On January 23, members of the Tigray military forces made an unprecedented announcement, calling for the dissolution and restructuring of the region’s interim administration. In so doing, they expressed support for one faction within the TPLF’s political divide, abandoning their previously neutral stance. Photo: Deutsche Welle (DW)
By Semhal Meles
Addis Abeba – It’s difficult to overstate the opportunism and ineptitude that serves as a unifying feature of Tigray’s fractured leadership. Tigrayan politics is now composed exclusively of blood sports; every possible societal cleavage is inflamed without restraint. It’s uncouth behavior.
How do these facile factions propose to beat each other beyond stoking hatred and mistrust amongst Tigrayans?
The faction led by Debretsion Gebremichale, chairman of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), has itself increasingly sought to establish and strengthen its relationship with the federal government – as was manifested in the latest round of meetings convened by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed – it has simultaneously and paradoxically promoted its own illegality in the eyes of the federal government as a means of galvanizing populist support. The thrust of this plan is to delegitimize itself with all external partners in order to undermine the faction of TPLF led by Getachew Reda, President of the Tigray Interim Regional Administration (TIRA), domestically. At its most successful what this would achieve is a set of two illegitimate TPLFs, one illegitimate in the eyes of the Tigrayan public and the other in the eyes of the Federal government and the international community (with perhaps the notable exception of Eritrea).
The Getachew wing of TPLF’s plans seem dependent on traveling back to a time before its unfortunate decision to boycott the party congress, foregoing the opportunity of not only consolidating within the party and securing both internal and external legitimacy, but also to advance a culture of vigorous discussion and debate. They have, at the time of publication, failed to make plans for the invention of a Time Machine public.
Lt. Gen. Tsadikan G/Tinsae, Vice President of TIRA, is taken by reforms understood through the slogans “separation of party and state” and “structural and systemic.” Should the slogans be fleshed out to concepts of a plan, Lt. Gen. Tsadikan would run into a structural impediment placed on the possibility of the separation of party and state; he signed the Pretoria Agreement as TPLF. By signing away the elected government, he and others who were part of the delegation, suspended Tigray’s constitution, thereby legally fusing the state with a political party that is COHA’s signatory until there is a “free and fair” election. The “reform” cannot be fully implemented before an election unless one is willing to sacrifice the legal existence of Tigray to sloganeering.
It’s difficult to imagine these, let’s call them simple, options are being pursued by seasoned politicians.
It’s unclear the balance of power has changed, but it has come out in the open and is threatening to take a lethal turn
Semhal Meles
Although rumors of a split within the Tigray military establishment, mirroring that within the TPLF, had been swirling, the military leadership had, until this week, publicly positioned itself as a neutral arbitrator. That changed as the generals were resoundingly out voted by the colonels. The fallout alarmingly squanders hope for a bloodless resolution. In a statement made by its spokesperson TDF said, to theoretically summarize:
‘We are partial arbitrators of conflict; down down Tadesse Werede, down down Tsadkan Gebretensae, down down Getachew Reda. And as for the Prosperity regime? We wanna see you outside.
Also, we’re going to ensure the demilitarization of politics by turning our guns towards particular politicians.’
To these assertions, Getachew Reda responded (again, I’m paraphrasing):
‘So, you gonna shoot or?’
His deputy, Lt. Gen. Tsadikan, has chosen silence.
We are, once again, at a standoff. It’s unclear the balance of power has changed, but it has come out in the open and is threatening to take a lethal turn.
What happens next? Assuming the military leadership decides the political cost of shooting is restrictive, we will likely see Debretsion’s faction and its military backing waste several more months attempting to remove the generals in order to replace the interim president – and the interim president and his backers refusing to go.
Should they decide to shoot it is likely to lead to some degree of wider armed conflict and even greater deterioration of the already precarious law and order situation in Tigray. As it stands, the principal players active widening and deepening of every possible social fissure means that it may well lead to the further, and possible, permanent fracture of the Tigrayan national identity.
Any responsible actor, be they partial or impartial arbitrators of conflict, would, then attempt to create conditions in which the social costs of competition i.e the further erosion of societal cohesion and unified national identity is mitigated. Not to mention other, not unrelated concerns such as evading the growing encroachment of warlordism. In this last regard, it is important for those engaged in acts like illegal mining and human trafficking to recognize that the evidence is collected, conclusive, and beyond their reach. They can tear us apart, but that will not allow them to escape accountability.
For its part, the Prosperity regime is likely to keep encouraging all factions thereby fanning the flames. An excellent example is PM Abiy patting Debretsion on the back for standing up to the National Election Board, while simultaneously having the Board introduce a bill with provisions for postponing elections and constitutional changes that sever the ties between regional assemblies and the house of federations. Quietly reversing democratic gains and undermining multinational federalism.
There can be no assurance of our continued survival as a people let alone one with a nation should our elite fail to alert itself to the nature of the threats that lay before us and act accordingly
Semhal Meles
PM Abiy is unlikely to accept the Tigran military forces’ offer to brawl before testing the waters with the Trump administration. Trump’s lack of interest in “shit hole countries” meant that in his first term American policy towards Ethiopia was largely driven by Mike Pence’s piety, from which PP benefited tremendously. While Trump remains uninterested in Africa, what and who will guide policy in his second term remains nebulous. What he plans to do with the facade of global law and order does not; territorial expansionism is all the rage.
The concomitant global crises of liberalism and capitalism have yet to be addressed by Tigrayan elites irrespective of whether they’re of the “revolutionary democracy” ilk (rhetorically, I withhold they all practice neoliberalism) or the “reform and change” crowd. Yet at no time since the Second World War have the basic tenets of the international system, including democracy as a shared universal value, been so gravely challenged. I would argue the vicious crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Tigray is a symptom of this phenomenon and is just the beginning. There can be no assurance of our continued survival as a people let alone one with a nation should our elite fail to alert itself to the nature of the threats that lay before us and act accordingly.
All that is to say, we can’t afford internal beef. Escalation of the type famously declared by Fetlework Gebreegziabher, head of the TPLF Office, is, at this juncture, tantamount to collective suicide.
This is no time to be self-satisfied with winning a neighborhood brawl that leaves the neighborhood fractured and vulnerable to external attack. Our leaders need to get it together and grow up; we want peace. AS
Editor’s Note: Semhal Meles is the daughter of Ethiopia’s late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
