KPF emerged from a group of soldiers in the army of the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam who refused to serve in the Eritrean War.
Originally known simply as "Kefagn", KPF was created to combat the incursions of the Tigray People's Liberation Front into Gondar Province.
John Young recounts that in May 1993 he encountered government soldiers on the western shores of Lake Tana who had been wounded in clashes with dissidents in the area.
[2] Later in 1993, General Haile was wounded, and evacuated to Sudan, where government officials protected him and refused Ethiopian demands for his extradition.
By the time he left Sudan, the KPF was in disarray, although the transfer of most of the area west of Lake Tana to the Benishangul-Gumuz Region, served to reactivate the group.