by OPERATION CONSCIENCE
Ethiopia’s current government has committed genocide against several ethnic groups, but the Amhara, whose traditional lands the regime’s senior leadership has annexed to their Tigrayan tribal homeland, have been the hardest hit.
The Amhara, according to Wikipedia, “an ethnic group traditionally inhabiting the northern and central highlands of Ethiopia, particularly the Amhara Region. [Although Ethiopian government statistics are notoriously unreliable,] according to the 2007 national census, they numbered 19,867,817 individuals, comprising 27.12% of the country’s population. They are also found within the Ethiopian expatriate community, particularly in North America. The Amharas claim to originate from Solomon and primarily adhere to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church”
The Amhara population in the above-cited Ethiopian government’s own 2007 census was 2.5 million less than what was projected based on the 1997 census and the population growth rate for the rest of Ethiopia: the rate of growth for the Amhara population was 1.7%, while the average rate for the rest of the country was 2.6% annually.
This is believed by experts to be due to systematic denial by the government of critical medicine and aid, as well as the coercive sterilization of Amhara women.
Beside this larger “silent genocide”, a book published in Amharic, titled Yetifat Zemen (Age of Distraction), details the violent mass killing of the Amhara from 1991 to 2015. It covers about 8 zones in Oromia, one Zone in Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNP), a village in Afar, the whole Benishangul Gumz, Dire Dewa City, Harari and Amhara Regions geographically. The author, journalist and human rights activist Muluken Tesfaw, has shared the following comments below:
“I employed snow ball sampling technique to get the participants everywhere. I have interviewed in depth with Genocide survivals, victim families and eye witnesses. I have collected some names and photographs of massacred Amharas and visited mass grave yards, cliffs where the Amhara people thrown alive, and so forth. I have used secondary and primary sources like support us letters and complaints written by the Amharas by the time, local identify cards, HRCO reports … and so on with the help of trained data collectors.Former Ethiopian Human Rights Council (the current HRCo) has reported a number of times about the mass killings and evictions of ethnically Amhara people.The number of massacred Amharas is very shocking. The highest number of people are killed in West Hararghe Zone of Oromia region and Metekel zone of Benishangul Gumz Region. Not less than 40,000 people have been massacred in these two areas alone. I have some pictures of cliffs and mass grave yard areas as well as videos and audios of witnesses. In the rest of the areas from 10 to 2000 people have been killed.The Genocide active years were 1990-93, 1999/2000, 2005/6 and 2013-15.Apart from massacre of Amharas, these people are being evicted everywhere. Just to mention some:
- 9 woreda inhabitants (woreda is the second administrative unit [district] next to kebele [neighborhood]) in East Arsi in 1991/2. Their houses were burnt and evicted
- 60,000 Amharas in West Arsi and East Shoa by the same year
- 14,000 in Wolega in 2000
- 22,000 in SNNP in 2013
- 10,000 in Benishangul Gumz in 2013.
I have partial lists of the names and families of evicted Amharas in SNNP and Benishangul Gumz with order letters of eviction from authorities.There are thousands of genocide survivors and witnesses. The places which should be investigated are identified on maps. There are a lot of secondary sources (documents) open for proofing.There are mass graves for investigation. Anyone can easily find human skeleton or bones at least in the deep wells, natural cliffs and jungles till this day. Any local inhabitant can easily identify the names of massacred people in their villages.I would be pleased to provide all the documents I have. By the way, there is still active genocide in Ethiopia. I hope you may have heard about the Wolkait Amhara Identity Struggle, where historically Amhara lands are forcefully annexed with Tigrai. The regime is killing, jailing and enforcing ethnic cleansing to force Amhara out and settle Tigreans in the area. About half of the indigenous people have left the area and more than half a million Tigreans are settled in replacement. The indigenous women are being sexually enslaved and forced to bear Tigrean children. The crimes committed against these people meet and even surpass the criteria for genocide set by the UN.”
It’s important to note that many of these crimes against humanity occurred while the new World Health Organization Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, held senior positions as Minister of Health and, then, Foreign Minister with this government.
Additional documentation will be posted soon.
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