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

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Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia 135 volume consisted of affidavits sworn by Ethiopians, who had witnessed atro c i- ties, or suffered torture or confinement in concentration camps. The Italian Trial of Graziani The Italian trial of Graziani, for his collaboration with the Germans, was resumed in 1950. He was eventually found guilty, and sentenced, on 2 May, to 19 years’ imprisonment, but was released in the following year, to become the leader of a short-lived neo-fascist organisation. He died, peacefully, on 11 January 1955. 82 Summary and Conclusions The question of Fascist Italy’s war crimes in Ethiopia was unusual in that it was raised, by the Ethiopian Government, on two separate occasions, in very different circumstances. It was first raised in the League of Nations, while the atrocities were still being committed. It came to the fore again, half a decade later, in the UN War Crimes Commission, which had been established by the Allies as a result of the European war and Axis terror in Europe. Neither Ethiopian initiative was successful. The League, whose principal members, Britain and Fra n c e, sought to “appease” the Italian dictator Mussolini, we re not pre p a red to condemn the atrocities which his forces committed. These acts we re apparently re g a rded by the international community of the time as an acceptable feature of modern wa r f a re. The later UN War Crimes Commission, which had been set up to try “war crimes,” reflected new international values, but was scarcely more interested than the League in Italian war crimes in Ethiopia. This was because the British, who had limited interest in crimes committed against non-Europeans, had recognised Mussolini’s “conquest” of Ethiopia and were unwilling to consider how it had been achieved. They were moreover opposed to trying Badoglio, whom they knew the Ethiopians regarded as the principal Italian war criminal. Though responsible for the use of poison-gas in Ethiopia, he was favoured by the British, and Americans; for, after fighting on the German side, he had later connived at Italy’s surrender and was considered a leader who would keep Italy safely in the Western fold.
136 Richard Pankhurst British and other Allied opposition to the trial of Italians accused of wa r crimes in Ethiopia was based on the repeated Fo reign Office argument that the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935–36, though accompanied by many fascist atro c i t i e s , had “no relation” to the European wa r, which had begun in September 1939, and for which the UN commission had been established. Under British pre s s u re, the commission accepted this contention and used it to exclude Ethiopia fro m membership, and hence from raising the issue of Badoglio in its delibera t i o n s . Ethiopia’s exclusion was, howeve r, inconsistent, in that the British and other Allies accepted Chinese demands for the trial of Japanese accused of having committed crimes in China seve ral years before Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia: Ethiopia lacked the “political clout” wielded by the Chinese. Despite this weakness, the Ethiopian Government eventually succeeded, with some skill, in persuading the UN, when drafting the Italian Peace Treaty of 1947, to accept the principle that it should apply, as far as Ethiopia was concerned, to the period from the beginning of invasion, on 3 October 1935. The UN commission was obliged to concur with this date and, though not expanding its membership to include Ethiopia, agreed that the Ethiopian Government could submit a short nominal list of war criminals for trial. Though acutely short of jurists and other trained personnel, the Ethiopian authorities, by then gravely short of time too, succeeded in drawing up a case, backed up with documentary evidence and certified affidavits, which the commission accepted, against ten persons. The UN commission agreed that there was a prima facie case against eight, and that the remaining two were needed as witnesses. Logistical and other difficulties, however, obliged the Ethiopian Government to waive its charge against all but two of the accused, albeit the most important, Badoglio and Graziani. Their automatic extradition was, however, prevented by the fact that Ethiopia and Italy had not yet established diplomatic relations. The Ethiopian Government attempted to overcome this impasse by having its ambassador in Britain submit a memorandum to the Italian ambassador, but the latter refused to accept it. Ethiopia, citing provision in the Italian Peace Treaty, then attempted to use the good offices of the British ambassador in Rome, but the British Government, anxious to avoid alienating a more powerful state, refused to comply. Ethiopian efforts to bring to justice those guilty of war crimes were thus frustrated by intransigence, by both Italy and Britain, and
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