Ethiopia is a country in the east of Africa. The country is said to have a long history of existence as a country. Some say the country has a three thousand history of statehood. The name Ethiopia was given rather recently. Part of current Ethiopia, the northern part of it was previously called Abyssinia. This Abyssinia which believed to have a history of being ruled by feudal kings. The county south of the Nile River, including part of current Showa and Addis Ababa, was not part of Abyssinia up until the time of Menelik. This was after 1889 when Menelik became the king of Abyssinia. Menelik used the military equipment he collected from the defeated local lords of Gojam, Gondar, and Tigre. He also used weapons from Italian forces defeated at Adwa. Menelik then invaded and subjugated the communities south of Abyssinia. It is after this conquest of the whole south that the name of the empire was changed from Abyssinia to Ethiopia.
The change in this name was strategic. First, the name Abyssinia became inappropriate for all people under Menelik’s rule. Abyssinia refers to the area that people called Habasha. Habasha refers to people living in today’s Amhara and Tigre, people of the northern Ethiopia regions. The Habasha strategically pushed their ethnic name Habasha onto all Ethiopians. This has been successful to some extent. Today though many Ethiopians reject that they are called Habasha.
The Habasha, especially the Amhara, from the north of the country controlled the social, cultural, political, and economic sphere of the country for more than a century. Because of their feudal rule and king system, the country has never exercised any form of democracy. In 1974, the feudal system was eliminated by a popular uprising. The land of the country which was owned by the lords and the Orthodox church was given to the farmers. The Habasha’s landlords and the Orthodox Church lost everything after the 1974 uprising. The power, the source of wealth, and the sense of supremacy they got over other communities in the south have vanished with the privileges they had over the country.
On the contrary, it is the dawn for the southern people who used to work for the feudal. The political ideology of socialist Ethiopia, though bad in many respects, taught them their rights to observe and fight for. Some communities started learning in their own language for the first time while others were allowed to talk their language in public places.
Because of the psychology and the influences of the feudal system, the rights of these people of the south never went further to be used as it should have been. Because of this, lots of social and political movements started struggling for more fundamental rights. Most of today’s political parties in the country were born during the beginning of 1970th/1980th. Among them are Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF), Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). These three and many other political groups started fighting for more rights for their respective communities. Most of them achieved their goals and their people got more and more fundamental human rights respected. TPLF and ELF became the ruling party in their respective countries.
In 1991, when the TPLF took over the country, they introduced a multinational federation whereby every community gets the right to choose their local leaders. Through this autonomy they get, they chose which language to use at schools, at courts, and at different government offices. Many of the communities in the south chose to use their own language than Amharic, the language of the Amhara. They also dropped the script in which Amharic was written and adopted the Latin script for their languages.
Most of the communities in the south were treated badly by the Amhara during the feudal and kings’ system. These communities were considered subjects to the Amhara rulers. Many of them were sold into slavery. Almost all of these communities were given a derogatory nickname by the Amhara. The communities were forced by law, and by psychological warfare not to use their own languages, and show their cultures. Many of them tried to run away from their identities and tried to become Amhara to escape the warfare and to get employment easily. They were systematically made to hate themselves, hate their language, and their identity.
During the feudal system, the Amhara used all in their control to go to and settle at every corner of the country. This was facilitated through church missions, through landlord rulership, and government bureaucracies. As mentioned above the landlords (the feudal) owned 66% of the country’s land while the Orthodox church owned 1/3 or (33%) of the country’s land.
After the 1974, and 1991 revolutions, the Amhara feudal system and the Orthodox church leaders, most of them Amhara, lost the control they had over everything.
The Amhara and their rulers were making all excuses, including the name of God, to make the other communities worship them. The Orthodox Church used to preach that their kings were God’s elect, the people of Amhara are descendants of the nation of Israel and they and only they should be allowed rulers of the country.
When things fall apart, every community in the south detested everything of what is related to Amhara. People hated the language, their scripts, their culture, their personality, their ideology, and their history.
The Amhara never wanted to apologise for what their former rulers did to these communities. They do not have or show any remorse for what happened to the community during the empire formation by Menelik and then by other kinds after that. The Amhara never accept the other nations’ provision of the right to speak in their own language. They never accept the democratic and self-rule of the nations in the south.
The Amhara had to accept only their own share of everything including the political power, the social sphere, and the monopoly of the socio-economic system. But equality was not acceptable for those who were enjoying the high privileges of the political, economic, and cultural dominations over the whole country.
The Amhara never accepted the federal government system implanted in the country. They never accepted the counties constitution and thought to give rights to all nations and nationalities in the country. The Amhara elites developed a deep hatred for Tigre, and for the Oromo as they perceived these two influential communities as being introducers of the federal system. These Amhara elites used all power and media at their disposal to stand against the federal system. They tried to discredit the constitution of the country and the system that recognized other nations’ identities.
The Amhara elites in the diaspora and those in higher educational institutions continued wagging political warfare against the Ethiopian governments, even though their struggle never brought a change because the other communities defended the constitution and the federal system.
In 2018 the Oromo youth (Qeerroo, for Youth) movement brought about political change in Ethiopia. The Oromo youth opposed the TPLF lead federal government because of the irregular and unfair implementation of the federal system. The land grab around the capital Addis Ababa and the poor democratic system during the elections ignited Qeerroo’s standing. The Oromo youth struggled with government operatives for more than four years. During those years the Amhara youth, the current terrorist Fano, was not known even by name. After observing the successes gained by the Qeerroo that brought about changes to the government that brought Abiy Ahmed to power, the Amhara elites designed the Qeerroo style and started organizing Fano. Abiy and his group pushed the TPLF from power into Tigray Region. The Amhara used this opportunity to fight against the Tigray forces and the Tigray people in general.
The Crimes in Tigray and Benishangul Regions.
For the last two or so years, the Ethiopian government and the Tigray forces were fighting each other in Tigray, Amhara, and Afar regions. For the Amhara group, it was a festive event and a golden opportunity. They used this opportunity to fight against the constitution and against the federal system. They considered this fight as a time to dismantle the federal system. The group of Amhara in power with Abiy Ahmed decided that if they deal well with TPLF, the federal system will be dead and their former Habasha glory will be restored. Therefore, they mobilized all their young and old to fight against the Tigrayans. The fighting with the Tigre people and force was as evil as it could go so that no one may is spared in Tigray that could challenge the Amhara supremacy.
In addition to the federal forces that is fighting with Tigray forces, the government allowed the Amhara militia, and a non-regular force called Fano to fight the Tigray forces. Fano, the Amhara youth, does not have any observable line of command, or leadership. They have arms and they were trained just to kill any force that they think is against Amhara. They fought to bring back the ‘former Amhara glory’. This illegal and un-constituted force called Fano was used against the Tigran people.
These forces undertook a crime that has never been seen in human history. As observed in many videos and pictures, they were throwing people off the cliff alive, and bragging about their evil deeds.
They did not have remorse or shame for doing such a horrendous act to a human being. These forces also shamed wives in front of their husbands, raped young girls in front of their families, and raped families in front of their children. They were telling them that they are changing their Tigrayans’ DNA to pure Amhara DNA. They were videoing or taking pictures of themselves with their victims while doing all such inhumane horrific travel things. One such occurrence was when they burn Tigre youth in a fire alive. When the victims tried to come out of the fire, they put him back bragging about their bravery while enjoying the agonies of their victim. The whole plan was to clear Tigre from the surface of the earth.
The same evil act has taken place on a Gumuz youth who came to a town called Chagni for medical treatment. The whole public of Amhara came out to the street and drag the poor sick Gumuz youth out of a taxi and killed him by stoning in mass. Then, they tied up his body and dragged it on the street singing and dancing. None of the above crime perpetrators were brought to justice and there is no plan to do that.
The Crime against the Oromo People in Amhara Region
Amhara region is made up of four sub-regional areas. Gondar, Gojam, Wello, and some parts of Showa. Wello residents are the majority of the Oromo tribe while the rest are of the Amhara. During and after the war with Tigray forces, the Amhara militia and the so-called Fano illegal group committed a crime against Wello Oromo that was never seen anywhere.
I will mention just two of them. During the heated fighting between Tigray forces and Ethiopian forces, many civilians were caught up between the warring parties and got injured. These people came to a town called Debre Berhan, in the northern Shewa zone of the Amhara region for medical treatment. The whole population of the town came out surrounded by the ambulance that carries these injured people. They drag each sick and injured person one by one and stoned them to death. These victims were sick and injured civilians from around the Oromo zone of the Amhara region. No one asked these criminals for the inhumane crime they committed against Ethiopians.
During the same time as above a group of Fano recorded a video of their act of evil as they take people off a truck and practiced shooting them. They were doing these with no shame at all. The victims were in the Oromo zone of the Amhara regional state. The worst part is that they were laughing and celebrating their successful shots when the victims were down with the hit of the live bullet.
The Crime against the Oromo People in Oromia Region
Above all the barbaric acts mentioned above, the worst crime was committed recently in Western Oromia, Wallaga Zones. A group of armed terrorists Fano, Amhara youth group stormed into a church where a group of people was worshiping. They indiscriminately shot them and killed many people and left the local area. There was no mention of why they did this, but they were happy doing this inhuman and barbaric act.
Very recently, the same group of terrorists was seen burning the dead bodies of their civilian victims and taking selfies in front of the burning human being.
They post the evilest deed on social media so that the world knows how evil they are in what they do. The crazies of all their evil actions were what is currently or recently got viral. The same group of youth carrying the heads of two people put onto a stick and holding it as a flag. They cut off their victims’ necks and put them on a stick holding it high and bragging about their bravery. One of the disturbing barbaric acts committed by the Fano in the Amuru district of Eastern Wallaga was the skinning of a live person. In the video which I saw but couldn’t find now was a victim who was still alive and moving being skinned by a knife just like someone skinned a cow.
These are just a few of what this group of Amhara youth did to the Tigre, Gumuz, Kimant, and Oromo people who are neighboring them. They could be many hundreds of such things committed crimes that were not revealed to the public eyes. The wickedest of all the evils committed by these Fano terrorists, and their supporters is that they take the pictures of their victims and brand them as Amhara being killed by Oromo or Gumuz, or Tigre. They post these on social media or present them on the media they control. They then cry their fake crocodile’s tears. By doing this they humiliate their victims by stealing or hiding their justice from them.
What kind of human being can do such an appalling thing to another fellow human being? How does someone who claims to know God, a proud Christian, preaching day and night to create a united country do such a terrific and evil crime to his countrymen? How one can rate the mind and personality of someone who burns a person alive? How can one rate a person’s mind who kills and burns, and take selfies with the burning body?
Is it possible at all for someone to have the same country and citizenship as such a group of people? What kind of justice can be served for such criminal-minded people? Above all, who is behind a such notorious group of killers? How should the people who are at the center of such evil acts protect themselves? Time will tell!
Odaa Gadaa.
