The Origins of the Tigray People's Liberation Front

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Periodical article

Title:	The Origins of the Tigray People's Liberation Front
Author:	Berhe, Aregawi
Year:	2004
Periodical:	African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society
Volume:	103
Issue:	413
Period:	October
Pages:	569-592
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Ethiopia
Subjects:	rebellions Tigray People's Liberation Front Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) nationalism Politics and Government Ethnic and Race Relations
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3518491
Abstract:	Little has been written about the origins of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The TPLF started in February 1975 as a small guerrilla band in the northern region of Ethiopia and eventually grew to provide the core of the Ethiopian government. It was originally an ethno-nationalist movement that aimed to secure the self-determination of Tigray within the Ethiopian polity. It succeeded in mobilizing the people of Tigray to such effect that, in 1991, it won State power in Ethiopia in the name of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). This article, written by a founding member of the TPLF, who was part of its leadership for eleven years, analyses how this ethno-nationalist organization emerged, grew and finally came to dominate Ethiopia. Notes, ref., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract]