As in Eurasia, Fascism in Africa presented many with an opportunity to ‘get even’ with their (real or perceived) foes. Quoting Alfredo González-Ruibal’s Fascist Colonialism: The Archaeology of Italian Outposts in Western Ethiopia (1936–41):

The reactions of the common folk vary. Some of the Gumuz not only collaborated with the [Fascists], but also joined the fascist army—often forcibly. Many Gumuz were later persecuted by patriots for their collaboration with the invaders.

The changing sides of the Bertha and Gumuz commoners that exasperated the Europeans may be explained as a strategy of resistance developed by populations who have been accustomed to be conquered, enslaved and looted over the centuries. For them, it was mere survival that was at stake.

Within the Bertha, the Islamized groups (Watawit and Mayu), tended to collaborate with the [Fascists], and some of them still remember the short [Fascist] period as the best in history.

(Needless to say, lower‐class Muslims in Libya would have begged to differ.)

The Bertha regarded the Ethiopian highlanders with bitterness, as they had invaded their land, burnt their villages and crops, and killed many only a generation before the arrival of the fascists.

The reaction of many communities facing the [Fascist] occupation, however, was to escape, following a millennium‐old tradition in the area. This is what the Gumuz living south of the Blue Nile did, although they later returned and “gave their hands to the Italians” probably as soon as they saw that they were [allegedly] against slavery.

What is obvious is that the indigenous groups did not respond homogeneously to the [Fascist] invasion. Their behavior depended on their relations of power, local alliances, and ethnic status.

Hence, the image of the conflict that we obtain is more complex, murky and ambiguous than is usually transmitted, as it is always the case with colonial situations.

[…]

The conflict had local ramifications that colonial authors from both sides overlooked. The presence of the colonizers aggravated the political and ethnic rifts that crisscrossed the local societies and the resulting situation turned out to be more ambivalent and complex in the frontier than in other parts of Ethiopia.

Among the élites, what we see is the bargaining for power and privileges to which the rulers of Benishangul-Gumuz had grown accustomed for centuries.

Some chiefs, like the Agaw ruler, Zäläk’ä Liku joined the resistance against the [Fascists], whereas others, such as the Bertha Sheikh Khojele Al-Hassan, at first collaborated with them. The early support offered by Khojele to the [Fascists] was undoubtedly motivated by his hatred toward the British, who hampered his slave trade with the Sudan and imprisoned Sitt Amna, his wife and also a slave trader.

For Khojele and many other aristocrats, the alliance with the new masters provided another source of social differentiation on which to base their power: a set of distinctions that was negotiated through material culture among other things. To the emblems of rank conferred by the Ethiopian kings, new forms of regalia were added.

(Emphasis added.)