TPLF faction leaders at the 38th AU summit, call for full implementation of Pretoria Agreement 

Borkena

Toronto – Leaders of the two rival factions of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) were seen at the 38th Summit of the African Head of States yesterday in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. They were on a mission to make a case for the implementation of the Pretoria agreement. Yet, there were earlier reports one of the factions under Debretsion is not interested in the agreement particularly due to disarmament.

Getachew Reda, president of Tigray region Interim Administration, and Debretsion Gebremichael, leader of the faction that undertook the 14th convention which the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia considered unacceptable over non-compliance of rules and regulations, had been trading accusations for months. There was even a fear that the two factions would go to war until religious leaders in the region managed to make them commit themselves last week. 

Yet, both leaders appeared at the African Union summit to push for the full implementation of the Pretoria Agreement. Representatives of the Ethiopian Federal government, including Foreign Affairs Minister Geidion Timotheos, were also present.  The Chief mediator, former Nigerian president, Oluṣẹgun Ọbasanjọ, was also in attendance. 

A report was heard on the progress of the Pretoria Agreement which was underway on the sidelines of the AU summit. 

During the session the implementation process and the lessons from it were highlighted, according to a report by VOA Amharic. 

The two TPLFites, as activists critical of TPLF parties would call them, had a joint presser with journalists after the session. It was during the presser that Getachew and Debretsion called for a full implementation of the the Pretoria Agreement. 

The TPLF was expected to disarm its forces in accordance with the agreement. However, only about five or six thousand forces were reportedly disarmed.  The organization has announced, before the split within the organization came to the open, that it has about 270,000 armed forces. That is after the two years war which is said to have claimed more than one million people. 

Another key outstanding issue is relating to the return of Internally Displaced People (IDPs). The TPLF leaders have been accusing the Federal government over failure to return IDPs. Yet, the TPLF itself was involved in a scandal as it relates to IDPs. The World Food Program in Tigray last week unveiled that the organization was collecting 200 Ethiopian birr per household from IDPs to “save the TPLF”  

Irredentist claims over Wolkait and Raya is another controversial issue. These lands were parts of Gondar and Raya respectively before the TPLF took central government power in 1991 and masterminded a new constitution based on ethnic identities. The two areas, while they were core Amhara areas, were incorporated to Tigray region a development that gave rise to a clandestine identity politics. When the TPLF lost central government power in 2018, the movements in those areas were already strong and claimed back their identity. The TPLF is making claims about these lands on grounds of the constitution that it engineered. 

Meanwhile, the TPLF has already moved troops to the Raya area. The TPLF faction under Debretsion is said to be working with Eritrea (with whom his organization has enmity for over two decades). Abiy Ahmed met his generals last week amid a busy schedule with the arrival of African leaders to attend the 38th AU Summit. 

With regard to the implementation of the Pretoria Cessation of Hostility Agreement (CoHA), Gedion Timotheos said that “the government is taking measures that will facilitate the implementation of the Agreement.  He also said that the next phases of the implementation need to be achieved in compliance with the law and through dialogue. 

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