Word: tigreans
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Opposition to the Democratic Front is rooted in part in the eccentric politics of the group, which is an umbrella organization of resistance factions dominated by the Tigrean People's Liberation Front. Originally rigid Marxists, the Tigrean fighters have proclaimed themselves converts to pluralism and the free market, as have the Eritreans, who also once claimed allegiance to a quasi-socialism. But the policy statements of the Democratic Front, formed in 1988, still contain hints of old orthodoxy. Moreover, the moves the organization has made toward moderation are largely unknown to the citizens of Addis Ababa, who still tend...
...against members of the former regime. Meles said in London that only those who committed "war crimes and things like that" would be punished and that they would be tried in the open, with international human rights groups invited to observe. Some excesses are nonetheless inevitable. According to diplomats, Tigrean soldiers have already summarily executed a few of Mengistu's aides...
Then there is the problem of the Oromos, who form the largest group of all in Ethiopia. The Oromo Liberation Front was annoyed that while the Tigreans marched into the capital, they were left on the sidelines. Though the front, with only 7,000 fighters, is militarily insignificant, the Oromo constitute 40% of the country's 51 million people. The Oromo rebels are pressing their demands for a referendum on either autonomy or independence for the southern provinces, their heartland. That call has done nothing to ease long-standing suspicions between the Oromo and Tigrean groups, who have clashed...
...latest effort to mediate the conflict was sparked by what appears to be the imminent collapse of Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam's regime. Mengistu, whose 14-year reign of terror rivals that of Saddam Hussein, has been written off before, only to survive. But since late April, when Tigrean- led Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front guerrillas pushed as far south as Ambo, putting almost all of northern Ethiopia in rebel hands, the consensus has been that Mengistu is a goner. "It brought home that the 30- year seesaw of rebel victories and then government victories had irretrievably dipped...
That would be a far better outcome than a flat-out rebel military victory, which would leave the Tigrean faction in a dominant position. The group's leaders, once Albanian-style Marxists who now espouse a blend of old-fashioned communism and American-flavored democracy, are widely distrusted in Ethiopia...