Former United States assistant secretary of state Herman Cohen tweeted that the failed Amhara coup was an attempt by ethnic nationalists to restore Amhara hegemony that existed before 1991. He wrote that the dream was “now permanently dead.” Borkena republished a fierce reply by Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam calling the framing hate speech against an entire people.
Al Mariam argued that branding Amhara as historic hegemons echoed old propaganda and would be intolerable if aimed at a group inside the United States. He reviewed Cohen’s past comments on Ethiopian politics and demanded an apology. Borkena’s editor’s note recalled Cohen’s earlier critiques of Tigrayan domination and “fake federalism.”
The exchange mattered because a well-known American Africa hand shaped how outside audiences read the Amhara crisis. Ethiopian writers insisted the violence could not be reduced to a simple restoration plot. The archive captures that argument in the week of the killings.
Sources: Borkena