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The party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), is the target of military operations ordered by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, which reportedly have killed thousands since early November. .
But this month’s impromptu parade in Alamata, a farming town in southern Tigray flanked by low, rolling mountains, was unrelated to any kind of battlefield victory.
Rather it was to hail the release of Berhanu Belay Teferra, a self-described political prisoner under the TPLF whose pet problem, analysts warn, risks becoming Ethiopia’s next flashpoint.
In 2018, the 48-year-old Berhanu was detained by the TPLF for arguing that his homeland, located in an area known as Raya, of which Alamata is the largest city, did not have to fall under Tigrayan control.
Berhanu argued that the TPLF had illegally incorporated the famous fertile land in Tigray after it came to power in the early 1990s.
He was detained for more than two years, enduring beatings and long periods of solitary confinement in a cave, before pro-TPLF forces, fleeing the government assault in November, let him go, setting the stage for his triumphant return to House.
Now reunited with his wife and four children, Berhanu has once again campaigned for the relocation of Alamata and its surroundings to Ethiopia’s Amhara region, which borders Tigray to the south.
“We don’t want to live with the people of Tigray, who do not know our culture and traditions,” Berhanu told AFP a few days after the parade that marked his return, a moment of joy that he said was unrivaled in any other event in his life besides your wedding.
Risking ‘bloodshed’
Raya is not the only place in Tigray where, since the fighting began on November 4, some residents have been clamoring for change.
A similar dynamic is unfolding in western Tigray, where activists and politicians also accuse the TPLF of annexing land historically administered by the Amhara ethnic group.
In both areas, Abiy, for the moment at least, relies on Amhara’s special forces to provide security now that the TPLF has been driven out.
Amhara officials run transitional administrations in various towns and cities.
And the word “Amhara” has been scrawled on countless abandoned houses and closed shop windows like a hastily painted property claim.
William Davison, an Ethiopian analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG), described what is happening in west and south Tigray as “de facto unconstitutional annexations” that “set a destabilizing precedent for the federation.”
Some newly installed officials make it clear that they want nothing to do with Tigray, raising the possibility of a future conflict over land.
“First we were forced to be part of [Tigray]. Now, by force, this area is liberated, “said the new mayor of Alamata, Kassa Reda Belay, adding that he hoped Abiy would” answer the question of the people “, that is, place the area under the authority of Amhara.
“If not, there will be a lot of bloodshed and there will be civil war,” Kassa said.
Road ahead uncertain
It is unclear what the federal government’s long-term plans are for the disputed territory.
The President of the Amhara region, Agegnehu Teshager, has said that the Amhara security forces did not get involved in the conflict to claim land.
But Zadig Abraha, Ethiopia’s democratization minister and a native of Alamata, told AFP that the city could one day fall under Amhara’s control.
“People have asked loud and clear to be a part of this. There is a possibility of that happening and we will have to wait a while,” Zadig said.
Meanwhile, the Abiy government is working to shore up an interim administration in Tigray led by Mulu Nega, a former Tigrayan higher education official.
However, any attempt by Mulu to exercise authority over Alamata is unlikely to go well.
“If Dr. Mulu Nega comes here, there will be two or more demonstrations against him. We don’t want him to come. From now on … we want to live with the people of Amhara,” said Kassa, the mayor of Alamata.
‘I do not feel safe’
That kind of language strikes fear in the hearts of men like Hailay Gebremedhin, a Tigrayan who has owned a clothing store on Alamata’s main street for six years.
In November, when fighting broke out in the mountains around Alamata, he packed his sneakers and other merchandise into burlap sacks and ran home, where he huddled for weeks.
Hailay reopened his shop earlier this month because he had run out of money and food, but he’s not sure what kind of life he and his fellow Tigrayans can have in the city.
“I don’t feel safe here because there are people who are saying, ‘Oh, we have defeated them, we have broken them, now they will go away,'” he said.
Davison of the ICG said “there is likely to be sustained resistance from Tigray if territories are taken out of Tigray, in the same way that activists from Amhara have long agitated for their ‘return’.”
There are also some activists who believe that Raya should become his own region, which does not belong to either Tigray or Amhara.
However, for now, those voices are quiet in Alamata.
Hailay told AFP that he is afraid to even speak Tigrinya, the Tigrayan language, for fear of reprisals from Amhara officials and the security forces.
As he spoke, he glanced toward the rotunda where large crowds gathered during the parade welcoming the return of Berhanu, the self-described political prisoner.
Planted in the grass was a sign that, in Hailay’s mind, looked like a threat.
“The Amhara wait patiently,” he said, “but they cannot be broken.”
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