Mortaza JNF Mortaza JNF Sahibzada 3

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#### Prelude (1974-1991) and Amhara Genocide, Phase 1 (1991-2018)

The TPLF and OLF, formed in the mid-70s at the same time as the student movement2 and widespread protests against the government and monarchy, were products of communal splintering, armed and youthful, influenced by the militant, anti-feudal Marxist/Leninist ideology that accompanied internecine conflicts within numerous countries. After the period of civil unrest that began in February 1974, a council of soldiers, known as the Derg (‘committee’) seized power from the ageing emperor Haile Selassie in September 1974 (they executed numerous members of the former administration including two former prime ministers, royal crown councillors and officials, ministers, and generals; Haile Selassie died in August 1975, allegedly strangled or smothered in his palace). The Soviet-backed Derg established a military-socialist state (latterly the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, including Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, that existed from 1987 to 1991 with the Derg rebranded as the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia). This did not put a stop to ethno-militancy. As well as the TPLF and OLF, Eritrean separatists organised as the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF)3 long sought independence. Along with the emergence of anti-communist forces and rebels fighting for civilian rule, civil war ensued. The civil war lasted for the entire 17-year communist period (1974-1991), coming to an end along with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and resulting in the secession of Eritrea, and victory for the TPLF (and other Tigray-affiliated groups) in now landlocked Ethiopia. The UK and USA may have begun to support the TPLF during the 80s in order to assist in the overthrow of the communist regime (it is difficult to put a precise date on it, but it may have been following the momentous Live Aid famine relief concerts in London and Philadelphia in July 1985 that operatives gained a foothold amongst aid personnel who had to deal with militias to facilitate distribution; Anglo-American support was certainly forthcoming as the TPLF was forming the new ethno-structured regime with regional demarcations as such in the early 90s). This was despite a CIA report and other papers describing the aforementioned ‘liberation’ groups as insurgents committed to racial self-determination/independence from central government, of which the TPLF seeking autonomy, secession, or hegemony, its manifesto and ethos blaming the Amhara people for socioeconomic and historicopolitical national problems, and considering the Tigray as sole defenders of Ethiopian culture and Christian orthodoxy. In fact, Amhara people were traditionally committed to a unitary Ethiopia, with a long history of celebrating the multi-ethnic, multi-religious nation that was always resistant to colonisation, for example overcoming Italian occupation as mentioned, and why imperial/regional powers turned to other ethnic groups to weaken Ethiopian independence and national integrity. However, some of the socialist/liberation groups based in Amhara-populated provinces, in particular the Ethiopian People’s