Yilma Deressa

Yilma Deressa (1907–1979) was an Ethiopian politician. He served as Finance Minister (1957–1970) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1958), Ambassador to the United States, and member of the Ethiopian Senate. John Spencer includes him in his list of five public figures who occupied the most important posts for the two decades following the Second World War.

He was a member of the Welega aristocracy of southwestern Ethiopia. Yilma's father, Blatta Deressa Amante, whom Bahru Zewde describes was "perhaps the most prolific contributor to the weekly forum of the educated elite, Berhanena Selam", a newspaper, in the 1920s, was a cousin of Dejazmach Kumsa Moroda, the last king of Leqa Naqamte, Moti Moroda Bekere. Blatta Deressa was also a successful businessman, and served as a director in the Ministry of Agriculture in the 1930s, and after returning from exile in Sudan in 1941, Blatta Deressa acquired a reputation as an Oromo oral historian.

Yilma was educated at the London School of Economics, becoming a member of the Ethiopian pre-war intelligentsia; according to Spencer he was both fluent and eloquent in English, speaking it at home with his wife Elizabeth, and along with Dejazmach Zewde Gebre Selassie was the only member of his generation "who attempted to keep up with current literature" in his field. Following the defeat of the Ethiopian armies in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, he became a member of the Black Lions, but surrendered with Ras Imru Haile Selassie near the Gojeb River 19 December 1936. Because he was interned on Ponza with Ras Imru, he avoided the murderous retribution following the attempted assassination of Rodolfo Graziani 19 February 1937.

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