Mandela’s Ethiopia Connection: Part II

In response to a question raised by Ato Abate Kassa to a group of Ethiopians linked by common interests – that being THE MOTHERLAND’S WELLBEING –“What were Ethiopia’s contributions to Nelson Mandela’s anti-apartheid struggle?”, a couple of individuals responded with what they know, heard or read somewhere – most of it in the public realm.One response caught my eye. It was Ato Ayalew Mandefro’s, a person who had met Nelson Mandela in official capacity, I assume as Ethiopia’s defense minister under Emperor Haileselassie. It was refreshing reading the email, which I received when the former defense minister responded to the original question.It came to me as testimony from history. More importantly, it found me with a very low mood, because, when other Africans states were mentioned with their remarks and role on the BBC and their contributions, immediately after news of his passing, one prominent name in Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle was missing – Ethiopia’s. That is why this email from Ato Ayalew Mandefro, reproduced here, gave me some comfort and I am grateful to Ato Ayalew for that.Since the email was public information and in public forum, I have taken the liberty of reproducing it hereunder, as a piece of our history to benefit many other Ethiopians and foreigners alike:“Selam Wendem Abate

When Mandela was apprehended by the Apartheid Police and guided to prison for life at Robin Island, two small photos and a small pistol with ivory handle was found in his Kaki coat pockets. One of the photo was that of HIM and the other of Ketema Yifru. Needless to add, during his long and valiant struggle against Racist South African Government of the time, Mandela and his comrade in arms received consistently from the Ethiopian Government huge support both financially as well as crucial training in various military institutions. I feel specially sad by Mandela’s death as I keep indelible memory of my meeting with him in person during one of his rare visits of the Ethiopian Foreign Office in early sixties.

May God Bless his Soul.

AYALEW MANDEFRO”

I apologize for forgetting to mention early on in this piece that the role Ethiopia played in the anti-apartheid struggle is not limited to training and enhancing combat capabilities of the ANC fighters. Ethiopia, is also amongst the main actors to international actions to bring the apartheid regime’s isolation within the international system.

Ethiopia strongly believed that not only that this racist and segregationist policy would have ramifications on its capacity to administer South West Africa (now Namibia), under the League of Nations mandate entrusted to South Africa.

For that, after the Sharpeville Massacre of March 21, 1960, Ethiopia, along with Liberia, on November 4, 1960 took the apartheid regime to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its apartheid policy. The two countries, “acting in the capacity of States which were members of the former League of Nations, put forward various allegations of contraventions of the League of Nations Mandate for South West Africa by the Republic of South Africa.”

In that context, the arguments of the duo before the Court was, according to ICJ document, South West Africa (Ethiopia v. South Africa) rested on clear answers WHETHER:

– South Africa’s League of Nations mandate for South West Africa was still in force;

– The Mandatory’s obligation to furnish annual reports on its administration to the Council of the League of Nations had become transformed into an obligation so to report to the General Assembly of the United Nations;

– The Respondent had, in accordance with the Mandate, promoted to the utmost the material and moral well-being and the social progress of the inhabitants of the territory;

– The Mandatory had contravened the prohibition in the Mandate of the “military training of the natives” and the establishment of military or naval bases or the erection of fortifications in the territory; and

– South Africa had contravened the provision in the Mandate that it (the Mandate) can only be modified with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, by attempting to modify the Mandate without the consent of the United Nations General Assembly, which, it was contended by the Applicants, had replaced the Council of the League for this and other purposes.

The Court rejected the appeal. But building bloc by bloc, the anti-apartheid forces prevailed within the United Nations system. Because of that, on December 2, 1968 the General Assembly adopted a resolution requesting all states and organizations “to suspend cultural, educational, sporting and other exchanges with the racist regime and with organisations or institutions in South Africa which practice apartheid.”

By 1973, the General Assembly adopted its landmark resolution sanctioning apartheid as a crime and the convention came into force on July 18, 1976.

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1.  Nelson Mandela wrote in his autobiography, “Ethiopia always has a special place in my imagination and the prospect of visiting Ethiopia attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England, and America combined. I felt I would be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the roots of what made me an African.”

2.  During his period in exile, Nelson Mandela spent time in Ethiopia in 1962, where he received military training and where he addressed the Organization of African Unity. It was shortly after leaving Ethiopia to South Africa that he was arrested, and served 27 years in prison.

3.  Would you like to stay in the same room where Nelson Mandela once slept in? Travel no further than the Ras Hotel in downtown Addis Ababa.

4.  . During his stay in Ethiopia, Nelson Mandela received an Ethiopian passport under the alias name ‘David Motsamayi.’

5.  Nelson Mandela has received a Bulgarian-made handgun from the Ethiopian Colonel General Tadesse Biru in 1962. It was reportedly buried in South Africa and much effort is being made to find it. If found, it could be worth over USD two million.

6.  According to an interview with Time Magazine editor Richard Stengel, Nelson Mandela met and spoke to Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I. On one occasion Mandela was quoted saying, “I explained to him very briefly what was happening in South Africa…He was seated on his chair, listening like a log…not nodding, just immovable, you know, like a statue…”

7.  Following his release in February 1990, Nelson Mandela returned to Ethiopia in July 1990, as part of his worldwide tour, timed for the opening of the OAU summit. The Washington TIMES reported that, “the Organization of African Unity opened its annual summit here yesterday by giving anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela a hero’s reception.”

8.  Nelson Mandela often associates the significance of Ethiopia and Ethiopianism as the inspiration for the formation of his political party the African National Congress(ANC). In December 1992 at the Free Ethiopian Church of South Africa, he was quoted saying, “Fundamental tenets of the Ethiopian Movement were self-worth, self-reliance and freedom. These tenets drew the advocates of Ethiopianism, like a magnet, to the growing political movement. That political movement was to culminate in the formation of the ANC in 1912. It is in this sense that we in the ANC trace the seeds of the formation of our organization to the Ethiopian Movement of the 1890s.”

9.  It was noted that during the second annual International Nelson Mandela Day in 2011, 2,300 trees were planted around Addis Ababa in Mandela’s honor, according to Ms. Clara Keisuetter, Charge de Affair of the South Africa Embassy in Ethiopia.

10.  The legacy of Nelson Mandela will continue to remain in Ethiopia. Today in Addis Ababa, there is a distance education college named after Mandela,a center in Addis Ababa University in his honour and a school in Arba Minch named after him.

 

The Assasination Attempt on Mandela

Source:  Diretube.com

 

Please click on link below to view the video

http://www.diretube.com/sheger-fm/failed-assassination-attempt-on-nelson-mandela-in-ethiopia-video_c52aa3b1f.html

A Retired Ethiopian Police Officer, Commander Gudeta Dinka, Relates the Plot to Assassinate Nelson Mandela in Addis Ababa.

Nelson Mandela is known to have taken military training in Ethiopia as part of a support he was getting for his Anti Apartheid struggle. Former Ethiopian Police Officer, Commander Gudeta Dinka, has said to the local radio station in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that once he was asked to kill the then military trainee, Nelson Mandela.

Gudeta Dinka, 76, was a police officer under the command of General Tadesse (A top military officer, then colonel, who was appointed by the Emperor himself for the training and safety of Mandela). The retired officer told the radio station that it was only four people; General Tadesse, Colonel Fekadu, Commander Fekade and he were allowed to a tight section in the Kolfe Police Academy where Mandela stayed and took training.

Mandela used to leave the window open at night; the commander remembers. He said that as he was one of those in charge of Mandela’s safety, once he was contacted by a police officer to discuss on a very serious matter. When they met at Taitu Hotel, Commander Guta relates that the officer gave him 2,000 pounds and offered him to strangle Mandela.

The commander remarked that the officer offered a lot more money for both of them and a safe way out of the country if he killed Mandela.

“Finish him and when you leave the compound a car will be waiting for pickup. Two chances are before us. We shouldn’t miss them…” said the officer to commander Guta, as he remembered the incident.

“I acted as if I have agreed, and then I told about the plot to General Tadesse. The plot held in great secrecy and those people behind the plot got identified and then banished from the country” said the retired police officer, Commander Guta Dinka.

Girum DireTube