The International Community Must Stop Enabling Abiy Ahmed’s Genocidal War on Amhara and Falsely Claiming the Pretoria COHA Silenced the Guns
The Amhara Association of America (AAA) strongly condemns the continued inaction and complicity of global leaders in the Abiy Ahmed-led Oromo Prosperity Party (OPP) regime’s genocidal war on the Amhara people of Ethiopia. The latest statement issued by embassies of the US, UK, EU, and other allied governments on March 13, 2025, portrays the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) of November 2022 as "silencing the guns." This characterization is not only misleading but deliberately ignores the brutal reality of the genocidal Amhara war that has been raging for the past two years.
Far from silencing the guns, the OPP regime has waged a relentless military campaign against Amhara civilians; from door-to-door massacres, to deliberate destruction of regional healthcare facilities, to carrying out hundreds of indiscriminate drone strikes in the past six months alone killing thousands of civilians. It is in this context that global diplomats have spent the past two years normalizing relations with the OPP regime, claiming the COHA had silenced the guns. The international community’s silence on these atrocities has been both shameful and enabling.
AAA has consistently warned that the COHA was exclusionary and failed to involve all stakeholders in the Northern Ethiopia War. The Amhara people, who suffered genocidal violence at the hands of both the OPP regime and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) during the war and over several decades prior, were deliberately sidelined from negotiations. The international community’s refusal to acknowledge this exclusion has contributed to the OPP regime’s ability to wage war against Amhara civilians with impunity. Ethiopians and regional analysts conceded long ago that the COHA was a failure, but unfortunately the international diplomatic community has still refused to accept this reality.
Beyond the silence, the international community has actively funded and supported the OPP regime as it carries out its war of extermination against the Amhara. In July 2024, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank approved a combined $20 billion package for Ethiopia, despite overwhelming evidence of ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity. This funding has served to reinforce the regime’s capacity to sustain its genocidal campaign against the Amhara people. Further, the recent decision by the Canadian Government to revive military cooperation with the Ethiopian army, while it wages war against the Amhara people, exemplifies the lack of sincerity among members of the international community in bringing lasting peace in Ethiopia. Canada’s military engagement with an army that is actively committing genocide and mass killings will directly implicate it in these crimes.
Though the internal matter in Tigray is concerning, the faux alarm over a potential war between the OPP regime and Eritrea has been grossly exaggerated. The OPP regime's full military force has been deployed in the Amhara Region over the past two years in an all-out war with the Amhara Fano Defense Force. Hence, it is evident that the OPP regime lacks the military manpower and territorial base to wage an external war. Alarmist rhetoric of an “inevitable” war with Eritrea is an attempt to redirect attention from the genocidal war against the Amhara people which has gone unaddressed by international actors.
Accountability and transitional justice are the only viable paths to preventing further war and restoring peace in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. If international actors truly seek peace, they must acknowledge the COHA’s flaws and learn from its failures, condemn the OPP regime’s genocidal war on Amhara, and suspend all financial and military aid until Abiy's regime ends its assault and allows credible genocide and war crimes investigations. They must also enforce accountability through sanctions and legal action against the regime and its patrons. Failure to act would be a lasting moral stain and a threat to global interests. Until justice is served, the AAA, the global Ethiopian diaspora, and allies will remain unwavering in their demand for accountability for the Amhara Genocide.
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