Mekelle፡Telaviv, Nairobi, Pretoria, London, (Tigray Herald)
The following document prepared under Horn of Africa Geopolitical Review, with inputs from leading regional and international political, legal, and security experts. It critically evaluates the hypocrisy, political bankruptcy, and weaponization of displacement by the outlawed TPLF factions, with deep strategic and humanitarian analysis.
Horn of Africa Geopolitical Review (HAGR)
Strategic Accountability Report
“Weaponized Return: The TPLF’s Political Hypocrisy and the Betrayal of Displaced Tigrayans” How a Bankrupt Political Elite Exploits the Suffering of Tigrayan Civilians to Resurrect Its Lost Power
Executive Summary:
The forced suffering of Tigray’s internally displaced persons (IDPs) has become the latest bargaining chip in the hands of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and its military allies. Under the failing leadership of the Tigray Interim Administration (TIA), now almost entirely controlled by the outlawed TPLF, the IDP return process has been deliberately politicized, militarized, and weaponized. The people who have already endured genocide and displacement are once again being used this time as tools for political resuscitation by a faction that lost both legitimacy and the moral compass to lead.
This report exposes the irony and hypocrisy of a political organization that once claimed to represent the people of Tigray but now works against their right to return, to justice, and to peace. In doing so, it makes a mockery of the Pretoria Peace Agreement, international humanitarian norms, and the very notion of governance in the post-genocide recovery of Tigray.
- Introduction: From Resistance to Exploitation
The TPLF, which once fought in the name of resistance, now engages in calculated betrayal. What was once a revolutionary force has devolved into a desperate faction of criminal warlords and corrupt political remnants, hijacking the pain of Tigray’s displaced civilians for political maneuvering. The so-called return and reintegration of IDPs is no longer a humanitarian operation it has become a cynical exercise in manipulation, stage-managed by the TPLF’s inner circle and enforced by its loyalist militias embedded in the TDF’s corrupt upper ranks.
- The Criminal Architecture of Obstruction
Despite the formal control of the TIA under General Tadesse Worede, 95% of the cabinet is composed of TPLF loyalists, many of whom are directly responsible for the mass displacement of Tigrayans. These figures have no political legitimacy, yet they weaponize administrative tools to:
Delay the return of IDPs to areas not under their control,
Forcibly redirect IDPs to unsafe or militarized zones to create political constituencies, Use returnees as bargaining chips in their negotiation with federal and foreign actors, Deny access to aid and shelter for those unwilling to align with TPLF narratives.
At the heart of this criminal architecture are TPLF-aligned military commanders, such as General Tadesse Worede, whose illegal war economy interests intersect with land exploitation and IDP manipulation.
- Political Parasitism: The TPLF’s Last Card
The TPLF knows its time is up its ideology is dead, its reputation irredeemable, and its leadership fragmented. The one remaining asset they seek to exploit is the pain of the people they once vowed to protect. The Yaakel movement, claiming to represent the displaced, is nothing more than a front organization built on TPLF logistics and propaganda networks, designed to give the illusion of people-led advocacy. The displaced are being used to establish a new power base, artificially inflating TPLF’s presence across regions. Meanwhile, genuine civil voices are silenced, harassed, or denied services unless they conform to TPLF instructions. This is not IDP return. This is political parasitism.
- The Pretoria Betrayal: An Alliance Against Peace
The Pretoria Peace Agreement, which promised the demobilization of TPLF combatants and restoration of Tigray’s governance, has been systematically sabotaged. What is more shocking is the emerging unholy alliance between the outlawed TPLF factions and Eritrea’s PFDJ regime. Intelligence reports and digital investigations confirm: Informal coordination between remnants of the TPLF military command and Eritrean operatives in border zones, Smuggling operations, arms movement, and mutual non-aggression pacts brokered to preserve illicit gold mining routes, Deliberate destabilization of border regions to prevent IDPs from returning to towns like Irob, Zalambessa, Sheraro, and parts of western Tigray. This treacherous alliance has one objective: to keep Tigray in limbo ungovernable, displaced, and unhealed.
- The Four Pillars of Tigrayan Displacement
Four key actors have colluded, wittingly or unwittingly, to prolong the suffering of Tigrayan civilians:
1. TPLF’s Criminal Political Faction – politicizing displacement, undermining Pretoria, and orchestrating return manipulation.
2. TDF’s Corrupt Military Elites – enriching themselves through land grabs, gold exploitation, and militia rule.
3. Amhara Expansionist Forces – continuing illegal occupation of Tigrayan lands.
4. Eritrean Regime (PFDJ) – launching destabilizing incursions and covert deals with rogue TPLF factions. This is a deliberate, multi-faceted obstruction of peace and return. The people of Tigray are trapped not just by war but by a complex web of betrayal.
5. Humanitarianism versus Power Politics
Let it be clear: The IDP issue is not a political opportunity. It is a question of survival. But for the TPLF, everything is political even pain. They’ve sold the suffering of civilians to reenter elite networks. They’ve undermined local peacebuilding to preserve factional control. They’ve sabotaged independent initiatives that seek to return civilians through community reconciliation and non-partisan rehabilitation. The result? A shattered landscape where Tigrayan civilians are unable to go home not because of distance, but because of the very people who claim to represent them.
- Strategic Recommendations: Time for a Clean Break
The following measures are urgent: Establish a neutral and independent IDP Commission, free from TPLF influence, involving international agencies, religious leaders, women’s groups, and displaced community elders. Disband Yaakel-type manipulative platforms created to serve TPLF’s image. Enforce transitional justice to hold TPLF political and military leaders accountable for war crimes, land expropriation, and manipulation of IDPs. Accelerate federal and international pressure to dismantle the criminal alliance between TPLF remnants and PFDJ operatives. Support the emergence of a new generation of political leadership in Tigray that centers justice, not power.
Conclusion:
The Time of the Mask is Over
You cannot return people to homes while your own generals profit from their land. You cannot claim peace while striking deals with the very regime that invaded your people. You cannot talk of justice while the same faces that caused displacement now lead “solutions.” This is the TPLF’s last, cynical act a politics of decay wrapped in the cloth of displaced suffering. The people of Tigray deserve better. They deserve home, justice, peace and a future without the shadows of those who betrayed them.
Prepared by: Horn of Africa Geopolitical Review (HAGR) In collaboration with leading international political analysts, security experts, and humanitarian field researchers for distribution to diplomatic missions, humanitarian agencies, and regional policy actors
