MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th April, 2023) After Ethiopian Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed's decision to disarm the special forces in the Amhara region triggered mass protests this week, an Amhara activist explained to Sputnik how the ethnic tensions emerged in the country in the first place and what he believed would be the best solution towards ethnic reconciliation.
Growing up in the town of Gindewoin in the Amhara Region in Ethiopia, Henok Abebe did not feel he was different from people from other ethnic groups in the country. He was always interested and ready to learn more about people from outside his region.
"I remember when it was time for me to choose a university to attend, my choices were always any university outside of my region. That's because when I was in school, I grew up as an Ethiopian. I was eager to see other parts of Ethiopia. I didn't want to be just in my area because I wanted to know my country. I selected five universities that were all outside of my region," Abebe told Sputnik.
Ethiopia is a federation comprised of several regional states that are primarily based on ethnicity. For example, the northern Tigray region is dominated by the Tigrayan people. The Amhara people mostly live in the central Amhara region and the Oromo people reside mostly in the southern Oromia region.
Despite the difference in ethnicity, people from different regions in Ethiopia did not experience heightened tensions when they met and communicated with each other.
After Abebe started his studies at the Addis Ababa University in 2008, he had many friends who were from other ethnic groups, such as Oromo or Tigrayan.
"It's not just about friendship. Ethiopians from different ethnic groups also married with each other. There are millions of Ethiopians who were born in families of mixed ethnicity. For example, my family members also got married with people from other ethnic groups. My sister married someone from another ethnic group. And two of my nieces, one married an Oromo and another married a Tigrayan," Abebe said.
After completing his bachelor's degree in law at the Addis Ababa University and obtaining a master's degree in law at Central European University in Hungary, Abebe even decided to get a job as an instructor at the Haramaya University in Oromia region.
However, during his time at the Haramaya University, Abebe began to sense the change in the dynamics between different ethnic groups.
After reading the news about a number of Amharas being targeted and attacked because of their ethnicity, Abebe began to advocate for justice for his fellow Amaharas. That is when he felt the attitude of his friends from other ethnic groups started to change.
"There were displacements and attacks against Amharas. I started to ask why people were being displaced or attacked just because of their ethnicity. But when you ask those questions, people who are from the same ethnicity as the attackers began to view you as a threat. If you kept silent, you're his friend. But when you began to ask why people were being attacked because of their ethnicity, they began to think of you as an enemy," he said.
The mass protests staged by the Oromo people in 2014 against the government led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front also contributed to the rising ethnic tensions as ethnic identity became an important part of the movement, Abebe added.
In addition, instant access to the latest news on ethnicity based attacks also amplified the ethnocentric sentiment among different ethnic groups.
"Before social media, if something happened in a certain area, it would stay there. You don't have any information about what happened there. But today, if 10 people were killed because of their ethnicity, you can know this very easily. And someone can start violence against others in the attackers' ethnic group for revenge," Abebe said.
After Abebe started to advocate for justice for those Amharas who were attacked and became politically active, he faced a lot of threats from different groups. That is when he decided it was no longer safe for him to stay in Ethiopia and he fled to the United States in 2017.
Ethnic divisions began to emerge in Ethiopia during the almost three decades' rule of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in the country from 1991 to 2018.
"After the TPLF defeated the previous regime in 1991, they brought a new constitution. That constitution came into force in 1995 and it created regional states based on ethnicity. That was the beginning of the ethnic identity. Before that, Ethiopia was divided into different regions. But they were not based on ethnicity," Abebe said.
After losing office in 2018, the TPLF waged a new war against the Federal government in Ethiopia in November 2020 by attacking the Northern Command headquarters of the Ethiopian National Defense Force.
During the two years of armed conflict known as the Tigray War, the special forces of the Amhara region fought alongside forces of the federal government against the TPLF.
However, after the federal government led by prime minister Abiy Ahmed reached a peace agreement with the TPLF in November last year, the federal authorities in Addis Ababa began to demand the special forces of the Amhara region disarm.
When prime minister Ahmed reiterated his plan to disarm the special forces of Amhara region on Sunday, the move triggered a massive wave of protests in various cities in the Amhara region.
When Ahmed came into office in 2018, he carried a promise of ethnic unity and reconciliation with him. He created the Prosperity Party in 2019 with the goal of distancing the country's politics from ethnic federalism. Ahmed even won the Nobel Peace prize in 2019 for his efforts on peace and international cooperation.
However, for Amhara activists like Abebe, Ahmed's tenure was filled with disappointments as he failed to fulfill many of his promises on ethnic unity.
"When he (Ahmed) came into office in 2018, I was ready to go back because the things he said were really promising. He was saying that he would abolish this ethnic federalism. He was saying there would be democracy and prosperity. He even called his party 'the Prosperity Party' and he said those in power would be held accountable for the crimes they committed when they held power. But only 2-3 months after he came into office, people in Addis Ababa died because of their ethnicity. And he just kept silent. And similar attacks happened in other regions again and again. That's when we realized that he did not have any real intention to abolish this ethnic federalism. The hope became a hollow hope. The promise became a hollow promise," Abebe said.
Abebe explained that the Amhara people had been targeted because the last Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie was believed to be Amhara and a conspiracy theory began to emerge painting Amharas as controlling the media and businesses in the country.
"The ethnic division is harder for Amharas because we have been painted as the enemy of the other ethnic groups. It's been over 30 years. Every politician and all the propaganda is saying that Amharas are your enemies. Why? They said it's your King who subjugated their people. I'm an Amhara. But I'm an innocent person. I didn't commit any crime. But they still consider me an enemy because they believed my King subjugated their ancestors. This is not reasonable. How could you convince this person to work with you?" Abebe said.
From the Amhara activist's point of views, senior politicians like Ahmed in Ethiopia need to start to think outside of the ethnicity box.
"I think the government needs to think outside of this ethnicity box. There's a social engineering scheme. They can engineer the way people treat each other and the way people think about ethnicity and about being Ethiopians. Those in power need to begin to think outside of this ethnicity box and be ready to move Ethiopian politics and Ethiopian federalism out of this ethnicity box. Today, the ethnic federalism in Ethiopia is institutionalized ethnicity. That's what they did. They institutionalized racism and ethnicity. They made it more entrenched. They have to backpedal and move the nation away from this ethnicity box," Abebe said.
For ethnic reconciliation to move forward in Ethiopia, the elites in different ethnic groups should be ready to give up the benefits they enjoyed because of such ethnic divisions, the activist pointed out.
"The political elites and other elites should avoid focusing on ethnicity only. They're university professors. Even though they live in the US or Europe, they're still in this ethnic mode. They only think about their own ethnicity. They only think about the resources and power to be taken by people from their own ethnicity. The elites should also be ready to help the government try to engineer the society towards a political situation based on ideologies, such as rule of law, justice, equality or even other ideologies like social democrats," Abebe said.
Without the support from the elites, it would be difficult for the government to implement this social engineering towards ethnic unity, Abebe pointed out.
"If the government says:' Let's move away from this ethnic federalism.' Those ethnic elites would come out and say:' They're going to take you back to Amhara domination.' They could instigate another round of violence. They need to make ordinary people feel that those who are next to them are the same humans as themselves and as Ethiopians as themselves," he said.
