The incendiary speech of Agegnehu Teshager, the President of Amhara region, is the latest incontrovertible evidence that the Ethiopian government has sparked inter-ethnic war in a country that adopted a federal system in place of assimilationist policies associated with Amharas.
It is absurd to talk of Ethiopia as a country with a head of state when a regional political leader openly calls for a war against Tigray. Ethiopia has a warlord as a head of state. Amhara militias under the command of FANO have committed heinous crimes in Tigray with the complicity of the Ethiopian National Defence Forces and the Eritrean Army.
“If you don’t exterminate the pest animals, they will come back. Either they kill you or you kill them, it’s like that” Le Monde reporter quoted a FANO member as saying.
The Ethiopian government promotes and prosecutes a war against against Tigrayans. It has allowed Amhara militias to capture Raya and other districts in Tigray. Ethiopia matched Rwanda’s Interahamwe stratagems to plot a genocide against Tigrayans. Ethnic profiling and arrest of Tigrayans in other parts of Ethiopia is the norm under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s watch.
African has not learnt the lessons of Rwanda genocide. Demonisation always precedes genocidal campaigns. What is disheartening is the silence of religious leaders of Ethiopia in the face of a campaign to recruit regional militias for an unjust war against Tigrayans. Condoning hate language is a solid evidence that the Ethiopian government is trying to implement the plan to “wipe out Tigrayans”.
The Amhara regional President’s call for a second round war against Tigray shows that the extremist wing of Amhara militias is controlling Abiy Ahmed. Who thought a leader, who had won Nobel Peace Prize, would stoop so low as to plunge his country into a civil war that could lead to its disintegration?
Adan Essa Hussein
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