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

Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia 107
account of the high Generals and Ad m i rals with whom he has dealt so
f a i t h f u l l y. I repeat you are responsible for his honourable security. 3 5
This letter leads us to suppose that the British Government, which sought to
protect Badoglio from his own Government, would not allow him to be tried for
crimes committed, half a decade earlier, in far-off Ethiopia.
Revelations in the New York Times
Interest in Italian war crimes was minimal throughout 1944. Britain and its
European allies, primarily interested in the question of German war crimes,
awaited the successful termination of the conflict in Europe, in 1945, before
instituting trials. The Ethiopian Government, under strict British control
imposed by the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 31 January 1942, was necessarily
also fairly inactive. The country did not regain freedom of action until the second
Anglo-Ethiopian agreement, on 19 December 1944.
Though unable to take much action while under British control, some members
of the Ethiopian Government were seething with anger over the war
crimes issue. This found expression in an article, in the New York Times, on 31
January 1945. Its author, Sydney Gruson, had apparently been in contact with
the Ethiopian Legation in London. He reported that the Ethiopian authorities
were complaining of “British refusal to hand over Italians and others guilty of
war-crimes,” and re f e r red specifically to Mussolini, Badoglio, and the
Emperor’s collaborationist son-in-law Haylä Sellasé Gugsa. 36
Gruson’s article, which seemed likely to interest America’s pro-Ethiopian
Black community, was considered so sensitive by the British Embassy in
Washington that the ambassador, the Earl of Halifax, that day sent a “Secret”
telegram to the Foreign Office. After summarising Gruson’s charges, he wrote:
“Could you please supply me as rapidly as possible with the facts.” 37
The Foreign Office, replying on 6 February, reverted to its old arguments. It
contended that the commission’s terms of reference were “confined to crimes
committed by our enemies during the present war.” It nevertheless added, for
Halifax’s “own information,” i.e., not for disclosure to the Americans, the delicate
matter that the commission’s responsibility might be extended “in the case
of China to the beginning of hostilities against Japan.”