Debretsion Gebremichael, the leader of Ethiopia’s dissident region Tigray, before being ousted from the federal military offensive, once led a guerrilla radio station before rising to the ranks to lead the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) .
It has been almost two weeks since Debretsion – the main target of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s campaign against the TPLF leadership – issued any statement.
After three weeks of fierce fighting, Abiy won in late November and said federal forces were considering Debretsion and other TPLF leaders – but he remains on the run.
On Friday, the Ethiopian military said it would pay 10 million birr (about $ 250,000 / 205,000 euros) in exchange for information that would help locate TPLF leaders, probably Debretsion among them.
– humble beginnings –
Debretsion was born in the poor northern mountain town of Shire, where he had an Orthodox Christian upbringing.
Debretization abandoned its studies in the 1970s to join the TPLF rebel movement in the fight against the brutal Derg dictatorship of Mengistu Hailemariam.
Instead of being deployed on the front line, the small and gentle young man found a niche in communications and propaganda, helping to establish the TPLF guerrilla radio station, Dimtsi Weyane – “Voice of the Revolution” in the local Tigrinya language.
Debretsion’s team of engineers would have been very mobile, traveling with the donkey and hiding in caves to establish antennas on the Tigray Mountains.
Not only did they broadcast pro-TPLF, anti-Derg messages, but they also intercepted military communications to help their comrades on the battlefields.
– Communication is power –
The years of radio operation for TPLF were to prove to be trainers for the quiet and hardworking Debretsion.
“Communication has been central to the struggle for us,” he told Iginio Gagliardone, a researcher at Wits University in South Africa and author of “Technology Policy in Africa.”
In a 2008 interview, Debretsion told Gagliardone about the importance of communication in “mobilizing society against the Derg regime” and how it was possible to “convert people to make them think differently.”
Mengistu was finally ousted in 1991 and a coalition of parties, led by the TPLF, took power.
Degradation resumed his studies, obtaining both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Addis Ababa.
He then returned to the TPLF, taking over a number of high-level positions that combined his interest in communications with his loyalty to the party.
His various roles have included Deputy Director of Strong National Intelligence and Security Services, President of National Telecommunications Company Ethio Telecom, Minister of Communications and IT and Director General of the Ethiopian Agency for Information and Communication Technology Development.
They placed him at the center of Ethiopia’s telecommunications and communications sector at a crucial time.
During this time, the government developed and expanded the infrastructure that allowed it to disseminate propaganda, control information, and conduct extensive, often intrusive, surveillance of its people to maintain control.
The degradation embodies “the strong links between Ethio Telecom, the intelligence apparatus and the communications ministry,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a 2014 report.
He was appointed chairman of the TPLF in late 2017, but his rise coincided with the party’s declining control of both the country and the ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
– Return to the mountains –
Following the 2018 resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Debretsion sought EPRDF support to replace him, but desperately lost to Abiy.
The rise of Abiy, an ethnic group, marked the end of decades of political domination by the Tigrinya ethnic minority, which accounts for six percent of Ethiopia’s population.
As relations between Abiy and the TPLF deteriorated, the prime minister dissolved the EPRDF and Debretsion withdrew to Tigray.
In September this year, Tigray held regional parliamentary elections in defiance of Abiy, with the TPLF winning 98 percent of the vote.
Abiy sent federal troops to Tigray on November 4, saying the offensive was in response to TPLF-orchestrated attacks on federal army camps.
Abiy won three weeks later when the army seized Mekele, the regional capital and headquarters of the TPLF.
However, Debretsion vowed to fight and is believed to have retreated to the Tigray Mountains, where he first learned the skills, tactics, and strength of guerrilla resistance.
bur-tmc / np / rcb / dl / ri