AAA's Director of Communications Robel Alemu submitted a briefing to the Canadian Subcommittee on International Human Rights (SDIR) highlighting the impact of the war in Northern Ethiopia on the Amhara people including human rights violations and genocidal acts perpetrated by the TPLF, exclusion of Amharas from the peace talks process and the ongoing genocide in the Oromia Region (calling for independent investigations). The briefing made the following recommendations:
Canada should pressure the Government of Ethiopia to release all political prisoners, including more than 13,000 Amhara journalists, opposition figures, youth activists and veterans who were jailed in the mass crackdown, which intensified in May 2022.
Canada should center accountability and transitional justice on atrocities committed during the span of the war in Northern Ethiopia, including the November 2020 Mai-Kadra massacre and the extermination of ethnic Amharas in Welkait.
Canada should pressure the Ethiopian Government to respond to the long-standing demand of Ethiopians to change the current ethnic apartheid constitution that causes conflicts and ethnic division in the country.
Canada should promote inclusion of independent Amhara representation into ongoing peace talks and future negotiations and/or dialogue processes to resolve the war in Northern Ethiopia.
The House of Commons should conduct an inquiry into atrocity crimes committed against Amhara and Afari civilians in Amhara, Afar and Oromia Regions and the extent to which they constitute genocide. This should be accompanied by a push for independent investigations into the Amhara Genocide which predated the war in Northern Ethiopia and spans various geographical regions in Ethiopia.
The full briefing (pdf) can be found below and is also available publicly on the SDIR's website below.
