Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia - Societa italiana di storia ...

Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia 101
a fissure in our case by making a distinction as invidious as this on the
hypothesis (none too sound) that an Ethiopian representative might not
contribute anything useful to the proceedings. The argument that only
war crimes committed since September 1939 (present war) would be
more substantial were China not a party to the commission and had we
not brought Ethiopia into the ‘looting’ Declaration. The way out suggested
by Harrison, i.e. throwing the onus of exclusion on the honoured
17 already invited seems to me likely to affect our own prestige for we
should thereby let down an ally who, although no use to us now militarily,
was once of considerable assistance when it came to defeating an
Italian army in our rear in North Africa and since then has done more in
the way of providing supplies than some of the other United Nations.
I am sure that we needlessly put ourselves in the wrong by not asking Ethiopia
to send a representative (we might easily suggest that owing to the complicated
issues involved an ‘international lawyer’ should be nominated, as was done
when the Abyssinian case came before the League on Nations in 1935/6). I cannot
see on what decent grounds the other members of the commission could
object.
These observations prompted Sir Herbert Malkin that day to write a legalistic
minute. In it he declared:
The objection to Ethiopian membership which strikes me as important is
as follows. I do not know whether the Italians committed any ‘war crimes’
against Ethiopians during the recent reconquest of Ethiopia, but I imagine
that their [i.e. the Ethiopians’] object in being represented would be to
bring before the Commission the crimes which the Italians undoubtedly
committed during the original conquest of the country. This, however, is
surely out of the question for several reasons, one of which is that probably
the first name on the Ethiopian list would be Marshal Badoglio.
The Marshal was still Italian Prime Minister, and the British Government was
unwilling to break with him.
“The case of Ethiopia,” Malkin continued, with some casuistry, was “quite
different . . . from that of China.” In the latter case “the only question” was
“how far back to go as regards crimes committed in hostilities which have been