Propaganda or Evidence- based Criticism? A Short Evaluation of the Anti-Alliance Critique 

By Yihenew Ewnetu 
Sweden 

Executive Summary 

This article systematically evaluates the anti-alliance critiques directed against the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Coalition for Survival with a particular focus on Mr. Sisay Mulu’s political commentary, “The Alliance Failed. The Amhara Cause Must Not.” Utilizing a comparative methodological framework, the article tries to make clear the distinction between evidence-based strategic analysis and propagandistic discourse. The paper argues that prevailing criticisms rely heavily on spatial determinism, emotional coercion, and logical reductionism—such as equating the temporary loss of a regional capital (Mekelle) with total strategic failure—rather than empirical military realities. Grounding the analysis in Fotini Christia’s Civil War Alliance Theory, the author conceptualizes the coalition not as an ideological unification, but as a pragmatic “marriage of convenience” designed to maximize power and neutralize a shared existential state threat. By analyzing the structural dynamics of asymmetric warfare, the study recontextualizes the decentralized Fano militia network as the primary anchor of the alliance, whose multi-front rural contestation has successfully stretched federal military logistics. Furthermore, the manuscript investigates the sociopolitical roots of internal Amhara criticism to the coalition, attributing it to either state-sponsored psychological operations, localized political clientelism, the weaponization of historical trauma, or a genuine concern to the success of the Amhara cause. Ultimately, the paper concludes that despite historical grievances and tactical fluctuations, the alliance has yielded profound military, diplomatic, and political advantages that significantly compromise the incumbent regime’s stability, refuting deterministic claims of its inevitable collapse. 

Dissecting the Critique: “The Alliance Failed. The Amhara Cause Must Not” 

Before constructing a comprehensive academic refutation of the irrational critiques directed against the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Coalition for Survival, it is methodologically imperative to first objectively present and systematically dissect the primary arguments of the opposition. The quintessential articulation of this critical stance is found in the political commentary, “The Alliance Failed. The Amhara Cause Must Not,” authored by Sisay Mulu (2026). 

Serving as a critical political commentary on the “Alliance for Survival,” Mulu’s article articulates a profound skepticism regarding the strategic viability of the pact. The central thesis of the text posits that the alliance was a fundamental strategic miscalculation driven by the Amhara leadership (specifically naming Zemene Kassie), and that its allegedly imminent collapse directly threatens the broader Amhara political cause (Mulu, 2026, p. 1). 

The author constructs his critique upon three definitive conclusions regarding the current state and future trajectory of the Amhara struggle: 

● The Inevitable Collapse of the Alliance: Mulu asserts that the coalition is fundamentally non-viable. He argues that its central military and political pillar, the TPLF, has lost its regional stronghold (Mekelle) to federal-aligned forces, thereby nullifying the alliance’s strategic premise (Mulu, 2026, p. 1). 

● A Crisis of Leadership: The text heavily critiques the AFNM leadership, specifically targeting Zemene Kassie. Mulu concludes that the leadership failed a critical test of political judgment by forcing a coalition without a broad democratic mandate, precipitating what he terms a “judgment crisis” (Mulu, 2026, p. 1). 

● The Necessity of Internal Reorganization: The commentary argues that Amhara political survival must not be inextricably linked to external politico-military partnerships. Instead, it demands a paradigm shift wherein the struggle focuses entirely on internal cohesion, a clear political mandate, and a restructuring of leadership that prioritizes Amhara security and territorial claims above all else (Mulu, 2026, p. 1). 

Deconstructing the Central Points of Argument 

To reach these conclusions, Mulu relies on a series of interconnected political arguments that form the foundation of his critique. Dissecting these arguments is crucial for understanding the ideological and strategic objections raised by opponents of the alliance. 

● The “Anchor” Argument: The author posits that the alliance’s public promise rested almost entirely on the TPLF functioning as a military and political “anchor.” Pointing to the October 16 retaking of Mekelle by federal-aligned forces and the establishment of a caretaker administration, Mulu argues that the TPLF has been pushed from its regional capital and forced back into asymmetric warfare. The deduction presented is that an alliance anchored by a displaced, geographically degraded partner inherently loses its “coordinated momentum” and strategic value (Mulu, 2026, p. 2). 

● The Internal Fracture Argument: A central pillar of Mulu’s reasoning is the assertion that partnering with historical adversaries deeply divides the Amhara constituency. The author argues that leadership completely bypassed the deep-seated, localized grievances of the Amhara public. Specifically, Amharas in Gondar, Welkait, and Raya view the TPLF as a direct existential threat to their territorial integrity, while Amharas in Shoa harbor similar existential fears regarding the OLA due to recent historical violence. The argument dictates that by engaging in a superficial “elite pact,” the Fano leadership widened internal fractures rather than healing them (Mulu, 2026, p. 2). 

● The “False Choice” Argument: Mulu contends that advocates of the alliance utilized intellectual coercion by presenting a false dichotomy: join the alliance or face total political isolation. The author deconstructs this by emphasizing the Amhara people’s demographic and geographic size, arguing that these factors naturally make them a formidable political force. Consequently, rejecting the TPLF/OLA alliance does not equate to isolation. Instead, it preserves Amhara agency, allowing them to form better, conditional partnerships from a “position of strength” in the future (Mulu, 2026, p. 2). 

● The Media and Elite Complicity Argument: Finally, the text indicts the Amhara diaspora media, elites, and political commentators who promoted the alliance. Mulu argues that these entities engaged in a form of intellectual coercion, branding any dissent against the alliance as treachery. He demands that these elites face public scrutiny for substituting “fear for strategic judgment” and for pushing the Amhara public into an unholy alliance without adequate risk assessment (Mulu, 2026, p. 2). 

Academic versus Propagandistic Argumentation in Conflict 

When navigating delicate, high-stakes political issues like the Fano-TPLF-OLA alliance, there is a stark and measurable divergence between how an evidence-based argument is constructed and how propaganda is disseminated. Evaluating texts like “The Alliance Failed” requires distinguishing between these two methodologies. 

The fundamental distinction between ill-disguised propaganda and an evidence-based attempt to inform lies in their teleological objectives and epistemic foundations. Propaganda aims to compel a specific attitude or action that benefits the sender, often bypassing the recipient’s rational autonomy (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2018, p. 38). In contrast, evidence-based informing seeks to transfer knowledge and develop the recipient’s critical faculties, allowing them to reach independent conclusions (Marlin, 2013, p. 42). 

The Architecture of an Evidence-Based Argument 

To construct a credible, academic evaluation of the alliance, a researcher must adhere to several core principles: 

● Define Objective Metrics: Instead of relying on the simplistic assertion that an alliance “failed” because a single city was lost, an academic argument defines what success actually looks like in asymmetric war (e.g., state resource depletion, political delegitimization, troop attrition) and rigorously measures the alliance against those specific metrics. 

● Acknowledge Fluidity: An academic approach recognizes that civil wars are dynamic, non-linear events. It avoids deterministic language, such as “the inevitable collapse.” Instead, it analyzes the independent variables that will determine the coalition’s durability, such as mutual supply line security and federal troop deployment patterns. 

● Separate Grievance from Strategy: While an academic analysis must acknowledge the valid historical trauma and severe territorial disputes between Amhara and Tigray communities, it separates these socio-political realities from the cold calculus of military strategy. It evaluates the alliance as a mechanism of power distribution rather than implying it represents a moral endorsement of the partner (Walton, 2007, p. 115). 

The Architecture of Propagandistic Critiques 

In contrast, a propagandistic argument designed specifically to undermine the alliance (as observed in the analyzed text) relies heavily on what philosophers term “epistemic defects” (Cunningham, 2002, p. 67). 

● Exploiting Trauma: It weaponizes the deep-seated fears of the populace—frequently citing past atrocities in Welkait or Shoa—to create an emotional block that short-circuits rational strategic cooperation (Stanley, 2015, p. 45). 

● Employing Binary Fallacies: It frames the geopolitical landscape as a strict zero-sum game. For example, asserting that “allying with the TPLF means abandoning Amhara priorities,” deliberately ignoring the possibility of conditional, transactional cooperation that preserves core demands. 

● Personalizing Strategic Disagreements: It attacks the legitimacy of the leadership (e.g., aggressively targeting Zemene Kassie) using ad hominem attacks rather than systematically dismantling the tactical and logistical rationale of the alliance. 

By substituting critical historical context with emotional rhetoric and spatial determinism, propagandistic critiques seek to force a political outcome—the dismantling of the alliance—rather than illuminate the strategic reality of the conflict for the Amhara public. 

Propaganda vs. Evidence-Based Informing 

The fundamental distinction between ill-disguised propaganda and an evidence-based attempt to inform lies in their teleological objectives and epistemic foundations. While both seek to communicate information, their underlying purposes, methodologies, and treatment of the recipient’s intellectual autonomy are diametrically opposed. 

Measure of Success 

Uncritical behavioral compliance Ability of recipient to critically test/challenge concepts 

The Deficits and Defects of the Arguments 

By dissecting the text “The Alliance Failed. The Amhara Cause Must Not,” the architecture of the anti-alliance critique becomes clear. It is built upon the premise that territorial loss equates to strategic failure (the Mekelle argument), that historical grievance precludes military cooperation (the internal fracture argument), and that decentralized resistance can afford absolute political purity in the face of a centralized state military and other rival armed groups. The subsequent sections of this synthesis will systematically refute these arguments by evaluating their methodological flaws, applying established civil war alliance theories, and demonstrating the concrete military and political advantages the coalition has already yielded for the Amhara cause. 

Methodological Evaluation and the Fallacy of Spatial Determinism 

When evaluating Mulu’s text from an academic standpoint, one must scrutinize the methodology used to generate evidence and the logical frameworks employed to link premises to conclusions. An evidence-based analysis reveals that the critique suffers from severe methodological deficiencies and relies heavily on logical fallacies, specifically spatial determinism. 

A Reliance on Polemics over Empiricism 

The writing in “The Alliance Failed” does not employ empirical or historical evidence. Instead, it falls firmly into the category of polemical political journalism or op-ed commentary. The “evidence” produced in the text is predominantly reliant on immediate, unfolding current events—such as the fall of Mekelle to federal forces on October 16, 2026—and generalized, sweeping observations of public sentiment, such as the fears of the Amhara in Shoa and Welkait (Mulu, 2026, p. 2). 

There is a distinct absence of primary source citations, statistical data regarding public support for the AFNM, or direct quotes from the political actors involved. The methodology is entirely deductive and highly speculative: the author observes a macro-level political event (the loss of a capital city by an ally) and immediately deduces micro-level psychological and strategic ruin for the Amhara public, without testing these deductions against alternative variables. 

The Logic of Conditional Determinism and Reductionism The logic employed by the author is characterized by conditional determinism and reductionism, presenting several structural flaws from an evidence-based perspective: 

● The Fallacy of Spatial Determinism (The Mekelle Parallel): The central logical pivot of Mulu’s article is that because the TPLF lost control of Mekelle, its value as an alliance partner is entirely negated. This logic assumes that control of a regional capital is the sole metric of a guerrilla or rebel movement’s viability. This is a highly reductionist view of asymmetric warfare, where territorial control is often fluid, temporary, and secondary to organizational survival and the attrition of state forces (Kalyvas, 2006, p. 88). Furthermore, this argument demonstrates a profound historical amnesia regarding the First Tigray War (2020–2022). In November 2020, Ethiopian federal forces captured Mekelle, prompting the government to declare the TPLF defunct (Plaut, 2021, p. 112). However, the occupation of Mekelle did not define the war’s outcome. The TPLF reverted to asymmetric, guerrilla warfare, degraded federal supply lines, and successfully recaptured Mekelle in June 2021 (de Waal, 2021). By asserting that the recent loss of Mekelle marks the “collapse of the alliance’s strategic premise,” Mulu applies a conventional warfare metric to an inherently asymmetric conflict (Mulu, 2026, p. 3). 

● Misidentifying the Strategic Anchor: A comparative military analysis of the coalition’s three constituent factions reveals that the Fano forces—not the TDF—serve as the cumulative, determining anchor of the pact. Evaluating these forces across their political causes, popular support, manpower, and firepower clarifies why the premise of the anti-alliance critique represents a severe misreading of the Ethiopian conflict’s asymmetric reality. 1. The Tigray Defense Forces (TDF): The TDF’s political cause is driven by regional survival, self-determination, and the restoration of constitutional autonomy following the devastation of the 2020–2022 war. Consequently, it retains near-absolute popular support within Tigray, bound by severe collective trauma and a unified regional identity against federal forces (Tronvoll, 2022, p. 14). Militarily, the TDF possesses a highly disciplined, centralized conventional hierarchy built from a core of defected federal officers and massive youth conscription. While it historically held heavy artillery, mechanized units, and combined-arms experience, its firepower has been degraded post-Pretoria, forcing a reversion to asymmetric, infantry-based guerrilla tactics utilizing surviving stockpiles (Plaut, 2021, p. 110). 

2. The Oromo Liberation Army (OLA): The OLA is motivated by historical grievance redress, ethno-nationalist self-determination, and combating perceived Amhara and federal hegemony. It maintains strong popular support in the rural western and southern hinterlands of Oromia, though it must compete with the incumbent Prosperity Party’s own Oromo political base for absolute regional hegemony (Østebø & Tronvoll, 2020, p. 21). The OLA’s manpower is organized into decentralized, mobile guerrilla cells with a command structure fragmented across different geographic zones. Its firepower is strictly limited to light infantry weapons. Optimizing for mobility, the OLA relies heavily on ambushes and captured state resources, lacking heavy artillery or anti-aircraft systems (International Crisis Group [ICG], 2022, p. 8). 

3. The Fano Forces: Fano’s mobilization is rooted in existential survival, territorial preservation (specifically concerning contested areas like Welkait and Raya), and violent resistance to targeted federal disarmament campaigns. Fano enjoys an unparalleled depth of grassroots support, operating as a mass mobilization deeply embedded within the Amhara civilian populace (ICG, 2023, p. 5). While lacking a single, unified, conventional command structure, Fano compensates with a vast, decentralized localized militia network fueled by overwhelming demographic numbers. Fano fighters are armed predominantly with Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) and medium infantry weapons captured directly from the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF). While lacking air or heavy armor, they leverage their localized geographic knowledge to execute crippling sieges on urban centers (Smith, 2026, p. 16). 

● Fano as the Strategic Anchor: The primary argument advanced in The Alliance Failed. The Amhara Cause Must Not posits that the alliance’s public promise rested almost entirely on the TPLF/TDF functioning as a military and political “anchor” (Mulu, 2026). The critique deduces that because the TDF was pushed out of its regional capital (Mekelle) and forced into asymmetric warfare, the alliance inherently lost its strategic value. While the TDF possesses superior conventional military experience, it is the Fano forces that hold the cumulative, determining anchor status within the alliance. The TDF’s current role within the coalition is that of a massive resource diversion; by forcing the ENDF to deploy heavy assets to the north, the TDF opens the center for Fano. Fano’s anchor status is established by three immutable strategic realities: 

1. Demographic and Geographic Gravity: The Amhara region sits at the geographic center of Ethiopia, directly bordering Addis Ababa and controlling the primary logistical arteries to the north and the west. Fano’s ability to sever these highways physically paralyzes the state’s military logistics (Smith, 2026, p. 18). 

2. Resource Exhaustion through Urban Contestation: Unlike the TDF (which is geographically contained to the north) or the OLA (which operates primarily in rural peripheries), Fano’s decentralized structure and massive manpower pool are actively contesting major urban centers in the country’s heartland. This multi-front pressure has stretched the ENDF beyond its operational capacity (ICG, 2023, p. 9). 3. The Pivot of State Survival: The TDF currently acts as a regional deterrent, and the OLA acts as a chronic bleed on state resources. However, it is Fano’s uprising that fundamentally threatens the survival of the Abiy administration. By stripping the Prosperity Party of its largest and most critical political and demographic constituency, Fano poses the most direct, existential threat to the regime. 

Without Fano’s active, multi-front pressure in the center, the coalition lacks the geographic proximity and demographic weight to collapse the federal government. Therefore, a localized territorial loss by the TDF does not equal the failure of the alliance, because the alliance is anchored in the Amhara heartland. 

● Hasty Generalization Regarding Internal Fracture: The author states definitively that the alliance “widened divisions inside the Amhara constituency.” While it is logically sound to acknowledge that historical grievances with the TPLF and OLA exist among the Amhara populace, the author presents absolutely no empirical evidence to prove that the majority of the Amhara constituency, or the fighting factions of Fano, have structurally fractured specifically because of this alliance. It is asserted as a self-evident truth rather than a tested hypothesis, ignoring the possibility that many Amhara view the alliance as a necessary, transactional evil to remove the Abiy regime. 

● Circular Reasoning on Leadership Accountability: Mulu argues that because the alliance is failing (a subjective premise), the leaders exhibited poor judgment (a secondary premise), and therefore the leaders must be replaced because their poor judgment caused the alliance to fail (the conclusion). This creates a closed loop of blame that ignores external variables entirely, such as the overwhelming military capacity and drone superiority of the federal government, or the shifting dynamics of international diplomacy. 

By substituting critical historical context with spatial determinism, the critique seeks to force a political outcome—the dismantling of the alliance and the removal of current AFNM leadership—rather than illuminating the complex strategic reality of the conflict. 

Civil War Alliance Theory 

Fotini Christia’s Civil War Alliance Theory provides a robust political science framework for understanding why and how “marriages of convenience” form between historical enemies during internal conflicts (Christia, 2012, p. 34). In her foundational work, Alliance Formation in Civil Wars, Christia challenges the common assumption that rebel coalitions are built on shared identity, historical affection, or deep ideological alignment. Instead, she frames alliance formation as a deeply pragmatic calculation driven by power dynamics and the necessity of survival (Christia, 2012, p. 38). Here is how Christia’s theory explains these unexpected alliances: 

● Power Maximization over Ideology: Christia argues that in multi-party civil wars, armed groups behave primarily as “power maximizers.” Their paramount objectives are to survive the immediate conflict, win the war against a stronger state adversary, and secure a favorable share of post-conflict spoils. When groups evaluate potential partners, relative power distribution—rather than shared ethnicity, clan, or historical ideology—becomes the determining factor (Christia, 2012, p. 34). If uniting with a historical enemy is the most effective way to balance against the overwhelming power of the incumbent state military, rebel groups will routinely make that pragmatic choice (Christia, 2012, p. 45). 

● The Pursuit of “Minimum Winning Coalitions”: According to the theory, rebel factions seek to build “minimum winning coalitions.” A group wants an alliance that is just large and powerful enough to defeat the primary state enemy, but not so large that they have to split the eventual political spoils with too many partners. This explains why groups might partner with former enemies: they need their specific military weight to tip the balance against the state. However, because the alliance is purely transactional and built to meet this “minimum” threshold, these marriages of convenience are often highly unstable once the primary threat is neutralized (Christia, 2012, p. 38). 

● Fluidity and Changing Circumstances: Because these alliances are based on the distribution of power rather than ideological purity, they are inherently fluid. Christia’s neorealist approach suggests that rebel alliances are constantly renegotiated as circumstances on the ground change. If the state adversary weakens significantly, or if one rebel group grows disproportionately strong compared to its partners, the coalition is likely to fracture. Groups frequently engage in opportunistic side-switching, realigning with former enemies as the balance of power shifts, demonstrating that these coalitions are temporary tactical maneuvers rather than permanent unifications (Christia, 2012, p. 45). 

● The Absence of Trust Mechanisms: In civil wars, non-state armed groups lack institutional mechanisms to enforce commitments or mitigate suspicion. Without international courts or a functioning central state to guarantee agreements, trust is inherently low. Therefore, alliances are held together strictly by the mutual necessity of overcoming a shared threat. While ideological homogeneity or shared identity can help stabilize an alliance, groups will bypass these preferences and forge a marriage of convenience when facing an existential threat from the state, accepting the high risk of betrayal because the alternative—fighting the state alone—guarantees defeat (Christia, 2012, p. 38). 

The Nature of Politico-Military Alliances and Historical Parallels 

The critique advanced by Mulu (2026) asserts that the Fano-TPLF-OLA alliance is fundamentally flawed because the participating organizations harbor conflicting long-term territorial and political objectives (Mulu, 2026, p. 2). However, from the perspective of International Relations (IR) and Alliance Theory, this critique represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the structural dynamics defining rebel coalitions. 

A politico-military alliance established during an active civil war is rarely, if ever, forged out of ideological purity or perfect, long-term strategic alignment. Rather, as political scientists emphasize, it is typically a highly calculated “marriage of convenience.” These coalitions are built among organizations with disparate goals but a singular, immediate imperative: neutralizing a common state enemy whose power threatens them all (Christia, 2012, p. 38). In the context of the Fano-TPLF-OLA coalition, the overriding shared objective is to dismantle the incumbent Prosperity Party government and strip its monopoly on state violence, while generally maintaining the broader structural existence of the Ethiopian state. 

Historical Evidence of Successful Pragmatic Alliances

History is replete with evidence demonstrating that alliances between ideologically or territorially opposed factions can be highly successful in neutralizing a mutual adversary. Examining these historical parallels exposes the fragility of the argument that historical grievance prevents military cooperation. 

● China (1937–1945): The Second United Front saw the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—who had been engaged in a brutally violent civil war—pause their mutual destruction. They forged a temporary alliance to resist the existential threat posed by the Imperial Japanese invasion, prioritizing immediate survival over ideological victory (Mitter, 2013, p. 94). 

● El Salvador (1980–1992): The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) functioned as an umbrella alliance encompassing five distinct left-wing guerrilla organizations. While they frequently and intensely disagreed on the structure of post-war governance, their collective military coalition successfully fought the heavily armed, US-backed military government to a standstill, forcing the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords (Wood, 2003, p. 61). 

The Empirical Reality of Alliance Advantages 

An academic and strategic evaluation of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Coalition for Survival reveals that the pessimistic thesis presented in “The Alliance Failed. The Amhara Cause Must Not” fundamentally misreads the current strategic landscape. By categorizing the text as approximately 85% propaganda—reliant on fear appeals and spatial determinism rather than verifiable evidence (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2018, p. 289)—we can turn to the empirical realities on the ground. 

Contrary to the assertion that the alliance is collapsing due to the federal recapture of Mekelle, the coalition has generated unprecedented military, political, and diplomatic advantages that have severely compromised the incumbent regime’s stability. 

● Military Advantages: The primary military advantage of the alliance is the implementation of a decentralized, multi-front strategy that has stretched the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) beyond its logistical capacity (International Crisis Group [ICG], 2026, p. 4). While the ENDF’s occupation of Mekelle is framed by critics as a fatal blow to the alliance, in asymmetric warfare, this tactical victory forced the federal military to dangerously overextend its supply lines. This overextension allowed Fano and allied forces to achieve critical progress by besieging strategic logistical hubs across the Amhara and Oromia regions (Smith, 2026, p. 12). Crucially, the alliance has evolved beyond traditional guerrilla infantry tactics by developing and deploying its own offensive drone capabilities, effectively shattering the federal government’s previous aerial monopoly. Recent reports confirm coordinated asymmetric drone strikes against the regime’s most heavily guarded political and military nerve centers. In late September and early October 2026, alliance-operated drones targeted the Ethiopian military headquarters in Addis Ababa and the strategic Harar Meda Air Force Base in Bishoftu (Mada Masr, 2026, p. 1; Dedebit Broadcasting Corporation, 2026, p. 1). The federal government inadvertently legitimized this threat by publicly exhibiting drone materials it claimed were captured from TPLF stores (Dedebit Broadcasting Corporation, 2026, p. 2). By shifting to technologically enabled offensive strikes, the alliance has maintained strategic momentum despite localized territorial losses. 

● Political and Media Advantages: Shattering “Divide and Rule”: Politically, the coalition’s formation neutralized the government’s primary survival strategy: ethnic polarization. By publicly uniting historically antagonistic forces—Amhara, Tigrayan, and Oromo—the coalition dismantled the regime’s narrative that it stands as the sole guarantor against ethnic balkanization (Seif El-din, 2026, p. 2). This unity has fundamentally altered international media coverage. Prior to the alliance, global media often framed the conflicts in Amhara and Oromia as isolated, localized insurgencies. Following the coalition’s formation, major international outlets shifted to covering a unified, nationwide resistance threatening the federal government’s existence (Al Jazeera, 2026, p. 1). This unified narrative strips the Abiy regime of its international legitimacy, portraying it as an isolated clique fighting the broader Ethiopian populace. 

● Diplomatic Advantages: The most profound advantage has been its impact on regional geopolitics. As internal pressure mounted, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed increasingly utilized aggressive rhetoric regarding Ethiopia’s need for sovereign access to the Red Sea, sparking fears of an “all-out invasion” of neighboring Eritrea (Garowe Online, 2026, p. 1). Political analysts note this as a classic “diversionary conflict” strategy—attempting to spark a regional war to rally a fractured domestic populace (Seif El-din, 2026, p. 3). However, the undeniable strength of the internal alliance has drawn intense international diplomatic scrutiny, preempting this diversionary tactic. Because the international community is acutely aware of the coalition’s capacity to collapse the government from within, foreign diplomats have explicitly warned Addis Ababa against igniting a regional war (ICG, 2026, p. 9). The diplomatic pressure mandates that the regime must prioritize a negotiated resolution to the internal civil war rather than seeking a military adventure against Eritrea (Al Jazeera, 2026, p. 2). 

Deconstructing the Internal Amhara Critique 

The internal Amhara critique regarding the formation of the Fano-TPLF-OLA alliance is not a monolithic voice of opposition. Rather, an academic dissection reveals that resistance to the alliance stems from a complex matrix of state-sponsored psychological operations, localized political clientelism, and genuine strategic debates. These root causes can be categorized into four distinct areas: 

State-Sponsored Weaponization of Historical Trauma: The first root cause is the deliberate manipulation of historical grievances by the incumbent Prosperity Party (PP). The federal apparatus actively utilizes its state media to fracture the nascent alliance by constantly reminding the Amhara public of the TPLF’s historical atrocities and the decades-long territorial disputes over Wolkait, Tsegede, Tselemt, and Raya (Ewnetu, 2026, p. 2). This “wedge issue” strategy exploits well-documented trauma regarding ethnic cleansing in these territories (Human Rights Watch, 2022, p. 4) to make the alliance psychologically intolerable for the Amhara grassroots, substituting strategic rebel coordination with localized ethnic paranoia. 

● The Paradox of Localized Clientelism: A contradictory critique emerges from certain Amharas who vehemently oppose the TPLF due to territorial disputes, yet simultaneously support directly or indirectly the PP-led Wolkait administration or negotiation with the Abiy Ahmed administration. This phenomenon reflects “localized clientelism” and the fragmentation of hard power. The federal government has deliberately created local militias like the Wolkait and Raya Zeb, actively fostering split, animosity and localization (Awrajawinet) within the Amhara resistance; even deliberately splitting the forces of the Amhara region by creating regional vs. local militias and make both of them remain “entirely dependent on the ENDF for logistics, heavy weaponry, and tactical command” (Ewnetu, 2026, p. 3). Consequently, some local elites prioritize immediate federal patronage to secure their localized interests over the broader pan-Amhara resistance. 

● The “Wolkait-Centric” vs. “Pan-Amhara” Divide: Critique is also leveled at local Wolkait administrators and allied militias (like the Tekeze Zeb), who are accused of operating as federal proxies rather than as part of independent Amhara forces standing for a unified Amhara cause. Critics argue this creates a “Wolkait-first” mentality, tacitly sending the message that systemic violence against Amharas in Welega, the burning of churches and the death of the faithful in Arsi, the rape of school girls and mothers, the bombardment of monasteries and schools, and the presence of annexed or contested territories in Metekel, Bizamo, Shewa (including Addis Ababa), and Raya are of secondary concerns. This approach isolates Wolkait rather than recognizing that existential threats across the regions are fundamentally linked; are one and the same. In fact, it has always been the Wolkait administration, enforced by the support from certain diaspora elements, that has refused to create an integration of all the questions regarding Amhara heartlands, upheld, struggled for, and put forward all of them as one. 

● Genuine Strategic Caution and “Cause Deferral”: Finally, genuine strategic pragmatists within the Amhara community have argued that the alliance formation should have been preceded by broader discussions among Amharas and all stakeholders within the Amhara struggle, due debate, and broader consensus. These critics warn against, among others, the dangers of “cause deferral” through “enemy reprioritization” (ADISS Strategies, 2026, p. 1). 

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

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