INTIMIDATION IN ERITREA
Snt,—You were kind enough to publish, on December 3rd last, my letter upon the future of Eritrea which has been replied to by Miss Sylvia Pankhurst in her own propaganda publication New Times and Ethiopian News, challenging me to produce facts in support of my state- ment that the pro-Ethiopian Party in Eritrea has been guilty of political terrorism. I enjoy perhaps an unfair advantage over Miss Pankhurst in this regard, since I was present in Eritrea and she was not. I am pleased to supply her with the following selection of facts of which she may be unaWare but for which I can personally vouch. (1) Ato Woldeab Wolde- mariam, editor of the vernacular newspaper published in Asmara, was twice attacked with hand grenades and gravely injured, after he had allowed the anti-Ethiopian Liberal Party to reply in his paper to articles published therein for the pro-Ethiopian Unionist Party. (2) On Novem- ber 30th, 1947, when the Four Power Commission went to Teramni to receive the votes of the local population, uniformed storm troopers of the pro-Ethiopian Party were taken in lorries from Asmara to Teramni where they prevented members of the pro-British Party from voting and there- after attacked them with stones and heavy sticks, causing many injuries. (3) On the same day, at Teramni, the secretary of the local branch of the anti-Ethiopian (pro-British) Liberal Party, Grazmatch Asmerom Woldegior- gis, was brutally set upon by the same storm troopers, in the presence of the pro-Ethiopian District Chief of Meraguz, Azmatch Teferi Baraki, clubbed with heavy sticks and severely wounded on the head. (4) Qeshi Dimitrios, pro-Ethiopian secretary to Ras ICidanemariam Geremesqel of Arresa, declared to me that he could take no responsibility for the safety of any political opponents who might attend the meeting of the Commis- sion in Arresa in order to record their votes. As a result of this intimi- dation, anti-Ethiopians—including the population of the large Anagher District—were unable to send representatives to Arresa. (5) At Arresa, also, pro-Ethiopian hooligans on two occasions ransacked the houses and shops of anti-Ethiopians and beat up the owners. (6) The President of the pro-Ethiopian Party in Eritrea, Dedjatch Beyene Baraki, in a public speech incited a crowd to acts of violence and had to face trial thereafter before a British Military Court upon a charge of seditious libel.
The victims of the above unprovoked attacks were all anti-Ethiopian Eritreans. They were not pro-Italians—which in Miss Panldiurst's eyes wourd make them a legitimate target of persecution—but merely pro-
British.—I am, Sir, yours truly, E. F. Wisa. Hanford Cottage, Blandford, Dorset.
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