In this month’s issue we present Sultan Ali Mirha. He is currently one of the most intriguing political leaders in Ethiopia. The article about the Sultan is intended to introduce him to our readers. In a future issue we shall present articles which discuss other issues concerning the Afar people and the Sultan’s role in Ethiopian national and regional politics.
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In the past few months some of ER’s readers have asked us where the magazine stands on the important issues facing Ethiopia. As a publication, ER doesn’t take any side on any issue. ER is a forum for all Ethiopians despite their social, economic, political or other views. It is a stage where various viewpoints and issues concerning Ethiopians are discussed. ER believes that tolerance of unorthodox and even disagreeable views is necessary to advance the cause of intellectual freedom and free speech.
Ideas are indeed powerful; but their power rests in their ability to move the listener. Weak ideas fail for lack of merit; and the better ones prevail because they address some aspect of the social or political reality and in a unique way captivate the listener.
Debate in the open forum will always expose the fraudulent and harmful ideas. In the final analysis, our belief is that only the individual is singularly competent to pass judgment on the merits. A statesman from an earlier generation once observed: “Everyone is in favor of free speech … but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.”
The Escarpment Highway
We went to Massawa for an overnight visit during our first weekend in Asmera. The escarpment route from Asmera to Massawa is now free of checkpoints and military patrols. As of early January, the highway had been repaired as far as Mai Atal where it enters the Samhar. The rest of the route had potholes and broken stretches, but repair was underway. A few wrecked trucks and tanks (most of them have been hauled away) and occasional destroyed buildings at the edges of towns where police or soldiers were stationed are all that remain to remind the casual observer of the intense fighting that raged up and down the Eritrean escarpment for more than a quarter century. The towns are intact and full of life. Our traveling companions, a young man and young woman who had both been fighters in the field, pointed out landmarks where EPLF and Derg forces had faced each other. We stopped to look at trenches with shelters roofed with rails rocks. The graceful viaducts and stone tunnel entrances of the railway, which parallel the highway for much of the way, give the misleading impression that the railway could be as easily restored as the road. But most of the rails and cross ties were ripped out and used for fortifications. Picturesque as it is, it seems doubtful whether rebuilding the railway would repay the investment.
When we began the descent outside Asmera the escarpment was covered with dense fog which obscured the old monastery of Debre Bizen. Its monks looked down on the battles below them and survived and are said to be doing well again. Nefasit’s churches and mosques rose proudly out of a tan landscape. But as we drove on to Embatcala everything turned green (from good winter rains) and the scrub vegetation on the distant slopes looked like thick forest growth. We drove through stands of larger trees along the lower escarpment near Sabarguma. Farmers have planted corn, beans and grain in fields around Ghinda and Dongollo. Citrus orchards looked good but are said to need a great deal of rehabilitation and replanting. Local people were selling bananas along the road. Asmera University is preparing to reopen its agricultural research station at Ghinda. With plentiful water, flowering trees and bougainvillea along streets and pathways and green mountainsides as a backdrop, Ghinda is as beautiful as any town in Eritrea.
Upper and Lower Dongollo, the source of the best mineral water in Eritrea (readily available in Asmera) provided a final spectacle of lavish greenness before we descended into the thorntrees of the escarpment foothills and than entered the desert. The massive, unattractive Italian-built bridge over the Dogali Wadi has survived intact, but the red star-capped monument which Mengistu had built to commemorate the famous defeat of the Italians on its hundredth anniversary in 1987 is gone.
Destruction in Massawa
We had heard so many reports of the devastation Massawa suffered from Derg bombing that we were prepared for the worst as we approached the city. I had seen a good deal of destruction when I was there in the spring of 1987. That damage had been done during the fighting in the winter of 1977-78 when Eritrean fighters came close to capturing the city from the Derg until factions began quarreling among themselves. The Russians came to the Derg’s rescue with air and naval bombardment. The mainland portions of the city had suffered severely and local people still cursed the Russians for causing unnecessary destruction. On this trip, as we entered the outskirts of Massawa, we saw no undamaged large buildings. Some were in total ruins. on the north side of the highway the railway tracks are still crowded with engines, boxcars and flatcars that have been rusting for two decades.
Wrecked Equipment and Soldiers’ Bones
Our first stop was a compound on the south side of the highway–a “graveyard” of destroyed Derg equipment. It was filled with wrecked tanks, trucks, jeeps, pieces of guns, piles of shells and stacks of other military debris and equipment brought in from the countryside. It was appalling and depressing.
We crossed the highway and drove a short distance through the sand to a large thorntree surrounded by a crude fence of corrugated tin. Inside dark green Russian ammunition boxes were stacked two and three high. Several had broken open. Out tumbled human skulls and bones mixed with helmets, boots, cartridge belts and knapsacks! The skeletons were dismembered. In all these must have been the remains of at least a hundred men.
All the boxes had cyrillic lettering. A few had the notations “Dogali #1” and “Dogali #2” chalked on them in Ethiopic letters. Why were they stacked here? We were told that when the city was captured no one had noticed these boxes among all the other debris that littered the landscape. When they were discovered, no one could be found to explain where they had come from. They were thought to be the remains of soldiers killed many years before. Perhaps they had been dug up for reburial and then abandoned in the confusion of later fighting. They will be buried again, still unidentified. Unknown soldiers. They are only a few of the tens –perhaps hundreds?– of thousands of young men who died in the fighting in the Derg’s futile effort to subdue Eritrea.
Into Massawa
We drove past more buildings pockmarked from shellfire and with gaping holes from artillery and bombs. We stopped at the edge of the sea where we could look out to the two islands which form the heart of the city. Several rusting tanks were mired in mud where the highway approaches the causeway that crosses to the island of Taulud. The causeway was undamaged and the road surface was intact. Streets which had been blocked by debris from buildings and wrecked vehicles when the city was captured by EPLF forces and then bombed by the Derg have all been cleared and the potholes and craters have been filled.
The monumental Orthodox Church of St. Mary with its prominent dome seems to have been especially attractive to the Derg’s air force. Solidly constructed of massive stone blocks, it is still standing, though all its glass has been shattered. Workmen were busy repairing the walls. Restoring this church to its original condition will take time and money. Inside the odor of incense overcame the odor of rubble. The church was in use. Stacks of kabaros, tsinatsels, umbrellas and vestments were ready for use. The next morning, a Sunday, a large crowd was attending services when we came by.
In the area between the church and the sea we found another graveyard of Soviet equipment –thousands of tons of tanks, trucks, and guns –much larger than the first we had seen. Here, next to the sea, it would be easy to load the stuff on ships and send it out if it can be sold for processing as scrap.
Haile Selassie’s palace in ruins
It is hard to see what military significance Haile Salassie’s palace at the north
end of Taulud could have had. This Arabian-nights structure surrounded by splendid tropical gardens must have been easy for the bombers to find. It is the most severely damaged major structure in Massawa. It took many direct bomb hits. Badly “wounded” statues of lions lie in the gardens which have died out completely from lack of water. Workmen were sawing up the remaining and making piles for burning charcoal. The grand staircase of the palace was covered by an avalanche of stone and mortar from the walls above. Making our way around the second story arcade, we were happy to find that most of the splendidly carved wooden doors and Islamic-style window screens were intact. Rooms that had escaped destruction were piled with monumental furniture, carved screens and art. All were locked. Nothing appeared to have been looted. Isayas Afewerki told us when we saw him in Asmera the next week that they planned eventually to rebuild the palace and turn it into a museum, as they have done with the undamaged imperial palace Asmera. “These palaces are part of our history,” he said, We want to preserve them.”
The Red Sea Hotel
The south end of Taulud has suffered less severs damage. We were pleased to find a bit of bougainvillea still blooming in the gardens of the Red Sea Hotel. The bar was open and offering Amstel beer and soft drinks. A waiter recognized me from my stay in the hotel in 1987. The gardens of Mme. Melotti’s beautiful villa on the southern tip of the island have lost some of their trees but are in far better condition than those of the imperial palace. It suffered only a couple of artillery hits. The caretaker showed us a large spot in the swimming pool where one of the generals committed suicide when the EPLF captured the city.
We checked in at the Dahlak Hotel, a large modern, multi-story structure next to the causeway that leads to Massawa island with a good view of the old city. A modernistic garden annex was being renovated for guests. Its bedrooms had just been painted and they could not be occupied. The kitchen and storerooms were badly shot up and the restaurant, with a fine view of the old city on Massawa Island, was in a state of total disorder. The second floor had been cleaned up for visitors. The hall was decorated with old photographs. We were given a simple, clean room with a working bathroom. Massawa has running water that comes form a restored well in the Dogali Wadi and has round-the- clock electricity from oil generators.
Old Massawa
The outermost island –old Massawa proper– was our destination. We spent the evening and the morning of the next day there. Its splendid old buildings, many of which date from the time of the Turks, have not been as severely damaged as many reports claimed. But the basic structures are intact and the charming arches and balconies can be readily repaired. People were already working some of them. The streets were busy and boys were playing soccer in an open space. The oldest mosque, painted a bright mint green, is undamaged.
In the port, a Sudanese ship was unload bags of textile sizing from England. Three large cranes are in working condition. The lighthouse on the outermost point of the island is operating and men were fishing along the shore. Nearby, large quantities of steel rods and construction reinforcements were stacked in huge piles. They had recently arrived and were labeled for transport to Tigre.
Food, Drink and Entertainment
Massawa must have at least two dozen colorful bars, all doing good business. We had a refreshing papaya and banana frappe in one. At another which had a refrigerator full of Melotti beer we had a good dinner. The Asmera brewery is working but has difficulty supplying the demand throughout Eritrea. Small traders have opened shops throughout the city, as have tailors, shoemakers and leather workers. Large quantities of fruit and vegetables were on sale in the central market brought down from Ghinda and Dongollo. An ample supply of Italian style bread is assured by continued relief deliveries. The World Food Program has an office in the port. We were pleasantly surprised when we walked into the Eritrea Provision Company to find a well stocked grocery. Goods are coming in by dhow from Yemen. Local fishermen are already sending 600 kilos to Asmera daily but new boats are necessary to expand the catch. The rich shrimp and lobster beds off the coast are not yet being exploited.
Massawa’s Future
It would be incorrect to say that Massawa presents a picture of prosperity. But neither is it a spectacle of devastation. The city is alive. There are at least as many people as there were in 1987 and they are working, not simply existing. Reconstruction will require a good supply of labor for a long time to come. Labor can be attracted from the highlands. With peace assured, the salt industry can be reactivated. Boat-building and maritime servicing industries will develop again. There are opportunities for expansion of
fishing and tourism. The provisional government of Eritrea hopes to turn the Dahlaks into a major destination for European tourists in the winter. The Russians left behind a huge base with a working desalination plant. Europeans and Israelis have already shown interest in developing it commercially. Italians and Israelis are said to be considering investing in fishing.
As the flow of aid to Eritrea and the pace of investment pick up, Massawa, as Eritrea’s main port is bound to benefit. Isayas Afewerki told us his government is committed to restoring the city completely and investing in its future. A new phase of the long life of this historic city has begun. We left Massawa with the expectation that when we return in a year or two it will have made significant progress toward prosperity.
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Paul B. Henze works for Rand Corporation. Mr. & Mrs. Henze spent 6 weeks in Ethiopia beginning in January. They spent a week in Eritrea. Mr. Henze has promised to provide us with further articles on other aspects of his visit to Ethiopia. Photos were provided by Mr. Henze.
In the past year, Ethiopia has seen great changes. Seventeen years of civil war came to a sudden end and the dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam was wiped out to the great relief of the Ethiopian people. On the ash heap of 17 years of Marxist misrule, the seeds of democracy were planted. People can now talk about politics and criticize government leaders without fear. Dozens of political organizations operate freely
throughout the country. Groups who have never been recognized are now given representation. There has been enormous progress on the road to democracy.
The seeds of democracy are now beginning to take root and we must give credit where it is due. Honesty requires that we recognize the unique contributions of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) to Ethiopia’s political reawakening and development. The EPRDF, having “won” the war, could have
taken over power and ruled in the old style. No doubt different groups would have opposed it and new conflicts would have been created. But that would have been “Ethiopian politics as usual.” That is more wars and destruction. But today, unlike any other time in Ethiopia’s history, the people are enjoying democratic freedoms.
The EPRDF leadership has been quite sensible. It recognized that war is not the solution. It agreed to an equitable sharing of political power based on a recognition of the people’s unique cultural and ethnic heritage. It proposed free elections under international supervision.
The past year has shown that there is great distrust of the EPRDF and its “hidden agenda.” But the criticism and mistrust are largely misplaced. Apply a simple test: Has there ever been the kind of political debate and activity that is going in Ethiopia? Certainly, not. Almost alwasy a change of government in Ethiopia means more wars and political oppression. If the EPRDF had opted for war, Ethiopia would have been isolated from the international community. But as Mengistu has shown, who cares?
Many criticize the EPRDF for what it has done and has failed to do. Words of praise and acknowledgement are far and few between. People read their own biases in the words and actions of the EPRDF. For instance, the democratic freedoms made possible by the EPRDF are interpreted to be some sort of clever political strategy to trick the people. When new a idea is proposed for power sharing, it is characterized as a plan to dismember the country. When the EPRDF ordered the digging up and proper reburial of people murdered by Derg, critics say the EPRDF is just trying to distract the people from the “real problems.”
Critics say the EPRDF is dismantling the industry in the rest of the country to send to Tigray or Eritrea. The elections are said to be already rigged because the EPRDF could never win free elections. It is a no win situation!
The bottom line is: Is Ethiopia better off today than it was a year ago? On balance she is. The people are experiencing real democracy. Certainly, the country’s economy is in shambles. But this is the work of Mengistu Haile Mariam who destroyed the country’s economy through his ignorant experiments in Marxism. To add insult to injury, Mengistu cleaned out the country’s treasury as he began his new life of royalty in Zimbabwe.
It is unfair to blame the EPRDF for the dire economic situation in the country or its inability to resolve them in one year. It is unreasonable to expect full repair to an economy which took 17 years to destroy.
Is the EPRDF on the right course in solving the long term economic problems of the country? This is a fair question. President Meles says he favors free enterprise and also state ownership of major industries and economic sectors. Is he saying this because he is a “closet Marxist?” Probably not. He may have political and practical reasons to hold this view. He may be responding to the pressures of some “hard core” elements in his organization. True, these individuals have yet to “wake up and smell the roses.” But they do have some influence on the organization’s political programs.
The political reasons seem to be more persuasive. Let’s take land, for instance. If land were to be “denationalized” who is going to get it? The old landowners? Obviously, this is impractical. What about industry? There are few viable industries in the country that are operational. Who will buy these semi-functional industries? Without belaboring the point, Russia is having a fire sale on state-owned industries. So far, few takers.
This is not to suggest that the EPRDF is completely blameless. It should be blamed for its failure to properly inform and educate the public about the country’s problems and solutions. It should be blamed for prematurely announcing major changes without laying the necessary foundation. It should be blamed for failing to make clear the lines of demarcation in its role in the transitional government and the role of a popular government yet to be elected. Yet these are not fatal errors. Teaching about democracy and the need for change takes time, effort and limitless patience.
________________ Tekeste Wolde Meskel is a business consultant residing in Atlanta, Georgia.
The primacy of politics in Africa has led to serious distortions of the historical record. This is no where more evident than in Ethiopian studies. The misrepresentation commenced with the student activism of the 1960s. When one reviews the student literature, one is immediately struck by the passionate and extravagant nature of its prose. Hyperbole is as normal as the Marxist language used to shape the authors’ analyses.
Combat was the organ of the Ethiopian Student Union in North America. The issue about the Union’s 20th Congress arrayed language characteristic of the mentality of the Ethiopian student at home and abroad. The Congress’s “Report” characterized Ethiopia as a “semi-feudal, semicolonial society,” from which “all the evils attending the lives of working people … emanate.” These evils were seen as “class oppression, national oppression, female oppression, separation between city and countryside, separation between mental and physical labor and all other social ills.” In order to destroy the prevailing political economy, a national democratic revolution and the establishment of “a people’s democratic revolutionary republic” was necessary. The latter would satisfy the peasant’s demand for landownership.
Combat also claimed that “The dominant mode of production in Ethiopia is feudalism existing side by side with an embryonic capitalist sector that has little prospect for development and is mostly owned and managed by imperialists.” Of course, by 1974, much of Eastern, Southern, and Western Ethiopia was dominated by landlords who had transformed cultivators into share- and cash-croppers. This phenomenon was hardly feudalism but market-driven capitalist agriculture.
In the north, especially radiating out from Addis Abeba and other urban centers, there was considerable truck-farming. Capitalist agriculture was growing so
significantly that during the late 1960s and up to the 1974 revolution farmers were being displaced from their homesteads, just as tens of thousands had been
removed in the 1940s and 1950s by the development of plantations in the Awash valley. Capitalism was well developed by 1974, so much so that attendant social
pressures are often cited as one of the causes of the revolution. The new farms and the many new factories that opened in Addis Abeba, Asmera, and Dre Dawa
were mostly owned by Ethiopian and resident foreigners. Although there was some outside investment, the Imperial government always complained that it was unable to raise sufficient foreign capital to undertake many desirable development projects.
The divergence between fact and fancy reveal that a significant and influential portion of Ethiopia’s intelligentsia in the 1970s was willing to come to whatever conclusions necessary to destroy the government of Haile Selassie. Even today, otherwise serious thinkers and scholars cannot free themselves of yesterday’s obsolete and rhetorical devices. For example, Dr. Bahru Zewde of Addis Abeba University’s Department of History recently wrote that once Haile Selassie achieved primacy after World War II, his “activities were bereft of social purpose. His political vision more or less ended with the subjugation of the nobility and creation of a centralized state. Thereafter power became an end in itself.”
One might argue, as I did in volume one of my biography of the Emperor that “Haile Selassie’s business was power, a metier curiously derided by his detractors, who have forgotten that the having and holding of authority is the preoccupation of most public men.” In any case, the record after the 1960s, the year of the
abortive coup against the Emperor, shows that the monarch used his power to promote many projects of high social purpose. He established a university,
which even after the brutish years of Mengistu Haile Mariam’s rule, maintains high international standards and an enviable research record. He built Ethiopian Airlines, still one of Africa’s leading airlines. He laid down thousands of kilometers of all-weather roads. He expanded Ethiopia’s educational system, and even though it served only about 10 percent of Ethiopia’s youth, they received a quality education that prepared them for jobs in a growing economy. He also established orphanages, hospitals and self-help institutions.
Throughout his reign, the Emperor had ruled his traditional people as the heir to ancient cultural traditions. As his post-war programs transformed the country, the Emperor avoided introducing any new and secular legitimization based on the universalist values or institutions. The data are clear that his reliance on charismatic themes and on the mystification surrounding the monarchy stemmed from his lack of experience and training in modern economics, public administration and mass politics. Yet he presided over and spurred the growth of capitalist agriculture which began to transform the countryside in the 1940s and was driving peasants off the land by the seventies. In fact, I long have argued that the so-called revolution of 1974 was a reaction to an economic development considered by important student intellectuals as exploitative and unfair.
So the rhetoric leads to a conclusion that is politically charged and baseless; whereas the public record reveals that the last period of the reign of Haile Selassie was not “bereft of social purpose,” but replete with social change forced by the articulation of capitalism.
The idea that Ethiopia and Ethiopians were incapable of independent policies and actions is carried to the absurd in creative writings about the Oromo. Passionately engaged in the Oromo quest for political sovereignty, various authors seek to create a historical nation called Oromia and fabricate a glorious history for the non-existent country. In these renditions, the northern Ethiopians are demonized as little better than devils victimizing innocent and good Oromos. Unable to concede that the Ethiopians could colonize the fictitious Oromia on their own and for their own reasons, the pro-Oromo authors “show how imperialism penetrated the Horn of Africa and created coalitions with the successive Ethiopian colonial ruling classes. This was achieved through the formation and maintenance of the Ethiopian state as a European informal colony, bringing various peoples, including the Oromo, under the logic of capitalism.” In another flight of pseudo- Marxist fancy, we are informed that “The green revolution was introduced by international imperialism to intensify agrarian capitalism and consolidate the colonial Ethiopian ruling class.” The distortions are so gross as to undermine any authority that history might have in helping resolve contemporary problems of Oromo integration into Ethiopia.
A few years ago at a conference, I rehearsed Asmerom Leggesse’s detailed scholarship to explain why the gada system, the Oromo age-graded, socio-political system had not worked well even for traditional Oromo pastorialists. After continuing that gada therefore would be of little use in governing any modern state, I sat down and listened to the rhetoric about the once and future glories of the gada. As I left the room in awe of the certainty expressed within, I was advised by Dr. Mohammed Hassan that I misunderstood the history of Oromo-Ethiopian relations. I puzzled over this strange criticism until I read his recently published work: The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History 1570-1860 (Cambridge, 1990).
Mohammed begins by indicting the now classic study of Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia 1270-1527 (Oxford, 1972), for ignoring the Oromo as a factor in the history of highlands Ethiopia from the 13th to the 16th century. Dr. Mohammed claims to have found in the sources by Dr. Taddesse “conclusive evidence which demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that some settled agricultural Oromo groups lived in and to the south of … Shoa before the fourteenth century.” His footnote here points, however, to his own dissertation, but he subsequently clarifies by citing linguistic evidence that the Oromo were one of Ethiopia’s primordial peoples: “To consider them as newcomers is a claim which has no historical foundation whatsoever.” He reveals the primordial Oromo as mixed farmers, some of whom became pastorialists when they moved to the lowlands. Never does he explain such a surprising development, rare in world history, but he cites Eike Haberland, Galla Sud-Athiopiens (Stuttgart, 1963) who passed along unsubstantiated Boran and Guji Oromo traditions. In other words, Mohammed has based his analysis on unverified hearsay.
Why make such sweeping claims on the basis of such tenuous material? The answer lies in the politics of ethnic competition in Ethiopia. If the Oromo inhabited the country’s central highlands before their historic invasions of the 17th century, then current politicians can characterize Christian semitic-speakers, whose official culture has long dominated modern Ethiopia, as colonialists. Dr. Mohammed seeks to fabricate what E.J. Hobsbawm characterizes as “retrospective mythology” usually derived from aspects of ethnicity such as the gada system.
In the late-nineteenth century, Menelik II (reigned 1889-1913) restored–or conquered depending on your politics–Solomonic rule in areas overrun by the Oromo in the 17th century. If Mohammed’s “retrospective mythology” is linked to a negative view of northern aggrandizement, then partisans can agitate for an independent Oromia or for a special place within Ethiopia. That negative view was provided in the inventive historical views about Oromos and Oromia now being presented as Gospel truth. Indeed, we are witnessing the creation of a new and poorly based historiography, the facts of which, if repeated often enough, will take on a veracity of their own.
It has happened before in the Ethiopian vortex: through vigorous repetition the Eritreans and their fellow travelers have created a new history, turning logic and fact on their heads to prove a political message: Ethiopia had no valid claim to Eritrea but was permitted to rule the colony by the British and the United States; the United Nations denied Eritrea its right to self-determination in 1950s when the Italian colony was federated to Ethiopia; and Eritrea emerged as a nation from its harsh experience with Italian colonialism.
It is important first to recall that the highlands of Eritrea (Hamasen, Akele Guzay, and Seraye) are peopled by Tigrigna-speaking Christian agriculturalists, who are socially identical with inhabitants of Tigray, the adjacent Ethiopian province. As late as 1888, an Ethiopian emperor put up a spirited and successful fight to retain the Eritrean highlands for Ethiopia, though the coastal strip long had been subject to foreign rule. Menelik II, for reasons of realpolitik, that is to safeguard Greater Ethiopia, permitted Rome to stay on the highlands in 1896, even after the definitive Battle of Adwa. A cardinal feature of Haile Selassie’s policy after 1941, after his return from exile, however, was to regain Eritrea for Ethiopia.
The Allied Foreign Ministers who visited Eritrea in 1948 and a UN fact-finding team that surveyed the colony in 1950, found little evidence of either national identity or of a viable economy. In 1948, Ethiopia had shown it had the military strength and the diplomatic subtlety to rid the Ogaden of the British. While the politics were different, the Ethiopians unilaterally could have moved into Eritrea and encountered little resistance. Indeed, in the highlands the Christian population was largely unionist and would have welcomed the Ethiopian troops. The British and the Americans therefore concluded that they should not stand in the way of a federation between Ethiopia and Eritrea, especially since the Korean War had proved Addis Abeba to be pro-Western. Nobody gave Ethiopia anything. Haile Selassie’s national policy and diplomacy won Eritrea, and it is demeaning for Addis Abeba to be regarded as merely a pawn in international relations. The logic is reminiscent of
the Oromo view that Ethiopia could not have defeated the Oromo without being allied to international capital.
For most of the colonial period, there were few Italians in Eritrea, and the population continued their very local lives without European interference. True, the Italian population swelled during the Ethiopian crisis of 1935-36, when Rome used Eritrea as its spring-board into the interior. Many young Eritreans were absorbed into the Italian military. That period ended in 1941 when a combined Allied (largely British empire) and Ethiopian force quickly defeated the Italians. From 1942 to 1952, while a British military administration ruled Eritrea, the colony’s Italian population rapidly diminished, the economy eroded, and many Eritreans returned to their local lives. Admittedly, Eritrea’s experience was different than Ethiopia’s, but the latter, as an African survivor of imperialism, had an overriding national interest in regaining access to the sea. If anything led to the Eritrean rebellion, it was Ethiopia’s poor stewardship of the ex- colony after 1952, its determination to destroy the federation, and its intention to absorb Eritrea into the nation simply as province.
Issayas Afeworki, the leader of the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, is fond of misstating his new country’s history with, of course, a heroic twist. At the constitutional conference of Addis Abeba in June 1991, he responded to a factual rehearsal of Eritrea’s long-standing relationship with Ethiopia by stating that history had no role to play in resolving the post-Mengistu political crisis. In the most immediate way, he is probably correct, although in a more profound sense, he is wrong. In Ethiopia, history has a knack for reimposing its authority over fragmentation and deconstruction.
The country’s history contains an analytical truth validating the idea of a large, historic, and united state. From time to time, the nation had disintegrated into
component parts, but it never disappeared as an idea and always reappeared in fact. The Axumite Empire may have faded after the seventh century, but the Zagwes
followed in the eleventh century. The succeeding Solomonic dynasty created a state which incorporated at least two thirds of the country’s present space. In the sixteen century, that empire was devastated by Muslim armies waging holy war and sharply contracted as the Oromo successfully invaded the now depopulated highlands in the seventeenth century.
Even as the Solomonic dynasty declined in the eighteenth century, the imperial tradition was validated in Ethiopia’s monasteries and parish churches. The northern peasantry was reminded continuously of Ethiopia’s earlier greatness and exhorted to work toward its renaissance. From 1896 to 1907, Menelik II directed Ethiopia’s return into southern and western regions abandoned in the seventeenth century. There they found the ruins of long-abandoned churches and monasteries but culturally different people, most of whom lived in segmentary societies who practiced animal husbandry or digging stick or hoe agriculture and followed traditional religions of Islam and spoke non-Semitic languages.
To them, the northerners were aliens. Their firearms and more complex social organization gave them a material advantage, but they also were inspired by the idea that they were regaining lands once part of their state. Menelik certainly believed that he and his soldiers would restore Ethiopia to its historic grandeur and size. By the end of the expansionary impulse in 1906, Ethiopia was at its present size, comprising the highlands, the key river systems and the state’s central core surrounded by a borderland buffer zone in low-lying, arid or tropical zones.
From the Axumite period, public history in Ethiopia has moved from north to south, and the 20th century state developed along this well trodden path. Menelik and Haile Selassie ruled Ethiopia’s heterogeneous population largely through accommodation and cooptation. The latter built a centralized state and expanded Ethiopia’s civil society as a counterweight to ethnic forces. He fostered unity through the development of national institutions, and pan-Ethiopian economy, modern communications and an official culture whose main feature was the use of Amharic language in government and education.
As Ethiopia’s economy began to be transformed in the 1960s through the articulation of capitalism, considerable social unrest emerged among the peasantry to undermine loyalty to the national consensus. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the old authorities resorted to police repression to keep Ethiopia intact and used clients to bolster its administration in the Ogaden and in Eritrea. Haile Selassie’s government was replaced in 1974 by an ideologically driven inclusivist state determined to extirpate any competing civil society and/or ethnic activity. Ruthless repression of ideological adversaries led to the growth of nationality movements and
ongoing civil wars.
The military government’s tightly centralized authority imposed land tenure and social policies which undermined the peasant’s historic connection to the state. Resettlement, villagization, mass political organizations and the command economy conspired to alienate the people from their natural allegiance. The state’s inability to compromise politically may have led to the destruction of the nation. Moreover, the present government’s belief that it can build a unitary state on the basis of cooperating ethnicities contradicts longstanding historical experience and such blatant recent events as the breakup of Yugoslavia, the imminent demise of Czechoslovakia and the continuing crisis in Belgium. Yet, if history is to be our guide, such a development will give way inevitably to renewed national unity as the logic of geography, economics and tradition once again come to dominate politics. If there is authority in history, then in the Ethiopian case it suggests that the greater state will reestablish itself, perhaps this time with a new official culture.
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Harold Marcus is a Professor of History at Michigan State University.
Ethiopian Ethnicity
The issue of ethnicity in Ethiopia is not well understood. Tragically, I suspect present rulers misunderstood the problem of ethnicity when they divided the country “along ethnic lines.” For example, when they designated South Eastern Ethiopia an ethnic Somali region “to resolve ethnic conflict,” they ignored the fact that Somalia — populated by Somalis — is destroying itself in ethnic wars. Similarly, they also believe the region they call “Amhara” is inhabited by an ethnic group which is distinct from the ethnic group in the new Tigray. They believe that the Oromo, the Gurage, and the Menze in Shoa do not belong together.
Of course, these Ethiopians will soon start to believe that they do not belong together, if they are bombarded by such assertions everyday. What a shame! What ethnic group lives in this “Amhara” region — Gojjames, Gonderes, Menzes, or what? The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front’s (EPRDF’s) answer is, of course, Amharas. The EPRDF refuses to acknowledge that it is creating an ethnic group in this region and forcing an ethnic label on all the people who happen to reside in this region of regions. Small ethnic groups are forced to assume a single ethnic name while they encourage large ethnic groups to separate.
What is the criteria the EPRDF used to divide or unite groups? Certainly not ethnicity as anthropologists know it on the Horn of Africa. Ethnicity, as it manifests itself in Ethiopia, is no simple concept. It includes language, dialect, denomination, clan and region. If one has to slice Ethiopia into regions of ethnic groups, one has to bring together endless subgroups of people, forexample, Amharic speakers of Menze dialect who belong to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, or Mekane Yesus Church, or adherents of Amharic speakers of Menze dialect who belong to any of the four sects of the religion of Islam (Hanafi, Maliki, Hambeli, or Shaffii sects).
According to Aleqa Taye, there are four groups of Muslims in Yifat alone: Argobba, Dobba, Shagura, and Qachino.
Given the countless ways in which Ethiopian ethnicity manifests itself, and the countless potential divisions, I fear that moving toward ethnic politics in Ethiopia is a certain formula for friction. If anyone thinks this fear is unfounded, one need only look at Somalia, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, South Africa and at what is already happening in Ethiopia. The recent, intensifying bloodshed in Yugoslavia and between the former republics of the USSR is further proof.
The “Amharas”
I call upon all Amharic speakers to refuse the label “Amharas” and resist the EPRDF’s attempts to lump them together in one region as one ethnic group. Many Ethiopians who consider themselves non-Amharic express bitterness towards Amharic speakers or “Amharas.” These Ethiopians are bitter because they believe that the “Amharas” have robbed them of their political rights and properties. They know that this linguistic group has persecuted them for demanding their right to nurture their own cultures. I do not contend that such mistreatment has not been inflicted upon some Ethiopians by other Ethiopians. My concern is how to convince a group of wretched Amharic speakers from, for example, Menz or Dembiya that they are responsible for these crimes. To the contrary, Amharic speakers of non-Addis Abeba dialects may have identical complaints about the suppression of their regional languages.
Perhaps some see political advantages in blaming the Amharic speakers for Ethiopia’s political, social and economic problems. The facts simply do not support the accusations. Blaming all Amharic speakers for the past is like blaming all Tigreans for what is happening to Ethiopia now at the hands of Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Those who want to rule Ethiopia undemocratically and undermine its territorial integrity are the only potential enemies of Amharic speakers. Amharic speakers support the territorial integrity of Ethiopia because their ethnic name is Ethiopia. “Amhara” is an ethnic name created for them by those who desire “Amhara” enemies, just because they speak Amharic. The Amharic speakers are entitled to defend their ethnic rights, just as any ethnic group defends its ethnic rights. The Amharic speakers I know resent being identified by the names Amhara and/ or Abyssinian as an ethnic name, just as the Oromo resent being called by any other name. They speak Amharic, but they are ethnic or national Ethiopians. Abyssinia is a name of a state that has transformed itself into Ethiopia.
Amharic Speakers are Ethnic Ethiopians
Let me explain my statement that Amharic speakers are ethnic Ethiopians, rather than Amharas or Abyssinians. Ethiopia, as we all know, was (is) a country of many ethnic groups. Historically, one of these groups spoke early Amharic. Its region, somewhere in today’s Wello, was called Amhara. Only those people from Amhara were called Amhara. For unknown historical reasons, the language of the Amharas started to spread outside Amhara, especially into Gonder, Gojjam, Lasta, and northern Shoa (notably Menz, Tegulet, Bulga). All these regions spoke other languages before they were overrun by Amharic.
Amharic’s march into new territories continued unchallenged through the sixteenth century. At that time, a new ethnic group, the Oromo, moved into Ethiopia. Until the sixteenth century, many regions inhabited by ethnic groups who did not speak Amharic gradually adopted Amharic. Their ethnic cultures gave way to the Amharic language and culture, influencing and changing in turn Amharic language and culture. The adoption of Amharic came not by force but through social and economic necessity. Ethiopians of different regions needed to communicate with state officials and to establish contacts with each other. Speaking Amharic became taking membership in, or adopting, pan-Ethiopian or state culture. As a result, the history and makeup of Ethiopia’s population and language resembles that of America’s. No one considers Italian-Americans or African- Americans or German-Americans ethnically English or British just because they speak English.
It is important to remember that language does not always identify one’s ethnic origin or relation. For example, Gonderites feel ethnically closer to Tigeans than to Amharic-speaking Shoans; and Amharic- speaking Shoans feel closer to non-Amharic-speaking Shoans (e.g. Oromo and Gurage) than to Amharic speaking Gonderites. Although there are no statistics, “ethnic Amharas” probably constitute a rather small section of the larger group of Amharic speakers, or ethnic Ethiopians. Nevertheless, now that today’s Amharic speakers have lost their ethnic languages as a result of state formation, some non-Amharic speakers insist that Amharic is their ethnic language.
The Bottom Line
However one presents the history of Amharic, and by whatever name its speakers want to be identified, today Amharic speakers are being made to stand apart from other Ethiopians, their blood relatives. Some of the intellectuals of those ethnic groups which were not absorbed by Amharic culture consider today’s Amharic speakers the allies and supporters of the ruling families which exploited and oppressed the non-Amharic-speaking population throughout Ethiopia’s history. This assertion must be investigated and discussed objectively. In Ethiopian history, Ethiopian rulers have always ruled Ethiopia by playing one individual or ethnic group against another and by exploiting all of the ethnic groups, including those who spoke Amharic. The support the Amharic speakers gave to those exploiters is probably no more or less than that given by any other Ethiopians. Furthermore, the rulers’ attitude towards Amharic speakers was probably not very different from their attitude towards non-Amharic speaking Christians. This history must be told to those whose knowledge of Ethiopian history is limited to events which they have experienced personally.
The ethnic name of the Amharic speakers is Ethiopia. This is not to say that they are more or less Ethiopian than Ethiopians who belong to other linguistic groups. It simply means that Amharic speakers belong to the extended family of Ethiopia. I, therefore, call upon all Amharic speakers to refuse to collaborate with those who want Ethiopia to offer asylum to the policy of apartheid, a policy which no country would welcome. No Ethiopian should permit him- or herself to be labeled to facilitate a carving out of ethnic “homelands” when we are all entitled to lay claim to the whole of Ethiopia.
A Call To Amharic Speakers
I call upon all Amharic-speaking Ethiopians to unite in resisting inapplicable labels. Resist the idea that you are different from your fellow Ethiopians. When today’s politicians call you “the oppressed” and “the glorious Amhara nation,” do not
feel flattered and fall into their barbed trap. Remember your ancestor’s proverbs: “The (disingenuous) sympathizer bakes you bread from butter.” Your glory is your acceptance of every Ethiopian as member of your ethnic group, Ethiopia, and your role to serve as a bridge between ethnic groups. EPRDF wants you to abandon your Ethiopianess and lure you into the deadend street of ethnic mentality. They speak in your name, using the pronoun “we” as if they are one of you. They are not one of you; they belong to an ethnic group which doubts its Ethiopianness. Do not become tools in their plan to disintegrate Ethiopia. You should know them by the way they identify themselves. They are one of you only if they always say, “we Ethiopians.”
Amhara People’s Organization
In closing, I wish to make a few observations about the recently established All Amhara People Organization (AAPO). To my mind, the reason the AAPO was established is quite clear. It was formed not in response to TPLF/ EPRDF’s call to organize as a political unit but to take up a particular cause neglected by the
government — the safety of the Amharic speakers. As we all know, non-Amharic speakers have been encouraged to organize themselves as ethnic groups and to turn their anger and frustrations against the Amharic- speaking sector of the Ethiopian population. The reports of the atrocities committed by Ethiopians (non-Amharic speakers) against Ethiopians (Amharic-speakers and other Christians) are shocking.
Nevertheless, I would prefer to call the organization All Ethiopian People Organization and change its third aim from:
Respects the legitimate existence of other political organizations, parties and ethnic movements and fronts. On the other hand, it will strive without delay to see to it that the interests, aspirations, democratic rights and freedom of the Amhara people are respected whereever they are found.
To:
… On the other hand, it will strive without delay to see to it that the interests, aspirations, democratic rights and freedom of minorities and other peoples not organized by ethnicity are respected.
Such a change in name and goal would help us focus on the “Ethiopianness” of all Ethiopians (which is being overlooked or forgotten in the current confusion) and also protect the interests of the Amharic-speaking population. It is our collective responsibility as Ethiopians to safeguard the interests of defenseless minorities. Moreover, to ignore the interests of one group of Ethiopians while paying attention to the interests of another group, would be to replace our Ethiopianness with our linguistic identification, thus playing directly into TPLF/
EPRDF’s hands.
Amharic speakers, a potential major source of supporters of a united democratic Ethiopia, must also remember their responsibility to provide a forum for all who want to work towards creating such an Ethiopia. Ethiopia is blessed with a significant number of non-Amharic speakers who have the same view about Ethiopia as do the majority of Amharic speakers. I have no doubt that they too will join an All Ethiopian People Organization and play important, perhaps leading roles in its success. The important division is not between “Amharas and non-Amharas” but between those who believe in ethnic politics and those who are above it, and between those who want a disintegrated Ethiopia and those who wish to keep it united and strong.
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Professor Getatchew Haile is a specialist in Ethiopian studies. Currently he is a MacArthur Fellow and Cataloguer of Oriental MSS at HMML, St. John’s University in Minnesota.
Is Asfaw Wossen (Atse Amha Selassie) capable of providing any type of leadership in Ethiopia today? To fully address this question, it is necessary to understand Asfaw Wossen’s political history and past activities.
Prior to his death, Atse Menelik designated his son Lidj Iyassu as heir apparent to the throne. This was clearly stated in his will. But Lidj Iyassu would not become king. Dejazmach Teferi Mekonnen (later Haile Selassie) conspired to usurp the throne. Following the Battle of Segele and an epidemic (yehidar beshita) which killed thousands of people, Lidj Iyassu was captured and imprisoned. Woizero Zewditu was crowned Queen and DejazmachTeferi became Crown Prince. Nigest Zewditu did not rule for long. As a result of a successful court intrigue, Zewditu died mysteriously and Teferi Mekonnen (who was by then Ras) was crowned Niguse Negest. Asfaw Wossen was designated Crown Prince.
Until Haile Selassie’s overthrow in 1975, Asfaw Wossen did very little except hang around the palace. He never participated in any meaningful political activity or administration of justice. Even when he was appointed Governor of Wello, he administered by remote control from Addis Abeba. There are few things that he can personally take credit for in Wello. In fact he took little interest in political and social issues in Wello. Historically, of course, Wello has never been a great supporter of Haile Selassie. When Haile Selassie returned from London after the war, the people of Wello were against giving him safe passage. They felt he was a coward for having left the country during the Italian occupation. They also objected to him as an usurper to the throne. They favored and accepted Menelik’s son, Lidj Iyassu, as
the legitimate heir. To this end the people of Wello rose up in arms to prevent him from traveling through Wello.
Haile Selassie also held a grudge against the people of Wello for their role in the Battle of Segele. He felt that they had allied themselves with Negus Mikhael and warred against him. Haile Selassie thus used his army to plunder and destroy Wello. Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen never protested or even pleaded for mercy for the people of Wello. Indeed, he was indifferent and passive, traits that are the hallmark of his political leadership and style. Throughout his political career he has never taken a stand or exerted himself to alleviate indignity or human rights violations committed against the people of Ethiopia. Neither has he ever used his great wealth to help alleviate poverty among his people.
Perhaps the best way to understand Asfaw Wossen’s political record and leadership style is to examine his role during the 1960 coup attempt by Mengistu Neway and his colleagues against Haile Selassie. A plan to remove Haile Selassie was devised by certain civilian and military leaders. These individuals were pained by the sheer poverty and need of the people of Ethiopia. They believed that fundamental changes were necessary. In an extraordinary gesture, they approached Asfaw Wossen with the idea of removing his father and establishing a popular government. He readily
accepted the idea and pledged his full support. He even told them that such a change for the country was his lifelong dream. He shared his regrets that his father had kept him under such tight control for such a long time. He took an oath with these individuals pledging: “If I should desert you, may Ethiopia forever desert me.”
Once the coup planners obtained Asfaw Wossen’s pledge of support, Generals Mengistu Neway and Tsige Dibu, Colonel Workneh Gebeyehu and Ato Germame Neway asked him to take up full leadership. He promptly accepted and preparations were underway to arrest Haile Selassie at the airport as he returned from a visit to Brazil. The plan was to depose him and declare a popular government.
While this plot was being hatched, then Minister of Finance Mekonnen Habte Wold got wind of what was underway. He sent an urgent telegram to Haile Selassie in Brazil. The coded message said: “The patient is dead. Please come back to the funeral.” Haile Selassie understood the message and immediately left for Addis Abeba.
By then the plotters realized that there has been a leak of the planned coup. They decided to accelerate the effectuation of their plan before the scheduled date. Asfaw Wossen then issued a public proclamation which said in part:
In recognition of the fact that the present regime has been a cancer on the Ethiopian people, beginning today I have decided to serve the people of Ethiopia
based on a true constitution and a salary the people determine for me. The new people’s government of Ethiopia is supported by intellectuals, military and civilian leaders and the people at large. Therefore, the decisions that are made by this government shall become valid. People of Ethiopia! You should know that you begin a glorious history today. You can stand proud among the people of the world. You should make your unity stronger than steel.
The recording of this statement is available for verification.
The new people’s government was widely supported not only by the educated elites and military sectors but also by the common people. Asfaw Wossen’s statement was very moving, filled with hope of change and improvements in the meager lives of the Ethiopian people.
The euphoria and ecstasy of the two days of the coup began to wear out as General Mered Mengesha and the Abune of the Orthodox Church, who issued a divine injunction, began to create division in the military. The American Ambassador was also part of this effort. He pretended to play a mediating role while actively working to undercut the coalition among the various branches of the military. As a result, Haile Selassie’s unchallenged return to Addis Abeba became certain.
Asfaw Wossen went to the airport to receive him. The first words exchanged between father and son reflected Haile Selassie’s mood. In contempt, Haile Selassie said: “We would have much preferred attending your funeral than seeing you here in person.”
Asfaw Wossen tried to explain away his role. He said he was “forced” to say the things he said and that they gave him no choice. Haile Selassie ordered a wide
investigation and arrest of all who directly and indirectly participated in the coup attempt. Some of the coup leaders such as Col. Workneh Gebeyehu and Shambel Telahun Baye fought to the end and died. Haile Selassie ordered the hanging of their corpses. General Mengistu Neway was caught seriously wounded. He was summarily executed by hanging.
The fate of those who were spared from the hangman’s noose was not much better. They were tortured in prison. Interrogators strung water filled bottles on
their genitals to extract information. They were beaten senseless and all signed confessions about their guilt. The chairman of the investigation committee,
Ras Asrate Kassa traveled from prison to prison spitting on the prisoners and calling them disgusting names. He ordered corporal punishment for the prisoners often accomplished by lashing. Many of these prisoners living today still carry the scars of those lashes.
Does Asfaw Wossen remember his acts of chicanery in this affair? Will he say he knows nothing about this shameful and sordid affair?
Haile Selassie’s government became worse after the coup. A terrible famine overtook the country. It became critical in Wello. Neither Haile Selassie nor Asfaw Wossen took any serious interest or action to address the problem. But much effort was made to conceal the magnitude of the problem from the Ethiopian people and the international community. Amid this famine, cakes and champaign were being imported from England for lavish royal weddings.
Finally, the Wello famine became the bane of Haile Selassie and his family. Nonetheless, the Derg’s killing of Haile Selassie is to be condemned and those responsible must be brought to justice.
Asfaw Wossen left for England just before the military takeover. When the Derg took power and led the country on a path of endless wars, famine and destruction, Asfaw Wossen did not make a single protest. He was living in comfort and luxury and enjoying the hospitality of the British government. There is not an instance I know of when he registered a protest or appeal to the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity or any other international body during the 17 years of Derg rule.
What is so sad is not just that he remained silent about what was happening in the country. It is his collusion with the Derg to divide up Haile Selassie’s foreign bank accounts that is most reprehensible. This agreement was reported in the Italian newspaper Domenica del Cornie in an article entitled “Even the Son Sold Out His Father.”
What did Asfaw Wossen do with his share of the money? Did he share his wealth with the starving children of Ethiopia? Did he do anything for his people who were dying from famine, natural catastrophes and the Derg’s atrocities? Of course not! He gave nothing nor did he do anything meaningful to help his people. Instead, he arranged to have himself coronated as Amha Selassie I. He gave a lavish party to the English royal family and other stateless royalty. The expenses incurred on this day could have saved thousands of Ethiopians dying from starvation.
History seems to have a way of repeating itself. During the Italian occupation Asfaw Wossen’s father went to England and spent five years there in the lap of luxury. He returned “triumphantly” without ever fighting the enemy. Now his son, Asfaw Wossen, is trying to do the same after he forgot and disowned his people for seventeen years and divided up the peoples’ wealth with the Derg regime.
He now has the drums beating: “Moa Anbessa! I am here. I am your symbol of unity. Receive me with adulation.” He conveniently forgets his treachery and
chicanery and the corpses he left behind. He just wants to become king! It should be remembered that because of his inaction and treachery, the coup attempt
by General Mengistu Neway and others failed and that his father tyrannically ruled Ethiopia for the next fourteen years. Asfaw Wossen is living testimony to the fact that those who claim divine power to rule have no conscience. He is now cynically trying to take advantage of the people’s current adversity by offering to replant the yoke of monarchical rule.
Only true democracy can help achieve true unity. Where there is freedom and when the people’s rights are secured, then our future in unity will have been guaranteed. Indeed, some might try to exploit the lack of political sophistication of the people. However, they should never forget that the Ethiopian people have learned from hard experience the virtues of self-rule. They will not accept “Moa Anbessa, elect of God.”
The Crown rule was started and ended in blood. If Asfaw Wossen truly has the people’s interest at heart, he should remain wherever he is and not go back. He is old in age and in very poor health. He should ask for the forgiveness of the Ethiopian people. They are forgiving. They will allow him the honor of being buried on Ethiopian soil. Otherwise, it is both folly and vain to ask the people he deserted yesterday to embrace him with love and gratitude today. Asfaw Wossen is not needed to keep the country’s unity.
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Ato Getachew Garedew was one of the participants in the failed coup against
Haile Selassie in 1962 led by General Mengistu Neway. He continued his opposition against Haile Selassie’s government after he went to exile in Somalia and later in Frankfurt, Germany where he currently resides.
This article is translated from Amharic by ER staff.
