ANU Political Analysis: Blame Allocation, Power Narratives, and the Ethics of Accountability in Ethiopia’s Civil War
Date 31 December 2025
On Mr. Getachew Reda, NBC ETHIOPIA Interview
https://youtu.be/VlKPqI__CnA?si=5SZB0nwgCR8lOeQ6
The claim attributed to Getachew Reda—that “Sheabia (the Eritrean government) is responsible for 75% of the genocide and Fano for 24%,” while implicitly or explicitly rendering the TPLF and the Prosperity Party (PP) politically “clean”—is not merely an assessment of responsibility. It is a strategic political narrative, constructed in a post-war environment where legitimacy, survival, and control of historical memory are fiercely contested.
This narrative does not emerge in a vacuum. It reflects a broader struggle over accountability, justice, and the future balance of power in Ethiopia following one of the most devastating conflicts in its modern history.
- The Politics of Selective Blame
Assigning numerical percentages of culpability in a civil war that devastated Tigray, Amhara, and Afar is not a neutral or empirical exercise. Rather, it creates a false sense of precision that conceals a deeper political objective: exoneration through arithmetic.
By allocating nearly all responsibility to external actors (Eritrea/Sheabia) or to non-state or semi-autonomous forces (Fano), this framework:
- Minimizes the agency of state power
- Absolves central political decision-makers
- Rewrites the war as something that merely “happened to” Ethiopia, rather than a conflict driven by Ethiopian political elites, particularly factions within the former EPRDF structure (notably TPLF and OPDO/PP elements)
This framing serves the interests of both TPLF and PP, former adversaries who—despite their public hostility—now converge around shared post-war objectives:
- Avoiding international legal accountability
- Controlling post-conflict narratives
- Preserving domestic and international political viability
- Denying justice to the people of Tigray, Amhara, and Afar
- Sanitizing state institutions of responsibility for crimes, democides, and alleged genocidal acts committed over the last six years
- The Moral Hazard of “Clean Hands” Narratives
The Ethiopian civil war was not a single-actor conflict. It involved:
- Federal forces under PP authority
- Regional special forces and militias
- Eritrean military forces (Sheabia)
- Internal TPLF factions (both pro- and anti-Meles Zenawi currents)
- Political leadership decisions that escalated, prolonged, and militarized disputes
To suggest that millions of civilian deaths, mass displacement, starvation, democide, genocide, and systemic abusesoccurred without central political responsibility is to separate violence from power, a separation that is both analytically unsound and morally indefensible.
Wars of this magnitude require:
- Command and control structures
- Political authorization
- Sustained mobilization
- Information management and suppression
Any narrative that renders dominant political actors “pure” under these conditions is not genuine analysis—it is self-exculpation.
- Instrumentalizing “Genocide” as a Political Weapon
The term genocide carries immense legal and moral weight. When used selectively:
- It can serve legitimate demands for justice
- Or it can be weaponized to delegitimize adversaries while shielding allies
- Undermining the credibility of genuine victim claims
- Weaponizing international law for political rehabilitation.
By assigning genocide almost exclusively to Eritrea and Fano, as articulated by TPLF and PP spokesperson Getachew Reda, this narrative:
- Internationalizes blame away from TPLF and PP institutions
- Repositions TPLF primarily as a victim rather than a belligerent actor and enabler
- Allows PP to distance itself from atrocities committed under federal authority, including those conducted in coordination with anti-Meles Zenawi TPLF/EPRDF factions
This approach risks transforming justice into a political bargaining instrument, rather than a universal moral and legal principle.
- The Erasure of Victims Across Regions
One of the most troubling consequences of this blame framework is what it silences.
The victims of the war were not confined to a single region. Atrocities occurred across:
- Tigray, through mass civilian suffering
- Amhara, through killings, ethnic targeting, and displacement
- Afar, through destruction of communities and livelihoods
A narrative that centers suffering selectively while politically sanitizing others fractures collective memory and undermines any possibility of national reconciliation.
- Why This Narrative Emerges Now
Post-conflict periods are not only about peace—they are about control of historical narratives. Those who define:
- Who is guilty
- Who is innocent
- Who is a victim
- Who is a savior
…ultimately shape the political future, regardless of the scale of atrocities committed.
This explains why former conspired adversaries, such as PP and TPLF, can converge around a shared external scapegoat. Such convergence allows:
- TPLF to re-enter political life without a full reckoning
- PP to present itself as a stabilizing authority rather than a wartime decision-maker
- Both to systematically avoid meaningful transitional justice
- Both to evade accountability, thereby undermining the foundations of sustainable peace
- Post-Conflict Narrative Control and Its Consequences
Post-conflict periods are decisive moments for either justice or impunity. Efforts by former adversaries to converge around shared external scapegoats raise concerns of coordinated avoidance of accountability.
Such dynamics:
- Weaken transitional justice
- Entrench impunity
- Increase the likelihood of renewed violence
Sustainable peace cannot be achieved without truth, responsibility, and redress.
- Calls to the United Nations
The Agaezi National Union respectfully calls upon:
- The UN Human Rights Council and OHCHR
- To ensure independent, comprehensive investigations covering all parties to the conflict
- UN Special Rapporteurs and Treaty Bodies
- To reject selective attribution of responsibility lacking judicial basis
- The UN Secretary-General and Member States
- To support inclusive, victim-centered accountability mechanisms
- To condition political normalization on meaningful transitional justice
- International Accountability Mechanisms
- To assess responsibility across the full spectrum of actors, including state authorities, political leadership, allied forces, and militias
The magnitude of Ethiopia’s civil war cannot be explained by external actors or militias alone. Comprehensive accountability is a legal obligation, not a political option.
Any attempt to mathematically absolve powerful actors constitutes historical revisionism and endangers future peace. Justice delayed—or selectively denied—is justice undone.
The Agaezi National Union reiterates its call for full accountability for all actors involved and for justice for all victims in Tigray, Amhara, and Afar, without exception.
8. Conclusion: Accountability Cannot Be Outsourced
No serious political analysis supports the claim that a war of this magnitude can be explained by external actors and militias alone, while central political forces remain untouched.
True accountability must be:
- Comprehensive, not selective
- Institutional, not rhetorical
- Victim-centered, not elite-centered
Any attempt to mathematically cleanse powerful actors of responsibility is not reconciliation—it is revisionism. And revisionism is a proven pathway to future violence. For this reason, the Agaezi National Union (ANU) has consistently warned against this conspired and intentionally designed civil war, aimed at removing pro-Meles Zenawi TPLF/EPRDF elements and redistributing power among competing factions within Addis Ababa, Mekelle, and Asmara.
We therefore call on all concerned parties to stand with us in demanding full accountability for the Triangular Conspired Political Forces—TPLF, PP, and Sheabia—and to pursue justice for all victims of this war in Tigray, Amhara, and Afar.
All in all, this statement by Mr. Getachew Reda (TPLF and PP Spokesperson) raises serious concerns regarding selective attribution of responsibility for atrocities committed during Ethiopia’s civil war, particularly claims that assign overwhelming culpability to external and non-state actors while implicitly absolving central political authorities. Such narratives undermine international legal standards, distort historical accountability, and threaten prospects for durable peace.
We urge the United Nations and its mechanisms to reject politically instrumentalized blame frameworks and to pursue comprehensive, impartial, and victim-centered accountability for crimes committed in Tigray, Amhara, and Afar.
Agaezi National Union (ANU)
Ethiopian Civilizational Political Party
Global Supreme Leadership
Headquarters Office, Geneva, Europe
www.anu-party.org
