ERITREAN PEOPLE'S LIBERATION FRONT POLITICAL BUREAU
EPLF Declaration on Unity Proposal.
The EPLF, as announced in its Politbureau meeting of 12/6/82, has thoroughly assessed the present stage of the Eritrean struggle and the developments and endeavours in regard to the issue of national unity in its Politbureau meeting held from 23-25/10/1982 and presents the proposal it has adopted.
POLITICAL
The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front proposes:
1. Realizing that the unity of the Eritrean people is a fundamental condition for victory, prosperity, peace and progress both in the on-going stage of national democratic revolution where the Eritrean people are conducting armed struggle as well as later;
Rejecting all lines that employ unpatriotic and divisive narrow tendencies, their protagonists, and the machinations and pressures of external forces made in collusion to reinforce fragmentation;
A coalition be formed of all the forces and patriotic elements that abide by the above-stated two principles;
2. The coalition shall form one Eritrean National Assembly composed of representatives of its constituent forces;
3. The National Assembly shall formulate a political line that would oppose all attempts and ploys aimed at dividing the Eritrean people and mobilize them against their enemies; prepare the conducive platform for different political organisations to propagate their convictions and conduct democratic struggle in the national interest; and ratify the democratic order and institutional components of independent Eritrea;
4. - The National Assembly shall form - a permanent or periodically elected - body that would represent the Eritrean people in all international fora and work to solicit, on behalf of the Eritrean revolution, diplomatic, political, material and humanitarian assistance.
The EPLF expresses its readiness for bilateral meetings with the concerned forces towards the concretization of this proposal and for the elaboration of its details.
MILITARY
- Since the formation of one army and military strategy in order to defeat the colonial regime and achieve liberation is a central theme of the armed struggle of the Eritrean people;
- As this has been demonstrated by the constructive efforts undertaken to reduce schisms and form one organisation and, through this, establish one army and formulate one strategy on the one hand, and the enormous losses incurred in the incessant clashes and bloodletting by the internal and external forces with a vested interest in further fragmentation on the other hand;
- Moreover, in the future too, as the existence of various armies - whether big or small - would have no positive result other than breeding internecine strife and the consequent weakening of the human and material military capabilities of the Eritrean people in the interests of their enemies;
- And permanently, since it would constitute the main obstacle to national political and economic security and stability;
- The EPLF calls upon all those armed forces outside the EPLA who adhere to the above-stated principles and accept their undeniable historical truth to join ranks in the trenches of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Army. Their political question having been solved on the basis of the provisions stipulated in the political section of this proposal, the views they might harbour on the military liberation strategy would be accepted subsequent to discussions.
The EPLF invites - through this proposal - to the platform of dialogue all the forces who, aware of the complex phase of the Eritrean revolution is currently undergoing, are ready to shed narrow and sectarian interests and pay the necessary sacrifices for the just national rights of the Eritrean people. It reminds all the forces, who defying these objectives, divide the Eritrean people through various ploys, have opted to barter the Eritrean cause as a means of life and belligerently unsheath their sword against the EPLF to reconsider their positions.
The EPLF calls upon all the forces who have given their genuine support to the just cause of the Eritrean people to support this proposal and play an active and constructive role in its implementation.
Political Bureau of the EPLF, 25/10/1982.