Addis Ababa, September 30, 2026 (FMC) — The illegal TPLF group and its dwarf accomplices have entered an unholy matrimony of convenience, bringing together armed forces whose political histories, grievances and ambitions have little in common except one destructive objective: to derail Ethiopia’s present course and drag the country back into the cycle of conflict which it left behind through the dialogueband nationa reconciliations.
The so-called Tsimdo arrangement brings together armed factions that have historically pursued divergent and, at times, competing agendas.
Their convergence therefore represents less a shared political vision than a temporary coming together around a common objective — confronting the federal government and sabotaging Ethiopia’s current political and development trajectory.
At the center of this arrangement is the illegal TPLF group, surrounded by smaller armed factions that have now temporarily buried their contradictions in pursuit of a common enemy.
Their common denominator is destruction. Their immediate mission is confrontation. Their target is the country’s political and development trajectory. Their weapon is once again the mobilization of young Ethiopians for war.
The so-called Tsimdo arrangement is thus a convergence of dwarf rebel forces attempting to compensate for their political and strategic weaknesses through coordination and renewed violence. Their coming together does not erase the fundamental differences among them, nor does it provide a constructive political program for Ethiopia’s future.
Ethiopia, meanwhile, is pursuing a markedly different trajectory — expanding infrastructure, strengthening productive capacity, advancing digital transformation, investing in human capital, pursuing national dialogue and reconciliation, and building a development-centered state capable of competing in a rapidly changing world.
The illegal TPLF and its dwarf accomplices are attempting to pull that trajectory backward.
While Ethiopia’s young people should be entering classrooms, learning technology, creating businesses, producing goods and shaping the country’s future, these forces are once again demanding that they carry weapons.
While communities need roads, schools, health facilities, investment and jobs, the forces gathered under Tsimdo are bringing the machinery of war back into civilian life.
And while the country needs political dialogue and institutional competition, they are presenting armed confrontation as a route to political power.
The contradiction is stark: the forces seeking to derail Ethiopia’s development have no comparable program for building the future they claim to seek.
The illegal TPLF group has already demonstrated where its destructive formula leads. Its decades-long record is marked by armed struggle, coercion, political repression and conflict. Its return to war after the Pretoria peace process further exposes the persistence of that approach.
Its dwarf accomplices cannot erase that history simply by joining hands with it.
Nor can a new arrangement manufacture a shared national vision where none exists.
The people of Ethiopia therefore have every reason to look beyond the slogans surrounding Tsimdo and examine what stands beneath them: an unholy convergence of armed forces brought together principally by opposition to the country’s current political order and development trajectory.
A coalition formed around destruction cannot automatically provide a credible plan for reconstruction.
Dwarf armed groups do not become statesmen merely by joining forces.
And an arrangement built to undermine an existing political order cannot become a national vision simply because its participants adopt a common banner.
The federal government, for its part, has continued to place peace, constitutional politics, reconciliation and national development at the center of its agenda. It has pursued National Dialogue, opened political avenues for former adversaries and continued to prioritize development and national reconstruction.
It is precisely this trajectory that the illegal TPLF and its dwarf accomplices are attempting to sabotage.
Their unholy matrimony may temporarily bring together forces that once stood apart. But it cannot manufacture a shared future where none exists.
What it can do is expose civilians to another round of suffering and threaten to interrupt a country determined to move forward.
Ethiopia’s future cannot be built from the rubble of another destructive political project.
The illegal TPLF and its dwarf accomplices have chosen confrontation.
Ethiopia’s people are demanding a future built on peace, development, stability and progress.