Tigray’s Subversive History Against Eritrea

Real life painting of a village in Medri Bahri (modern day Eritrea) by the English Egyptologist, Henry Salt, who visited the kingdom in 1805. Since the 14th century, Medri Bahri was forced into a perpetual war with its expansionist neighbor, Tigray kingdom; and its ally, the Begemedir kingdom (modern day Gondar region in Ethiopia).

Tigray’s Subversive History Against Eritrea

By Bereket Kidane

The deep hostility, resentment and envy we see from present day Tigray and its representative,TPLF, toward Eritrea goes back centuries to the time when Eritrea was formerly known as “Medri Bahri.” Our forefathers felt that neighboring Tigray could never be trusted and that Tigrayans were generally treacherous, shifty and untrustworthy.  Hence, the term “Libi Tigray” or “Twisted like the heart of a Tigrayan.”

There was the alliance of convenience lasting for nearly 13 years from which the Tigrayans as junior partners benefited enormously from the EPLF’s expertise in military warfare and stockpiles of armaments.  Under the guidance and tutelage of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, the TPLF went from a gang that couldn’t shoot straight to being a respectable rebel force.  It’s a well-known fact that EPLF tanks manned by Eritrean commanders escorted the TPLF forces all the way to Menelik Palace.  TPLF’s knowledge of Ethiopia was very limited.

But true to its untrustworthy nature, it wasn’t long before Tigray stuck the knife in Eritrea’s back.

Who could forget TPLF’s naked invasion of Eritrea under the pretext of a “border war” and the brutality with which it treated Eritreans living in Ethiopia? They were separated from their spouses and children in order to inflict maximum psychological pain and ensure that the families they left behind become destitute and end up on the streets after the loss of their bread winners. They were then made to cross the border into Eritrea by walking through landmines.  Some 19,000 young Eritreans from the Warsay generation later died in defense of Eritrea’s sovereignty.  To date, Tigray, in whose name the expansionist war was fought,  is illegally occupying sovereign Eritrean territory in defiance of the Hague ruling.  No self-respecting Eritrean can ever accept that.

During the fight for Eritrea’s independence, tens of thousands of Tigrayans were settled in Eritrea by the Ethiopian Army and became informers and guides for the Dergue, penetrating Eritrean societies and liberation movement networks because of their familiarity with the Tigrigna language and local customs.  Some Tigrayans even saw it as their chance to overcome their inferiority complex and were particularly brutal toward Eritrean civilians as spies and security officers for the Dergue.

If we go back further back in time to the days when Eritrea was a separate entity known as Medri Bahri, the first thing that the Tigrayan leader Yohannes did after he was rewarded with modern weaponry by the British for his collaboration with the British Colonial forces was wage an expansionist war on Eritrea, which was then  an independent entity known as Medri Bahri with its own ruler Bahri Negassi.  He ended up pillaging Eritrean villages and stole thousands of sheep, goat and cattle.  True to their heritage and kleptomaniac ways, Weyane leaders did the same exact same thing during their 1998-2000 naked invasion of Eritrea, plundering villages and destroying martyrs cemeteries.

Although Neighboring Tigray has had a subversive history against Eritrea throughout much of its history, its worst behavior has been under Weyane’s rule, who has vowed to turn Eritrea into Somalia and has spent tens of millions of dollars to that end trying to sow discord and divisiveness among the Eritrean society much as it has done to Ethiopia through its divide-and-conquer ethnic federalism or bantustanization.

Neighboring Tigray’s past treachery and back-stabbing ways has left a lasting imprint on the Eritrean psyche.

Eritreans forget their history at their own peril.

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