Meles was first with Tigrayan National Organization (TNO) the forerunner TPLF. Aregawi Berhe, a former member of the TPLF, notes that historians John Young and Jenny Hammond "vaguely indicated" Meles as founder TPLF in their books. Aregawi insists that both he and Sebhat Nega joined the Front "months" after it was founded. While a member of the TPLF, Meles established the Marxist-Leninist League of Tigray (MLLT). TPLF was one of armed groups struggling against the Derg, the junta which led Ethiopia from 1974–1991. Meles was elected member of the leadership committee in 1979 and chairman of the executive committee of TPLF in 1983. He was the chairperson of both the TPLF and the EPRDF after the EPRDF assumed power at the end of the Ethiopian Civil War in 1991. He was president of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) during which he paved the way for Eritrea to secede from the country. Meles stated that EPRDF's victory was a triumph for the thousands of TPLF-fighters who were killed, for the millions of Ethiopians who were victims of the country's biggest famine during the Derg regime, when some estimates put up to 1.5 million deaths of Ethiopians from famine and the Red Terror. Accordingly, he maintained that the big support it received from peasants and rural areas helped EPRDF maintain peace and stability. Foreign support was diverse; the Arab League, as well as Western nations, supported the EPRDF rebels against the communist Moscow-supported government (although the TPLF was at the time Marxist) at the height of the Cold War. "What the implications of this will be in terms of relations between Ethiopia and the European Union, we will have to wait and see but I don't think you will be surprised if Ethiopia were to insist that it should not be patronised." The United States facilitated peace talks between different rebel groups including EPRDF and the Derg to bring an end to civil war which lasted for 17 years and reach some kind of political settlement in 1991. The talks didn't bear any fruit as EPRDF's force were moving to the capital and Mengistu fled the country. The United State agreed to support the EPRDF which would have, nevertheless, seized power without anyone's support.Many angry demonstrators in Addis Ababa reacted to this by protesting against Herman Cohen, the U.S. State Department's chief of African affairs who attended a conference that demonstrators viewed as legitimizing the EPRDF.