By Aaron Ross
NAIROBI, Sept 24 (Reuters) – The last time the Tigray People’s Liberation Front went to war with the Ethiopian federal government in 2020, it compensated for its isolation amid a sea of enemies with internal cohesion.
As the biggest political party in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region enters a new conflict with Addis Ababa following the outbreak of fighting on Wednesday, that dynamic has been turned on its head.
This time, the TPLF has no shortage of allies. On Sunday, it announced an alliance with six other Ethiopian armed groups aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government. Regional experts also widely believe it is receiving support from neighbouring Eritrea. Asmara denies this.
On the home front, however, the TPLF’s grip over Tigrayan society has weakened significantly. Since the end of the last war in 2022, it has faced protests over dire economic conditions, increasing competition from rival parties and defections of leading members.
Overnight, armed men detained four veteran military leaders who had expressed doubts about the new war, including the commander-in-chief of Tigrayan forces during the last war, Tadesse Werede, a member of Tadesse’s family told Reuters.
“Previously, TPLF had very large support within the region, within the country, as well as from outside of the country, the diaspora. And they also managed to mobilize the local people to join TDF (Tigray Defense Forces),” said Jalale Getachew Birru, East Africa regional expert for the non-profit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project.
“But this time… we don’t see all these things.”
Abiy’s spokesperson declined to comment. A spokesperson for the TPLF did not respond to a request for comment.
‘PATRIOTS’ AND ‘TRAITORS’
Wednesday’s developments, in which Tigrayan forces seized control of the region’s main airports and attacked federal forces in two neighbouring regions as part of what they called a defensive war in response to federal government aggression, shattered the four-year-old peace deal that ended one of the century’s deadliest civil wars.
In that conflict, TPLF faced enemies on all fronts, including the federal government, Eritrea to the north and fighters from the Amhara region to the south and Afar to the east.
The former guerrilla movement, which had dominated Ethiopian national politics for more than three decades until Abiy was appointed prime minister in 2018, was able to harness widespread animosity across Tigray towards the federal government.
That allowed it to weather swift early advances by federal forces and contest a grinding, two-year war, although the federal government ultimately gained the upper hand on the battlefield before the African Union-mediated Pretoria Agreement was signed in November 2022.
After the war, political unity in Tigray frayed. Many Tigrayans criticised the TPLF-led authorities for failing to address continuing hunger and displacement. War veterans staged public protests, demanding compensation.
And TPLF hardliners clashed with more moderate party members, leading to high-profile defections and the creation of a rival armed force by former TDF generals.
In recent months, Tigrayan authorities have turned to forcibly recruiting young men into the defence forces, according to local and international human rights groups, opposition parties and multiple Tigray residents.
The TPLF has denied conducting forced recruitment.
As the new conflict got underway, the mood in Mekelle was very different from in 2020, three residents told Reuters.
“At the beginning of the previous war, despite political disagreements, there was a strong sense of collective mobilization around the defence of Tigray,” said one of the residents.
“Today that social cohesion has been severely weakened. Tigray is politically polarized, and people are increasingly being divided into categories of ‘patriots’ and ‘traitors.'”
OLD FOES UNITE AGAINST FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Tigray’s leaders have taken heart from their new alliance, which includes its former foe the Amhara Fano National Movement.
Since Wednesday, they have been fighting together in Amhara, where Fano, a coalition of armed groups, has been waging an insurgency since 2023, security sources told Reuters.
The federal government has accused Eritrea, which won its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, of providing financial support to the TPLF and other armed groups – claims that many Ethiopia experts say they believe.
Eritrea has repeatedly denied supporting armed groups in Ethiopia.
But the alliance’s real-world effectiveness remains in doubt. Its members have diffuse – and sometimes directly contradictory – interests. The TPLF and Fano, for example, continue to stake competing claims to land Amhara captured from Tigray during the last war.
“The only issue joining them is their opposition to (Abiy’s) Prosperity Party rule,” said Kjetil Tronvoll, a professor of peace and conflict studies at Oslo New University College.
The federal government, for its part, has major tactical advantages over its opponents. In the last war, its widespread deployment of foreign-made drones helped turn the tide of the conflict after the TPLF advanced into Amhara.
Since then, it has bolstered its stocks of drones, including by starting domestic production, while the TPLF surrendered weaponry as part of the Pretoria Agreement.
It faces its own challenges, however. Prolonged fighting has strained morale and resources, while frequent drone strikes have not been enough to suppress the insurgency in Amhara, analysts say.
“The TPLF look weaker than previously as their forces are depleted since the end of the last war,” said Magnus Taylor, a Horn of Africa analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank. “However, the alliances with other opposition groups, plus support from other regional states … could offset this to some degree.”
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
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