Sadacha's History Corner: When tigray was a battleground between TPLF, EPRP, EDU
Posted: 23 Nov 2019, 14:59
TPLF vs EDU and EPRP in the late 1970's; when Tigray was a battlefield:
''More numerous and far better equipped, the mixed group of warriors swept into western Tigray, routing the young guerrillas in June 1976. Sihul was lost in the first encounter, at Adiabo, and Mussie in the 2nd, at Chaamaskabat.
The loss of its trusted commanders was psychologically devastating to the TPLF, and those of fluid convictions and faint hearts fled, depleting an infant party.
The EDU appeared unstoppable, but happily for the TPLF its overeager fighters made the mistake of attacking a well-fortified army unit near Indasilase.
Battered, the survivors retreated to the Sudan, returning, however, with heavier weapons such as mortars and short-range artillery. The TPLF wisely changed its tactics to guerrilla warfare, striking in bands of as many as 50.
The switch was effective.
Lacking reliable logistic support or a cause more elevated than personal advancement, the EDU's men lost strength, direction, coordination, and discipline. They began to pillage, rape, and kill indiscriminately, alienating the terrorized peasants, many of whom were quick to shift allegiance to the TPLF.
It's manpower growing, the TPLF slowly gained the upper hand, seizing more and more weapons from its opponent. After many more encounters, it succeeded in pushing most of the EDU's fighters across the Tekezze River into Wolkait and from there into the Sudan by the end of 1978. The party of monarchists and counter-revolutionaries was permanently ejected from Tigray early that year.
Scores of die-hard supporters remained in the towns and a few hundred fighters resisted in Gondar until the final days of the military dictatorship.
Before the TPLF was done with its deadly rival on the western front, however, it was pressed hard on the eastern front by the EPRP, the other multinational but revolutionary party. Founded in 1972 in Berlin and with 2 dozen men trained with the help of the DFLP [Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine] in Lebanon, it established a guerrilla base at Assimba, in the northeastern Agame district of Tigray, in 1975. What made Assimba particularly attractive was its mountainous terrain, its proximity to southeastern Eritrea, where the EPLF, a supporter then, was dominant, and the fact that two of the party's stalwarts, Tesfay Debessay and Zeru Kihshen, were from the area and had secured the undeclared support of Fitawrari Tesfay Tessema, a notoriously rebellious person highly influential among his people- The Irob.
The essential differences between the EPRP and TPLF were carryovers from the Ethiopian student movement. The EPRP maintained that ''narrow nationalism'' was divisive, whereas an unified struggle under the guidance of a ''proletarian'' or Marxist-Leninist party-that is, the EPRP-would lead to the eradication of both class and national oppression.
The TPLF on the other hand, insisting that, even though national oppression was an aspect of class domination, it was the paramount contradiction of the times, called on all nationalities to wage a similar struggle in their own ''national'' territories.
A voluntary alliance of these national parties would democratically reconfigure the national state. The TPLF demanded that the EPRP vacate the Tigrayan national territory, to which the EPRP retorted that it was its right to struggle everywhere in the country, including, of course, Tigray.
It advised the TPLF to abandon its narrow outlook and join the national struggle as its junior partner. Halfhearted negotiations led to a dead end, for each side demanded more than it was willing to concede. Using evasive language, each made pledges it had no genuine intention of keeping. The TPLF was understandably stalling until it thwarted the threat on its western front and dealt with its own internal discord. The stage was set for another bloody confrontation and an enduring legacy of embitterment.
It is impossible to establish who exactly fired the first shots. Indeed, the parties have continued to aruge the point. It appears, however, that the EPRP may have been spurred by the TPLF's double bind to strike at a time it thought propitious. It made a dramatic tactical miscalculation. Scattered clashes escalated into major encounters at Ayga and then Sobaya on February 23rd, 1978.
The TPLF was immediately drive out of Agame district but stemmed the tide in Adwa. It brought some of its battle-hardened fighters from the west and, in a fierce counterattack, routed the EPRA/Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Army at Bizet and then Inticho on March 23rd, chasing it back to Assimba, whicht he TPLF captured after a battle that lasted 5 days. About 15 EPRA fighters made it to Gondar and more than 500 crossed into ELF controlled parts of Eritrea.
Their automatic weapons were confiscated, and, after a forced stay of 5 months under unpleasant conditions, the men and women were freed.
Many chose to flee to the West through Sudan, while a good number proceeded to Gondar to join their comrades still committed to continuing the struggle.
Although subsequent squabbles led to further splits and desertions, the EPRP did not desert the terrain of armed struggle until its total defeat at the hands of the EPRDF in 1991 in Gondar and Gojjam.''
[The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa
By Gebru Tareke, pages 85-88]
''More numerous and far better equipped, the mixed group of warriors swept into western Tigray, routing the young guerrillas in June 1976. Sihul was lost in the first encounter, at Adiabo, and Mussie in the 2nd, at Chaamaskabat.
The loss of its trusted commanders was psychologically devastating to the TPLF, and those of fluid convictions and faint hearts fled, depleting an infant party.
The EDU appeared unstoppable, but happily for the TPLF its overeager fighters made the mistake of attacking a well-fortified army unit near Indasilase.
Battered, the survivors retreated to the Sudan, returning, however, with heavier weapons such as mortars and short-range artillery. The TPLF wisely changed its tactics to guerrilla warfare, striking in bands of as many as 50.
The switch was effective.
Lacking reliable logistic support or a cause more elevated than personal advancement, the EDU's men lost strength, direction, coordination, and discipline. They began to pillage, rape, and kill indiscriminately, alienating the terrorized peasants, many of whom were quick to shift allegiance to the TPLF.
It's manpower growing, the TPLF slowly gained the upper hand, seizing more and more weapons from its opponent. After many more encounters, it succeeded in pushing most of the EDU's fighters across the Tekezze River into Wolkait and from there into the Sudan by the end of 1978. The party of monarchists and counter-revolutionaries was permanently ejected from Tigray early that year.
Scores of die-hard supporters remained in the towns and a few hundred fighters resisted in Gondar until the final days of the military dictatorship.
Before the TPLF was done with its deadly rival on the western front, however, it was pressed hard on the eastern front by the EPRP, the other multinational but revolutionary party. Founded in 1972 in Berlin and with 2 dozen men trained with the help of the DFLP [Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine] in Lebanon, it established a guerrilla base at Assimba, in the northeastern Agame district of Tigray, in 1975. What made Assimba particularly attractive was its mountainous terrain, its proximity to southeastern Eritrea, where the EPLF, a supporter then, was dominant, and the fact that two of the party's stalwarts, Tesfay Debessay and Zeru Kihshen, were from the area and had secured the undeclared support of Fitawrari Tesfay Tessema, a notoriously rebellious person highly influential among his people- The Irob.
The essential differences between the EPRP and TPLF were carryovers from the Ethiopian student movement. The EPRP maintained that ''narrow nationalism'' was divisive, whereas an unified struggle under the guidance of a ''proletarian'' or Marxist-Leninist party-that is, the EPRP-would lead to the eradication of both class and national oppression.
The TPLF on the other hand, insisting that, even though national oppression was an aspect of class domination, it was the paramount contradiction of the times, called on all nationalities to wage a similar struggle in their own ''national'' territories.
A voluntary alliance of these national parties would democratically reconfigure the national state. The TPLF demanded that the EPRP vacate the Tigrayan national territory, to which the EPRP retorted that it was its right to struggle everywhere in the country, including, of course, Tigray.
It advised the TPLF to abandon its narrow outlook and join the national struggle as its junior partner. Halfhearted negotiations led to a dead end, for each side demanded more than it was willing to concede. Using evasive language, each made pledges it had no genuine intention of keeping. The TPLF was understandably stalling until it thwarted the threat on its western front and dealt with its own internal discord. The stage was set for another bloody confrontation and an enduring legacy of embitterment.
It is impossible to establish who exactly fired the first shots. Indeed, the parties have continued to aruge the point. It appears, however, that the EPRP may have been spurred by the TPLF's double bind to strike at a time it thought propitious. It made a dramatic tactical miscalculation. Scattered clashes escalated into major encounters at Ayga and then Sobaya on February 23rd, 1978.
The TPLF was immediately drive out of Agame district but stemmed the tide in Adwa. It brought some of its battle-hardened fighters from the west and, in a fierce counterattack, routed the EPRA/Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Army at Bizet and then Inticho on March 23rd, chasing it back to Assimba, whicht he TPLF captured after a battle that lasted 5 days. About 15 EPRA fighters made it to Gondar and more than 500 crossed into ELF controlled parts of Eritrea.
Their automatic weapons were confiscated, and, after a forced stay of 5 months under unpleasant conditions, the men and women were freed.
Many chose to flee to the West through Sudan, while a good number proceeded to Gondar to join their comrades still committed to continuing the struggle.
Although subsequent squabbles led to further splits and desertions, the EPRP did not desert the terrain of armed struggle until its total defeat at the hands of the EPRDF in 1991 in Gondar and Gojjam.''
[The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa
By Gebru Tareke, pages 85-88]