OROMUMMAA's Ideology and Savagery Explained: Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolome
Posted: 29 Jun 2025, 03:53
by Wedi
Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolome
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OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት
Koki Abesolome
During the Emperor Haile Selassie era (an era that Oromo elites and laymen alike lament to be an Amhara government) the revolutionary campaigns of “land for the tiller” and “the rights of nations and nationalities” were primarily led by Amhara and Tigray university students. The “rights of nations and nationalities” doctrine that the Oromo political class swears by is authored by an Amhara. Many Amhara revolutionaries have died advancing several campaigns whose primary beneficiaries were Oromos.
More recently, the Amhara unanimously voted in the national Parliament to elevate an Oromo candidate to the prime ministership position. Today, as the Oromo-led government unleashes a Mogassa-brand savagery on the Amhara, the Oromo public is either taking part, cheering on from the sideline or in a radio silent mode.
ኩክኒያም Oromummaa Intellectuals are Bottom Feeders
Talking to current Oromummaa intellectuals is like time-traveling to the medieval era and conversing with the peasants of past centuries. There are many reasons for this.
First, Oromummaa embraces tribalism as a political theology - a system fitting for medieval peasantry. This entails intellectual stunting and leads to moral degeneration and reverse evolution. Like science, morality develops over time because of human progress, cultural assimilations, enlightened reasoning, and the erosion of dogmatic value judgment that is grounded on antiquated and superstitious belief instead of logic.
This is why the moral and ethical standards of the medieval period is different from those of our generation. This is also why our generation has animal rights movement, not to mention human rights movements. The people who are attracted to tribal politics are those who harbor the moral and ethical values of centuries past. Their moral and value system allows them fueling tribal conflicts and profiting from tribal bloodletting. As it turned out a medieval peasant mentality powered by a social media era of technology is a deadly combination.
The Facts are Irrefutable
The two primary demands of the Oromo movement were: “The Rights of Nations and Nationalities” and “Land for the Tiller.” The “rights of nations and nationalities” doctrine that the Oromo political class swears by is authored by Walelegn Mekonen, an Amhara from Wello. History stands as witness to those Amhara and Tigrayans who died advancing numerous political demands that benefited the Oromo more than any other tribe.
There were two prominent political groups that grew out of the student movement and changed Ethiopia for good or bad. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and Meason. The top EPRP founding leaders included, six Amharas (Getachew Maru, Germachew Lema, Samuel Abebe, Abebech Bekele, Keflu Tadesse and Tsegaye Gebremedhin); five Tigryans (Tesfaye Debesay, Teselote Ezkias, Zeru Kishen, Berhane Meskel Reda, and Yosef Adane); and two Oromos (Abera Wakdjira and Feseha Wolde Michael).
Meason’s founding leaders included ten Amharas (Worku Ferede, Kebede Mengesha, Negede Gobeze, Andargachew Assegid, Yayerhad Kitaw, Fikre Merid, Endrias Eshete, Mesfin Kassu, Tamrat Kebede and Amare Tegbaru); four Tigryans (Dereje Alemayehu, Tadesse Gessese, Nigist Adane, and Hagos Gebreyesus, ); three Oromos (Haile Fida, Kebede Diriba, and Terefe Weldetsadeq); one Gurage (Desta Taddesse) and one Eritrean (Haile Merkorios)
I may have missed a name or two or may have added a name or two by mistake, but the general picture holds that Oromos were underrepresented in the student movement leadership and subsequent revolutionary parties that advanced the Oromo political demands.
The seeds that the student movement planted in the 1970 culminated to Oromo’s ascension to the apex of that political power architecture in 2018. Thanks to a large part to Amhara and Southern People representatives who voted for the Oromo candidate. Majority of the Southern People and 100% of Amhara representatives vote for the Oromo candidate.
Acknowledging this is not by any means undermining the role Oromo liberation forces and Jawar himself played in expediting the collapse of the TPLF regime. The fact that the Oromummaa cult totally ignores the role that Student movement and recent non-Oromo youth movements such as Fano, Zerma, Egeto and Woro played in bringing the Oromo to the apex of national power manifests the hallmark of its theology of ውሸት and ክህደት.
People who are interested in reading more about Oromummaa can read my articles that are a Google search away by title. The articles contain over 50 references of published articles and books. None of the references come from Ethiopianist authors. They are all from Oromo and foreign authors.
1. Oromummaa’s Religion Cleansing and Cultural Evilgelization Project
2. The Oromummaa Politics is Weaponized with Lies and Soaked in Blood.
3. Oromummaa is a Low-Grade Nazification Movement
4. Slavery and Terror Were Integral Parts of the Gadaa System
5. Oromummaa’s First Targets of Destruction are the Oromo People and Culture
Re: OROMUMMAA's Ideology and Savagery Explained: Savagery OROMUMMAA POLITICS IS ANCHORED IN ውሸት & ክህደት by Koki Abesolom
Posted: 29 Jun 2025, 18:53
by Wedi
Koki Abesolome
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ኦሮሞ ታሟል
THIS IS MY ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN SEPTEMBER 2023
Its core messages are two:
FIRST: "The Oromo political class suffers from a self-inflicted psychological trauma. Its 50-year victimhood politics has made it unable to break out of a victim mentality and adopt a frame of mind befitting the solemnity of leading a nation as a governing body. "
SECOND: "As a matter of political narrative, Oromo political leaders do not publicly accuse the Amhara masses. Their political narrative targets Amhara elites, whom they brand as ነፍጠኛ (war monger), ትምክህተኛ (arrogant with a superiority complex), and/or ጽንፈኛ (extremist). In practice, their victims are always the Amhara masses. The thousands of people that Oromo-Shene murdered are not Amhara elites. They are very poor members of the Amhara masses. When Shimelis Abdisa said our enemies know what our intentions are with Sheger City, the enemies he targeted his wrath were not the Amhara elite. They were the Amhara masses."
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ኦሮሞ ታሟል
Allow me to introduce myself again, for the first time. Heritage wise, I am of an Oromo and Amhara construct. I have been disowned, ostracized, and condemned by both for being “Oromo phobic” and “anti-Amhara.” My opposition to the idiotic #NoMore movement has also earned me the honorable badge of “A CIA agent.” Welcome to the uniquely Ethiopian politics where ኩክኒያም goons reign supreme.
The purpose of this article is to enter the blind spot of the Oromo social psychology and converse with the demons that have turned its politics savage in its violence, virulent in its outlook, and self-destructive in is mode of operation. What Ethiopians and the world at large are witnessing is the Oromo political class degrading and destroying the very government whose political levers of power it controls.
In 1993, Bill Clinton won the presidency of the US by wrapping his campaign around one phrase: “It is the Economy, Stupid!”. The message was that America’s political ills could be cured with economic pills.
The 21st century Oromo political reality can be encapsulated in one phrase: “It is the Psychology, Stupid!” The Oromo political class suffers from self-inflicted psychological trauma. Its 50-year victimhood politics has made it unable to break out of victim mentality and adopt a frame of mind befitting the solemnity of leading a nation as a governing body. Necessarily, we must put political correctness aside in the interest of salvaging the Oromo soul from the psychological clutches of the evil spirits of the past.
The Evils of Psychological Horror
Ethiopia has never seen the brand of brutality manifested by the Oromo-led government in its modern history. Stop and watch this video. Look also at this and this. Look at the below pictures as well.
The first picture shows rounded up people waiting to be processed in the concentration camp. The second picture shows a small fraction of the nearly one million Amharas who were forcefully evicted out of the Oromo tribal and. They include pregnant women and elders who could hardly walk. The third picture shows Amhara concentration camp where tuberculosis and diarrhea has claimed countless lives. The fourth picture shows children rounded up and waiting to be transported to concentration camps.
Look at this video also. An Amhara Orthodox priest is being paraded on the streets of Oromo with dead chicken hanging on his neck. The crowd is shouting “hung him”. The crime is deep rooted in the Oromo political class that accuses the Orthodox Church of being a voodoo religion; hence the dead black chicken that he was forced to hung on his neck.
The perpetrators are not Oromo political elites. They are ordinary Oromos from different walks of life. You must also look at the pictures below, showing innocent Amhara prisoners being treated for tuberculosis in a makeshift Oromo concentration camp and a grieving child whose parents are either locked in a concentration camp or killed.
Only the Oromo psyche with damaged social psychology can comfortably hide behind a “hear-no-evil and see-no-evil” political position under such inhuman circumstances. Do not try to find a political solution for this. The problem is with the Oromo social psychology.
ኦሮሞ ታሟል: It is the Psychology Stupid
One pregnant phrase defines the Oromo political problem as described by the Godfather of Oromummaa, Asafa Jalata: “Deep Rooted Psychological Inferiority.”
The Oromummaa literature stands on three legs in the order they are listed: Fist comes psychological liberation, followed by Oromo unity, and leading to self-determination. According to Jalata, Oromo psychological liberation requires “fighting against the Oromo external oppressor and the internalized oppressive values.”
Stripped of their sociological jargon, what Jalata’s books and articles tell us is that consciously or unconsciously Oromo is a psychologically damaged good. In this regard, Jalata argues, Oromo intellectuals “have not yet achieved psychological liberation, they consciously or unconsciously prefer to work for their colonial masters rather than promoting the Oromo liberation project.”
Jalata identifies the main problem to be “low level of political consciousness and an imposed inferiority complex…” As a result, he argues “Ethiopianism replaced Oromummaa.” The solution, he believes, is to reverse this phenomenon. Oromummaa must replace Ethiopianism. The savagery we are witnessing is a result of Jawar Mohammed’s “Ethiopia out of Oromia” doctrine and Asafa Jalata’s political theology of replacing Ethiopia by Oromummaa.
Morally Malnourished Leadership Borne Out of a Psychologically Damaged Political Class
As part of Oromummaa-ization of the entire Ethiopia, the Oromo President said the “Prosperity Party is built in such a way to advance the interest of Oromo. The head of the Party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant.” A detailed strategic plan is provided in a report titled “We Need Modern Version of the OLF With High Confidence Politics of Haile Fida!.” Here is how it is described: “The aim of an independent Gadaa Oromia is Oromo politics of the past… We surely will move to the level of high confidence in order to own the whole Ethiopia…”
The Prime Minister shares the belief that the head of the prosperity party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant. He is on national TV threatening the public that if his position is threatened, it will lead to “the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people over night” and the consequence will be “deadlier than the red terror in the 1970s” is par for the course for a narcissist psychopath.
What makes his leadership worse is the incompetence the Gedaa system that the Oromo political class institutionalized as the basis of Ethiopia’s governance principles. The Oromo President is on the record, saying “the Future of Ethiopia” is Gedaa. The Problem with Gedaa, as Professor Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa put it is: “Due to the geographical expansion of the Oromo territory and an increasing population, the central Gadaa government declined beginning in the mid-17th century and autonomous regional and local republics took its place.”
This is echoed by Professor Jalata as follows: “The nonfederal nature of the Gadaa System, lack of Strong Central government, lack of regular meeting of Gadaa official and long distance of Gumii (assembly) from political center made Gadaa system less Competent”.
A system that is seen less competent to govern 17th century Oromo villages is what the Oromo political class is using to administer 120 million Ethiopians in the 21st century. The result is economic, political and law and order catastrophe. Professor Derese Kassa (@nestaneth), who just returned from Ethiopia, tweeted 14 observations. Let me share three of them.
• The loss of law and order and the level of insecurity in the nation is staggering. Kidnappings, detentions, torture, and killings by state actors, by rebels and criminal syndicates have hit the rooftop.
• The level of corruption by government officials and the extent of state capture is unprecedented. Business owners are asked to pay bribes in millions, or they will be subject to inexorable fake taxes. Ministers have a coterie of concubines who also broker kickbacks
• The middle class is no more. Civil servants, teachers, doctors, and engineers are now reduced to the underclass. It’s heartbreaking to see our former educators wait for handouts and alms from relatives and kinfolk abroad.
Dr. Hangaasa Ibrahim (a member of the National Parliamentarian representing the Oromo tribal land) and Taye Dandea (State Minister of Peace) are on the record, accusing the government of the Oromo tribal land of rampant corruption. They both expressed fear for their lives for speaking up. Taye went further referring to high-level Oromo party and government officials as “mafia groups.”
On May 27, Taye went further on his official Facebook page: “Everybody knows what happened in the outskirts of Finfinne (Addis Ababa), over the last four years. Who stole the land in the name of Oromo farmers? Who sold the land of the Tulema and used the money to tip millions of dollars to prostitutes?”
A widely circulating rumor has it that the Prime Minister’s concubines are the most sought-after business brokers, wealth arbiters, and government appointment traffickers.
Small wonder why Jawar Mohammed (the self-acclaimed “inventor of the Oromo political calculator”) felt obliged to wonder aloud in his published manifesto if the claim that “Oromo is incapable of leading the country” has merits.
Silence in the Face of Genocidal Threat is a Generational Moral Tragedy of Epic Proportions!
During the Emperor Haile Selassie era (an era that Oromo elites and laymen alike lament to be an Amhara government) the revolutionary campaigns of “land for the tiller” and “the rights of nations and nationalities” were led by Amhara and Tigray university students. The “rights of nations and nationalities” doctrine that the Oromo political class swears by is authored by an Amhara. Many Amhara revolutionaries have died advancing a campaign whose primary beneficiaries were Oromos in the eyes of the revolutionaries.
Today, as the Oromo-led government unleashes a Mogassa 2.0 brand savagery on the Amhara, the Oromo public is either taking part, cheering on or in a radio silent mode. Allow me to reintroduce you to Mogassa as seen in the eyes of foreign writers. Here is what C. F. Rey published in 1924 on Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol.23, No. 90. His article was titled “The Arussi and the Other [Oromo] of Abyssinia.” The term he used was the “G” word, which I replaced with Oromo.
“It must be borne in mind that they are and have been for nearly four hundred years, invaders on strange soil… Their methods of warfare were cruel even for that age, and it was they who introduced the horrible practice mutilating the dead, and even the wounded and prisoners.”
Pedro Paez added:
“The Oromo slaughtered many people and carried out extraordinary cruelties, because they cut to pieces the men and many of the boys and girls that they seized, and they opened up pregnant women with their spearheads and pulled the babies out of their wombs. The people of that land therefore came to fear them so much that nobody dared resist them.”
Mogassa was administered by the military wing of Gedaa. It is this system today’s Oromo political class wishes to reintroduce in Ethiopia. Gedaa is embraced by the overwhelming majority of Oromo. The narrative that the problem is with the Oromo elite is an epitomic adoption of the proverbial ostrich strategy when faced with danger.
When we see rank-and-file street police officers slapping an Orthodox priest or beating an Islamic Imam, we cannot see them as Oromo elites. When Oromo Street gagsters harass people speaking Amharic or wearing cloth with the Ethiopian flag, we cannot designate them as Oromo elites. When civilian Oromos take part in the demolitions of Amhara houses and forcefully evict Amhara people, we cannot insist that they are part of the Oromo elite class. They are not.
The head of an Oromo delegation who, recently, spoke at the Mekele Stadium was not shy to announce Gedaa elders were a willful part of the war campaign against the Amhara. He publicly announced that the delegation he led at the behest of the Oromo President included Gedaa elders. In his speech, he proposed Oromo and Tigray must join forces to fight the Amhara.
Gedaa elders are supposedly the moral conscious of the Oromo. Members of the Oromo Gedaa who often mediate when Oromo factions fight against each other are active supporters of the war against Amhara. To date, neither he Aba Gedaa’s in attendance during the Mekele speech nor high-level leaders of the Gedaa establishment has condemned the speech.
Above all, a large swath of the Oromo society is willfully oblivious to the savage atrocities committed in the name of Oromo. They are quite when the Voice of America reported close to a million Amhara were forcefully evicted from the Oromo region. They are silent when Amhara are hunted like animals and slaughtered in thousands in the Oromo region. They remained silent, despite a recent public warning by one of Prime Minister’s Senior Advisors that “Today’s Ethiopia is at a juncture similar to that of Rwanda when it found itself at the dawn of genocide.” The question of “genocide again whom” was answered in the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention’s Red Flag Alert that “The Amhara are in a perilous discursive position that could easily devolve into genocide.”
Silence in the face of injustice is complicity. Silence in the face of crime against humanity that is creeping toward and bordering on genocide is beyond complicity. It is a generational moral tragedy of epic proportions!
There is a legitimate reason why the German government issued an official apology to the Holocaust victims in the name of all Germans. They did so because the Nazi crime was committed in the name of building Greater Germany and the people of Germany failed to speak up and defend the victims of the Nazi regime.
The Oromo regime is aspiring to build Greater Oromia on the ashes of Ethiopia. Oromo cannot escape historical responsible and condemnation for its deafening silence while an Oromo-led political class in the government and outside of it commits crime against humanity in its name. Oromo is malfeasant or nonfeasant. The difference may be in legal jurisdiction. Morally, there is no difference.
Yes, the War is Between Oromo and Amhara
Many people who saw the introduction part of the first draft of this article were shocked by the title. One suggested to change it to “Oromo-PP’s war Against Amhara…” That can be poetically correct to their hearts content, but the truth is the war is between Oromo and Amhara. The perpetrator is Oromo, and the victim is Amhara. Reducing the people-to-people war to an elite-to-elite conflict will mitigate the problem and sustains it beyond its expiration date.
The Prime Minister is using the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) as a façade in his pursuit of an Oromo war against Amhara. Let us not forget that 74% percent of the people of Oromo who were eligible to vote took part in the 2021 elections. A staggering over 95% of them voted for Oromo-PP, despite Oromo-Shene’s threat to blow them if they dared to come to the election stations and Oromo opposition party’s call to boycott the election.
There is a pregnant question that imposes itself on the people of Oromo. If they manifested bravery and valor to vote, ignoring Oromo-Shene’s threat, why are they silent when the government they voted into office commits savagery against the Amhara without so much as a blink?
To date, there is no Oromo voice of any significance in volume or scope opposing the war against the Amhara. To the contrary, the support for the war in the Oromo region is significant in volume and scope, running the gamut from Oromo intellectuals to political activists; from Oromo military officers to Oromo opposition parties; from members of the Aba Gadaa establishment to the herd of street gangsters; and from the Abiy administration to religious leaders and many demographic groups in between. Oromos who oppose the war are exceptions - few and far between.
The war between Amhara and Oromo is no different from the war between Amhara and Tigray. Those who call the war between Amhara and Tigray as a war between Fanno and Amhara Militia vs. TPLF and TDF are lying to themselves.
The people of Amhara were supporting the war against Tigray, preparing food, and contributing money. Amhara religious leaders were encouraging their congregation to dust up their rifles and hatchets and join the war. Housewives were feeding both Fanno and the Ethiopian army. Every facet of the community from shoe-shiners to farmers and merchants small and large was a part of the war. Musicians were singing war songs and artists were glorifying the war with poems and paintings.
Members of the Amhara diaspora community were providing financial and moral support. They were also engaged in diplomatic አቱቶ ቡቱቶ with their misguided #NoMore አንከስ ፈንደንስ street dance, while blasting Mehari Degefaw’s war song ግጠም አለኝ. They knew Tigray was bleeding - children, pregnant as well as nursing women and elders were suffering. Yet, they were pushing for more war, while dancing with Menbere Mengistu’s war song መች ተነካና ያሸዋል ገና.
The same was true with the people of Tigray. Members of the Ethiopian Defense Forces who hailed from Tigray betrayed their oath to defend the Ethiopian Constitution and joined the TDF and TPLF war. Tigrayan university professors and students alike joined the TDF and TPLF military establishment. The Tigrayan diaspora contributed millions to the war front and became TPLF’s geopolitical street diplomats. They performed street shows alternating between public grieving and victory dancing.
One day they did their signature protest, including ደም ተቀብቶ አስፋልት ላይ እያለቀሱ መንከባለል. The next day, they performed Tigrayan victory dance with ከበሮ, ፊሽካ and all, as they salivated to enter Addis Ababa in victory. Every Tigrayan was behind the war lock, stock, and barrel.
Par for the Tigrayan political culture of the TPLF era, Tigrayan bishops who publicly and vocally supported TPLF and TDF, divorced their region from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), accusing the Ethiopian Church of supporting the war’s atrocities against the people of Tigray.
In sum, to say the war was between TPLF/TDF vs. ENDF/Fano/Eritrea is to willfully deceive ourselves. The same is true with the Amhara and Oromo war. It is a war Oromo waged against the people of Amhara. The Amhara are defending themselves as people, not as elite forces. That is why the people are supporting Fanno warriors.
Oromo’s Targets are the Amhara Masses, Not Amhara Political Elites
As a matter of political narrative, neither Tigray nor Oromo political leaders publicly accuse(d) the Amhara masses. Their political narrative targets Amhara elites, whom they brand as ነፍጠኛ (war monger), ትምክህተኛ (arrogant with a superiority complex), and/or ጽንፈኛ (extremist).
In practice, their victims are always the Amhara masses. The thousands of people that Oromo-Shene murdered are not Amhara elites. They are very poor members of the Amhara masses. When Shimelis Abdisa said our enemies know what our intentions are with Sheger City, the enemies he targeted his wrath were not the Amhara elite. They were the Amhara masses.
When the Oromo government and Oromo-Shene forcefully displaced nearly one million people, the victims were not Amhara elites but the Amhara masses. When Abiy, Adanech and Shimeles deny Amharas from entering Addis Ababa, it was the masses that they targeted, including poor framers, hard-working merchants, the sick who needed treatment in the nation’s primary hospitals. Their targets were not the Amhara elites.
When TPLF and OLF used population census in 1994 to statistically depopulate Amhara by three to four million, the target was not the Amhara elite, but the Amhara masses. During the 1984 census under Mengistu, the Amhara accounted for over 28.3% of the total population of Ethiopia. The corresponding figure for Oromo was 29.1%.
In 2023, Oromo accounts for 34%, a 17% increase from 1984. In contrast, in 2023, Amhara accounts for 22%, a 29% decrease from 1984. This is a crime against the Amhara masses with systemic voting rights disenfranchisement. Amhara’s allocation of seats in the national parliament is far less than what they are intitled to according to their true population size.
It also has significant budgetary implications. In the 2023-24 fiscal year, the federal government distributed budgetary support to the tribal homelands according to their population. The Oromo tribal land got 34% of the federal budgetary subsidy and Amhara got 22%. This denies the Amhara tribal land badly needed resources for school, hospitals, roads etc. The victims are Amhara masses not the Amhara elite class.
During the TPLF era. Amhara was the least developed region by any standard, road density, hospitals, schools, access to electric city, poverty rate. The data from international agencies, the World Bank, UN, Africa Development Bank leave no doubt about the favorable treatment of Tigray region and the targeted discriminatory treatment against the Amhara masses. The Tigray political class did not isolate and target the so-called Amhara ነፍጠኛ, ትምክህተኛ, and/or ጽንፈኛ elite. Its target was the Amhara masses. The Oromo political class is doing the same with far more viciousness and cruelty that they have inherited from Mogassa tradition.
Oromo-PP and TPLF were able to do such crimes using their tribal home as their power center. For years we were told TPLF is Tigray and Tigray is TPLF. The Oromo reality is a bit different in form, but not in substance.
Oromo-Shene (the military arm of OLF) and the Oromo People's Congress (the largest Oromo opposition party) may have different view from Oromo-PP. The difference is that Oromo-Shene and the Oromo People's Congress want more of the anti-Amhara and anti-Ethiopia policies. Merera Gudina (the President of Oromo People's Congress) is on the record promising to replace all non-Oromo statutes in Addis Ababa by Oromo statues. Gudina’s statement was in response to the Prime Minister’s decision to put Menilik’s statute in the Unity Park.
Oromo’s War Against Amhara is Guided Neither by Political nor Military Strategy
Let us put the unjust Oromo war against the Amhara aside and see if it makes political or military sense. It helps us to see the source of the war is psychological. First let us briefly discuss the difference between the war against Amhara and Tigray.
An Imperative Comparative Between the War Against Tigray and Amhara
The Tigray war was triggered by TPLF. First, the TPLF refused to allow Federal forces to move federal weapons out of Tigray that accounted for up to 70% of the ENDF’s firepower. Second, the TPLF shot first, killing members of the ENDF in their sleep and confiscating their weapons. Third, using the confiscated weapons as a leverage, TPLF demanded to form a transition government.
The people of Ethiopia stood together against the TPLF instigated war. People from every region of the country provided logistical and moral support. News such as the following were staple to the daily news. “ግንባር ለሚገኘው ጥምር ጦር 12 ላምና በሬ 112 በግና ፍየል በመደገፍ የምስራቅ ደምቢያ ወረዳ ማህበረሰብ የሗላ ደጀንነቱን አሳየ” and “ጦርነት ግንባር እየተፋለመ ላለው ጥምር ሃይላችን ዉሃ, ብስኩት, የእርድ በግና ፍየል መላክ መቻሉን የእንጅባራ ከተማ አስተዳደር ገለፀ.”
There is no such broad support to the current war against Amhara because the war was triggered by the Oromo-led government’s systemic atrocities to subjugate the people of Amhara in pursuit of building Greater Oromia. The other tribal lands are facing similar atrocities and have no intention of supporting the Oromo criminal enterprise. The proverbial last straw that triggered the war in Amhara was the Oromo-led government’s decision to disarm the Amhara special forces and militia.
The Interim Tigray President is on the record, stating he has 200,000 strong fighters and he has no intention of putting down small weapons such as rifles and Kalashnikov. The Oromo-led government did not go after Tigray but declared war against Amhara that has far less fighters than Tigray. To the contrary, the Oromo government sent a delegation to Mekele to form a military pact between Oromo and Tigray that will allow Tigrayans use those weapons against Amhara.
Does the War Make Sense form a Political and Economic Strategy Perspective?
The war against Tigray was devastating to the nation both in terms of human life and national treasure. The estimate for fatality ranges from 600,000 to a million, not counting the wounded and maimed. The number of children who are orphaned and adults who are widowed by the war remains unknown. It makes no sense to launch another war before the nation pulls itself halfway out of the abyss the war-torn country is sinking into.
The role of the governing party can be broadly classified into two fundamental duties: the protective state and the productive state. As a protective state its duty is protecting the human and civil rights of the people. This involves, among other things, mitigating conflicts, stabilizing the political system, and maintaining the social order. Its role as productive state, its duty includes creating a conducive environment for business, and building the economy.
To the contrary, the Oromo-led government is instigating conflicts, destroying the economy, giving the Prime Minister’s and his Cabinet Minister’s concubines more power in economic decisions than line managers in the bureaucracy. Once again, what Ethiopians and the world at large are witnessing is the Oromo political class degrading and destroying the very government whose political levers of power it controls.
Does the War Make Sense form a Military Strategy Perspective?
For 27 years, the TPLF built Ethiopia’s military in a way that served Tigray, putting the strategic, operational, intelligence and logistics management under the tight control of Ethiopians of Tigrayan origin. When the war, started all Tigrayans either joined TPLF or were removed from their posts by the ENDF. Ethiopia was building its military while fighting against TPLF and TDF.
During the war, the ETDF lost a significant number of its midlevel military leaders and experienced rank and file fighters. After the Pretoria settlement, Ethiopia started once again building its military from the ground up.
The Amhara accounts 30% of the population, ignoring the statistical depopulation instigated by TPLF and the Oromo political class. Let us go along with the 22% statistically manipulated figure. This suggests Amhara soldiers are likely to constitute about 22% of the military, give or take a few percentages. Launching a war on Amhara will not sit well with the Amhara soldier. According to the Ethiopian peace minister, 50% of the Amhara special forces who were under the Amhara government left camp and are believed to have joined the uprising.
The government is building army without soldiers. The army looks regal it is making war on society as a whole. There is little prospect of the violence ending, let alone the prosecution of the perpetrators for a litany of crimes against their people.
Meanwhile it is finding it hard to recruit or even conscript new troops, risking becoming in the long term an “army without soldiers”. It is also struggling to pay wages and is resorting to printing money, which is fueling inflation that feeds into public discontent.
Amhara accounts for over 30 percent of the population. It is fair to assume Amhara constitutes about 30 percent of the rank-and-file of the military – give or take some percentages. What kind of idiot will wage war against Amhara? From a political point of view the war makes no sense.
Aside from the solidarity in the resistance movement and the increasingly fragile position of the military, there are grounds for optimism in the robust response of many foreign governments. The UN security council issued a resolution in December 2022 calling for an immediate cessation to all forms of violence (Russia, China and India abstained).
The US has imposed escalating sanctions targeting generals, arms suppliers and cronies. In December 2022, the National Defense Authorization Act provided support for democratic groups in Myanmar, including training and non-lethal assistance.
The EU passed its fifth package of sanctions against the junta in November 2022, targeting arms exports. This international pressure has increased to the extent where it appears even China is becoming embarrassed by its association with the junta.
The civil war will undoubtedly continue for some time, and when it eventually ends the scars will take even longer to heal. What would make the pain bearable for many would be a just peace in which the menace of the Tatmadaw, after more than 60 years of violence, is removed, and the wealth of the generals, their cronies and the military companies used to alleviate poverty.
In the absence of direct military assistance, foreign governments and organizations should consider supporting the national unity government to help alleviate the suffering of Myanmar’s people. Key to this will be the coordination of health, education, and financial services – now widely absent – as well as the groundwork to help civil society to restore democracy when the time comes.
For the last two years the oxygen of the Ethiopian political life has been sucked by Shene-Oromo and Shene-Amhara. By the grace of God, the rise of the Fanno uprising has dominated the political bandwidth. There are grounds for optimism.