IN ETHIOPIANS' EXODUS, MOSES WAS AMERICAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605190003-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 30, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605190003-1
ART'CL19 APPEARS 1 30 March 1985
oil PAGE_~
In Ethiopians
ores was American
"And Pharoah calling Moses The operation was halted, at the in-
and Aaron, in, the night, said: sistence of the Sudanese, two days
Arise and go forth from among after news of the airlift was made
my people, you and the children public.in Israel. The last flight was
of Israel."
Exodus 12:31
By Charles T. Powers
Los Angeles Times
;. KHARTOUM, Sudan - Like their
afflicted ancestors centuries before,
they were sick and starving, perse-
cuted Jews trapped in a .land of Af-
rica. .; ' ,.
Not Egypt this time, but here, in
a
Sudan. Fleeing famine and discrimi-. line to do with veration Moses.
nauvu in
had become refugees stranded in a 1 With. financing -from- Israeli
world where they were' alien.' sources and the probable blessing of
But like the Hebrews of old, these I the government of Sudan, the plan
thousands of Ethiopian Jews. found for .Operation Moses was developed
an unlikely Moses. And the full story- and carried out by a U.S. Embassy
of their modern-day Exodus during ,official here, a veteran of several
the last several months "to' a Prom- -years' service in Sudan.'.'
ised Land is just now being told. His efforts had the full ' support of
Like the ancient journey, this one . ! the; U.S. State Department; which
,'brought hazards. There was birth asked that his name be withheld
and death, panic and confusion, and from this account to avoid possible
travel across the wilderness by etaliation from Arab extremists.
night But there were modern twists: .The U.S. official's plan. for Opera.
tion Moses called for the movement
This time jetliners ef de he alive rews to of the Jews from the refugee settle-
not ? a , n Is and eheir chief an was went of Tawawa, two miles north of lite, settle-
not p p pr ately but an eenrica ;the eastern Sudanese town of Ge-
Aproritely, it has been called daref. They were transported by
operation Ethiopian Jewed some f to
a tribe buses through the night on the only who members trace , some -of back ck to highway from Gedaref to Khartoum,
members tratheir ancestry nc .a distance of about 250 miles.
what they say was the union of King
Khartoum, they were taken to a .
j Solomon and the Queen of Sheia ba. . " Cback entrance to the international.
ken Jewish ps in were au rt, where the buses pulled di
taken from camps n the Sudan and. n . rectly up to the loading ramp of a
then airlifted to Israel. The operation chartered plane in the night parking
began on the night of Nov. 21..In all,,, chaa of d the airport. ?
36 flights were made, taking about The aircraft belonged to Trans Eu-
7,800 Ethiopian Jews from Su aircraft
Airlines, a Belgian charter
+~ ~~' ~_: ? company that has been described in.
wnen news of ine iiignw JCar eu
and the operation was suspended, it
was widely assumed that the Israeli
government had masterminded and,
run the airlift.
However, the Israelis neither
planned nor directed the operation s
most crucial elements.?Similarly, the
w ich directed a swift airlift to.
Israel on Marc 22 of a out Jews
d been leftbehind had not]
who h
`some news accounts as a front for
1 Mossad, the Israeli intelligence
agency. From there; the jets depart-
ed.
The issue of the Ethiopian Jews is a
delicate matter for the Sudanese gov-
i emment, a membef of the Arab
'League that has no relations with
;Israel.
The story of the Ethiopian Jews in
,the Sudan began to unfold in March
1984 when word reached Khartoum
that large numbers had begun to
arrive at Umni Rakoba, a refugee
settlement created in 1976 and by
then a well-established village.
1` The Jews traditionally had been
looked down on by Muslim and
(Christian Ethiopians, and many had
worked as blacksmiths or potters or
in other menial jobs. In Ethiopia,
they are called Falashas, a term that
the Jews find derogatory and, that
means "strangers"
Reports said the arriving refugees
were malnourished and ill and were
huddled, mostly without shelter, in a
hastily organized and overwhelmed
reception center.-.
The reports continued 'through '
April, May and June, and the anony-
mous American's visits to the camp
confirmed the stories circulating,
through the 'refugee-aid establish.!,
ment in Khartoum. The death rate
:among the Jews was alarmingly
high; some days, as many as 50 people
'died.
By summer,. the situation had be-
gun to stabilize somewhat, with vari-
ous agencies sending medical teams
and supplies of food. But the Jews,
accustomed to secrecy and made tim-
id by "literally centuries of persecu-
tion,". as the American official put it,"
were resistant to help - often shun-
ning medical attention for fear that
their identities would be revealed
and persecution against them would
continue-
By late "summer, word of the prob-
lem had- reached the. attention of
high State Department officials in
Washington as well as leaders of Jew-
F ish organizations in the United
States.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605190003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605190003-1
devout Muslim, very sympathetic
and a genuine humanist," to try to
set up a meeting with a much higher.
official in the Sudanese government
to resolve the problem.
Within 24 hours, a meeting was
I arranged between the ranking Suda-
nese and a ranking US. diplomat.
The diplomat outlined the back-
ground of the issue and pointed out
that the Jews were becoming a far
larger problem than their n umbers
would suggest.
The Jews, as the Sudanese knew,
0 had begun to attract the attention of
various free-lance groups operating
under the cover of charity organiza-
tions. These groups were attempting
to smuggle small numbers of Jews
? out of the country.
. In one incident in M rch that espe-
approached a Sudanese official, from
whom he..learned that the main ob-.
Then in September, the American
cially alarmed the Sudanese, a C-130
kk transport plane of undetermined ori-
gin was seen by Arab nomads when .
it landed in the desert, loaded an
unknown number of passengers and
took off for an undetermined desti-
nation.
On Sept. 21, a cable was drafted to
the state Department suggesting that
a breakthrough may. have occurred
on the issue. A.-plan for the evacua
Lion was ordered drafted. Fewer than half a dozen Ameri-
cans in Khartoum all key US.
Embassy members - knew what was
in the works. Only the one official
was actually involved in the execu-
tion of the plan. %
Meanwhile, about 2,000 of the Jews
. had managed to move, of their own
accord, from Umm Rakoba to
Tawawa, near Gedaref, where a
small number of them had been liv-
ing for several years.
It was decided to move this. group
first, then transport the others from
the more remote camps. As it turned
out, all the Jews eventually moved,
through Tawawa.
A staging area was created at the
camp by purchasing six huts at the
southwestern comer of the settle-,
went and moving out the former
occupants.
According to the plan, the exodus
would begin with the buses arriving
at the corner of the camp just before
sunset. They would load the Jews for
the five-hour journey through the
night to Khartoum.
. The first movement, on Nov. 21,
was marked by high tension and
some confusion. The organizer and
his aides were almost.overwhelmed
when the Jews. began' to panic and
rush aboard the buses. When the
I vehicles finally pulled away, the lead' .,
bus - seeking a shortcut to the main
highway drove for-3o minutes; in: ...
the :wrong direction, forcing the car-
t ac
-
n
av back
-:
a1aa
Tawawa and-head for the, highway
At the edge of Khartoum, the buses
paused to await the arrival and refu-
eling of the Belgian chartered plane,
a Boeing 707. On the first night, ap-
parently miscalculating the flying
time to Khartoum, the plane was late,
arriving about 3 a.m. Then, once the
Jews were aboard, the Belgian pilot
threatened not to fly the plane.
There were more than 250 passen-
gers on board, he pointed out, and
oxygen masks for only 220.
"It finally came down to making
him an offer he couldn't refuse." the
American said. "He flew the plane."
Although it was initially believed.
that the flights could be organized at
only three- or four-day intervals, the
airlift quickly began functioning
every other day. After about three
weeks, it was operating on a 24-hour
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605190003-1