SUMMARY
EPLF (Eritrean People’s Liberation Front) was an armed separatist group active in the intrastate conflict over Eritrea in Ethiopia, which lasted from the 1960s until 1991. In 1952, Eritrea – a former Italian colony that had come under British military rule – had been merged into a loose federation with imperial Ethiopia, at the time ruled by Emperor Haile Selassie I. In 1955, Haile Selassie initiated a process that eventually led to the end of Eritrean self-governance, as the region came under direct Ethiopian rule; the federation was formally abolished in 1962. Haile Selassie also imposed policies that replaced the majority Arabic and Tigrinya languages with Amharic (spoken by the emperor’s own Amhara ethnic group) as the official language in Eritrea. This caused considerable resentment and anger in Eritrea, and eventually resulted in politico-military mobilization; it was in this context that EPLF emerged. The group’s primary goal was to achieve independence for Eritrea from Ethiopia; the group retained this objective even after Haile Selassie was overthrown in a coup in 1974 by a Marxist-Leninist military junta commonly known as the “Derg” (see Government of Ethiopia for more information). Ideologically, EPLF was an Eritrean nationalist and Marxist/socialist organization; aside from Eritrean independence, the group also claimed to fight for social reform.
The foundation for the creation of EPLF was laid in 1970, as ELF – the most prominent Eritrean rebel group at the time – suffered a major split following severe internal disagreement. As a result, three major splinter factions emerged: Popular Liberation Forces 1 (PLF 1), based in the Dankalia region and led by Osman Salah Sabbe; PLF 2, based in Ala and led by Isaias Afwerki; and ELF-Ubel, based in the Ubel region and led by Adem Saleh. Of the three factions, Afwerki’s PLF 2 - comprised mainly of left-wing Christians speaking Tigrinya - would prove to be the most influential one. Afwerki had motivated his split by claiming that ELF was dominated by its Muslim factions seeking to “Arabize” the Eritrean secessionist movement; Afwerki also accused the ELF leadership of being corrupt. Sabbe was a former top official of ELF, who had fallen out with the rest of the ELF leadership in 1969. On 24 June 1970, the three splinter factions held a joint conference where they decided to form a coalition called the “Tripartite Unity”. The new coalition was subordinated to a nine-member executive council. It should be noted that Sabbe was barred from partaking in the coalition’s executive decision-making; he was however allowed to remain a “patron” of the Tripartite Unity, and an “informal foreign minister” charged with procuring international support to the Eritrean insurgency. In 1972, following several attempts to appease the Tripartite Unity, the central ELF leadership decided to quell the insubordination of the splinter factions by “declaring war” on them; this signaled the start of Eritrean factional infighting that would last until the 1980s. As a response, PLF 1 and PLF 2 facilitated their formal merger into the EPLF in September 1973; some members from ELF-Ubel also joined EPLF, while others decided to seek refuge in Sudan. While EPLF did not convene its first official congress until 1977, it thus acted as a unified organization from 1973.
EPLF was able to create a highly functional and coherent organizational structure. The group’s chief executive body was a 13-member political bureau, which was selected from within a 37-member central committee. Between 1973 and 1977, EPLF had been under the leadership of Isaias Afwerki. At the 1977 congress, Ramadan Mohammed Nur was made the secretary general of the political bureau, while Afwerki was made the vice secretary general. In 1987, Afwerki was selected as the new secretary general, replacing Nur. As the group managed to establish territorial control in large parts of Eritrea, it came to function as a de facto government. For example, EPLF would set up local village council, thus establishing a functional governance structure.
The group also maintained a sophisticated military structure, and its fighters were organized in a military wing called the Eritrean People’s Liberation Army (EPLA). The EPLA was divided into a number of sub-units (such as battalions, companies, and platoons) normally associated with a conventional army. During its existence, the number of troops associated with the group grew constantly. For example, in 1975 the group had around 11 000 fighters; by 1991, the EPLA could field more than 60 000 troops. The group recruited its cadre members from a broad stratum of the Eritrean society, but its strongest support was found in the rural areas. EPLF also received considerable support from the civilian population, which provided the group with logistic, material, and economic support. Furthermore, EPLF received considerable financial support from Eritrean diasporas, such as the ones in Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the United States. After EPLF discontinued its ties to Sabbe and his “foreign mission”, the group grew increasingly reliant on financial support from the Eritrean diaspora.
While EPLF was a far more stable and unitary organization than ELF, the fractious nature of the Eritrean separatist movement still caused tensions within the group. For example, a dissident faction known as the “Menkaa’e” began to openly challenge the EPLF leadership in 1973. The Menkaa’e – comprised of militant Marxist university students - accused the group’s leaders of being “bourgeois nationalists”, and strongly condemned the decision to cut ties with Sabbe completely. EPLF viciously clamped down on the Menkaa’e, and many of its most prominent members were imprisoned or executed. In 1976, there were also unsuccessful attempts – facilitated by Sabbe – to reunite the ELF and EPLF. The merger of the movements was officially rejected by the EPLF because of its ideological differences with ELF. Furthermore, ELF was at the time in a state of disarray, and the far stronger EPLF saw no reason to share its influence with ELF. After this, Sabbe and his “foreign mission” cut all ties to the EPLF.
EPLF received considerable non-warring support from external actors. For example, Sudan allowed the group to maintain bases on its territory for most years between 1976 and 1991, and on occasion provided intelligence assistance. However, EPLF’s relationship with the Government of Sudan was vacillating, and was much dependent on the status of the relationship between Addis Ababa and Khartoum. While Khartoum’s overall sentiments appear to have been that of support of the Eritrean rebels and their cause, this support was not unwavering, but changed over the years. In 1976 the relationship between the Ethiopian and Sudanese governments had reached its lowest point in a long time, when the former backed a failed coup attempt against the latter. In response, the Sudanese government, more openly than before, supported the Eritrean rebels, allowing them to transit supplies, including military equipment, through Port Sudan. EPLF also received other forms of secondary support from external actors. Up until 1979, it for example received financial support from Kuwait, South Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Libya, and possibly Iraq. There were also unconfirmed reports that both Libya and Iraq supplied weapons to EPLF in 1990.
Starting in 1981, EPLF entered a close alliance with TPLF, an armed group seeking to overthrow the Derg-led Government of Ethiopia. Being a younger and initially smaller group than EPLF, TPLF had received important backing from the Eritrean rebels during its inception; by 1981, the two groups began to coordinate their military operations. Furthermore, as TPLF’s popularity grew in its base area in Tigray, an ever increasing number of people wanted to join the front. By 1981, the group was unable to cope with the large number of recruits and turned to EPLF for help with military training. EPLF agreed, on the terms that the TPLF fighters after receiving training would stay on and fight with the Eritrean rebels for some time, hereby the Eritreans received a valuable boost in its ranks. However, the EPLF-TPLF alliance was discontinued 1985-1988 because of disagreements on a number of issues. One of the main areas of contention was over TPLF’s claim that the right to independence it proclaimed for Tigray and other Ethiopian nationalities also applied to the various Eritrean nationalities, something that EPLF was not willing to accept. After the alliance was restored in 1988, the two groups shared intelligence and coordinated their armed operations. After TPLF joined the EPRDF coalition in 1989, EPLF maintained a similar cooperation with the latter as well.
In May 1991, the Derg-led Government of Ethiopia was facing defeats on several fronts, and by the end of the month the capital Addis Ababa was captured by EPLF’s allies EPRDF. Parallel to this, EPLF took de facto control over the whole territory of Eritrea, albeit without completely defeating the government forces. Nevertheless, the UCDP considered this a termination of the Eritrea territorial conflict via victory, since EPLF had made a deal with EPRDF that Eritrea would be allowed an independence referendum once the Derg government was defeated. The UCDP thus considered the Eritrea territorial incompatibility resolved. After this, EPLF established itself as a transitional Government of Eritrea, thus ceasing to exist as a non-state actor. In 1994, EPLF renamed itself “People's Front for Democracy and Justice” (PFDJ) and became independent Eritrea’s ruling political party (for more about this, see Government of Eritrea).
