Tigray People's Liberation Front Research Articles

Returnees, resettlement and power relations: the making of a political constituency in Humera, Ethiopia

In the mid-1970s an ethno-nationalist movement, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), emerged in North Ethiopia. In 1984-85 the guerrillas managed to lead a large part of Tigray's people, threatened by famine and civil war, to the Sudan. The fugitives stayed there for six to seven years in camps led by TPLF people. They received training in ideology and self-sufficiency. In 1991 the TPLF ousted the dictatorial Dergue regime in Addis Ababa and shortly thereafter the fugitives returned to resettlement villages in Humera, set up by the new TPLF-led government. This study describes the flight to the Sudan, the sojourn there and the life in two of the new settlements in Humera: Mai Kadra and Rawyan. The author calls attention to the political dimension of resettlement programmes in general and of this top-down mass migration in particular. This aspect is often overlooked amidst the welter of humanitarian, organisational and administrative issues.

Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia: The Tigray People's Liberation Front, 1975-1991, John Young

Journal Article Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia: The Tigray People's Liberation Front, 1975–1991, John Young Get access David M. Anderson David M. Anderson School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 116, Issue 465, February 2001, Pages 291–292, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/116.465.291 Published: 01 February 2001

The political economy of complex emergency and recovery in northern Ethiopia.

During the 1980s Ethiopia experienced the effects of conflict, drought and famine on a scale far greater than many CPEs elsewhere. In May 1991, after the decisive defeat of the military dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam by the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and after decades of civil war, drought and famine, Ethiopia faced the prospects of peace and of much needed development. This paper explores both Ethiopia's experience of conflict and humanitarian intervention in areas of Tigray held by the Tigray Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF) during the 1980s, and its experience of post-conflict rehabilitation and reconstruction in the 1990s. It first deals with the roots of the conflicts within Ethiopia: political marginalisation, heavy state intervention and highly extractive relations between state and peasants, inappropriate and failed development policies, ethnic identity and the politicisation of ethnicity. The Mengistu regime's counter-insurgency measures are then contrasted with the policies and programmes of the TPLF, Ethiopia's most effective opposition movement and the leading element in the EPRDF, and its achievements in mobilising popular support: its establishment of democratically elected structures of local governance and its famine relief distribution programme.

Primary health care in Ethiopia under three political systems: Community participation in a war-torn society

This paper examines primary health care (PHC) development with an emphasis on community participation in Ethiopia under the feudal regime of emperor Haile Sellassie, the socialist/military rule of Mengistu Haile Mariam and the sprouting democracy and free market economy of Meles Zenawi. In spite of the rapid expansion of primary care under Mengistu, community participation was hampered by the protracted war and centralized, urban-based, bureaucratic approaches and attitudes that failed to promote an enabling environment for community participation. The socialist government, although implementing various community programs and expanding the rural health services, did not succeed in revolutionizing the health services. A comparative examination of the democratized rebel health services of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) illustrates the inconsistencies between stated policies of the Ethiopian government and actual strategies, and identifies factors promoting and impeding participatory health care development in a war environment. Achievements, opportunities and potential dangers to PHC and community participation in the post-war era characterized by economic progress, democratization, decentralization, lingering ethnic conflict and private initiatives are briefly described.

BRIEFING: THE ERITREAN-ETHIOPIAN BORDER DISPUTE

On 6 May 1998, a violent conflict erupted in the Ethiopian-Eritrean border area. This article contends that this border crisis is neither unexpected nor the result of a real border dispute. Rather, it is due to three factors: the particular history and relationship of the two insurgent movements turned national governments (the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, EPLF, and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, TPLF) in the two countries; the nature and heritage of neopatrimonial elite rule and the lack of democratic restructuring in the two countries; and the economic problems of Eritrea. The author first gives an overview of the outbreak of the conflict, its economic effects, and international mediation efforts. Then he analyses the background to the border dispute, arguing that it is a direct result of the unresolved and ambiguous political relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the national leaders' policy of making deals without securing a broad national consensus or legally clear formulas. Finally, he considers the prospects for a solution of the conflict and future relations between the two countries. Notes, ref

Development and Change in Post-Revolutionary Tigray

After a 14-year struggle the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) took control of the entire northern Ethiopian province of Tigray in 1989. But it was not until two years later, when the TPLF-led Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) captured power in Addis Ababa, that plans to rehabilitate and develop the badly weakened provincial economy could proceed in an environment of peace. This meant that the TPLF in Tigray could for the first time begin to utilise the resources of the central state for its programmes. Since 1991 the post-revolutionary regime has been attempting to stabilise the rural economy, repair and strengthen the province's infrastructure, create a climate in which private investment can flourish, and begin the process of establishing an industrial base to meet the rising demands of off-farm labour. This article largely contrasts conditions observed in Tigray during the first half of 1993 and those existing in December 1995 and 1996, when my primary objectives were to update my doctoral study of the history of the Tigrayan revolution for publication, and to gauge – with the help of subsequent interviews in Ethiopia – some of the changes that had taken place in the province during that three-year interval.

Health policy development in wartime: establishing the Baito health system in Tigray, Ethiopia.

This paper documents health experiences and the public health activities of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The paper provides background data about Tigray and the emergence of its struggle for a democratic Ethiopia. The origins of the armed struggle are described, as well as the impact of the conflict on local health systems and health status. The health-related activities and public health strategies of the TPLF are described and critiqued in some detail, particular attention is focused on the development of the baito system, the emergent local government structures kindled by the TPLF as a means of promoting local democracy, accountability, and social and economic development. Important issues arise from this brief case-study, such as how emerging health systems operating in wartime can ensure that not only are basic curative services maintained, but preventive and public health services are developed. Documenting the experiences of Tigray helps identify constraints and possibilities for assisting health systems to adapt and cope with ongoing conflict, and raises possibilities that in their aftermath they leave something which can be built upon and further developed. It appears that promoting effective local government may be an important means of promoting primary health care.

The Tigray and Eritrean Peoples Liberation Fronts: a History of Tensions and Pragmatism

The Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), and by extension the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the multi-ethnic coalition that it established and still dominates, is frequently considered to be a creation of, and beholden to, the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF). From this perspective the foreign loyalties of the TPLF made it an unsuitable, if not illegitimate, movement to lead the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) in 1991, and since 1995, the newly created Federal Democratic Republic. By way of contrast, this article attempts to demonstrate that the developing relationship between the TPLF and the EPLF during the course of their respective revolutionary struggles has been far more problematic and beset with tensions than critics are either aware of, or acknowledge, and that an understanding of their nature casts light on present and possible future differences between the respective regimes of Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Ethnicity and power in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is implementing a radical programme of decentralising state power to ethnic‐based regional units, which could be of interest to other countries in Africa faced with demands of ethnic communities for a greater role in the state. This apparent empowerment of ethnicity represents a complete reversal of this country's past practices, and is the joint product of the ethnocratic character of the state until recently and the policies adopted by the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) in its long struggle against the military regime that ruled Ethiopia during 1974–1991. This article examines the processes that brought forth this novel, and for Africa unprecedented, constitutional arrangement.

The Politics of Repatriation: The Tigrayan Refugee Repatriation 1985–1987

The paper examines the political and operational issues involved in the organized repatriation of some 200, 000 Tigrayan refugees from eastern Sudan to areas of northern Ethiopia controlled by the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF)- Due to the sensitivity of refugee returns to territories controlled by ‘non-recognized entities’, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) neither formally recognized nor actively supported the movement. In the absence of UNHCR's sanctioning of the repatriation, locally-based initiatives for support became problematic. The failure to provide adequate assistance to returnees, especially recovery inputs, had negative implications for food production in Tigray for this population over the next several years.

Statement by the central committee of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the armed struggle in Eritrea

Statement by the central committee of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the armed struggle in Eritrea

Drought and famine relief in Ethiopia

This item was filed by an independent observer in March 1983. The overall context given of the relief operation remained valid up to at least the mid‐year point, with one well‐publicised exception. Late in April, the town of Korem, in northern Wollo region, was seized for several days by the Tigray People's Liberation Front. The famine relief operation was completely disrupted, and the shelter population dispersed. The official relief programme resumed slowly after some 6 to 7 weeks; of the relief workers captured by the TPLF, the expatriate contingent was released in Sudan in the second week of June.

Tigray: famine and national resistance

Developments within Sudan are complex enough, but in recent years they have been further complicated by the impact of upheavals, not of its own making, in various parts of the Horn of Africa, next door. The most tangible effect is the hundreds of thousands of refugees that have to be maintained in the Sudan. But there has also been a political dilemma for the present regime. It is drawn, like its reactionary Arab allies, to support movements that oppose a proclaimedly socialist and Soviet‐backed regime like Ethiopia's, and it does promote the more conservative groups, for it is uneasy about the radical, anti‐imperialist stance of the more dominant national liberation groups. The wider conflicts in Eritrea, in the provinces of Ethiopia and between Somalia and Ethiopia also pose a dilemma for the left in Sudan. It tries to tread a difficult, diplomatic path between criticism of the Numeiri regime's automatic anti‐Soviet anti‐socialist stance whilst keeping its distant but open lines of communication with the more progressive movements in the Horn. Our final Briefing does raise one such issue on which many of our Sudanese collaborators maintain a diplomatic silence, one of a set of issues that nevertheless is part of the context of Sudanese politics. The Reviewhas concentrated its attention within the Horn on Eritrea, but has also hosted some on‐going debate on the national question in that region. But this is the first contribution to that discussion which focuses on Tigray, an area which famine has brought very much into the headlines as we go to press. We hope this overview of present conditions and review of the position of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, by a recent visitor to areas the TPLF controls, will both inform but also stimulate further contributions to the debate.