Archival Sources on the Yemeni Arabs in Urban Ethiopia: The Dessie Municipality

Abstract

During the summer of 1998 I undertook a preliminary survey of archival materials relating to the Yemeni Arab residents of Dessie kept in the town's municipality. Until 1969, when the Arab immigrants in the entire country were subjected to a state-orchestrated public call for their expulsion—a call which manifested itself in a wave of anti-Arab demonstrations triggered by a bomb explosion on an aircraft belonging to the national carrier at Frankfurt Airport in which the Syrian Front for the Liberation of Eritrea was implicated—Dessie was the home of a large, relatively prosperous, and conspicuous Yemeni community, whose members were concentrated in several distinct quarters, one of which is still popularly known as Arab Ganda. The other areas are Sharf Tara, Taqa Tara, and Mugad, near the main daily market of Arada.The archive of the Municipality (or Town Council) of Dessie, capital of South Wallo administrative zone in northern Ethiopia, is perhaps unique among other town archives in the country, including that of the capital, Addis Ababa, in terms of the care and sense of duty that the office has shown towards preserving materials pertaining to expatriate residents. Until recently, the vast majority of these had been of Yemeni and Hadrami origin, although there were also some Hijazis and Libyans, and a significant number of non-Arabs: Italians, Greeks, Americans, Englishmen, Indians, and Czechs/Slovaks.I consulted all but two of the existing registers entitled Yawuch Agar Zegoch Mazgab (Register of Foreign Nationals), which seem more likely to have been misplaced than lost altogether, perhaps during the move of the Municipality to its present premises.