Mereja.Forum

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To contain the advance of communism everywhere, American reaction was forceful and as a result; the interest to acquire a Military Base also became not only necessary but also a must.

Based on the 'purity of radio frequency technical results' as experienced by Anglo- American Forces fighting Hitler and Mussolini, in both the North and East African war theaters- Asmara and its environs- was discovered to be the preferred place for American communications experts; who would like to spy on Soviet ships passing through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

This desire to build a communication base for their Armed Forces, made Americans to become thoroughly obliging helpers of Ethiopia to acquire Eritrea; through their influence at the United Nations. And to speak truthfully, without American help, Haile Sellassie would have never succeded in setting foot in Eritrea. America, forcefully and uncompromisingly brought the UNHAPPY marriage of Ethiopia and Eritrea. This intense American involvement can be seen in the following four paragraphs, that came out from the FOUR top branches of American Government.


THE PENTAGON:

As far as the view of the 'Joint Chiefs of Staff'' is concerned, the desire to set up a communication base in Eritrea was

to travel miles to achieve it and to pay any price to get it

which the following paragraph amply indicates.

Here are the words of the 'Joint Chiefs of Staff'':

In relating the importance of making Eritrea under Ethiopia, thus fulfilling the over all strategy of American power in the area, Admiral William Leahy of the 'Joint Chiefs of Staff' said the following:

The joint chiefs of Staff would state categorically that the benefits now resulting from the operation of our telecommunication center at Asmara - benefits common and of high military importance to both the United States and Great Britain - CAN BE OBTAINED FROM NO OTHER LOCATION IN THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST - EASTERN MEDITERRANIAN AREA. THEREFORE, UNITED STATES RIGHTS IN ERITREA SHOULD NOT BE COMPROMISED.'

(Emphasis on original, see Harold Marcus, "Ethiopia, Great Britain, and the United States," page 84)

THE NATIONAL SECUIRITY COUNCIL:

The job of this department was to insure that Eritrea is not perceived or justifiably seen as viable state by members of congress (the few who may harbor Italian feeling rather than Haile Sellassie's) and thus marshaled its clout and office proximity to the president of the United States, with the sole purpose of making Eritrea LOOK as a non working entity. Thus the elites of National Security Council said,

Eritrea is neither socially, politically, administratively, not economically qualified for independence, nor will it be for some time. An independent regime would be unable to maintain law and order against the internal ravages of border marauders, or to prevent a move for secessions and union with Ethiopia - which would not be unlikely - by the people of the Central Plateau. If attacked from outside, it would be unable to maintain its territorial integrity without external aid.

(See, Harold Marcus, page 85)

THE STATE DEPARTMENT:

Not be upstaged by the above two departments, the State Department chief diplomat, Secretary of State John Dulles, also spoke in the most undiplomatic way. A short time before the UN vote to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia was implemented; Mr. Dulles bluntly explained the American Government's attitude over Eritrea. Said he,

From the point of view of justice, the opinions of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interest of the United States in the Red Sea basin and considerations of security and world peace makes it necessary that the country has to be linked with our alley Ethiopia.

(See Bereket Habte Sellassie, "Eritrea and the United Nation," page 106 to 107)

THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICAN AFFAIRS:

The United State Congress on its part also put out its view in plane technical language, about the importance of having Asmara as a communication center for the U.S. Armed Forces. It said,

The United States wanted the communication base at Asmara because 'it was located in the tropics far from the north and south magnetic poles, the [aurora borealis] and magnetic storms, in a zone where the limited degree of seasonal variation between sunrise and sunset reduced the need for numerous frequency changes.' Its mile and half high altitude and locations near the equator made Kagnew an excellent primary relay station in the U.S. worldwide defense communication system.

(About this hearing, opinion cited in Richard Sherman, "Eritrea: The Unfinished Revolution." page 143)

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The Soviet Union, had targetted Eritrea:

Let it also be said for the record that, during the Cuban missile crises, Kagnew and by association, the city of Asmara, were few of the prime targets for nuclear annihilation by the Warsaw Pact Forces. The reason was, as it turned out, Kagnew was the main coordinating station for American forces in the Indian Ocean and the American sixth fleets in the Mediterranean; as it also doubled as snooping center, to grab radio Message of Russian fleet in the same area. As Richard Sherman recounted,

Kagnew Station, over the years, was the most complex and the largest high frequency station for the United States. Kagnew's functions have been variously described as that of an eavesdropping operation, a space-tracking station, and naval communication facilities. The station's activities involved 'various types of intelligence, electronic countermeasures such as jamming, target exploitation, and transmission of coded material.' It no doubt served as an electronic listening post, monitoring both Arab and Soviet communications.

(See Sherman, page 143)

Herein lies the reason why, the Soviets targeted Asmara during the Cuban Missile crises.

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Ethiopia mightily benefited from income that rightly belonged to Eritreans; such as the Massawa and Assab port fees, Telecommunications built by the Italians and the British, civil aviation, fruit export from the lowlands of Eritrea, minerals: such as the copper mining in Debaruwa and the potash mining in Dalul, the 50 million dollar yearly rental fee of Kagnew Station paid by the Americans. These incomes garnered by Ethiopia, were not all. All foreign companies who built factories in Eritrea* were expressly ordered to pay tax directly to Addis Ababa. Companies such as; Fish products that were canned by a Yugoslavian concern; Encode, the Israeli meat factory; Coca-Cola; the Baratollo textile factory; the Merengi glass factory; Mellotti brewery; the list goes on and on.

And make no mistake, Haile Sellassie left these factories to continue operating in Eritrea because either they were built prior to the Federation era or they happened to be of interest to the Ethiopian state, as was the case with Encode which was really a cover for the "Mossad," the Israeli Intelligence service, on which Haile Sellassie depended upon about Arab governments' intentiontions against Ethiopia.

Haile Sellassie wouldn't allow Volkswagen and Fiat to build Bus and truck factories in Eritrea and from there export the finished products, to Africa and to the Arab World. After the license application for a factory in Eritrea was rejected, Volkswagen stopped its intention altogether while Fait moved its plan to Addis Ababa and went on to set up its factory in Akaki on the way to Debre Zeit.

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And when it comes to acquiring wealth, Haile Sellassie was a class by himself. As John Markakis & Nega Ayele recounted in their book about the Ethiopian revolution,

Haile Sellassie was not only the major owner of a public transport in the capital through the Anbassa Bus company, he was also the country's first beer baron through the ownership of two major breweries and a large share in a third one, as well as control of a wine factory. In the Haile Sellassie I Foundation, he owned the only holding company in Ethiopia, thinly disguised as a charitable institution, with shares in dozens of enterprises ranging from hotels to firearms production. The urban real estate holdings of himself and his family were countless, while their holdings in land throughout the empire were legion. Yet with undiminished greed, he and his brood never ceased accumulating possessions through methods that were seldom above board. Haile Sellassie even demanded and received regularly a share of the contraband goods confiscated by the customs service. Haile Sellassie, who never distinguished between his own money and the public treasury, regularly used public funds to acquire possessions that were classed as private imperial property. The most astounding revelation concerned the appropriation of the entire output from the country's sole gold mine, which he said to have deposited regularly in the bulging vaults of a Swiss bank. At the time that this corruption was revealed, the enormity of the allegation caused widespread incredulity. Indeed, the produce from the gold mine never appeared in any government revenue accounting, and the revenue of the Ministry of Mines never came close to matching its expenditure. To support the charge, the Dergue showed in television a letter from a Swiss bank manager, in which the Emperor was allegedly asked to delay new shipments because the storage capacity of the banks vaults had been exhausted.

(See: "Class and Revolution in Ethiopia," page 112 to 113)

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In his irony filled book, "The Emperor," the Polish journalist, Ryszard Kapuscinski extracted what is certainly a truthful stanza from one of Haile Sellasie's close palace intriguers, which he code named: A.A.

And speaking of those who were dying from uncontrolled hunger in the province of Wollo, A. A. said:

Death from hunger had existed in our Empire for hundreds of years, an everyday natural thing. Drought would come and the earth would dry up, the cattle would drop dead, the peasants would starve. Ordinary, in accordance with the laws of nature and the eternal order of things Since this was eternal and normal, none of the dignitaries would dare to bother His Most Exalted Highness (meaning Haile Sellassie) with the news that in such a province, a given person had died of hunger. Of course, His Most Exalted Highness visited the province himself, BUT IT WAS NOT HIS CUSTOM TO STOP IN THE POOR REGIONS WHERE THERE WAS HUNGER.

(Emphasis is mine, see "The Emperor," page 111)

Witness what Ryszard Kapuscinski has to say about a man, whose sole job was to clean the urine of the Emperor dog:

It was a small dog, a Japanese breed. His name was Lulu. He was allowed to sleep in the Emperor's great bed. During various ceremonies, he would run away from the Emperor's lap and pee on the dignitaries' shoes. The august gentleman were not allowed to flinch or make the slightest gesture when they felt their feet getting wet. I had to walk among the dignitaries and wipe the urine from their shoes with a satin cloth. This was my job for ten years.

(See "The Emperor," page 4; for the fleet of cars, refer page 12).

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Marcus Garvey:

We can remember in 1920 inviting the government of Abyssinia to send representatives to the International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the world in common with other Negro governments, institutions and organizations. Whilst others replied, and most of them sent representatives to that greatest of all Negro conventions, the Abyssinian government returned the communication unopened. They ignored Negro relationships from without and throttled Negro aspirations from within. The result was that they dragged along without any racial policy, except that of the ruling classes, believing themselves white and better than the rest, with the right to suppress the darker elements which make up the tremendous population.

[See Italy's Conquest? The Blackman Magazine, August 1936. As quoted by Clarke, J. H. in "Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa (1974) p. 363.]

The above statement is pretty much ascertained for its validity, by none other than Professor John Spencer, Haile Sellassie's legal advisor for over 40 years. Here too, I am going to leave Professor Spencer do the talking.

Until 1955, Ethiopia had identified herself largely with the West. Ethiopians tended to regard with indifference the other peoples who, unlike those of Ethiopia and Liberia, had not succeeded in attaining independence against the tide of colonialism. ... The growing influence of the new states of the Middle East and Far East, the intervention of Egypt and Syria in Eritrea and the calling of the Bandung Conference alerted Ethiopia to the need for accommodation with the Third World and in particular, with the rest of Africa now approaching independence. Such an adjustment was difficult for Ethiopians who had always regarded themselves as non-African, looking to their cultural and linguistic origins in the Arabian Peninsula and the relationship between the Amharic and other Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew. 'I am not a Negro at all; I am a Caucasian' the Emperor Menelik told the West Indian pan-Africanist Benito Sylvian who had come to Addis Ababa to solicit the Emperor's leadership in a society for the 'Amelioration of the Negro race.' Haile Sellassie confirmed that view in a declaration to Chief H. O. Davis, a well known Nigerian nationalist, stating that the Ethiopians did not regard themselves as Africans, but as 'a mixed Hamito-Semitic people'.

[John H. Spencer, Ethiopia at Bay (1984), p. 306.]

In essence Ethiopia's turn to the Third World was a reflection of the problems experienced over both Eritrea and the Ogaden.

(Ibid, page 308)

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In his memoir, "Ethiopia At Bay: A Personal Account of the Haile Sellassie Years," his foreign affair legal advisor, Professor John Spencer, diagnosed Haile Sellassie as

Coward, scheming, devious, remorseless, egotistical, avaricious, ceremonious and like Hitler, the most kind to animals.

But not to human-beings, hence the "split- personality" the Professor attached to him in the most psychoanalytic way. (See page 136)