Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0127/01276.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 23KB | 364 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01276}
$Pretitle{228}
$Title{Ethiopia
Chapter 1D.   Growth of Secessionist Threats}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Richard P. Stevens}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{ethiopia
ethiopian
eritrean
states
african
british
eritrea
somali
military
emperor}
$Date{1980}
$Log{}
Country:     Ethiopia
Book:        Ethiopia, A Country Study
Author:      Richard P. Stevens
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1980

Chapter 1D.   Growth of Secessionist Threats

     Of the areas outside the Habesha heartland that have posed problems for
Ethiopia's rulers, two have proven to be particularly recalcitrant: Eritrea
and the largely Somali-occupied Ogaden and adjacent regions. The problems are
grounded in the ethnic and religious differences of Eritrean and Somali
populations from the Amhara and Tigray (although there are some Tigray in
Eritrea), but the colonial history of the Horn of Africa in effect provided a
framework for them and exacerbated them.

Eritrea

Eritrea, which the Italians had colonized in 1885 and used as a springboard
for their disastrous attempt to conquer Ethiopia in 1896, was placed under
British military administration in 1941 after the Italian surrender. In
accordance with a 1950 decision of the UN General Assembly, British military
administration was ended in September 1952 and was replaced by a new
autonomous Eritrean government in federal union with Ethiopia. The acquisition
of the former Italian colony restored a maritime frontier to the empire for
the first time since the triumph of Islam over the African shore of the Red
Sea in the tenth century A.D. The empire also gained control of a territory
which, at least in its inland areas, had a more advanced political structure
and economy.

     The Four Power Inquiry Commission, established by the Allies (France,
Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States), failed to agree in their
September 1948 report on a future course for the colony. The problem was then
turned over to the UN by Great Britain. A number of countries displayed an
active interest in the area. In the immediate postwar years Italy requested
that Eritrea be returned as a colony or as a trusteeship and was supported
initially by the Soviet Union, which anticipated a communist victory at the
Italian polls. The Arab states, seeing Eritrea and its largely Muslim
population as an extension of the Arab world, sought the establishment of an
independent state. Some British favored a division of the territory: the
Christian Tigrinya-speaking areas and the coast from Mitsiwa southward would
go to Ethiopia, and the largely Muslim north and northwest would go to Sudan.

     A UN commission, which arrived in Eritrea in February 1950, eventually
approved a plan involving some form of association with Ethiopia. In December
1950 the General Assembly adopted a resolution to that effect with the
provision that Britain, the administering power, should facilitate the UN
efforts and depart from the colony no later than September 15, 1952. Faced
with this constraint the British administration held elections on March 26,
1952, for a Representative Assembly of sixty-eight members. This body, equally
made up of Christians and Muslims, accepted the draft constitution advanced
by the UN commissioner on July 10, 1952. The constitution was ratified by the
emperor on September 11, 1952, and the Representative Assembly, by
prearrangement, was transformed into the Eritrean National Assembly three
days before the federation was proclaimed.

     Eritrean federation with Ethiopia was the result of Haile Selassie's
lengthy effort. Shortly after his restoration in 1941 the emperor sponsored an
irredentist movement calling for the incorporation of Eritrea and Italian
Somaliland. Within Eritrea an organization supported the movement and in 1944
became the Unionist Party, which enjoyed significant financial assistance from
Ethiopia. Its members generally felt that Eritrea should be turned over at
once. They argued that it was a part of Ethiopia based on historic, cultural,
geographical, religious, and economic association, and that it had been stolen
by Italy. Although this position was supported by a number of intellectuals,
by 1946 it was challenged by the newly formed Muslim League led by Osman Saleh
Sabi. Another antiunion splinter group, the National Muslim Party of Mitsiwa
was organized in 1947. A third predominantly Muslim group, the New Eritrean
Pro-Italy Party, which enjoyed the support of local Italians and people of
mixed (Afro-Italian) origin, was organized in late 1947. The New Eritrean
Liberal Progressive Party, a predominantly Christian organization motivated
by an antipathy toward Shewan domination, was also established in early 1947.
Pro- and anti-union activity was encouraged in a legal and constitutional
framework-first in conjunction with testimony before the United Nations
commission of inquiry and, later, in preparations for the election of the
Representative Assembly. But after October 1949 there was a steady rise in the
level of violence and intimidation. Shortly after the arrival of the UN
commission in February 1950, several of the antiunionist parties began to
splinter under pressure from the pro-Ethiopian elements. Some opponents were
won to the prounion side through terrorism, bribery, and promises of favored
treatment. The Eritrean Democratic Front, a new coalition composed of all the
antiunion parties, was unable to prevent the Unionist Party from securing the
appointment of an interim imperial representative in the territory, who in
turn was able to use his influence to advance the unionist cause.

     The UN General Assembly resolution of September 15, 1952, adopted by
forty-seven to ten, provided that Eritrea should be linked to the Ethiopian
empire through a loose federal structure under the sovereignty of the emperor
but with a form and organization of internal self-government. The federal
government, identical with the existing imperial government, was to control
foreign and defense affairs, foreign and interstate commerce, transportation,
and finance. Control over domestic affairs (including police, local
administration, and taxation to meet its own budget) was to be exercised by an
elected assembly on the parliamentary model. The state was to have its own
administrative and judicial structure and flag.

     Almost from the start of federation the emperor's representative began
to undercut the territory's separate status under the federal system. In
August 1955, Tedla Bairu, an Eritrean who was the chief executive elected
by the National Assembly, was replaced by an imperial nominee. Amharic was
made the national language in place of Arabic and Tigrinya, and in 1959 the
Eritrean flag was removed. In November 1962 the National Assembly, many of
whose members had been accused of accepting bribes, voted unanimously to
change Eritrea's status to that of a governorate. All political parties were
proscribed, censorship was imposed, the Amhara were given the top
administrative positions, and the principle of parity between Christian and
Muslim officials was abandoned. In an obvious attempt to "refeudalize" the
territory, an arch conservative, Ras Asrate Kassa, was appointed as governor.

     The extinction of the federation served to consolidate internal and
external opposition to union. Four years earlier in 1958 a number of Eritrean
exiles founded the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in Cairo, under the
leadership of Hamid Idris Awate. Initially a Muslim movement, the ELF was
nationalistic rather than Marxist and received support from Iraq and Syria.
Other leaders included Osman Saleh Sabi, former head of the Muslim League, and
Woldeab Woldemariam, a Christian labor leader. As urban Christians joined the
party the ELF became more radical, and even gained the support of Tedla Bairu,
former leader of the Unionist Party and first chief executive under the
federation. After 1961 the ELF turned to armed struggle and by 1966 was
challenging the im