Guns Over Governance: The Militarization of Tigray’s Politics

From battlefield glory to political decay, Tigray’s generals tighten their grip.

Until recently, many Tigrayans regarded the region’s military leaders as patriots, celebrated for their decisive role in the seventeen-year armed liberation struggle against the Derg regime. Ideologically, they were shaped by the Albanian revolutionary model of the 1940s, which fused rigid party discipline with militarized governance.

Their professional identity became inseparable from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), rather than the broader notion of a national or people’s army. Consequently, the idea of a distinct “Tigray Army” sits uneasily with many of them, who continue to see themselves primarily as TPLF cadres.

Even during the TPLF’s dominance within the Ethiopian state, their institutional culture reflected the imperatives of party control and preservation, not the evolution of a professional, people-centered military ethos.

Patriotic Mobilization

In the absence of capable civilian leadership, Tigray’s senior military officers mobilized youth in 2020 to resist the joint invasion of Tigray by the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), regional militias, and the Eritrean Defense Forces.

Framing their mobilization as a patriotic defense of Tigray, these commanders sought to recast themselves as genuine nationalists rather than party functionaries. Many young Tigrayans embraced this message, interpreting it as a renewed commitment to defend the region’s right to self-determination, even independence.

Motivated by this conviction and by a sense of collective survival, thousands joined the armed struggle. Their efforts produced significant victories, including the liberation of much of Tigray—among them Mekelle—within weeks, during what became known as Operation Alula.

However, the TPLF’s political leadership played little direct role during this phase. Many senior figures were elderly or ill, rendering them largely symbolic and, at times, burdensome to both fighters and civilians.

Stolen Glory

When Mekelle was retaken, TPLF officials returned proclaiming that the victory had been guided by their strategic leadership. Many in Tigray rejected this narrative, crediting the youth and local commanders instead.

In an attempt to restore legitimacy, the TPLF and affiliated media framed the victory as a triumph of party strategy, downplaying the autonomous agency of fighters and civilians. Senior military officers reinforced this narrative publicly, declaring that “the TPLF leadership led the war”, a statement widely perceived as a betrayal of the people’s sacrifice.

This marked a turning point in the relationship between the TPLF hierarchy, the military command, and the wider society. Disillusioned fighters, activists, and intellectuals accused the elites of arrogance, detachment, and historical distortion. The leadership’s attempt to suppress dissent deepened the rift. Critics mockingly labeled the senior officers “traditional generals,” implying that they had usurped the prestige of professionalism while embodying none of its virtues.

Their open allegiance to the TPLF reinforced perceptions of partisanship and eroded public trust. This episode exposed the deeper problem of militarization and the collapse of accountability within Tigray’s wartime leadership.

The military profession, in principle, demands integrity, discipline, and service to the public good. Yet as Antonio Gramsci observed, not all elites—military or civilian—function as transformative agents.

Gramsci distinguishes between organic intellectuals, who remain connected to the social classes they represent and act as engines of progress, and traditional intellectuals, who preserve the status quo by aligning with entrenched power.

Tigray’s senior military figures fit Gramsci’s definition of traditional intellectuals. They present themselves as guardians of order and continuity but resist structural political, social, and cultural change.

Their survival depends on the endurance of the very system that empowered them, rendering them obstacles to reform and innovation. In public discourse, they are increasingly viewed as detached custodians of a decaying order rather than as architects of renewal.

Strategic Incoherence

In Strategic Principles of War, Strange differentiates between the “big W”—the overarching political and strategic dimension of warfare—and the “small w,” the tactical and operational battles fought on the ground. He argues that victory requires not only battlefield success but also political coherence and strategic foresight among senior leaders, who must act as both generals and statesmen.

The Tigray war tests this principle starkly. After the TDF’s retreat from North Shoa, roughly 200 kilometers from Addis Ababa, many Tigrayans lamented, “We won the war, but politics held us back”. Reinforcing this, Lt. General Tsadkan Gebretensae, a member of the central command of the Tigray Forces at the time, stated that political developments—particularly efforts to forge a coalition with other Ethiopian forces—failed to keep pace with the rapidly advancing Tigray forces, which had reached the outskirts of Debre Birhan, just 145 km from Addis Ababa—a veiled insinuation that the TPLF leadership had also failed to do its part.

This remark encapsulates the gap between tactical brilliance and strategic paralysis. While Tigray’s forces achieved significant battlefield victories, their lack of integrated political and diplomatic engagement undercut broader strategic goals.

The commanders’ failure to align military operations with political vision remains a central critique of their wartime leadership.

TDF operations such as Operation Alula, Operation Tigray Mothers, and Operation Sunshine demonstrated exceptional battlefield skill under dire conditions, yet fell short of achieving a decisive strategic outcome.

The war revealed that military success alone cannot secure victory in the absence of coherent diplomacy, governance, logistics, and information management. Tactical valor was undermined by the absence of a unifying grand strategy—illustrating the chasm between the “small w” of warfighting and the “big W” of statecraft.

Military Rule

Article 10 of the Pretoria Agreement mandates the establishment of an inclusive interim regional administration within one week of signing. In practice, the Tigray Interim Regional Administration (TIRA) took months to materialize, largely due to the growing dominance of military actors in Tigray’s political life.

As the TPLF weakened, military commanders filled the vacuum, converting their wartime authority into political control. Cloaking themselves in the TPLF’s legacy, they assumed de facto power over political appointments, administrative structures, and party decisions.

High-ranking officers reportedly attended TPLF meetings, issuing directives on promotions, demotions, and political alignments, a clear intrusion of the army into civilian governance. In their eyes, the rifle had become the instrument of political succession.

This marks the emergence of a militarized regime, where authority derives not from law or consent but from coercive power. According to Tsadkan, who was the deputy president of the TIRA at the time, the military command had engaged in extensive corruption involving funds allocated to the Tigray Forces—estimated at around half of the regional budget—thereby entrenching a command economy driven by corruption and patronage.

The committee tasked with forming the interim administration, chaired by Lt. Gen. Tadesse Werede, the TDF Chief, constructed a cabinet dominated by military figures and TPLF loyalists while excluding rival political parties. The resulting administration was neither inclusive nor legitimate.

Concentrated power among a few military and party elites produced a new form of state capture, devoid of transparency and accountability. As a result, Tigray’s reconstruction and democratization have stagnated.

Reports also implicate senior officers in human smuggling, trafficking, illegal gold mining, and land grabbing, activities forming what locals describe as a military-mafia nexus. These networks operate beyond civilian oversight, including that of Getachew Reda, then President of the Interim Administration.

In several localities, officers dissolved civilian offices, seized official seals, and appointed loyal administrators, effectively dismantling civilian authority.

Soft Coup

Tensions between the TIRA and the TPLF deepened as Getachew sought to separate party and government functions, a move TPLF hardliners viewed as subversive. Disputes over command of the TDF intensified the conflict.

By 2025, the standoff culminated in open crisis. A group of 175 TDF officers allegedly demanded the dissolution of the interim administration, accusing it of incompetence and illegitimacy. Their declaration precipitated what many described as a soft coup, leading to Getachew’s ouster.

The fallout split the TDF. Most senior commanders rallied behind Debretsion’s faction, while a smaller group opposed the politicization of the army and began organizing resistance. The division reached field units, with some withdrawing to northwestern and southern zones to form anti-military movements aimed at overthrowing both the TPLF and its military backers.

On 1 August, in an interview with Tigrai Television, Tadesse Werede, by then TIRA President, acknowledged the presence of armed groups of former TDF fighters operating along the Afar, Agew, and Tselemti borders. His admission confirmed how deeply militarization had fragmented Tigray’s post-war order.

Ultimately, the militarization of politics has crippled civilian governance, obstructed recovery, and corroded the social contract between leaders and citizens. A struggle once waged for liberation has devolved into a contest for power.

Tigray’s youth, once the backbone of the resistance, now view the generals with disillusionment. The military, once a symbol of sacrifice and dignity, has become synonymous with corruption and political opportunism.

Instead of defending the people, many generals defended the party. Their internecine rivalries fractured Tigray’s unity when solidarity was most needed, turning a liberation movement into an instrument of self-destruction.

Weaponized Discord

The Ethiopian federal government has significantly deepened Tigray’s political and institutional crisis. Instead of supporting the genuine implementation of the Pretoria Agreement, it pursued a divide-and-rule strategy, exploiting rifts within Tigray’s political and military leadership.

By manipulating rival factions, Addis Ababa weakened Tigray’s ability to rebuild governance and exercise meaningful autonomy. The overthrow of Getachew’s administration created a vacuum that the federal government filled through direct interference.

In what many described as an unprecedented affront, the Prime Minister’s Office reportedly invited the people of Tigray to submit suggestions by email for the appointment of a new interim president—an act widely viewed as both humiliating and unconstitutional.

The Pretoria Agreement has since been hollowed out, reduced to rhetoric rather than binding policy. Implementation remains tokenistic and underfunded, while the African Union, its guarantor, has displayed neither political will nor institutional capacity to enforce compliance.

The appointment of Tadesse as Interim President epitomizes this regression. His promotion—despite allegedly leading the internal coup—signaled the federal government’s complicity in militarizing Tigray’s governance.

The move rewarded loyalty to Peime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s broader goal: neutralizing Tigray’s political coherence without direct confrontation. In effect, Abiy achieved through co-optation what he could not through war, rendering Tigray politically paralyzed.

This interference undermines both peace and reconciliation, entrenching authoritarianism and instability. Rather than enabling recovery, federal policy has turned the Pretoria Agreement into a tool of domination, eroding trust and reaffirming fears that the peace process was never intended to empower Tigray.

Vanishing Point

Tigray’s current political trajectory reveals an alarming consolidation of militarized governance. The dominance of generals in political and administrative affairs threatens the region’s fragile peace and civilian survival.

Tadesse’s appointment exemplifies both Addis Ababa’s intent to weaken Tigray’s agency and the African Union’s failure to enforce its own agreement.

Tigray today stands at a perilous crossroads. Its people are trapped between two destructive forces: internal networks of self-serving elites and a federal regime intent on subjugation.

Without urgent international engagement to restore civilian governance and uphold the Pretoria Agreement, the dream of a peaceful and democratic Tigray risks vanishing altogether.

Query or correction? Email us

While this commentary contains the author’s opinions, Ethiopia Insight will correct factual errors.

Main photo: From left to right: Gen. Yohanis Weldegiworgis, Gen. Migbey Haile, Gen. Tadesse Werede, Gen. Teklay Ashebir, and Gen. Haileselassie Girmay at a press conference of the senior command of the Tigray Forces, Mekelle, October 2021. Source: Tigray Television.

Published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. You may not use the material for commercial purposes.