Yilma Deressa

Who is Yilma Deressa?

Yilma Deressa was an Ethiopian politician. He served as Finance Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, 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" in the 1920s, was a cousin of Dejazmach Gebre Egziabher, son of the 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.