Abstract
Using hitherto unexploited archival documents kept in Gondar, this study attempts to investigate a history of the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Army (EPRA) and its insurgency in eastern Gondar and the counterinsurgency campaigns of the military regime to wipe out the guerrillas. To substantiate the archival documents, attempts have been made to extract oral information through interviews from peasants in eastern Gondar who were involved in EPRA's insurgency. Among other things, the study shows that EPRP's resort to urban terrorism led to the liquidation of the EPRP in the major towns and the incapacitation of the rural armed resistance in East Gondar. When government militias launched counterinsurgency operations between 1978 and 1980, EPRA guerrillas could not rally the rural population behind them and defend their base areas. Their failure to protect peasants from government punitive measures finally alienated EPRA fighters from the rural population and that eventually led to their undoing.
