The impending and inevitable demise of East Africa’s Pol Pot

By Gizew Derese 

History has proven the world wrong once again. Genocide seems to have a cycle of resurgence.  Rwanda’s genocide still has its scar in how the world failed protecting the lives people in Rwanda. And now, it appears that the then leader of the Khmer Rouge of former Kampuchea has now reincarnated himself in the body and soul of Abiy Ahmad. Abiy has proven to be a vicious mutant variety of a cocktail of geocoders carved into one. His barbarism defies humanity. He has become a signature of brutality and barbarism. What he is committing is a haunting reminder of the gruesome reality of genocides that deify any semblance of humanity.

The killing fields of Cambodia housed hundreds of thousands of human remains from a state sponsored genocide perpetrated by Pol Pot in his direct rains between 1975-1975. The present-day situation in Ethiopia is no less in degree and viciousness to what transpired in former Kampuchea, Rwanda and Nazi Germany.  

Ethiopia in its history had formidable enemies even before the Italian invaders. Among the many, Gragne Ahmad who had had superior fighting army did inflict untold misery on Ethiopians. The people of Ethiopia at present are going through a harrowing and inconceivable fascism committed by Abyi Ahmad Ali’s Oromumma (not Oromo people) hegemony. The proportion of savagery may even surpass that of Mussolini’s and Graziani’s invasion of Ethiopia.

Orommuma like Gragne Ahmad has built a war machine that derives its savagery from the historical Oromos expansion called “Liqimssa” roughly translates into English as “the swallower”. It takes itself as an invincible Beast where there will be no respite until it has eaten all there is and until there is no one left to fight it. It is said it takes sorcery and bloodshed as its guardian of its mission. 

Abiy has been using the Ethiopian National Army as his personal paramilitary force and has been committing reprehensible and heinous crimes against humanity. This army mostly from his Oromo ethnic group, has been savaging the Amhara people ever since he stepped his foot at Arat Kilo Palace supported by Ahmara politicians who resented the Oromo plight then not that they were and are righteous. 

What makes this genocide comparable to past genocides is that it is being carried out under the very eyes of Western diplomats and Capitals. In fact, when the genocide in Rwanda was being carried out the UN, Belgians and the French were there. In former Pol Pot’s Kampuchea, it does not mean the US did not make note of the genocide nor the genocide of Armenians. In fact, the Srebrenica massacre occurred in the presence of the UN. Has anyone intervened in restraining genociders from committing heinous crimes against humanity. No one nor will it be expected now. That is how the cycle of genocides gets its re-birth again and again.

In Ethiopia, the misguided Western rhetoric emanates and is based on Tigrayan & Oromo scholars’ hatred to the Amhara people. These scholars were able to get very close to the policy architect in the West and their distortion of facts and the influence they bought by their finances has inevitably resulted in the country being the major killing fields in Africa. For the last 40-50 years, the country has never had any respite from reprehensible human rights abusers. There were and are many individuals the likes of Brehane Gebre-Christos, TPLF politician and diplomat, with his close connection and superior articulation and shenanigans has always managed to get the softer side of the West in order to extend the life line of TPLF and bring back TPLF and realize their nostalgia of conquering the land again.

In the past some Western diplomats publicly had said words that proved to be inflammatory and may have resulted in the ethnic strife perpetrated by TPLF & Orommuma. The consequences of these irresponsible and unnecessary speeches have resulted in disaster and tragedy. These speeches erroneously have resulted in misperceptions by inept politicians in Ethiopia to justify their terror and mayhem. 

Just to mention a few, former Senator Herman Cohen who was among individuals who gave blessing to TPLF’s ascent to power. He later shifted gear near TPLF’s collapse to assert the rise of Orommuma. Up on power transfer to Abiy he said/wrote: “Oromos, the largest ethnic group have been excluded from political power for generations. Now, the Oromo voice will finally be heard.” It is of no surprise how Orommuma & OLF misinterpreted the words as a blessing to concurring and domination of other ethnic groups in Ethiopia. The Orommuma elite then marginalized the rest of ethnic groups through a cult called “Hunduma Kegna” (All is Ours). Subsequently, Liqimssa the Beast opened the floodgates of Hell and began committing untold barbarism against the Amhara ethnic group. It may sound a cliché, but the fact is that: “There are no devils left in Hell, they are all with Abiy Ahmad Ali.”

At the time of Melese’s funeral his convoluted and brutal leadership was commemorated by no less than Susan Rice who summarized what Meles told her and how “Stupid” the opposition parties and their members were. The leftover TPLF then used this characterization as an assertion that it was only the Tigray elite who were entitled to be king makers of the nation. Of course, these statements understandably may come from the notion of strengthening America’s geographic interest regardless of the ruthless nature of States.

It will not be strange if some diplomats currently advise Orommuma to limit the loss of the genocide and if it can be completed in short time since they cannot sustain the ultimate pressure from their own people. As for the interest of America and the larger West it is not going to be Orommuma nor TPLF that will have the moral authority or the legitimacy to stand for security and peace in the Horn of Africa. 

USA UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield should have raised the Amhara plight in the UN forum emphatically not that the UN’s score card for preventing genocide is of sterling quality. Her visit to Chad shows her concern about the plight of refugees and displaced people especially children, women and the elderly. What she may have forgotten is that there are millions of people that have been forcefully internally displaced who live in perpetual hunger in a country called- Ethiopia. 

Erdoğan is also another curse to Ethiopia beyond supplying drones to be used in domestic conflicts. Abyi and his inept entourage have openly endorsed his post-coup detat tactics in purging, silencing and mass incarcerations of opposition voices, journalists and innocent civilians. The country has now been transformed as one of the worst offenders of human rights and jailer on the globe.

Abiy does not have the moral authority or the legitimacy to determine the fate of Ethiopia and the right to existence of the Amhara people. He is not an Ethiopian at all by all stretches of imagination for all the sacrilege he has committed on this land. In his reign, the country has been led by a military decree in the name of “Command Post” like his predecessors- a command post of butchery. The land has become an open and enclosed prison camp for the Amharas. Residential houses of the poor are being demolished in

their sleep including Mosques and Churches. Orthodox Christian faith followers are being dehumanized and killed by Orommuma. They perpetuate the notion that Orthodox Christianity is an Amhara religion and should be wiped out from the face of the land and replaced by a pagan Liqimissa religion. 

From Addis Ababa to the four corners of the land, prisons have overflowed, and schools have been made makeshift detention camps. Furthermore, big concentration camps are now sprawling across Ethiopia. Many of the detainees are losing their lives from hunger and disease including cholera. Some say, the only thing Oromumma has not used is Nazi Germany’s gas chambers. Orommuma knows best cholera and other diseases including hunger can do the task of murdering Amharas equally and effectively as to the gas chambers.

It is also alarming that career diplomats flying over Amhara land (Abiy’s killing fields) to Mekelle to bring peace to the nation. How can peace be conceivable if it does not encompass the Amhara people. How do the diplomats assess their success by excluding the largest ethnic group in the country. This is tantamount to farce diplomacy, and they know it. Mike Hamer traveling to Ethiopia/Mekelle and Britain’s Ambassador to Mekelle to do what? Well, if they can stope Amhara genocide, well and good. The same goes with UN delegation that shook hands with Banda butchers in Bahir Dar. When you see the scale of human tragedy in Ethiopia you can ask what the relevance of Tony Blaire’s Institute for Global Change or of the Nobel Prize Institute for Peace are for. Nothing!

The story is also about the intransigence of paid influence peddlers stretching from K Street to Downing Street. Some countries’ peace and security can fall under a single Senator’s influence brought by influence peddlers (industry). At times State Department officials’ assessment of grave conditions can be relegated to the back burner. 

Defense Secretary Lloyd James Austin III in his recent visit to Africa did not fly over the killing fields of Ethiopia nor shook the bloodied hands of Abiy like Anthony Blinken did. It is time for America’s East Africa policy to wake up from its slumber and doldrums. The bloodshed by the regime can be immediately stopped and the guns silenced right away. It is just a phone call away. 

The media in the country has also been silenced in addition to internet blockade and phone service disruptions. It has even extended to YouTube where Abiy’s paid hoodlums have managed to takedown media channels of opposition voices and human rights activists under the very eye of State Department officers.

The mockery for peace was also demonstrated by the Pretoria agreement. An agreement that proved dead on arrival. Western diplomats ignored the Amharas and believed that Amharas were no longer stakeholders in their eyes. Blinded by the TPLF nostalgia, they had to craft this gimmick as a last-ditch effort to save and extend the lives of the remaining TPLF criminals from the Liquimssa’s Sword. It is not for peace and stability of Tigray people nor the rest of Ethiopia. There are elements who are working to give a lifeline and resurrect the dead TPLF. Imagine IGAD headed by Workneh Gebeyehu, who was head of TPLF’s brutal police force and Abyi’s sidekick, brokering peace.  

Besides, why can’t an Ahmara live in Axum or Wellega for that matter a Tigray settle in Arsi and an Oromo live in the Amhara region. This agreement implied that the solution to the current crisis is ethno-centered land rationing. It was doomed to fail from the start. And it is dead. Since the signing agreement both TPLF & Orommuma have accelerated human rights abuses more than ever.

It is also unfair to squarely blame Western diplomats for the plight of Ethiopia. There is a curse that still lives in some circles of Amhara politicians, the Clergy and corrupt Amhara scholars. It is called Amhara Gluttony (Hodam Amhara). This curse has plagued the Amara people right from the Italian invasion to TPLF and now to Oromuma. They never had the courage to voice their opposition to the plight of the Amharas as long as they can keep the wealth they have amassed in the last 40 years. 

ZU-23 anti-aircraft guns, mortar, tanks, artillery and drones are being fired at unarmed Amhara civilians. A national defense army committing war crimes against its own civilians is the worst egregious human rights violation in recent African history. Murderous hate on a single ethnic group needs to be stopped. An army that can not fend off al-Shabaab proved to be good at killing unarmed civilians. The army demonstrably cannot face the gallant Amhara Fanos. An army that takes refuge in churches. The discipline of Amhara Fanos as a fighting force is beyond description. Their freedom songs are also reverberating across the country and abroad. One freedom song runs:” Mechtewagana Yashewal Gena (has not even started the fight and then will thrash it)”.  Their rhythm and earth-shaking strides, beats and dances bring back memories of South Africans’ fight for freedom songs. It has also been instrumental in their resolve to defeat apartheid.

All ethnic groups, except the elite politicians and corrupt scholars, have been victims of this savagery. In the past 40 years they have been dragged through abject poverty, diseases, illiteracy and mass exodus.  They were engaged in pillaging the land, siphoning off developmental aid and loans from the hungry mouths and leaving almost the entire population in Buttuto (Rags). It has always been party time in Arat Kilo when loans or developmental aids are approved. Almost all is stolen, and the rest goes to buying arms that ultimately ends up killing civilians. 

A palace is being built by Abiy costing billions of dollars to meet his egoistic delusional grandeur while millions of Ethiopians are languishing in poverty and caught in incessant war. Very soon Ethiopia will be free. The palace will be converted into a museum. The world and future generations will see what kind of heinous crimes this man has committed in his time. It will forever commemorate the price paid to liberate the land from tyranny. His parks will be seats of Statues that will forever glorify Amharas Endurance and Sacrifice and their Gallantry for the likes of Fano Molla Melaku’s sacrifice in Woldia (Rest in Peace in Heaven with God Bro). Your sacrifice will not be left in vain. The depravity, savagery, abject and abhorrent sadism of Abiy will not break the enduring Amhara spirit and their resilience.  The Green, Yellow and Red flag will be raised once again with indelible pride. It will fly forever in the MotherLand. 

Abiy openly ridiculed the mass graves of Amharas by saying: “At least the trees we are planting will be shades for their dead bodies.” For all those that have died in their mothers’ wombs and for those pregnant women whose belly was sliced open to kill an Amhara fetus and for those infants killed and piled and buried in mass graves and for all Amharas who have given and are giving their only precious possession, their lives, will forever be remembered for all the sacrifice they paid for the liberation of Amharas from tyranny. They will be immortalized by the tallest and longest marble walls and murals with their names engraved in Gold Plates for the ultimate sacrifice they paid to defend the Amhara people. 

Surely there will be The International Criminal Tribunal for Ethiopia (ICTE).  The unspeakable crimes committed against humanity by Abiy continue to this very day. Just to mention a few: unlawful killings of civilians, sexual violence, genital stripping, beheading, dismembering, hanging, physical violence, terrorizing civilians including collective punishment, abductions, forced disappearances, burning down homes, pillaging of towns and cities, mass graves, violations of the laws or customs of war and ethnic cleansing are the day-to-day fascism being committed by Abiy. These are what all dictators committed before justice prevailed, whatever belated justice it may have been. Well, if Abiy is lucky, he will head to the Haig to share a cell with Ratko Mladic or to a British prison to be with Charles Taylor, if not the fate of Samuel Doe, Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein may be on the way. Preparations of deck of cards for Abiy (the ace of spades) and his regime members should be on the way like in Iraq to make it easy for their capture wherever they go in the world. 

Amharas are under existential threat. Their freedom will be declared soon by Amhara Fanos at whatever cost. Amhara Fano will not need an amphibious warfare strategy from America nor Britain’s alleged informal army from Port Moresby or for that matter from Kathmandu nor BiBi’s blessings. Some even wonder if they had gone to West Point or RMA Sandhurst for their military training. 

Despite all the dehumanizing tragedies, very soon we will all say proudly: “Wellahi, we will forever and ever be Amhara for eternity.” Hast el fin del Mundo, Amen! Amhara lives matter!! Just war will always win!!

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