Mekelle፡Telaviv, Nairobi, Pretoria, London, (Tigray Herald).
Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi: Shadows of a Dictator and the Living Dead TPLF
Thirteen Years On: Archives, Legacies, and the Curse of Above-the-Core Warlordism in Tigray
Prepared in Collaboration by:Tigray Media Watch Digital Intelligence Monitoring Group and Tigray Herald
The Aksumology Think Tank Initiative
Contributors: Experts on Political History, Digital Intelligence, Security, and Geopolitics
Executive Summary
Thirteen years after the death of Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s former Prime Minister and long-timechairman of the TPLF, his legacy remains a decisive, destructive force shaping the political andsecurity crisis of Tigray today. Meles’s rule marked by authoritarian consolidation, corruption,warlordism, and distorted political engineering did not end with his death. Instead, it mutatedinto the “Above-the-Core” TPLF criminal networks that still dominate Tigray’s political andmilitary leadership.
The current lawlessness, illegal gold-mining mafias, unprecedented levels of political corruption,and warlordism in Tigray are not accidental phenomena; they are the after shocks of Meles’s political design. His cult-like memory continues to be worshiped by TPLF’s “livingdead” leaders without vision, without strategy, and without future who cling to his shadow inthe absence of original thought or reformist capacity.
This document ofers a comprehensive critical analysis of Meles Zenawi’s destructive legacy, hisstrategic and diplomatic failures, and the ways his authoritarian structures have condemned Tigray to the current cycle of betrayal, genocide, and fragmentation.
Part I: The Politics of Archives – Meles Zenawi in Memory and Contestation
Meles in the Archives: Zenawi’s image has been rebranded into a curated “archive ofgreatness” used by his surviving loyalists as a political weapon. But archives are not neutralmemory stores. As Jacques Derrida observed in Archive Fever, archives are about the future,not the past. They are spaces of contestation, where counter-archives emerge to challengeoficial lies.Zenawi’s Archive of Deception: His commemorative glorification obscures his true legacy: adictator who systematically destroyed Tigray,Ethiopia’s democratic future, poisoned Tigray’spolitical landscape, and empowered the current “Above-the-Core” criminals.
Part II: Strategic Failures that Shaped Today’s Tigray
- The Ethio–Eritrean War (1998–2000): Victory Turned into Defeat
Militarily, Ethiopia defeated Eritrean forces, but Meles transformed triumph into a political anddiplomatic disaster through the Algiers Agreement (2000).By refusing to decisively end Isaias Afwerki’s regime, Zenawi gave Eritrea the “strategic waitingtime” it needed to regroup. Two decades later, Afwerki spearheaded the genocidal war on Tigray(2020–2022), exacting vengeance on Tigrayans with Ethiopian and foreign complicity.The TPLF Central Committee split in 2000 reflected this betrayal. Meles silenced dissentingleaders who opposed his weak stance on Eritrea. This marked the beginning of TPLF’sirreversible fragmentation and internal authoritarianism.Historical Consequence: Tigray today pays the heaviest price for Meles’s inability to securepeace with Eritrea. His failures created the conditions for the genocidal war that annihilatedTigrayan lives and sovereignty.
- Somalia (2006 Invasion and Occupation): Strategic Blunders with Long-Term CostsMeles’s intervention in Somalia (backed by Washington) to dislodge the Islamic Courts Unionproduced regional blowback. Ethiopian forces became occupiers, igniting cycles of insurgencyand regional resentment.During the 2020 genocidal war on Tigray, Somali troops were deployed against Tigrayans—adirect result of Meles’s destructive legacy of regional entanglement.Historical Consequence: Tigrayans paid with their blood for Meles’s reckless militarism, asSomalia’s troops became tools of revenge in Tigray’s genocide.
- Internal Political Engineering: Killing TPLF Beyond RepairBy the time of his death (2012), Meles had hollowed out the TPLF, destroying its collectiveleadership traditions and institutional backbone.He replaced party structures with personalized loyalty networks, rooted in corruption, nepotism,and a ruthless elimination of dissent.What remained after his death was a political corpse: a TPLF without ideology, strategy, orintegrity surviving only through Above-the-Core warlordism and criminal enterprise.
Part III: The Living Dead – TPLF’s Cult of MelesIdolizing the Dead Man:
Today’s TPLF leadership—politically bankrupt generals andcadres—continue to worship Meles as a demi-god. They do not honor him out of genuineconviction, but because they lack the intellectual and moral courage to move beyond him.Living Dead Leadership: This cultish worship illustrates their political death. They are incapableof generating new strategies, relying instead on Meles’s shadow as both shield and prison.Criminal Continuities: Illegal gold-mining, land grabbing, and systemic corruption are the“inheritance” of Meles’s governance model. Today’s Above-the-Core TPLF groups reproduce hisauthoritarian DNA through predatory economics and mafia-like networks.
Part IV: The Curse of Warlordism and Gold Mafia in Tigray
Lawlessness as Political Order: Meles institutionalized corruption as a governance strategy;today, Above-the-Core leaders exploit illegal gold mining as their financial backbone.Warlord Fragmentation: In the absence of vision, these groups sustain themselves throughwarlordism—fracturing Tigray’s politics into criminal patronage networks, each loyal not to thepeople but to resource extraction.Strategic Paralysis: Just as Meles’s diplomacy produced “victories turned into defeat,” his heirsperpetuate paralysis: no reform, no unity, no strategic foresight.
Part V: The Future Beyond the Archive – Counter-Archives of ResistanceThe future of Tigray cannot be written under Meles’s shadow. To break free, new archives andcounter-narratives must emerge:1. Expose the Archive of Lies: Reclaiming Tigray’s history means dismantling the culticcommemoration of Meles and replacing it with truth-telling.
- Independent Political Rebirth: The people of Tigray must resist being prisoners of the “LivingDead” and instead invest in reformist leadership untainted by Meles’s authoritarian DNA.
- Strategic Responsibility for Tomorrow: Archives are about the future. Tigray’s new generationmust archive not warlordism and corruption, but accountability, intellectual honesty, and justice.
Conclusion
Meles Zenawi is not just a memory; he is a curse—a dictator whose authoritarian DNAcontinues to animate the “Above-the-Core” criminals who lead TPLF today. Thirteen years afterhis death, his ghost still commands loyalty, not because he left a coherent vision, but becausehis successors are intellectually dead.
The challenge for Tigray is not to remember Meles, but tobury him politically—to dismantle the institutions of corruption, warlordism, and archivaldeception that sustain his shadow. Only then can Tigray write its own archive of dignity, sovereignty, and future-oriented politics.
