The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is a political entity that was formed in 1975 to fight against the socialist government which was in power in Ethiopia at the time. Right from the beginning TPLF had a deep hatred to the concept of Ethiopia as nation and its aim was to establish an independent Tigray nation. However, TPLF later underwent an evolution, established a phony coalition and decided to liberate the whole country of Ethiopia from the socialist regime, which they succeeded to accomplish in May 1991. Ethiopians, I believe, should be grateful to the TPLF for ending the dictatorial socialist regime of Mengistu Hailemariam but the gratefulness, tragically, ends there.
Shortly after coming to power in May 1991 and ending in April 2018, the TPLF had been committing innumerable atrocities to the Ethiopian people. Those atrocities include extrajudicial imprisonment or killing of political opponents, shooting and killing of unarmed protesters, suppression of press freedom, widespread and excessive corruption and the absolute domination of the national economic and political spheres by members one ethnic group, namely the Tigre ethnic group, that comprised only 6% of the Ethiopian population. But the worst tragedy of all is the establishment of an ethnic federal state in Ethiopia in which the boundaries and the structures of local governments were based on ethnic identities, in a country that contains about 80 different ethnic groups that have been harmoniously living for centuries in an intermingled manner without ethnic boundaries. By doing so, TPLF destroyed the very fabric that held the various ethnic groups under the concept of an Ethiopian nation.
The TPLF manifesto which was issued in 1976 (trying to imitate the communist manifesto) declared the Amhara people the historical enemy of Tigray people. After TPLF seized power in 1991, it restructured the country along ethnic boundaries. The country which had essentially no ethnic tensions before 1991, became an ethnically charged tinder box. You can read the full text of the TPLF manifesto here:
https://amharaunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/First_TPLF_Manifesto_1968EC.pdf
