Two things you thought were mutually exclusive
and restitution
Hi there,
I hope you had a great weekend. I was at a Boiler Room set recording in Addis Abeba on Saturday - the first of its kind in the country. It was a lot of fun and the highlight of the year in Addis for me. It’s a welcome respite to be around creative energy in this city.
This week’s edition looks closely at one update – the restitution of stolen artifacts from Ethiopia. Big shout out to Rass, who shared the reading for this update with me.
To new subscribers, welcome!
My name is Maya Misikir, and I’m a freelance reporter based in Addis Abeba. I write Sifter, this newsletter where I send out the week’s top 5 stories on human rights and news in Ethiopia.
Now, to the news.
Human rights: a ‘checkered’ record
Ethiopia has been elected to the UN’s Human Rights Council. This will be the third time that Ethiopia is a member of the Council (elected first from 2013 to 2015 and again from 2016 to 2018). The votes necessary to be a member of the Council is 97, but Ethiopia garnered 171 votes from a total of 193 UN member states, according to a story by state broadcaster, EBC.
Just so we’re on the same page, the UN’s Human Rights Council is ‘an intergovernmental body within the UN system consisting of 47 States which is responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe.’
I know what you’re thinking: ‘how can a country with documented human rights abuses assume a role in a council devoted to advocating for human rights?’ I’m tempted to say, welcome to the real world, ‘where geopolitical interests often overshadow genuine commitments to human rights.’
But this is a question I plan to have a more nuanced answer to. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from a report by Human Rights Watch on Ethiopia (from June):
In recent months, Ethiopian security and intelligence forces increased the intimidation, harassment, and threats against prominent Ethiopian human rights organizations in the country, including the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), Ethiopia’s oldest independent human rights organization.
The story on EBC, here, and the report by Human Rights Watch, entitled, ‘Ethiopia: Halt Crackdown Against Human Rights Groups’ here.
Neocolonialism: buying back stolen items
I have written about the effort to bring back looted Ethiopian artifacts from the British Museum. Once last year in September when the lock of hair (and other artifacts) of Prince Alemayehu, son of Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II, was returned.
The person who returned it was a British woman, a descendant of a captain entrusted with bringing (read: kidnapping) the Ethiopian prince to England. Upon finding these items among her family heirlooms, the lady returned it, noting that, ‘it was a long way from home’.
In April this year, I wrote again when the British Museum was brought into the limelight over questions of the ‘sacred Ethiopian altar tablets’ (‘tabot’ in Amharic). The story talked about how the Museum had hidden them from view for over 150 years and why they weren’t being returned to Ethiopia.
An Ethiopian shield, purchased by the grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie, is now set to return to Ethiopia by November, according to a story by The Voice. The shield is one of many looted items during the battle of Maqdala in 1868 and was negotiated from being auctioned at Anderson & Garland auction house (‘expected to sell for between £800 and £1,200’!).
Why are pieces of Ethiopian artifacts with historical significance found scattered between museums, descendants of former military captains, and at auction houses? Why do we keep on hearing about the battle of Maqdala whenever looted Ethiopian artifacts are mentioned? What could be the justification by the British Museum – and other institutions across Europe – to keep displaying stolen items to this day?
I’ve compiled answers to these questions from a book entitled, Fifteen Colonial Thefts: A Guide to Looted African Heritage in Museums, particularly through excerpts from chapter 11, entitled, ‘Degodding Maqdala’.
What was the Battle of Maqdala? Most readers might be familiar with this one, but ‘euphemistically known as the British Expedition to Abyssinia’, it was, instead, a ‘brutal invasion’ by the British, say the two authors of the chapter.
Why did it happen? The two reasons, as cited by the authors, were to free British hostages imprisoned by Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II and to punish him for his, ‘malicious acts’.
But why did the Emperor hold these people hostage? The Emperor, concerned with Egyptian encroachment from the north, sent a letter requesting support from Queen Victoria. When he failed to get a response, he ‘grew suspicious that the British might be conspiring with Egypt’, and imprisoned the British consul and other European envoys. This sparked, ‘the outrage of the British public’, and ‘thirteen thousand soldiers were enlisted’ to respond.
Here's an excerpt from the chapter:
“Hundreds of Ethiopians were killed, and thousands were wounded and displaced. Lives that barely show up in the historical records, whether they be diaries, official military records, or newspaper articles. The truth is, we will always fail to fully represent the scale and scope of destruction unleashed by the expeditionary force that was assembled to supposedly rescue nine European hostages.”
What was at Maqdala? A ‘collection of close to one thousand manuscripts’ was assembled there, as Maqdala had been selected as an ‘important center of study and worship.’
What happened when the British arrived on the 13th of April 1868? The ‘troops stormed, destroyed, and pillaged Maqdala.’
How much was looted during that time? Whatever they took needed the help of ‘15 elephants and 200 mules to carry it back to the coast.’ From the 1000 manuscripts in Maqdala, ‘the finest group of 400’ were ‘stolen and dispersed across Europe.’
While there is a reason given for the invasion, the authors argue, none explain, ‘the caravan of elephants that were used to extract countless cultural assets and sacred manuscripts.’
Where are these artifacts today? Most are found in the British Library, but others are dispersed across Europe as well, including the ‘Vatican Apostolic Library (Rome), the Bibliothèque Nationale, de France (Paris), and the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek (Berlin)’.
Why are these manuscripts, tablets, and artifacts important (as one commenter on X has succinctly put, it’s ‘just a piece of metal, no big deal’)? The manuscripts date as far back as 390 - 570 AD, and are written in the ‘ancient Semitic language of Ge’ez’, a language now only used in churches.
The pigments used to write on these manuscripts also tell the history and evolution of a people and a country. They were made of things like, ‘carbon, stones, soil, and plants.’ Influenced by the ‘material specificities of the region, recording the movements of people and ideas along with shifts in flora and fauna’.
What are the justifications for keeping them in the museums abroad? This is explained much more eloquently in the book but it’s a mix of the following absurdities: these items are better off in ‘climate-controlled rooms in Europe’ than the ‘porous, temporary structures in Africa’; there are no ‘qualified personnel to preserve and maintain invaluable human heritage’; and that these items, by being there, ‘soften borders and eradicate the “antiblack weather” where they are kept.
(Leaving out, the ‘preservation of racial thought and the maintenance of domination’).
Unfortunately, though, the pillaging of precious Ethiopian artifacts has continued well into the present day.
In 2022, months before the Pretoria peace agreement ended the Tigray war, reports came out on how hundreds of manuscripts were being stolen from the region, with some showing up on online auctions including on eBay. Here’s an excerpt on that from a piece on African Arguments:
Particularly in the early days of the war, relics, manuscripts, and other ancient artefacts such as coins and bibles were seized by the invading forces, while religious buildings that have long offered sanctuary for Tigrayan communities were targeted through shelling…The priests, monks, deacons and scholars who were the bearers of this unique Tigrayan culture were also deliberately targeted.
The book, entitled, Fifteen Colonial Thefts: A Guide to Looted African Heritage in Museums here, and the article from African Arguments, entitled, The Destruction and Looting of Heritage in the Tigray War, here.
Infrastructure: how the tides have turned
The fallout from Ethiopia’s Memorandum of Understanding with Somaliland, signed on January 1, 2024, continues to unfold.
You can go here for an update from a couple of weeks ago when Egypt was sending military equipment to Somalia, and that will lead you to previous updates that go all the way to that fateful event.
Last week, leaders of Egypt, Somalia, and Eritrea met in the Eritrean capital of Asmara, for a ‘tripartite summit on regional security, stability’, according to a story on Addis Standard. Other reports were less subtle; BBC says the three countries have cemented an 'axis against Ethiopia' and Kenya’s The Standard says they’re plotting on how to ‘contain Ethiopia’.
Ethiopia has ‘strained relations’ with all three; Somalia is unhappy with the deal Ethiopia made with Somaliland, Egypt is concerned about Ethiopia’s dam on the Nile, and Eritrea, a former ally, is now ‘lukewarm about the accord that ended the fighting’ in Tigray region.
Despite these reports, Somalia's Information Minister Daud Aweis is quoted as saying, ‘We are not determined to instigate anything against Addis Ababa," in a story by the BBC.
Just a few years ago in 2018, it was Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea that were busy signing a tripartite agreement, ‘to work in coordination to promote regional peace and security.’
The full story on the BBC here, and on Addis Standard here.
Security: we don’t know her (XXX)
Fighting between the federal government and Fano, the informal militia from Ethiopia’s Amhara region has passed its one-year mark. This period has been brutal; serious human rights violations, deadly drone strikes, hundreds of civilian arrests, extra-judicial killings, and massacres. You can find a compiled list of my updates since August last year, here.
A previously unknown location of a massacre in the region’s northwestern part has been geolocated to be a village by the name of Fela, according to a story by The Continent.
The initial video footage of the massacre, caused by a drone strike, which happened in February, wasn’t enough to geolocate it. But ‘additional images – 12 photographs and a 65-second video clip’ provided by Misganaw Belete, a lawyer and human rights advocate has now made it possible to locate the site.
Why is it important to know the exact location of the drone strike where at least 30 civilians were killed? Here’s an excerpt:
Symbolically, it is difficult to honour the dead when we don’t even know where they were killed. And practically, it is much harder to collect evidence of war crimes when we don’t know where to look.
This drone strike was one in a ‘string of deadly drone strikes’ in the region that has killed more than 300 civilians in the past year alone, says the story.
Meanwhile, the UN is reportedly considering halting aid to the region, as humanitarian workers continue to face deadly attacks on the job, according to a report by Reuters.
The full story, on The Continent, here, and on Reuters here.
Finance: plans to rework a budget formula
There are plans to revise Ethiopia’s regional state budget allocation formula according to a story by Addis Standard. There will be ‘extensive discussions on this matter’ with the Ministry of Finance, the Statistics Service, as well as other stakeholders, says the story.
Here’s an excerpt:
…regions, including Sidama, Southwest Ethiopia, South Ethiopia, and Central Ethiopia, have been instructed to organize their respective data for this purpose.
All four regions were recently established, with Sidama being the first to declare regional statehood following a referendum in 2019. Newly established regions have continued facing ‘challenges in meeting employee salary obligations’ adds the story.
I wrote an update in December last year, when public schools, hospitals, and health centers were closed in the Central Ethiopia region, because of similar budget shortages.
The full story on Addis Standard, here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, feel free to share this with anyone you think can benefit from keeping up with what’s going on in Ethiopia.
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Thank you, Maya. Would love to see more of Ethiopian History updates. 👏🏾