TPLF: Behind its Amiable Façade

During last several years, I have gained much understanding about betrayal. I have come to think that it is close to the most horrible thing that people can do to each other. It is something that occurs more and more as one grows older. However, the woeful thing about betrayal is that it never comes from real rivals. It is terribly shocking when it comes from your comrade, whom ready to sacrifice his/her life for you.

I know it sounds cynical, but I don’t know how to put betrayal as trust had never been a concern for me other than last week that brought on my shifts. It was on November 3, 2020 my entire view has changed. On a pleasant Wednesday night that seemed like so many before, the tyranny TPLF has attacked the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) as almost the whole troops were fell asleep. It was stabbed both in its back and chest. Sadly, it is treason of the century….!

I couldn’t understand how it could do something like that to the safeguard of the nation, to the ENDF. Here I was trying to cope with what had been done to ENDF and betrayed in a way that couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Evidently, the ENDF has upheld the sovereignty of the country by defending the external and internal attacks against the country by issuing detailed rules and regulations to carry out its mission.

The armed forces have always been the backbone of the security and safety of the people of Ethiopia. Even during the imperial regime, the army had paid all the sacrifices to ascertain the unity and territorial integrity of the nation.

At that time a contingent of the army which was deployed under the UN peacekeeping force in Korea made history in ascertaining a peace truce in the Koreas Peninsula. Likewise, during the Congo Crisis, the Ethiopian army helped to restore peace and stability in that country.

Over the two decades, Ethiopia has also deployed hundreds of thousands of peacekeeping forces to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Darfur and Abiye in the border between Sudan and South Sudan.

The peacekeeping forces not only helped to restore peace in Somalia under AMISOM and on its own sector but also took part in rural reconstruction and settlement of communities ravaged by war in all the countries it was deployed. It has been playing a pivotal role in maintaining peace and stability in the region and beyond by fighting the Al-Shabaab terrorist group that is hiding in neighboring Somalia.

Since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018, the ENDF has conducted massive reform programs to organize the armed forces in non-partisanship, non-ideological and not affiliated to any political party.

The public guardianship of the heroic ENDF emanates from its military recruitment mechanism. The army has been playing a pivotal role in the socio-economic development of the peace of the people. It helped the people in time of need when man-made and natural catastrophes face the nation including supporting farmers in the fields.

As we all know that Ethiopia, including the Tigray Regional State, has been under attack by a swarm of desert locust and the government was bringing all out the encumber to fight the widespread infestation across the country.

On that particular day, as part of the national move, the ENDF in Tigray was supporting the farmers and struggling to suppress the swarm of desert locusts that have damaged massive hectares of crops in a region already rampaged with food insecurity. In a nutshell, for over two decades, members of the Northern Command have been protecting and serving the people of Tigray from all forms of intimidation.

It is during this time that betrayal came from the once cherished comrade-the TPLF that began to unveil its two-faced mischievous deeds. TPLF could be and somehow the people of Ethiopia were still shocked that the TPLF would attack the national army how it did. TPLF, as one political entity in Ethiopia, was an ally of the ENDF from 1991 to that dreadful night attack in gross violation of the FDRE Constitution and popular international military principles.

Although the attack targeted the Northern Army Command, it is actually an assault on the people of Tigray and Ethiopia at large. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in his public address after the attack said “the fugitive Ethiopian has stabbed Ethiopia. What makes this attack one of the most shocking attacks is that the TPLF is viewing the Ethiopian National Defense Forces as a foreign army rather than an army that has been protecting the people of Tigray for more than twenty years.”  

This was an appalling act, an extreme betrayal and treason of the nation, which is the highest degree felony. Behind its cordial facade, TPLF is an extremely a slayer group that executed both the people of Tigray and the rest of Ethiopia. Its obnoxious nature became so out of control even its members began to distance from the tyranny clique and its deceptive behavior. The people of Ethiopia are fed up with this facade of ally. It truly made Ethiopians see TPLF for what it really is. Yes, it is a leech that hooks onto the innocent people of Tigray but the sun go down for it and the game near over….!