21 Author’s interview
22 FO 371/96811
23 In Eritrea: A Colony in Transition: 1941–1952, Oxford University Press, 1960, author Trevaskis, who served as a British colonial officer in Eritrea, lets slip the fact that after 1941 Eritrean gold production plummeted from 17,000 to 3,000 ounces a year following British and American removal of mining equipment whose replacements were ‘difficult and often impossible to obtain’ and that the Eritrean fishing industry was similarly crippled by the requisitioning of irreplaceable equipment
WO 230/131 5343528–This file contains a fascinating extended correspondence over the future of the ropeway. It shows British officials in Asmara campaigning energetically for the pylons and cable to be sold to companies in Burma, Sudan and Palestine, only to be reined in repeatedly by civil affairs officers in London who warned that as a ‘caretaker’ administration, Britain would stand accused of looting if a sale went ahead. The tireless persistence with which the British courted foreign buyers says legions about attitudes in Asmara. In the event, the ropeway remained in place despite their efforts, only to be sold by Haile Selassie’s son-in-law after Federation
See also, FO 371/102667 for Foreign Office correspondence on Sylvia’s claims, ADM1/19588 for the original 1946 British military debate about disposing of Massawa’s assets and FO 371/96804 for evidence of Haile Selassie’s unhappiness at the destruction
24 ‘Four Power Commission of Investigation for the Former Italian Colonies, Volume 1: Report on Eritrea’, 1948, FO 371/69360
25 FO 371/27558, FO 371/27541, WO 230/57. These files’ contents are cogently summarized in Richard Pankhurst, ‘Post World War II Ethiopia: British military policy and action for the Dismantling and Acquisition of Italian Factories and other Assets, 1941–2’, Journal of Ethiopian Studies, vol 29, no 1, 1996
26 E Talbot Smith in early 1943; see Harold Marcus, The Politics of Empire. Ethiopia, Great Britain and the United States. 1941–1974, The Red Sea Press, 1995, p 15
27 KC Gandar Dower, ‘The First to be Freed: British Military Administration in Eritrea and Somalia’, Ministry of Information, 1944
28 ibid
29 Dr Catherine Hamlin, The Hospital by the River, Macmillan, 2001
30 Author’s interview
Chapter 7 ‘What do the baboons want?’
1 John Spencer, Ethiopia at Bay: A Personal Account of the Haile Selassie Years, Reference Publications, 1984, p 354
2 Ethiopia at Bay, p 23
3 Ethiopia at Bay, p 134
4 Ethiopia at Bay, p 135
5 Report of the UN Commission for Eritrea, Fifth Session, Supplement No 8 (A/1285), Lake Success, New York, 1950, p 3
6 First Confidential Report, February 17, 1950, Eritrea I, Series 2, Box 1, File 1, Acc A/269, UN Archives, New York
7 March 2, 1950, Eritrea I, Series 2, Box 1, File 1, Acc A/269
8 FO 371/80984
9 FO 371/80985
10 In Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Federal Experience, Transaction Publishers, 1997, historian Tekeste Negash challenges the notion that shifta activity was funded from Ethiopia, presenting it as a purely Eritrean phenomenon. His thesis, however, clashes with the views of British officials of the day such as Stafford and Trevaskis and Italian diplomats. It is also rejected by older Eritreans and Ethiopians I interviewed who lived through those years and were in no doubt Addis Ababa lay behind a deliberate campaign of destabilization
11 FO 371/80984
12 FO 371/80985, Letters from Brigadier FG Drew and Frank Stafford
13 Fourth Confidential Report, March 7, 1950, Eritrea I, Series 2, Box 1, File 1, Acc A/269
14 ibid
15 FO 371/80985, Letter from Brigadier Drew, March 7, 1990
16 FO 371/80985, March 16, 1950
17 Fourth Confidential Report
18 Sixth Confidential Report, April 1, 1950
19 Yohannes Okbazghi, Eritrea, A Pawn in World Politics, University of Florida Press, 1991, p 147
20 Report of the UN Commission for Eritrea
21 June 7, 1990, Eritrea II, Series 2, Box 1, File 2, Acc A/269, UN Archives
22 In Ethiopia at Bay (pp 232–9), John Spencer gives an exhaustive account of the back-room deals that preceded the drafting of the key UN Resolution
23 Final Report of the UN Commissioner in Eritrea, General Assembly, Official Records: Seventh Session, Supplement No 15 (A/2188), Vol 4, p 4
24 FO 371/81043
25 Final Report of the UN Commissioner in Eritrea, p 11
26 Ethiopia at Bay, p 243
27 December 30, 1950 Imperial address
28 Author’s interview
29 Author’s interview
30 Final Report of the UN Commissioner in Eritrea, p 21
31 Final Report of the United Nations Commissioner in Eritrea, General Assembly, Official Records: Seventh Session, Supplement No 15 (A/2188), Vol 4, p 50
32 On page 236 of his autobiography, Spencer claims that during consultations in New York, he and Aklilou were privately assured the UN would be divested of all further jurisdiction’ once the Federation was introduced. But in his interview with the author, Spencer told a different story. He acknowledged Matienzo stipulated that any change to the Federation would have to be approved by the UN and that Ethiopia’s eventual abrogation was ‘illegal’
33 In a February 26, 1952 public address, for example, Matienzo said the panel of legal experts found ‘that as the Federal Act is an international instrument, the regime established under that Act cannot be altered without the concurrence of the General Assembly’. There are many such mentions in his draft reports and speeches of the period, stored in the UN Archives. See also S-0721-0009-01, S-0721-0003-09, S-0721-0003-10, S-0721-0003-11
34 Ethiopia at Bay, p 244
35 Author’s interview
36 Author’s interview
37 Author’s interview
38 Author’s interview
39 Author’s interview
Chapter 8 The Day of Mourning
1 WO 97/2817
2 Tekeste Negash, Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Federal Experience, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, 1997, p 83
3 FO 371/102655; Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Federal Experience, p 82
4 British officials, who described Tedla Bairu as a ‘megalomaniac’, also regarded him as corrupt. A February 19, 1954 report to London states that the chief executive had accepted ‘property and a coffee plantation in Ethiopia from the Emperor and acquired a large concession near Cheren which had been purchased…with funds loaned by the State Bank of Ethiopia under the recommendation of the Ethiopian authorities’. Bairu was also drawing a $10,000 salary, a huge amount in Eritrea at the time. Eritrea VII, Jan–July 54, Series 2, Box 2, File 4, Acc A/277, UN Archives
5 Andargachew Messai, March 28, 1955 opening address at the First Regular Session of the Eritrean Assembly
6 Journal of Eritrean Studies, vol IV, nos 1 and 2, 1990
7 Ethiopian and Western histories routinely refer to a parliamentary ‘vote’ in favour of dissolution. This infuriates Eritreans, who insist the motion was passed by ‘acclamation’, a method obviously susceptible to manipulation. Having interviewed two men who were inside the chamber that day, I am satisfied no vote was ever staged. The same conclusion is reached by Bocresion Haile, author of The Collusion on Eritrea, 2001, who interviewed many of those present that day
8 Richard Johnson to State Department; James Firebrace and Stuart Holland, Never Kneel Down: Drought, Development and Liberation in Eritrea, The Red Sea Press, 1985, p 21. Looking back on the event nearly four decades later, Herman Cohen, US assistant secretary of state for Africa, had no hesitation in describing it as a ‘unilateral coercive takeover by the Ethiopian regime’. ‘It had all the trappings of a Stalinist operation, with troops surrounding the building while parliament was in session…In retrospect it was disgraceful that the United States did not protest,’ he wrote in Intervening in Africa: Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent, Macmillan, 200
0
9 WO 97/2817; Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Federal Experience, p 80
10 Cordier letter April 5, 1954. Eritrea VII, Jan–July 54, Series 2, Box 2, File 4, Acc A/277, UN Archives. The words ‘not sent’ are scrawled on this letter. Whether it was ultimately sent or not, the draft sheds devastating light on Cordier’s thinking
11 Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Federal Experience, p 131
12 SO265 EOSG/OSG Jan 1, 1961–Dec 31, 1973, UN Archives
13 Between 1985 and 1991, this role was performed by Dr Bereket Selassie, who labelled it ‘Mission Impossible’. The future author of Eritrea’s constitution would occasionally attach himself to the Somali delegation to gain access to the UN General Assembly and generally did all he could to irritate the Ethiopian delegation. He was arrested at least three times for his pains
14 Author’s interview
15 ‘Stavropoulos’, Box 67, S-0466-0128, 1963, UN Archives
Chapter 9 The Gold Cadillac Site
1 John Rasmuson, A History of Kagnew Station and American Forces in Eritrea, Public Affairs Office, 1973, p 40
2 Author’s interview
3 Anthony Cave Brown, Bodyguard of Lies, WH Allen and Co, 1977, p 357
4 Harold G Marcus, The Politics of Empire: Ethiopia, Great Britain and the United States 1941–1974, The Red Sea Press, 1995, p 84
5 US Senate Hearing before the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, August 4, 5 and 6, 1976, p 36
6 Evelyn Waugh, Waugh in Abyssinia, Penguin, 1986
7 John Spencer, Ethiopia at Bay, Reference Publications, 1984, p 161
8 US Senate Hearing, p 26; John Spencer told the subcommittee: ‘The United States had indicated to the Ethiopian Government in advance of the December, 1950 Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, that once Ethiopia re-assumed sovereignty over Eritrea, it (the US) would want to conclude an agreement by which the United States would take over the large communications center there, just outside Asmara.’
9 Bereket Habte Selassie, Eritrea and the United Nations, The Red Sea Press, 1989, p 37
10 Author’s interview
11 History has exposed the absurdity of this thesis. The current Eritrean government enjoys excellent relations with the Israelis, with whom it feels it has a great deal in common
12 Author’s interview
13 Tom Farer, author of War Clouds on the Horn of Africa, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1979; ‘I don’t think it makes any difference at all to Western strategic interests, which include Israeli interests, whether or not there is an independent Eritrea which is oriented toward the Arab world,’ he testified before the US Senate Hearing in 1976
14 The Politics of Empire, p 104
15 Author’s interview
16 Haile Selassie did not forgive the Crown Prince for meekly falling in with the coup plotters’ plans. Asked why he had not designated Asfa Wossen as heir to the throne, the Emperor is reported to have replied: ‘Why should We? He has already been on the Throne!’ Ethiopia at Bay, p 317
17 The Politics of Empire, p 135
18 ibid, p 153
19 ibid, p 178
20 Terrence Lyons, ‘Great Powers and Conflict Reduction in the Horn of Africa’, Cooperative Security: Reducing Third World Wars, (ed, I William Zartman and Victor A Kremenyuk), Syracuse University Press, 1995 p 245; see also Terrence Lyons, ‘The United States and Ethiopia: The Politics of a Patron–Client Relationship’, Northeast African Studies, vol 8, nos 2–3, 1986
21 Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia 1855–1991, James Currey Ltd, 1991, p 186.
22 Author’s interview
Chapter 10 Blow Jobs, Bugging and Beer
1 Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes in this chapter come from author’s interviews
2 Stroppy American behaviour appears to have been a long-running feature of life in Kagnew. In January 1957, the base was the scene of perhaps the NSA’s only strike, triggered by servicemen’s unhappiness over new regulations. James Bamford, Body of Secrets: How America’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ eavesdrop on the world, Arrow Books, 2002, p 161
3 Victor Marchetti and John Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, Jonathan Cape, 1974, p 226
4 US Defence Department news release, January 1964
5 John Hallahan on www.topsecretsi.com
6 Bizarrely, Kagnew radio’s pop hits–the Doors, the Beach Boys, Procol Harum–were to end up as musical accompaniment to life in the EPLF trenches. They were taped off the station by appreciative Eritrean students, who took the cassettes with them into the Sahel
7 Website address: www.kagnewstation.com
8 Alex de Waal, Evil Days: Thirty Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch, 1991, p 44
Chapter 11 Death of the Lion
1 Amina Habte Negassi, ‘The Massacre of Besik-Dira and Ona’, paper presented at the First International Conference on Eritrean Studies, July 2001, University of Asmara
2 Ethiopia at Bay, p 335
3 New York Times, 1974
4 Ethiopia at Bay, p 335
5 Author’s interview
Chapter 12 Of Bicycles and Thieves
1 Not his real name
2 This was the assassination that Tzadu Bahtu, who played the part of lookout, served time for. Tortured for 55 days, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison as an accomplice but escaped during the Sembel operation
3 Dan Connell recounts this story in detail in Against All Odds–A Chronicle of the Eritrean Revolution, The Red Sea Press, 1997, pp 10–11
Chapter 13 The End of the Affair
1 Marina Ottaway, Soviet and American Influence in the Horn of Africa, Praeger Publishers, 1982, p 100
2 National Security Decision Memorandum 231, August 14, 1973
3 Paul Henze, ‘Arming the Horn 1960–1980’, Wilson Center Working Paper No 43, Washington DC, Smithsonian Institution, December 1982
In Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union (Croom Helm, 1986), David Korn says Washington approved a $100m military programme for 1974–5, which compared with the annual $10m normally granted Haile Selassie. ‘Altogether from 1974 to 1977 the United States supplied Ethiopia with approximately $180m in arms, in dollar value approximately one and a half times more than everything it had furnished up to 1974.’
4 Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union, p 8
5 Author’s interview
6 Evil Days, p 50
7 Basil Burwood-Taylor was held by the EPLF in a mountain ravine for four months. Like so many kidnap victims in Eritrea, he retains surprisingly fond memories of his ordeal. ‘In retrospect, being kidnapped was a wonderful experience,’ he told me. He returned to Asmara in 1998 and shared a drink with one of his former abductors. ‘There are no hard feelings. They know they are always welcome in my house.’
8 Yohannes Okbazghi, Eritrea, a Pawn in World Politics, University of Florida Press, 1991, p 229; ‘United States policy toward Ethiopia’, American Foreign Policy Basis Documents 1977–1980, doc 662, p 1233
9 Against All Odds, p 23
10 Author’s interview
11 Robert G Patman, The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa: the Diplomacy of Intervention and Disengagement, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p 274; Y. Bochkarev, ‘What a Hope!’, New Times, 20, 1986, pp 16–17
12 For more on the disastrously mixed messages Washington sent Somalia during this key period in which it was gearing up to invade the Ogaden, see One Hundred Years of American–Ethiopian Relations by David H Shinn, former ambassador to Addis; see also, Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union
13 Author’s interview
14 Author’s interview
Chapter 14 The Green, Green Grass of Home
1 All quotes come from author’s interviews. Ex-Fighters find talking about themselves awkward. A few of those I spoke to were happy to be identified; most, while having nothing to hide, felt deeply uncomfortable with the notion. Rather than use some names and omit
others, I therefore decided to keep all contributions to this section anonymous
Chapter 15 Arms and the Man
1 Author’s interview
2 Author’s interview
3 Marina Ottaway, Soviet and American Influence in the Horn of Africa, Praeger Publishers, 1982, p 67
4 Oleg Gordievsky and Christopher Andrew, KGB. The inside story of its foreign operations from Lenin to Gorbachev 1941–1990, Hodder and Stoughton, 1990
5 My calculation is a very conservative one. It is based on annual figures from ‘World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers’, compiled by the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). Since these exclude the amount the Soviet Union spent on military advisers and training, and arms exports from Warsaw Pact nations made with Moscow’s blessing, the real sums for Soviet military support are far larger than those given
6 Author’s interview
7 Author’s interview
8 Riccardo Orizio, Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators, Secker and Warburg, 2003
9 ‘World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers’
10 Robert G Patman, ‘Soviet–Ethiopian Relations: The Horn of Dilemma’, chapter 5 of ‘Troubled Friendships: Moscow’s Third World Ventures’, edited by Margot Light, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1993, p 115
11 Robert G Patman, The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa: the Diplomacy of Intervention and Disengagement, p 277
12 M Volkov, ‘Militarisation versus Development’, Asia and Africa Today, no 5, 1987, p 9
13 Talk of the Devil
14 Lev Zaikov, Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, September 10, 1987
15 ‘World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers’
16 16 Author’s interview
Chapter 16 ‘Where are our socks?’
1 The reporter, Alemseged Tesfai, later became a respected Eritrean historian and playwright. His account of the battle of Afabet is to be found in Two Weeks in the Trenches, The Red Sea Press, 2002
2 Author’s interview
3 The EPLF tank man whose accurate shot had brought the convoy grinding to a halt at Ad Shirum was fêted as a hero, but he did not enjoy his status long. During the Massawa campaign, he bent too quickly to reload the tank’s gun and his head received the full impact of the recoil, killing him
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