Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to unveil one of the evolving powers struggles the conflict entails and focusses on war-induced political violence in the Wolayta statehood quest. It documents the war-induced uses of political repression and control and how it has resulted in a regional territorial reshuffling.

Paper long abstract:

Away from warfronts, this communication observes the political use of a waring context in order to control political opposition. It then raises the question of a war-induced political violence that targeted specific individuals in comparison to the massive violence that had been exerted against civilians. Out of battle fronts, war mobilization has shielded an unprecedented movement to control local societies. In post-2018 Ethiopia, the multiplication of localized inter-ethnic violence gave rise to a more assertive generation of opponents fueled by democratic-oriented governmental rhetoric and social media posts from diaspora that the regime sought to control, either by co-opting them into the PP, or by repressing them, or more often by alternating the two. Grounded in qualitative research conducted from 2019 up to now on ethno-nationalism revivals, this paper focuses on war-induced political repression or control. It deciphers the variety of evolving tools mobilized by the central Party-State in Wolayta, mainly from November 2020 to November 2021. First, we will observe how local Party-State structures served strong political agendas: activists were met with even greater repression, as opponents were more systematically arrested since the summer 2020 and the march to war. As cycles of cooption and repression shortened, detention conditions also became harsher, and the targeting of opponents progressively sophisticated after the state of emergency was reinstated in November 2021. Finally, we will analyze the massive impact war-induced political violence had on territorial reorganization and on the promotion and implementation of a new technology of bounding, the clusterisation of SNNPR.