The following is an English transalation of an article published in the Rome daily newspaper "L'Unit" prior to the interview with Italian Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs Rino Serri
Ethiopians, friends of Ethiopia, and supporters of international justice, we're happy to learn of the recent election of so many socialists and anti-fascists to the Italian Parliament. We trust that the Italian Government, as result of their election, will now, at long last, take the honourable decision of immediately restoring to Ethiopia the ancient Axum obelisk, which Mussolini looted, and which post-fascist governments of Italy have consistently failed to return.
The obelisk was seized almost fifty years ago, but the people of Axum, and of Ethiopia as a whole, have not forgotten its loss. The question has indeed become a measuring rod to test the Italian Government's good faith.
The stele is very rightly regarded in Ethiopia as an important part of its cultural heritage, and one which the country cannot afford to lose. Italians, with their own rich cultural heritage, should be among the first to understand the monument's importance to the Ethiopian men and women whose ancestors excavated and carved it so long ago.
To remind you, the people of Italy, and readers of l'Unit, why Ethiopians attach so much importance to this monument I must recall that it was carved in the country's ancient capital, Axum, shortly prior to Ethiopia's conversion to Christianity in the early fourth century, that is to say at the very beginnings of Axumite civilisation. The obelisk, which is 24 metres high, is moreover the taller of the two standing Axum stelae, and, being carved on all four sides, is considerably finer in design and execution than the standing obelisk in Axum.
The obelisk should have been returned to Ethiopia in accordance with Article 37 of Italy's 1947 Peace Treaty with the United Nations, in which the Italian Government agreed to return within eighteen months all loot taken from Ethiopia after 3 October 1935, i.e. the date of the fascist invasion. Instead of returning the obelisk the Italian Government delayed taking any action until 1956, when it pressurised the Ethiopian Government, then in acute need of foreign aid, into signing what was in effect an "unequal treaty". In this agreement, which lovers of justice can read only with shame, Italy accepted that the obelisk belonged to Ethiopia, but would take responsibility to return it only as far as Naples. That proviso violated both the letter and the spirit of the 1947 Peace Treaty, which specified unqualified restitution. Imagine that a thief steals an antique statue from your garden. He manages to keep it for many years: eventually he tells you that he is not prepared to bring it back to you, but you can collect it from his back door, at your own expense!
Ethiopians, I repeat, have long been clamouring for the obelisk's return. To cite a few examples: In 1968, the Ethiopian Parliament, seeing that normal diplomacy had failed, passed a unanimous resolution demanding restitution. In 1992 some 500 prominent Ethiopians, headed by Lij Michael Imru, a sometime Prime Minister and son of the famous Ras, signed a petition for the obelisk's return. And more recently, on 8 February 1996, the present Ethiopian Federal Parliament passed a unanimous declaration demanding immediate restitution. Support for the obelisk's return has been voiced also by scholars and friends of Ethiopia throughout the world, among them the renowned Italian scholar of Ethiopia, Professor Angelo Del Boca, and the noted British historian of Italy, Professor Denis Mack Smith.
Some apologists for retaining the obelisk in Italy claim that though Mussolini easily took it to Rome fifty years ago, it is now technically impossible to return it. This is no more than a paltry an excuse, as Professor Vincenzo Francaviglia, an expert on the obelisk, has shown. The obelisk was brought to Italy in five broken pieces, for reassembly in Rome. Francaviglia explains that it is technically entirely feasible to separate these five pieces once more, for transport and reassembly in Axum. Such an operation would be child's play compared with the movement of stone effected at Abu Simbel!
Other apologists, shamelessly unwilling to right a wrong, have suggested a "compromise", whereby the obelisk would be kept in Rome, with a plaque stating that it is a "gift from Ethiopia". Would you, dear reader, allow the thief of your antique statue to keep it if he attached a plaque stating that it was a gift from you? Such apologists do not understand that one country does not give away a priceless cultural treasure to another. Everyone knows that the obelisk was not given to Italy, but was looted as a result of fascist aggression, carried out with poison gas, and condemned by the entire civilised world!
The time has surely come to abandon all pretences, and for the new Italian Government, born as a result of the recent elections, immediately to return the obelisk, and thus, by this belated act of international justice, lay the basis, as we all hope, for a new era of friendship between the two countries.
Richard Pankhurst [Professor; and Member, Ethiopian Axum Obelisk Return Committee]