The Alliance That Will Eat Its Partner: Why Fano Cannot Survive a Tactical Pact with the TPLF or PFDJ

The Alliance That Will Eat Its Partner: Why Fano Cannot Survive a Tactical Pact with the TPLF or PFDJ (People’s Front for Democracy and Justice – Eritrea.)

By Kinfuadam

The Premise 

A tactical alliance between the TPLF and the Fano movement against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has emerged through the shadowy “ጽምዶ” network  –  a loose military alignment involving Eritrea, Sudan, the TPLF, elements of Fano, and the Oromo Liberation Army, first publicly identified by Ethiopia’s Justice Minister in October 2025 and confirmed by meetings in Port Sudan in May 2026. 

This alliance is a dangerous gamble for Fano. It crosses fundamental red lines that Fano’s leadership appears not to grasp, and it pits a young, fragmented, politically inexperienced movement against an organization with fifty years of documented experience in creating, using, and destroying coalition partners. Fano does not have the organizational capacity, the political sophistication, the economic resources, the diplomatic infrastructure, or the institutional memory to survive what the TPLF has in store for it. 

This is not revenge talk, or emotional aversion. It is the established pattern of every alliance the TPLF has ever entered. 

The TPLF’s Documented History of Betraying Allies 

The EPLF (Eritrea)  –  Trained, Armed, Then Fought 

The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) created the TPLF. In 1974, the EPLF agreed to train the founding TPLF members; the first group was sent to EPLF camps in January 1975. EPLF fighters fought alongside the TPLF against the Derg, and in May 1991, Eritrean forces escorted the TPLF to Addis Ababa, providing personal protection for Meles Zenawi during his first years as prime minister. 

Seven years later, the TPLF went to war against its creator. A border dispute over Badme and a disagreement over currency and trade relations escalated into the 1998–2000 Ethio-Eritrean War, which killed an estimated 70,000–100,000 people. The alliance that had overthrown the Derg was destroyed over economic disagreements that could have been negotiated.  (Human Rights Watch; Georgetown Journal of International Affairs; Martin Plaut). 

(On the same note, a further point of controversy concerns Meles Zenawi’s handling of Eritrea. Critics argue that he effectively relinquished Ethiopia’s access to both Red Sea ports when Eritrea became independent and, despite Ethiopia’s military advantage at the end of the war, chose not to pursue their recovery through political means. This remains one of the most baffling aspects of Zenawi’s legacy.)

The OLF (Oromo)  –  Welcomed, Then Destroyed 

The Oromo Liberation Front joined the TPLF-led Transitional Government of Ethiopia in 1991 as a coalition partner, believing in the promise of a democratic transition. The OLF helped draft the Transitional Charter and participated in building the new federal structure of ethnic constitution. 

Within one year, the TPLF had destroyed it. The TPLF had created the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) in 1989–1990 specifically from Oromo war captives to undermine the OLF. When the OLF attempted to participate in the 1992 elections, TPLF forces arrested its candidates, rigged the vote, and drove OLF ministers out of the government. Thousands of OLF fighters were captured within weeks. Over the following years, an estimated 40,000 Oromo were imprisoned on OLF-related charges; 13,000 perished in detention. OLF executive committee members were assassinated. The organization was banned and forced into exile, where it waged a “generally ineffectual armed struggle” for the next three decades. (Human Rights Watch; Jalata, University of Tennessee; Advocacy4Oromia) 

The EPRDF Coalition Partners  –  Created as Puppets 

The EPRDF  –  the four-party coalition that ruled Ethiopia from 1991 to 2019  –  was presented as a genuine multi-ethnic alliance. It was not. A 2024 academic study published in the African Journal of Political Science describes the EPRDF as “a political construct and hegemonic vehicle of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front” rather than “a genuine coalition of equal partners.” The TPLF created the ANDM (Amhara), the OPDO (Oromo), and the SEPDM (Southern) as “satellite organisations” whose leaders’ “political survival was contingent upon loyalty to the Tigrayan core. (University of Johannesburg)  Furthermore, they deliberately discriminated against the Somali and several other ethnic groups in an effort to consolidate and maintain their political dominance.  

The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam’s political history of the TPLF states that these “junior partners were formed by the support and guidance of the TPLF basically in the interest of the latter that badly needed the multi-national image to execute its agenda in Ethiopia.” The Journal of Democracy confirmed that allied parties had “no representation in the EPRDF’s Executive Committee, the most important decision-making body in Ethiopia.” (VU Amsterdam; Journal of Democracy; Aigaforum; Al Jazeera) 

The ANDM  –  ostensibly representing the Amhara people  –  was described by its own constituents as “the puppet of TPLF,” following TPLF guidance on every major decision while Amhara interests went unrepresented. (Zehabesha) 

Fellow Tigrayan Movements  –  Liquidated 

Even within Tigray, the TPLF eliminated competitors. In 1975, it liquidated the Tigrayan Liberation Front (TLF). In 1976–78, it fought the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU) in the Shire. In 1978, it fought the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) in East Tigray, eventually pushing them out of their territories entirely. (Wikipedia, TPLF) 

The Pattern 

Every single alliance the TPLF has entered has ended the same way: the partner was used, subordinated, and then destroyed or neutralized once it had served its purpose. The EPLF created the TPLF and was rewarded with war. The OLF joined the government in good faith and was rewarded with prison and exile. The ANDM, OPDO, and SEPDM were created as instruments and were rewarded with irrelevance. Fellow Tigrayan movements were rewarded with annihilation. 

There is no counterexample. In fifty years of existence, the TPLF has never sustained an alliance with an organization it did not ultimately control, subordinate, or destroy. 

The Red Line: Welkait 

The TPLF-Fano alliance crosses a red line that makes it fundamentally different from any previous TPLF partnership: the two movements hold irreconcilably opposed positions on the same territory. 

Fano’s founding grievance  –  the issue that mobilized the movement, that gave it popular legitimacy, that defines its political identity  –  is the return of Welkait, Tegede, Telemt, and Humera (so-called “Western Tigray”) to the Amhara administration. These territories were annexed by the TPLF from Gondar in 1991 and renamed “Western Tigray.” Fano fighters fought the TPLF during the 2020–2022 war specifically to reclaim this land. Fano’s continued occupation of these areas is the reason the TPLF is now fighting in August 2026. 

The TPLF’s position is the exact opposite. ACLED assesses that “after full consolidation, the TPLF’s first action will most likely be mobilizing its forces to seize disputed territories in western Tigray.” The August 2026 fighting confirms this prediction. (ACLED, June 2026) 

The UK government’s own country report documented this contradiction explicitly: “The FFM team questioned such an alliance given Fano forces were occupying West Tigray.” The TPLF’s own allies admitted the calculus: “While West Tigray is important to the Tigrayan people, the TPLF is interested in power and not Welkait, hence its alliance with the Fano.” (UK Home Office, December 2024) 

This last quote is the key to understanding the alliance from the TPLF’s side. The TPLF is not sacrificing its territorial claim  –  it is temporarily suspending it to use Fano as a tool against Abiy Ahmed. Once that purpose is served, the claim will be reasserted. Fano will then find itself facing the TPLF’s military, the TPLF’s political machine, and the TPLF’s international lobbying infrastructure  –  all demanding the surrender of the very territory Fano was created to protect. 

No alliance can survive an irreconcilable territorial contradiction. The TPLF knows this. Fano apparently does not. 

The Power Asymmetry 

The gap between the TPLF and Fano is not a matter of degree. It is a matter of kind. 

Organizational Experience 

The TPLF was founded in 1975. It has fifty years of organizational history, including twenty-seven years as the ruling party of a nation of 120 million people. It has governed, administered, negotiated, legislated, propagandized, and fought at every level  –  local, national, and international. It has survived multiple wars, multiple internal purges, and multiple transitions of power. 

Fano’s Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM) was formally established on January 17, 2026  –  seven months ago. Before that, it was a collection of “loosely aligned groups” that “operated autonomously” with “no formal organizational structure.” The UK government describes the movement as “decentralized, fragmented, organized from the bottom up.” Even after unification, the Abren analysis characterizes Fano as “a diffuse and internally fractious constellation of militias and political actors” whose “architecture is defined less by cohesion than by decentralization, operational incoherence and the absence of any unifying ideological project or long-term strategic vision.”(UK Home Office, June 2025; Abren, December 2025) 

Economic Resources 

The TPLF commands EFFORT, a conglomerate of 66 companies with assets estimated at $2.5–3 billion, plus billions more in offshore wealth accumulated during its 27-year rule  –  Forbes estimated $30 billion was looted from Ethiopia during the TPLF era. These funds sustained the party through war, defeat, and political comeback. 

Fano’s fighters reportedly train with weapons “diverted or looted from federal stockpiles.” Factions “compete fiercely for recruits and resources.” One faction leader was removed over “alleged fund misappropriation.” There is no Fano economic empire. There is no Fano offshore wealth. There is no Fano financial infrastructure capable of sustaining the movement through a prolonged political confrontation with a partner that has billions at its disposal. (Abren) 

International Infrastructure 

The TPLF maintains a sophisticated diaspora lobbying network  –  the Tigray American Impact Fund, the Union of Tigrayans in North America, the Tigray Center for Information and Communications, and K Street lobbying firms operating at up to $100,000 per month. This network has successfully shaped US Senate resolutions, Western media coverage, and European policy debates for over three decades. 

Fano has no comparable infrastructure. It has no registered lobbying organizations in Washington or Brussels. It has no media operations targeting Western policymakers. It has no diaspora network with the organizational sophistication or financial resources of the TPLF’s. In any political confrontation with the TPLF over narrative, Fano will be invisible  –  exactly as the ANDM was invisible for twenty-seven years. 

Political Sophistication 

The TPLF has demonstrated mastery of what might be called “political shredding”  –  the ability to absorb a partner, extract value from it, hollow out its independent leadership, install loyalists, and then discard the shell when it is no longer useful. This is what it did to the OLF, the ANDM, the OPDO, and the SEPDM. The technique requires institutional depth, financial resources, intelligence capabilities, diplomatic contacts, and decades of experience. The TPLF has all of these. Fano has none. 

The Abren analysis notes that Fano leaders who opposed the alignment with the TPLF and Eritrea’s PFDJ “faced political marginalization, targeted smear campaigns, and credible or successful assassination attempts.” Captain Masresha Setie was targeted specifically for “refusing collaboration with the TPLF.” If the TPLF can identify, isolate, and eliminate internal dissent within Fano’s leadership before the alliance has even formalized, what will it do once Fano is fully embedded in a TPLF-led command structure? (Abren) Another possible scenario is that the TPLF has already planted its operatives within Fano’s loosely organized structure, and the game is already underway.

The TPLF’s Calculus 

The ACLED analysis is explicit about the TPLF’s strategy: “TPLF-aligned Fano militias, like the Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM), will be used to weaken the Ethiopian government by either intensifying their fight against the government or fighting alongside the TPLF.” The objective is to “overstretch and fracture the deployment capabilities of the Ethiopian National Defense Force across northern Ethiopia.” (ACLED) 

Fano’s role in this strategy is instrumental. It is the diversionary force  –  the militia that opens a second front to draw federal troops away from western Tigray while the TPLF’s TDF moves to recapture the territory. Once western Tigray is retaken, Fano’s utility to the TPLF will be zero, and the irreconcilable territorial contradiction will immediately resurface. 

The TPLF has already telegraphed this. It launched operations in western Tigray in January 2026, mobilized the TDF toward the disputed territories, and resumed fighting in August 2026. The alliance with Fano is a means to this end, not an end in itself- and dispensable as soon as other alternatives become available – like a temporary alliance with PP!  

Why Fano Cannot Match the TPLF 

Fano is a popular movement with genuine grassroots legitimacy, driven by real grievances  –  historical marginalization, targeted violence, territorial dispossession. Its fighters have demonstrated courage, cruelty and tactical effectiveness. But popular legitimacy and tactical courage are not substitutes for institutional depth, political sophistication, economic resources, diplomatic infrastructure, and fifty years of experience in alliance warfare. 

The TPLF has survived because it converts every relationship into a power hierarchy. It does not do partnerships; it does hierarchies. It did not partner with the OLF; it destroyed it. It did not partner with the ANDM; it created it as a puppet. It did not partner with the EPLF; it turned on it. It did not partner with the Ethiopian government in 2020; it attacked the Northern Command. 

Fano is entering an alliance with an organization that has never in its history maintained an equal partnership with anyone. The TPLF has billions in assets, a global lobbying network, a regional state apparatus, an armed force that never disarmed, and a fifty-year track record of using and discarding allies. Fano has seven months of formal organizational existence, no economic infrastructure, no diplomatic presence, persistent factional divisions, and a leadership that is already being penetrated and manipulated. 

The Abren analysis concludes: “Fano’s evolving alignment with the TPLF and Eritrea’s PFDJ, compounded by pervasive factionalism and leadership rivalries, underscores the movement’s inability to articulate a credible political platform or sustain strategic coherence.” (Abren) 

The Historical Verdict 

The proposition that the TPLF-Fano tactical alliance is a dangerous gamble for Fano, that it crosses fundamental red lines, and that Fano lacks the capacity to survive the TPLF’s political shrewdness is not merely reasonable. It is the only conclusion supported by the historical record. 

Every organization that has entered an alliance with the TPLF has been used and then destroyed or subordinated. The EPLF trained the TPLF and got into a war. The OLF joined the government and got prison. The ANDM, OPDO, and SEPDM were created as instruments and became irrelevant. Fellow Tigrayan movements got annihilated. 

There is no reason to believe Fano will be different. There is every reason  –  documented across fifty years and multiple betrayals  –  to believe it will be worse. Fano is entering this alliance with its core territorial demand (Welkait) directly opposed to the TPLF’s core territorial demand (western Tigray). When the TPLF turns on Fano  –  and it will  –  it will have the economic resources, the political machinery, the diplomatic infrastructure, and the historical experience to do to Fano what it did to the OLF: absorb, use, marginalize, and destroy. 

The people of Amhara, like the people of Tigray before them, will be the ones who pay the price. 

Editor’s Note: Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com  

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