By Alex Bekele
Recently, there is a serious talk of a coalition formation between a Fano group and the old TPLF. Those who are for it argue allying with TPLF to defeat Abiy Ahmed and stop the Amhara genocide is imperative. They add that they will ally with anyone to defeat Abiy. Those against it rebuff it outright pointing to the half a century crimes committed by TPLF on Amharas, its propensity to commit even more, and its absolute lack of remorse. And they also ask, confusedly, why their ‘anyone’ excluded other Fano groups? Which side should we the people weigh in on? To answer this question, I begin with a theory of what a coalition is, who forms it, and who benefits from it.
A simple and very general definition of a coalition is the bringing together of forces by two or more military groups to achieve a common goal. It can be formal with an accord defining its duration and the role and contribution of its members. It can as well be informal, with each member fighting the common enemy in its own way with occasional joint operations and/or logistical support.
Most often, forces that have close strategic and political objectives, similar identities and geographic proximities, frequent positive interactions, and workable military synergies form coalitions to fight a common enemy all want to defeat with absolute resolve. All parties of the coalition intend to benefit from it equally. Forces who don’t share these attributes cannot form a coalition, and if they do it tends to fritter away quickly with blame and rancor, for it will fail to be of equal benefit for all.
Fano’s strategic and political objectives are to stop the Amhara genocide, restore all the human and civil rights of the Amhara people, and work for an Ethiopia in which all its people live in equality, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness under the law. This requires defeating the current regime, rectifying the false narrative that postulates Amharas are the enemy of all the so-called nations and nationalities, bringing all those responsible for the Amhara genocide to justice, compensating the victims, and rewriting the apartheid constitution. Is this objective close to that of TPLF?
The essence of TPLF’s objective is its hatred of the people of Amhara. This was true in 1974 when it started its armed struggle, and was true when it ruled the country between 1991 and 2018, and is still true now after it is purged out of power. It wants to oust Abiy with a fervent desire to regain the power it once enjoyed, regain control of Amhara lands it lost, and resume the Amhara Genocide it started from where Abiy will leave it. This is its spoken and written dogma it never renounced. It firmly believes the constitution it imposed on the nation is as immutable as the laws of nature. Notably, it has greater hatred for anything Amhara than for anything Abiy. Its love-and-hate relationship with Abiy and his party is never disguised. Even after its ouster, it has been working with Abiy every now and then.
Thus, the strategic objectives of Fano and that of TPLF are always at loggerheads. Its hatred of the Amhara people, its staunch support for the constitution, and its unshakable belief in ethnic politics puts it a lot closer to Abiy Ahmed and his party than to any truly Amhara military group. So if Fano and TPLF form any military coalition, it is not hard to imagine that coalition sabotaging Fano’s success.
Does Fano have a similar identity to TPLF and geographical proximity? No, unless it confuses TPLF with the people of Tigray, it doesn’t have a similar identity. TPLF views Amharas neither as Ethiopians nor as humans. It sees them as enemies of all other so-called nations and nationalities to be exterminated. What it did to the Amharas of Wolqaeit and Raya, and its insistence to re-annex them clearly shows the dissimilarity of identities. Remember, it started the extermination of Amharas, and its brain-child, Abiy Ahmed, escalated it. The reason they want to come to power is not to restore the freedom of Amharas, but rather, it is to enslave them even more. How about geographical proximity?
TPLF is not a likely coalition partner in this regard either. The enemy had lost all its control in rural Amhara. Driving out the enemy from the urban centers required the coalition of Fanos in the four Amhara provinces more than the coalition of a splinter Fano group and TPLF. TPLF is far away from battle fields in Amhara, and even farther from the capital, where the last battle, thereby the war, will be won.
In any coalition, trust is the glue that keeps the coalition together. Commonalities in the few things I mentioned above contribute to building trust. But such commonalities are nonexistent. In this case, recent frequent positive interactions may help compensate. But are there recent positive interactions between Fano and TPLF, or the people of Amhara and TPLF? Talk to the Amharas of Wolqaeit and Raya about positive interactions with TPLF; they will frown at you. One will have to search with a flashlight and a magnifying glass into the nooks and crannies of the rugged land of Ethiopia to find a positive experience of the people of Amhara with TPLF. The experience of Amharas with the TPLF to date has been filled with war of ethnic cleansing, deprivation of civil and human rights, plunder, displacement and dehumanization. As a result, feelings of fear and suspicion abound, not of trust.
How about workable military synergy? Can Fano Forces and TPLF forces have some workable synergy? Let us see. Fano started as individual heroes who went to the jungle to fight the injustice they saw—the Amhara genocide and its atrocities. They neither had leaders nor trainers and training bases. They were freewheeling and freely moving only with self-imposed discipline of self preservation and enemy destruction. They had no political indoctrination of any sort. They are never taught to hate anyone. They saw genocide; they decided to fight it back. Fight they did: They formed teams, platoons, companies, battalions, brigades, and divisions, still with loose discipline and chains of command, arming themselves strictly from the enemy.
TPLF was started by a firebrand communist group as a guerrilla army with an ironclad military discipline. Rigid hierarchical discipline enforceable by harsh punishments, including by the death penalty is the sine qua non of the army. From its inception to date, TPLF indoctrinates and brainwashes its members with Amhara hate, and the superiority of the Tigray ethnic group. Taking out the hate and the superiority indoctrination will leave TPLF empty and irrelevant. As a result, each TPLF fighter hates no one as he hates an Amhara. If he finds an Abiy soldier of any other ethnicity other than Amhara and an Amhara Fano side by side, he will kill the Amhara Fano first and take the other guy prisoner of war.
Thus, seeing the natures of the two armies, it is hard to see any workable military synergy. Their chance of carrying out any joint operations against the enemy is very unlikely because of the difference they have in their discipline and training, and the suspicion that arises from TPLF’s fighters political indoctrinations. I have a fear based on TPLF’s indoctrination and history with other organizations; unsuspecting Fanos may face the fate of the late TLF and EDU, TPLF slaughtered after the formation of a coalition.
If all the conditions of a coalition for mutual benefit do not exist, what can drive any fano into one? Could it be desperation emanating from an imbalance of forces in the fight? The answer is clearly no.
For almost two years now, there have been no military engagements in which Fano didn’t defeat enemy forces. This attests to its morale, fighting skill, and effective battlefield command. The dedication of its fighters to die for their cause is par excellence. Short of drones and fighter jets, it is armed with everything the enemy is. It controls a much larger and more resourceful area than the state. The enemy lacks morale, the will to fight, and the cause to die for. The only thing that still keeps him in power is the lack of unity among the various Fano groups. A coalition with TPLF cannot be the answer, quite the opposite. Inviting TPLF to muddle in the existential struggle of the people of Amhara is as dangerous as a ewe flirting with a wolf.
On the contrary a coalition of all Fano groups is more urgent today than ever before. Their putative strategic and political objectives are the same. Abiy’s party is their existential threat no more than TPLF. They share the same ethnic, cultural and historical identities. They occupy the same vast geographical area in which any one of them feels at home and familiar in the others’ operational zones. Their fighters have fought side by side against their enemy numerous times with astonishing solidarity and camaraderie. They enjoy a battle-tested symbiotic military synergy due to sharing the same strategic objectives, similar genesis, more or less the same military discipline and training. They have been free of organized indoctrination and hateful brainwashing. Hence a coalition of all or most Fano forces will be more natural and destined to succeed. A Fano-TPLF coalition can only arise from a sinister zeal of personal power, wealth, and fame, betraying the essence of Fano’s real strategic and political objectives, and it is doomed to fail.
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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Your analysis mostly contains some hard facts , the primary goal of TPLF since its inception is to rule Ethiopia as their historical destiny and privilege by leveraging ethics conflicts. The call for FANO and TPLF Coalition is a political absurdity. I am not in a position of glorifying FANO as a liberation army since it does not acquires a political doctrine rather it degenerating towards a rural roaming army band