It is now official: the US government is fully behind Abiy Ahmed’s recently launched genocidal operation against the Amhara of Ethiopia.  

“The United States participated as an observer in the African Union lead talks in Pretoria … which produced the cessation of hostilities agreement on November 2^nd.  We are very proud to have supported that effort along with others and now we have seen the silencing of the guns … and now move to other issues of importance including insuring that Eritrean troops are completely removed from the region, and you deal with other Amhara special forces and FANNO groups that are active in the area.”  (Michael A. Hammer, United States Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa as of 2022).

Dear reader, right now, as you are reading this piece, Abiy Ahmed’s Oromo tribalist regime is ethnically cleansing the Amhara of Ethiopia under the guise of a “special operation” to dismantle the Amhara Special Force and disarm Amhara FANNO.  Mind you, Abiy Ahmed is using Oromo Special Force and Tigre Special force (albeit camouflaged as Ethiopian Defense Forces) for his “special operation”.  Moreover, disarming FANNO essentially means disarming all armed Amhara, since FANNO is nothing but an age-old Amhara culture of forming impromptu militia to fight invaders and colonizers, the five-year heroic struggle of FANNO (from 1936 to 1941) against the Italian occupying forces being a prime example.

In a recent interview, the United States Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, Mr. Michael Hammer, openly admitted that the “special operation” to dismantle Amhara Special Force and to disarm Amhara FANNO was part and parcel of the Pretoria agreement, and that the principal architect of this agreement was none other than the United States by saying “you deal with other Amhara special forces and FANNO groups that are active in the area”.   The key is the phrase “active in the area”, which exposes Mr. Hammer’s disgusting dishonesty.   Mr. Hammer used this phrase insidiously to imply that the Amhara special force and the Amhara FANNO are terrorist groups marauding in the area, conveniently forgetting that these were the very forces which were called on by the Ethiopian parliament when the very seat of the parliament (Addis Ababa) was threatened by TPLF which was labelled terrorist by the parliament.

Therefore, the net effect of the US lead Pretoria agreement was to make the terrorist TPLF legal and the legal Amhara special force and Amhara FANNO terrorists.  No wonder why the OLF, TPLF and USA trio made sure that genuine representatives of the Amhara were completely excluded from the Pretoria talks.  And no wonder why the OLF regime of Abiy Ahmed which “represented” the Amhara in the Pretoria talks is now waging a vicious war against them with full support of the United States.

Now that special anti-Amhara operation agreed upon in the Pretoria talks is in full swing and the OLF/TPLF combined force of Abiy Ahmed is mercilessly pounding the Amhara region with heavy guns supplied by the United States, Mr. Hammer has the gall to say “we have seen the silencing of the guns”, effectively saying that the US government is deaf to the plight of the Amhara, and, therefore, is brazenly anti-Amhara.  If so, why is the US in particular and the west in general so overtly anti-Amhara?

The Amhara are the most integrated of all Ethiopian nationalities.  They are ethnic-blind to a fault which makes them vulnerable in a sea of Amhara-hating tribalist “liberation fronts” fostered, if not created, by the west.  The social fabric of Ethiopia is woven by the Amhara who (unlike other ethnicities of Ethiopia) identify themselves first and foremost as Ethiopians.  Amhara nationalism (epitomized by Emperor Menelik) is another name for Ethiopian nationalism simply because the Amhara are its largest, if not its most ardent, adherents.  It is this nationalism which insured the very survival of Ethiopia by marshalling all of the country around it, enabled the country to crushingly defeat European colonialists at Adwa, paved the way for decolonization of the entire continent of Africa, initiated Pan-Africanism, and laid the very foundation of Black pride and Black nationalism for Blacks all over the world.

No wonder why colonialists and neo-colonialists of the west are out in full force to make the Amhara (by far the largest majority in Ethiopia) a diminutive minority in Ethiopia totally irrelevant in Ethiopian politics, if not cleanse the Amhara altogether.  The is best done by flaming anti-Amhara tribalism through Tigre and Oromo ethno-nationalists as prescribed by Roman Prochaska, the Nazi Baron expelled from Ethiopia in 1934 for “activities incompatible with his diplomatic office”.

“The numerous tribes who inhabit the Ethiopian state are being forcibly kept from European colonialism by Abyssinian rulers whose aim is to act as champions of all black people so as to attack and destroy Western culture” (Roman Prochaska, Abyssinia: The Powder Barrel, Vienna, 1935)

The history of US-Ethiopia relations abounds with numerous examples of key figures in the US State Department prescribing to Prochaska’s anti-Amhara proposition.  One of them was Mr. Herman Cohen who was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under George H. W. Bush (1989 – 1993).  Mr. Cohen’s true feelings for the Amhara was clearly expressed by his twit right after Amhara region leaders were viciously murdered in Bahr Dar by none other than Abiy Ahmed on June 22, 2019.

”Failed coup in #Ethiopia’s Amhara state was an attempt by ethnic nationalists to restore Amhara hegemony over all of Ethiopia that existed for several centuries prior to 1991.  That dream is now permanently dead.” (Herman Cohen, Twitter, June 24, 2019)

Notice the similarity between Mr. Cohen’s tweet and Mr. Prochaska’s statements.  Prochaska wrote about the numerous tribes of Ethiopia “being forcibly kept from European colonialism by Abyssinian rulers”, while Cohen twitted about “Amhara hegemony over all of Ethiopia that existed for several centuries prior to 1991”.  According to Mr. Cohen, Ethiopia was “Amhara Ethiopia” for several centuries until TPLF made it “Ethiopian’s Ethiopia” in 1991.  This is exactly the anti-Amhara narrative TPLF and OLF have been preaching their tribalist flock ever since they were founded decades ago.

It is not surprising that this was the same Herman Cohen who played a critical role in imposing the tribalist TPLF on Ethiopians in 1991.  He did so by playing a deceitful role in the “London Peace Talks” whereby he coerced the Ethiopian military command to declare ceasefire “for the sake of peace” while urging TPLF rebels to fight with all their might to enter the capital (Addis Ababa) as quickly as possible.   What Herman Cohen did in the in London in 1991, Michael Hammer exactly repeated in Pretoria in 2022.  Mr. Cohen conspired with TIGRE and OROMO tribalists against the “Amhara government” of Ethiopia, whereas Mr. Hammer did the same against the Amhara Special force and the Amhara FANNO.  In 1991, Mr. Cohen’s pretext was “for the sake of peace”, whereas in 2022 Mr. Hammer’s pretext is “unconfirmed reports”.

“The United States is gravely concerned by unconfirmed new reports alleging mass detentions, killings, and forced expulsions of ethnic Tigrayans in western Tigray by Amhara security forces.  The UN reports that 1.2 million people have been forcibly displaced from western Tigray since the beginning of the conflict in November 2020.  We call on Amhara leaders to renounce violence against civilians.” (US Department of State, Press Statement, December 17, 2021)

In its zeal to accuse the Amhara of massive genocide and use the pretext to bomb the Amhara out of existence as Abiy Ahmed is doing right now, the US state department didn’t even bother to check its simple arithmetic.  Though very fertile, the so called “Western Tigray” is heavily infested with malaria that, even at best of times, its population barely exceeds half a million.  It is a pity that one of the key departments of a superpower with a propensity to police the entire world is headed by arithmetically challenged “experts”.  If 1.2 million Tigrayans have been “forcibly displaced from the so-called western Tigray since the beginning of the conflict in November 2020”, what would that make the population of the entire province of Tigray?

The other key proponent of Prochaska’s anti-Amhara proposition is Ms. Suzan Rice who served as the US Ambassador to the United Nations under President Obama and is now serving as the director of the US Domestic Policy Council under President Biden.  She was so close to the late TPLF leader (Mr. Meles Zenawi) to the extent that most Ethiopians rightfully suspected there may have been more to their very close relationship than meets the eye, whatever that “more” is, financial or other.

Ms. Rice is on the record declaring Meles Zenawi’s sham election of 2015 (where he won 100% of parliamentary seats) was “100% democratic”, while laughing her heart out to express her 100% satisfaction with the result of the “100% democratic” election, disparaging those who dispute the result as “idiots”, not bothering about diplomatic niceties.  Such an ardent supporter of TPLF’s anti-Amhara policy is now in full control of the Africa desk of the state department through her hypnotic hold on Mr. Antony Blinken who was her deputy when she served as national security advisor under President Obama (2013-2017).  Apparently, regarding Ethiopia, Mr. Blinken cannot and does not want to do anything and everything she disapproves, even slightly, and she disapproves anything and everything she considers even slightly beneficial to the Amhara or to the so-called “Amhara Ethiopia”.

For the Amhara, Ms. Rice is an enigma.  As a well-educated African American, one would expect her to subscribe to Ethiopianism, “the sociopolitical movement to unify all people of African heritage into one global community”.   Since Ethiopianism is, as its name implies, rooted in Ethiopian nationalism, and since Ethiopian nationalism is synonymous with Amhara nationalism, under normal circumstances, Ms. Rice should have been at least sympathetic to Amhara cause, if not an outright supporter.  She should certainly oppose the neocolonialist agenda of weakening a symbolic black African country by western sponsored anti-Amhara tribalism.  However, for reasons known only to her, her words and actions are so in-line with Prochaska’s anti-Amhara agenda that he could not have been prouder of her.  Ms. Rice not only religiously promotes anti-Amhara agenda but also seems to derive immense sadistic pleasure from rubbing it on the faces of the Amhara.  Regarding the Amhara, her whole demeanor is as if she was once scorned by an Amhara she deeply loved, lending credence to “hell as no furry as a woman scorned.”

Confounding Amhara’s problem vis-à-vis the USA is Ms. Gayle Smith (a longtime associate of Ms. Rice) who now has a prominent position in the State Department.   As a freelance journalist for BBC and Financial times, Ms. Smith was a frequent visitor of TPLF controlled areas in the 1980’s and was rumored to be an item with one of the rebel commanders (known by nom de guerre as “Jamaica”).  She is so pro-TPLF that she once wrote an article defending the kidnapping of westerners by TPLF as a means of getting publicity.  What is more, she did so in 1983 when hostage taking was the highest form of terrorism.

As a close confidant of Mr. Meles Zenwai, Ms. Smith played a key role in his rise on international stage representing Africa in G-20, even though everything he stands for (especially his promotion of tribalism) is diametrically opposite to pan Africanism.  She was the senior director for African affairs under President Clinton when Clinton hailed the anti-Africanist Mr. Zenawi as the prime exponent of “Africa’s new generation of leaders” the west can “do business” with.

As chief of staff for USAID (1994-1998), Ms. Smith poured billions after billions into TPLF’s bottomless coffers under the guise of humanitarian assistance, most of which was laundered back to the US.  A fraction of these billions laundered back to the US was used and is now being used to buy expensive lobbyists, influential statesmen, congressmen, senators, pseudo experts, corrupt academics in known universities and colleges, and reporters in mainstream media, chiefly CNN, and BBC.

The Biden administration is sworn to uphold the second amendment of the US constitution, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, a well-regulated Militia being necessary for the security of a free state.   On the contrary, this very same Biden administration fully supports Abiy Ahmed’s “special operation” to deny the very same right for the Amhara of Ethiopia.  As per Biden’s adminstraton, except for the Amhara, all people of Ethiopia can be armed and can have their own Special Forces or Militias.

The United States declared its independence from Britain by proclaiming that a government with “a long train of abuses and usurpations” should be overthrown not only as a matter of right but also as a matter of duty.  And yet, the US State Department demands that the Amhara of Ethiopia submit to TPLF/OLF anti-Amhara regime whose stated goal is to make the Amhara completely irrelevant in Ethiopian politics by reducing them to insignificant minority, if not by cleansing them altogether.

After overthrowing Mengistu’s regime in 1991 with full backing of the west, especially the Carter administration, the TPLL/OLF tribalist combo forcefully introduced an anti-Amhara ethnic apartheid system by crafting a Bantustan “constitution” which divides Ethiopia into language-based ethnic regions called kilils, each kilil solely belonging to one and only one ethnicity residing in the kilil, the very word killi being Amharic for restricted area.  Prior to 1991, Ethiopia used to be divided into kifle hagers which means parts of one country and is the Amharic equivalent of province.  A prime example of these TPLF/OLF introduced apartheid kilils is the “Benshangul-Gumuz kilil” formed by renaming one-half of the province of Gojam, and then constitutionally labelling the indigenous Gojam Amhara of the kilil as “settlers” who have absolutely no say in the running of the kilil.

Immediately after his “victory over Amhara Ethiopia” 1991, Mr. Zenawi effectively doubled the size of what used to be called Tigray kifle hager (Tigray Province) and renamed it Tigray kilil, belonging solely to Tigrayans.  This he did by annexing a huge, fertile region from Gonder Province (known as Wokait), and another huge, fertile region from Wello Province (known as Raya), and renaming them respectively as “Western Tigray” and “Southern Tigray”.  For Meles Zenawi, these annexed Amhara majority regions were simply the spoils of his victory over “Amhara Ethiopia”.  The US State Department played a key role in cleansing the indigenous Amhara from these Amhara majority annexed regions by enticing the Amhara to migrate en masse to Sudan in the hope of resettling in the US.

In particular, the Amhara of the so-called “Western Tigray” were ethnically cleansed by the combined push-pull effect of TPLF and the US State Department, TPLF pushing by swinging its sword, while State Department pulls by dangling its green card.  While the Amhara of the so-called “Western Tigray” were migrating en masse in the hope of resettling in the US, in their place the TPLF resettles its combatants en masse with full financial support of the US.   This TPLF/USA engineered demographic change was so effective that both TPLF and USA are now demanding that the fate of this so-called “Western Tigray” be decided by referendum.

The Amhara have a saying that “ርስት በሺ ዓመቱ ለባለቤቱ (Rist beshi ametu lebalebetu)” meaning “a land will eventually be returned to its rightful owner even if it takes thousands of years”) which, by the way, should be music to the natives of America and Australia.  This is what exactly happened when, in its attempt to rule over Ethiopia again, TPLF basically wiped out the Northern Command of the Federal Defense Force on November 04 (2020) in what it dubbed mebrekawi Tikat (blitzkrieg), started to march towards Addis Ababa, and was stopped dead by the Amhara Special Force and the Amhara FANNO at a place called kirakir, not far the very birthplace of TPLF, the infamous DEDEBIT where the anti-Amhara TPLF manifesto was concocted in 1975.  By doing so, these Amhara forces saved Abiy Ahmed’s regime from total collapse, paying immense sacrifice in the process.  In addition, they enabled the Amhara to return their own Wolkait (“Western Tigray”) and Raya (“Southern Tigray”) to themselves, with full agreement of Abiy Ahmed.  However, knowing that TPLF without the so-called “western Tigray” will rule over a region fully surrounded by the Amhara region and Eritrea and, therefore, will be a useless puppet for the US, the US kept on insisting that “Western Tigray” be returned to “Tigray”.

“We … urge the Government of Ethiopia to withdraw Amhara regional forces from the Tigray region and ensure that effective control of western Tigray is returned to the Transitional Government of Tigray.”  (Press Statement, Anthony J. Blinken, May 15, 2021)

The US state department implicitly invokes TPLF’s anti-Amhara apartheid constitution to back up its demand that the so-called “Western Tigray” be returned to Tigray, conveniently forgetting that these regions were officially annexed in 1991, three full years before the TPLF constitution was forcefully imposed on the Amhara in 1994.  If TPLF didn’t need a constitution to incorporate these regions into Tigray, and if the west implicitly agreed with the incorporation (by raising no objection), why should the Amhara need a constitution to reincorporate what were originally theirs, and why does the west object the reincorporation?  More importantly, why does a government founded by protesting taxation without representation insist that the Amhara of Ethiopia abide by a constitution they were entirely and deliberately excluded from?

The simple answer is that, if these so-called “Western Tigray” and “Southern Tigray” regions are allowed to rejoin their rightful Amhara region, the region will be the most powerful region in Ethiopia in virtually all aspects, be it population or natural resources.  Ethiopia being the alpha and omega of the Amhara, a very powerful Amhara region will keep TPLF/OLF and all other anti-Ethiopia tribalists in check, rendering Prochaska’s dream of weakening Ethiopia by tribalism forever irredeemable.

By its own admission, the Meles Zenawi’s TPLF regime could not account for the 2.5 million loss in Amhara population in its 2007 census.  Since TPLF is well known for cooking data to fit its narrative, the actual loss in Amhara population is believed to be at least double the loss admitted by TPLF, about five million. However, even the admitted loss of 2.5 million would make the genocide of Amhara by TPLF the worst genocide the world has ever seen in centuries, next only to the holocaust, definitely worse than the Rwandan genocide. And yet, the US has never ever expressed concern, let alone condemn, this well-documented, irrefutable genocide of Amhara by TPLF, while it wails ad nauseam about “unconfirmed reports” of atrocities purportedly committed by the Amhara on Tigrayans.

When Meles Zenawi’s notorious Agazi (which, for all intents and purposes, was the equivalent of Hitler’s SS) openly murdered more than two hundred Addis Ababa protestors following the highly disputed May 2005 election, the US State department blamed the massacre on “lumpen” Amhara protestors and, thanking Mr. Zenawi for quickly putting the protest under control, funneled additional millions for “additional training” of the Agazi.

For USA and the west, the best possible puppet in Ethiopia is a TPLF regime, for two main reasons.  First, because the tribalist TPLF is permanently infected with baseless and, therefore, incurable phobia for the Ethiopianist Amhara it prefers to call Timkihitegnoch (the haughty).  Second, because TPLF is an insignificant minority and, therefore, must rely on the US to rule over Ethiopia.

The next best option for USA and the west (to make Ethiopia a western protectorate) is to impose OLF on the Ethiopian people.  First, because OLF’s hatred of Amhara is worse than that of TPLF so that there is no chance of Oromo-Amhara synergy, like the one which was key to the victory of Adwa.   Second, because OLF is so tribalistic and so narrow that it cannot arouse the whole Oromo (let alone the whole Ethiopia) and, therefore, must rely on the US to rule over Ethiopia, just like the TPLF.   As Meles Zenawi was helplessly dependent on the west, so is Abiy Ahmed.

Abiy Ahmed joined “Oromo freedom” fighters at an early age when he would hardly know what Oromo oppression means.  In fact, Abiy Ahmed was a child solder of the OLF, and this very fact by itself is should have been enough to incriminate the terrorist OLF.  As an abused child soldier of the OLF which at that time was subservient to TPLF, Abiy Ahmed grew up feeding on TPLF’s anti-Amhara narrative and was trusted by TPLF so much so that he eventually became head of the all-important INSA (Information Network Security Agency) with the rank of a colonel.

As such, Abiy Ahmed is an OLF/TPLF combo who combines the anti-Amhara elements of both OLF and TPLF.  Since he came to power in 2018, he increased the ethnic cleansing of Amhara to such a rate that, should he be allowed to maintain the rate for few more years, the Amhara will be reduced to a diminutive minority in Ethiopia totally irrelevant in Ethiopian politics, if not totally wiped out from Ethiopia.  In this respect, what Meles Zenawi has done in thirty years pales in comparison to what Abiy Ahmed did in just four years.

Under Abiy Ahmed, the Amhara of Ethiopia have been subjected to unprecedented, well-documented, video-supported horrifying ethnic cleansing crimes in Oromo kilil and Benshangul-Gumuz kilil, as well as in the “special Oromo Zone” in Amhara kilil.  Several majority Amhara towns were completely wiped out.  Amhara throats were slashed, breasts were cut, wombs were torn open, skulls were shattered, limbs were hacked, children were burned alive, elderly were buried alive, and corpses were left for hyenas.   In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Amhara massacred in such barbaric ways, millions were displaced.  However, the US is completely mum about these well-documented atrocities, if only because the victims are Amhara who are considered inimical to the US national interest.

Abiy Ahmed is the west’s best hope to eventually fulfill Prochaska’s ultimate dream of Ethiopia without Amhara who “forcibly keep the numerous tribes of Ethiopia from European colonialism”.  The west has done, is doing, and will do anything and everything to make sure that Abiy Ahmed succeeds.

In conclusion, Mr. Michael Hammer of the US State department confirmed the well-known fact that Abiy Ahmed launched his genocidal operation on the Amhara in full view and with full support of the United States and its western allies, in particular the United Kingdom.  For the Amhara, this means Amhara’s mortal enemy are not the Oromo or Tigre tribalist forces which can be easily dealt with by the Amhara, but the super-power United States, specially under democratic presidents like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barak Obama, and Joe Biden.

In effect, the Amhara people are fighting for their very survival not against Tigre and Oromo tribalists but against their western masters, principally the USA, and, therefore, should structure their survival struggle accordingly.

Of course, the United States is a superpower.  However, a superpower is not a guaranteed victor, and history abounds with numerous examples of a David utterly defeating a Goliath.  And no country should know this better than the United States itself, given its humiliating experience in Vietnam and Afghanistan.   If the Pashtuns of Afghanistan can do it, there is no way the Amhara of Ethiopia can’t, considering their age-old experience of fighting foreign invaders and white colonialists.

Mesfin Arega

mesfin.arega@gmail.com