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Genocide Prevention in Ethiopia (GPE)
June 7, 2022
State Organized Crimes such as Assassinations, Abductions, Kidnappings, and Torture have intensified in Ethiopia, the so-called Amhara region is under siege by the Oromo Special Command Force!!
Background
This is the darkest time in Ethiopia’s history whereby government officials openly broadcasted divisive, hateful and genocidal rhetoric against selected ethnic groups without any consequence. The effect of this divisive narrative supported by officials in the ruling party had reflected directly in the severity and frequency of the ethnic based attacks against Amharas all over Ethiopia. Currently, while the coordinated killings and targeting of Amhara people by both state and non-state actors is still ongoing, the Federal and the Amhara Regional State Governments have opened a new front on ethnic Amharas by sanctioning a military operation in Amhara region. The government is currently assassinating, massacring, harassing, imprisoning, abducting, and kidnapping ethnic Amharas across the country.
Even political critics of different ethnic groups and independent media outlets owners, journalists, social media activists, and university professors who are raising concerns about the ongoing attacks against ethnic Amharas and individuals with different political views to the regime are facing some threatening situation in Ethiopia. Especially, those Fanos1 who were fighting face to face with Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF’s) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF’s), since they declared war on November 2020, are targeted for assassination and are being kidnapped by The Oromo Special Commando Forces illegally deployed in Amhara Region to silence the Amhara People. Ethiopians of all walks of life who are characterized as opponents to the current ethno- fascist regime are abducted in shopping malls, airport terminals, at their workplaces, university camps, and at their houses at night.
Information that is floating in digital rooms run by think tanks that cover Ethiopian issues claim that even during the November 3-4, 2020 TPLF’s attacks of the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) of the North Command (NC) that was posted in Tigray, an active profiling was done to eliminate, high ranking military officers of ethnic Amhara background within the NC.
Since the self-labelled reformed EPRDF took power in Ethiopia under the leadership of PM Abiy Ahmed there were a series of assassinations that either were not investigated at all or were given insufficient explanation by the Ministry of Justice. Such assassinations include the chief project manager of Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), civil engineer Simegnew Bekele, that was assassinated on 26th July 2018 in broad daylight at Meskel Square, Addis Ababa. The June
1 Fano is an independently organized public force that are made up of civilians across many professions who respond to collectively protect the rights of the people whenever called upon. https://journals.scholarpublishing.org/index.php/ASSRJ/article/view/11537
22, 2019 assassinations of the Amhara regional leaders such as Dr. Ambachew and prominent Amhara military officers such as General Asaminew Tsige and hundreds of the Amhara Special Force members were also never sufficiently disclosed to the public. There was also no explanation for the death of the police commissioner of the Amhara regional state Abere Adamu who was poisoned on 4th May 2021 after he had demanded on national TV that the massacres and human suffering in Metekel should be stopped either by the intervention of federal government or by the Amhara regional government since no meaningful effort has been done to contain the extremely horrific ethnic based massacres that are being undertaken against Amharas and Agews in Metekel Zone of the so-called Benishangul-Gumuz Region!!
At different times GPE and many Ethiopian scholars had demanded and continued demanding that the PM Abiy’s government allow a UN, AU and domestic based independent investigation for all these assassinations including the unabated genocide, looting, and suffering of ethnic Amharas in all of the so-called Oromo regional State towns, villages, and rural areas to primarily stop the horrific ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing and eventually bring the perpetrators to justice.
Current Situation
Currently more than fifty thousand (50k) of Oromo Commandos and Special Forces with Amhara Special Force uniform are deploying in the so-called Amhara regional state to kill, abduct, kidnap, and undertake all possible military operations to disarm and subdue the Amhara people so that PM Abiy Ahmed continues implementing TPLF’s and OLF’s ethnic apartheid regime in Ethiopia, this time with a typical full turn to Fascism. Despite the baseless accusations both federal and regional governments are levelling against Fano, the reality that can be easily confirmed from the hundreds of state broadcasted propaganda is that as TPLF reached to the outskirts of Addis Ababa and threatened the power of the central government, both the Federal and Amhara Regional governments had jointly informed the public that “as TPLF uses wave of mass mobilization the regular national army couldn’t overcome the war on its own” and beseeched Amharas to join the ENDF and other regional forces through national TV and Radio stations with a call-to-arms similar to the typical and historical tradition of “Kitet” in which ordinary citizens show up with no questions asked with their own logistics and arms to protect their nation, this very unique culture is called Fanoism in Ethiopia and the volunteers that join the call-to-arms this way are called Fanos!
Fano honoured their end of the bargain by showing up at the fronts where TPLF was ravaging civilians through mass murder, massacres, rape, looting, and destruction! In some instances, regular Federal and Regional forces have abandoned towns and villages full of terrorized civilians and retreated in the face of TPLF invasion, while Fanos remained until the end and protected the people. The people have shown their support for Fano by going out in droves to protect them when the federal government tried to eliminate some Fano units in their various camps where they were getting ready to defend their people from yet the third round of invasion promised by the TPLF.
All Ethiopians, and especially Amharas who have been up close and personal while Fanos protected them from the ethno-fascist forces of TPLF and OLF, are questioning why both the federal and regional governments in Ethiopia are persecuting Fano and destabilize the region at this very critical farming season, and why they are dis-informing the international community as if Fanos are the ones abducting and terrorising people. The people of Ethiopia know the repressive behaviour of the EPRDF government, and the tactics displayed by the Prosperity government is typical to how the tyrannical EPRDF government handled dissent. What make the current situation worse is actually that the current government even abducts children, wives or any close relative when they could not find people they marked as persons of interest. This led to the holding hostage of even a 3 year old baby in lieu of his father. This is a repeated practice during this wave of detention and abductions and wide use of torture and coercion on both primary targets and family members who are detained as a replacement has been reported.
5,829 Amharas and their advocates have been detained (figure accurate as at May 26, 2022) ever since this campaign started in mid-May, 2022 and we are getting reports that more are being abducted daily. The Amhara Association in America (AAA) has published names and other details of detention of 98 victims of this state violence [Ref #2, page 2], and GPE has received information that torture, coercion and harassment is widely undertaken on the detainees. We have information that 38 people were killed during this state led terror operation, the figure covers only those that occurred in urban and semi-urban areas. There were reports of use of air support in some rural areas where the government was allegedly using extreme force against unarmed farmers in East and West Gojam Zones of Amhara Region. Coordinated attacks by joint forcesin rural areas were also carried out in North & South Wollo as well as Central and South Gonder Zones of the Region. Additionally, a large contingent of Oromo Regional Forces were reported to be deployed in North Shoa Zone of the Amhara Region.
The current ongoing attacks are so brutal and severe that it triggered a Global #IAMFANO movement by ethnic Amharas and other concerned Ethiopians in the diaspora, the global movement itself took up the image of the 3 year old who was detained in place of his father as a symbol to remind the world that it is innocent people that are suffering due to the current state campaign against Amharas.
As we write this letter 75k ethnic Amharas are under siege in Wollega alone. Besides, Metekel, another forcibly annexed zone that would have fulfilled the criteria to be under Amhara Region based on the ethnolinguistic guidelines that were used to form Ethiopia’s ethnic administrative units, is another death camp of ethnic Amhara since 1991. Metekel now has heavy presence of OLF and Oromo Special Forces as part of the plan of marginalizing the Amhara people numerically, politically, and economically. Dera is also another district that was moved to Oromia Region in the name of administrative convenience, however ever since the move, the overwhelming Amhara majority residents have been, killed, jailed, harassed, their children kidnapped and also forced to leave the district without their belongings. Another area, where the government has indicated its desire to continue the discrimination of Amharas is in Wolkait, by withholding budget ever since it was liberated from TPLF. Parts of Telemt, Raya & Wag Hemra
were also still under TPLF occupation when the government declared unilateral ceasefire, reports are now confirming that TPLF is starving the people in the areas where it is currently occupying. Furthermore, TPLF is threatening to invade the region again. Therefore, the current tactics of the regime waging war against Fano is to leave Amhara people without protection as well as paint an equivalent for the extremely horrific inhumane crimes that OLF and their collaborators both in and outside the government undertake in all regions they operate by painting Fano as an outlaw group.
GPE kept on sending out various warnings and reminders to all who are concerned about humanity, from the outset that the current regime isn’t only a threat to ethnic Amharas but to minorities such as the Afar, the Anuak, the Sidama, the Gedeo, the Koore, the Wolaitas, the Konsos, the Gamos, the Zays and many more that are under siege by the OLF/A which is supported and armed by the Oromo regional government. The attack on Amharas is not limited to perpetrators that hail from TPLF, OLF/A, or the Oromo Regional Government. Elements in the Federal and the Amhara Regional Governments are also working together to enforce the currently ongoing state-led terrorism in the Amhara Regional State. The Amhara Regional security apparatus under the direction of Amhara Regional State officials are fully involved in facilitating and assisting the current operation of hunting down, killing, abducting, and torturing Amhara Fanos, Scholars, and Journalists by the invading Oromo Regional Forces2.
The international community is extremely silent about the current wave of human rights violations, abducting, kidnapping, torture & mass murder as well as the ongoing genocide against ethnic Amharas. Therefore, we urge the International Community to expose the genocidal nature of these mass arrests, abductions, torture and unexplained detention of Amharas before the long- feared Amhara extermination event is enacted by the radical forces in Ethiopia that are joined in their genocidal plan for Amharas. This state-led terrorism is being carried out in the Amhara Region at a time when TPLF is threatening to start their third-round invasion into Amhara and Afar regions. The series of negotiations that are being undertaken by the regime and TPLF without disclosing any information to the terrorised public is building extreme anxiety in Amhara & Afar communities that had carried the brunt of the horrific TPLF invasion since June 2021.
The humanitarian situation in Ethiopia and specially in Amhara and Afar regions have devolved in an extremely alarming manner where Afar Regional State disclosed that over 900 thousand Afaris are displaced that is close to a third of the entire population of the region. In Amhara region, the displaced population has reached a monumental 11 Million people, making the region an area where all kinds of extreme human suffering are reported from! With all this in the background, extreme and radical forces that are motivated by hate and financial gain from foreign and domestic actors are congregating to carry out what we have been warning the world for far so long, an extermination event where Amharas are killed en masse from every corner of the nation. Let us spare our conscious and the world another Never Again justification! Investigate the data, reports and testimonies that are brought forward by multiple Amhara rights groups, Pan Ethiopian Rights groups, International Human Rights Groups, and even reports from the state commissioned
human rights institution, The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, the burden of proof is complete and presented before your eyes. We implore humanity to stop this genocide against Amharas in its tracks! Based on data we receive from all corners of Ethiopia, we are convinced that Amharas will not be the only targets, hallmarks of genocide is being seen across many communities in the multi ethnic nation Ethiopia. The ethno-fascist regime has taken silencing opposition swiftly as a major way of silencing the voices that are forewarning mass extermination events, it is the obligation of every human to stop such heinous act from becoming part of the history of humanity again!
Background reading
- GPE. Ongoing Genocide Against Amharas in Ethiopia. Report No.: GPE_001. December 29, 2020.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18ARbXcf4ioEWTnpB-lz01Rmc2pZ2_OLQ/view?usp=sharing - Berhanu, Girma. Fano: A living saviour of the Amhara people And the Ethiopian spirit. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal. Vol. 9 No. 1 2022. https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.91.11537
- AAA. Report on Prosperity Party’s mass arrest campaign and use of lethal force against peaceful protesters by security forces in May 2022. Report. May 2022. https://www.amharaamerica.org/_files/ugd/e494ca_2b63fef35a04485780f0168a2beb9c49.pdf
- AAA. Neglected Massacres Against Amharas; Compendium of AAA’s 2021 Reports on Human Rights Violations against Amharas. Report. May 2022. https://www.amharaamerica.org/_files/ugd/e494ca_0403f104b0584c18b351291d33cfea45.pdf
- Reuters. Ethiopia arrests 4,000 in Amhara region crackdown, local state media report. May 23, 2022.
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ethiopia-arrests-4000-amhara-region-crackdown-local-state- media-report-2022-05-23/
6 Anadolu Agency. Thousands arrested in Ethiopia’s Amhara region crackdown. May 24, 2022 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/thousands-arrested-in-ethiopia-s-amhara-region-crackdown/2596741
7 Emerald Insight. Ethiopia’s Amhara crackdown is calculated but risky. Expert Briefings. May 30, 2022. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/OXAN-DB270545/full/html - Associated Press. Ethiopia launches crackdown on journalists and activists. News Article. May 23, 2022. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ethiopia-launches-crackdown-journalists- activists-84905798
- APU. Response to HRW, AI and CG. Letter. May 3, 2022. https://www.ambapu.org/node/54
- Amnesty International. Ethiopia: Survivors of TPLF attack in Amhara describe gang rape, looting and physical assaults. Report. November 9, 2021. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/11/ethiopia-survivors-of-tplf-attack-in-amhara- describe-gang-rape-looting-and-physical-assaults/
- Willy Fautre. Ethiopia: In the shadow of the elections, Amharas are massacred in silence. The European Times. June 21, 2021. https://www.europeantimes.news/2021/06/ethiopia-in-the-shadow-of- the-elections-amharas-are-massacred-in-silence/
GPE
Genocide Prevention In Ethiopia (GPE) Inc. is a legally registered entity that is established in response to a series of very alarming events involving slaughtering of innocents en masse and ethnic cleansing across Ethiopia. The founding members of GPE comprise of Ethiopians and Ethiopian origins who are residing in different parts of the world who came together due to the Sunday September 16 – 18, 2018 massacre carried out by the “Qeerroo” Oromo Extremists youth group and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) who have murdered thousands of non-Oromo speaking men, women, and children (of different ethnic groups such as: Dorzes, Gamos, Wolayitas, Gurages, Silt’e, Amharas and other minorities) in the suburbs of Addis Ababa – majority of them in towns of Keta, Burayu, Asko, and Ashewa Meda.
Our Mission
Genocide Prevention in Ethiopia (GPE) works with humanitarian organizations, nations, and concerned citizens of the world to stop the ongoing Amhara genocide and other ethnic based atrocities in Ethiopia, and ultimately to end the barbaric ethnic system which is Balkanizing Ethiopia.
Our Vision
Restoring Ethiopia as a civil nation in which every citizen can live, contribute and retire at a location of their choosing without fear of being suddenly attacked, displaced, abused or killed due to their identity.
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