By GEBREWAHID AMHA ABESHA
The tragedy of Tigray did not end with the Pretoria Agreement signed in November 2022 between the federal government of Ethiopia and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that ended a two year bloody war.
For millions of Tigrayans, the war merely shifted from open bombardment and starvation to political fragmentation, mutual suspicion, and a dangerous struggle over narrative and power.
Today, one of the most corrosive threats facing Tigray is not external aggression alone, but the persistence of revenge politics and personal grudges among its own political elite.
At the heart of the current crisis lies a growing tendency to reinterpret the Pretoria Agreement not through the lived realities of war, survival, and constrained choices, but through personal bitterness toward former comrades.
This selective reading is often framed as principled criticism, yet it increasingly resembles an attempt to curry favor with new political patrons, some of whom were recently adversaries of the Tigrayan people rather than an honest reckoning with a devastating war fought under impossible circumstances.
Pretoria: An Agreement Born of Defeat, Not Illusion
For many Tigrayans, the Pretoria Agreement was never a victory document.
It was rather a ceasefire negotiated after Tigray had endured genocidal violence, the destruction of its social fabric, the collapse of its economy, and the exhaustion of its population.
To judge it as if it were crafted in a position of strength is to fundamentally misunderstand the reality on the ground in late 2022.
By the time talks began, Tigray was isolated, its population starved, its infrastructure destroyed, and its fighters depleted after facing the combined forces of the Ethiopian federal government, Eritrea, Amhara regional forces, and foreign drones.
Any leadership, regardless of ideology or internal unity, would have faced excruciating choices: continue a war with catastrophic civilian consequences, or accept an imperfect agreement to halt mass death.
To retroactively weaponize Pretoria as a tool to discredit rivals, while ignoring these realities, is not political clarity rather it is a historical dishonesty.
Forgiveness for Power, But Not for Comrades?
One of the most striking contradictions in today’s discourse is the selective application of forgiveness.
If political pragmatism allows reconciliation, engagement, or even normalization with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed despite credible accusations of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity then it should also allow space for forgiveness toward former comrades who shared trenches, sacrifices, and losses.
Forgiveness extended upward, toward power, while denied sideways or downward to former allies, reveals a troubling moral hierarchy.
It suggests that reconciliation is acceptable when it serves political repositioning, but unacceptable when it challenges personal grievances.
This is not justice. It is revenge politics masquerading as moral accountability.
Revenge Politics Is Not Leadership
Leadership in post-war societies demands restraint, humility, and an ability to rise above personal animosities.
In Tigray’s case, the stakes could not be higher. The region is still facing what many describe as a silent genocide: continued occupation of Western and Southern Tigray, mass displacement, lack of full humanitarian access, economic strangulation, and the absence of accountability for atrocities.
At such a moment, political elites switching positions, rewriting loyalties, and settling scores does not empower the people rather deepens their vulnerability.
Public feuds among former and current TPLF leaders, ideological somersaults driven by personal ambition, and relentless delegitimization of one another only fracture Tigray’s already weakened political front.
History is unforgiving to leaders who place ego above survival.
The Cost of Internal Division
Tigray has learned, at an unbearable cost, that division invites exploitation. Fragmentation among its leadership weakens its negotiating position, confuses its allies, and emboldens those who continue to occupy its land and deny its people basic rights.
Ordinary Tigrayans are not debating ideological purity or factional alignment. They are asking simpler, more urgent questions:
Will we return home?
Will our children eat?
Will justice ever come?
Will we be protected?
These questions cannot be answered through character assassination, score-settling, or political theater.
Put the People First
Both former and current TPLF leaders must confront a hard truth: the people of Tigray are exhausted.
They cannot afford leaders who oscillate between positions, reinvent themselves for convenience, or inflict further harm through public infighting.
Putting the people first means prioritizing unity over vindication, accountability over vengeance, and collective survival over personal relevance.
It means acknowledging mistakes without weaponizing them, debating strategy without demonization, and recognizing that no single faction owns the suffering or the future of Tigray.
“Political grudges will not save Tigray”
The bottom line is, Only principled unity, moral consistency, and people-centered leadership can save the war ravaged Ethiopian region.
Gebrewahd Amha Abesha is a former assistant professor at Dilla University and is currently an information management technician (GIS) residing in Toronto.
The author is reachable at: gebrewahdabesha@gmail.com
