The Tragedy of Colonialism in a Non-Colonised Society: Italy’s Historical Narratives and the Amhara Genocide in Ethiopia

Introduction

Ethiopia is an ancient polity that preserved its independence by defeating colonial aggressions on different battlefields. The leading among the battles is the Adwa of 1896, which ended Italy’s ambition to colonise Ethiopia at least until the coming of Mussolini into power in 1922. Embraced by this victory, pan-African nationalists romantically expressed Ethiopia as the ‘shrine enclosing the last sacred spark of African freedom, the impregnable rock of black resistance against white invasion, a living symbol, an incarnation of African independence’ (Asante, 1977: 16–17). Considering Ethiopia as the epitome of African independence, they used the Adwa victory as a discursive tool for anticolonial mobilisation. Advocates of African colonisation by Western powers by contrast were discontented by this victory. This makes them produce voluminous books to justify the necessity of colonising Ethiopia. In this regard, an English novelist, Evelyn Waugh (1984), had this to say:

Abyssinia could not claim recognition on equal terms by the civilised nations and at the same time maintain her barbarous isolation; she must put her natural resources at the disposal of the world; since she was obviously unable to develop them herself, it must be done for her, to their mutual benefit, by a more advanced power (pp. 40–42).

The responsibility to ‘civilise the barbarous’ Ethiopians was taken on by the Italian fascists; although their intention was to avenge the Adwa defeat. As such, Mussolini launched a brutal attack against Ethiopia in October 1935, using aircraft and an internationally condemned mustard gas against Ethiopian civilians. In addition to using harsh military tactics, the Italian colonisers employed the Roman imperial strategy of divide et impera. They challenged Ethiopian nationhood, arguing that Ethiopia is an empire formed by Amhara elites through colonialism. This colonial strategy was devised to disenfranchise non-Amhara populations in order to undermine collective resistance (Mockler, 2003). Although they failed to mobilise the whole non-Amhara populations on their side, the Italian colonisers accessed unsurpassable support from many of these ethnic groups.

In addition to undermining collective resistance, the discourse of Amhara colonialism shaped the politics of the country after the Italian army’s expulsion in 1941 (Messay, 2003). Influenced by this narrative, ethnic elites of the 1960s formed ethnic liberation movements to liberate their fellows from the alleged Amhara colonialism. After a long period of struggle, some of these movements controlled power in 1991 by forming a political alliance named Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Like the Italian fascists, the EPRDF systematically targeted the Amhara and labelled them as coloniser, oppressor and chauvinistic. This narrative negatively shaped the attitudes of ‘other’ groups towards the Amhara and perpetrates the massacre of Amhara, a horrendous crime that could be accurately labelled as genocide. Genocide is a premeditated crime with clearly defined goals, rather than just an aberration (Lemkin, 1944). The International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (hereinafter, the Convention) defined genocide as:

any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial groups, as such; A) killing members of the group; B) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; C) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; D) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; E) forcibly transferring children of the group to another (United Nations (UN), 1948, Article II).

Although the Convention declared genocide as an international crime, the genocide committed against Amhara did not gain the attention of the global society. The reason is that, first, this genocide has been committed secretly (Bekalu, 2018), and second, little effort has been done to expose it to the world. While searching for written materials, I have found only two documents. The first is Yetfat Zemen, ¹ which contains a collection of statistical data on the genocide against Amhara from 1991 to 2015 (Muluken, 2017). Entitled, Ethnic Cleansing in Ethiopia, the second work claims that restructuring Ethiopia on the basis of ethnic identity in 1991 perpetrates Amhara genocide (Bekalu, 2018). In a critical departure from Bekalu’s argument, this paper explicitly connects Amhara genocide to the narratives championed by the Italian colonial regime.

Genocidal violence against the Amhara is an amplification of long-standing patterns, dating its ideological justification back to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1936–1941). The Italian colonisers invented narratives that demonise Amhara as a cosmic enemy of ‘other’ ethnic groups. Influencing the politics of contemporary Ethiopia, it is this invented narrative that instigates the Amhara genocide. This paper, therefore, provides for critical reflection on how the Italian reinvention of historical narratives served to set the scene for genocidal violence committed against ethnic Amhara. The paper is based on empirical data obtained from primary sources, including opinions expressed in broadcast, print and social media platforms and party manifestos. Personal interviews were also conducted with victims, scholars, government officials and leaders of opposition parties. Much of the data were collected between February 2020 and April 2021. Screened for relevance and academic credibility, secondary materials were also reviewed. A thematic analysis method was used to analyse the result by structuring data into themes. First, the paper introduces the ‘who’ of the Amhara and why they were designated as culprits. This is followed by a brief discussion of Italy’s colonial interests in Ethiopia, and the divisive strategies employed to try to colonise the country, linking this with the instigation of the genocide of the Amhara. Finally, the paper discusses the continuities between genocidal massacres under the Italian occupation of Ethiopia up to the contemporary period.

Amhara identity in question

The most pressing issue when Ethiopia was restructured along ethnic lines in 1991 was the existence of Amhara as a distinct ethnic group. A heated debate has been conducted between politicians and scholars, with each group defining Amhara depending on their understanding of history and political motives. The first group recognised Amhara as an ethnic group from the perspective of colonialism and the thesis of national oppression. Meles Zenawi, the late Prime Minister and architect of Ethiopia’s ethnic-based federalism, was the leading proponent of this view. In a televised debate ² with Professor Mesfin Woldemariam in July 1991, Meles insisted that Amhara exist as a distinct ethnic group, whose language and culture were used to oppress ‘others’. Supporting Meles’s allegation, Lemmu (1998) criticised those who denied that the Amhara were a distinct ethnic group, writing that:

Some of the dominant Amhara elite vociferously denied the existence of any colonial issue. . . so long as people learned and spoke Amharic, and conformed to the Amharisation and assimilationist policy. Until recently, many of the Amhara elite even denied the existence of a single Amhara ethnic group. They argued that Amharic is a multiethnic tongue and the Amhara are a people made up of multiethnic groups. Hence, they self-deceptively tried to deny the existence of a distinct Amhara people (p. 96).

The second group denied that Amhara form an ethnic group at all. Rather Amhara identity forms the basis for an integrated nation-building process; far from being colonial, it is anti-colonial and unifies all ethnic groups. Mesfin, in his debate with Meles, said that Amhara did not exist as a distinct ethnic group; rather, this elusive identity includes all speakers of Amharic, whatever their ‘ethnic’ origins. As Takkele (1994) added ‘the Amhara exist in the sense of being a fused stock, a supra ethnically conscious ethnic Ethiopian serving as the pot in which all the other ethnic groups are supposed to melt’ (p. 85). He then concludes that insisting on the Amhara being a distinct ethnic group amounts to breaking apart the state.

Labelled Amhara nationalists, a third group recognises Amhara as an ethnic group and sees them as having been subjected to genocidal violence since 1936. Belete Molla, Chairman of the National Movement of Amhara (NaMA), says ‘we now call ourselves Amhara; first and foremost, we are mobilising to reaffirm our Amhara identity and redefine an Amhara horizon’. ³ Likewise, a sociologist from Addis Ababa University had this to say during an interview:

It is a misnomer to portray Amhara as not an ethnic group. They exist as a distinctive ethnic group with a specific located boundary, unique culture and language. . . Rather than deconstructing the identity of Amhara, as I believe, it seems more convincing to say that they have strong attachment with the Ethiopian state for historical reasons. Fortunately, Amhara are the heirs of the ancient ruling system. . . its culture and language served as a means of national unity. ⁴

Recognising Amhara as a distinct ethnic group, some Western scholars like Molvaer (1995) depict that the culture used by Amhara rulers to consolidate nation-building projects was distinctively Amharic. Ideas, symbols and values that governed Ethiopian socio-political systems were mainly drawn from Amhara culture (Levine, 1965). Hence, Ethiopian national identity was strongly associated with the culture of this people (Matsuoka and Sorenson, 2001). A strong sense of shared Ethiopiawinet was cultivated based on the diffusion of Amhara culture and language, and arguably, it was this that enabled Ethiopia, unlike other African states, to resist European colonisation throughout almost its entire history. The role of Amhara and its concomitant culture in forging unity on the warfront against external colonialism was the pretext for the Italian colonial project to mobilise non-Amhara populations and divide Ethiopia in their attempts to colonise the country.

Italy’s colonial interest in Ethiopia

Latecomer in the world of modern nation-states, Italy had faced tremendous socioeconomic problems, including lack of investment outlets, unemployment and demographic pressure in 1872 (Paulos, 2005). In order to alleviate these problems, the Italian ruling class envisioned to colonise unconquered lands. Among the unconquered lands were Ethiopia, a country that was thought to provide a demographic outlet for Italy’s surplus population and a valuable market from which Italian industry could draw raw materials. Nevertheless, the Italian army was heavily resisted by the united force of Ethiopians. This makes the Italian forces use different methods to consolidate the colonisation of Ethiopia, ranging from signing friendship agreements to dividing and conquering through the subversion of local chiefs.

An instance of the friendship agreements is the Wuchale Treaty of 1889, which was signed to strengthen diplomatic relations between Ethiopia and Italy (Bahru, 2001). Article XVII of this treaty constitutes a controversial clause. While the Amharic version says that Emperor Menelik ‘could’ use the services of the government of Italy when communicating with other powers, the Italian text states he ‘must’ do so. The Italian colonial regime used this latter text to claim that the agreement had given Italy a protectorate right over Ethiopia. After knowing that he was cheated, Emperor Menelik denounced the treaty. He wrote to the king of Italy, ‘when I made the treaty I said that because of our friendship, our affairs in Europe might be carried out by the sovereign of Italy, but I have not made any treaty which obliges me to do so’ (Hall, 2003: 62). Moreover, he informed Great Powers of the time that he did not accept the Italians’ interpretation of the agreement.

Every diplomatic effort of Menelik, however, was rejected by the Italian colonisers. This forced him to decide to break off Ethiopia’s relation with Italy (Henze, 2000). In this situation, it was clear to the Italians that they could not achieve their objective either by negotiation or by subversion policy (Hall, 2003). To that end, the Italian forces invaded Ethiopia in 1895. In response, Menelik issued a mobilisation proclamation on 17 September 1895, stating that:

Enemies have now come upon us to ruin our country and to change our religion . . . our enemies began the affairs by advancing and digging into the country like moles. With the help of God I will not deliver my country to them . . . Today, you who are strong give me of your strength, and you who are weak, help me by prayer (Smuts, 1929: 77).

Supported by Ethiopians positive response to the drum of war, Menelik was able to raise an army of 100,000 coherent military forces (Adejumobi, 2007). On 1 March 1896, Menelik’s force met with the 25,000 of the Italian army at the battle of Adwa (Maimire, 2005) and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Italians. The victory sent shock waves throughout Europe, caused the demise of the Italian government and obliging the Italians to finally recognise the sovereignty of Ethiopia.

The stain the battle of Adwa created on Italy later became an important pretext to fascist’s propaganda for the reinvasion of Ethiopia. Fascists cited Ethiopia as a permanent and insulting symbol of the frustration of the Italians’ national pride (Bahru, 2001). Hence, Mussolini addressed the world on 2 October 1935 that ‘we have been patient with Ethiopia for forty years, now our patience is exhausted’ (Henze, 2000: 216). On the next day, the Italians brutally attacked Ethiopia without a formal declaration of war (Adejumobi, 2007). The response of Haile Selassie to the war was peaceful, transferring the case to the League of Nations although, the league gave him deaf ears.

The Italian fascists’ response to the Emperor’s peace proposal was ravaging innocent Ethiopians through destructive artillery. As John Milley, a witness to the war says ‘this isn’t a war, it isn’t even slaughter. It is the torture of tens of thousands of defenceless men, women and children with bombs and poison gas’ (Greenfield, 1965: 159). This approach helped the Italian army to defeat Ethiopian forces at the battle of Maichew on 9 May 1936, leading to the exile of Emperor Haile Selassie to Britain. This marked the beginning of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, and the formation of Africa Orientale Italiana by merging Eritrea and Italian Somaliland to Ethiopia (Henze, 2000). However, the Italian colonisers were not able to establish a stable colonial administration as they had to fight hard against the Ethiopian patriotic resistance during all the years (Bahru, 2001). Finally, the fascist’s army was toppled by the combined forces of Ethiopia and Britain in 1941. Emperor Haile Selassie returned home and made a liberator’s triumphant entry into Addis Ababa in May of the same year.

Divide and rule strategy of Italy

In their effort to undermine collective resistance among the diversified peoples of Ethiopia, the Italian colonisers consistently followed the strategy of divide and rule. Early during the struggle of Adwa, colonial officials had declared that dividere e impera was the principal element of their policy. For example, the Italian General, Baldissera, planned ‘no action should be taken by the Italian colonial force until the strength of the conflicting parties in Ethiopia was entirely exhausted’ (Paulos, 2005: 68). Because of their belief that Ethiopian nobilities were divided, Italian colonial officials were confident that they could easily defeat the Ethiopian army. Citing the personal observation of Afework, Menelik’s chronicle and interpreter, Paulos (2005) writes that:

Baratieri was not only confident that he would defeat the Ethiopian army by using superior Italian artillery, he was under the impression that many of Menelik’s regional commanders including Ras Makonnen, Negus Tekle Haimanot and Negus Wolde Mikael would defect to the Italian side. The latter princes were actually communicating with Baratieri to confirm his wishes. . . this was a strategy devised by Menelik to mislead the Italians concerning the strength of the Ethiopian forces (p. 51).

As planned, the strategy helps Menelik to achieve a decisive victory over the Italian army. This incredible victory was boosted further by the participation of every Ethiopians in the battlefield. As Berkeley, a witness to the war, observes ‘every tukul and village in every far of the glen of Ethiopia was sending out its warrior in answer to the war drum’ (Paulos, 2005: 77). To the participants of this war, Ethiopiawinet had never been ‘an artificial bond. . . but a collective identity and an enduring shared desire of living with freedom and dignity’ (Paulos, 2005). Irrespective of their ethnic and religious differences, the diverse people of Ethiopia had stood together to fight their common enemy.

The unity of Ethiopians at Adwa alarmed Mussolini to divide the people in his effort to avenge Ethiopia. Motivated by the belief that if you destroy the symbol then you destroy the message, he ordered his military commanders to eliminate all national symbols of Ethiopia (Hall, 2003). As such, imperial symbols were denigrated and national heroes were defamed as perpetrators of genocide, expansionist and coloniser. The illustrious history and heritages of Ethiopia were deliberately dismantled to break the bond that cements the people.

The most divisive strategy the Italian colonisers used was to categorise Ethiopians into unequal human races. In this way, they divided the diversified ethnic groups into oppressor-oppressed ethnic groups, along race lines, emphasising the Amhara as a dominant race that oppressed all ‘other’ races. The Italian regime used pamphlets and letters distributed to local communities as a means of indoctrination along these lines. Adolf Parlesak was a Czech who took part in the anti-Italian war on the Ethiopian side and recorded one of these letters distributed to the Tigray people. The letter said:

To the people of Tigray:

We are sent from God to bring civilisation and prosperity to your country. Nevertheless, we unable to carry-out this God-given civilising mission because we are forcefully deterred by the Amhara and Oromo oppressors, bandits and blood-thirsty soldiers. . . Dear the esteemed people of Tigray, we preach you to whisk-away them like a dog without providing food and water. . . We strongly urge you not to provide any form of assistance to the Amhara bandits. . . if you failed to carry off this order, your village would be bombarded without any excuse (Parlesak, 2002: 214).

Furthermore, the Italian colonisers promoted the notion of ‘Greater Tigre’ and ‘Greater Somalia’ to eliminate Ethiopiawinet from the minds of the people. They viewed Ethiopia as a colonial state formed by the Amhara through the subjugation of dozens of ethnic groups. In reality, territorial expansion by Amhara rulers was a project of state-building and nation-building similar to that elsewhere in the world. It was not based on a colonial language but involved in diffusing Amharic language with the purposes of constructing a single national identity and unified state. Nation-building projects arise first among the intellectual and political elites in the ‘center’ and then were spread outwards to include the masses, the minority ethnic, religious and cultural groups, the goal being to create a unified polity able to withstand external attacks. In such a process, intellectual and political elites generally employ some coercion, combined with elements of peaceful consent on the part of the populations. Usually, there is a combination of both. Ethiopian history was no exception to this.

The discourse of Amhara colonialism

The Italian colonisers originated the idea that Ethiopia was an Amhara colony (Messay, 2003) through the words of colonial scholars and agents. Carlo Conti Rossini, an Italian social anthropologist, characterised Ethiopia as ‘a museum of peoples’. The key assumption behind this depiction is that each of the diverse ethnic groups has ‘a bounded system and a unique culture’ (Levine, 1974: 20). This view undermines the cultural and political interactions that existed between diverse Ethiopian ethnic groups. Living together for centuries, Ethiopian ethnic groups, according to Tadesse (1988), ‘has given its neighbours some cultural elements, concepts and forms of expression’, and this form of ‘interaction and integration have uniquely characterised the long course of Ethiopian history’ (pp. 121–122). Thus, Ethiopian society developed a common cultural community (Yates, 2020) and a pan-Ethiopian identity (Levine, 1974) that transcended calcified ethnic categories.

Italian fascists rejected the existence of any form of Ethiopian identity, characterising Ethiopia as a colonial state formed by the Amhara elites. Baron Roman Prochazka, an Austrian fascist who targeted Ethiopia as a threat against White colonialism in Africa, for instance, depict Menelik’s expansion of the last quarter of the nineteenth century as a colonial type. He writes:

In the greater part of the territory of the so-called the ‘Ethiopian empire’ the Abyssinians are just as much foreign as are the Italians . . . Emperor Menelik established his rule over peoples and tribes differing entirely from each other in race, religion, and history. The Italian thus had as much right to the rule ship of Ethiopia as the Abyssinians (Prochazka, 1935: 54).

Applying colonial thesis in interpreting Menelik’s territorial expansion is unhistorical, falling back to what Mamdani (2020) calls ‘European racial ideology’ (p. 197). Wherever they established colonial administration, Europeans banned interracial marriage to preserve the racial purity of the White. In Menelik’s system, in contrast, social institutions including marriage and God-parenthood were utilised to incorporate diverse ethnic groups rather than maintaining a racial colonial order (Yates, 2020). Personal relationships that transcend ethnicity were taken as a parameter for political appointments. As Erlich (1976) commented ‘talented individuals, coming from whatever background were encouraged. . . to do their utmost and make their way to the various leading positions’ (p. 4). Being non-Amhara had never been a barrier to political appointments. Indeed, ethno-nationalist movements and political parties representing ethnic groups are new to Ethiopia.

Ethnic liberation movements were formed in the early 1970s, premising ideas of political mobilisation based on historical narratives invented by the Italian colonial regime. In an exact parallel to Rossini’s characterisation, ethnic liberation fronts viewed Ethiopia as ‘a collection of discrete, ethnic community, brought together by Amhara colonialism’ (Maimire, 2005: 270). The popularity of this belief since the mid-1960s was the result of the advent of Marxism-Leninism ideals in Ethiopia. Leninism decreed that national questions were fundamental in class contradictions, and Ethiopian history was adapted to the requirements of this ideology, even at the expense of a more complex set of historical realities (Messay, 2008). Ethnic elites started to be more critical of Ethiopian nationalism, viewing it as mythical and unrealistic at best and as imperialist and deeply flawed at worst. Walelign (1969), in his short piece – On the question of nationalities in Ethiopia, ⁵ attacked Ethiopian nationhood, arguing that ‘Ethiopia is not really one nation. It is made of a dozen of nationalities with their own language, ways of dressing, history, social organisation and territorial entity’. He concluded that the so-called Ethiopian nationalism propagated by the ruling class is factitious because it is a ‘mask’ used by Amhara rulers to oppress others.

Born out of an improper understanding of history, this narrative has wrought havoc on Ethiopian unity, leading to the creation of ethnic liberation fronts. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) are two dominant liberation fronts that accepted the invented historical narratives of colonisation propagated by the Italian colonisers. Since their formation, they worked for ‘the disintegration of Ethiopia and the emergence of an independent’ nation of their own (Messay, 2003: 181). To do so, they waged an armed struggle against the Derg, a military regime that controlled power in 1974, and ruled the country until 1991 by establishing tyrannical rule.

In their political programmes, like the Italian colonisers, these two groups explicitly posit the enmity between Amhara, Tigray and Oromo. Their overall objective, according to the OLF Political Programme, was ‘realisation of national-self-determination for the Oromo people and their liberation from oppression and exploitation in all their forms’. ⁶ Similarly, in its manifesto, the TPLF declared ‘anti-Amhara national oppression’ as one of its goals. ⁷ During the armed struggle, according to Aregawi (2008) – former leader of the TPLF, ‘anti-Amhara propaganda was subtly encouraged within the movement’ (p. 201). The TPLF indoctrinated its members, saying that ‘Amhara snatched the history of Aksum from us. Thus, the goal of our struggle is to bring back Tigray’s glorious history’. ⁸ Aregawi witnessed that ‘cultural events, theatrical performances as well as jokes and derogatory remarks were used to disseminate this poisonous attitude’ (p. 201). Anti-Amhara propaganda involves the depiction that Amhara was beneficiary from the ancient system, an attitude that neglects the very fact that Amhara was poor and voiceless like any ‘other’ ethnic groups. As Crummey (2003) summarised the living conditions of Amhara in the designated Amhara system:

Most of the Amhara, the farming populations of Gojjam, of Begemder, of Wallo, and even of Northern Shewa, received few favors from Addis Ababa. . . They benefited much less from the regime than did Western Wallaga, and. . . had poor access to modern education or medicine, or a per capita basis, than did the population of Eritrea (p. 128).

Although the fate of Amhara was similar to that of other ethnic groups, ethno-nationalist fronts were reluctant to differentiate the masses from the ruling elite. Controlling power in 1991, these groups gave constitutional recognition to the narratives invented by the Italian colonisers. The preamble of the 1994 constitution states that rectifying ‘historically unjust relationships’ that presumably existed between ethnic groups is one of its core values. This was believed to be achieved through the formation of ethnic-based administrative units, a state restructuring model that made the designated natives exclusive owners of ethnic-based regions. Because of continuous anti-Amhara propaganda, according to Shiferaw and Ishiyama (2021), Amhara – referred as settler and non-native – were subjected to recurrent killing and eviction from the newly established ethnic constituents.

The beginning of Amhara genocide

To consolidate the colonisation of Ethiopia, Italian colonisers tried to eliminate the Amhara elites and their concomitant culture through mobilising non-Amhara populations against the central state. Non-Amhara populations were indoctrinated with ideas that they were living under colonial subjugation by the Amhara elites (Mockler, 2003). Hence, many of them ‘submitted to the Italians in order to avenge the Amhara domination and to attack the Amhara’ (Sbacchi, 1985: 176). The tragic outcome of this hate propaganda was that Amhara people faced ethnic-based extermination in different parts of the country. Lentakis (2005) captured one such tragic incident that happened shortly after Haile Selassie’s exile to Britain:

From the second day the surrounding Galla [Oromo] rushed to Addis Ababa on horseback and went on the rampage, looting and killing Amharas. Addis Ababa burned for three days and three nights, and dead people were lying everywhere and rotting in the streets, being eaten by the numerous hyenas (p. 53).

Likewise, the Amhara were victims of extermination in Jimma, a mainly Oromo province. The local chief, Aba Jobir, called for the local population to kill Amhara in Jimma. As one observer – Tadesse (2012) – noted, Aba Jobir issued an edict, which stated that ‘those who can kill the Amhara and bring chopped heads will be awarded 30 Ethiopian Birr as per the chopped head of one Amhara’ (p. 12). Due to this edict, many Amharas, including children and women were killed and beheaded. Similar incidents of killings were executed in Wollega, Ogaden and Sidamo areas. The governor of Sidamo executed many innocent Amhara peasants and confiscated their cattle, robbing them of all assets and valuables (Lentakis, 2005). In Wollega, Italians convinced the Oromos to kill Amharas (Mockler, 2003). Even after the restoration of Haile Selassie’s government, attacks on Amhara continued in Wollega (Wood, 1983). Although it is difficult to find accurate data, Lapiso (1991) estimated that about 600,000 to 800,000 Amharas were evicted during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia.

In addition to convincing local chiefs to execute Amharas, the Italian colonisers directly massacred these people using different incidents as a pretext. Among the incidents was the attempt on Graziani’s life on 19 February 1937. On this day, Graziani invited some 2000 notables to the palace and was making a speech to explain the new policy of Rome (Lentakis, 2005). Two patriots, Abriha Deboch and Moges Asegdom, threw bombs at him and he was wounded. Following the incident, Guido Cortese, the secretary general of the Fascist Party in Addis Ababa, ordered the Italian soldiers to kill Ethiopians, saying that ‘today is the day when we should show our devotion to our viceroy by destroying the Ethiopians. . . For three days, I give you carte blanche to destroy and kill and do whatever you want to the Ethiopians’ (Mockler, 2003: 175). What followed were merciless killings, looting and destruction of everything thought to be the property of Ethiopians, and, according to Campbell (2017: 74), ‘the principal targets of the onslaught were the Amhara’.

Facing stiff resistance in the area where the Amhara predominantly lived, Italian troops mercilessly killed members of this ethnic group. Graziani remarks that in the Amhara provinces, people were rebellious and most adult men were fully armed (Seyoum, 2003). Thus, he believed the liquidation of notable Amharas was necessary to dismantle armed opposition to Italian rule that came from Amhara in their original homeland (Campbell, 2017). On 20 May 1937, Graziani ordered the governor of Zege, one of the Amhara provinces, to execute local people, saying ‘you have to punish without any pit all persons found in possession of arms and ammunition. I instruct you to burn not only their houses, but also the person themselves’ (Seyoum, 2003: 45). This was the same day Italian troops massacred the Debre Libanos clergy and destroyed the monastery.

Looking critically at the intention of the Italian rulers, such onslaughts were directed mainly against Amhara and constituted acts of genocide. Asking – ‘Were the Italian crimes in Ethiopia an example of genocide?’ – Barazza (n.d.: 23) replied ‘the definition of genocide is correct if referred to the extermination of the Amhara. As regards the other ethnic groups, genocide is not the correct word, although violence and crimes were extremely brutal’. United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, in its official website, writes that ‘the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted – not randomly – because of its real or perceived membership of’ a specified ethnic, religious, cultural and political groups. This, according to the same office, implies that ‘the target of destruction must be the groups. . . not its members as individuals’. ⁹ Fascists believed that Amhara were the rulers of Ethiopia’s monarchical system and that their culture was a means of constructing national unity; only by dismantling this did they believe they could colonise Ethiopia (Lapiso, 1991). To that end, Mussolini ordered his military generals to exterminate Amharas and mobilise ‘other’ groups against them. Reprisals against Amhara, were then, followed by a ‘holocaust’ that consumed the lives of thousands of defenceless Amhara civilians (Getachew, 2009: 36). Not only attempting to exterminate Amhara, the Italian colonisers introduced different mechanisms to contain the expansion of Amhara culture. For example, ‘Amharic was displaced as the legal language; and Arabic, Oromonya and Kaffinya were taught in schools’ (Sbacchi, 1985: 160). Parallel process of targeting Amhara and its concomitant culture has been continued in the post-1991 political system.

State-sponsored Amhara genocide

Learning the gospel of racial or ethnic division from the Italians, the EPRDF restructured the country along ethnic and regional lines and continued the Italian policy of exterminating the Amhara. In fact, the TPLF and OLF began to kill Amhara during the period of armed struggle against the Derg regime. An example was the Amhara murdered in Wolkayt by the TPLF at the start of the 1980s. Wolkayt is a fertile area that is found between the Amhara and Tigray regions, and formerly was part of Gondar. It is mainly Amhara province, but in 1992, the TPLF forcefully annexed this area as part of the Tigray region (John, 2021). The TPLF’s claim to incorporate Wolkayt as part of the Tigray home region is the result of an assumption that the state should be restructured based on ethnic identity and essentially based on language. It believes that Wolkayt people speak Tigrigna and by this they have an ethnic attachment with the Tigreans. In contrast, as one informant says, ¹⁰ the people in Wolkayt have deep psychological, historical and cultural attachment with the Amhara. The same informant further noticed that ‘for geographical reasons, we speak both Amharic and Tigrigna. But, we express our joy and sadness in Amharic. . . We use Tigrigna to communicate with the Tigreans who came to our land as migrant’. ¹¹

One of my informants despondently reported that the TPLF ‘killed prominent elders, educated youths and businessmen’ almost all of them Amhara. ¹² After uprooting Amhara from Wolkayt, the TPLF settled 32,000 demobilised TPLF militiamen and 400,000 Tigrean civilians into local villages and towns (Bekalu, 2018). Moreover, the TPLF degraded Amhara culture, prohibited the use of the Amharic language and changed place and personal Amharic names into Tigrigna ones. It established a socioeconomic system equivalent to apartheid in South Africa prior to 1994. The following assertion by one of the informants is a clear indication to this:

The TPLF issued separate identity cards for the Tigrean and the Amhara to identify their ethnic background in hospitals. While the identity card of the Amhara has red colour, the Tigreans issued a green-coloured identity card. Whereas the holders of the red card were maltreated, priority was given for green card holders even if they are latecomers. ¹³

The OLF is the other ethnic-based party that has killed Amhara in different parts of Ethiopia. In 1988, members of this party ‘roundup approximately 300 Amhara peasants. . . and massacring them just outside Assosa’ (Young, 1999: 327). The same author added that the OLF attempted to replace Amharic with Oromigna schools and to punish those who spoke Amharic in the streets. All these forms of cultural violence were perpetrated against Amhara in order to delete Amhara culture from the minds of Oromo and ‘other’ Ethiopians, to replace Amhara as a unifying culture with Oromo culture.

After controlling power, the OLF collaborated with the TPLF to massacre Amhara from the Oromia region. In a letter sent to the US Congress on 17 September 1992, Asrat Woldeyes, then chairman of All Amhara Peoples Organisation (AAPO), described the eviction of Amhara as follows:

The Amharas living in the provinces of Arsi, Hararghe, Bale and South Showa have been subjected to various forms of genocidal activities. It has been officially announced that the Amhara in these localities have to evacuate themselves or else face extermination. As the people have nowhere to go, they have been receiving all the atrocities that have been planned for them. . . the EPRDF disarms the Amharas singularly in the name of law and order. Then a weak or so later either OLF or a well-armed and trained Islamic force. . . come to commit, on these helpless peasants various forms of inhuman acts of extermination. . . resulted in enormous dislocation of thousands of women and children who still live like animals in the bushes (Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1992: 106).

Although it is difficult to find accurate data that shows the exact losses suffered by Amhara civilians, the following data are documented by human rights organisations. Quoting Human Rights Watch, Daniel (2003) writes that some 60,000 Amharas were displaced from the Diba Tena and Mandura Guanga districts of Gojjam following attacks by the Benishangul ethnic group in 1992. He adds that 320,000 Amharas were forcibly displaced in Arba Gugu and hundreds killed after the TPLF seized power there. According to the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO, 2016), at least 10,000 Amharas were killed and a similar number were evicted in Benishangul Gumuz region, between 2014 and 2015. Some 78,000 Amharas were reported to be displaced from Guraferda within a week, during an incident instigated by local government officials in 2012 (Muluken, 2017). A top leader of the All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP) sorrowfully expressed his view of this incident in an interview:

A pregnant woman who gave birth to a child during the night was thrown out on the street the following morning along with her mattress and neonate. . . A farmer who individually was able to own as many as 3000 tree plants of coffee, avocado, mango, papaya and banana has been forced to leave behind everything. . . Amhara farmers were told by the local authorities that as you came empty-handed, you cannot take anything along with you. Armed government officials threaten the Amhara farmers with imprisonment on false charges of burning forests and possessing illegal weapons. . .After confiscating and tearing into pieces the identity cards of these Amhara farmers, the local government authorities have subsequently accused them of travelling without an identity card. ¹⁴

The 2007 population census shows a significant decline in the total record of the Amhara population. The Commissioner of the National Population and Housing Census Commission briefed the Ethiopian parliament that at least 2.5 million Amharas were missing for unknown reasons. ¹⁵ Many observers claim that the numeric reduction was the result of the continuous genocidal violence committed against Amhara. Even in the Amhara region, the TPLF-led EPRDF killed thousands of Amharas in the name of freeing the region from bandits. An informant says ‘in Gojjam, prominent Amharas who supposed to challenge the power of the EPRDF were systematically killed, disappeared and languished in jail without fair trial’. ¹⁶ Above all, the TPLF inflicts genocidal violence against the Amhara by denying Amhara civilians access to medicine, especially those affected by malaria, between 1993 and 1997. This turmoil is recalled by one of my informants as follows:

Immediately after seizing power, the TPLF expropriated medical institutions that the Derg established to prevent malaria in Amhara region. Few years later, the Amhara were affected by this pandemic. The victims were denied access to medicine, causing the death of more than ten people in a local village each day. . . after four years of destruction, the Amhara businessmen held a meeting at Bahir Dar. In the meeting, I urged the participants to end the pandemic by purchasing medicine, stressing the fact that the government did nothing to stop the spread of malaria. On the next day, I was called to the office of the President of the Amhara region and he told me: ‘you need to stop your attempt to create mistrust between the government and the society’. Losing hope to end the pandemic, I assumed that it is deliberately inflicted by the government to eliminate the Amhara. ¹⁷

In Wollega, ordinary Amhara farmers have been victims of kidnappings, massacres and forced displacement by various armed groups. The Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), on 1 November 2020, a breakaway armed wing of the OLF, killed 54 Amharas in Western Wollega in an attack. ¹⁸ One survivor recalls:

In the early morning of this day, they [the OLA militiamen] came to our village, selectively told us [the Amharas] to go to the local school for a communal meeting. Because we have no prior information about what they planned for us, we went to the school. . . while we were waiting for the meeting to be started; they unexpectedly opened fire on us, brutally killed children and women and then afterwards looted cattle and burned-down houses. ¹⁹

The attack took place immediately after federal security forces left the area, for unknown reasons. This creates conjecture among Ethiopians on who or what is behind the attacks. Many believe the attack was instigated by extremist local government officials. Odda Talbii, OLA spokesman, in his efforts to immunise the OLA from such accusation said: ‘We want to underline that we are not responsible for this act. The local administration works in collaboration with the Oromia Police to carry out this operation’. ²⁰ Likewise, one informant argues that ‘I believe that government officials are sympathisers. . . local police forces prohibit us from making counterattack to protect ourselves’. ²¹ Nonetheless, one top government official from the federal government rejected this accusation, saying that ‘the OLA is responsible for all the atrocities happening in Wollega’. ²² He added, ‘they even kidnapped and assassinate government authorities’. ²³ Whoever is responsible for such pogroms, the Amharas are generally the victims of such merciless killings and displacements in Wollega. At the time of writing this paper, Amhara farmers were being killed in the most inhumane ways and forcefully displaced to lead a miserable life. The result was their leading a miserable life for no crime other than being Amhara.

One major act of genocide of Amhara people in post-2018 Ethiopia was the Maikadra Massacre. According to University of Gondar investigation, about 1563 Amharas were killed in a series of attacks between 6 and 10 November 2020 by TPLF youth groups known as Samri. The attackers were armed with weapons that included machetes and knives, Samri killed in collaboration with Tigrean civilians, police and armed local militias. During fieldwork, I observed that the dead were treated in an inhumane manner, and left in the streets, their bodies thrown in ditches or in holes dug up and strewn throughout farmland. A woman who lost her husband in the massacre says:

Before the attack began, all the gateways of the town were closed by the TPLF police forces. Then, the Tigrean youths who grew up with us started the massacre. . . I had never seen this kind of brutality from human being before. I saw when they beheaded a child; I saw when they killed a pregnant woman; I saw when they killed my husband. ²⁴

In addition to trying to wipe out the local Amhara, perpetrators later denied the heinous crimes they had committed. As Stanton (2016: 2) argues ‘the perpetrators of genocide. . . deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims’. The TPLF-led regime has never brought any of the perpetrators to justice. Rather it has tried to cover up their past deeds. For example, when Amharas were exterminated in Guraferda, Prime Minister Meles briefed the parliament that Amhara settlers had been accused of destroying forests. Likewise, as one informant reported, local officials dehumanised Amhara, saying that ‘you are metie (newcomer), neftegna (gun-holder) and timkitegna (chauvinist). You are rootless trees. You will come out when we need you to do so’. ²⁵ Furthermore, the OLF also dehumanised Amhara, referring to them as Amartitin Nema Miti, an expression which conveys the same message as Untermensch, German term used by the Nazi to refer to others as sub-human.

Conclusion

Although Ethiopia successfully defeated colonial aggressions on battlefields, its unity has been undermined by the historical narratives brought into the forefront of the country’s politics by the Italians. In their effort to undermine collective resistance, the Italians deconstructed Ethiopian nationhood, claiming that the state is a mere collection of isolated ethnic groups dominated by Amhara colonial rule. In contrast to Ethiopians own notions of mystical unity under the crown, this narrative of colonisation divides up the people along an oppressor-oppressed dichotomous set of relationships. This unhealthy ethnic dichotomy was reinforced by ethnic elites who became advocates of Marxism-Leninism in the 1960s. Ethnic elites reinterpreted Ethiopian history to make it fit the Leninist line of supporting ‘oppressed nationalism’, even at the expense of historical reality. Borrowing historical narratives from Italians and European race theories, all Amhara came to be viewed as coloniser and ethno-nationalist parties were created explicitly to struggle for the liberation of their own people, allegedly freeing them from Amhara internal colonialism. After a long period of fierce resistance, ethno-nationalist parties controlled state power in 1991, started to restructure the Ethiopian state along ethnic lines, continuing with the former Italian colonisers’ policy of mobilising non-Amhara populations against Amhara and the central state. Incessant indoctrination under the Italians, followed by the Marxist-Leninism of the Derg years and later reinforced by ethnic separatism of TPLF-led EPRDF, and the OLF, all this came – negatively to shape popular attitudes of other ethnic groups towards Amhara people, of whatever class or status. The net result has been that Amhara have been subjected to almost continuous attacks, in a pattern of systematic extermination that has affected almost every corner of the country. There are strong continuities in this process from the Italian occupation of Ethiopia to the present day. As far as the intent of the perpetrators is concerned, it is clear to eventually eliminate the Amhara from Ethiopia, a heinous crime that has been committed against innocent civilians and constitutes an act of genocide. Because the genocide against the Amhara has been executed covertly, there is little organised data to show the precise losses Amhara people have incurred. The problem of this covert genocide requires further in-depth investigations by scholars and international observers so that a more accurate record of this genocide can be established.