UPDATE ON THE LOGIC BEHIND EVENTS
IN ETHIOPIA – OPED
ሁሉም አማራ እና የብአዴን ካድሬ ሊያነበው የሚገባ፡ አምብባችሁ
ላልደረሰ አድርሱ
November 23, 2021 Peter W. Esmonde*
By Peter W. Esmonde*
The purpose of this article, and that published in May is to provide evidence that
increasingly reveals the logic underpinning recent events in Ethiopia by drawing the
reader’s attention to little known crimes against innocent civilians, not so much to
chronicle some of them as to expose the agenda directing them. I also hope to
contribute to more awareness concerning these civilians who have, since 2018, been
slaughtered and displaced, and given little or no notice.
There has been a degree of confusion in the media in recent months regarding
attacks on civilians outside of Tigray Region. These have been expressed in terms of
a “spill-over” from the war in Tigray. In reality, there have been numerous victims
around Ethiopia since 2018, and especially right through 2019 to 2020. Ever since it
lost its control over Ethiopia in 2018, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has
found ways to undermine the country by assisting other destructive forces with
weaponry, communications equipment and personnel.
Since my previous article, local sources have continued to report much slaughter of
Amhara and other civilians by the Oromo Liberation Front’s (OLF’s) military wing, the
Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), and by the TPLF. It is vital to keep in mind that these
fronts are made up of only a fraction of Oromo and Tigray, though they have the
capacity to multiply their followers through propaganda, harassment and force. It is
also important to be clear that Oromia and Tigray regions have a variety of ethnic
groups; they are not populated by Oromo and Tigray only.
It might be imagined that in Ethiopia ‘remote’ ethnic groups can lay claim to some
degree of “ethnic purity”, but even they are ethnically mixed through centuries of
ritualized and/or socio-political exchange with their neighbours. Ethiopia’s ethnic
groups, not least such large ones as the Oromo and Amhara, have long been heavily
mixed. But that reality is covered up when ethnic-based hate speech is to the fore, as
it has been recently in Ethiopia, and the false assumption is espoused that prosperity
can be built through an imagined ethnic homogeneity, a project that Hitler tried so
disastrously. The founding fathers of African independence knew the dangers of
ethnic exclusivity, of tribalism, when they called for unity in their nations (for example
“One Zambia, One Nation”). Museveni of Uganda once advised Meles Zenawi to put
national unity first, and ethnicity a distant second. Meles had neither the wisdom nor
interest to do so. Yet Ethiopia had existed for millennia without politicizing ethnicity.
When Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed Ali returned with his Nobel Peace Prize, he said
he wished to share it with the President of Eritrea, Isaias Aferwerki (or Afwerki). Was
the peace he had made with Eritrea partly a reward for Isaias’s long protection of OLF?
Did Abiy calculate that his relationship with Isaias might prove a resource for
restraining TPLF from threatening his position as Prime Minister?
Since Abiy came to power in 2018 and invited OLF to return to Ethiopia, over 2,000
Guji-Oromo have been killed by OLA, some recently. Not all Oromo support ethnic
politics, and many peaceful Oromo have been imprisoned for that reason by the
Oromia authorities. In September 2021 OLA killed and displaced people in the
Goumaydé area, just south of Lake Chamo, Southern Region, and on the night of 7/8
November it burned a village there, killing inhabitants – others fled.
In Oromia Region’s East Wellega Administrative Zone (Zone for short) in western
Ethiopia, 300 or more displaced Amhara were slaughtered by OLA on 21 August 2021.
In a sequence of events that has been too common to be a coincidence, this
happened the day after security forces were removed. At other times, as mentioned
in my previous article, security forces simply refuse to intervene, on the pretext that
they have not been told to do so. The 300 victims had taken refuge in a forest. The
government remained silent, as usual, further implying ongoing complicity.
Four days later came news that 400 displaced civilians (IDPs, Internally Displaced
Persons) were killed in East Wellega Zone, part of a group of over 40,000 displaced
Amhara trying to shelter from OLA attacks. On the same day there was a separate
attack on Amhara worshipping in two churches. There have frequently been
desperate calls for help from among the displaced Amhara of East Wellega. Few if any
journalists are able to operate there; almost the only direct information available to
them comes from those under threat who are still able to use mobile phones.
A brief exception to the pall of silence (‘a voice in the wilderness’) was a witness to the
UN Human Rights Council who said on 13 September that “Amhara women and
children are being killed and their villages are looted both by TPLF and government
forces….Amhara farming families are victims of killings and lootings in non-war zones
of Benishangul-Gumuz and Oromia. Elderly people and babies have been massacred
in these regions. Today over 2 million Amharas are displaced throughout the country.
They are living without any assistance from the government nor from the
international community.”
On or about 20 September a leader of OLF/OLA was royally received at Bole Airport
by top Federal ministers. Around that time Abiy’s party, the governing Prosperity
Party (PP), which runs Oromia Region, told OLA they would be given amnesty if they
agreed to work together with PP. The Administrator of East Wellega Zone, on whose
watch massacres by OLA happened, was appointed head of security for the whole of
Oromia Region. People have lost hope that the Oromo-dominated Federal Government will do
anything effective for the 40,000 IDPs in East Wellega. The government-affiliated
Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) gives their number as 43,139. By 13 September OLA had forbidden the IDPs to leave the isolated forested area, and left them to starve. OLA severely damaged the roads that were people’s only route to escape or down which succour might come. Long deprived, some were already dying
from starvation two days later, but there seemed to be little in the international media in English on this huge unfolding crime.
On 17 September 2021 came news from the sole survivor of 18 women who had
ventured out looking for food. The other 17 had been slaughtered by OLA. Two days
later ten people were put in a house and burned alive. 100 were butchered on 21
September. EHRC produced a report that was very inadequate, but perhaps better
than nothing. Just as the government since 2018 has referred to ‘inter-communal
clashes’, so EHRC uses the expression ‘communal violence’ – sanitised phrases for
massacres of unarmed civilians by armed OLA.
On 10 October a caller from East Wollega said there were too many scattered bodies
for him to count. No one is allowed to bury the dead. Local Oromo who try to protect
Amhara are targeted, a parallel with those Hutu who bravely protected Tutsi in
Rwanda. By 14 October OLA had been shooting the 40,000 Amhara IDPs for five
consecutive days. On 13 October a women who spoke to a journalist by mobile phone
said she accepted she would be killed, but pleaded for the children and elderly to be
saved, which has not been the practice so far. Journalists who got through to local
authorities were insulted or had their call closed abruptly. On 14 October a phone call
to a local official from one of the 40,000 IDPs pleaded for the government to save
them. The only response was ‘Why are you bothering me about that?’ By 3 November
these IDPs were starving to death in increasing numbers, and the wounded had been
dying from infections, for they had no access to medical care.
Elsewhere in East Wollega, on 18 October OLA shot a large group of Amhara. A call
from those being killed said the number of dead could be over 1,000. On 5 November
OLA killed all five members of a household in the same zone. Knowing OLA’s
prohibition on burying the dead, relatives went to the official authorities to get
permission, only to be told “Consider yourselves lucky not to have been killed too.”
On 3 November a caller from Dibate in Benishangul-Gumuz said Amhara were being
killed in small batches – as if to keep the genocide there below the radar. “We are just
waiting our turn. There is no one to defend us. Is this not our country? Where else
can we go?” He said some, when going by bus to Chagni (about 75km north-east),
were stopped and had to show their IDs. When the IDs revealed they were Amhara,
the men’s heads were severed, and the women were taken away.
In October the administrator of a district in East Wollega was heard saying “I will
happily die after I have finished off all Amhara in my area.” Countrywide, is the
government in league with OLA, despite the rhetoric and actions of government and
OLA giving the impression that they are mutual enemies? With ‘nods and winks’
between them, are PP and OLA willing to sacrifice some of their own low-level recruits
to make it appear that there is no coordination between them?
A document in Amharic purporting to come from Afendi Muteko has recently come
to light. He provides two lists. One has the founders of OLF, including Lencho Leta
and Dawud Ibsa. The other list starts with the words “The founders of OLA are me,
Afendi Muteko, and Jawar Mohammed, Kumsa Diriba [also known as Jaal Marroo]….”
In this list Afendi gives a further seven OLA founders. It was Kumsa who, as OLA
leader, made public a political and military alliance between OLA and TPLF. Referring
to OLA, Afendi adds, “Those who sponsored us are Dr. Abiy Ahmed and Lemma
Megersa.” Lemma is a former Defence Minister and a former President of Oromia
Region.
In September 2021 it was reported that OLA had set up a camp near Bati to train a
force of 3,000 so as to be able to take Kombolcha and Dessie cities in South Wollo
Zone. On 12 October local civil militia captured members of OLA. When they reported
this to the government they were surprised to be told to leave them alone as “They
are on our side.” The authorities sent a vehicle to collect these OLA members.
The 40,000 or more Amhara IDPs in East Wellega certainly no longer have any illusion
that they can trust the government. Death from starvation is increasing. When the
well-fed salaried Oromia Region’s Special Forces turned up in their midst on 12
October they ordered the starving IDPs to feed them. The people’s response was to
flee at once for their lives into the forest. Before the Special Forces (who are under
PP of course) withdrew they handed over weapons to the OLA. On 19 October there
was another report of Amhara being burned alive. On 31 October a group of 70
Amhara IDPs were reported surrounded by OLA in a forest in East Wellega. On 7
November many Amhara were killed in the zone.
This genocidal process has continued on a daily basis, not only in Wellega, but in
Benishangul-Gumuz Region (especially in Metekel Zone), Afar Region, and Amhara
Region (mainly North Wollo, South Wollo, North Shewa zones and the zones of
Gonder.) It has also begun since October 2021 in Gojam zones in Amhara Region
where some members of a community-based civilian force, the Fano, were arrested.
Is this just a coincidence? Perhaps, but the authorities have expressed nervousness,
given the Fano’s popularity, acumen, integrity and valour. They also tried to limit the
Fano to kalashnikovs, at best, against far superior weapons. By 18 October OLA was
displacing people at Dima in East Gojam Zone.
On 28 October fighting was reported in Benishangul-Gumuz Region, where OLA, TPLF
and Gumuz fighters have long cooperated with each other. Some days earlier many
soldiers (“countless”) had been seen on the move in the region. As of 11 November
militia sent by Amhara Region to protect Amhara in Benishangul-Gumuz were in
prison, and there were still daily killings of Amhara in Benishangul-Gumuz, as well as
in the East Wellega Zone of Oromia Region.
On 14 October in North Shewa Zone, the Amhara regional government (under PP)
delivered by vehicle 600 kalashnikovs to OLA, in fact to the very men who had
destroyed the mainly Amhara town of Ataye in March 2021, when they killed many
and displaced the rest. When asked why they were arming OLA, the answer was
“Because we were told to.” On 18 October OLA burned many houses is West Shewa
Zone. On 28 October, vehicles unexpectedly arrived at Majete (a small town in North
Shewa) carrying 300 youth from Arsi (in Oromia Region). This appears to be part of
PP’s plan to insert more Oromo into Amhara Region. Each person came with an
official paper. On 10 November TPLF entered the town and massacred many
inhabitants. A witness said it killed first the leading members of the community, and
then others. She knew personally twenty of those murdered. OLA was doing the same
in the surrounding countryside. The woman added “The government had done
nothing to help us; rather it seems that it wants us to be killed.”
On 18 October people were burned alive in the east of North Wollo. On 19 October
four commandeered UN trucks full of TPLF reinforcements were seen arriving in
North Wollo. TPLF has been massively involved in killing, looting and destruction not
only in Amhara Region but also in Afar Region and elsewhere. Local people have seen
long columns of UN aid trucks commandeered for these TPLF operations in Gonder,
where TPLF’s shocking behaviour has included killing the mentally handicapped when
it happened to come across them. On 12 September the President of Amhara Region
enumerated the huge infrastructural destruction by TPLF in his region. Hospitals,
clinics, health posts, schools – many hundreds of public service institutions were left
looted and ruined. Such destruction has continued. On 28 October the Deputy
Director of the Education Department of North Wollo said TPLF had destroyed 832
schools in the zone, with the result that over 330,600 pupils had been unable to start
the new academic year. Even those expecting to sit for their secondary school leaving
certificate could not do so.
The slaughter of Amhara by TPLF at Chenna Teklehaimanot in North Gonder Zone
has been widely reported. In one case, two little children were playing outside, near
the back of their house. They saw TPLF coming and ran towards the house. Before
they could reach it, they were both killed with machetes. Their horrified mother saw
this from inside the house. She took her one-week old baby and fled into the forest.
When her husband returned from market, he found the two little bodies. The head
of the elder child, a daughter aged five, had been severed. There was no sign of his
wife and baby, who he eventually found alive. As usual, TPLF looted the village and
area, taking all they could, even the chickens. Youth were forced to carry the loot until
they reached the vehicles. Then they were shot. In the parish church, clergy were
forced to sing sacred songs, and were then killed, with their hands tied behind their
backs.
On 10 September there was news of a massacre by TPLF in Lasta (an area in North
Wollo). As at Mai Kedra in Gonder in November, TPLF wiped out a whole village. In
various places, TPLF has been shooting livestock that are too many to take. OLA shot
livestock in southern Gojam in early September.
By 13 September there were many hungry people in Wollo. There had been almost
no food aid deliveries. In one area when some food aid was being delivered a woman
was crushed and died in the stampede, but all the food was taken by local officials;
the starving were left empty handed. Similarly on 15 September there were reports
from Benishangul-Gumuz Region that emergency food brought by the Red Cross for
the starving was stolen by local officials.
In North Wollo a local woman reported on 17 September that TPLF had tight control,
and people had not been allowed out of their houses. As it was towards the end of
the main rainy season, they could no longer collect enough water from their roofs,
and food was finished. In her village, 3 people who went to look for food and water
were shot dead. She heard that at least 600 residents had been killed in Kobo town
by TPLF since its arrival there. By 19 September the figure had risen to 800. TPLF
distributed machetes to its soldiers in the zone.
Then Amhara regional president said many districts in his region were fully occupied
by TPLF. He also said that he did not know the whereabouts of 5 million Amhara. This
remark drew criticism concerning his competency to know what was happening in his
region. His successor is widely considered a lackey of Abiy. The President of Tigray
Region, Debretsion Gebremichael, has repeatedly declared that TPLF is taking
revenge against the Amhara. How were ordinary Amhara farming families
responsible for what happened in Tigray? Thirty years of TPLF attacks on Amhara
civilians have come to a climax. TPLF prisoners say they were told that when entering
an area they should kill all Amhara, loot their property and destroy their homes,
taking or destroying their crops and livestock, as well as looting and destroying the
infrastructure serving them (schools, clinics, etc.).
In Weldiya (capital of North Wollo) military trainees said they were trained for 6 weeks
and then told to fight, but were given no weapons. So they could not defend the town
and had to flee like everyone else. TPLF, bristling with sophisticated weapons, took
over Weldiya, Kobo, Lalibela, in fact all of North Wollo. Lalibela airport became a TPLF
camp. Perhaps Wollo, or indeed most of Ethiopia, is to be shared out between TPLF
and OLF/OLA. On 24 October “countless” TPLF soldiers were seen arriving in North
Wollo. TPLF sent anyone they could, including the elderly and children – even below
age ten. The top leaders aim to stay safe, and their family members live comfortably
abroad. On 7 November in Dawunt District, North Wollo, TPLF destroyed a village,
slaughtering many. On 27 October a woman reported from her house in Wag Hamera
Zone, Amhara Region, that the surrounding area was covered in corpses killed by
TPLF, On 9 November another TPLF attack in Wag Hamera was reported in which
civilians were killed and an Orthodox archbishop, who had been distributing aid in
his diocese, was taken away.
By 28 October TPLF had artillery trained on Dessie, capital of South Wollo Zone, after
taking strategic nearby hills, something they had been promising to do. Five shells
landed in Dessie, three near a secondary school. A man was killed and seven were
wounded. Vast numbers of IDPs have been sheltering in Dessie. New IDPs from North
Wollo spoke of massive organized rape by TPLF soldiers in their zone.
Headed by the Prime Minister and his Deputy, the pathetic tone of the Bahir Dar
security meeting of 29 October and of subsequent statements effectively declared
that the government could not do any more to stop TPLF. ‘Could not,’ or ‘does not
want’ to stop TPLF until OLA and TPLF have overrun Amhara Region? The government
limply tells ordinary citizens to defend themselves by whatever means they can. This
is reminiscent of when, over a year ago, Abiy was visiting southern Ethiopia, and in a
meeting he was asked to help because people were in fear for their lives due to
insecurity in the local area. His answer was “Do you expect the Prime Minister to
organize militia for you?”
That was certainly not the answer expected from any responsible and concerned
head of government, and could encourage chaos. It has been obvious for a long time
that Abiy and his top people do not understand the responsibilities that come with
governing. Abiy has certainly made it plain that he wants to hold onto his prime
ministerial chair, but he seems to want power without responsibility. He has missed
the key point: if he had governed with the attitude that people expect of a leader his
position would have been greatly enhanced.
As has been its practice elsewhere, the government withdrew its Ethiopian National
Defence Force (ENDF) from Dessie on the morning of 30 October. Instead of
informing their allies, the Fano, they told them to go to the nearby hills to control
TPLF. When people in Dessie told the Fano of the departure of ENDF and the arrival
of some TPLF, they returned, surrounded these TPLF and killed most of them. Among,
and mixed in with, the many long-established Tigray inhabitants there has been a
well-armed fifth column, which guided the artillery in its targeting (of, for example,
hotels). It then guided the oncoming TPLF on what and who to target as they took
Dessie. The Fano, relatively small in numbers and weapons, were forced out, but, as
local people rallied to them, by 6 November TPLF in Wollo was facing a severed supply
line – the main road was cut north of Weldiya. On 10 November this was still the case
when a very large convoy of trucks bearing loot and heading towards Mekelle was
blocked.
TPLF repeatedly used a fifth column method in the towns it took, often starting by
getting its secret supporters to tell their non-Tigray neighbours that they should flee
as the town was about to fall. Many would leave, including ENDF, and the town would
fall like a ripe fruit. It is as if ENDF is a phantom army. It stays to give people a false
sense of security, only to leave at the critical moment as though to leave the
inhabitants as easy prey. On 1 November it was the turn of Kombolcha (20 kms south
of Dessie) to be abandoned by ENDF. The government correctly accused TPLF of
collecting 100 youths from their families and executing them, but it was the
government itself that had left them to their fate. Soon TPLF murdered another 300
civilians, including Ethiopian citizens of Eritrean origin, some of whose families have
lived in Kombolcha for many generations.
Some of what has happened in Dessie and Kombolcha is already fairly well known.
What may be less known is that TPLF’s looting in these towns has included bringing
their own mechanics to dismantle and take away industrial machinery. TPLF is using
an armada of trucks to carry away their loot, which includes goods from even small
shops. Dessie and Kombolcha have been the industrial hub of Amhara Region.
TPLF and OLA may have linked up in a joint operation extending well beyond these
towns. Before heading to Addis Ababa, TPLF and OLA are spreading their tentacles
ever wider in Amhara Region. For many months OLA has eyed the capital. There have
lately been indications that control of it is a point of contention between OLA and
TPLF.
The unspeakable crimes of OLA and TPLF are far beyond the ken of ordinary
Ethiopians, who traditionally have had high ethical standards. For many Ethiopians
these fighters, or mass killers, must be possessed by the Devil and his cohorts.
Indeed, the degree of depravity is unprecedented and unrecognizable in Ethiopian
history. Is it another Hitler’s Holocaust, Cambodia (1975-79), Yugoslavia (when
breaking up) and Rwanda (1994) all over again?Is a hidden ‘logic’, a hidden agenda spilling its contents: PP, OLF/OLA and TPLF hellbent on eliminating the Amhara by all means – slaughtering them, taking their lands,
and stealing or destroying their property? A little told tragedy of ongoing genocide
against 30 million human beings, who, along with other all-but ignored groups (e.g.
the Konso), are left without the right to survive in their own country, and fewer and
fewer means to do so. On top of all its killing, looting and destruction of physical
infrastructure in Amhara Region, and its disruption of agricultural work, TPLF has
burned a third of the crops, and stolen a vast amount of them. Throughout much of
Ethiopia any surviving Amhara will face a prolonged struggle to regain normal life.
In the minds of many Ethiopians, matters have gone so far that only divine
intervention can return the country to its inclusiveness and moral order. TPLF said
many years ago that if it could not retain power in Ethiopia it would destroy the
country. It aimed to destroy Ethiopia morally too. Previously peculiar habits have
spread far and wide. TPLF has a history of destroying the Ethiopian Orthodox Church
by infiltrating its structures. Now OLA is said to have done similarly to some
Protestant churches. Top Ethiopian leaders of Islam are deeply concerned at local
increases in radical Islamic fundamentalism. They, alongside genuine Christians, have
called for national unity instead of ethnic politics.
By imposing its ethnic politics since 1991 TPLF leadership created a time-bomb, which
it is now exploding all over the country. It designed this carefully for maximum
destructiveness. It imagined sitting comfortably in Tigray while the rest of the country
collapsed. Or, if need be, joining its loot overseas (cash and real estate).
About two years ago, Shimelis Abdisa of PP, now re-elected President of Oromia
Region, said “We will do it quietly,” and “We will do it by either convincing or
confusing.” Was he referring to the expansion of Oromo power and territory through
creating supposed ethnic homogeneity by killing and displacing other ethnic groups?
Was he also referring to governing supposedly effectively and independently of
OLF/OLA while not standing in the way of a programme of liquidating Amhara?
In the emerging scenario Amhara, Afar, Konso and many others, but especially
Amhara – who appear to be subject to the most persistent common focus among
TPLF, OLF, OLA and PP to attack them or let them be attacked – find themselves
trapped in an ever tightening vice. OLA has its alliance with TPLF. PP pretends it is
against both, yet we have seen PP regularly protect OLA by a cloak of silence over its
massacres, and repeatedly allow the regular army to abscond when TPLF advances.
The Federal Government and its ENDF have repeatedly used militia and military
personnel, especially Amhara, to bravely free areas from TPLF. But there is a pattern
in which the Government, for no apparent reason, abruptly orders a withdrawal,
leaving behind the bodies of mainly Amhara, and all sorts of weapons. Has the
government not only been collaborating with OLA to murder Amhara but also been
aiding and abetting TPLF to kill the next wave of cannon fodder?
Is it less keen to defeat TPLF than to let it kill Amhara and other non-Oromo soldiers?
Is it deliberately allowing OLA and TPLF to carry out a genocide of Amhara and other
civilians? Machiavelli would have found even his imagination outstripped. Are those
who say the Prime Minister is perfidious and power-hungry correct?
What is the emerging logical flow? Is it that we are facing one of the most deceitful
and duplicitous undertakings of modern times? Increasingly that looks all too
possible, indeed obvious.
*Peter W. Esmonde MSc has worked in rural development and education in many African
countries. He has been a resident of Zambia, Ethiopia (12 years) and Kenya.