By Addissu Admas

Since its very inception in 1975, the TPLF has considered itself to be the sole legitimate voice, advocate, and defender of Tigreans’ grievances, aspirations, and rights. This perception of itself was bolstered and validated during its 27 years, because it clearly adopted policies and actions that apparently favored and promoted Tigrean interests above any other nationality. However, in reality, it shamelessly advanced more the interests of its party, its party members, their families, relatives, friends and associates. In short, its core clique! As we have come to know, the vast majority of the Tigrean people not only continued to live in poverty, but also conducted their affairs under an even more repressive and constricting regional administration. The very odd thing that has emerged during this horrendous fratricidal war is the level to which the TPLF has managed to convince the Tigrean people that without it Tigray was heading towards annihilation at the hand of a malevolent Ethiopian government. The usual cruel cynicism of the TPLF was to exploit the trust and gullibility of the Tigrean underclass to become cannon fodder in its pursuit of an unrealizable victory. 

The Tigrean people must stop and ask: Would the TPLF ruling cadre be willing to send their pampered American, European, Indian educated children unarmed, unequipped to battle against the Ethiopian Defense Force and various other regional forces? Obviously Not! What is unconscionable is that Tigreans living in North America and Europe have become the most vociferous defenders of this carnage, and megaphones for TPLF’s propaganda. They, more than anyone else, should know that if this war does not end right now, Ethiopians, including of course Tigreans, will destroy their nation to a point where we will become effectively a failed state. 

My appeal is to our fellow Tigrean compatriots to rise-up against this malignant party that has never been able to see beyond its own political and financial self-interests. We must consider the TPLF as an abomination in our long history just as there have been similar ones in supposedly more “advanced” nations such as the Fascists in Italy and the Nazis in Germany. 

I am not sure who coined the term “ethnofascist”, but it is a label that perfectly suits the TPLF. Let’s be clear, an ethnofascist is not a nationalist. The former pursues only the interest and advantage of one ethnicity or race, usually by coercive means. The latter, on the other hand, is intent at advancing the interest and recognition of a whole country. An Ethiopian nationalist is not, therefore, one who cares only for one ethnic group over another, but promotes the economic, political and social advancement of all Ethiopians, without distinction of class, lineage, gender, religion, ethnicity, etc… by peaceful means. In other words, it advocates the coming together of all the peoples of Ethiopia to achieve a far better future for the coming generations of Ethiopians. This is something that the TPLF has not been able to conceive, let alone implement. It could only conceive of an Ethiopia stitched together by uncertain arrangements, precarious policies and alliances to better maintain its own hegemony and that of its region. 

The Tigrean people must awake to the reality that nothing and no one will gain by this senseless war. The illusions of momentary victories will only prolong our agony. Those who picked TPLF’s side in this war, having absolutely no interest in our welfare, await like vultures our demise to partition us at will. Do we have the wisdom to realize where we are heading?

The best our Tigrean compatriots need to do is to excise and abolish the TPLF, principally for the good of Tigray. If Tigreans are to rejoin their Ethiopian compatriots in the building of our country, The TPLF has no place in our future. Just as neither the Fascist nor the Nazi parties had any in Italy and Germany, respectively, in the construction of contemporary Europe. The TPLF must be relegated to the dustbin of history.