Bruke Lemma, PhD
“Dictatorships are never as strong as they think they are, and the people are never as weak as they think they are.” – Gene Sharp
“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” – Dante Alighieri
If there are two words that aptly describe and characterize Abiy Ahmed’s regime over the last five years, those words would undoubtedly be ‘incompetent’ and ‘violent.’ However, to label Abiy Ahmed as merely incompetent would be a gross understatement – it hardly does justice to the breathtaking extent of his regime’s inadequacies.
When it comes to violence, Abiy Ahmed and his fellow ethno-extremists have orchestrated and unleashed a level of brutality and cruelty upon the Amhara people in the Oromo region that transcends mere inhumanity – their actions were nothing short of barbaric.
In the articles I have written, I have repeatedly emphasized the fact that there is no substantial distinction between Abiy Ahmed’s government and the so-called ‘rebels’ operating in the Oromo region, such as the OLF and OLA, who have and continue to perpetuate widespread violence against the Amhara people living in the Oromo region.
These ‘rebels,’ particularly the OLA, have been and continue to be utilized by Abiy Ahmed’s government and the regional administration of Oromo region as instruments to further their campaign of violence and ethnic cleansing of the Amhara people from the Oromo region, which is now very much a part of both Abiy Ahmed’s government and Oromo region strategies. The evidence overwhelmingly supports these claims.
The so-called ‘rebels, who operate almost openly and continue to receive both overt and covert support from the federal government of Abiy Ahmed and the regional administration of Oromo region, commit heinous acts that include cannibalism, along with unspeakable atrocities like the gruesome slaughter of men, women, and children.
They have even resorted to the horrific act of cutting open the bellies of pregnant women, killing both mother and child. Furthermore, these atrocities have escalated and become even more gruesome, placing the Amhara people in the region under constant threat with no one to turn to for support and protection, as the authorities themselves are enabling, encouraging, and supporting those who commit these horrific acts.
Here is how it works: the ‘rebels’ come to harass and rob the Amhara communities in various parts of the Oromo region, and these communities try to defend themselves with whatever they could muster, including some old guns, stones, and sticks. The rebels then retreat.
Subsequently, the federal army and the Oromo regional special forces arrive on the scene and confiscate everything that these communities used for defending themselves, further roughing them up, unsettling them, and accusing them of made-up crimes before leaving.
Afterward, following in their footsteps, the so-called ‘rebels’ return with confidence to finish the job they started, carrying out gruesome killings of women and children, looting and burning everything, and setting their houses ablaze. This has been the modus operandi of Abiy Ahmed’s government and the Oromo regional administration for almost the last five years now.
Thus, for nearly five years, three well-equipped and well-resourced forces—the federal army, the Oromo regional forces, and the so-called rebel groups (OLF and OLA)—have relentlessly targeted impoverished Amhara farmers struggling to make a living, subjecting them to robbery, murder, displacement, and extreme violence.
Recently, certain Oromo ethno-extremists have taken to labelling these impoverished farmers, who are fighting for their survival, as Fanos – inventing additional reasons for their targeting. This branding is despite the fact that the Fanos exclusively operate in the Amhara region and have no presence in the Oromo region, at least not yet. But more on that later.
In all of these horrors and grotesque displays, what is truly astonishing is the inhumanity, shamelessness, and audacious ignorance and monstrosity of the Oromo ethno-extremists. These pseudo-intellectuals are not just embarrassing; they are an affront to humanity itself. They brazenly attempt to justify the atrocities occurring in the Oromo region instead of expressing shame, disavowing these actions, and advocating for justice and more.
One of these abhorrent pseudo-intellectuals, Jawar Mohamed, well-known for his notorious agitation against the Amhara people and his direct or indirect advocacy for gruesome killings, displacement, ethnic cleansing, and more, is a figure from whose words one can draw a direct line to the ongoing gruesome atrocities against the Amhara people. Astonishingly, he recently emerged in opposition to Abiy Ahmed’s government, and unbelievably, some applauded.
What? Jawar Mohamed is not merely a criminal; he embodies the very essence of criminality itself! There is absolutely nothing to applaud about him, not even reluctantly.
He, along with Abiy Ahmed, Shimeles Abdissa, OLF, OLA, and other extremists, shares the responsibility for the ongoing horrors, the persecution, and the mass murders of the Amhara people. When has he ever expressed remorse for his part in these atrocities? Thanks to people like him, for the past five years in the Oromo region, countless Amhara people have lost their lives and livelihoods. There is absolutely no reason to applaud monsters like him.
Jawar Mohamed, Bekele Gerba and the other ethno-extremists must be held criminally responsible for their actions in the Oromo region and prosecuted in a competent court. It is possible to initiate legal action in some countries, including the US, against those responsible for crimes against humanity, and Jawar Mohamed and Bekele Gerba, currently in the US, clearly fall into this category.
It appears that they were competing to outdo each other in extremism, with Abiy Ahmed attempting to outpace them by allowing and facilitating extreme crimes in the Oromo region against the Amhara people through OLF and OLA, with support and assistance from the federal army and Oromo special forces.
This same line of thinking is highly likely to be partly responsible for Abiy Ahmed declaring total war on the Amhara people, invading the region using the entire national army, and extending the horrific persecutions that also continue to be inflicted upon them in the Oromo region at the same time.
In any case, for more than five months now, Abiy Ahmed and his army have relentlessly pursued a brutal and merciless campaign against the Amhara people in their own region. This campaign is characterized by widespread mass murders facilitated by drones, jet strikes, heavy weaponry, and the deliberate and systematic destruction of critical infrastructure, including schools and hospitals. Thus, an all-out, extremely murderous and bloody assault is being waged against a population that has endured decades of oppression under Abiy Ahmed and his predecessors, the TPLF.
Interestingly, before entering the Amhara region, Abiy Ahmed attempted to employ a version of the modus operandi that he and the regional administrator, Shimeles Abdissa, used in the Oromo region. This involved confiscating the weapons that the Amhara people might be able to use to defend themselves, doing so in the name of law and order, and then subjecting them to lawlessness by government-supported ethno-extremist groups, the OLF and the OLA, all with the aim of ethnically cleansing them from the Oromo region.
Operating in the Amhara region, Abiy Ahmed’s objective was not only to displace the Amhara people but also to seize some of their territories and integrate them into the Oromo region, effectively ethnically cleansing them even from their own region. This objective also included subduing the Amhara people completely and ensuring they posed no threat at all to his power, regardless of how badly he continued to treat them – essentially, it was a pre-emptive strike.
Abiy Ahmed’s overall plan closely mirrored that of the TPLF regime that preceded him, whose hostility towards the Amhara people was also driven by the group’s aspiration to acquire and incorporate Amhara territories into the TPLF-administered Tigray region, their ethnic enclave.
The TPLF had forcibly seized Amhara territories when it came to power but lived in perpetual fear of being compelled to return them, also by force, especially after losing power, and that fear ultimately became a reality. Consequently, TPLF’s ethnic enclave has significantly shrunk in size, leaving them highly distraught and desperate. They have appealed to foreign powers, engaged in bribery, and disseminated lies and disinformation in their relentless efforts to reclaim these territories. To date, all of their attempts have proven futile.
They have even offered their expertise in battlefield techniques, particularly in a tactic known as ‘the wave,’ for Abiy Ahmed to use in his current war against the Amharas, on the condition that he assists them in regaining the territories the Amharas reclaimed from them. The technique they are proposing to Abiy Ahmed essentially involves sending a substantial number of soldiers directly into the enemy’s line of fire. It’s worth noting that this is the same military tactic that led to the deaths of over a million young Tigrayans, many of them underage, when the TPLF employed it during its recent conflict against Abiy Ahmed and the Amhara region.
It is unclear whether Abiy Ahmed has employed this technique thus far, although he appears very eager to learn from them. There have been reports of some TPLF high-ranking military officials and fighters being integrated into his army, providing them with an opportunity to assist Abiy Ahmed in sending a significant number of Oromo youth directly into the line of fire of the Amhara Fanos. Nevertheless, TPLF’s endeavours to regain control of the coveted territories have thus far yielded no success, but the situation remains fluid.
It is highly unlikely that a group like the TPLF, which is not well known for its formidable intelligence, would be of much help to Abiy Ahmed. However, while it might be a case of ‘dumber and dumber,’ still the same, they are slightly more intelligent than Abiy Ahmed, who is widely regarded as extremely lacking in that regard. It’s fair to say that there are few people in the world who are not more intelligent than Abiy Ahmed, even among the deceased.
Despite deploying the entire nation’s army and nearly all available resources, Abiy Ahmed and his forces have achieved little more than killing innocent civilians and destroying infrastructure in the more than five months they have been in the Amhara region. They have been ineffective against armed opponents, the Amhara Fanos, and have only found success against soft targets.
As a result, Abiy Ahmed’s army has conducted drone strikes, launched relentless attacks on unarmed civilians with heavy weapons, indiscriminately targeting buildings and the people within them, and committed horrifying summary executions of farmers, the elderly, and even youths as young as twelve.
These are just some of the horrors that have unfolded and continue to unfold in the Amhara region as Abiy Ahmed unleashed the entire national armed forces on the region. However, despite all of this and more, he and his army have failed to break the indomitable spirit of the Amhara people. The Fano forces that have been fighting against Abiy Ahmed’s ethno-centric mercenary army remain strong, actually, they have become even stronger, well organised and coordinated and more, and the Amhara people are now more united and determined than ever.
In response to this defeat, Abiy Ahmed and his army have initiated a new undeclared total war on top of the now failed existing total war that has been going on for more than five months. To conduct this new campaign, they have taken extreme measures, including shutting down phone lines, the internet, electricity and water supply, banking, and all services, all in an attempt to conceal their massive crimes against humanity from the rest of Ethiopians and the world.
It is virtually certain that the new campaign will fail, just as the original campaign has already done. Even if they manage to capture isolated mid and low-level leaders sporadically and gain control of small towns, all of these accomplishments would be inconsequential considering the immense effort, material, manpower, and resources they are pouring into it. Furthermore, they would be incapable of sustaining the current campaign for any significant duration, not even for the six days they have set out to do.
It is nearly impossible to defeat a determined, united population of 40 or 50 million people, even for a much wealthier country with abundant resources. Ethiopia, on the other hand, is one of the poorest countries in the world, struggling to provide even the most basic services to its citizens. However, in Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia now has a deranged heartless leader who doesn’t even care. Whether that is due to his malignant narcissism or his adherence to the prosperity gospel is not clear, though the exact reason may not matter much – but more on that later.
Here, the campaign in the Amhara region quite possibly marks the beginning of the end for Abiy Ahmed and his perverse ideology, Oromuma – the region is highly likely to be Armageddon for both of them! Abiy Ahmed delusions blinded him to the proud history of the Amhara people, known for their resilience, fighting spirit, and bravery.
He initially marched into the region with hubris, claiming he would disarm them all within two weeks. It has been more than five months now, and no such disarmament has occurred. Instead,
Abiy Ahmed has launched an intense six-day desperate campaign, trying to achieve in six days what he failed to do in over five months, magic!
It is abundantly clear that for the Amhara people, this fight is existential, with victory as their sole option. Defeat would spell the end of their existence as a people, and they are acutely aware of this fact. Therefore, they are fighting with unwavering determination, giving it their all in the face of adversity.
The Amhara people have displayed remarkable resilience, with their Fano forces achieving significant victories against Abiy Ahmed’s forces. Unable to match the heroism of the Fano, Abiy Ahmed’s forces have resorted to relentless attacks on unarmed civilians and critical infrastructure, causing unimaginable suffering.
However, for the psychopathic Abiy Ahmed and his cruel mercenary army, these atrocities may indeed be music to their ears. But when this conflict eventually comes to an end, and even before that, it is imperative that the world ensures these criminals face justice, whether before the International Criminal Court (ICC) or in any other appropriate forum.
In particular, I have authored several articles in which I argue that Abiy Ahmed exhibits extreme psychopathic traits, characterized by a triad personality, and an insatiable addiction to mayhem, murder, destruction, and more. However, some contend that Abiy Ahmed’s cruelty, callousness, indifference to the suffering of the poor, and his involvement in these atrocities, both in the Amhara region and earlier in the Oromo region, stem from his adherence to the prosperity gospel.
This religious belief system prioritizes the acquisition of wealth and material well-being while unfairly placing blame on the poor for their hardships, implying that they deserve their suffering. It is obvious that this interpretation represents a complete distortion of Christianity, as there is nothing within Christian teachings that endorses or advocates such mistreatment of the poor, among other things.
It’s evident that Abiy Ahmed found in this distorted religion a justification for the psychopathy that was already residing within him. If we consider what came first and what followed, it’s clear that his psychopathic tendencies predated his belief in the prosperity gospel, and he adopted it as a means to validate what was already within him. A person doesn’t suddenly decide one day to cheat, steal from the poor, and disdain them, which is essentially what the prosperity gospel promotes, unless these tendencies have always been a part of their character.
In this context, Abiy Ahmed’s attitude serves as a testament to his longstanding disregard for the suffering of the less fortunate, a mindset that he now uses to rationalize the mass murders and widespread destruction that he and his army continue to inflict not only in the Amhara region but all over the country. In essence, it has always been a part of him. To put it differently, while the religion itself may be twisted and perverse, it takes a heart equally twisted and perverse to embrace such beliefs and use them to justify the violent acts that Abiy Ahmed and his army continue to perpetuate almost everywhere in the country.
In practical terms, it doesn’t significantly matter what drives Abiy Ahmed’s perversity, whether it’s an inherent aspect of his personality, his psychopathy or Triade personality, or his adherence to the prosperity gospel that fuels his addiction to mass murder, chaos, and destruction, sowing turmoil across the country—defining features of his rule throughout. The fact remains that 11111111111111111111111111111111since assuming power about five years ago, the nation has not experienced even a single day of peace under his leadership; it’s been one crisis after another.
It is also a prominent feature of Abiy Ahmed’s personality to continually engage in and exhibit an extreme propensity for lying and dishonesty. He habitually lies and attempts to deceive everyone about virtually everything, even on matters that people are well aware of the truth. Additionally, he is a notorious plagiarist who shamelessly copies speeches from others, often word for word. His purported qualifications have now been exposed as largely borrowed from the work of others, with almost zero originality.
These aspects of his character are significant because numerous calls have been made for Abiy Ahmed to cease the violence that he and his army have been perpetuating in the Amhara region and to engage in negotiations with the Fanos, who have been battling his army for more than five months now. However, aside from making some vague remarks about dialogues and such, he doesn’t appear to be genuinely interested in negotiations.
This lack of interest may be attributed, among other things, to his extreme narcissism, which results in a distorted appreciation of reality and an unwarranted overconfidence in his ability to achieve victory through force. However, even if he were interested, a fundamental question arises: how can anyone negotiate with someone who consistently lies and betrays everyone?
Indeed, this presents a significant challenge for the Amhara people and their Fanos, who yearn for peace but are understandably unwilling to sit across the table from a heartless madman and pathological liar. They rightfully fear that such negotiations would only expose them to further violence and destruction, and it’s difficult to blame them for their reluctance.
Therefore, any discussions with Abiy Ahmed must involve a credible and independent third party that facilitates and guarantees the process. As a crucial first step towards meaningful negotiations, the national army must unconditionally withdraw from the Amhara region. Only then can the Fanos consider sitting down with Abiy Ahmed and initiating a negotiation.
It must be emphasized here, however, that the primary objective of the initial negotiation should be the removal of Abiy Ahmed, as there cannot be a viable solution that includes him in any leadership position in Ethiopia’s future. His departure and replacement with a credible representative transitional government are, therefore, highly imperative.
In light of Abiy Ahmed’s history, characterized by his toxic and highly immature personality, as well as his extensive criminality, which includes war crimes and crimes against humanity, there is no doubt that his departure and the establishment of a transitional federal government and an Amhara regional government are the only viable and realistic solutions.
To do otherwise would be to accept the continuation of the ongoing bloodshed and chaos in this critical region of the world.
Importantly, Abiy Ahmed must be forcefully compelled to immediately halt the carnage in the Amhara region, which he and his army have been perpetuating and have intensified recently. Over the course of more than five months, they have used drones, plane strikes, and heavy weapons to relentlessly attack unarmed civilians.
They have now escalated their atrocities by cutting off essential services such as internet, phone, electricity, and water, effectively hiding their actions from the eyes of the world. In addition, through various disruptive tactics, including the newly enacted disruption of water and electricity, along with continued harassment of Amhara farmers, including mass murders and imprisonments, they are attempting to starve the Amhara population into submission. These actions have already led to a dire humanitarian crisis, with people dying of hunger in some areas, and even animals perishing due to drought in certain parts of the Amhara region.
We urgently appeal to all nations that uphold the values of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, as well as basic human decency, to respond urgently and decisively to this escalating catastrophe. While many of these nations including the US have expressed their concerns about the situation, it is imperative that they take strong and immediate actions to put an end to this humanitarian crisis and hold those responsible accountable for their crimes.
Specifically, the United States, with its advanced technological capabilities, has the means to prevent Abiy Ahmed from continuing to use drones and jet strikes to harm civilians. It is not only a moral imperative but also a responsible course of action for them to urgently declare a no-fly zone in the Amhara region.
History will harshly judge those who stand idly by while innocent civilians, including women and children, are slaughtered by a madman who is raining down bombs on them in a futile attempt to quell their hunger for freedom and basic democratic rights.
It is beyond Abiy Ahmed’s or anyone’s ability to suppress the Amhara people’s pursuit of these rights, no matter how many atrocities anyone commits. The international community must respond to their pleas with urgency and resolve to protect the Amhara people of Ethiopia.
