The war waged by the Ethiopian federal forces since November 2020 in the dissident Tigray region has sparked a buried dissatisfaction, revived feelings of bitterness against the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which ruled the country for decades, and sent in Amhara, the second largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, hopes of restoring its glory as a guardian of the Much of the country's imperial history.

The French newspaper Le Monde says in a report by its delegate to Ethiopia, Noy Rochelle Boudin, that religious celebrations this year are tainted with a military atmosphere in the former Ethiopian imperial capital, Gondar, where a large part of the history of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the history of the empire was written.

The newspaper’s delegate described how young Tesfahon Mandy (40 years) walks with militiamen while proudly raising their rifles in the "Timkat" celebrations of the Orthodox Epiphany, considering it a celebration of "the birth of the Amhara", after the marginalization and expulsion from some of their lands under the communist regime and the ethnic federal system after him .

Tesfahon took up arms - as the newspaper’s delegate says - since the first day of the struggle in the ranks of Fannous, (the Amhara militia that is fighting alongside the Ethiopian army), and rushed to the front, saying, "After 30 years of injustice, we were finally able to regain Welkite. Of the elders before, and again again. "

Unity is at stake

The Welkite region, which was linked in 1991 to Tigray County, was the first area to be retaken from the Tigrayan front in the current war, due to the strong mobilization of people who united the Amhara national movement on this issue, according to the newspaper’s delegate.

Tesfahon says that he "fought without fear and for a just war," but the recovery of Welkite was accompanied by an intensified policy of resettling the Amhara, so that a source of humanitarian workers returning from the region expressed concern about "not seeing any Tigrawi in the cities of the region."

If Wilkite is a symbol of the revival of the Amhara’s control, they do not stop at it. In Tigray, Benishangul Qamz province and on the Sudanese borders, the desire of the Amharic nationalist movement to regain control of the disputed areas and defend members of its community wherever they are threatened, the newcomer to the Ethiopian political scene who Shaped by the dynamics between "ethnic regional groups," says the newspaper's delegate.

The Amhara elites have always viewed Ethiopian culture as primarily Amharic due to their previous domination of the country, but the situation has changed during 30 years of ethnic federation that gave more political representation to other minorities.

The newspaper’s delegate points out that the history of Ethiopian unification today has become a subject of discussion in the rest of the country, with a tone of denunciation of the conquests carried out by the force of the guns of the imperial militia, and even the leaders of the Oromo, the first ethnic group in Ethiopia, seem to criticize the expansion of the Amhara and the oppression they are practicing.

Circumstantial alliance

The French newspaper quotes the Ethiopian researcher Tizira Tazbio in an article entitled "Amharic Nationalism ... When the Empire Counterattacks", "We are witnessing a redefinition of the Amharic as a nation in its own right," a definition adopted by the young Amhara National Party, which was established in 2018, To be the spokesperson for this trend.

Former professor of philosophy at Addis Ababa University Billett Mola readily accepts the character of an ethnic nationalist as he prepares to launch his first election campaign at the head of the party, but claims that he was "forced to become so due to the genocide of which we are the most skilled victims throughout the country."

The term "genocide" seems exaggerated, but it is a powerful tool to mobilize the movement, says researcher Mehdi Labza, a specialist in Ethiopia, "The Amhara won the contest to pretend to be a victim today in Ethiopia," where officials succeeded in rallying voters and militiamen around the idea of ​​self-defense. Which is not accepted by the skilled in other governorates. "

The newspaper’s delegate pointed out that the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his "welfare state" party was in harmony with this rhetoric. However, some observers believe that the alliance is circumstantial between the central authority and the Amhara forces, which provided decisive support for the Ethiopian federal forces in their war with the Tigrayan Liberation Front.

Chapter II

The newspaper’s delegate says that Demi Mekonnen, Deputy Prime Minister, who is from the Amhara, went as far as recommending the formation of civil groups and taking up arms in response to the attacks against members of his community in the various provinces of the country, noting that the Amhara, unlike other ethnic groups confined to her region, are spread all over Ethiopia. .

Based on their recent successes in Tigray, officials in the Amhara region called on the federal army to "lead the second chapter of the struggle" in the Metekle region "historically owned by Amhara", according to Belett Mola, and threatened to send their special forces there if the government failed to restore order.

In Metekle - as the newspaper’s delegate says - the fighting between the Amhara and the Qamz nationality late last year led to the flight of more than 100,000 refugees from both sides, and the small town of Chaghani saw its population doubled when more than 48,000 farmers came from Amhara to seek shelter there.

Across the border - the envoy says - about 8,000 Qamz people have sought refuge in Sudan, and the horror stories there speak of militia war, the slaughter of entire villages and daily torture.

Some representatives of Qamz in exile carried a memorandum to the United Nations delegation in Khartoum, in which they affirmed that "the residents of Benishangul-Qomz have become easy targets for the Ethiopian government and the skilled who want to impose their hegemony in the governorate, using the strategy of ethnic cleansing."