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BBC interviews TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda. Host Steven Sacker asks tough questions. But Sacker appears to be misinformed about how the conflict began - not when PM Abiy sent to Tigray, but when the TPLF attacked the Northern Command on Nov. 3, 2020.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct1n1k
In-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities.
Dance as an expression of Ethiopian unity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KPDH5ZWJg4&ab_channel=ArtsTvWorld
This is how we made the looping performances for our NFT series “Movement of the Ancestors : የቀደምቶች ዉዝዋዜ” which merges traditional Ethiopian dance with the ...
Conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray Region - an Explainer
Get behind the headlines to understand the conflict in Tigray
By Samson Mulugeta
Recently, Ethiopia went from being a darling of the international community to a land of confusion and conflict.
Conflict erupted in the Tigray region that is as dramatic as it is confusing.
It involved possible drone use.
Allegations of involvement of Eritreans in support of Ethiopia.
Former high government officials meeting grisly ends in tiny remote villages.
For those who don’t follow Ethiopian events closely, the descent into conflict was a surprise. But for those who have been paying attention, the conflict was building for a long time and inevitable.
For more than a decade, Ethiopia has been riding high on the world stage.
Its economy was one of the fastest-growing in the world.
It lifted millions out of poverty.
Its healthcare distribution system is considered a model for developing countries.
Life expectancy had improved dramatically in the past two decades.
It built the $4.5 billion dollar Grand Renaissance Dam to tame the Nile River and create so much electric power that it could be shared with neighboring countries.
Its airline is the pride of Africa.
It elected its first female President.
And first female Chief Justice.
Its new young and charismatic Prime Minister brokered peace with former enemies such as neighboring Eritrea.
He released political prisoners.
He energized his fellow Ethiopians with national pride.
He was lionized by the international community and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
So if you don’t pay particular attention to this Horn of Africa nation, your general impression was that Ethiopia was a country on the rise.
Then all hell broke loose in the northern region of Tigray.
Tigray was the most powerful region of the country.
Why? Well, a rebel group from the region had liberated Ethiopia from a hated military dictator 27 years ago and set the country on a path to economic prosperity.
This group was called TPLF - the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front.
The TPLF ruled Ethiopia for nearly three decades.
The Tigreans were only 6 percent of Ethiopia’s 100 million population.
But they were able to administer the whole country by creating a coalition with other ethnic groups.
The TPLF shared some power with its coalition partners but it maintained ultimate control.
While some Ethiopians praised the TPLF for Ethiopia’s rapid economic rise, many others blamed it for allegedly fanning ethnic division by creating regions cleaved along ethnic and linguistic lines. They also accused the TPLF of amassing huge economic benefits to Tigrean cliques, and autocratic and anti-democratic actions that kept Tigreans who are six percent of the country’s population in charge of the Oromo and Amhara groups that represent much larger portions of the populace.
But this minority rule became untenable as the years went by, and the TPLF began ceding power a few years ago.
It installed a figurehead Prime Minister who was powerless and ineffectual.
Three years ago he was replaced by the current Prime Minister - Abiy Ahmed.
Abiy was a leader the likes of which Ethiopians had not seen in decades.
He was young.
He was a powerful orator.
His mother was Christian and his father Muslim. He hailed from the Oromo ethnic group, the largest in Ethiopia. He spoke Amharic, the national language as well as Oromifa, Tigrigna, and English.
He left emotional lumps in the throats of Ethiopians who galvanized by his principle of “Medemer” roughly translated as “Contribute.”
Ethiopia’s version of JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
In quick succession, Abiy started making friends with some world leaders.
He reached out to all the neighbors and declared he wanted peace.
Then he dropped a bombshell.
He traveled to sworn enemy Eritrea and sat down for tea and biscuit with the country's strongman - President Isaias Afwerki.
Isaias had ruled Eritrea with an iron fist since 1991 when the Red Sea territory broke off from being Ethiopia’s coastal province and declared independence.
Isaias and the TPLF became mortal enemies.
This was strange because the Tigreans had helped him create independent Eritrea.
See, Tigreans believed they were Ethiopians but wanted strong regional independence, including the right to secede.
Many Eritreans wanted a separate nation despite a common history, culture, and language with Ethiopia.
Some Ethiopians were very angry at the TPLF for accepting Eritrea’s secession.
For a few years, relations between the TPLF and the new Eritrean government were smooth.
But over the years a lot of friction arose between the two.
Isaias and his original party - the EPLF or Eritrean People’s Liberation Front - believed they were the genius military strategists and tough-as-nails fighters who brought Ethiopia’s dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam to his knees.
The TPLF felt they were the senior partners. They had liberated Ethiopia and were on a glide path to lead it into economic prosperity.
They believed they were the chief administrators of Ethiopia’s 100 million people while Isaias was a minor player with his 4 million people.
The stage was set for a Shakespearean showdown between the TPLF and the EPLF.
In the war of 1998-2000, the TPLF-led Ethiopian government came on top militarily.
For nearly 20 years, Isaias waited for his revenge.
It took nearly two decades, but it eventually came.
It began when Abiy postponed elections due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The TPLF refused to go along. They went on to hold elections in Tigray.
Tension built up with the TPLF and Abiy.
Then the TPLF attacked Abiy’s forces in Tigray by taking over a federal military base.
(Ok, ok. I know this escalated quickly. How did the TPLF go from defying the central government to hold its own election and to taking over the federal forces in Tigray? To understand this, you need to know that the TPLF has considered itself the master of its own destiny since its creation in the early 1970s.)
TPLF spokesperson Sekutoure Getachew said it took about 45 minutes to kill or neutralize the top commanders of the Northern command.
Speaking in a televised interview in Amharic, TPLF spokesman Sekutoure explained why the TPLF took over the Northern Command.
Sekutoure made these startling points about the TPLF’s decision to strike first:
- Four of the six of Ethiopia’s military divisions were in Tigray.
- When PM Abiy sent a deputy commander to take over the Northern Command, “We turned him away at the airport.”
- The TPLF took “lightning action” to take over the Northern Command on Nov. 4, 2020.
- The TPLF’s move to take over the Northern Command was justified because of “anticipatory self-defense.” “It became clear that there was a plot to destroy Tigray and it had come to a tipping point and we had to take fast action. That is why we took control of the Northern Command with those who wanted to join us. We destabilized or demobilized those who would not join us. We took control of the command in just 45 minutes, except for a few pockets of resistance.”
- “By demobilizing the Northern Command, taking 70-80 percent of the country’s heavy weaponry, and giving it to the people of Tigray. That was the first move. But it goes beyond that. Our forces cleared resistance, some by negotiation, some by force. Right now there is no Northern Command controlled by Abiy.”
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed denounced the TPLF’s takeover of the Northern Command.
Abiy said:
“More than the attack, what shocked me and my fellow Ethiopians to the core was the level of cruelty the TPLF leadership displayed in the conduct of their criminal operations. After they surprised and overpowered several regiments of the ENDF (Ethiopian National Defense Forces) forces, the TPLF identified and separated hundreds of unarmed Ethiopian soldiers of non-Tigrayan origin, tied their hands and feet together, massacred them in cold blood, and left their bodies lying in open air. Never would I have imagined it humanly possible for any person to kill their fellow soldiers while asleep and record themselves singing and dancing on the bodies of their victims.
Following their surprise attack on their own unsuspecting fellow Ethiopians, it didn’t take long for the TPLF leadership to start celebrating and gloating in public about their prowess and invincibility in war and how they have now transformed themselves, overnight, into the largest fighting force in the entire Horn of Africa.”
Abiy’s forces counter-attacked. In a few days, federal forces had taken Mekelle, Tigray’s capital.
The TPLF appeared unprepared.
Mulugeta Gebrehiwot, a former TPLF leader who was in Tigray during this period, told Africa researcher and author Alex de Waal that the TPLF had no exit strategy after taking over the Northern Command.
“People were literally coming up with plans and asking them to do this, do that,” Mulugeta said. “You know, they, the TPLF could have done so many things had they forecasted that level of violence which was not difficult to forecast. You know, it was very obvious that this war would be a war against Tigray, which Abiy is going to run alongside Isaias. And once you expect Isaias, you shouldn’t expect it to come less than any devastating force it could mobilize.”
Top TPLF leaders scattered throughout Tigray.
Mulugeta claimed Ethiopian forces were helped by drone attacks brought in from the UAE.
“Tigray only had 23 battalions, and 42 divisions of Eritrea and twelve divisions of Ethiopia, were all here. This is without including the special forces of the Amhara region, which is beyond, over 10,000, and also special forces of Oromia, Somalia, and other forces as well. The first month’s resistance was with this level of asymmetry. And then the Emirates came. The Emirates effectively disarmed Tigray. They started killing tanks, then howitzers, then fuel, then ammunition. Then they started hunting small vehicles, targeting leaders, [indistinct] all over. This created [unclear: risk?] and sort of dislocation, and this is part of the weakness of the preparation. So many people moved out of the cities of Tigray towards the rural other areas following the army, some including their families.”
Top TPLF leaders were hunted down and killed or captured.
One was Seyoum Mesfin, the longtime foreign minister of Ethiopia under the TPLF-led government.
Mulugeta detailed how the elderly leaders of the TPLF were hunted down:
“They just found them in a village. They were staying in a village, and they didn’t have an army. They were just in a secluded area. They caught and killed them. It was the EPLF that killed them.”
Federal forces moved into the Tigray capital Mekelle and declared victory.
But did Abiy’s Ethiopian forces truly win?
In the short term, yes.
But the answer is complicated and highly dangerous for Ethiopia’s long-term peace and prosperity.
That’s because the TPLF had a very strong bond with the people of Tigray.
Any peace that comes to the region must have the buy-in from the people of Tigray.
Otherwise, there will be protracted conflict and years of misery for Tigray and the rest of Ethiopia.
-end-
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