Mengistu Musie (Dr)
Mmusie2@gmail.com
It now appears far too late for Abiy Ahmed’s government and its state-sponsored media army of propagandists to reverse the tide of public opinion or meaningfully influence the masses. The population has grown increasingly disillusioned, and the propaganda machinery that once seemed effective is now exposed, predictable, and incapable of masking the grim realities facing Ethiopia. Nevertheless, Abiy Ahmed and his security apparatus continue to work tirelessly, deploying three so-called “national issues” as propaganda tools in a desperate attempt to shift public perception and rescue the government’s image.
When Abiy Ahmed first rose to power in 2010 (Ethiopian calendar), there was an outpouring of hope across the country. From the northern highlands to the remotest corners of the South, East, and West, even communities that were historically detached from national politics joined in the wave of optimism. Ordinary people believed Ethiopia had entered a new era, while the intelligentsia, political elites, and those who had long demanded systemic change saw Abiy as the long-awaited reformer. His promises of unity, peace, and democracy ignited a rare national consensus.
However, that hope was soon betrayed. When Abiy declared war on Tigray, many of the country’s elites and educated classes endorsed his narrative. They accepted his claim that the conflict was initiated by the TPLF and embraced the government’s justification of the war as a necessary act of national defense. The propaganda was so carefully constructed that even those skeptical of Abiy’s leadership were persuaded to view the war against Tigray as legitimate.
But while war raged in the north, a far darker campaign was quietly unfolding. Across Oromia, particularly targeting Amharic-speaking communities, a systematic wave of violence and killings began to take shape. Instead of taking responsibility, Abiy’s government deflected blame, framing the atrocities as the work of “TPLF remnants.” This narrative was widely accepted at first, further cementing the idea that the state was engaged in a just war.
Yet the truth became harder to deny as the massacres spread. The genocide against Amhara communities in Wollega Province—especially in the Horo Gudru district—expanded alarmingly soon after Abiy consolidated power in 2010 (EC). While the TPLF had already been militarily weakened in its own region of Tigray, the killings in Oromia continued unabated. Still, Abiy’s regime and its propaganda network insisted on shifting the blame elsewhere, claiming faceless actors, “unidentified groups,” or shadowy conspiracies were responsible. Each time evidence mounted against the government’s complicity, the narrative was changed to deflect accountability.
The pattern has become unmistakable: deny, deflect, and distort. The same propaganda machine that once promised unity and prosperity is now weaponized to excuse atrocities, rewrite the truth, and prolong Abiy’s grip on power. But the Ethiopian people are no longer blind. They have witnessed promises of reform turn into cycles of war, repression, and ethnic cleansing. They have seen how propaganda masks reality while blood is shed across Oromia, Amhara, and beyond.
What once appeared to be a government of hope has now revealed itself as a regime of deception and brutality. And no amount of propaganda—no matter how aggressively broadcast—can undo the fact that Abiy Ahmed’s government has failed its people, broken their trust, and presided over one of the darkest chapters in Ethiopia’s modern history.
The arrival of the Ethiopian New Year is not a season of hope, renewal, or prosperity. Instead, it marks yet another dark chapter in what has become one of the most tragic centuries in the nation’s history, much like the devastation and despair of the past year, 2017 (EC). For ordinary Ethiopians, the New Year offers no promise of peace or justice, only the continuation of violence, displacement, and state-engineered deception. Yet for Abiy Ahmed and his well-trained propaganda team, the New Year presents an opportunity to launch another round of staged campaigns designed to manipulate perception, mask reality, and create an illusion of progress.
The regime’s propaganda strategy appears to revolve around three carefully chosen areas:
The so-called “National Dialogue Commission.”
This so-called Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission (ENDC) is nothing more than a collection of handpicked loyalists, carefully presented as neutral actors but serving as instruments of Abiy Ahmed’s regime. Far from being a genuine platform for reconciliation, its primary function is to provide political cover for the government. Its activities even extend beyond Ethiopia’s borders into the diaspora, where commissioners are sent to undermine opposition voices and promote the illusion that the government is committed to dialogue and reform. In truth, the commission is a stage-managed show—designed not to heal the nation, but to buy time, manipulate perception, and silence legitimate demands for justice.
It is precisely for this reason that Ethiopians in the diaspora have mobilized against the ENDC. Their protests are not simply opposition for opposition’s sake; rather, they are grounded in well-documented findings from human rights organizations and comparative studies of transitional justice mechanisms worldwide. When measured against international standards, the ENDC fails on every meaningful criterion.
Unlike legitimate truth commissions—such as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission or Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission—the Ethiopian body lacks independence, transparency, and inclusivity. Those global precedents were created in the aftermath of mass atrocities, but with broad consultation, multi-stakeholder oversight, and leadership by figures who commanded public trust across political divides. They were empowered to investigate atrocities, examine historical injustices, and issue independent recommendations without government interference.
South Africa’s commission, for example, was established through an inclusive peace process. Its commissioners were widely respected public figures chosen in a transparent manner, not government loyalists. It examined decades of apartheid-era crimes, heard testimonies from victims and perpetrators alike, and was granted authority to make independent decisions. Crucially, no significant group—no matter how critical of the ruling powers—was automatically excluded from participation.
By contrast, the Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission operates under the shadow of a government credibly accused of committing genocide, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing. The ruling party not only established the commission but also controls its membership, scope, and agenda. Key groups that have been systematically excluded from government representation, particularly opposition parties and communities targeted by violence, are also deliberately excluded from the commission. This exclusion fundamentally undermines the legitimacy of the process, since reconciliation cannot be engineered by those who deny responsibility for atrocities while silencing the very voices of victims.
Thus, diaspora Ethiopians see through the façade. They recognize that the ENDC is not a bridge to peace, but a propaganda tool. Rather than bringing the country closer to truth, justice, and accountability, it risks cementing impunity and providing international cover for a regime desperate to protect itself from scrutiny.
- The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)
For Abiy Ahmed, the dam is more than a national project—it is a propaganda lifeline. Every anniversary, every milestone, and every photograph of the dam becomes an opportunity to polish his battered image. Just today, Monday, Pagume 3, the state media flooded the airwaves with coverage of the upcoming GERD celebration. One particularly staged photograph showed Abiy Ahmed shedding tears beside the dam, as if he were touched by patriotic emotion. But this was pure theater—especially from a man who has shown no sympathy when tens of thousands were slaughtered in Wollega and across Oromia, or when millions were displaced and left to rot in makeshift shelters. Abiy Ahmed weeps for cameras, not for his people.
There are many lines of debate and speculation about how an ethnocentric TPLF leader, such as Meles Zenawi, chose the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as his flagship project, presenting it to the world as a source of economic prosperity for Ethiopia. On the surface, the dam was celebrated as a unifying national project, one that could lift millions out of poverty and transform the country’s energy sector. Yet behind the rhetoric, the motivations were far more complicated and deeply entangled in the ethnic politics that have long defined Ethiopia’s modern state.
Meles Zenawi, who ruled Ethiopia for over two decades as the architect of the TPLF-dominated regime, is the same leader who willingly made Ethiopia a landlocked nation. By surrendering the vital port of Assab to the seceded Eritrea, he permanently deprived Ethiopia of direct sea access—a decision many Ethiopians still view as a historic betrayal. It is therefore contradictory to imagine that the same leader who stripped the country of its coastline was suddenly driven by selfless devotion to the collective prosperity of all Ethiopians.
When we examine the GERD more closely, it becomes evident that Meles Zenawi’s priority was not national development but the redrawing of Ethiopia’s internal map in favor of ethnic territorial ambitions. His long-standing vision of a “Greater Tigray” placed the dam within the sphere of TPLF’s strategic interests, ensuring that such a critical national resource would eventually strengthen Tigray’s dominance within Ethiopia. The GERD was thus not conceived as a purely Ethiopian project, but as a tool embedded in the ethnically driven statecraft of the TPLF.
Fast forward to Abiy Ahmed’s rule, and the pattern becomes strikingly familiar. Like Meles, Abiy uses the dam as a propaganda weapon—not as a genuine national development project, but as a political tool to consolidate power and bolster his image. While the GERD continues to be paraded as a symbol of progress, the reality on the ground tells a darker story.
The genocidal violence that has unfolded over the past four years in Metekel—targeting the Amhara, Agew, and Gumuz populations—cannot be separated from the struggle over the dam’s strategic location. These atrocities are not random acts of violence; they are part of a deliberate campaign to depopulate and “re-map” the region, carving it into Oromia’s orbit of control. Just as Meles envisioned the dam within the territorial aspirations of Tigray, Abiy Ahmed and his Oromo-centered regime view the dam through the lens of their own ethnic expansionism.
In both cases, the dam is less about electricity and development for the Ethiopian people, and more about ethnic elites carving out long-term control over one of the country’s most valuable assets. Ethiopians were told that GERD would unite the nation under a shared vision of prosperity, but in truth, it has become another battleground in the ethicized politics that are tearing the country apart.
The contrast could not be clearer: what should have been a symbol of Ethiopian unity and collective progress has been repeatedly weaponized as an instrument of division, control, and ethnic dominance—first under Meles Zenawi’s TPLF and now under Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party.
The 2018 (EC) Election
The upcoming election is perhaps the most fertile ground for propaganda. The regime and its media operatives are already framing it as a democratic exercise, despite years of silencing opposition parties, jailing dissenters, and ruling through fear and violence. State media will present Abiy’s government as the only path toward stability, while ignoring the bloodshed and ethnic cleansing that have become the true legacy of his administration.
These propaganda tools are not simply harmless distractions. They are designed to overshadow the stories that truly matter. For example, while the historic unity of the Amhara Fano into one organizational structure should have been the most significant national development of recent weeks, the regime instead bombarded the public with endless coverage of the so-called “Dialogue Commission” activities in Washington, D.C., and Toronto. By drowning out real news with manufactured spectacles, Abiy Ahmed’s propaganda machine works to suffocate truth itself.
But no number of staged tears or grand celebrations can erase the atrocities. This is the same prime minister who, when asked why he was planting trees on a day when 2,000 people were massacred, coldly responded: “The trees I plant today will provide shade for their graves.” That chilling remark revealed the depth of his indifference to human suffering. He showed no remorse when millions were killed in Tigray, no compassion when Amhara communities were displaced en masse from Oromia, and no humanity as countless Ethiopians languish in tents in Debre Birhan. These are not accidents of policy; they are the direct outcomes of his government’s deliberate ethnic engineering and displacement campaigns.
The propaganda campaigns may offer temporary comfort to Abiy Ahmed’s cadres, but they cannot alter reality. Ethiopians see and know the truth: the New Year does not bring promise under this regime, only further betrayal. The manufactured tears, the staged commissions, and the manipulated symbols of progress are merely the last desperate tools of a government facing inevitable downfall.