Intentionally or otherwise many politicians and even political organizations seem to be under the impression that the TPLF and people of Tigray are one and the same.

At first glance, such impression appears to be perceptive because members of the TPLF originated and waged their struggle in the villages and mountains of Tigray. It is also true that Tigrians, generally speaking, supported and joined the TPLF in the protracted and arduous struggle against the military dictatorship. When it comes to the question of interest and representation, however, identifying TPLF with the Tigrian people certainly fails to appreciate the essence of the relation between a political organization and people.

History has never recorded such identification. Let alone in countries like Ethiopia, where people live under a dictatorship, even representative democracies have hardly enjoyed such identification. Actually, even the Greek city-states who are reputed for having exercised direct democracy never reached a stage where the interest of the elected and the electorate was exactly identical. There has always been a difference and there will always be. Similarly, the act of identifying the interest of the people of Tigray with that of the TPLF not only fails to pass a theoretical scrutiny but also flies in the face of history.

Owing to such erroneous identification of interests, many Ethiopians, both Tigrians and Non-Tigrians, have imagined that TPLF would be inclined to particularly favor the Tigrian people. Why not! Many reasoned that the TPLF leadership is exclusively composed of Tigrians and TPLF won because of the perseverance and unreserved resistance Tigrians displayed throughout the struggle. Nothing seemed to be more logical than thinking that the organization that claims to have undivided support of the people and that claims to have liberated those very people would be willing to take the interest of those people to heart. As time goes by, however, this proved to be not the case.

It is true that the TPLF was instrumental in toppling the deeply entrenched tyranny of the men in uniform. Not long after the funeral of the Dergue, however, it became quite clear that the victory was not a victory of and for the downtrodden. It was a victory only of and for the selected leaders. As for the ordinary Tigrians, it was a deplorable defeat.

In one word, it was a defeat in victory or a victory of defeat.

While the TPLF leadership pretended to have declared freedom for the nation, it crafted a separate standard for Tigrians: a standard that secures complete submission of Tigrians by wrapping them with another net of bondage; this time, instituted by their sons and daughters who they saw an emblem of justice and democracy in. This not a mere allegation: it could be substantiated. TPLF has instituted this bondage in such a way that it appears to be a matter of pure economic progress while it essentially is a twisted kind of political repression. In other words, the economic appearance overshadows the political essence of the bondage to give the impression that the economic foam is all there is to the political current. Hence, let me first embark on the task of removing the economic foam and deal with the political current to show that the bondage is essentially political that assumes a distorted kind of economic appearance.

In the name of the people, TPLF leaders have established business companies. Those businesses seemingly represent economic progress that deceptively suggests to be benefiting the people of Tigray. The truth is to make those businesses operational, TPLF has been forcing Tigrians to work with little or no compensation. Those companies have been used as instruments of robbing the meager earnings of the people for the exclusive benefit of the few "liberators and revolutionaries" who have unscrupulously fattened their individual bank accounts. Strangely enough, those same companies, to the surprise of millions of Tigrians and a considerable number of non-Tigrians, have been generally eyed by non-Tigrians as a source of wealth and comfort of all Tigrians. Actually, some even went as far as satirizing "Tigray iskilema, lelaw ager yidma". Is this really the case?

The answer is no. It is not only factually inaccurate but also morally wrong to view such companies as evidence to prove the accusation that the other areas in the country have been placed in a comparative disadvantage. I would argue that the TPLF owned business companies neither developed Tigray nor helped to improve the living standard of the people. On the contrary, the erection and operation of such companies has rather not only hurt the material life of the Tigrians but also subjected them to a more tightened bondage.

It is also important to note that TPLF owns and manages those companies. TPLF built those companies to present itself in the open as magnanimous benefactor of Tigrians while it actually means them to serve as instruments of exploitation and suppression. At the same time, TPLF uses those companies to shrewdly put Tigrians in the spotlight before the eyes of some divisive politicians who exaggerate the significance of such businesses just to saw seeds of hatred in the heart of some non-Tigrians who are willing to mistake simple allegations for proven facts.

The proven fact is this: since the TPLF assumed power in 1991, Tigray may have exhibited some quantitative increment of business entities. Those largely non-taxable businesses, however, have only succeeded in enriching the handful leaders of the TPLF while the people have been relegated to a life of servitude so gross as to deprive them of even their moral right of complaining of the untold injustices they groan under.

Tigrians are still living in a state of dire poverty.

Furthermore, it is crucial to show the argument that Tigray is developing at the expense of others is not only materially insubstantial but is also philosophically speaking missing the meaning of development. The argument simply mistakes material increment for development. It doesn't conceive development in terms of free development of the human spirit and creativity. Such conception of development disregards the very right, liberty and even humanity of the Tigrian people, the TPLF leadership is trampling with impunity. The argument that Tigray is developing is, therefore, accurate only in so far as it is referring to the development and enrichment of the TPLF leadership itself.

The TPLF has also succeeded in another front: it has succeeded to lure some gullible politicians into mistaking the particular interest of the TPLF leadership for the interest of all Tigrians. This further intensified the suspicion and hatred some non-Tigrians entertain only to unwittingly reinforce the TPLF crafted device of isolating and cornering ordinary Tigrians. Maybe owing to prejudice, despondency, hate or spiritual penury, this consciously fabricated act of psychological assault has been so contagious that it alarmingly infected even some of the well-educated scholars. Such scholars have been unscrupulously engaged in vilifying one ethnic group as a whole: those scholars refer to Tigrians as un-Ethiopians, traitors, racists and even cancerous who simply deserve scissors of a social surgeon.

Can you, in good conscience, imagine of Tigrians as un-Ethiopians!
Can you imagine of any ethnic group that is more Ethiopian than Tigrians!
Can you imagine of Ethiopia without Tigray!

The implication of the type of bigotry cited above has, of course, certainly shocked not only Tigrians but also the overwhelming majority of the Non-Tigrians. The impact has been far-reaching. The already suspicious Tigrians got additional humus to strengthen their trench of isolation and suspicion and even hatred which in turn causes the non-Tigrians to further resort to more suspicion and hate. This scheme of divide and rule has been successfully working at least to the extent necessary to sustain the rule of the TPLF. The only profiting party has been the TPLF leadership. Ethiopians as a whole have been the real losers.

Yet, Tigrians have sustained more pain because they have been subjected to a more ruthless security and propaganda apparatus that declared dissent to be morally wrong and legally criminal. Whenever a Tigrigna speaking individual ventures to air complaints or discontent the person is regarded by the TPLF as someone who is trying to exploit his ethnic origin as a Tigrian to gain favors from the authorities who are likewise Tigrians. Such a person would usually be subjected into humiliating and degrading treatment for uncommitted offense. Thousands of unfortunate Tigrians have been tortured by known or secret TPLF agents for nothing other than being a Tigrian. How many know that TPLF reasons that if a non-Tigrian dissents it is understandable; if a Tigrian ventures the slightest complaint, it is an ethnic disgrace. Further, even when such individual, under the pressure of inhuman treatment, "repents" and unconditionally submits to the wishes of the leaders, the person will never be forgiven for the simple reason that the person in the first place shouldn't have felt the need to question the unquestionable, namely, the lawless and callous rule of the TPLF. Every Tigrian is expected to adopt absolute submission as his ideal of equality. A single instance could suffice to illustrate this.

When the TPLF leadership was hand and glove with its EPLF counterparts in the traitorous secret pact to make one nation two, ordinary Tigrians, including many of the rank and file of the organization itself, had harbored reservation against secession. TPLF leaders were furious and declared in public that a person who entertains any doubt with regard to the legitimacy of the Eritrean secession was not a good Tigrian. There was no choice and many grumblingly submitted. Not only that: a fit Tigrian was expected to preach to its fellow Tigrians that secession was God's word Tigrians must willingly obey.

EPLF invaded Ethiopia. [Incidentally, I should note that though I know of many tyrants that have thrived amidst social chaos, I have never come across any legend or literature that relates instance of a political organization that divides a nation into two in order to create what the English thinker, Thomas Hobbes, called a war of all against all]. When the EPLF invaded Ethiopia the same rulers ordered the people to hate the force the people had been a little earlier ordered to love. Even emotions like love and hate are regulated in Tigray by the omniscient and omnipotent organization. Yet, the stigma associated with secession still remains with the "troublemakers"--the Tigrians in general. All are indiscriminately held responsible.

Once the TPLF secures submission of the Tigrians it turns toward non-Tigrians.

We all know that this same diffident leadership has displayed insincere sense of tolerance towards non-Tigrians in the hope that such ploy might work their minds as to make them see a responsible and fair administrator in the TPLF. It did not work. No matter how hard the government tries to pursue the above kind of inverse discrimination against the Tigrians, it miserably failed. Strangely, however, most rejected it for the wrong reason: they rejected the TPLF not primarily for its failure to erect a just and democratic order but because they think of the government as a government of Tigrians. This is why for a considerable number of non-Tigrians, a Tigrian today simply means a power-sharing partner of the ruling organization. As a result, whenever the rulers blunder Tigrians as a whole are implicated.

Yet, it should be pointed out that the kind of psychology that equates TPLF to all Tigrians is merely accomplishing disservice not only to Tigrians but also to all Ethiopians as a whole. Such identification of a political leadership and people in general not only unduly holds innocent citizens responsible for the excesses of the tyrannical government but also dangerously divides Ethiopians who needed to be more united than ever before. TPLF loves the accusation that Tigrians are benefiting more than any other ethnic group. It should be understood that TPLF uses such accusation to install in Tigrians a mind-set that instills fear to blackmail them into submission. This has been working effectively. All it takes is to record some of the speech of the hate mongers and run it in the TPLF radio broadcast in Tigrigna. TPLF is well aware that such broadcast obviously arouses suspicion in the minds of the ordinary Tigrians who think that given the opportunity the Non-Tigrians particularly the Amharas could resort to violence, even ethnic cleansing. This is the essence of the rule. TPLF’s rule is a rule that stems from fear, grows on fear to generate a state of fear. Fear is both the means and the end of the regime.

The consequence is immense. The TPLF leadership benefited while all Ethiopians are losers. All non-Tigrians are losers because they are blinded to the fact that the government has an interest different from the Tigrians as people and that the Tigrian people are suffering punishments for wrongs they never committed. More importantly—and this is more dangerous--because the accusation that the Tigrians are beneficiaries of the system pushes Tigrians into a corner of self-defense against their accusers, the loss of the accusers as people is greater.

Similarly, the Tigrians who thought that the new system would be fair and just have been disgruntled and disillusioned. However, as the situation has already denied them the understanding of their fellow countrymen they are not better off. As a result, though Tigrians are well aware that the government doesn't represent their best interest, they are not comfortable enough to place their trust on the non-Tigrians as allies against the government of ruthless tyranny.

The Tigrians both as people and as individual members of the same ethnic group are, therefore, sandwiched between the particularly discriminatory treatment they suffer in the hands of the TPLF and the suspicion most of the rest of the country holds them with. Consequently, the Tigrians who are historically one of the vocal ethnic groups in Ethiopia have been bearing unbearable pains in silence.

One may, at this point; legitimately wonder why would Tigrians bear so much in silence if what you are telling us is really the case? My response is simple: how could they complain of injustices when the perpetrators are their own offsprings. It is just like the Amharic saying "Lam issat weledech…" I think it takes sometime before the Lam fully appreciates her dilemma. And that time seems to have started ticking. This is why the discussion of the dilemma becomes timely and worthwhile. The question is there a way out of this dilemma? would probably be helpful for a starter.