By Aleme Eshete

EPRDF’s so-called “National Conference” of July 1991, attended by hand-picked individuals who had no popular mandate, approved the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia.

EPLF’s Secretary General Issayas Afeworki, who had attended the meeting as an observer, had accepted to hold a “referendum” in Eritrea within two years. But what kind of a referendum is this?

A referendum presupposes the existence of divergent views and opinions on important public issues. Existing differences of views and opinions are expected to be debated freely among the public and representative organizations before voting on the issue.

EPLF’s Issayas Afeworki denies these essential attributes of referendum. Issayas and other EPLF leaders proclaim that everybody in Eritrea wants independence. Why call for a referendum where there is no opposition? EPLF has a monopoly on power for two years leading to the referendum. No other party or political organization will be allowed inside Eritrea in preparation for the referendum. Why fear other political parties if all Eritreans favor independence? What is the sense of a “referendum” in the absence of freedom of opinion, of organization and a free press? What is the meaning of a referendum in a one-party dictatorial system?

Referenda are incompatible with dictatorships. A referendum under a dictatorship does not express the wishes of the people but the orders of the dictator. Unionists both inside Eritrea and in the rest of Ethiopia should be able to engage in free political activity and to express their deep sentiments regarding the free union of the people of Eritrea with the rest of Ethiopia.

Both Ato Meles Zenawi and Ato Issayas Afeworki have attempted at the July 1991 Conference to undermine the aspirations of the Unionists in Eritrea. Ato Issayas Afeworki claims to have a mysterious document which will prove that the majority of Eritreans wanted independence and not federation with Ethiopia:

We have hard facts, historical facts… The fact that the population was not consulted on its right and destiny and the findings which prove that all the political groups within the Independence Bloc represented more than 75 percent of the population prove that their rights were trampled upon. These historical truths are recorded in historical archives and could be consulted…”

The historical documents on the federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea tell a different story. They show Mahbere Fekri Hager, (Association of Love of Country) the Eritrean Unionist movement which championed union with Ethiopia, later named Ye-Ertrana Ye-Ethiopia Andinet Mahber (Association of Union of Eritrea with Ethiopia) established as early as 1941, was by far the earliest political movement in Eritrean history. The Unionist Association had its headquarters in Asmera and a number of branch offices in different parts of Eritrea. Further, Mahbere Fekri Hager had its own newspaper called “The Voice of Eritrea” published in Tigrigna and circulated throughout Eritrea. According to one authoritative source:

By 1942 every [Orthodox Christian] priest [in Eritrea] had become a propagandist in the Ethiopian cause; every village Church had become a center of Ethiopian nationalism, and popular religious feast days such as “Maskal” (the feast of the Cross) had become occasions for open displays of Ethiopian patriotism. The Cathedral, monasteries, and village churches would be festooned with Ethiopian flags, and the sermons and prayers would be delivered in unequivocal political language…

British Military Administration (1941-1952)
Mussolini decided to join the war on the side of Hitler on June 10, 1940. British Somaliland had always been concerned by the establishment and military expansion of Fascist Italian imperialism in the Horn of Africa since 1935. Hence the attack by British forces (joined by Ethiopian patriots including Eritreans) against Fascist Italian troops in Eritrea in 1941. The British had won the war and occupied Asmera on April 1, 1941. This ended 50 years of Italian colonial rule in Eritrea. The British military administration of Eritrea lasted until 1952.

The British had several projects for Eritrea in order to advance their own colonial schemes in East Africa. Whatever Issayas and Meles may say, the British were not pro-Ethiopia or pro-Unionist. Following British occupation Eritrea and a good part of Ethiopia, there were serious clashes that lasted several years between the restored Emperor’s government at Addis Abeba and the British. The clashes occurred in Eritrea, Ogaden, Harer and Tigrai. Indeed British colonial circles coveted Ethiopian independence and wanted to treat the Emperor a puppet protege thus creating bitter resistance and friction. John H. Spencer, who was the Foreign Affairs adviser of the Ethiopian Government during those crucial years and who had personally participated at the negotiations with the Big Four in London, Paris, and later at the United Nations and whose book, Ethiopia at Bay (1987) deals mainly with this subject, has written: “The Military Administration in Eritrea was by no means sympathetic to the Unionist movement there.” Documents supporting similar arguments are found in the British Foreign Office archives at the Public Records Office of Kew Gardens (London).

The Four Power Commission
On September 3, 1943 Italy pulled out of the Second World War by signing an armistice with the Four Big Powers. Article 23 of the peace treaty contained three important provisions:

1) Italy agreed to renounce its rights in all her former colonies in Africa, including Eritrea;

2) The fate the former Italian colonies will be taken by the US, France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union within a year of the coming into force of the peace treaty; and

3) If the Four Powers were unable to agree the matter will be taken by the United Nations.

Eventually, a Four Powers Commission of Investigation was established in order to visit Eritrea and ascertain the political wishes of the people regarding the future of Eritrea. The principal procedures the commission adopted to assess the wishes of the Eritreans were to invite organizations and individuals to present written declarations about the future of Eritrea and then conduct interviews with the principal organizations and individuals including representatives of the political parties which then numbered five –the Unionist Party, the Muslim League, the Progressive Liberal Party, the Pro-Italian Party, the National Moslem Party of Massawa). The procedures also included interview with leaders of social, religious and professional organizations; and visits to villages and industrial plants to interview the populations directly in order to ascertain declarations made by leaders or representatives.

The Commission and later the United Nations Commission for Eritrea have observed the poor level of political consciousness of Eritrea’s peasant society which had been subjected to centuries of feudal oppressive obscurantism and then fifty years of an equally oppressive and racist colonial regime. This was the first time in the whole history of the region that a people had ever been asked to participate democratically in shaping their own future without ever having had any previous experience at democratic processes.

This pioneering process had its short-comings. It would not have been much different if the Four Power Commission or that the United Nations called their investigation a “referendum,” as Meles Zenawi and Issayas are now pointing out. Under the circumstances and with all their shortcomings the investigations of the Four Power Commission and later of the United Nations Commission were certainly much freer and much more democratic, with so varied political and social organizations allowed to air their opinions freely, than the present so called “referendum” conducted in the absence of elementary liberties of expression and of organization.

The Four Powers disagreed on the interpretation of the voluminous material collected in the process of investigation. There were differences between the West and the USSR. The Soviet Union’s position regarding the disposal of Eritrea has not always been pro-independence. Trevaskis wrote:

The Russians were cynically opportunists. At first they proposed quite simply that the spoils of the war should be divided between the victors. They demanded a trusteeship of Tripolitania for themselves, and suggested that the US and Britain should have trusteeships in other territories…

The French opposed the Unionists. This had nothing to do with Eritrea but with French opposition to Ethiopia having its own sea ports following union with Eritrea. Whereas even the Soviets accepted Ethiopia’s right of access to the Red Sea, the French who in their colony of Djibouti controlled the Ethiopian import-export trade through the Addis Abeba-Djibouti railway. They wanted to see Ethiopia remain land- locked and dependent on Djibouti.

The United Nations Commission for Eritrea (1950-1952)
Following the failure of the Four Powers Commission to reach agreement on the Eritrean issue, the U.N. took up the issue. Bringing the Eritrean issue to the United Nations meant introducing new elements, particularly Italy, but also the Muslim-Arab countries. To the disappointment of the Ethiopian delegation, the Fourth Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (Autumn 1949) was unable to reach agreement on the basis of the findings of the Four Powers Commission, mainly due to Italian opposition. Italian colonial interest had been revived since the Peace Treaty of 1947 (article 23) by which it had accepted “to renounce all rights and titles to all her former colonies in Africa.”

Italy was now fighting for a return of Libya, Somalia, and possibly to Eritrea in one form or another. The so called Bevin-Sforza agreement between Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Minister and Count Sforza, the Italian Foreign Minister had been adopted by a U.N. Committee in May 1949. According to that proposal Italy was to be granted trusteeships in Somalia and Tripolitania (part of Libya); that Cyrenaica (the remaining part of Libya) should become independent after a period of British trusteeship. Eritrea was to be partitioned between Ethiopia and Sudan. The western Moslem lowlands were to go to Sudan and the Eritrean highlands as well as the eastern maritime coastal plains were to merge in complete union with Ethiopia as demanded by the Unionists. An anti-Italian riot in Tripolitania buried the Bevin-Sforza plan at the U.N. Italy now concentrated its attention on Somalia and Eritrea. And although it was not even a member of the United Nations, Italy was canvassing large support particularly among the Latin American countries. Through such lobby Italy had finally been allowed to return to Somaliland as a U.N. trustee.

In spite of the activities of the Pro-Italy Party formed just in time for interviews with the Four Power Commission, the Italo-Eritrean Association (largely made up of half-castes) and the Veterans Association of former banda or soldiers who had enrolled within the Italian Fascist army, the dimension of anti-Italian sentiments in Eritrea were so obvious that Italy had to abandon any idea of return as a trustee power. Italy had therefore to find a formula which would win international favor as well as attract support in Eritrea, against the Unionists and Ethiopia. And that is how the Italian government, supported by the colonial circles and the press both in Italy as well as in Eritrea started to fight for the immediate “independence” of Eritrea, with the idea, as Trevaskis wrote, of a nominally “independent” Eritrea dependent on Italian political control. With this in mind the Italian government had been instrumental in arranging for the Moslem League, the Pro-Italy Party (later named New Eritrea Party) the Italo- Eritrean Association and the Veterans Association to meet in New York during the U.N. sessions in the Spring of 1949 to form the “Independence Bloc.” It was only upon their return to Eritrea that the Liberal Progressive Party and two new parties, the Independent Eritrea Party and the Intellectual Association of Eritreans, joined the Bloc in order to fight the Unionists and union of Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Subsequently, the United Nations established a Commission of Investigation. The Ethiopian delegation at the United Nations felt that the UN should have decided the issue on the basis of the findings of the Four Powers Commission. It opposed the constitution of another commission of investigation which it felt, according to John H. Spencer, was a “brazen attempt to gain time for creating a demand to reinstall Italy in Eritrea under the guise of independence.” The Ethiopian delegation was also opposed to the selection of the delegates that made up the Commission of Investigation because four out of the five members (Pakistan, Guatemala, Burma and South Africa) had opposed Eritrea’s union with Ethiopia at the United Nations.

The Unionists were disillusioned by the U.N. in 1949. But they were not discouraged. The United Nations Commission of Investigation stayed in Eritrea between February 14 and April 10, 1950. Its method of investigation followed practically the same method as the Four Power Commission. The contest was normally going to be between the Unionist Party and the “Independence Bloc.” But no sooner had the delegates of the United Nations Commission arrived in Eritrea than the Bloc started to break into its component parts. The force that had contributed to its birth, Italian hegemony, was also the fear that brought about its collapse. As Trevaskis wrote:

Within a few days of the Commission’s arrival it [the Independence Bloc] was disrupted, losing more than half of its member as a result of a serious splits in the Moslem League and Liberal Progressive Party… The cause of dissension was the severe distaste with which the anti-Italian wings in each party…

With the break-up of the Independence Bloc the Unionist party was by far the strongest organization during the investigation of the United Nations Commission in Eritrea. So where is the 75 percent vote which the United Nations Commission, according to Issayas Afeworki, chose to disregard? The Independence Bloc had practically evaporated by the time the U.N. Commission of Investigation had arrived in Eritrea!

At the end of its investigation in Eritrea, the Commission was unable to accept one common report. The delegates from Burma and South Africa submitted a report recommending federation of an autonomous Eritrea with Ethiopia of Emperor Haile Selassie. The delegate from Norway, who was opposed to the idea of federation, recommended the immediate union of Eritrea with Ethiopia. The Guatemala and Pakistani delegates opposed the union of Eritrea with Ethiopia. The U.N. General Assembly had, on December 14, 1950, voted in favor of the so called “compromise” Resolution 390 — the Federation with Ethiopia of an autonomous Eritrea with its own democratic constitution, elected parliament and government under the sovereignty of the Ethiopian Crown, by a vote of 46 to 10. The UN Resolution 390 provided that all home affairs were to be the responsibility of the Eritrean government while the powers of the Federal government with its seat in Addis Abeba will be over foreign affairs, currency and finance, internal and foreign trade, external and interstate communications, including ports, as well as defense. The Eritrean government had power to establish a home police force, to raise taxes and establish its own budget. Customs and duties on goods entering or leaving Eritrea were to be paid to Eritrea itself. Once accepted by the contracting parties, the Resolution of the United Nations was therefore a legal, binding and valid decision to all parties concerned, and remains so.

The compromise “resolution” did not please any party in Eritrea, not even the Unionists or the Government of Ethiopia both of which sought “union” and not “federation” of an autonomous Eritrea. To the Ethiopian Government of the Emperor, according to John H. Spencer, federation appeared … to have been a concession to the dictates of pre-war Fascism. It was a Fascist formula which, at all costs, must be undone… ” And it was undone. But neither this nor the crimes of the Derg, nor the dictates of the EPLF-TPLF today in power, could invalidate the strong bond of union which bind the peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
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Aleme Eshete, Ph.D., has been Associate Professor at Addis Abeba University. He currently resides in Italy.