Ethiopia: Why Abiy Ahmed Assassinated Girma Yeshitila?

Girma Yeshitila: the late Prosperity Party Amhara branch office head (Photo: FBC)

Introduction

The late Girma Yeshitila had been the regime’s top official and Prosperity Party’s Amhara region branch office head. He has been assassinated while he was at field work, around his birth town, on April 27/2023. It is widely argued amongst Ethiopians how and who assassinated the official.

Prime minister Abiy Ahmed released press an hour before the assassination. He tweeted about the murder: who killed him, where why and how. He explained the causes of the murder and outlined the consequences as well. In his press release, the plaintiff, judge, & witness was himself. An hour later, it was almost in real time that the news telecasted from the place where the assassination taken place. Unlike accusations of the Prime minister on Amhara Fano for the murder of Girma Yeshitila, Amharas worldwide have been calling for independent investigation and in the meantime, evidence started to come out to prove that the official was assassinated by his own convoy. Republican guards were deployed to convoy Girma that day.

Nonetheless, the information Network Security Agency (INSA), a national security and intelligence associate office that had been led by Abiy himself before his premiership, released a telephone conversation which is claimed to be the dialogue of murderers; has been instantly, debunked by the cyber society. The released telephone dialogue is examined by experts and found to be a product of sound clone by artificial intelligence. It has been clear why INSA produced and released a dialogue of two prominent Amhara Fano leaders.

The detail

INSA is amongst the entirely Oromized and effectively utilized institutes to produce and archive anti-Amhara documentaries, narratives, accusations, and charges. It serves as a source of evidence, whilst it produces them in its highly equipped artificial intelligence department. Today, every Amhara’s telephone conversation is spied and monitored. The ethiotele and INSA joint task force is mandated to spy and track Amharas. Therefore, any digital content has been possible and easy to produce when needed to antagonize Amhara civilians with their leaders.

The plot is to make people hate their leaders and detach the leaders from their people. Then leaders feel insecure in their own community and seek protection from outside. That is how they became dependent on Oromuma entirely. These days, Amhara leaders employ bodyguards from Oromo special force or from the prime minister’s republican guards.

The more leaders of Amhara region depended on Oromuma and took granted the proxy role, they developed a perceptual schema that hate the people they administer and fear their Special Force. consequently, the leaders accepted the Oromuma’s direction to disarm Amhara Special Force exceptionally; and now de-established it as an institute. The freedom fighter civilian force called ‘Fano’ is being hunted for disarming and imprisonment, as well. The national defense force and the Oromo Special Force, in a joint operation, are deployed to grip the Amhara region, since the day Girma assassinated.

The regime kills an Amhara leader and accuses Amhara civilians of the murder and wages war on the innocent civilians. For Oromumma, killing civilians and leaders is success; so long as both are Amhara.

A full-scale war is waged on Amhara region.  The future is worse than the past three years of war in northern Ethiopia. The war with Tigray was to ‘reinforce the rule of law’ that started at the attack on the northern command of the national army by TPLF, as an immediate cause. But the current war is intended to eliminate Amhara entirely. Amhara genocide is a long-time preparation by Oromumma. Their elites had enough time to instill hate for Amhara in each common Oromo. They established institutes and structures that are staffed with highly trained personnel to implement the genocide. They even have organized a military that they themselves legally considered as a terrorist group, which they deploy to attack civilian Amharas at any targeted town. The Oromia Special Force works in synchronization with the terrorist ‘OLF Shené’, as they both ultimately work for the same goal – exterminating Amhara. Victims repeatedly reported their eyewitnesses when the Oromia Special Force supplied weapons, logistics and vehicles to the terrorist group. Welega ‘the Auschwitz of Oromia’ is the litmus test of Amhara extermination in Ethiopia. It has been possible to eliminate Amhara from Welega without any consequences. So, the genocide extended to the very region where Amharas live solely.

Now, the Amhara region is ruled by ethnic Oromo politicians such as Legesse Tulu, who nominates and assigns positions to Oromumma cadres in Amhara. It is more evident when the OLF Shené flag is used to convoy the funeral ceremony of the late Girma Yeshitila at the heart of Amhara region, today, than any else to prove the domination and direct rule of Oromuma in Amhara.

Nobel peace prize laurate genocides

It has been quite familiar that Abiy Ahmed appears on the national TV with a military costume and give condolences about the officials he assassinates.  22 June 2019 the Amhara region cabinet had a meeting in the region’s president office. Discussions were high, as exposed later. Abiy Ahmed took advantage of the temper and arranged a special envoy to assassinate any one or more of the leaders at the meeting. Because, who dies and who remains doesn’t matter as he accuses the living and acclaims the dead.  Thus, gunfire was opened to the leaders at their meeting, suddenly; and regrettably the three most prominent leaders were shot dead. Immediately after the assassination, he released the press live from the region’s capital – Bahir Dar. Without any clue and due procedure, he called out loud the Amhara Special Forces General for the assassination of the region’s president and other cabinet members. He explained in length the general’s attempt to coup d’état. Following the incidence, the national defense force was deployed to catch the accused general in Bahirdar area and rapidly, the region was invaded. People were confused of the situation and did not act to protect the innocent general.

The assassination of ‘the one and the only General Asaminew Tsige’ was the regime’s envoy in a broad day light under the watch of the public, on 24 June 2019.  He was killed and dragged in the street humiliatingly.  General Asaminew warned the public the possibility of genocide on Amhara by Oromos. He explicitly showed the danger and indicated the survival mechanisms. He was also dedicated to organizing the Amhara special force in mechanized brigades and divisions. Amhara genocide was crystal clear for him. Amhara has been demonized and labelled as ‘Neftegna’ many years ago. Amhara has been enemized in all possible narratives. Ethnonationalist extremists normalized hate speeches to Amhara and the lives of Amharas living in Oromia have been merely disposable for requesting the government for random issues. Unless the public protests are accompanied by mass murder of Amharas, they do not feel their messages are delivered in the magnitude they wish. After the assassination of General Asaminew, president of Oromia region, Shimelis Abdisa made a speech for holiday celebrating crowd saying “we won the gambling with Amharas! We broke Amharas into pieces at the place where our ancestors were broken by them. We feast in triumph today at the place!”. He further explained the tactic they applied was ‘convince or/and confuse’. It was literally gambling.

Assassination of the passionate Engineer Simegnew Bekele, the director general of the GERD (Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam) construction project was as convince or confuse as the Bahirdar incidence.  18 July 2018 early morning in Meskel square, Addis Ababa a v8 land cruiser was stopped next to youth who were there for outdoor physical exercises. The youth reported that they were before the car came, and they were there after it was picked. They heard no gunshot or had seen any chaotic scene. However, it was reported instantly that the Engineer was killed at the place and time aforesaid. In fact, the engineer had a meeting with the Prime minister that night and his family reported the anxiety he had about meeting Abiy.

The commander in chief of the national army, General Se’are Mekonen is also the same victim. Abiy used the bodyguards of the General to kill him and his advisor, in whose place, he wanted to put an Oromo. General Berhanu Jula was given a ‘field marshal’ title for the first time in Ethiopia and became the commander in chief of the national army.

All in whole, Abiy assassinated leaders who were loyal to their positions and their people and put in place his minions. Amhara leaders were once ardent pro people and independent, confident team. Now, all of them work under the auspices of Oromuma; and they even do not live in the region. They administer the region being outside the region. Crucial positions in the economy, security intelligence, military, diplomacy, and development projects are taken by Oromos, exclusively. Officials have been assassinated because there were no reasons to remove them and put an Oromo in the position.

Classified operations in Amhara Genocide

Today, important positions at the federal level are occupied by Oromos. Both the bank and the tank are in their hands. So, they know that they can carnage Amhara overnight. But there still were some journalists, politicians and activists who can expose and report atrocities. They had to go through some more classified operations before mass extermination. Hence, Amhara media outlets that are not controlled by the regime are closed; and their journalists are abducted. Genet Asmamaw (Yeneta media reporter), Meskerem Abera (Ethio Nikat Media founder & editor) are women journalists forcefully abducted by the regime. Men Journalists like Abay Zewdu, who reported atrocities of ethnic cleansing from onsite are jailed in hundreds. Literally all ethnic Amhara journalists are abducted. Those who are not abducted yet have already been on the lookout. They are labelled as traitors and announced to be arrested anywhere they are found.

Activists and elites are abducted, jailed, and perpetrated. There are dozens of professors, Doctors, entrepreneurs, investors, and public figures released by the government as traitors.  The bank accounts of 37 Amhara investors are frozen. Politicians both in the country and in exile are deemed terrorists. A list of politicians, activists and journalists is published on April 29/2023 that requests the international society to cooperate in abducting them and sending to the Ethiopian government.

Few of the abducted journalists

few of the wanted journalists and activists.

What comes next?

Silencing the voices of Amhara has been the parallel operation with assassinating its leaders. Silencing Amhara voices keeps the broader society uninformed about the actual killing of innocent civilians and helps Oromuma execute the genocide without pressure. Civilian Amharas in Oromia have been burned alive, gunned down in crowd, raped, mutilated, and displaced, selectively massacred and Amharas’ houses destroyed in Oromia and around Addis Ababa. These crimes of humanity and ethnic targeted attacks have been reported by the Human Rights Commission and independent civil societies, to some extent. The Oromia regional government is exposed by the house of people’s representative member (law maker) that all the Amhara targeted attacks were planned and directed by the regime’s higher officials in both federal and Oromia region governments.

It seems after that whistleblower that a new plan has been designed to exterminate Amhara in a total blackout. After the assassination of Girma Yeshitila, internet is cut, electric is cut in most of Amhara region, and roads are blocked. A total bloodbath is in the coming and the world is still not acting.

Now, Amhara is successfully, made a disintegrated community that has no leader, no activist, no informer, no security (protector), no voice and means. Because all of these are cleared or jailed in advance. Oromuma made sure that there is no armed group that can protect Amhara; there is no single media that can report the genocide; there is no activist or politician that can mobilize the public to defend itself; there is no single institute to support civilians and so forth. Hence, it has been made ready to undertake the genocide silently.

Conclusively, assassination of Girma Yeshitila is not a singular incidence. It is a ring in the chain of activities in making Amhara more disintegrated and feebler so that it won’t have resistance against the upcoming complete extermination.

By Desalegn Birara

Sociologist & Cultural Heritage Curator: Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Ethiopia.