The Tsimdo Gamble: The Future of Amhara Resistance and Politics

Guest Author

Why the search for political shortcuts may once again leave the Amhara movement paying the price.

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With AFNM joining the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival (EPFAS), and EPFAS now declaring open war on the Prosperity Party (PP) regime, it is important to see the pitfalls and benefits of this alliance to the Amhara people.

Win or lose, in either scenario I believe the outcome will ultimately not be in favor of the Amhara people.

In this article, I want to explain why I believe AFNM/Fano joining this alliance was a huge mistake, and why the same short sightedness, constant search for shortcuts, and reactionary nature that has characterized Ethiopianist politics for much of the past 50 years is now playing out again in the Amhara political camp.

If EPFAS loses this war, I believe the consequences for the Amhara people could be significant.

Since the war with the TPLF ended with the Pretoria Agreement, the PP regime has had something that every government fighting a prolonged war needs: time.

And one thing about war, and about staying in power, is that you learn from your mistakes.

The PP regime has become more entrenched. It has used the time since the Tigray war to expand its intelligence and surveillance capabilities, strengthen its military, acquire modern equipment such as drones and other ground systems, recruit and train more troops, and identify and address many of the weaknesses that were exposed during the previous war.

But perhaps most importantly, it has had time to work on its diplomacy.

Compare the international response to the current conflict with the response during the first round of the Tigray war. Countries that previously supported the TPLF and placed much of the blame on the federal government are now much more willing to release statements blaming the TPLF as an aggressor.

Part of the reason is that the TPLF is no longer viewed as the same threat or regional force that it once was. Its political elite have been divided, killed, or have defected. Its once fervent support in Tigray has weakened, and its battle hardened forces were severely depleted during the first war.

It now governs a population that is tired and increasingly disgruntled.

The announcement of forced conscription, and the opposition and protests that followed, illustrates this change.

Some of the TPLF’s once feared political and military figures have either been eliminated politically or militarily, or have moved into cooperation with Abiy Ahmed and are now helping him fight their former allies.

To make matters worse for the TPLF, its recent relationship with Eritrea, its former arch enemy, makes it increasingly difficult to see the TPLF as the independent strategic force it once was.

It is beginning to look less like the head and more like the muscle.

One possible interpretation is that Eritrea is using the TPLF to turn Tigray into a buffer between itself and Abiy Ahmed’s increasingly bellicose regime in Addis Ababa, a regime that has openly said it will pursue access to a seaport by force if necessary.

There are also questions about how much Eritrea itself would be willing or able to participate in a wider conflict. Its recent thawing of relations with the United States and the lifting of U.S. military sanctions may have come with conditions limiting Eritrea’s involvement in a conflict with Ethiopia.

It is impossible to know from the outside whether such conditions would cover only direct military involvement or also indirect support for armed groups. But either way, they could constrain how much Eritrea can actually contribute to the alliance.

Now, I am not saying the TPLF is insignificant.

I am saying that it is weakened compared with its former self and compared with the federal government.

Within the alliance, however, it remains the major political and military player.

It has the money, diplomatic relationships, organizational experience, and military capabilities that the other members do not possess. It is the only member with significant experience fighting a conventional war and operating mechanized forces.

Fano and OLA, by comparison, remain largely in their guerrilla phase and rely primarily on light infantry.

That makes the appointment of AFNM leader Zemene Kasse as president of the alliance look more like a political maneuver than a reflection of the actual balance of power within the alliance.

Zemene may carry the title, but that does not necessarily mean he holds the strategic power.

The TPLF also has a reason to prefer this arrangement. It has every incentive to avoid the bitter memories associated with its previous relationship with the Amhara Democratic National Movement, ANDM, or ብአዴን, within the EPRDF system. That relationship ultimately left the Amhara political organization operating under TPLF dominance.

More importantly, the strategic objectives of the TPLF and Fano are fundamentally different.

Fano and the broader Amhara political movement have a direct territorial dispute with the TPLF over Wolqait and Humera. Amhara political movements also overwhelmingly reject the ethnic federal system embedded in the current constitution.

Amhara intellectuals have long argued that ethnic federalism has fractured the Ethiopian state and made life more difficult for Amharas living outside the Amhara Region.

The TPLF, meanwhile, was the principal architect of the political system that Amhara nationalists now reject. It is also blamed by Amhara political forces for creating the political environment that contributed to anti Amhara violence, displacement, and mass killings.

These are not minor disagreements.

They are fundamental strategic contradictions.

So what happens if EPFAS loses?

I do not believe OLA necessarily loses its political support or credibility in the same way Fano could.

Fano, however, could lose twice.

First, it would lose the war alongside the TPLF.

Then it could lose credibility among the Amhara population.

The PP regime would have a powerful political argument. Fano, which claims to be fighting to protect Amharas from the current regime, chose to fight alongside an organization that many Amharas regard as one of the principal architects of their suffering.

The regime would portray Fano not as a movement fighting to alleviate Amhara suffering, but as another armed organization fighting for political power.

Whether that argument is entirely fair is beside the point. Politically, it would be extremely difficult for Fano to counter.

And a defeat would probably expose another vulnerability that Fano already struggles with: internal division.

Fano has struggled with factionalism along regional and clan lines, Gonder, Gojjam, Shewa, Wollo, and others.

Nothing accelerates internal blame like a military defeat.

That process has already begun online, with some people blaming Gojjam Fano, particularly Zemene’s camp, for orchestrating the alliance with the TPLF.

If the war ends in defeat, the result could be a weaker and more divided Fano with significantly less credibility.

And a divided Fano would be much easier for the PP regime to crush.

The force that was once viewed by many Amharas as a flicker of hope could be extinguished.

If EPFAS wins and somehow defeats the PP regime and overthrows Abiy Ahmed, what happens next?

This scenario is also worth examining because the consequences could be just as significant.

If the alliance wins, I have serious doubts that the alliance would remain intact.

The TPLF and OLA have strategic reasons for cooperating with one another that are different from their relationship with Fano. Once their common enemy is removed, their competing political interests would become much more important.

And as I argued above, the TPLF has greater political experience, diplomatic capacity, and military sophistication than Fano.

OLA does not have the same conventional military or diplomatic capabilities as the TPLF. But if there is a victory, one can expect Oromo nationalist elites from across the political spectrum to enter the political arena and push to protect what they define as Oromo nationalist interests.

The Oromo nationalist movement was also a major force in the political transformation that ultimately brought down the old EPRDF arrangement. OLA would not be operating in a vacuum. It would have a much broader political constituency from which to draw.

The TPLF, for its part, has learned from its previous experience.

It would be a mistake to assume that it would repeat the same mistake of treating the Oromo movement as something that could simply be incorporated into a subordinate political structure, as happened with the OPDO within the old EPRDF system.

Fano, on the other hand, would find itself caught between two politically organized armed forces whose strategic interests could conflict sharply with Amhara interests.

And this is where the weakness of Amhara politics becomes particularly important.

Amhara nationalism is still relatively young as an organized political project. It has not yet produced a sufficiently broad political elite capable of matching the organizational, diplomatic, intellectual, and institutional capacity of its rivals.

It would also be entering the postwar political environment carrying a credibility problem.

It would have just fought alongside two organizations that many Amharas hold responsible for massacres and other atrocities against Amharas across the country.

At the same time, Fano would still be dealing with the factionalism that has plagued it since its emergence.

Victory does not automatically solve those problems.

Sometimes victory simply brings the disagreements that were suppressed during the war to the surface.

This is the part that I think is most important.

If the Amhara people are going to be free, any organization claiming to fight on their behalf has to do more than provide a narrative of victimhood and survival.

It needs a narrative for the future.

What kind of country does it want to create?

What political system does it envision?

What does freedom actually mean?

What happens the day after victory?

What institutions will govern?

How will the rights of Amharas outside the Amhara Region be protected?

How will the movement deal with Ethiopia’s other nationalities and political groups?

What is its economic vision?

What is its diplomatic strategy?

These questions cannot be answered after victory. They have to be answered before it.

That vision also needs to reach every corner of the Amhara population. It needs to become more than a message repeated by activists online. It needs to become a coherent political project that ordinary people understand and can see themselves participating in.

That requires time.

It requires the development of a strong political elite with a cohesive vision.

It requires a diplomatic arm capable of operating internationally.

It requires a diaspora that supports and advances the political project rather than a political movement that is constantly reacting to the demands and pressures of its diaspora.

It requires finding a way to overcome the regional and clan divisions that have repeatedly weakened Amhara political organization.

And it requires building military capabilities gradually rather than constantly being forced into wars before the political and institutional foundations are ready.

None of this happens overnight.

I understand the argument that the Amhara people do not have time.

But sometimes moving quickly is exactly what guarantees that you never get where you want to go.

A poorly conceived alliance that puts Fano in a strategically subordinate position to organizations whose political objectives fundamentally conflict with its own could end up destroying the very possibility of Amhara political independence.

That is why I believe Amhara politics needs to break with one of the oldest habits of Ethiopianist politics: the obsession with shortcuts.

For decades, Ethiopianist politics has repeatedly been short sighted, reactive, and focused on responding to the crisis immediately in front of it rather than building the political structures necessary to shape what comes afterward.

EPRP, Kinijit, and Ginbot 7 are just a few examples of groups that, in my view, illustrate this pattern. They repeatedly looked for political shortcuts and reacted to immediate political circumstances rather than building durable political institutions capable of sustaining their objectives.

My concern is that Amhara nationalism is now repeating the same pattern.

Some people may hate the comparison between Amhara nationalism and Ethiopianism. But let’s be honest. A large portion of today’s Amhara nationalist movement consists of people who are, in a sense, recovering Ethiopianists.

They may have changed their ideology.

But changing an ideology is not necessarily the same thing as breaking political habits.