TPLF Offers Truce Via UN Two Weeks After Breaking Ceasefire, Demands Ethiopian Troops Withdraw

In early August, the Ethiopian government signaled it was prepared to meet the preconditions for peace talks put forth by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the country’s former ruling party that launched an insurrection in November 2020. Instead, the TPLF rejected its own demands and launched a new offensive.

TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael has sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres with an offer for a conditional truce with the Ethiopian government, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Friday.

According to the news agency, the TPLF demanded "unhindered humanitarian access" and the return of essential services in the Tigray region, including electricity, telecommunications, and banking services.

Debretsion also demanded "the departure of Eritrean forces from Ethiopia and the Tigray territory” and the withdrawal of Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) troops from the four westernmost woredas of Tigray, a territory bordering Sudan and Eritrea that was previously taken by Tigray from Amhara region and which the TPLF has not controlled for two years.

Eritrea has not confirmed TPLF reports claiming that its troops entered northwestern Tigray last week.

Asmara formed an alliance with Addis Ababa following a peace treaty in 2018, which ended a 20-year war started by the TPLF. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who had recently come to power after the TPLF’s allied ethnic parties rebelled and chose a non-Tigrayan prime minister for the first time in 27 years, received a Nobel Peace Prize for it. When the TPLF launched its insurrection against Abiy’s government in November 2020, it also fired ballistic missiles at Asmara and other Eritrean cities, bringing Eritrea into the war.

The news comes a day after a claimed recording surfaced of TPLF General Teklai Ashebi ordering his commanders on the radio to shoot retreating Tigrayan troops. The date of the recording is unknown, as is its veracity.

WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES! Intercepted radio communication from TPLF's General Teklai Ashebir (Wedi Ashebir) ordering his commanders to shoot any Tigrayan who is retreating from a failed battle. #Tigray ppl are being exterminated by #TPLF #SayNoMore #SaveTigrayfromTPLF #Ethiopia pic.twitter.com/bcpONY282n

— Rahel Weldeab (@RahelWeldeab) September 9, 2022

“Any Tigrayan who is not prepared to die for Tigray, shoot him using a bullet, shoot him,” Teklai says in the recording. “He is running away from death. You need to show him there is death even if he retreats. What’s going on, why are they retreating?”

Peace With the UN, But Not Abiy?

The TPLF’s decision to appeal to the United Nations instead of to Abiy’s government for peace is a continuation of a tactic used in December 2021, when the ENDF repelled a TPLF offensive toward Addis Ababa and forced the insurgent group back into Tigray state. Abiy offered the group peace if it would recognize his government as legitimate, end its attacks on ENDF forces, and disarm, but instead, the TPLF asked the UN to enforce a ceasefire in order to restore the flow of humanitarian aid to Tigray. The group has accused Abiy’s government of “genocide” due to the halting of aid, which the UN World Food Program (WFP) has said is caused by the TPLF’s offensives.

Most of the TPLF’s demands on Friday were previously part of their preconditions for peace talks with Abiy’s government, which before the August 24 offensive were expected to begin later that month. When Abiy’s government unexpectedly agreed to meet the TPLF’s preconditions, the group withdrew its own proposals, and days later, launched a new attack on Amhara and Afar states.

A day after the attack began, the TPLF then seized 570,000 liters of WFP fuel intended for use in its trucks, which had until that point been bringing food and other forms of aid into Tigray for five months, since the TPLF ended its previous attack into Afar in early 2022. The TPLF didn’t deny the seizure but instead claimed it was collecting on a debt owed to it by the UN agency. The WFP then ended food aid to Tigray, citing dangers posed by its new offensive.

The gas seizure provoked a rare rebuke from international forces typically in favor of the TPLF, including the United States, with which the TPLF partnered closely when it was the governing party of Ethiopia and which continued to provide the group with guidance and political cover during its insurrection that began in November 2020.