“Today is the 3rd anniversary of the Mai-Kadra Massacre, a brutal incident during the Ethiopian conflict. On November 9th, 3 years ago, the Tigrayan youth group Samri, under Capt. Kassaye Mehar, killed over 1600 Amhara civilians in Mai-Kadra as TPLF forces faced setbacks in the ongoing war.”
30 years of Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide
Today marks the 3 year anniversary of the Mai-Kadra Massacre, one of the largest and most gruesome massacre of civilians since war broke out in Ethiopia on November 4th when TPLF attacked a military command post in Tigray. On November 9th, as TPLF forces were losing ground on all fronts, a Tigrayan youth group named Samri, led by Capt. Kassaye Mehar, went door to door in the town of Mai-Kadra and massacred over 1600 Amhara civilians.
Mai-Kadra is a town located in the Amhara ancestral land of Welkait, or what TPLF and their Western backers call Western Tigray. In 1991, when TPLF came to power after the fall of the DERG regime, it annexed Welkait into Tigray and called it West Tigray. It’s important to point out that TPLF started its armed struggle with the goal of “liberating” Tigray from Ethiopia, as their name clearly indicates. In order to make this a reality Tigray lacked two things; fertile land and an international border with a neighboring country, as Tigray was encircled by Amhara, Afar, and Eritrea inhabited lands. This is how their plan to annex Welkait (to the west) and Raya (to the south), two Amhara ancestral lands, came about. By annexing these lands as soon as they came to power in 1991 (way before the ethnic based constitution was ratified in 1994), they were able to achieve both goals of getting fertile land and having an international border with Sudan. If you’re curious as to why Ethiopia is the only country in the world to have an article in its constitution (Article 39) that gives any of the ethnic based regions the right to secede from Ethiopia, the answer should be obvious by now. TPLF did not add this into the constitution so that Oromia or Somali region can declare independence, it was a parachute they were saving for themselves when they can no longer rule Ethiopia (they lost power in 2018).
It’s not like TPLF was not warned about the dangers of annexing the Amhara ancestral lands of Welkait and Raya. As @_HornAfrica pointed out in a tweet today, “Haileleul Getahun, in his book ‘Assault on Rural Poverty: The Case of Ethiopia,’ predicted two decades ago that Tigray annexing Welkait (Amhara lands) will trigger a regional conflict.”
Excerpt from "Assault on Rural Poverty: The Case of Ethiopia", Published April 18, 2001
Therefore, the government chose to annex the land that was traditionally the home of other ethnic groups by force of arms. The TPLF’s major concern appears to be the consolidation of its power base by developing economic resources that will enable it to withstand any attempts from outside Tigray to adversely affect its goal of having the potential to be economically self-sufficient.
To this end, the government was very active in developing the necessary infrastructure and resettling Tigrayan returnees from Sudan and demobilized TPLF soldiers in these districts. By resettling Tigrayan returnees and demobilized TPLF soldiers among the Amhara ethnic population, the TPLF tried to change the ethnic configuration of the annexed area with a view to ensuring that the majority of the settlers are from Tigray. To reinforce its plan, the language of instruction in the government primary schools quickly changed from Amharic to Tigregna, even though a substantial number of Amhara families still remained in the districts. As time passed, the TPLF evicted the peasants of Northern Gondar and Wollo from their ancestral lands and annexed these areas to Tigray. The ethnically cleansed peasants from these places are now landless paupers, many exploited as cheap farm labor by the expropriators of their land. Others are forced to survive as beggars in Gondar, Dessie, and Bahar Dar.
Considering the gravity of this situation and its future implications, two prominent Ethiopians from region 3 (Amhara region), the late Dagnew W.
Selassie, and Fitaye Assegu wrote a joint memorandum to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, asking him to annul or declare invalid the redrawing of boundaries along ethnic lines. To date, Meles Zenawi has not reacted one way or the other. Although information is scanty, it is now understood that the Ethiopian Patriotic Front (Keffagne), an underground movement for the liberation of Humera, Tselemt, Welkait, and Tsegede is now operating in the region. The TPLF, EPLF, and others started their movements in the same way as the Keffagne. These districts must be returned to their original killils, otherwise a bloody civil war possibly affecting the entire horn of Africa could erupt.
Fast forward to today, Welkait and Raya have been restored to their rightful owner and informally incorporated into the Amhara region for the past 3 years after the Federal, Amhara Special forces and Fano freed the areas from TPLF in November 2020. The Federal government has put these areas in a limbo for the past 3 years by refusing to ratify their incorporation into the Amhara region and refusing to release 3 years of budget. These areas have been getting by from budgetary support they’re getting from Amhara region and individual contributions from Amharas. The Pretoria agreement that was signed by the Federal government and TPLF last November states that the resolution to these “contested” lands will be done through the constitution, but as stated earlier, these lands were annexed by TPLF in 1991, 3 years prior to when the Ethiopian constitution was adopted (1994). Prime Minister @AbiyAhmedAli in a recent speech said that the issue will be resolved through a referendum, but as the book by Haileleul Getahum illustrates, TPLF has spent the past 30 plus years ethnically cleansing the native Amhara and settling Tigrayans on these lands. So the Prime Minister saying this will be resolved through referendum is an indirect admission that he wants these lands to be given back to TPLF. This might raise a question of why Abiy would want these lands to be given to TPLF, as TPLF led an insurrection to topple his government. For Abiy, everything is about preserving his power. From his point of view, TPLF is too weak to pose a threat to his power. So handing back these lands to them won’t pose a major threat, and will put him in good grace with the US government and can get him IMF and World Bank loans to save the crashing economy. With TPLF and Tigray weakened, the biggest threat to Abiy and his Oromo nationalist government are Amhara, as demonstrated by the all out war he has waged on Amharas since signing the Pretoria agreement. The reason he disband the Amhara Special Forces in April before disarming TPLF, and the reason he has waged a full scale war on Amharas to disarm Fano is to achieve his goal of weakening Amhara and handing over the Amhara ancestral lands of Welkait and Raya to TPLF as part of the Pretoria agreement that was sponsored by the US.
The Amhara in Welkait and Raya are steadfast in their determination to live free as proud Amhara, after enduring over 30 years of subjugation at the hands of the ethno-fascist Tigray People’s Liberation Front. They are now demanding for their land to be formally recognized as part of the Amhara region and their budget, that has been withheld the past 3 years, to be released. Meanwhile the Amhara in Gojjam, Gondar, Wollo, and Shewa have risen up and are fighting the new ethno-fascist in power, the Oromo Prosperity Party led by Abiy Ahmed, so they can live free as proud Amhara. After 50 years of torment, ethnic cleansing, and institutionalized genocide, the Amhara people have said enough and there is not enough drones or tanks or artilleries that Abiy can use to stop the rise of Amhara.
Abiyu’s widow, Agerie Mogessie, and daughter Selam were captured in a photo with him in March.
Tefere Demile of Tegede in Welkeit can tell you where members of the Welkeit-Tegede community tortured and murdered by the TPLF are buried, because he was forced to bury them.
Amhara Genocide
1515 is the total number of documented massacred victims in and around Maikadra. It was done by the Samri death squad (organized by TPLF) at the start of the conflict in November of 2020 when TPLF forces attacked Ethiopian army bases killing many sleeping soldiers. The victims were targeted for not speaking Tigrigna
Dejen was attacked and stabbed in the street near the rear of the house, as Bayesh recounted. Their neighbor, Tadie, described witnessing Dejen’s collapse to the ground but was unsure of the subsequent events. Tadie identified one of the attackers and pleaded for mercy, desperately asking, “Please don’t kill me. Don’t let me die.
Bayesh was separated from her husband indefinitely. Bayesh expressed, “He was innocent,” while sharing a softly focused image of her husband during a memorial event attended by Reuters and a United Nations mission in Mai Kadra.