December 20, 2024
H.E. António Guterres Secretary-General
United Nations 405 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017, USA
Dear Secretary-General Guterres,
We, Ethiopian Americans and concerned citizens committed to human rights, have gathered in front of your office to once again protest and bring to your attention the ongoing systemic and state-sponsored killings of Amharas and Orthodox Christians throughout Ethiopia.
Over the past six years, the escalating frequency of massacres, extrajudicial and summary killings, mass displacements, and arbitrary arrests of Amharas and Orthodox Christians has led to repeated calls by human rights activists urging international organizations, including the United Nations, to act urgently and with resolve. Despite these warnings, the atrocities have only intensified.
These concerns have been conveyed to UN officials, including those in the Office on Genocide Prevention, through meetings and rallies held in front of UN offices in New York, Geneva, Hague and other locations worldwide. For example, in December 2019, Eskinder Nega, a celebrated journalist, human rights activist, and politician, along with the late Professor Getachew Haile, a foremost scholar of the Ge’ez language, met with officials from the United Nations Genocide Prevention Office. They presented photographs of mass graves, video footage of bodies being hastily dumped by earth-moving machinery, and a live testimonial from a genocide survivor sheltered in a camp near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.
In May 2022, Eskinder Nega and Professor Stephen Eric Bronner, political theorist and director of Global Relations at the Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, and Human Rights at Rutgers University, and member of Executive Committee of the UNESCO Chair for Genocide Preventionmet, met with the UN Genocide Prevention Office to present further documentation of the ongoing genocide of the Amhara people.
Numerous reports have been submitted to your office over time, calling for decisive action. Organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the European Center for Law and Justice, and Cap Freedom of Conscience have presented compelling evidence and alarming reports. On July 21, 2022, Amnesty International released a report detailing the massacre of at least 400 ethnic Amhara individuals in Tole Kebele, Oromia Region. The massacre claimed the lives of women, children, and the elderly, many of whom were subjected to unspeakable violence.
The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) submitted a brief for the 47th session of the UN to discuss the status of human rights in Ethiopia. The findings revealed a troubling pattern of extensive human rights abuses against the Amhara people, marked by massacres, extrajudicial killings, drone strikes, forced displacements, and mass arrests. The ECLJ’s comprehensive report, “The Silent Suffering of the Amhara People in Ethiopia,” highlights these atrocities while exposing the intertwined persecution of Christians.
The Ethiopian government declared a six-month state of emergency in the Amhara region on August 4, 2023. This measure has exposed millions to famine and displacement, severely impacting the region’s economy and disrupting the daily lives of its people. In the wake of the state of emergency, Amharas—including elected parliamentarians, city council members, professors, journalists, senior officers, artists, doctors, businessmen, students, and intellectuals—have been detained in makeshift concentration camps across the country. Amnesty International’s February 19, 2024 report titled “Ethiopia: Authorities Must Stop Using State of Emergency Law to Silence Peaceful Dissent” underscores the regime’s use of emergency laws to suppress dissent.
Surely, you and others in your organization were appalled by these reports and the many protest rallies conducted in front of the United Nations, including today’s protest against the Amhara genocide perpetrated by Abiy Ahmed and his regime.
We urge you to lead the United Nations and its organs to condemn these atrocities in the strongest terms and to hold accountable every government that supplies military and economic assistance to enable the regime’s genocidal war. The complicity of external actors, such as the United Arab Emirates, exacerbates the crisis. UAE-funded military campaigns have resulted in indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including infants and the elderly. On February 24, 2024, a devastating drone attack near the town of Sela Dingay in North Shoa claimed the lives of an entire baby’s christening party, leaving only the christened baby miraculously unharmed and orphaned. Similarly, on December 3, 2024, another drone strike in the holy town of Lalibela killed a three-month-old baby and an 83-year-old nun, highlighting the regime’s brutal campaign and its enablers.
We respectfully demand your office take the following actions to deter further acts of aggression:
1. Unequivocally condemn Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for his genocidal actions and ideology.
2. Impose effective international sanctions on the Ethiopian regime to prevent further atrocities.
3. Hold the UAE accountable for its role in enabling these massacres through drone strikes and financial aid.
4. Reactivate the UN-mandated Commission to investigate war crimes in Ethiopia and pursue justice for victims.
Failure to address the ongoing Amhara genocide risks surpassing the atrocities witnessed in Bosnia, Darfur, and Rwanda, while threatening the credibility of the United Nations and its mission. History has repeatedly shown the devastating consequences of inaction in the face of genocide. From Rwanda to Srebrenica, the lesson remains clear: silence and delay cost lives. This moment presents an opportunity for the United Nations to reaffirm its commitment to the principles enshrined in its founding charter.
On behalf of those who have lost their lives, those enduring unimaginable suffering, and future generations, we call on you to act decisively and with urgency. Your leadership at this critical juncture could save millions of vulnerable Amhara lives.
Yours sincerely,
Taddesse Solomon
Member, Amhara Association of New York
t_solomon04@yahoo.com
Editor’s note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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