Om Medla – that it was moving forward with the Emperor. They did not believe [the latter suggestion] at first, but they suspected that the paper was produced in Addis – so we got good warning, but in any case we continued until the British occupation”.

At this point Mr Terzian turned to other matters.

We are left, dear Reader, with the above tantalizing glimpse of the production of Ethiopia’s perhaps least known 20th century publication, printed in one of the country’s most difficult eras – a publication which deserves a place in the history of the Ethiopian press.

But so far the present writer has not been able to trace a single copy – even in Fascist archives. Reader: Can you help me?

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)

One of these manuscripts, interestingly enough, was looted by the Napier Expedition from Maqdala, and was placed in the British Museum (later British Library) – but was returned to Ethiopia at the request of Emperor Yohannes IV (reigned 1872-1889). This manuscript, which bore the stamp of the British Museum, is currently in the possession of St Raguel’s Church in the Addis Ababa market area, where it was inspected a few years ago by the present writer.

The map, or diagram, in question is reminiscent of early European Christian maps which put the “holy city” of Jerusalem or the “eternal city” of Rome in the centre of the work, or of Arab maps which place Mecca in that honoured position. The maps with which we are today concerned were, however, Ethiopian maps. As such they indicated the holy Ethiopian city of Aksum, rather than Jerusalem, Rome or Mecca, as their centre.

Aksum, it will be recalled, was the site of the ancient obelisks – and hence in a sense of the birth of Ethiopian civilization. Aksum was the place where many kings of old-time Ethiopia, as well as several later monarchs, were crowned. Aksum was the location of the country’s paramount church – that of St Mary of Seyon. Aksum was the city where the Abun, or Metropolitan of the Ethiopian church, resided, and where Ethiopian priests were ordained.

There was thus – all in all – a strong case for designating Aksum as the centre of the old-time Ethiopian maps which we are today considering.

The maps under consideration consist of three concentric bands, with the name “Aksum” placed in the centre. The innermost band comprises eight sections comprising the cardinal points, and intermediate directions. The map’s outer band indicates what were then considered the most important provinces of historic Ethiopia, and their approximate location as viewed from the map’s central point, i.e. Aksum.

What, you may ask, was the area depicted on these maps?

Central, as we have seen, was Aksum itself, around which are clustered what the Ethiopian map-maker considered his country’s twelve principal provinces. These together cover an area of some three hundred kilometres from north to south, and as many again from east to west.

Three of these provinces, or a quarter of the total, lay to the north or north-east of Aksum. They comprised the provinces of Hamasen, Seraye and Bur. All three were at that time ruled by the Bahr Nagash, who, as his name suggests, was the traditional Ethiopian governor of the Province towards the Red Sea. All three provinces currently form part of Eritrea.

Hamasien, the more northerly of the three, was the location of the town of Debarwa, then the head-quarters of the Bahr Nagash, as well as of the old-time village of Asmara, now capital of Eritrea.
Seraye, south-west of Hamasien, was a region closely associated with Aksum, which lay on the opposite, or southern side of the Marab river. It was a province where Emperors Sayf Ar;ad (reigned 1342-1370) and Lebna Dengel (reigned 1508-1540) had both given important land to the Church of St Mary of Aksum.

Bur, far to the north in the direction of the Red Sea coast, also contained lands subject to the Church of St Mary at Aksum, The province traditionally consisted of two sub-provinces: a highland region known as Upper Bur, and a lowland one, as you would expect, as Lower Bur.

A further six provinces, or half the total, lay to the east, north-east or south-east of Aksum. They consisted from north to south of Agame, Amba Senayt, Garalta, Tanben, Endarta and Sahart.
Five of the above, namely Agame, Garalta, Tanben, Endarta and Sahart, figure in the chronicles of Emperor Zar;a Yaqob (reigned 1433-1468).

Agame, which lay due inland from Bur, was a name dating back to ancient Aksumite times. Its inhabitants by the time the map was made, were beginning to be rated as some of the best riflemen in the entire country.

Amba Senayt, due south of Agame, was the so-called Beautiful Amba, or Mountain – it was reputedly named after a local woman ruler who had once rebelled against an unspecified ruler of earlier time.
The two remaining provinces, to the west and south-west of Aksum respectively, were Shire and Abargale. Both likewise formed part of Zar’a Ya’qob’s domains.

A word in conclusion should be said about the cardinal points as understood in Ethiopia.

The most important – and most visible – were those of the East and West axis, which could easily be identified by the rising and setting of the Sun. These two points were known in Ethiopia as Mesraq, literally Place of Rising, i.e. East; and Me’rab, Place of Setting, i.e. West.

The North-South axis was less important – as evident from the fate of the Ethiopian word Samen. This term, in Aksumite times, originally meant South, and was identified with the mountain range of that name, which stood to the South of Aksum. But, as Ethiopian civilization itself moved south, the said mountains came to be perceived to the north – with the result that the name Samen, formerly meaning South, came to mean North.

So, dear reader, you can truly say, “South – North, Same Thing”.

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)