What is going on in Ethiopia? How it is that my beloved Ethiopia has started another war already? We were just talking about the Tigray war against the TPLF, which claimed so many innocent lives. More than 600,000 people were killed between 2020 and 2022. Then we blinked, and they’ve started a new war. This time between the government and the Amharas, one of the two largest ethnic groups in Ethiopia. I seriously look forward to when we’ll no longer kill ourselves in Africa because of ethnic issues.
The Amharas are neighbors with the Tigrays where the war just ended, and they actually fought along side the government against the TPLF. After the war, the government did not disarm the TPLF as it promised but decided to disarm the Amharas. The Amharas refused. They insisted on keeping their weapons to protect themselves as they’ve done for generations.
I found out there’s a long history of the Amharas owing weapons to defend themselves since the 1930s when the Italians invaded Ethiopia trying to colonize them by fire by force. They refused to be colonized, and they formed their own militia group called the Fano. So because they refused to release their weapons, the government declared a state of emergency and started a war against them, drones and all. And they’re being attacked by the Oromo Liberation Association.
I feel like the Nobel committee might have acted in haste by giving their prime minister, Abby Ahmed, the Nobel Peace Prize. Because I don’t understand how you can be waging two wars in three years against your own citizens. There has to be a better way of settling issues; you can’t just be going to war every time. As usual, a lot of innocent people, women, children, will die because of some people’s ego.
By the way, Somalia is also threatening war against Ethiopia. This is because Ethiopia is desperately trying to have access to the Red sea for commercial purposes, so on January 1st, the prime minister of Ethiopia made a deal with Somaliland to lease 12 miles of its coastline to Ethiopia. In return, Ethiopia is giving Somaliland’s authorities a stake in their national airline, Ethiopian Airlines.
Now, by doing this, Ethiopia has formally recognized Somaliland as a nation. The problem is, Somaliland used to be part of Somalia, Somaliland was colonized by the British, Somalia by the Italians. In 1991, Somaliland broke away, declared it’s independence. They print their own money, they have their own elections. But since 1991, Somaliland has not been recognized by any U.N. member state until now that Ethiopia recognized them for business purpose. Somalia is upset, people are protesting in Mogadishu calling for Ethiopia to back out of the deal. We’re hoping this will not escalate into a war.