February 10^nth, 2024

Re:

Dear

 “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”

Albert Einstein

In its long history as a nation, Ethiopians of all creeds and ethnicities have been victims of oppression. Fifty years ago, the youth in the country were under the spell of Marxist ideology. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front gave Marx’s class theory an ethnic dimension and organized themselves by tribe, making communist ideology their guide and finding identity convenient to organize and rally people. The Amhara were portrayed as the oppressors. On this basis, after the collapse of a military Junta called the Derg in 1981, the Amhara people were prevented from attending the conference held in London under the auspices of the American government. The purpose of which was to form a transitional Government. The Amhara were also excluded from the drafting of the constitution that would decide the future of the country.

Just like the London Conference, which was held in 1981 to the exclusion of the Amhara people, the so-called Pretoria Accord after the war in Tigray signed in 2022 excluded the Amhara people despite the region being ravaged by the same war. Many Amharas lost their lives during this war. The Amhara people were killed, stripped of their wealth, and displaced from their villages. Genocide was perpetrated against the Amhara people and their wealth and property were destroyed as a result of the power struggle waged by the TPLF and the Prosperity Party. This kind of opaque and irresponsible political game has led to devastation within Ethiopia.

The racist Oromo prosperity regime led by Abiy Ahmed is caught red-handed selling off wheat donated by USAID to the starving population. It is squandering millions of dollars of borrowed money to buy drones while our people are starving. These weapons and drones are being used against its citizens previously in Tigray and currently in Amhara and Oromia regions.

Having wreaked devastation within Ethiopia, Abiy is now working to extend his evil sphere of influence to neighbouring nations. The once harmonious relations between Ethiopia and its neighbours have given way in recent years to acrimony. Irresponsible talk on behalf of Abiy to have a port by force if necessary from Eritrea or Somalia may lead to the outbreak of conflict in East Africa. Under Abiy, Ethiopia now finds itself in conflict with the six sovereign nations that surround it. Abiy’s government, once the bearer of the rhetoric of peace and cooperation, has now turned to bellicose, belligerent, and divisive policies. The conclusion of a memorandum of understanding between Abiy and Muse Bihi Abdi can only be interpreted as an expression of Abiy’s intention to extend his chaotic influence beyond Ethiopia’s borders.

Abiy Ahmed’s apartheid regime will certainly create a crisis beyond the country and continent if the international community does not stop it in time. Therefore, we, Ethiopians living in Europe, ask the governments attending this great peace conference to save our people and our country from destruction by taking the following actions:

1. Put pressure on the fascist Abiy Ahmed to resign immediately.

2. We ask you to support the establishment of a committee to investigate the genocide being perpetrated by Abiy Ahmed in its five-year tenure, as well as the ongoing war against the Amhara people.

3. To bring lasting peace, a comprehensive and independent body should be established to ensure justice during the transition period, so that those who ordered the crimes to be committed and those who carried them out should be brought to justice and the victims compensated.

4. We would like to state that the group called the National Consultative Commission, which was formed by the apartheid regime of Abiy Ahmed and the TPLF to stop confusing the world community. The Commission is not accepted by our people and is not independent. This type of commission should be an independent body elected by all concerned parties and should not be appointed by a regime responsible for the crimes.

Genocide Prevention in Ethiopia (GPE) Document for reference 

Background & Justification 

Genocide Prevention in Ethiopia (GPE) is a human rights advocacy group that was established in response to a series of alarming ethnic-based civilian massacres in Ethiopia. The frequency and the nature of ethnic-based killings have become so rampant and unparalleled, necessitating GPE’s formation to be a voice for the voiceless. 

The GPE initiative holds a view that the problem is of a structural, institutional & governmental nature, inexorably linked to the Ethnic Federalism system instituted in Ethiopia 30 years ago. The system has toxic geographical, demographic, and historical dimensions and the genocide ensuing currently is considered by many as the system has finally gone to full fruition. Specifically, the system awards ownership of regions to what it labels ‘owners of the land’ (these groups were labeled so arbitrarily depending on how the ruling coalition at the time viewed their significance in gerrymandering the nation into Balkanized states), leaving those who live in these newly ethnically segregated regions that ended up being labeled after other ethnic groups as ‘settlers’ in their own country, leaving them with no legal, political, or economic representation. It does not take far-sightedness to imagine that these citizens who are made ‘outsiders’ will easily become targets of genocide and perpetual terror by individuals and groups, at will. 

The Ethnic Federal system morphed after a divisive design that has several inherent flows, among which some are listed below. 

1. It was conceived out of the violent territorial expansion objectives of the TPLF (Tigray People Liberation Front) by annexing adjacent lands where the majority of the residents are Amhara and Afar from the west, south-west, east, and south-east with the intent to eliminate Amharas in all forms of their existence (geographic, socio-economic, historic, and person-hood) from their land of birth and that of their ancestors.

2. It ignored the thousands of years of cohesive existence of more than 80 ethnic groups by partitioning the country into 14 regions, subjecting tens of other smaller ethnic groups to dominance by major regional ethnic groups. These semi-independent regions were divided roughly based on made-up ethno-linguistic borders with a couple of multi-ethnic regions like Dire-Dawa & Addis-Ababa, which later were gradually made to lose their self-governance through undemocratic processes.

3. It created and implemented non-symmetric regional constitutions that were not uniform among the new regions it created thereby creating an apartheid-like system where the majority was denied voice or citizenship rights overnight, as they simply found themselves in newly & haphazardly delineated ‘regions’ which illegally remove their residence as their ‘ancestral place of birth’ even if their ancestors lived in these new so-called regions for millennia.

4. It was intentionally designed and implemented to be exclusive as practiced by Italian invaders from the 19th and the 20th centuries with objectives to divide and conquer Ethiopia, and was forced upon the people. As a result, ethnic federalism first targeted Amharas by labeling them as ‘Neftegnas’[1]. While ethnic federalism was instituted by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), these two architects later parted ways due to a power struggle, with the TPLF leading a token coalition government for 27 years until its ouster in the 2017 reform. Nevertheless, even after the reform ethnic federalism is pursued extending institutionalization of genocidal attacks against ethnic minorities living in the ‘ethnically labeled regions’, where they were deemed “settlers” by the ethnic apartheid system even if these people are indigenous to the land and are citizens of the Ethiopian nation.

As a result, attacks against ‘Neftegnas’ have escalated and thousands continue to die. The frequency of these killings not only has increased but also has taken institutional form where local government officials and law enforcement have either directly been involved in some of the killings or indirectly collaborated in the planning and the execution of the crimes with the perpetrators. These unabated genocidal crimes necessitated the formation of Genocide Prevention in Ethiopia, (GPE) an independent watchdog and advocacy group for prevention, and justice for victims in the state of Delaware on October 24, 2020. [1] A code word for ethnic Amharas, Orthodox Christians, and other minorities living outside their ‘regions’.

Yours sincerely,

Federation of Amhara Association in Europe