Bevin Sforza Plan

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The Bevin-Sforza-Plan (English also Bevin-Sforza Agreement ) was a 1949 between the foreign ministers of Great Britain and Italy, Ernest Bevin and Carlo Sforza , agreed plan for a division of the former Italian colony Libya and the other Italian colonies in Africa ( Somaliland , Eritrea ).

According to the Paris Peace Treaty signed in 1947 between the Allies and Italy, Libya had come under the trusteeship of the newly founded UN, and Italy was admitted to the UN in return. In fact, however, the French military administration continued to exist in the south-west Libyan region of Fezzan , while the north-west region of Tripolitania was under British military administration. In 1949, the British had created a pro-British separate state under Emir Idris in the eastern Libyan region of Kyrenaica . The four victorious powers were initially unable to agree on the question of Libya's future. Great Britain and France wanted to keep their positions in Cyrenaica and Fezzan, but like the US they wanted to win Italy as an ally for the newly founded NATO. A plan presented on May 9, 1949 by Foreign Ministers Bevin and Sforza to the First Committee of the UN General Assembly and its Subcommittee 15 provided for Libya to be granted independence in 1959 after a transitional phase of 10 years under UN trusteeship, but administration until then des Fezzan France, the Cyrenaica of Great Britain and the Tripolitans of the former colonial power Italy.

  • Ernest Bevin , British Foreign Secretary 1945–1951

  • Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan 1943–1951

  • Carlo Sforza , Italy's Foreign Minister 1947–1951

Especially in the northwestern and most populous region of Tripolitania, the planned return of the hated colonial power Italy immediately led to violent protests and riots, while the emir of Cyrenaica and France approved the partition plan. Despite the protests of the Tripolitans and against the resistance of the USSR, the plan was initially adopted in the Political Committee of the UN. Against the votes of the USSR, the Eastern bloc states dependent on it and the Arab as well as most African and Asian states, however, immediately afterwards in the III. UN General Assembly on May 17, 1949 failed to achieve the two-thirds majority required to approve the plan. The decisive factor was the vote of Haiti , whose ambassador ( Emile Saint-Lot ) voted against the plan despite instructions from his government to the contrary. Instead, the General Assembly decided in November 1949 to give Libya independence after a maximum of three years, no later than January 1, 1952. On December 24, 1951, the UN High Commissioner released Libya as an independent kingdom under Emir Idris.

Unlike in the case of Libya, however, the UN General Assembly decided in November 1949 (against the vote of Ethiopia) to transfer the trusteeship over Italy's former colony, Italian Somaliland, to the former colonial power Italy for a transitional period of ten years. The UN Trusteeship Council also agreed in January 1950. In turn, Eritrea, for which Bevin and Sforza had proposed a cession of the strategically most important areas to Ethiopia and an Italian mandate over the rest, was completely added to Ethiopia in 1952.

literature

  • Lothar Rathmann : History of the Arabs , Volume 5 (The collapse of the imperialist colonial system and the formation of sovereign Arab nation states), page 116ff. Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1981
  • Christian Mährdel: History of Africa , Part III (Africa from the Second World War to the collapse of the imperialist colonial system), page 158f. Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1983
  • Dan Connell: Historical Dictionary of Eritrea , page 118 (Bevin-Sforza Plan 1949). Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham 2019

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Awni S. Al-Ani: Libyen, daughter of the UN , in: Fritz Edlinger (ed.), Libyen, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-85371-330-3 , p. 104

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