African Problems 1

The problem with the new African members of The Commonwealth mentioned in my previous posting is that it is really quite difficult to find information about new stamp issues. I make my life even more difficult by including one or two countries in my collection which are not Commonwealth members but do feature in the "Part 1" catalogue in a former life - they may have been occupied or ruled by Britain at some stage in their history and on or since independence have not joined The Commonwealth which their former constitutional links with Britain entitle them to do if they so wished. One of these countries is Eritrea which had originally been annexed by the Italians in 1892 and which became a full Italian colony in 1890, forming part of Italian East Africa from 1936 to 1941 when it was occupied by Great Britain during World War 2. The British administered Eritrea until it was federated with Ethiopia on 15 September 1952. The Ethiopian regime gradually became more oppressive and fully integrated Eritrea in Ethiopia on 14 November 1962. Rebel groups began to resist the Ethiopian government and after years of conflict and the overthrow of Mengistu Haile Miriam, the Ethiopian dictator, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front took full possession of Eritrea in 1991, held a referendum on independence in 1992 and proclaimed the independence of Eritrea on 24 May 1993.