Issue No. 218

Fano Factions and their Consolidation 

Armed conflict has raged across much of the Amhara region since August 2023, when low-level clashes between the federal government and 'Fano' militia erupted into widespread violence. While the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) have since re-established control of the region's major urban centres, several Fano factions continue to pose a significant security threat. With little end to the insurgency in sight and with reports that Fano factions in Gojam and elsewhere have begun to coalesce, where might this brutal insurgency and counter-insurgency lead?
 
Since the New Year, Fano militias have persisted in targeting ENDF convoys and positions on key highways in the Amhara region, hindering supply lines and movement from Bahir Dar. Several towns have also seen intense, sporadic fighting between government forces and Fano militia in recent weeks, including Debre Birhan and Gondar. Most of the clashes, however, have taken place in rural Amhara, particularly in Wollo, North Shewa, and Gojam districts. Despite the occasional Fano intrusion, a degree of normalcy has returned to the major cities in Amhara. Public universities have re-opened, and three-wheeled Bajaj vehicles, intermittently banned for several months, are working freely again.
 
But in the last months of 2023, having established footholds in much of rural Amhara, influential Fano divisions began clarifying their historically decentralised command structure. Gojam, Wollo, and eastern Amhara Fano have all selected commanders, with negotiations among the disparate Gondar Fano units also reportedly ongoing. Efforts by a committee to merge the estimated 16 Gondar Fano units under a single command will likely prove more challenging, however. Following each significant consolidation of Fano factions, an increase in violence targeting federal forces soon followed.
 
The advantages of unifying military command are clear; most importantly, it allows for longer-term, more strategic application of resources and personnel. While elements of Fano's campaign enjoy popular support, its decentralised nature has hindered its ability to compete with the ENDF in Amhara's major cities. There is also a wide variation in the competency and level of extremism of different factions, with some primarily made up of frustrated young men with little military training and others comprised of Eritrean-armed and trained former soldiers. This variation has also been expressed in the nature of their insurgent tactics, exemplified in late November 2023 by one Fano branch bombing 5 private schools in Bahir Dar that Prosperity Party officials' children attended.
 
As elements of the Amhara nationalist movement transition from a nearly entirely decentralised insurgency towards a multi-polar, interconnected set of units, it offers both risk and reward for the insurgent group. The multiple iterations of Fano have arguably survived because of their lack of a single leader. For instance, the death of Asaminew Tsige, the general who recruited Amhara nationalists under his command in the Amhara Special Forces (ASF), did not spell an end to the movement. Moreover, the imprisonment of dozens of Amhara leaders and Fano militia in 2022 and 2023 played a role in splintering Fano but did not subdue its growing support. Decentralised command-and-control, while making urban takeover more complex, feeds into asymmetric warfare and potentially complicates counter-insurgency efforts as the battlefield is fragmented.
 
A more centralised military command structure does not suggest, however, that a unified political platform will necessarily follow. The multiple iterations of Fano across Amhara have expressed various overlapping and loosely connected demands, ranging from those frustrated by a stagnant regional economy to former ASF soldiers involved in violence against Tigray during the war. And Fano has provided a platform onto which many Amhara have projected their frustrations about the perceived underdevelopment of their region, as well as diaspora-based groups agitating against the so-called Amhara genocide. Anti-Oromo conspiracy theories and anti-Tigrayan rhetoric continue to prosper online, supported by prominent Amhara-owned media outlets.
 
The lack of clear political positioning by Fano and the grip its more extreme elements hold on its most influential factions will likely complicate future attempts at dialogue or negotiation between the federal government and the myriad forces. The Debre Berhan Fano faction operating near the constitutionally established Tigray border is certain to be more incensed over historical land grievances about Wolqait and the future of Western Tigray than Fano factions in Eastern Amhara. Farmers who have agitated over crops failing due to drought and lack of fertiliser are also certain to hold different demands than established factions that forged close ties with Eritrea and sustained themselves by exploiting a brutal war economy between 2020 and 2022 in Tigray.
 
Nevertheless, the federal government should pursue negotiations with Fano factions that express reasonable demands. Identifying these demands and disaggregating them from Fano factions that pose the risk of spoiling future talks is critical to restoring a semblance of stability to swathes of rural Amhara. Supporting predominantly rural Amhara society with fertiliser and seeds, and facilitating the reconstruction of parts of the region destroyed in combat, would make a good start. But relying solely on counter-insurgency tactics is likely to further embolden the most extreme elements of Fano, as civilian casualties continue to rise and Fano factions continue to coalesce.

By the Ethiopian Cable team