Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has released a statement reiterating its commitment to peace and urging an end to the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia.
The statement, titled “The Strategic Choice of Our Party is the TPLF,” emphasizes the TPLF’s long history of struggle for self-determination and its opposition to violence. The TPLF acknowledges the high cost of war borne by the Tigray people and emphasizes their desire for peace and cooperation.
The statement also highlights the TPLF’s role in leading the Tigray people through years of struggle and its commitment to achieving their fundamental rights. The TPLF emphasizes the importance of organization and leadership in any struggle and criticizes the ongoing “coordinated defamation campaign” against its leadership and institutions.
The statement concludes by reiterating the TPLF’s calls for peace and accountability, urging the implementation of the Pretoria Agreement signed in November 2022.
Key Points:
The TPLF reaffirms its commitment to peace and rejects accusations of warmongering.
The statement emphasizes the high cost of war borne by the Tigray people and their desire for peace.
The TPLF highlights its role in leading the Tigray people’s struggle and criticizes the ongoing “coordinated defamation campaign” against its leadership and institutions.
The statement calls for the implementation of the Pretoria Agreement and accountability for human rights abuses.
However, the struggle we have waged as a people and party during the past six years, especially during the three years when the genocidal war was officially launched, has saved our struggle from complete destruction and enabled us to move to the peaceful political struggle. The only reason our people were declared genocidal by the coalition forces but paid this high price and survived the genocide is because they organized and fought in unity and had an organization to lead this. Our organization is the source of our existence and success ! No struggle can be won without organization and leadership. This is a fact that everyone is seeing from yesterday to today that nothing has not been done to attack this huge potential of our people. One expression of this is the current coordinated defamation campaign against all our capacities, namely our party, the Tigray Interim Administration and the security forces.
The TPLF-led government of Tigray has repeatedly extended its hand for peace before the genocidal war. When the war started, he similarly called for an end to the war and political dialogue. Even after the signing of the Pretoria Peace Agreement, everything required of our party has been done to deepen the peace agreement and build confidence.
According to the Pretoria Agreement, the liberation of our people under the invaders, the return of the constitutional land of Tigray, the return of displaced persons and refugees in Sudan, the ensuring of accountability and the provision of humanitarian aid have not been implemented.
Meanwhile, forces who want the Pretoria Agreement to hit its target and prevent a lasting peace , some leaders of the Tigray opposition parties and others purposefully linked to these have renewed their massive campaign in recent weeks saying “TPLF is preparing for war; He is propagating war.” This campaign is not limited to the TPLF but also to the leadership and members of the Tigray security forces. The aim of this campaign is to destroy the unity and organized movement which is the source of our victory and non-white potential and to disperse our people without political and military leadership. Our people are being deceived by these baseless and utter lies; He should be aware of the gaps in his unity and organization and fight them as vigorously as ever.
Yesterday, today and tomorrow, the strategic choice of our party, the TPLF; It is peace. On the part of our party, we will continue to take the Pretoria Peace Agreement as a peaceful political platform for struggle to ensure lasting peace. The peaceful political struggle we started to implement the Pretoria Agreement will continue to be intensified to free our people under the invaders, to return the invaded land of Tigray to its owner, to return the displaced and displaced to their homeland.
