Statements from Amhara communities residing in New Zealand and Australia

Declaration of resolution

1. We, the Amhara communities living in New Zealand and Australia stand in unity to condemn the genocide of the Amhara people by the Tigrayan People Liberation Front (TPLF) and by OnegShine, which is the armed wing of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). The massacre of over 600 Amhara civilians in Mai-Kadra, Wolkiat-Tsegede on the 14^th of November 2020 is the recent most inhumane and cruel genocide committed by TPLF. The victims were stabbed, hacked and strangled using knives, axes, sticks and ropes. This genocide is independently verified by Amnesty International and The Human Rights Council of Ethiopia.

 

2. We call upon the government of Dr Abiy Ahmed to condemn this mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and displacement of the Amhara people and to call it by its true name: Genocide, and to facilitate an independent investigation by the UN Human Rights Council and to bring justice to the victims.

 

3. We strongly support the current measure carried out by the Ethiopian Defence Forces to uphold law and order against TPLF and the annihilation of this terrorist organization from the Tigray region and the liberation of the Tigrayan people from its grip.

During its 27-year rule of Ethiopia TPLF committed untold crimes and atrocities on the Amhara people which can be summarised as follows:

1. Used repressive laws to silence dissidents, mainly leaders of the Amhara people. It faked documentaries, fabricated armed resistance and propagated jihad to jail, torture and kill the Amhara people.

 

1. Established a modern day ‘apartheid’ system on the Amhara people in their own country. Their lands were taken and annexed by force and given to neighbouring regions with a malign intent of creating animosity with other Ethiopian compatriots. What happened to Wolkait-Tsegede, Raya (annexed to Tigray); Metekel (annexed to Benishangul-Gumuz); and other historical Amhara lands can be cited as examples.

 

1. The Amhara people living in TPLF-occupied lands (in Wolkait-Tsegede and Raya) were treated as second-class citizens in their own country, denied of access to all basic needs including forcing them not to speak in their mother tongue, Amharic in public and denying the use of their language to defend themselves in courts, and forcing their children to learn only in Tigrigna at schools.

 

1. Many educated and highly skilled members of the Amhara tribe were discriminated from top-level government and civil service jobs and were forced to flee the country or became prisoners of conscience for expressing dissent.
2. After its replacement by Dr Abiy Ahmed’s Government, TPLF has infiltrated its strong network of armed killers from its own tribe, and continuously financed OnegShine to murder and displace Amharas living as a minority in many regions of Ethiopia, mainly in Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz.

Finally, we ask all the Amhara people and all peace loving Ethiopians worldwide to work together and put pressure on the Ethiopian Government for the return of the liberated lands of Wolkait-Tsegede and Raya back to the rightful owners: Wolkait-Tsegede Amharas and Raya Amharas; and for the reunification of these areas back to the Amhara Region.

25^th November 2020