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The Fano Insurgency: Ethiopia’s Cycle of ‘Unfinished Wars’ by Yared Debebe

The Fano Insurgency: Ethiopia’s Cycle of ‘Unfinished Wars’

YARED DEBEBE, PhD, University of Gondar 

 

Introduction

This research on the “political sociology of the Fano insurgency” aimed to document and analysis the on-going Ethiopia’s civil war by rooting it in an genealogical perspective. As part of a collective research project, COPE, it offers a critical contribution on the war/peace continuum in Ethiopia.

The fieldwork for this study was conducted between 2023 and 2024 in different parts of the Amhara Region. Given the volatile security situation during this period, data collection was strategically scheduled at different times to ensure researcher safety and participant accessibility. The primary sites of fieldwork were Gondar and Bahir Dar towns, along with their surrounding areas, which provided diverse perspectives on the research themes. In locations that were inaccessible due to security or logistical constraints such as Woldiya and Debre Berhan, data were gathered through phone interviews. This approach allowed for broader geographic coverage and helped maintain continuity in data collection despite movement restrictions and security challenges. The whole purpose of the research is not of representation of Fano groups, but the depth of data to question the perpetuation of armed struggle in Amhara region.

Main development 

The Fano insurgency is the latest in Ethiopia’s growing list of armed movements. The Fano insurgency broke out in August 2023 reneging on its alliance with the central government, during the Tigray war. yet the genesis goes back to the years of the 2016 youth movement. It appears that the youth who initially went to the streets in peaceful protest eventually retreated to the forests and bushes to launch an armed struggle. The striking question I kept pondering was, how did a movement once hailed as a peaceful protest turn violent? The fieldwork aimed to capture a story of a movement that began in the streets and continued in the forests, partially driven by the same resolve to stand against authoritarianism and repression.

Some striking moments during my fieldwork has occurred during an interview with a a former Fano member who fought in the northern Ethiopia war along the Ethiopia National Defence Force and Amhara Special Force. The conversation started formally but soon turned into honest reflection on how the causes of the northern war seem to repeat in Amhara region– more a shift of place than essence. The interview continued and argue the Fano groups have become the “people militia” in the war, and the political decisions of CoHA and the aftermath developments festered hostility leading to the outbreak of the insurgency.

In my fieldwork, many combatants were veterans of earlier conflicts. Their access to weapons, combat experience, and local legitimacy made re-mobilization almost effortless – especially during the Tigray war. Former “heroes” of one war had become “rebels” in the next. The underlying structures, inter alia, includes unresolved territorial claims, exclusion from peace negotiations, mistrust of central authority, remained untouched. Violence, it seemed, was less an aberration than a political regulation.

Initially, I approached the fieldwork with the proposition that the Fano armed struggle is a semi-spontaneous movement that should be treated as a distinct development. However, the interviews challenged that assumption. The discussions revealed that the Fano armed struggle is a continuation of the long process of state-building conundrum the country has been grappling with, not a distinct case. That moment made me rethink my analytical frame. Perhaps the Fano insurgency was less a spontaneous reaction to a single government policy than the latest expression of Ethiopia’s long-running cycle of militarized politics, a culture in which the gun, not dialogue, remains the ultimate language of negotiation.

In addition, the fieldwork material repudiated the assumption that Fano groups share common goals in the insurgency. The interviews illustrated that a deep-seated schism within the diverse Fano groups and highlighted that their overall objectives differ considerably, yet united by the floating narrative of ‘saving the Amhara’. Some groups espouse a monarchist fervor, others go for a republican ideals, still others uncertain about their ideological praxis, others are divided over forming strategic or tactical alliances with various actors.

Methodologically, these moments reminded me of the relevance of reflexivity and staying open to a totally different explanation. I had revisited the predefined analytical categories and the assumptions I held. This has helped me in a way to capture the complexities of the nature, course, causes, goals, and sociological composition of the armed struggle.

Conclusion / Opening

Although this insight on an Ethiopia’s cycle of unfinished wars may not appear in the final version of my thesis, it remains a critical intellectual intuition worth sharing. The idea that Ethiopia’s conflicts do not truly end but reappear under new names, fighters, and narratives challenges conventional understandings of conflict as isolated events. It reframes war as a historical and sociological continuum, an enduring mode of state-society negotiation rather than a temporary breakdown of order.

This reflection emerged during fieldwork on the Fano insurgency, where former combatants described how “heroes of one war became rebels in the next.” Their accounts revealed the cyclical transformation of violence into political institution, sustained by exclusion, mistrust, and unresolved grievances. Sharing this idea is vital because it brings forward voices often absent from formal political histories, and it invites scholars to think about peace and conflict as intertwined processes rather than opposites.

Saying this, relocating the current conflict into a cyclic long-term perspective should not hinder its current, historical and political peculiarity. Other parts of the investigation are dedicated to document it.


OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Secrétaire Scientifique (24 février 2026). The Fano Insurgency: Ethiopia’s Cycle of ‘Unfinished Wars’ by Yared Debebe. UN ŒIL SUR LA CORNE / AN EYE ON THE HORN. Consulté le 5 mars 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/15ri9


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