The ongoing armed conflict in Ethiopia’s Amhara region continues to be the source of online disinformation. A widely shared Facebook post has claimed that the army’s deputy chief of staff recently threatened to turn against the ruling Prosperity Party. But AFP Fact Check found that the footage was digitally manipulated. In the original interview filmed in 2020, the general – who was retired at the time – warned leaders of the former ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) against creating instability. Neither the altered nor original version features any threats against the current government.
An Ethiopian Facebook user shared a 93-second clip featuring a text overlay in Amharic translating to: “A truth has been revealed by the general: ‘We will turn our weapons against the Prosperity Party’.”
Prosperity is the ruling party of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
The video has been viewed more than 260,000 times and shared more than 700 times since being published on July 19, 2024.
The clip shows the federal army’s deputy chief of staff Abebaw Tadesse in discussion with Bacha Debele, a former general who now serves as Ethiopia’s ambassador to Kenya.
The footage also features a picture of Abiy.
Abebaw retired from the military in 2018 but returned after Abiy appointed him to his current position at the start of the Tigray war in November 2020.
“We have plenty of information at our disposal. Revealing the information would completely eliminate them from the political space,” Abebaw appears to say at the start of the video in the Facebook post.
“This country has been in the agony of instability for the last five or six years. The political instability was created by the ruling party itself.”
He then appears to warn that Abiy “could lose his post tomorrow”.
Armed conflicts
The video surfaced as the Ethiopian army remains locked in conflict with rebel forces in both Oromia and Amhara — the two most populous regions in the country.
In Amhara, the military is fighting Fano, a militia group and former key ally of Abiy during the Tigray war, which ended in November 2022 (archived here). The rebels turned against the government in July 2023 following its decision to disarm all regional forces.
Meanwhile, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) has been operating in the Oromia region since 2018, when the rebel forces took up arms (archived here).
However, the video does not show Abebaw threatening to turn against the Ethiopian government.
Altered video
AFP Fact Check used the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the video.
The results led to a longer version of the clip published on the official YouTube channel of state-affiliated TV station Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) on July 11, 2020 (archived here).
The original runs for 95 minutes and features Abebaw and Bacha discussing a variety of issues.
The interview was released as Ethiopia prepared to begin the first round of filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a mega hydroelectric dam on the Nile River.
Its construction has been at the centre of regional disputes since its inception in 2011. Egypt and Sudan feared the massive dam would severely reduce the share of Nile water they received and repeatedly asked Addis Ababa to stop filling it until they had all reached an agreement on how it should work.
During the first 40 minutes, the pair talked about the dam’s security implications for East Africa and the tensions with Egypt.
They also spoke about the TPLF accusing the Abiy government of abandoning the country’s national interests in connection with the dam.
Before Abiy came to power in April 2018, Ethiopia was governed by successive State of Emergency decrees ordered by the TPLF-led coalition in response to a popular uprising known as the Oromo Protests (archived here).
“The budget allocated for the dam was misappropriated by the former regime,” Abebaw says in the footage.
“Thanks to the Abiy government, the construction of the dam is now on a good track.”
Footage edited
AFP Fact Check found that the first 18 seconds of the Facebook video were cut from the original footage between 40’40” and 41’10”.
“The assertion by former ruling party leaders that the dam has been sold to others has become top politics recently. We know the previous and the current regimes very well. It is better to be calm. Otherwise, we have plenty of information at our disposal. Revealing the information would completely eliminate them from the political space,” Abebaw says to Bacha.
“The organisation [TPLF] itself was a source of all instability in the country,” he adds.
This means the altered clip omits the mention of the “former leaders” and instead makes it seem as if Abebaw was talking about Abiy.
Then, at the 18-second mark in the altered footage, Abebaw appears to imply that the current ruling party has caused political instability. In reality, he was again talking about the TPLF.
The doctored statement in this regard was cut from the original video between 61’20” and 61’38”.
The senior army official also did not say Abiy was at risk of losing his job.
At 38 seconds into the altered clip, Abebaw is heard saying “Dr Abiy”. Then follows a significant jump before he continues with “he could lose his current post tomorrow”.
But, in the original video, Abebaw thanks Abiy “for the reform measures he has taken regarding the army. It is an appropriate and right decision. Because he could lose his office tomorrow. However, the army as an institution will remain”.
The edited clip instead makes it sound like Abiy could lose power because of pressure from the army.
AFP Fact Check reviewed both the original and the altered videos and found that Abebaw at no point warned the army would turn its weapons against the ruling party.
