Sunday 4 January 2015

What do you know about the Bevin-Sforza plan to divide Eritrea between Ethiopia and the Sudan

Bevin_Sforza plan
Do you know that the partition of Eritrea between Ethiopia and Sudan (Bezin-Sforza Plan of 1949) was averted by sheer luck?

After Italy was defeated in World War II, it was forced to abandon its former colonies of Eritrea, Somalia and Libya. Various proposals were put forward on how to deal with the former colonies. The British foreign secretary then Ernest Bevin and the Italian foreign minister, Count Carlo Sforza came up with a joint package plan for the colonies on 10 May 1949, hence the plan was known as Bevin-Sforza plan after them. As for Eritrea, the plan proposed the partition of the country between Sudan and Ethiopia. The western lowlands was to be part of the Sudan and the rest was to be given to Ethiopia but for the plan to be approved, the whole package for all the colonies had to be approved as one piece.
Ethiopia was for the partition plan with some initial ‘reluctance’. Eritrean delegations representing parties opposed to unity with Ethiopia were present at the UN corridors to foil the plan.  But Eritrean opposition was not counting much. It was mainly due to other factors that the partition of Eritrea was averted.
  
A 15-Nation sub-committee reviewed all the proposals but preferred the Bevin-Sforza plan for the former Italian colonies. Vote on the Bevin-Sforza plan was 10 for, with 4 against and 1 abstention.  Then the plan was submitted to the First Committee of the United Nations.

On 17 May, 1949, the First Committee introduced a few changes and presented the plan to the UN General Assembly. The UN General Assembly reviewed the plan and was highly expected to adopt without any problem the recommendation of the First Committee because every UN member state had a representative in that important committee and it seemed little would change. The partition plan of Eritrea was passed in the General Assembly by 37 votes in favour of the Bevin-Sforza plan, 11 against and 10 abstentions. It thus seemed that the fate of the “former Italian colony of Eritrea” was sealed.

The Libyan issue had a number of sub-proposals. The General Assembly voted for reunited Libya’s independence after 10 years with 48 votes for, 8 against and 1 abstention. However, what was important was who should rule the three parts of Libya during the 10-year trusteeship period. It was proposed that Libya in the interim period was to be administered by Britain, Italy and France which was rejected by Libyans and the Arab countries  but, the proposal of Italian trusteeship over Tripolitania was short of one vote to obtain the required two-thirds majority in the General Assembly.  Haiti, which was NOT expected to vote against the Bevin –Sforza package on former Italian colonies voted AGAINST plan.  Again when the question of Italian trusteeship over Somalia was put to voting, the Haitian delegate to the United Nations, Senator St. Lot, voted AGAINST. Senator St. Lot had direct instructions from the Haitian president of the day to vote for the Bevin-Sforza Plan, but the man opposed his head of state and voted as he saw it right.  (He later justified his voting to had been based on his anti-colonialist feeling - against the return of Italy to Somalia and part of Libya. Others alleged that he was ‘bribed’ by Arab delegates who opposed the delay to grant independence to Libya.).

This meant that the General Assembly would not go ahead with its decision already reached regarding Eritrea and the two provinces of Libya (Cyrenaica and Fezzan) because the fate of Tripolitania was left pending. In a final vote on the package, the Bevin-Sforza plan was, ironically, rejected by  37 votes against, 14 in favour and 7 abstentions.

Thus the partition of Eritrea was averted by mere luck and a new proposal had to be forwarded and that was when all the Eritrean parties opposed to the Unity of with Ethiopia formed the Independence Bloc and a new round of proposal were made possible which ended up in the Federation decision.




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