Very few Ethiopians have ever heard of “Amda Berhan Za Ityopeya”, an underground newsletter of the anti-fascist patriots during the Italian occupation. Fewer still may know of where a copy of this historic journal could be found. It you are one such, please do contact the writer and share in preserving a part of Ethiopian history.
The Short-lived Clandestine Publication Amda Berhan za Ityopeya
During the Italian Fascist occupation the Ethiopian Patriots, dear Reader, had only limited contact with the outside world. Emperor Haile Sellassie, then living in Bath, England, dispatched the occasional envoy to Ethiopia, and corresponded with several of the more important resistance leaders. My mother, Sylvia Pankhurst, also succeeded in smuggling into the country Amharic supplements of her newspaper New Times and Ethiopia News.
After Mussolini’s declaration of war on Britain and France on 10 June 1940 – and Haile Sellassie’s arrival in the Sudan a month later – the situation changed: the British began producing a field newspaper called Bandarachin (i.e. Our Flag), which is said to have helped to keep the Patriots informed of Allied victories in World War II.
This period also witnessed the publication, in Italian-occupied Addis Ababa, of a today largely forgotten Amharic news-sheet, entitled Amda-Berhan za Ityopeya (i.e. Pillar of Light of Ethiopia) – with which we are today concerned.
The distinction of being the first author to mention this publication belongs to Professor Richard Greenfield, who however refers to it only in passing. In his New History of Ethiopia) he says only that a certain Armenian, Yohannes Semerjibashian, had “started the underground paper Pillar of Light of Ethiopia”. Nothing else. Greenfield gives no details on the “paper”, the existence of which seems to have been ignored by virtually all other writers on the period!
Yohannes Semerjibashian, who lived in Addis Ababa, was prior to the invasion in the employ of the German Legation. His wife, Wayzaro Asada-Maryam Wassan-Yalläah, was a sister of the Patriot leader Blatta Hayle Takla-Aragay, and a relative of the heroic commander Afawarq Walda-Samayat, who died resisting the Italians in the Ogaden in 1935. During the Italian occupation Yohannes Semerjibashian reportedly assisted the Ethiopian Patriots, and later received a medal for this from the Emperor.
Before his death, according to his son Aklilu Werner Semerjibashian, Yohannes Semerjibashian deposited his papers in the American Legation, later Embassy, in Addis Ababa for safe-keeping. The present writer subsequently investigated State Department archives, on Aklilu Semerjibashian’s behalf, made inquiries at the then U.S. Legation, and over the years discussed the matter with several American envoys, and former Legation staff members – but to no avail. Of Yohannes Semerjibashian’s personal papers no trace could be found!
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Subsequent research, dear Reader, has however established that Amda Berhan za Ityopeya was produced secretly, towards the end of the Italian occupation, by a small group of individuals, who comprised both Ethiopians and Armenians.
There are two somewhat different accounts of the composition of this group. The first version is embodied in a thus-far unpublished tape-recorded interview with the late Armenian historian Avedis Terzian, carried out by the present writer in 1977. The second account is found in a biography of Yohannes Terzian, written by the Ethiopian historian Bairu Tafla, and published in the Armenian Review for 1985.
Those involved in producing the publication consisted, according to Terzian, of three Armenians and two Ethiopians. The Armenians were the afore-said Yohannes Semerjibashian; Avedis Terzian himself, and another Terzian, who had worked in the pre-war Ethiopian radio, and whom we presume to have been Michel Terzian. The Ethiopians were Bezunah Neway, a former director in the Addis Ababa post office – a prominent Catholic who later became director of prisons); and an accomplished traditional scribe, Dasta Alame.
Bairu Tafla’s account differs from the above in that he mentions only one Armenian, the afore-said Yohannes Semerjibashian, but lists no less than four Ethiopians. They were the two above-mentioned personalities, Bezunah Neway, and Dasta Alame (whom he cites as Dasta Alammah), and two others, namely Hayle Takla-Aragay (subsequently a functionary in the Ministry of the Interior, and Mahdärä Salam (later a lawyer).
The two accounts differ also in that Terzian states that the publication ran to only seven issues, while Bairu observes that “at least 12 issues” were “said to have been published”.
Terzian remarks that copies were dispatched to Ras Abbaba Aragay and other Patriot leaders – to brief them on military and other events of the day, while Bairu is more explicit. He states that the publication was distributed “among confidents among the patriots”, and that:
“Liason between Johannes and the outstanding patriots was provided by a certain Habta-Wald who communicated with Abbaba Aragay, Dajjazmach Zawdu Abba-Koran, Kantiba Gäbre Hayla-Sellase, and others, while the soothsayer, Wayzaro Jefare, kept in touch on his behalf with the patriots in Gendabarat as well as with Blatta Takkala Walda-Hawaryat and Dajjazmach Kabbada Bezu-Nah”.
The following is an excerpt from Terzian’s interview – in which he states that he – and Yohannes Semerjibashian
“used to publish a clandestine paper which we sent to the Patriots – which gave them hope because the Patriots had no communication with the world”.
Elaborating on the history of Amda Berhan, Terzian continues:
“The Patriot movement was exceedingly weak – from the point of view of information…
“When the war with Italy and the West [began], when Italy declared war on the West, that same evening I was arrested, considered to be pro-Western, pro-English, or pro-American.
“With quite a group of people we were interned in a concentration camp, [but] fortunately I had good contacts with the German Ambassador who, though a Nazi ambassador, was not a Nazi. He was an old diplomat in Ethiopia… he was very kind to me, and furthermore his interpreter was an Armenian, Mr Yohannes [Semerjibashian], who was my collaborator [i.e. on the paper]. So I was freed on condition that I would not listen to radio; that I would not go to public gatherings, or cinemas, and had to report daily to the [Fascist] Police.”
Turning to his contact with his Yohannes Semerjibashian at the German Embassy, Terzian continues:
“We thought we should do something. We decided to publish a clandestine leaflet using a gelatine duplicator which we made ourselves. We got the gelatine from a printing house, and made a flat thing; and so we said, ‘Let’s give the Patriots good information’. We discussed it with two Ethiopian friends: one was Ato Bezunah Neway, he was one of directors of the old Parcel Post office – a very staunch Patriot. Then we said we need good hand-writing in Amharic – and we discovered a certain Ethiopian. His name was Dasta Alame, who had been a clerk in the Palace – in the old days they did not have printing – they had these fine writers, hand-writers. So we were four. “
“Then we had to have a duplicator. I had a cousin, who was a Terzian, and who had worked in the Ethiopian radio…he was clever with the duplication. We made our duplicating slides, and we began to organise the publication.
“The first thing we did was to contact [i.e. listen to] the BBC because we wanted reliable information. So, as I have said, I had not been allowed to own a radio, but my wife – we had Italian high-standing neighbours – my wife said, “How can I live without music?” They said, “You are right”, and they intervened, and we were allowed to have a radio – provided that we heard nothing but the radio from Rome.
“I discovered that by gradually reducing the volume I could hear a lot [which] other people, eves-droppers, could not follow. So gradually I followed the BBC daily.
“We began with the publication of information that interested the Patriots, We started with the arrival of the Emperor at Om Medla [the Ethiopian settlement on the Sudan frontier]. It was to give them a concrete hope that something was happening – because for many years they had been out of contact…
“There were not many copies [of the paper printed], I think there were perhaps twenty. There were [not] more than twenty copies.
“So we sent them to the Patriot centres. Ras Abbaba, who though he was not the chief of all the Patriots, was the Patriot not very far from Dabra Berhan, in the centre of Shawa. He was considered to be the top man. So we sent him the paper… At first he did not believe [i.e. understand] what it was: whether it was a trick [or] whether it was something false. But when the second one arrived he realized that it was something out of the ordinary; and he gathered all the Patriots; and they have a system of putting up a pole on which they put a burnous – in the old days of decrees – to call the people to a gathering: they used to put up a pole on which they fixed a burnous, you know a dark cape – a woollen cape. And they all congregated there, and it [the paper] was read publicly, and then it was sent from mountain to mountain. They [the Patriots] were very much impressed, because this got more information – I should tell you that unfortunately the British propaganda, which was dropped from Aden, was several months old: they were all just bunches of papers, which did not mean anything because it was not up-to-date.
“So we continued – and something very funny happened. The Italians had organized a local government in Addis, under the Italian administration. They had taken the old Sähafé Tä’ezaz of Emperor Haile Sellassie, and made him Director of an office which they called some Bureau [or other -Terzian, dear Reader, does not at this point remember the name]; and the second-in-command was the brother-in-law of our collaborator, the director of the parcel post. He informed us that the Italians had got hold of a leaflet called Amda Berhan, through their spies in the Patriot’s organization – but to mislead the Italians we had indicated that this was published at Om Medla – that it was moving forward with the Emperor. They did not believe [the latter suggestion] at first, but they suspected that the paper was produced in Addis – so we got good warning, but in any case we continued until the British occupation”.
At this point Mr Terzian turned to other matters.
We are left, dear Reader, with the above tantalizing glimpse of the production of Ethiopia’s perhaps least known 20th century publication, printed in one of the country’s most difficult eras – a publication which deserves a place in the history of the Ethiopian press.
But so far the present writer has not been able to trace a single copy – even in Fascist archives. Reader: Can you help me?
(Originally published in Capital newspaper)
Richard Pankhurst 
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