TPLF to PDO's: " Don't dare forget your roots’’

February 25, 2015 | From Jawar Mohammed

For the last 24 years, OPDO has been telling the public that they were founded in 1991 in Oromia, at locality known as Harbu Maskelle, Darraa district of North Shawa province (Zone). In an interesting twist and development, last week, they came out with new storyline saying they were in fact founded not in Oromia but Tigray regional state at a place locally known as Adet, 40km away from nearest town of Axum. The leaders of the organizations were bused to Tigray and seen laying down memorial stone, thanking the local residents and promising to build college for them.

Today the state media came out with the similar story for Southern Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement, the other PDO among many that administers the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples regional state on behalf of the TPLF. The leaders were seen asserting that their organization too is a product of Tigray soil, born at place locally known as Maibrah found 40km away from nearest city of Shire.

One must ask why these PDO's which spent their entire existence trying to sell same story of being homegrown grassroots movements of the people they claim to represent suddenly made complete reversal at this time?Mind you, particularly for OPDO, mentioning their Tigrean origin and their surrogacy to TPLF has been a cardinal sin that has sent countless Oromos to jail accused of 'narrow nationalism.' I believe TPLF is doing this deliberately as part of psychological warfare meant to subdue the younger generation of PDOs who have had little attachment to the TPLF leadership hence considered less loyal. The newer members of the PDOs who also happened to be more educated than their seniors have been showing signs of self-assertion and resentment towards interference by TPLF in regional matters. This is a fact Abay Tsehaye admitted in his recent barrage of threat against OPDO whereby he stated the protest against the Addis Ababa Master Plan was orchestrated by administrators. Thus, by bringing up the the Tigrean origin of the PDOs, TPLF is trying to remind them who their creator is and not to bite the hand that fed. To to precise, TPLF is conveying a message that without hard work and continues unquestionable loyalty to it, these PDO’s don't exist.

As this revelations is part of the narrative being advanced during the recent 40th anniversary of TPLF, there is also a message to the larger population. The central theme of the celebration is how the Tigrayan people liberated the rest of Ethiopia from Dergue tyranny. The narrative goes, Tigray produced TPLF which defeated Dergue. Tigray also nursed movements for other nations, and these organizations brought democracy to the oppressed nations. There are two not so concealed messages.First, coming at the time when Tigrean domination of the country is widely resented, the key message is that '’you owe us, we fought for you for 17 years and liberated you. Don't be ungrateful." Second, by presenting an exaggerated history of gallantry of the Tigray people, it aims to build on the narrative of superiority over the rest. (Note how the role played by various rebels even that of the their makers, Shabia, has been minimized or completely omitted.)

This approach is unlikely to produce its intended result of renewed loyalty by PDOs. Instead, it feeds into the growing Tigrean chauvinism, further weaken the position of loyalists within PDOs and expand resentment to the regime. As I said before, this move is once again testament to the reality that without Meles at the helm, TPLF is all muscle no brain!