Italians of Ethiopia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Italians of Ethiopia
*Italo-etiopi*
Total population
Italian soldiers and colonists starting their travel to conquest and colonize Ethiopia in 1935
1,400 (plus 2,000 descendants)
Regions with significant populations
Addis Ababa
Languages
Italian, Amharic
Religion
Christian, mostly Roman Catholic
Related ethnic groups
Italians

Italians of Ethiopia are the colonists from Italy who moved to colonize Ethiopia in the 20th century, and their descendants. Italians started to colonize Ethiopia, while mounted a military occupation lasting six years. In 1941, with British help, Ethiopians defeated the would-be colonists and restored Emperor Haile Selassie's rule.

History

The 1880s were marked by the Scramble for Africa in Ethiopia and Eastern Africa, when the Italians began to vie with the British and French for influence in the area. Asseb, a port near the southern entrance of the Red Sea, was bought by in March 1870 from the local Afar sultan, vassal to the Ethiopian Emperor, by an Italian company, which by 1890 led to the Italian colony of Eritrea being established. From then on, the Kingdom of Italy attempted to take control of Ethiopia.

Conflicts between the two countries resulted in the Battle of Adwa in 1896, whereby the Ethiopians defeated Italy and remained independent, under the rule of Menelik II. Italy and Ethiopia signed a provisional treaty of peace on 26 October 1896, but in the next years Italians started to pursue the "avenge of Adua" as a matter of national honor.

The avenge indeed came when Benito Mussolini started to expand the African colonial possessions of Italy in the 1930s.

In October 1935, Mussolini launched the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and invaded Ethiopia. Emperor Haile Selassie fled the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on 2 May 1936 and the Italians entered the city on 5 May, after bloody battles.

Victory was announced on 9 May 1936 and Mussolini declared the creation of the "Italian Empire". The Italians merged Eritrea, Italian Somalia, and newly captured Ethiopia into Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, A.O.I.).

The Italian King Victor Emmanuel III added Emperor of Ethiopia to his titles.

Mussolini dreamed of sending millions of Italian settlers to Italian East Africa, and Italians had high hopes of turning the area into an economic asset: huge investments were done in the creation of needed infrastructures (roads, airports, hospitals, etc..).

From 1936 to the start of World War II Mussolini controlled much of Ethiopia, but a guerrilla war raged in areas of Ethiopia still controlled by partisans linked to Haile Selassie (who was exiled in Great Britain).

In the first months of 1941 the Allies conquered the Italian East Africa Empire and for the Italian Ethiopians started a period of harassment that led to their nearly disappearance after World War II.

Italian Ethiopia: 1936-41

The Italian community in Ethiopia was very small in 1935, before the Italian invasion: only 200 Italians lived in Ethiopia, nearly all of them in the capital Addis Ababa.

But in 1940, just five years after Mussolini's conquest of this African country, the Italians residents in Etiopia were nearly 40,000. The Italo-Ethiopians were concentrated in the capital area, and in some cases were related to military and administrators just arrived from Italy.

To these colonists there was to be added the Italian labourers, who came temporarily to work (usually only for some months) in the construction of the Ethiopian infrastructures, calculated in nearly 200,000 in five years.

The 40,000 were to be followed - according to the Fascist regime of Mussolini - by nearly two millions Italians in the next ten years, who were to be added to the 10 millions of Ethiopians living in the country in 1940.

According to official statistics of the Italian government, in October 1939 the Italian Ethiopians were 35.441, of whom 30.232 male (85,3%) and 5209 female (14,7%), most of them living in urban areas.^[1]

Only 3,200 Italian farmers moved to colonize farm areas, mainly because of the danger of Ethiopian guerrilla (that in 1940 was still controlling nearly 1/4 of Ethiopia highlands).

Ethiopia (divided in the administrative provinces of Scioa, Galla-Sidamo, Harar and Amara) was part of the Italian Empire from 1936 to 1941. The Italians did huge and expensive infrastructures, that drained the Italian economy but reduced in those years the unemployment in the Kingdom of Italy. They did 18,794 km (11,678 mi) of new roads asphaltated: in 1940 Addis Ababa was connected by state-of-the-art roads to Asmara and Mogadishu.

Furthermore, 900 km (559 mi) of railways were reconstructed or initiated (like the railway between Addis Abeba and Assab), dams and hydroelectric plants were built, and many public and private companies were established in the underdeveloped country. The most important were: "Compagnie per il cotone d'Etiopia" (Cotton industry); "Compagnia etiopica del latte e derivati" (Milk industry); "Cementerie d'Etiopia" (Cement industry); "Compagnia etiopica mineraria" (Minerals industry); "Imprese elettriche d'Etiopia" (Electricity industry); "Compagnia etiopica degli esplosivi" (Armament industry); "Industria per la birra dell'AOI" (Beer industry); "Trasporti automobilistici (Citao)" (Mechanic & Transport industry).

There was an urbanistic project for the enlargement of Addis Ababa, but these architectural plans -like all the other developments- were stopped by World War II.^[2]

Italians of Ethiopia under British and Ethiopian rule

With the Italian defeat in eastern Africa in spring 1941, the Italians of Ethiopia started to face a period of huge difficulties.

Some Italian civilians even participated in the Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia until 1943, like Rosa Dainelli. This Italian doctor was a woman who became an active member of the Fronte di Resistenza (Front of Resistance), an Italian organization which fought the Allies in a guerrilla war from December 1941 until summer of 1943.

In August 1942 she managed to enter inside the main ammunition depot of the British Army in Addis Ababa and blow it up, somehow surviving the huge explosion. This act of sabotage destroyed the ammunition for the new British sten machine gun and delayed the deployment of this "state-of-the-art" weapon for many months.

Doctor Dainelli, even if less known than lieutenant Amedeo Guillet, was famous as one of the few Italian woman who participated actively in the Italian guerrilla operations against the British troops after the East African Campaign (World War II). She was nominated, after the end of the war, for the Italian medal of honor called "Croce di Ferro".

After World War II the Italian Ethiopians were forced to return to Italy, mainly after the fall of the Negus in 1974. Nearly 22,000 Italo-Ethiopians took refuge in Italy during the 1970s. Their main organization in Italy is the Associazione Italiana Profughi dall'Etiopia ed Eritrea (A.I.P.E.E.).

In the 2000s many Italian companies are back to work in Ethiopia and now there it is a community of 1256 Italian technicians and managers with their families living mainly in Addis Ababa .

Only 80 original Italian colonists remain alive in 2007 and nearly 2000 mixed descendants of Italian men/women and Ethiopian men/women.

Language and religion

The remaining 80 original Italian Ethiopians colonists speak Italian, but their descendants speak even Amharic.

The 1256 recently moved to Ethiopia Italian technicians and managers (with their families living mainly in Addis Ababa) use the Italian and English language (but have some knowledge of Amharic for their work).

In religion, nearly all are Roman Catholic Christians.

Famous Italians of Ethiopia

Luciano Violante, judge and politician.
Mauro Losi, football player