January 20, 2025
Borkena
Toronto – The tense situation in the Tigray region of Ethiopia due to what appears to be a power struggle between two factions within what used to be the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has been worrisome to many in the region and beyond.
Now the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (also known as Ethiopian Church) Patriarch, His Holiness Abune Mathias, is expressing concern. He wrote a letter separately to the leaders of both factions.
One of the factions is led by Debretsion Gebremichal, former president of the Tigray regional state and chairman of the TPLF. He was reelected as chairman of the organization in a party congress in August 2024 the Ethiopian Electoral Board has not recognized.
The other faction is led by Getachew Reda, former spokesperson of the TPLF and current president of the Interim Tigray Administration that was established in accordance with the Pretoria agreement which ended the two years devastating war against the Abiy Ahmed led Federal government.
The concern is that the situation in the Tigray region could lead the region to another war. In a letter His Holiness Abune Mathias wrote in Tigrigna language he indicated that the factions within the TPLF are operating in a way that endangers the people of Tigray again.
He also expressed his sadness over the failure of the two leaders to “listen to one another” and address the problem in the region, and rather engage in insulting one another.
He questioned the leaders why they failed to pause, remain calm and think when elders and religious leaders have been pleading for peace and unity.
The patriarch also warned that the path that the leaders of the two factions took is one that is of destruction and that threatens the little peace that is attained.
He called on both leaders to listen to the advice from the people and address the demands of the people.
The TPLF is not stranger to news of internal wrangles and splits in its fifty years of history but the recent one appears to be stronger to the point that the organization might not even survive the way we know it as a single political entity.
Since the existing tension came to the surface, both factions have been trading accusations.
Meanwhile, the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia wrote a letter to the TPLF last month to undertake a party congress by February 10 as required by law or lose a status as a legally registered party.
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