Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea
The Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea or Ethiopian–Eritrean Federation was a federation of the Ethiopian Empire and the autonomous province of Eritrea, which was the former Italian Colony of Eritrea after it had been relinquished by Italy during a period of British military administration during and after World War II. It was created by the approval of the Federal Act in Ethiopia and the Eritrean Constitution on 15 September 1952. After the beginning of the Eritrean War of Independence in 1961, following pressure from Haile Selassie I on the Eritrean Assembly, the federation was officially dissolved and the autonomy of Eritrea withdrawn. It was annexed by Ethiopia on 15 November 1962, becoming the integral Province of Eritrea.
As an autonomous province within Ethiopia, Eritrea had its own democratically elected regional parliament, its own constitution, its own regional government, and Tigrinya and Arabic as its official languages - as opposed to Amharic in the rest of Ethiopia. The capital of the province was Asmara.
Prior to the withdrawal of autonomy in 1962, the Chief Justice of Eritrea was removed and the official Eritrean languages were eliminated in favor of Ethiopia's national language Amharic. During the Federation, the encroachment of the Ethiopian Crown was felt on the Chief Executive of Eritrea. This was in direct contravention of the UN Resolution 390-A which had established the Federation.
