The Amhara: A People Without Leaders ?

Tesfa ZeMichael

The Tigrayans have Debretsion Gebremichael, Tsadqan Gebretensae, and other official leaders dedicated to what they think is the cause of Tigrayans. The Oromo have Abiy Ahmad, Shimelis Abdissa, and other official leaders dedicated to what they consider the cause of the Oromos.

Are there Amhara official leaders as dedicated to the cause of the Amhara as are the Tigrayan and Oromo official leaders to their causes? The answer is: No. Does anybody believe that Arega Kebede, the current President of Amhara, can hold a candle to Debretsion Gebremichael or Shimelis Abdissa? No more than the previous one. The official Amhara leaders are the puppets of Abiy Ahmed and Shimelis Abdissa. They execute their orders to arrest,  imprison, and kill Amharas who defend their right of existence.

The Amhara are integral to Ethiopian history. They embraced and were embraced by Oromos, Tigrayans, Somalis, Garages, Sidamas, Afars, the Anuak, Walayitas, and all the other peoples of Ethiopia for hundreds of years. Together, they built a country that for centuries stood up to European intrigues to subjugate Ethiopia.

Now, an internal enemy calling itself the Prosperity Party confronts the people of Ethiopia. It is more insidious and more destructive than all the extremal enemies Ethiopians have confronted in the course of their history. To meet its ends, the Prosperity Party is trying to instigate an Amhara-Oromo conflict by cancelling their common Ethiopian history and cultural heritage.

Amharas and Oromos have the blood and cultures of the diverse peoples of Ethiopia flowing in their veins. There is no such thing as ethnic purity among the Oromo and the Amhara. Only if one suffers from a historical Alzheimer disease that erases from one’s brain the rich intertwined strands of Ethiopian history and cultures could one reduce Ethiopian history to a tattered, one dimensional story and fantasize about Amhara or Oromo ethnic purity. Historical Alzheimer is a disease that afflicts the Prosperity Party leaders.

Fraternal differences, yes, but there are no inherent conflicts between the Amhara and the Oromo. The conflicts in various kilils are the result of  the machinations of the power-hungry and corrupt elites of the Prosperity Party. Those who think that the present conflict is between the Amhara and the Oromo suffer, like the leaders of the Prosperity Party, from historical Alzheimer. Worse still, they are parroting and reinforcing the Prosperity Party leaders’ lies that the conflict is between the Amhara and the Oromo.

The Amhara need leaders dedicated to the survival and freedom of the Amhara to defeat the Prosperity Pary leaders’ designs to subjugate the Amhara, foment ethnic wars and religious conflicts, and disintegrate Ethiopia. Currently, the Amhara people, organized as Fano, are defending their rights. But the Amhara also need leaders capable of converting Fano’s military victories into a political victory and a triumph for freedom.

However, the Amhara cannot be free without all Ethiopians becoming free. A united and strong Amhara leadership, committed  to the principle that “the Amhara cannot be free without all Ethiopians becoming free,” could become a catalyst for the emergence of a pan-Ethiopian unity against the homicidal ethnic politics of the Prosperity Party.

If such a unity is forged, it will be the end of the political evil that calls itself the Prosperity Party, and the beginning of the deliverance of Ethiopians from the nightmare of ethnic hatred and the inferno of ethnic cleansing.

Could the Diaspora contribute to this task of unity rather than propagate the Prosperity Party’s wicked fabrication that the current conflict is between the Amhara and the Oromo?