Ethiopian loot discussed

Now that Italy has returned the looted Aksum Obleisk, there is added pressure on especially the authorities of the British Library and the British Museum to repatriate a large trove of manuscripts, artifacts and up to a dozen ‘tabots’, replicas of the Ark of the Covenant- sacred to Ethiopians. This week’s Corner, sheds more light on the issue, as well as providing a fascinating yet rather sad portrayal of certain glorification of war crimes and war criminals of the Fascist era in Italy …

I am currently writing, dear reader, from cold and windy London, England, where people have been discussing the loot taken from Ethiopia in times past.

The story begins, you will recall, with the rise in the first part of the 19th century of Emperor Tewodros II, a dynamic leader who sought to unify and modernise his country –which was then disunited – as well as falling behind in the struggle for modernisation, Having had some previous contact with two Englishmen, John Bell and Walterr Plowden. who had won his friendship he decided on an approach to the redoubtable British monarch Queen Victoria. He accordingly drafted a friendly letter to the Queen – and entrusted it to the then British consul, Douglas Cameron, with strict instructions that he should take it to London in person. The good consul however, had other ideas. He gave the letter to a servant to take, while he himself went off to the Sudan – where he seemed to be consorting with the Ottoman rulers of that country, who were then seizing Ethiopian territory on the border.

Further difficulties arose when the Emperor’s letter eventually reached London. The British Government was then a close supporter of the Ottoman Empire which it considered a potential ally against the Russians who were regarded as a danger to British rule in India. Not wishing to offend the Ottomans by showing any support for Tewodros, whose territory the latter were over-running, the British Government had the bright idea of leaving Tewodros’s letter unanswered. This did not please the Ethiopian ruler one little bit. A proud man, he had a high opinion of himself, and of his country then struggling for its very existence. He accordingly seized the unfortunate Cameron, and sundry other Europeans who had in one way or other displeased him. The British Government, displeased by the outcome of the affair of the letter, despatched a special envoy to Ethiopia, by the name Hormuzd Rassam, but the latter failed to “pour oil over the troubled water” –and also ended up in detention – at Tewodros’s mountain citadel of Maqdala (then often referred to in Britain as Magdala).

All this greatly peeved the British – largely because they feared that it would damage Britain’s prestige, notably in India and the East. A British expedition, under Robert Napier, was accordingly despatched against Tewodros’s mountain fortress of Maqdala. This led, as was the custom of the time, to extensive looting. Tewodros, a centralising monarch, had collected manuscripts and other treasures from many parts of the country – and these, broadly speaking, were what the British seized. The booty taken by the soldiers was collected from them, and transported – on fifteen elephants and two hundred mules – to the Dalanta plain where they were then auctioned over a period of two days. Many of the treasures thus auctioned were acquired by the British Library and the British Museum, but other items ended up in private hands.

The fate of this loot over the last century or so has often been discussed, and advocates of repatriation have included none other than the renowned 19th century British statesman William Ewart Gladstone, and in modern times, Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

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Discussion on the loot from Maqdala, dear reader, erupted once again this summer when the British daily newspaper, The Times, published two Letters to the Editor on the subject.
The first of these letters, which appeared on 12 July. Was from Philip Marsden, author of a recent Biography of Tewodros.

Referring to an earlier article on the wealth of the British Museum, Marsden wrote:
“Ethiopian treasure

“Sir, Ben Macintyre (“Let’s all have tickets to the universal museum”, July 10) did not include in his list of disputed treasures at the British Museum the manuscripts, artifacts and religious objects looted from Ethiopia in 1868. Among the hoard are a dozen or so tabots, the small, hidden tablets that form the sacred centre of all Ethiopian churches. Representing both the Ark of the Covenant, and the particular saint of each church, tabots can never be seen by anyone but priests. They are now housed in a locked room in the British Museum, and the key held by an Ethiopian priest in London. It is hard to see how keeping such objects contributes to Macintyre’s notion of a “an encyclopaedic storehouse of universal knowledge”. Such sacred objects do not exist to remind the world of the marvels of cultural diversity, but to form an integral part of belief, worship and identity for millions of individuals.
“Philip Marsden”

The second letter was by the present writer, and was published on 21 July. It reads as follows:

“Returning Loot
“Sir, Philip Marsden (12 July), an accomplished historian of the Ethiopian emperor Tewodros II, does well to raise the long-debated question of the loot taken from Ethiopia by the Napier Expedition of 1867-8. The British Museum and British Library both hold major Ethiopian treasures, and the issue is not likely to go away until restitution is effected: It is significant that the issue, which was previously raised only by isolated Ethiopian and other intellectuals, is now voiced by none other than the Ethiopian Head of State.
“Later this year the great Obelisk from Aksum,looted by Mussolini in 1937, and now returned to Ethiopia, will be unveiled as part of Ethiopia’s Millennium Celebrations. Surely the time has come for Britain to follow the example of Italy – by at long last returning the Magdala loot,
Richard Pankhurst
Professor”

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From Fascist loot, discussion moved to Fascist monuments, and Ato Yohannes Assefa of the Ethiopian American sent in the following American press-cutting.

It reads as follows:

“Surprised” by fascist monuments in Italy
“Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Italy, on a visit to the north of the country, was puzzled when he was shown that Italy still is celebrating the brutal occupiers of Ethiopia during the fascist regime 1935 as war heroes. The Addis Ababa government is to look into the case.
“Monuments and street names in South Tyrol, or Alpine northern Italy, are still idealising the “Alpini”, Italy’s historic elite mountain warfare soldiers that headed the brutal Italian attack and occupation of Abyssinia …in 1935. Especially, an Alpini monument in the town of Bruneck (Brunico) raised by the fascist regime of Dictator Benito Mussolini, is causing controversy and strongly surprised the Ethiopian Ambassador on a recent visit.”

Bruneck’s Alpini monument commemorates the troops of the so-called “divisione pusteria”, guilty of attacks with poison gas and of numerous murders during the Italo-Abyssinian War. At the command of fascist leaders, thousands of defenceless Ethiopians were brutally slaughtered at the time. Alpini General, Pirzio Biroli, reportedly told his soldiers: “Here you cannot be too much of a robber, murderer and rapist,” and this is also how Ethiopians recall the action of the Alpini.

“The controversial monument was erected in 1936, celebrating the war and the Alpini. But in northern Italy, many groups have fought against this celebration of the fascist government for decades. Before the end of World War II, the first attack on the monument was registered. Since then, the monument had been partly destroyed in 1956, 1959, 1966 and 1979. However, each time Italian authorities re-erected the monument.

“Currently, the Südtiroler Schützenbund – a cultural association of Italy’s German-speaking minority – is leading the battle against the hated Alpini monument. The association managed to invite the Ethiopian Ambassador, Grum Abay, to South Tyrol, where Mr Abay could see the ongoing hailing of Italian war criminals for himself.”

Not only the Alpini monument in Bruneck commemorates the Italian attack on Ethiopia. In the regional capital, Bolzano, a column praising the unlawful war still stands in close vicinity to the city’s large victory monument. Also in Bolzano, streets are still named after the locations of war crimes in Ethiopia and after those who committed them – such as Via-Amba-Alagi and Via-Pater-Giuliani.

“In the course of a cordial two-hour talk, “the Ethiopian ambassador showed surprise at the fact that monuments glorifying the crimes against his people are still to be found in Southern Tyrol,” according to the Schützenbund. “Even though the Ethiopian people have forgiven the Italian occupiers, they will never forget,” Mr Abay was quoted as saying. “The past is the past,” he however added.

“Mr Abay was given much documentation of the presence of fascist monuments and names commemorating the attack on Ethiopia, which he promised to hand over to the President of Ethiopia, Girma Woldegiorgis, and his Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi. By chance, the Ethiopian President had fought together with British units against the fascists during World War II.” Paul Bacher from the Schützenbund explained that, “one is still expecting the Italian state to distance itself unmistakably from past ideologies. A first step in that direction would be the removal of all fascist remnants in the country.”

“Neither in Ethiopia, nor in Italy, have the wounds of the Italo-Abyssinian war totally healed. Only recently, Ethiopia was able to recover the national symbol of the Axum Obelisk, which was stolen by Mussolini’s troops during the war. “Italy has not yet apologised to Ethiopia for its crimes,” Ambassador Abay noted.

“On 3 October 1935, Mussolini started his attack on Ethiopia, and thereby also World War II, as the Abyssinian Empire was a full-fledged member of the League of Nations. The attack on Ethiopia served Italy and Nazi Germany as a test for further warfare, as cruel tactics such as the air dropping of poison gas was practiced.

“The British physician, John Melly, head of the British Red Cross in the war-zone, thus reported horrified and outraged: “This is no war, not even a bloodbath, this is the torture of ten thousands of defenceless men, women and children by bombs and poison gas.” The delegate of the International Red Cross, Marcel Junod, described what he had experienced as aneyewitness: “Everywhere there are lying people. Ten thousands … on their feet, on all limbs I see horrible, bleeding burns.”

“The cruel attacks on civilians were committed by the Alpini elite forces. Other atrocities committed
by the Alpini in Ethiopia included systematic rape, torture and looting, in addition to the methodical slaughtering of the Ethiopian elite.

“The planned charges for war crimes against Italy in an International Court were dropped because Italy switched over in time to the winning side during World War II. Italy paid Ethiopia US$ 25 million in total as compensation for the attack and occupation and never issued an apology”.

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But we ourselves, Dear Reader, are more interested in the erection of monuments to Ethiopian heroes – and to Ethiopian men and women of the arts and culture – and hope to return to this latter matter in a later article.

(Originally published in Capital newspaper)

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