Event: The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy's National Shame

Event recording from 26/10/2017 Book launch: The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy's National Shame Written by Ian Campbell Published by Hurst & Co Speaker: Ian Campbell Discussant: David Styan, Birkbeck College, University of London. Chair: Dr Flavia Gasbarri, Lecturer - King's College London In February 1937, following an abortive attack by a handful of members of the urban resistance to the Italian military invasion and occupation of Ethiopia, 'repression squads' of armed Blackshirts and Fascist civilians were unleashed on the defenceless residents of the city. In three terror-filled days and nights of arson, murder and looting, thousands of innocent and unsuspecting men, women and children were roasted alive, shot, bludgeoned, stabbed to death, or blown to pieces with hand-grenades. Meanwhile the notorious Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani took the opportunity to add to the carnage by eliminating the intelligentsia and nobility of the ancient Ethiopian empire in a pogrom that swept across the land. In this richly illustrated and ground-breaking work backed up by meticulous research, Ian Campbell reconstructs and analyses one of Fascist Italy's least known atrocities, which he estimates eliminated 19-20 per cent of the capital's population. He also exposes the hitherto little-known cover-up conducted at the highest levels of the British government, which enabled the facts of one of the most hideous civilian massacres of all time to be concealed, and the perpetrators to walk free. Speaker biography: Ian Campbell is a Development Economist, Historian, Environmentalist and Cultural Heritage consultant, Ian Campbell divides his time between Addis Ababa and Nairobi. He has been conducting research and writing on the ancient empire of Ethiopia since 1988. He has authored many scholarly papers on various aspects of Ethiopian cultural history from the medieval period to modern times, covering subjects as diverse as medieval saints, architecture, Orthodox iconography and traditional drinking vessels. In recent years his focus has been on the Italian military occupation of Ethiopia (1936-41). Tracking down survivors of the occupation over more than two decades has culminated in a trilogy reconstructing in detail life and death in occupied Ethiopia, the world's first sovereign state to fall victim to Fascist invasion. The first of the trilogy is, The Plot to Kill Graziani (Addis Ababa University Press, 2010), which reveals the complex web of urban resistance and intrigue behind the attack on Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani in February 1937 that triggered the massacre of Addis Ababa. The second is The Massacre of Debre Libanos (Addis Ababa University Press, 2014), revealing for the first time the truth about one of the world's greatest ever slaughter of Christian clergy and pilgrims, in May 1937. This book is the subject of the documentary ‘Debre Libanos' made by the Catholic Church television channel tv2000, and screened several times on Italian television in 2016 and 2017. Rounding off the trilogy is The Addis Ababa Massacre (Hurst, London & OUP, New York, 2017). For more information, visit https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/events/eventsrecords/The-Addis-Ababa-Massacre-by-Ian-Campbell.aspx