Ethiopia _ State Terrorism
Dawit W. Giorgis
August 16, 2020
This article is about a government that supports and conducts terrorist acts against its own citizens, which I call state terrorism. There is some controversy in the general definition of terrorism in both the academic and geopolitical sense. Terrorism is an aspect of organized violence which threatens peace and security across the globe. Some politicians define it as a political instrument. Resistance to oppression and struggle for human rights and freedom are sometimes defined as terrorism in the legislations of some countries. But it is generally recognized as one of the most serious contemporary security challenges of Africa, tantamount to an undeclared war, which transcends political borders, destabilizes governments, preys on innocent people and causes an enormous amount of pain and suffering to the population and the economy of the affected countries. According to the Africa Center for the Study &Research on Terrorism (ACSRT), in May 2020, there were 153 terrorist attacks compared to 101 in the previous month, April. What is less spoken and written about is state terrorism, which relates to the actions of states that create the conditions for domestic terrorism and insurgencies and /or support terrorism to achieve a politicalagenda. In what follows, we argue that the current government of Ethiopia under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is a terrorist state, whose ultimate goal, as incontrovertibly affirmed by the recent statements of Shimeles Abdissa, is the establishment of an Oromo-dominated system of government through systematic elimination and subjugation of other ethnic and religious groups, especially Amharas and Orthodox Christians.
Though there is no universal definition of terrorism, one that has been adopted by the UN in 1994 is:
“Acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.” (Para. 3).
The Africa Union (AU) definition is very detailed. It comes from the Convention of the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism, which has a long list of acts that constitute terrorism. Both the UN and AU definitions focus on non-state actors and exclude state sponsored terrorism or state terrorism:
“Governments are often the targets of terrorism, but they can also sponsor terrorists or use the tactics of terrorism. There are two broad definitions of ‘state-sponsored terrorism.’ One refers to governments that support or conduct terrorism against other governments. The other refers to governments that conduct terrorist acts against their own citizens.”
Terrorism is mostly transnational, as its threat is not directed against any particular country per se, but rather against a type of political system. In the case of extremists like the Islamic State (IS), the concept of a modern state is anathema, with the stated goal being the creation of a regional or global Muslim sphere of influence or caliphate. The major terrorist groups in Africa (i.e., Boko Haram, Al Queda, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQUIM), Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQUAP), Al Shabab, Lords Resistance Army in Uganda (LRA) and a few others, which I will be addressing in an upcoming article), have impacted regional peace and security and destabilized many governments, massacred hundreds of thousands of people and severely affected development in Africa. The impacted African countries include: Somalia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Chad, Kenya, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, many of the states in the Gulf of Guinea, DRC, and most recently Mozambique; with small presence in many other countries.
These organizations have developed the capacity of financing and recruiting in many parts of Africa through an elaborate extortion scheme, kidnapping, killings,bombings and drug and arms trafficking, taking advantage of porous borders, poverty and weak governance. Addressing terrorism requires institutional capacity, skills, training, regional and global coordination, persistent dialogue amongst the stakeholders, and unwavering commitment and vigilance.
Ethiopia has become a fertile place to recruit extremists and criminal gangs, intentionally or unintentionally inviting terrorist organizations already operating in the region, through the failure of the central government to govern by protecting the integrity and the unity of the people. Though, not included in the official definition of terrorism, this complacency and or complicity could be termed as state terrorism. While there is sufficient evidence to build a case to bring to justice the perpetrators of the horrendous crimes and genocide that have been committed over the last three decades, and particularly in the last two years, the state of Ethiopia can also be accused for aiding and abetting terrorists and their actions, thereby violating one of the key tenets of counter terrorism. Further investigation might eventually uncover the conspiracy between the state and non- state actors to fulfill the political agenda of external elements.
Government or “state” terror, sometimes referred to as “terror from above,” typically happens when a government terrorizes its own population to achieve a hidden political agenda. As revealed by the recent speech of the president of the Oromia region, Shimelis Abdissa, the regime in Ethiopia is aggressively following a policy of establishing an Oromo hegemony, making use of the official institutions, such as the judiciary, police, military, and other government agencies, spearheaded by a few in the top political leadership and non-state actors, particularly the ‘the kerros’ which Shimelis Abdisaa brazenly admitted in organizing. The “kerros “ are Ormo youth radicalized to conduct the mission of destroying churches killing Christians and Amharas In fact, the government has not even distanced itself from Abdissa’s statements pertaining to the overarching political agenda of Abiy’s government to crush the Amharas ad non-Oromos, and to establish Oromo supremacy.
Abdissa’s statement not only ignores to apologize the murder, massacre, torture and displacements that have taken place in the Oromia region, but it actually brazenly justifies it. Ominously, the shout for the blood of Christians and Amharas still reverberates across much of the Oromia region today. Like in the case of moderate Hutus in Rwanda, Oromos who are either Christians, or have assimilated in the Amhara culture, or have been married to non-Oromos, or are simply opposed to the whole idea of ethnic federalism, have also been killed, their properties destroyed, and th