Famous Tigrayan journalist Araya Tesfamariam said the war in northern Ethiopia is less conventional and more centered on “infiltration and propaganda.” After TPLF rebels nearly captured the important Dessie city in Amhara region, Araya urged the Ethiopian government to focus on identifying ethnic Tigrayan “infiltrators” who are collaborating with the rebels.
“Some (Tigrayans) are working with the TPLF to attack their own city. We must ID these people,” he announced on Saturday.
Despite the ENDF and Amhara security force presence in Desse, the TPLF was successful at shelling the city, with top Amhara government security and officials barely escaping assassination in Desse after Tigrayan citizens of their own town became artillery spotters assisting TPLF artillery launchers outside the city. Similar attacks by local Tigrayan residents collaborating with TPLF also targeted anti-TPLF NAMA opposition party leaders including Yosuf Ibrahim on Saturday.
While the TPLF was not able to capture the city, anti-rebel activists say infiltration and “betrayal” by pro-TPLF Tigrayan residents will continue to endanger the safety of their town. According to sources, some local Tigrayans were celebrating the unconfirmed victory by TPLF while other Tigrayans in Dessie spread rumors of a TPLF takeover through out the city, sending widespread panic that appeared credible enough to influence ENDF troop movement. An official statement from Prosperity Party (PP) government on Sunday admitted that local Tigrayans living in Dessie “backstabbed” the ENDF. “Ignoring they have lived peacefully with the local people for generations, traitors again stabbed our security forces in the back,” the PP communication office announced on Sunday.
This episode of treason and mistrust has escalated ethnic tensions in Dessie.
Despite the TPLF introducing an ethnic-segregation system in 1991, Amharas have historically embraced Tigrayans, with thousands of ethnic Tigrayans still living in many Amhara region urban centers like Dessie, Woldia and Kombolcha. However, since TPLF president Debretsion Gebremichael declared a “people’s war, including children” in November, 2020, millions of Tigrayan women, youth and children have joined the war against the government as well as the Amhara and Afar regions.
The two major events triggering the war also occurred in Tigray as Tigrayan officers ethnic-profiled and massacred hundreds of non-Tigrayan ENDF soldiers. This was followed by Tigrayans profiling and slaughtering over 1,200 Amharas in Maikadra town. While the betrayal and collaboration of average Tigrayans in those ethnically-motivated mass killing of non-Tigrayans in Maikadra defined the brutality of this war, Ethiopian government has so-far refused to adopt a mass identity-based crackdown historically carried out in other countries like the United States (wartime mass detainment of Japanese-American population. )
With TPLF threatening more wars however, several Amhara activists as well as pro-government Tigrayans like Araya are advocating for stronger crackdown on pro-TPLF Tigrayans.
On Saturday, top TPLF operative Stalin Gebreselassie boasted that TPLF victory in Dessie is a historic humiliation to Amhara people ancestors and their descendants.
