Ethiopian World Federation

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The Ethiopian World Federation, Incorporated (EWF)
The Ethiopian World Federation, Incorporated
IGO
Location
  • United States of America
Members
8,000,000+
Founder
Emperor Haile Selassie I
Key people
Malaku Bayen (president)
AffiliationsIntergovernmental Organization (IGO)
Websitetheethiopianworldfederation.org

The Ethiopian World Federation, Incorporated (EWF) is an Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) that was founded on August 25, 1937 in New York City - U.S.A. under the advise of

African Diaspora
movement and the EWF has built good relations securing and supplying global grassroots organizations with the tools and education needed to govern themselves when their leaders fail to protect their basic Human Rights and integrity.

History

The EWF built on the efforts of African Americans who, in 1936, sent a delegation consisting of three prominent Harlem figures, all leaders of The Black owned Organization known as United Aid for Ethiopia. Reverend William Lloyd Imes, Pastor of the prestigious St. James Presbyterian Church, Philip M. Savory of the Victory Insurance Company and co-owner of the New York Amsterdam News, and Cyril M. Philp, secretary of United Aid, sailed to England in the summer of 1936 to speak with Emperor Haile Selassie concerning financial matters.[3] In response, the Emperor empowered his personal physician His Imperial Highness Prince Malaku E. Bayen, Phd., as his personal emissary. Bayen at first worked with United Aid for Ethiopia, but the next year he dissolved that body and founded the EWF to take its place.[4]

EWF was formally established on August 25, 1937, in

Secretary of State
was given the power to advise the President (who makes the final decisions) on matters like whether an organization should or should not be granted protection under the IOIA. Also, organizations and their employees can only receive these benefits if the Secretary of State notifies and acknowledges the international organization and its workers.The Secretary of State also has the power to determine if an employee's presence is no longer "desirable"; in such instances, the Secretary of State can have the employee deported (the international organization, however, has to be notified first and the employee has to be allotted a reasonable time to leave).

The main purpose was set out in the following preamble:

We the Black People of the World, in order to effect Unity, Solidarity, Liberty, Freedom and self-determination, to secure Justice and maintain the Integrity of Ethiopia, which is our divine heritage, do hereby establish and ordain this constitution for The Ethiopian World Federation, Incorporated.[5]

The EWF was at first made up primarily of Ethiopian students who came to America to study abroad, after the official coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie. It gained support from the Black community of Harlem,[4] and deprecated the term "Negro" in favour of an African and Ethiopian identity.

The isolationist policy of the United States prevented the participation of Americans getting involved in what they perceived as being a European affair and didn't want to be sucked into a second world war. This however did not prevent American negroes from seeking other alternatives. Consequentially under the Ethiopian World Federation, Incorporated in 1936 somewhere between 500 and 1,500 black Americans were conscripted into the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (

Ge'ez: ጣልያን ወረራ) on the side of Ethiopia against Benito Mussolini after having adopted Ethiopian citizenship and names. Most notably the Tuskegee Airman John C. Robinson, the Brown Condor of Chicago. Tensions arose in America which sparked violent controversy between black and Italian Americans at that time.[6][7][8] Bayen set up the EWF's newspaper, The Voice of Ethiopia, and led the project of federating the EWF.[9] The first branch of the EWF outside the United States was set up in Kingston, Jamaica, and by 1940 there were EWF chapters in various parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. Bayen died in 1940 and was succeeded as leader by Lij Araya Abebe, then in 1943 by Elks Exalted Ruler Finley Wilson.[10]

As a direct result of the support Ethiopia received from black people in the West, mainly at that time

Soviet backed communist regime known as Derg appropriated much of the land in 1975, though people still remain to today.[11]


References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-1-84904-618-3
    .
  2. ^ Giulia Bonacci (2013), "The Ethiopian World Federation. A Pan-African Organisation among the Rastafari in Diaspora", academia.edu
  3. ^ William R. Scott, "Malaku E. Bayen: Ethiopian Emissary to Black America", tezeta.net Archived 2009-11-05 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8153-2957-2
    .
  5. ^ Rasta Ites Archived 2008-06-03 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ISBN 0-8223-8630-5
    .
  7. ISBN 978-0-7425-0165-2
    .
  8. ^ Ethiopia Observer. 1972. p. 137.
  9. ISBN 978-0-7618-6002-0
    .
  10. ISBN 978-0-8078-6386-2
    .
  11. ISBN 978-3-8258-1055-9
    .

External links
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