Seen as political rivals and a threat to the ethnic based federalism that divided the country along tribal lines in Ethiopia, the Amhara people have been a subject of systematic political repression and economic marginalisation by successive regimes.
They have been dehumanised, ostracised, labeled and humiliated openly starting from those who held high office such the former prime minister of Ethiopia Meles Zenawi, to the security forces and local authorities. It has been a norm to mistreat or humiliate the Amhara people of Ethiopia.
The very existence of the Amharas as an ethnic group was put to questions by prominent figures in the current government such as Shimeles Abdisa, the chief of staff of Abiy Ahmed and president of the Oromia region.
Soon after TPLF handed power to Abiy Ahmed in 2018, the political suppression of the Amharas reached the highest level. All prominent Amhara parliamentarians were rounded up and jailed including political activists and journalists.
The economic marginalisation took the next level of closing Amhara businesses, burning of their properties and at the beginning of the rainy season in 2023, in an attempt to impoverish the Amhara region with a population of about 45 millions, the region was denied access to seeds and fertilisers. This was the last straw for the Amharas and they started the armed resistance.
Ethiopia government atrocities continue
Throughout the conflict, the government troops have been practicing deliberate destruction of Amhara properties including crops in the fields. The Amharas have been rounded up and put in concentration camps throughout Ethiopia and kept in concentration camps in inhumane conditions.
Ethiopia’s army has been committing gross human rights violation such as gang rapes, indiscriminate killings of ordinary civilians, public executions of individuals who have nothing to do with the conflict, collective punishment using drones and heavy artillery.
These acts of violence are not accidental or the ugly collateral damages of an ongoing conflict but a systematic effort to impoverish and cripple the Amhara people and a part of the military campaign discussed and approved by high ranking generals and political elites.
All Amharas are literally considered as the enemy of the regime and are seen as legitimate targets for the regime forces. Ethiopia’s regime is using hunger, rape and collective punishment as an instrument of war and continuing the five decades long systematic campaign.
Furthermore, in a desperate effort to break their spirits Abiy Ahmed tried to break up their unifying orthodox Christian church as well as their Islamic faith. Many places of worship have either been destroyed, desecrated or used as army bases and many priests, monks and imams have been killed. It is no longer as slow and systematic as it was during Meles Zenawi but an openly declared agenda to crush the Amharas by any means possible.
The Amharas are fighting the Abiy Ahmed’s regime that is armed to its teeth with the latest military hardware including military planes and drones that are killing innocent civilians indiscriminately and destroying properties.
They are forced to pick up arms and battle for the future of their children to be able to go to school and come back home safely, for their youth to go to colleges and universities for education, for the grown up to look for jobs, build homes and set up families.
The Amharas have been left with no option but to confront this tribalism for free movements of the Amhara people for leisure or business throughout the country just like other ethnic groups.
They are defending their right to exist as a group of people to keep their culture, language and practice their faith and to live in any part of Ethiopia with their brothers and sisters of other ethnic groups in peace and harmony without the humiliation they have endured for five decades.
The author, who writes under the alias “Amhara Resistance”, requested anonymity due to concerns for their personal safety.
