Statement from the Amhara Association of America
December 12, 2024 Tahasass 3, 2017 E.C.
The International Community Should Act to Stop the Amhara Genocide in Ethiopia
The Amhara Association of America (AAA) raises alarms over recent patterns of targeted human rights abuses, persecution and incitements of violence against Amhara communities by officials and armed forces of the Abiy Ahmed led Oromo Prosperity Party (OPP) regime in Ethiopia. Though recent incitements have escalated abuses in Oromia Region, the OPP regime has continued its genocidal acts in Amhara Region which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Since late October 2024, the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), Oromia Region Special Forces (OSF), Oromo militias and allied forces, have carried out a large-scale campaign of abuses against Amhara communities in East Wollega, Horo Guduru Wollega, North Shewa and surrounding zones of Oromia Region. This campaign, under the auspices of “disarmament” was announced to confiscate legally-registered firearms from rural Amhara communities, however, mounting reports reveal a campaign of extrajudicial killings, rampant sexual and gender-based violence, torture, enforced disappearances, hostage-taking, forced conscription, forced displacement, property destruction and looting. These indiscriminate abuses have targeted men, women, children, and elderly persons with the number of victims estimated in the hundreds and possibly thousands in the last week alone. These communities previously faced (and continue to suffer) rampant genocidal massacres by Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) militants without protection from security forces.
It was in this context, that federal and regional authorities informed rural communities that the security apparatus was “incapable” of providing reliable protection which prompted communities to procure firearms for protection at their own cost. Alarmingly, reports indicate that security forces are working in collusion with OLA militants to selectively and forcibly disarm these communities, redistribute confiscated arms to militants, leaving these communities without protection and vulnerable to genocidal massacres.
The targeting of Amhara civilians in Oromia Region follows a well-documented history of state-sanctioned genocide, ethnic cleansing, and pillaging of entire districts which has left millions internally displaced. AAA has recorded hundreds of genocidal massacres in Oromia often with direct or indirect involvement from state officials in which thousands of Amhara civilians including women, children, seniors and persons with disabilities, have perished, and over 2 million ethnically cleansed, revealing a deliberate and violent pattern that has continued with impunity for the past 6 years since Abiy Ahmed and his OPP regime came to power. Furthermore, thousands of survivors suffer from neglect in refugee shelters in neighboring Amhara Region where they escaped the genocide only to face continued insecurity, sexual and genderbased violence and denial of basic provisions including food, water, shelter and healthcare.
The current disarmament campaign marks an escalation of genocidal acts in Amhara Region, where the OPP regime’s siege has entered its 20th month. As the OPP regime has faced military setbacks, it has escalated incitements of violence, hate speech and forced conscription, to bolster its ranks through illicit means. In late November 2024, in a public address in Nekemte, Oromia Region President Shimelis Abdisa made yet another inflammatory speech inciting violence against Amhara communities in Oromia Region falling back on violent Oromo nationalist rhetoric and vowing to fulfill his party’s vision to “wipe out all Amharas.
Indeed, throughout the siege in Amhara, the OPP regime has used similar rhetoric to draw support, increase conscription rates and fuel mass atrocities and war crimes. By forcibly and selectively disarming Amhara residents in Oromia, the regime is now laying the groundwork for a nation-wide genocide and erasure of the Amhara people throughout the country.
In consideration of the alarming escalation in rhetoric and increased risk of mass atrocities, AAA calls on all stakeholders to do their part to ensure protection of vulnerable communities. Specifically, AAA calls upon the United Nations, the African Union and other international partners to condemn the OPP regime’s ongoing abuses against civilians in Amhara and Oromia Regions of Ethiopia, and to hold the regime accountable. AAA also calls on global financial institutions including the IMF and World Bank to immediately suspend any financing or support for the OPP regime, which continues to commit gross violations of international human rights. The world once said “never again” in the wake of genocide, yet today, it is failing to act to prevent an active genocide of the Amhara people. The international community must intervene now—silence in this moment is complicity.
