Gebru Asrat on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Gebru Asrat is an Ethiopian politician, former president of
Tigray Region
The Tigray Region, officially the Tigray National Regional State, is the northernmost regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob, and Kunama people. Its capital and largest city is Mekelle. Tigray ...
(1991–2001), and one of the top leaders of the
Tigray People's Liberation Front
The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF; ti, ህዝባዊ ወያነ ሓርነት ትግራይ, lit=Popular Struggle for the Freedom of Tigray), also called the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, is a left-wing ethnic nationalist paramilitar ...
(TPLF) and the
(EPRDF) until around 2000, when he founded a new party,
Arena Tigray
Arena Tigray or Arena Tigray For Democracy and Sovereignty ( ti, ዓረና ትግራይ ንዲሞክራሲን ንሉኣላዊነትን) is an Ethiopian political party based in the Tigray Region and participating in the Medrek coalition federall ...
.
Early life
Gebru was born in
Mekelle
Mekelle ( ti, መቐለ, am, መቀሌ, mäqälle, mek’elē) or Mekele is a special zone and capital of the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Mekelle was formerly the capital of Enderta awraja in Tigray. It is located around north of the Ethiopi ...
,
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
and attended ''Atse'' Yohannes High School and
Haile Selassie I University Haile ( Ge'ez "the power of") may refer to:
;People with the given name Haile
* Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (1892–1975), Emperor of Ethiopia
* Haile Gerima (born 1946), Ethiopian filmmaker
* Haile Gebrselassie (born 1973), Ethiopian distance runne ...
during the early 1970s. He holds an undergraduate and graduate degree in economics.
Career
After the TPLF defeated the
Derg in the
Ethiopian Civil War
The Ethiopian Civil War was a civil war in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean anti-government rebels from 12 September 1974 to 28 May 1991.
The Derg overthrew ...
, Gebru became President of
Tigray Region
The Tigray Region, officially the Tigray National Regional State, is the northernmost regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob, and Kunama people. Its capital and largest city is Mekelle. Tigray ...
. Under Gebru a number of institutions of higher education, industries, hospitals and infrastructures were established in Tigray.
In May 1998, Eritrea started a
border war which led to the death of tens of thousands of people on both sides.
["Eritrea broke law in border war"](_blank)
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
News website, published 21 December 2005 By the end of the war, the
Ethiopian army recovered the town of
Badme
Badme ( ti, ባድመ, ) is a town in Gash-Barka region of Eritrea. Control of the town was at the centre of the Eritrean–Ethiopian border conflict, which lasted from the beginning of the Eritrean–Ethiopian War, in 1998, to the signing of ...
and drove back Eritrean forces until they controlled around one-third of Eritrean territory, including Barentu region.
Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi
Meles Zenawi Asres (Tigrinya and ; , born Legesse Zenawi Asres; 9 May 1955 – 20 August 2012) was an Ethiopian soldier and politician who served as President of Ethiopia from 1991 to 1995 and then Prime Minister of Ethiopia from 1995 until his ...
signed a controversial UN peace treaty that was seen to have favored Eritrea. A faction led by
Defense Minister
A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in s ...
Siye Abraha and Gebru Asrat disagreed with those aligned with Meles over "key issues of ideology", accused their supporters of corruption and Meles of failing to act quickly or decisively enough over the crisis with Eritrea. "Meles was certainly seen as a reluctant warrior," according to a source quoted by
IRIN. The party was divided into two groups. One group, which included Gebru, Tewolde Wolde Mariam, Aregash, and
Siye Abraha, believed that the leadership was bent on serving foreign "imperialist" interests. The other group which included Meles Zenawi argued that the TPLF was sinking into decadence, involving itself in
Bonapartism.
[Issayas Mekuria]
"Seeye Abraha Out from Jail"
''Addis Fortune'', 7 July 2007 (Internet Archive mirror, accessed 20 May 2009)
Gebru left TPLF and EPRDF in the early 2000s after the division and went on to establish Arena Tigray, an alternative political party to TPLF in Tigray.
Gebru became its chairman in 2007; Arena Tigray merged with other opposition parties in Ethiopia to form
Medrek
Medrek ( am, መድረክ), officially the Ethiopia Federal Democratic Unity Forum ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ፌዴራላዊ ዴሞክራሲያዊ አንድነት መድረክ), is an Ethiopian political coalition founded in 2008 by former def ...
. Gebru ran unsuccessfully for the parliamentary seat representing the city of Mekelle in the
2010 parliamentary elections.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Asrat, Gebru
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
People from Tigray Region
Tigray People's Liberation Front politicians
Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front politicians
Addis Ababa University alumni