Borkena
Toronto – The political crisis in the Tigray region, stemming from a power struggle between two factions of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), shows no signs of improvement and appears to be worsening.
Last week, both factions traveled to Addis Ababa to meet with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in an attempt to mediate their political differences and provide a direction to end the crisis.
However, an unintended consequence of the meeting seems to be escalating tensions. Both factions are now exchanging words over what was said during their discussions with the Prime Minister, sources said. They are releasing statements to make political points to their supporters.
Debretsion Gebremichael’s Faction
Debretsion Gebremichael, who claims to be the chairman of the TPLF, is speaking as if he is from a position of legitimate authority, following his reelection as chairman during the party convention in August this year. This election was deemed illegal, including by the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia.
The latest statement from his faction, released on Wednesday, made serious allegations against the other faction. It claimed that “Getachew Reda’s group has committed treason against the people of Tigray.” According to a VOA Amharic report, Debretsion’s group accuses the other faction of urging the federal government to expedite the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) process for the Tigray Defense Forces, a key provision of the Pretoria Agreement. Signed in November 2022, the agreement ended a devastating two-year war between the TPLF-led Tigray regional government and the Abiy Ahmed-led federal government, a conflict that is estimated to have claimed over a million lives across the Afar, Amhara, and Tigray regions. One of the core provisions of the agreement was for the TPLF to disarm its forces.
Debretsion’s faction also accuses the group of attempting to place the Tigray region’s forces under the Ethiopian Defense Forces and inviting the federal forces into Tigray. For Debretsion’s group, these actions represent “treason against the people of Tigray.”
Additionally, Debretsion’s faction claims that Getachew Reda, the head of the Interim Tigray Region Administration, and other TPLF leaders within the Interim Administration have been “dismissed from the TPLF and can no longer represent the organization.” Debretsion’s group intends to remove them from power by any means.
Reports from state-owned media outlets indicate that the Prime Minister, following the meeting with Tigray region political and security officials, instructed the Getachew Reda faction to continue as Interim leaders until the next election in the region, and for both factions to collaborate.
Getachew Reda’s Faction
In contrast, Getachew Reda’s group has accused Debretsion’s faction of steering the Tigray region toward a confrontation with the federal government. The group also claims that Debretsion’s faction is illegally plotting to come to power, including by seeking support from the Tigray region’s security forces.
Getachew’s faction argues that claiming control of the Tigray region’s security forces risks dividing the people of Tigray. The illegal extraction of gold in the Northwestern Tigray region is another serious allegation against Debretsion’s faction.
Another rumor, which was not highlighted in the statement from Getachew Reda’s faction released on Thursday, suggests that the Debretsion group is increasingly aligning with the Eritrean government and planning to go to war against the federal government of Ethiopia. Historically, the TPLF had been politically indicted of collaborating with what was formerly the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), what is now People’s Front for Democracy and Justice – the ruling party in Eritrea, to reduce Ethiopia to a landlocked status.
Overall, Getachew Reda’s group reportedly opposes the alleged confrontational political approach of Debretsion’s faction toward the federal government. The group says Tigray has already been devastated by the war against the federal government and cannot afford another conflict.
The federal government has yet to comment on the latest statements from the two factions.
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The core question is of course one of legitimacy. But the politics has taken over the discussion. Debretsion believes that the sole representative of Tigray is the TPLF and that the Pretoria agreements have no say in Tigray’s internal affairs. Getachew is nominally abiding by the directives of a supposedly legitimately elected government in Addis Ababa. For once, why can’t both parties stop squabbling and turning a spark into a wildfire? Let the people of Tigray have their say for once, let them express what they want. They more than deserve it after nearly forty years of TPLF dictatorship.
The TPLF should not have signed the so called Pretoria agreement because the people of tigray wanted full military victory and removal of the government in Finfine.
The Pretoria agreement saved TPLF‘s ass and Face of America.
Had it not been for the American government, which blackmailed ethiopian government with all the means to have this agreement, TPLF would have been fully destroyed by ENDF and would have been history.