How a Flawed Disarmament in Ethiopia Turned Peacekeepers into Insurgents

In April 2023, the Ethiopian federal government announced one of the most ambitious security sector reforms in the country’s recent history: the dissolution of regional special forces across eight regions, including the Amhara Special Forces (ASF). The decision, declared by Field Marshal Berhanu Jula, the Chief of Staff of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, was framed as a constitutional reorganization meant to centralize control of armed force under the state. Yet within months, the very fighters who had been told to lay down their weapons had remobilized into one of the most serious insurgencies Ethiopia has faced in decades. New qualitative research published in Discover Global Society argues that this outcome was not an accident of war, but the predictable product of legal flaws and procedural missteps that undermined the legitimacy of the entire dissolution process.

The study, conducted by Tamu Alemu Gedamu of Debre Tabor University, draws on interviews with thirteen key informants, including eight former ASF members—five of whom were active insurgents at the time of data collection—alongside regional security officials and academic experts. Using thematic analysis triangulated against official documents, constitutional texts, media briefings, and reports from organizations such as Amnesty International and ACLED, the research reconstructs how a reform intended to bring peace instead deepened the rift between the federal government and the Amhara political community. The findings arrive at a moment when Ethiopia’s conflict landscape remains volatile, with fighting in the Amhara region, renewed tensions along the Tigray-Amhara border, and accusations of foreign interference threatening to regionalize the war.

To understand why the dissolution failed, the study situates it within Ethiopia’s ethnofederal architecture. The 1995 constitution empowered regional states to establish and administer their own police forces, and in 2007 the federal government began supporting regional “Special Forces”—known in Amharic as Liyu Hail—initially in the Somali region to counter the ONLF insurgency. These paramilitary units, financed and logistically equipped by the federal government, expanded across the federation as gendarme-style forces designed to combat insurgents and organized crime. But after the split in the ruling EPRDF coalition in the 2010s, mistrust grew within the federation, and the special forces became increasingly autonomous, in some cases rivaling the national army in capability. Incidents such as the 2019 coup attempt in the Amhara region and the Tigray special forces’ attack on the federal Northern Command in November 2020, which ignited a devastating civil war, convinced the federal government that these forces posed an existential threat to state control.

The irony is that the ASF had been among the federal government’s most valuable allies. During the Tigray war of 2020 to 2022, ASF fighters, allied with the Ethiopian National Defense Force, helped repel the Tigrayan Defense Forces from Amhara towns including Weldia, Dessie, and the industrial hub of Kombolcha. In the eyes of the Amhara public, they were protectors of the region. When the federal government announced on April 6, 2023 that the special forces would cease to exist as an organizational structure, the announcement landed on a population already gripped by a profound security dilemma. Mass killings of Amhara civilians in places such as Agamsa, Guliso, Horo-Gudru, Metekel, Gura-Ferda, and Mai-Kadra remained unaddressed, and the Pretoria Agreement that ended the Tigray war had left the fate of disputed territories like Welkait and Raya dangerously ambiguous.

Gedamu identifies three distinct legal flaws at the heart of the dissolution. The first is what he terms constitutional infringement: the federal government declared the regional special forces unconstitutional, yet the ASF had been established under Article 52(2) of the FDRE Constitution, which grants regions the power to create and administer their own police forces, and under Article 39, which guarantees nations and nationalities the right to self-determination, including the creation of governing institutions. The second flaw is jurisdictional overreach. Under Article 51(21) of the constitution and the Firearm Administration and Control Proclamation No. 1177/2020, the authority to disarm weapons threatening public security belongs to the federal or regional police commissions—not the defense force. Yet it was the Ethiopian National Defense Force that executed the dissolution, a responsibility it had never been delegated. The third flaw concerns the Pretoria Agreement itself, which the study characterizes as an inter se accord, legally binding only on its two signatories, the federal government and the TPLF. Extending its disarmament provisions to non-signatory forces, the research argues, had no legal basis.

The procedural failures were equally consequential. Former ASF members reported that they were neither consulted nor informed before the dissolution was announced; some learned of it from a federal declaration that their organization no longer existed, while the regional government simultaneously told them to remain in their camps. Regional officials were kept in the dark as well—seven members of the regional coordination committee were reportedly never consulted. A disarmament letter drafted by a regional task force member was poorly communicated and appeared to conflict with the official framing of “reorganization,” generating confusion and anger among fighters and civilians alike who feared being left defenseless. Girma Yeshitila, the Prosperity Party leader in the Amhara region, acknowledged that the crisis stemmed not from whether to reorganize, but from how the decision was implemented. The result was a persistent ambiguity over whether the process was a constitutional reorganization or a targeted dissolution—a question that fueled conspiracy narratives on all sides.

The theoretical framework of the study draws on three second-generation security sector reform lenses: democratic security sector governance, conflict-sensitive reform, and critical peacebuilding theory. Together they explain why the dissolution triggered insurgency rather than peace. Democratic governance theory holds that security reforms gain legitimacy only through transparency, accountability, and civilian control. Conflict-sensitive theory warns that in divided societies, reforms that ignore local identities and historical grievances can have unintended and destabilizing effects. Critical peacebuilding scholarship, including Richmond’s concept of locally owned peace and Mac Ginty’s notion of “everyday peace,” emphasizes that top-down, non-participatory reform can transform latent grievances into active violence. The ASF dissolution violated the core precepts of all three: it was centrally imposed, excluded affected communities, and prioritized state consolidation over political negotiation.

The consequences escalated rapidly. Protests swept the major towns of the Amhara region, with demonstrators blocking military convoys. Disbanded ASF fighters, retaining heavy weapons including DShK machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades acquired during the Tigray war, joined the Fano insurgency. After the assassination of Girma Yeshitila in late April 2023, armed remobilization accelerated. By August 2023, coordinated Fano offensives had brought temporary control of cities including Lalibela and the regional capital Bahir Dar, prompting the federal government to declare a state of emergency that lasted nearly a year. The military’s so-called “final operation” launched in September 2024, involving mechanized forces and dozens of drone strikes across twenty-two districts, failed to defeat the decentralized insurgency, which waged guerrilla warfare from the rural highlands and fought in 1,395 recorded battles between March 2024 and February 2025. According to government figures cited in the study, half the schools in the region closed, leaving millions of children out of education and creating further recruitment opportunities for the insurgents.

The implications extend well beyond Amhara. Clashes have reignited along the contested Tigray-Amhara border over territories such as Welkait, Tsegedie, and Raya, threatening the fragile Pretoria peace. Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of arming Fano factions, and a formal letter to the United Nations in October 2025 alleged that Eritrea was funding and directing armed groups to widen the conflict—a dispute entangled with Ethiopia’s stated ambition to regain access to the Red Sea. Yet the study also identifies a potential opening: in January 2026, divided Fano factions formed the Amhara Fano National Movement, a unified framework that could enable genuine negotiation, and some insurgent groups from Wello, Gojam, and Gondar have already signed peace agreements with the regional government, with the African Union and IGAD involved, albeit belatedly.

The policy lessons are stark. Drawing on Stedman’s spoiler theory and Walter’s work on civil war settlements, Gedamu argues that dissolution must follow, not precede, the resolution of political grievances. Before any disarmament resumes, he contends, Ethiopia must address the political status of disputed territories, prosecute perpetrators of massacres against Amhara civilians, establish transitional justice mechanisms, and clarify the constitutional ambiguity over the division of security powers—ideally through interpretation by the House of Federation. Inclusive dialogue involving the Amhara political community, former fighters, civic and religious leaders, and affected communities is essential, supported by international technical and humanitarian assistance. The study’s central conclusion is a warning with resonance far beyond Ethiopia: in ethnically polarized, fragile states, legal and procedural legitimacy are not technical details of demobilization but its preconditions. Coercive disarmament imposed on communities who feel existentially threatened does not produce a state monopoly on violence—it produces the next war.

Subject of Research: Legal and procedural failures in the security sector reform process of dissolving the Amhara Special Forces and their role in the Amhara insurgency in Ethiopia

Article Title: Legal and procedural flaws in the dissolution of the Amhara Special Forces fueled insurgency and undermined peacebuilding in Ethiopia

Article References: Gedamu, T. A. (2026). Legal and procedural flaws in the dissolution of the Amhara Special Forces fueled insurgency and undermined peacebuilding in Ethiopia. Discover Global Society, 4(1), Article 216. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44282-026-00586-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44282-026-00586-1

Keywords: Ethiopia, Amhara Special Forces, security sector reform, insurgency, Fano, peacebuilding, demobilization, ethnofederalism, Pretoria Agreement, constitutional law, disarmament, conflict