Ethiopia’s TPLF and Tigrean identity politics
By Kallacha Dubbi
May 25, 2007 –The TPLF dominated Ethiopian leadership holds the view that the Eritrean government plays the most destabilizing role in the Horn of Africa. The Ethiopian opposition forces and Eritrea on the other hand believe that it is the TPLF led Ethiopian government that is severely destabilizing the region. And yet the US foreign office is concerned by a “rising extremism of Islam”, accusation which rests pointedly at Somalia and perhaps somehow at the Sudan.
I argue that the TPLF’s politics has been a source of material, political, community, and intellectual development of the Tigrean ethnic class over the last 16 years, and thus created an identity which has been the primary source of instability in the region. The genesis and consequences of this identity politics vis-à-vis the rest of Ethiopia have been bashed repeatedly but not put in an argued perspective of a short format.
On Eritrea’s role: Eritrea’s role in the region has often been grossly exaggerated by promoting the human rights abuse in Eritrea into the forefront of the regional politics. Given that Eritrea’s human rights records are inherent results of the perpetual state of war in which it is forcedly placed by Meles, and given that there is no ethnic cleansing in that country, Meles’ has clearly tipped the scale of human rights abuse for the region if not for the world. No matter how intensely human rights are abused in Eritrea, these abuses simply do not constitute a regional agenda capable of destabilizing the Horn. This is by no means to argue that Eritrea does not have its share of human rights burden in satisfying the mood of an emerging middle class and rewarding aspirations of a population that may be growing impatient of life under perpetual cloud of war, anticipating the unknown. While legitimately critiquing Eritrea’s human rights records, one must bare in mind Eritrea’s unruly neighbor who has vested interest in making things go wrong in Eritrea. Simply stated, the Eritrean has to temporarily choose either a full blown human rights or compromise its hard-earned freedom. Here, I am sure I am opening a Pandora’s Box – a tired debate of the Eritrean community in the hope that a complete stranger may offer un-invested view point. But I know for sure, that Eritrea’s friendship with the majority of the Ethiopian population including the oppressed carries a strategic weight for peace and prosperity in the region, including the oppressor.
On Extreme Islam: In the past many writers have argued that the rise of extreme Islam in the Horn was a designed panic or a bogus goat for Ethiopia’s venture into Somalia, and even more likely, a scheme to facilitate the US’s recoup in the region. This seems consistent with the creation of a new U.S. Africa Command headquarters, AFRICOM, to coordinate all U.S. military and security interests throughout the continent. Although there were extreme Islamic attacks to US establishments in the Horn, it is simply not known if these attacks could have precipitated into a powerhouse capable of overtaking Somalia and launching precipitous attacks to US interests there or anywhere. The US simply chose not to take a risk, no matter what the cost of siding with an unpopular regime in Ethiopia would be. So, there is a funny logic to the US interest in the Horn – it doesn’t want to place the Ethiopian opposition on a hopeless bench, but it also doesn’t want to demote Meles in which case it would have to deal with Somalia in person. Thus, the current US policy in east Africa is a result of the mishmash of its disapproval of Meles’ abuse of human rights and its desire to guard what it perceives as US strategic interest in the Horn. In this policy, one can clearly read into the level of neglect the US demonstrates towards the genesis and potential impact of the Tigrean hegemony, the potential destruction of the Ethiopian state as a consequence, and the critical role of the TPLF towards this precarious end. The cost of this destruction could be much higher than the feared rise of Islamists in Somalia, which many believe had orderly manifestations and localized tendencies.
On the Tigrean hegemony: There is a thesis among Ethiopian historians that Tigrean nationalism has been historically belligerent and more intolerant than the rest. The Ethiopian historian Bahiru Zewde writes about the last Tigrean emperor, Yohannes, as follows: “The Muslims of Wallo were told to renounce their faith and embrace Christianity or face confiscation of their land and property. Thus, two prominent converts were Muhammad Ali, baptized into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as Mikael, and Abba Wataw, who became Hayle-Maryam. Others confirmed outwardly, praying to the Christian God in the daytime and to the Muslim Allah at night. . There was no room for Islam in his (Yohannes) ideological world. The thrust of his repression directed against Wallo forced some of them to flee to other areas. an Argobba Muslim leader by the name Sheik Talha fled to the Sudan with his followers.”
Coming from Tigrean leaders, there is a parallel to be drawn between Yohannes’ attempt to exterminate Islam from Ethiopia and Meles’ decision to invade Somalia to suppress unarmed Islamists emerging in a country where international embargo has virtually dried any war machinery.
The TPLF started its guerilla resistance with a simple motto: initially to create independent Tigray, but later to free Tigray/Ethiopia from invidious governance of the Derg, by running a political ideology that openly claimed to be more Marxist than the Marxists who then ruled the country with a vicious duty to kill. The combination of its leftist claim through and by which the current Tigrean-based Ethiopian leadership usurped power, with its ethnic identity which it used to galvanize mass support and cleanse out the EPRP from the Asimba hills of Tigrean territory, give the TPLF its ethno-political distinctiveness.
The TPLF’s distinctiveness sharply contrasted the ethno-political composition of the Derg; the somewhat inclusive but Amhara dominated Derg army was suddenly replaced by an exclusively Tigrean army, reigning over the entire country. This unexpected collapse of the sense of Amhara polity, though camouflaged as Ethiopian, created a retreated void in the military role of the rest of Ethiopia, especially the south whose modest share was in the rise. Within a growing Tigrean ruling class, this void was marked by diacritic presence of the xPDOs whose role simply legitimized Tigrean supremacy than dilute its pronounced exclusivity as intended. It was clear Meles and the TPLF have fussily calculated that Tigray elites will be assured and guaranteed of continued rule of Ethiopia so long as this new army remained exclusively Tigrean, or so long as its command is not challenged militarily. The exclusivity of the TPLF army now turned into “Ethiopian army” has been morphed the same way as the civic landscape was morphed – unchallenging and obedient members of the southern societies were recruited into the army and kept at low ranks and also at bay. A few handpicked non-Tigrean military personnel with little capacity were appointed as Generals but they were controlled by Tigrean captains operating from the same office as the General. The level of mistrust and the unconventionality of this military hierarchy are similar to that of racist South Africa where an ordinary white soldier gave orders to black army officers. For this reason, the non-Tigrean Ethiopian army has low moral, and it can be safely argued, that there is indeed no Ethiopian army but Tigrean. A recent opposition report states that 90% of the Ethiopian Generals are Tigreans, 80% for the Colonels. For a Tigrean population constituting only about 6% of Ethiopia’s population, this ratio offers a grim reality of the Ethiopian political perspective.
This passed November the Ethiopian Ministry of Defense suspended three generals: Maj-Gen Alemshet Degefe, ex-Ethiopian air force commander, Brig-Gen Kumer Asfaw and Brig-Gen Asamenew Tsege. This suspension comes after the defection of several high ranking officers including Gen. Kemal Gelchu who joined the OLF. This has effectively rid the top army echelon of non-Tigreans unless the very few left whose loyalty is assured through their excessive brutality or shared racketeering.
The TPLF has therefore plainly demonstrated that it uses Tigrean identity politics as a tactic – to manipulate the Ethiopian political power blocks based on self-identification as an eminent supra-ethnic group that shall enjoy the innate of being and becoming above the crowd. With such manipulation, the TPLF has effectively marginalized the Tigrean people who are now perceived to be outside of the mainstream society. The Tigreo-ethiopian common basis has broken down, and there seem to be no real opportunities in the near sight for peacefully ending this marginalization.
In a recent brave political gesture, the OLF created a political platform, the AFD, partly to facilitate a means by which this Tigrean marginalization can be put to an end, and all political forces of the country be integrated into a mainstream constructive policy without sabotaging discrete ethnic cultures or identities. The idea was born from an authentic concern that Tigrean intolerance is primarily responsible for this marginalization, and that the OLF should take a leading role to change the mainstream politics of the country to create a safe bridge of communication or even a forbearing pluralism, without recourse to the Tigrean oppressive homogeneity now at play. Ironically, this constructive proposal was cause for a split among some Ethiopian long-distance nationalists, and the TPLF completely rejected the initiative opting for a beefed up military offensive against the OLF instead. The initiative put the political ideologies of Ethiopia that thrive with and for a passion to dominate, in the defensive. It also exposed the tenacity of some Ethiopian elites to their passion for ethnic domination.
In a general sense, Tigrean nationalism has manifested itself as a carrier of the official state ideology of Ethiopia expressed along economic, ethnic, or cultural lines. In fact, it now seems obvious, that the Tigrean domination of Ethiopia has intoxicated the Tigrean upper and middle class transforming its ethnicity to xenophobic.
The TPLF derives its political legitimacy from the active participation of Tigreans, matched by the will of the TPLF to represent the will of the Tigreans above and beyond that of the rest. Simply stated, the TPLF is openly discriminatory in its policy. In the long run, this discrimination is as destructive to the Tigrean identity as it is to the non-Tigreans, a recipe for a collective demise. The hitherto failure of the Tigrean scholars and political elites to see this self-destruction and side with the ultimate good of the Tigrean population, should be taken as an inconceivably ill-bred and short-sighted politics, unfortunately so common in Ethiopia.
The TPLF has implied and manifested that the country is a community of Tigreans who contribute to the maintenance and strength of the TPLF, and that other ethnic groups or even the individual exist to contribute to this Tigrean goal. In the words of Mussolini: “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato”, meaning “everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State” – and of course here the state is the TPLF.
It is also likely that the TPLF will revive irredentist claims to Eritrea to boost Ethiopian nationalism and draw aggressive attention from orthodox Ethiopia to defend against a perceived Eritrean threat or simply reclaim a sea outlet for the country. This will be driven by a will to buy more political life than a legitimate concern for Ethiopia. But in the eyes of conservative Ethiopians, the entire Eritrea, or at least Asab remains the irredenta, offering a pool of political backup. The TPLF has sufficiently proven that it indeed manifests aggressive irredentist traits by annexing parts of Gondar and Wallo to Tigrean territory, and attempting to cut a piece of Eritrean land which resulted in the death of 70,000 people.
In conclusion, given the extreme nature of the blatant ethnic inequity perpetuated by Meles in favor of Tigray, which has put Tigray and Tigreans in a presently reviled and potentially liable position, it defies logic that we do not see mass defiance of Tigrean elites to the TPLF domination. Furthermore, the cruel stance of past Tigrean leadership to Islam should have demanded caution from Meles in his venture to Somalia to squash Islam. It also defies conventional logic that the level of dislike for the TPLF which is now rampant in and among Ethiopians goes on virtually ignored and unnoticed by the TPLF. The widespread psychological rejection of TPLF as a bad thing that happened to the country, the level of popular resistance that seems to be curing into hate for Tigray, is not sensed by Tigrean elites – for the sake of Tigreans if not peace. It is mind-boggling to know that Meles spends millions of dollars to buy the support of the US government through highly placed lobbyists while doing everything to loose the respect and support of the entire Ethiopian population. This Tigrean identity politics, selfish in its value, vicious in its extent, and shortsited in its vision, is the primary destabilizing force in the Horn of Africa.
* The author resides in USA and can be reached at [email protected]