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While the rest of the country has embraced a new horizon, the TPLF continues to cling to its old divisive ideology. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is at the center of an ongoing bloody conflict with the federal government of Ethiopia.
The TPLF established itself in the majority Tigray region of Ethiopia in the 1970s as one of many rebel groups fighting to break free from Ethiopian imperial rule. The Tigray community, at that time, was marginalized by the feudal system. After the military overthrow of the imperial government, the front, like others, fought against the newly established communist military government.
Along the way, the TPLF developed its elaborate ideology, combining ultra-nationalism and ethnic pride with a sense of victimization, especially targeting the feudal Amhara elite and communists. It propagates the divisive idea of ”us against them”: that the people of Tigray are surrounded by enemies and only the TPLF can guarantee their protection and survival.
After the party came to power in 1991 within the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition, this hostile narrative did not disappear and, in fact, acquired an even broader scope. The Tigray regional state came under the control of the TPLF, which allowed the party to promote its harmful ideology among the entire Tigray population of Ethiopia without being disturbed.
The TPLF also took control of the center of power in Addis Ababa, when its boss, Meles Zenawi, became Ethiopia’s president in 1991, remaining in power until his death in 2012. It was under his leadership that the EPRDF spread the false idea that the Ethiopian population was made up of ethnic groups with irreconcilable differences, denying the reality that Ethiopian society is multi-ethnic, united by ties of intermarriage, commerce, religion and culture.
By promoting this divisive narrative, the EPRDF sought to present itself as the savior and guarantor of ethnic peace in Ethiopia, which would descend into conflict and chaos without its leadership. The state media frequently and boldly declared that it is “EPRDF or Interahamwe”, referring to the Hutu paramilitary organization that committed the genocide in Rwanda. This was intended to remind the public that this could happen in Ethiopia and that “the possibility of falling apart” was real if people demanded their rights and freedoms.
For more than 20 years, Zenawi maintained almost total control over the country, ensuring the dominance of the TPLF within the EPRDF. But in 2018, several years after his death, under pressure from years of social and political upheaval, change finally came to Ethiopia.
The TPLF lost power in Addis Ababa and the EPRDF dissolved a year later. As the rest of the country embraced a new horizon, the TPLF maintained its old divisive ideology and even carried it further.
Its exclusionary mythology gave rise to the far-right “Agazian” movement, an incipient movement that seeks to create a Tigray homeland by uniting Tigrigna-speaking Christians in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is driven by those who see themselves as the successors of the ancient Axumite kingdom and dream of reviving it. TPLF’s toxic ideology has also manifested itself on the national political scene. As the Prosperity Party, which Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed created in 2019, has sought to push through major political and socio-economic reforms, the TLPF has tried to portray them as an attack on its ranks or even on the entire town of Tigray.
Hardly a day goes by without TPLF-affiliated Tigray Regional TV and other media outlets broadcasting war documentaries and footage from the guerrilla wars of the 1980s. The goal is to worry the people of Tigrayan with the feeling of being under siege. .
After losing power in the center, the TPLF did everything it could to subvert the reform agenda of the Ethiopian prime minister. He organized an illegal election, sponsored violent groups to disturb the peace in different parts of the country, and finally ordered his forces to attack the Northern Command of the Ethiopian Army. That is why the federal government is in a difficult situation right now.
As a result, the Ethiopian government now faces the difficult task of restoring the rule of law in the regional state of Tigray and ensuring the safety and well-being of all its residents.
The ideology of the TPLF clique has long spread division and hostility to the detriment of the Tigrayan people and the people of Ethiopia in general. But a new generation of Ethiopians has decided to reject ethnic extremism and conflict and to embrace progress and peace. A party like the TPLF, which lags behind and does not learn from its mistakes, is finally reaping bitter fruits.
By: Mustafa Omer
Mustafa Omer is the president of the regional state of Somalia in Ethiopia.
