[2] In 2017, at Arena's fourth congress, Abraha Desta, a philosophy lecturer who had spent two years in prison under TPLF rule, was elected as the new chair.
He held the position of vice head of the Public Relations Bureau of the Transitional Government of Tigray until mid-March 2021, when he was dismissed by the federal government for publicly calling for legal action against perpetrators of sexual violence in the Tigray War and for attributing war crimes in the Tigray War to Amhara Region security forces and Eritrean Defence Forces.
[3] On 3 February 2021, Arena Tigray party member Goitom Tsegay stated his long-term opposition to the TPLF and his opposition to the Tigray War, objecting to human rights violations by Fano and other Amhara militias and their taking control of Tigray Region territory, communication blocks and a lack of transparency, the extrajudicial executions of civilians, rape, the presence and role of the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) in the war, and starvation.
Goitom concluded that peace negotiations between the federal government and "Tigray militias and political parties" would be needed to return the region to "some normalcy".
Markos Gessese, a member of the Arena Tigray executive committee, was attacked en route to lodging a complaint about harassment.