Ethiopia: Big clashes erupted in Amhara and the central State unleash a wave of terror
Featured image: masses protest in Amhara against the offensive of the Ethiopian State. Source: Deutsche Welle.
On Tuesday 29th of August the UN declared the official figures of murdered in the Amhara region, that reached to 183 dead people from the end of July until the end of August. These dead are consequence of the outbreak of new clashes in the Amhara region, Ethiopia, and the situation has become so problematic that the Ethiopian State has had to declare the state of emergency in the region and try to occupy it militarily. Among other measures, the Internet has been banned in the area, to prevent a real diffusion of the atrocities committed by the State there.
This conflict has been in active in Amhara since May of 2022, when the ruling classes of the Ethiopian State tried to continue with the centralization of power, and tried to integrate the regional militia of Amhara, known as Fano, in the State armed forces. In 2022 there were great mobilizations that ended with thousands of detained people. The detained were paramilitaries who refused to deliver weapons, local authorities, activists of all kinds, journalists, civilians who supported Amhara’s regionalism against the centralism of the Ethiopian state, etc.
Despite this enormous repression, masses of Amhara have not stopped their struggle. Their protests have continued for months, and then the Ethiopian State has declared the state of emergency on 4th of August of this year. After this State measure, the militias of the region have organized and fight against the Ethiopian armed forces. There are also groups of young people who organized on their own in the region.
After the first week of repression and the State trying to get the control over the region, it is reported that the State is carrying out many military actions. The action that has become better known, has been the bombing by the Ethiopian State of a town-square in Finote Selam on Sunday 13th of August. This bombing murdered at least 26 people and caused hundreds of injured. The Ethiopian State is also unleashing repression in the rest of the country. In the capital Addis Ababa there are thousands of detained people, in most cases of young people from the Amhara region, allegedly for having links with the militia Fano.
In the last weeks the Ethiopian State has not been able to control the situation, and the State authorities are even admitting that there are a large number of districts that are outside their jurisdiction. Due to this inability, the State has unleashed a wave of terror against the people in recent weeks: Amhara’s local doctors report that only on the weekend from 25th of August to 27th of August, there were more than 100 killed in the city of Debre Markos, murdered by the State armed forces. In addition, indiscriminate killings are reported in the town of Debretabor, where State troops are entering in the houses of civilians and shooting them in cold blood.
All this points out that the reports we have mentioned of the UN are completely wrong and are lowering the numbers of the massacre made by the State against the people of Amhara. In addition, we must remember that all these crimes are perpetrated by a government led by Abiy Ahmed, which was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, showing the enormous hypocrisy of bourgeois institutions.
