Two weeks after the killings of Amhara regional president Ambachew Mekonnen and army chief of staff General Seare Mekonnen on 22 June 2019, critics were openly challenging the government’s description of the events as a failed coup and calling for an independent investigation. Writing in Ethiopia Insight on 4 July, Hone Mandefro, a doctoral student at Concordia University in Montreal and a lecturer at the University of Gondar, argued that “a coup attempt was not a plausible description.” A day later, Philadelphia-based lawyer Assamen M. Tessema wrote in Ethiopia Observer that the official account “has not convinced everyone” and that only an impartial commission could clear the doubts.
According to the government, Brigadier General Asaminew Tsige, head of the Amhara region’s security bureau, organized the attack in Bahir Dar in which Ambachew, his adviser and the regional attorney general were shot dead. The same night in Addis Ababa, General Seare and a retired general were killed by Seare’s bodyguard. Within hours, the prime minister’s press secretary, Nigussu Tilahun, called it a coup attempt. Security forces killed Asaminew on the outskirts of Bahir Dar on 24 June. Tessema put the number arrested at more than 250; Hone said more than 300. On 1 July, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told parliament the attack was “an act to steal power,” the Associated Press reported.
Hone listed his reasons for doubt. He argued that Ethiopia’s federal system makes a regional coup impractical, since the national army could easily overcome it; that there was little or no attempt to seize airports, the regional broadcaster or other key institutions; that no armed force was mobilized beyond a couple of hundred newly hired armed police under Asaminew’s command; and that survivors did not at first call it a coup. He pointed to conflicting official accounts during the week-long internet shutdown, including on the fate of General Seare’s bodyguard, and said the killing of only three of the seven leaders at the meeting suggested a motive of removing rivals rather than seizing power.
Hone, whose essay centered on Amhara grievances, argued that the arrests had fallen mainly on ethnic Amharas, members of the National Movement of Amhara party, members of the Addis Ababa advocacy group Balderas and leaders of Amhara security institutions, and he criticized the decision to investigate suspects under terrorism law. He urged the government to stop the mass detentions, release those held and allow an independent investigation.
Tessema, who described himself as wanting Abiy Ahmed to succeed, wrote that the government was the only source of information and that officials at the regional and federal level kept changing the facts. He said journalists in the Amhara region were being harassed or blocked, that some mourners at a rally in Bahir Dar had accused the prime minister of orchestrating the killings, and that many believed the incident was being used against the National Movement of Amhara. He proposed a commission of religious leaders, elders, trial lawyers and other respected figures to answer questions such as whether the events were a coup or a dispute among regional leaders, whether the killings in Bahir Dar and Addis Ababa were coordinated, what security failures allowed them, and whether the federal response was proportionate.
Sources: Ethiopia Insight (Hone Mandefro), Ethiopia Observer (Assamen M. Tessema), Associated Press