Ras Desta Damtew
Ras Desta Damtew (ራስ ደስታ ዳምጠው) was born Born at the village of Maskan (Shewa) in 1892 and brutally Killed on 24 February 1937 by fascist invaders and their internal mercenaries called Bandas. He was a charismatic Ethiopian noble and beloved army commander of Emperor Haile Selassie I.
Biography
He was the second son of Fitawurari DamTew Ketema who was killed in 1896, at the Battle of Adwa. Desta Damtew and his brother Lij Abebe Damtew served at the Imperial Palace in Addis Ababa to Emperor Menelik II and Empress Taitu Bitu. In 1916, Desta Damtew supported Tafari Makonnen against Lij Iyasu. Tafari Makonnen was the future Emperor Haile Selassie I. Lij Iyasu was deposed but escaped. In 1924, Desta Damtew married Tafari Makonnen’s daughter Leult Tenagnework Haile Selassie. They had four daughters and two sons.
Anthony Mockler describes Desta Damtew as “something of an eccentric among Ethiopian nobles”, who had run away in his twenties to become a monk at Debre Libanos, According to his obituary in The Times he was “a tall and princelike figure, ascetically handsome in face and reserved in manner. He had the soft, almost inaudible voice of the aristocratic Amhara. Although a modernizer on the Imperial pattern, he was perfectly frank about his distrust of foreigners. “The less foreigners visit Ethiopia, the better,” was a remark he once made at a European gathering at the British Legation.
By 1928, Negus Tafari Makonnen appointed his son-in-law Desta Damtew as Dejazmach and as Shum of Kefa Province. In 1932, Emperor Haile Selassie I appointed Desta Damtew as a Ras. In the same year, he was appointed Shum of Sidamo Province and Borena Provinces. He succeeded Birru Wolde Gabriel in Sidamo. In 1933, Ras Desta Damtew traveled to America to return the visit of the United States representative to the coronation of Haile Selassie. It was his only journey outside Ethiopia. He arrived in New York and was greeted with royal honours, later lunching with President Roosevelt.
In 1935, Ras Desta commanded troops along the southern border of Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. In January 1936, he fought with the fascist army in bravery led by the Italian General Rodolfo Graziani at the Battle of Ganale Dorya. However he was overwelmed by a large number of Italians and african askaris from Tigre areas. Desta continued to fight and tactically retreated back to his administrative center at Irgalem, where with the help of Dejazmach Gabremariam, he reorganised his surviving supporters to resist the Italian advance in determination. Desta continued to resist the Italians after the Emperor left the country.
In 1936, after the end of the rainy season, Italian General Carlo Geloso, who had been appointed governor of the Italian province of Galla-Sidamo, advanced from the north to dislodge Ras Desta and Dejazmach Gabremariam. However, by the end of October, Geloso had not advanced very far or effectively. It was not until a month later when a second Italian column advanced from the south through the Wadara Forest that Ras Desta at last left Irgalem, which was occupied 1 December. With Dejazmach Gabremariam, Dejazmach Beyene Merid (Shum of Bale Province), and a dwindling number of soldiers, for the next few months Ras Desta eluded the Italians until they were trapped near Lake Shalain the Battle of Gogetti and annihilated. Wounded, Ras Desta managed to escape, continued to fight even after he had been wounded. The Italian soldiers with the help of their askari informants and banda soldiers from Tigre captured him and barbarically killed this dignified, sick and wounded Ethiopian.
In 1941, following the defeat of the Italian army and their Askaris his body was moved with great honer to the Imperial family tombs in the crypt of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa.