Wednesday, July 02, 2008

ETHIOPIA: Woyanne calls for more funds to offset food shortages

ADDIS ABABA, 2 July 2008 (IRIN) - Donor pledges to cover food and non-food items were insufficient to tackle the massive food shortages the country is facing, the government has said.

"Until now we have got US$160 million in pledges," Deputy Prime Minister Addisu Legese said. "[But] we need $430 million," the official, who recently visited some of the most affected areas, added.

The estimate of funds needed to contain the situation, he told a parliamentary session debating the drought and food security on 26 June, took into account the likely food situation over the next five months.

"How many people should die [before you] say the situation is out of control?" Lidetu Ayalew, chairman of the opposition EUDP Medhin party, asked the prime minister. "If one person died due to the drought, the situation is already out of control."

Bulcha Demeksa, chairman of the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, suggested mobilising the population and a re-adjustment of the government budget to mitigate against the consequences of the drought.

"What is happening now is very worrying and scary," he told parliament. "During such times the government should move on all [fronts]. The government budget should also be readjusted."

In response, the deputy prime minister said despite the low pledges from Ethiopia's donors and partners, the situation was "still under control".

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 4.6 million people are in need of emergency food support in Ethiopia. An additional 5.7 million in areas targeted by the government's productive safety net programme will require extended food or cash support because of the drought.

UNICEF warning

Separately, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said a lethal mix of drought, expanding conflict, rising food and energy prices, disease, and high poverty were pushing children and their families in the greater Horn of Africa to the brink of disaster.

"Actions and policies are needed now to avert grave human suffering," UNICEF said in a statement on 1 July. "In areas of Ethiopia, drought and conflict are leaving millions food-insecure and often cut off from relief. The government estimates that 75,000 children are severely malnourished."

Per Engebak, UNICEF’s regional director for East and Southern Africa, said: "The signs are there and governments and international partners must heed them and act on them."


On 30 June, UNICEF airlifted stocks of Plumpy’nut to Addis Ababa to meet the urgent needs of severely malnourished children. "We are in a race against time as we try to bring in enough supplies to save lives," said Bjorn Ljungqvist, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia. "These malnourished children cannot wait."

Plumpy’nut is a nutrient-dense, peanut-based paste with the right balance of proteins, energy, fats, vitamins and minerals to treat severe malnutrition in children without medical complications or serious illness at home.

"Already, affected communities in Ethiopia are taking extreme measures to survive," the NGO Catholic Relief Services said on 1 July. "Families are selling household items, farm tools, and even wood and tin sheets from the frames and roofs of their homes to buy food. Many are also taking their children out of school and are hunting for wild plants to eat."

Overall, according to OCHA, at least 14 million people in the Horn of Africa are in urgent need of food and other humanitarian assistance.

The number includes 2.6 million facing an acute food and livelihood crisis in Somalia, 1.2 million in Kenya, 707,000 in the Karamoja region of Uganda, and 80,000 in Djibouti. Eritrea was also likely to be affected, several UN agencies and regional NGOs said in a statement on 2 July.

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Ethiopia bombs Minnesota through cell phones


The Ethiopian village of Labigah in 2005 (top) and 2008 (bottom), showing evidence of Ethiopian Army destruction of villages.



By Douglas McGill , TC Daily Planet
July 01, 2008
Four men sitting at a downtown Minneapolis coffee shop recently told me a story that sounded too far-fetched to be true.

Could a humanitarian crisis following the pattern of Darfur, Sudan actually be unfolding while capturing hardly a second of the world’s collective attention, or Minnesota’s?

Even worse, could it actually be true, as these four Minnesotans insist, that this unimaginable massacre is substantially being sustained by U.S. tax dollars and moral support?
 Is it possible that entire African villages are being wiped out Darfur-style by marauding helicopter gunships belonging to a close American ally, and that new refugee camps are being formed virtually overnight, as we speak, thanks to Uncle Sam? 

Superpower Struggles
This sounded like the vilest strain of anti-American propaganda. But after a few hours speaking with these gentlemen, and doing a few more hours of research and checking, their story seems all too definitely, tragically, true.  
 The four men are in an ideal position to know. They are members of Minnesota’s community of immigrants from Ogaden, Ethiopia – a Montana-sized patch of desert that has been the scene of global superpower struggles for several decades.  
Every day for the past several months, these four men, along with hundreds of other Ogaden immigrants in Minnesota, have spent hours every week on their cell phones talking to loved ones who give them seemingly endless direct eyewitness accounts of crimes and horrors in a war zone.

“We hear about mothers being forced to betray their own sons to the Ethiopian Army, of fathers being handed guns and ordered to kill their own sons on the spot or to be killed themselves,” one of the men said.  

Minnesota Spies
“Every Ogadeni in Minnesota has friends or family who have been jailed, tortured, or killed. It seems there is no end to it. We could tell you stories all day for a whole week and still have more stories to tell you.” 
The men asked that their names not be published, because they said Ethiopian government spies live in Minnesota who would help the Ethiopian authorities hunt down their family members in Ogaden to jail them, torture them or worse as a punishment for talking with the press. 
Having the second-largest population of refugees per capita of any U.S. state (after Florida), and probably being the nation’s top state in diversity of refugees, Minnesota has once again become an early-warning system for crimes against humanity being perpetrated in a faraway country – this time in eastern Ethiopia. 
Minnesota’s Ethiopian immigrant community is estimated between 13,000 and 20,000, the lower number being the latest U.S. Census figure, and the higher a number given by local Ethiopian immigrant groups.  

Ethnic Somalis
About a fourth of the state’s Ethiopian immigrants are from Ogaden, whose natives, in contrast to Ethiopia’s majority Amharic-speaking Christians, are Somali-speaking Muslims. And therein lies the problem.  
For decades, ordinary Ogadeni herders and farmers have lived on a literal battlefield over which Ethiopia and Somalia, acting as proxies for global powers, have waged waged an epic-length conflict.
 A conventional war was fought in 1977-78. More often, counter-insurgency attacks by the Ethiopian government against supposed Ogaden separatists — or now, “terrorists” — have targeted civilians and entire villages, creating vast refugee flows.  
The Ogaden landscape today is littered with the hulks of tanks and rusting weapons used in battles since 1948. That was the year that Britain, then the region’s dominant global power, ceded Ogaden to Ethiopia, even though nearly all of its five million inhabitants are ethnically and culturally Somali.   
During the Cold War period, the region’s global powers were the Soviet Union and the United States.  

Minnesota’s Challenge
Today, the great global struggle being waged locally is the “War on Terror.”  
Official U.S. foreign policy holds that the Horn of Africa is one of the world’s top breeding grounds for radical Islamist terrorists.  
Islamist governments in Sudan and Eritrea, and a prominent Islamist faction in Somalia, have led to the U.S. embrace of Ethiopia as a close ally in the War on Terror – it being “the only democratic nation in the Horn of Africa.” 
But Minnesota’s large Ethiopian population challenges that formulation. 
If Ethiopia is a democracy how come thousands of its citizens are fleeing as refugees and asylees to our state, insisting Ethiopia is a tyranny? 
A report published last month by Human Rights Watch lends credence to the horrific stories told by the four Ogadeni men at the Minneapolis coffee shop.  

87 Villages
The report’s title, “Collective Punishment,” refers to the practice of wiping out villages based on rumors that insurgents live there. The report’s subtitle is “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in the Ogaden.”   
Despite Ethiopia’s attempts to block information about human rights crimes from escaping the Ogaden, Human Rights Watch said it had received reports of  “at least 87 burnings and forced displacements of villages, many of which involved extrajudicial killings, torture, and rape across numerous areas of the Somali Region,” meaning the Ogaden.    
Since the late 1970s, when Ethiopia and Somalia waged a conventional war over the Ogaden, between two and three million refugees have poured out of region into neighboring Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti – and then onwards to a global diaspora including Minnesota.  
In the most recent violence, tens of thousands of Ogadenis have already been displaced, and an Ethiopian economic and aid blockade threatens to escalate the humanitarian catastrophe by orders of magnitude as a result of drought and famine, Human Rights Watch said.  
“The situation is critical,” the report says. 

Moral Hazard
As for the question of funding, the U.S. is the largest single source of foreign military aid to Ethiopia. Moreover, total U.S. military aid to the country increased dramatically after 9/11, when Ethiopia became a close ally of the U.S. in the “war on terror.” 
According to the Center for Public Integrity, the U.S. provided $16.8 million in military aid to Ethiopia in the three years following 9/11, compared to $928,000 in the three years before 9/11. That is a small percentage of Ethiopia’s annual $300 defense budget, but critics say that unofficially, U.S. support of Ethiopia and its military is far higher.  
Overall U.S. assistance to Ethiopia totaled $474 million in 2007 alone, according to the U.S. Department of State. Including other major sources of foreign aid, especially the UK and the European Union, Ethiopia receives almost $2 billion in aid annually.   
“Americans are also a victim in the Ogaden,” one of the men in the coffee shop said. “Do they know their tax dollars are supporting a tyranny like this? If they knew, wouldn’t they want it to stop?” 
Douglas McGill has reported for the New York Times and Bloomberg News—and now reports global/local news from Minnesota. His web site is The McGill Report — Media for Global
Minnesotans.
 To reach Doug McGill: doug@mcgillreport.org.
 
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Sunday, June 29, 2008

OGADEN: MORE CLASHES WITH SEPARATISTS

There are reports of clashes between the separatists of the ONFL and the regular Ethiopian army in Ethiopia’s eastern region of Ogaden, which is mostly inhabited by Somalis. Local sources said that thirty people, mostly regular soldiers, were killed in the fighting near the towns of Shilabo and Warder, along the border with Somalia. The traffic, on the roads that connect the two countries, was halted in the past few hours on account of the violence. Fighting between the ONFL and the army has increased since last April, when the separatists – armed against the central government since the early 1990’s – have attacked some oil wells managed by a Chinese company, leaving 77 dead. The Ethiopian reaction, involving the intervention of ground troops and aerial bombardment and prime minister Meles Zenawi’s decision to prohibit access to humanitarian workers, has made the living conditions of the civilian population even more difficult. [AB]

http://www.misna.org/news.asp?a=1&IDLingua=1&id=218067

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Sunday, June 22, 2008

ONLF Press Release: Death Of Ogaden Somali Hero

Early in the Morning on 22 June 2008 Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah died in Abu Dhabi.
Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla was born in Qalaafo (Kelafo) Ogaden in 1941. He finished his primary education in the Ogaden and went for further studies to Saudi Arabia in 1958 where he did his secondary education and University. He graduated From Imam Mohamed Bin-Sacud University in Mecca in 1970.

In 1973 he came to Somalia and became a teacher in the Secondary Schools in Hargheisa-Northern Somalia. He joined WSLF in 1976 and became WSLF representative in Abu Dhabi in 1981. He was also elected to the Central Committee of WSLF.

In 1984 Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla became one of the Founding members of ONLF. He came to the Ogaden and attended the First ONLF Congress in the Ogaden in 1991 and was elected its chairman. He was the Chairman of ONLF until 1998. He retained his Central Committee seat and was an active member of ONLF until he deceased. 1n 1999 he formed the institute of Strategic Studies of the Horn of Africa.

Sh. Ibrahim abdallah was a writer and wrote the following books and many articles in different newspapers in the Middle East. Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla strongly believed in the Right to self-determination and freedom of the Somali people under Ethiopian rule. Sh. Ibrahim spirit will always be beside the Somali Fighters in the Ogaden.
Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla left behind four boys and four girls and their off springs who reside in Kenya, UK, USA and Ireland.

Some of the Books Sh. Ibrahim wrote are
  1. The Third Defeat of the Abyssinians -1982 in Arabic
  2. Explaining the History (of the Struggle). Somali & Arabic 1992
  3. Explaining the History (of the Struggle). Somali & Arabic 1992
  4. Ogadenia Stops the Ethiopians- Somali 1996
  5. The Sum of Books (History of the Struggle) 2001.

onlfpress@onlf.org

Ogaden online

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Headline: Ethiopia: Ogaden rebels claim 29 soldiers killed in east

Text of report by Ethiopian opposition Radio Freedom audio website on 20 June

Our Radio Freedom reporter in the Ogaden [all places in eastern Ethiopia] reports that at least 29 soldiers have been killed and 20 others have been wounded in five days in separate battles between the ONLA [Ogaden National Liberation Army] and Ethiopian colonial troops. The battles occurred as follows:

On 19 June 2008, colonial soldiers who had been sent to a place called Abadhis in Degeh Bur to conduct a military operation were attacked. Two soldiers were killed and three others were wounded in the attack.

On 17 June 2008, colonial soldiers in Far-Dhig, Kebri Dehar, were attacked, killing two soldiers and wounding one.

On 13 and 16 June 2008, ten colonial soldiers were killed and six others were wounded in fighting that occurred in Darida of Hamaro district.

On 15 June 2008, eleven colonial soldiers were killed and eight others were wounded in two separates battles in Dhofa and Har-Dhagah, respectively. On the same date, a battle occurred in Shabeley in the district of Kebri Dehar. Four colonial soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in the battle.

Meanwhile, fresh troops that were deployed in Har-Ad district after ONLA routed troops previously stationed there, have begun deserting fearing that the ONLA will attack again. Similarly, puppet militiamen in Korahey province have started empting their camps before the ONLA storm them.

Source: Radio Freedom, Voice of the Ogadeni People audio website in Somali 20 Jun 08

June 22, 2008
Posted by halgan at 18:40:47 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Barnaamijkii Radio Xoriyo ee June 14, 2008

  • Hawlgalkii Guluf ee ciidanka qalabka sida oo guul ku fulay.

  • Gudoomiyaha H/Arimaha gudaha iyo Amniga oo si faahfaahsan
    uga warbixinaya halgalkii Guluf.

  • Human Rights Watch oo itoobiya ku eedaysay inay Ogadenya ka gaysatay dambiyo dagaal.

  • Wariye Madax banaan oo ka qayb galay ka waraysanay shir saxaafadeedkii HRW.

  • Jwxo oo soo dhaweysay shir saxaafadeedka HRW bayaan taageero ahna soo saartay.

Hawlgalkii Guluf ee ciidanka qalabka sida oo guul ku fulay.

In ka badan 1000 askari ayaa ciidammada gumaysiga Itoobiya laga dilay, tiro badana waa laga dhaawacay, ka dib markii CWXO bishan 10-keedii iyo 11-keedii fuliyeen hawlgal Guluf loogu magac daray oo laga fuliyay meelo kala duwan oo Ogaadeenya ka mid ah. Hawgalka Guluf waxaa sidoo kale ciidammada gumaysiga lagaga qabtay maxaabiis badan iyo bub kala duwan.

10/06/08 waxay CWXO fuliyeen hawlgal Guluf loogu magac daray oo ay ka fuliyeen ciidammada gumaysiga eek u sugan qaar ka mid ah degmooyinka dalka Ogaadeenya, waxayna ku burburiyeen in ka badan labo Guuto oo ka mid ah ciidammada gumaysiga Itoobiya.

Hawlgalka Guluf waxaa isla fuliyay Qaybaha Gorgor iyo Duufaan bee CWXO, waxayna ka fuliyeen degmooyinka Dhagaxmadow iyo Dudumo-Cadka, waxayna cagta mariyeen ciidammadii gumaysiga ee labadaas degmo ku sugnaa, kuwaasoo ay ka dhigeen wax la dilay, wax la dhaawacay, wax la qabtay iyo wax fiigay.

Degmada Dhagaxmadow waxaa ku sugnaa hal Guuto oo ciidammada gumaysiga ah iyo koox Malleeshiyo ah, waxay CWXO ku guulaysteen inay si buuxda gacanta ugu dhigaan sladhigyadii ay ciidammada gumaysigu ku lahaayeen degmada Dhagaxmadow. Waxaa halkaas ciidammada gumaysiga lagaga furtay hub iyo saanad kale oo aad u fara badana, waxaana maxaabiis ahaa loo qabtay 28 askari.

Degmada Dudumo-Cadkana waxaa iyadana ku sugnaa labo Urur oo ciidammada Itoobiya ah, kuwaasoo guud ahaantoodba hawlgab laga dhigay, iyadoo laga furtay hub aad u badan, isla markaana laga qabtay maxaabiis aan tirakoobkeeda wali la helin.

CWXO waxay sidoo kale sutida u dhigeen ciidammo gumaysigu leeyahay oo ka soo gurmaday Fiiq iyo Baabili, kuwaasoo lagu hakiyay meelo aan u dhawayn goobihii dagaalka, isla markaana dib loogu celiyay meelihii ay ka yimaadeen, lagana furtay hub iyo qalab kale.

Hawlgalka Guluf ayaa sidoo kale laga fuliyay meelo ka mid ah gobolka Qorraxey maalin ka dib markii ciidammada gumaysiga cashirro lama illaawaan ah loogu dhigay degmooyinka Dhagaxmadow iyo Dudumo-Cadka oo ka tirsan gobolka Jarar.

Markii ay taariikhdu ahayd 11/06/08 cutubyo ka tirsan Qaybta Danab ee CWXO ayaa weerar si fiican loo qorsheeyay ku qaaday saldhigyadii ay ciidammadu gumaysigu ku lahaayeen degmada Haar-Cad, ee gobolka Qorraxey, waxayna cagta mariyeen ciidammadii gumaysiga ee saldhigyadaas ku sugnaa oo hla Guuto ahaa iyo malleeshiyo la hawlgali jirtay, waxaana u suuragashay inay gacanta ku dhigaan guud ahaanba saldhigyadii cadowgu ku lahaa degmada Haar-Cad, iyadoo ciidammadii gumaysiga u qaybsameen wax la laayay, wax la dhaawacay iyo wax cagaha wax ka dayay markay iska caabiyi waayeen xoogagga ku cartamay ee CWXO. Waxaa ciidammada gumaysiga halkaas lagaga furtay hub aad u badan iyo qalab kale oo millatari.

CWXO waxay sidoo kale u babac-dhigeen ciidammadii gumaysiga ee ka soo gurmaday dhinaca Shilaabo, kuwaasoo cutubyo loo diyaariyay ay ku heleen jidka, isla markaana gaadhsiiyeen khasaare aad u ballaadhan. Waxaa ciidammadaas gurmadka ahaa laga gubay hal baabuur oo Uuraal ah, kaasoo isaga iyo wixii saarnaaba ay halkaas ku bas-beeleen.

Hawlgalka Guluf, oo ahaa mid lagaga jawaabayay hadalkii keligii taliye Zenawi ee ahaa inuu ololihii sannadka qaatay ku soo afjaray awooddii CWXO, ayaa argagax ballaadhan ku abuuray ciidammada gumaysiga, oo markii horaba la niyad xumaa dhirbaaxooyinka kaga yimaada weerarrada CWXO iyo rajo xumada ku haysata Ogaadeenya.

Hawlgalka Guluf wuxuu farxad wayn iyo yididiilo hor-leh ku abuuray dadwaynaha Ogaadeenya oo si wayn u soo dhaweeyay guulaha ballaadhan ee CWXO ka soo hoyiyeen gumaysiga iyo sida maalinba maalinta ka denbaysa ay sii korayso cududda iyo tayada CWXO.

14 Jun 2008

Axmed Gaal-Eri

Radioxorio@radioxoriyo.com
Raadioxoriyo@yahoo.com
Posted by halgan at 11:17:38 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

O.N.L.F Statement On Human Rights Watch (HRW) Report On Ogaden





13 June 2008

The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) generally welcomes yesterday's report issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirming collective punishment, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Ethiopian regime in Ogaden.

The ONLF has maintained for some time that the Ogaden is the scene of yet another unfolding African Genocide warranting an urgent international response. HRW's report confirms that the Ogaden crisis is not solely a humanitarian issue but a political one resulting in a protracted armed conflict where the Ethiopian regime has been engaged in a systematic and deliberate campaign of death and destruction targeting the Somali people of Ogaden.

Donor nations cannot continue to support a regime determined to systematically kill and uproot an entire people. Citizens of donor nations should now take a stand and refuse to allow their tax monies to fund crimes against humanity in Ogaden.

The United Nations Security Council must immediately act on the findings of the report and pass and enforce a resolution requiring Ethiopia to provide free and unfettered access to Ogaden so that humanitarian organizations can distribute aid, human rights investigators can monitor gross violations of human rights and the international media can inform the public of events on the ground.

Ethiopia’s rejection of the HRW report shows the world that it has no intention of ending crimes against humanity in Ogaden if left to its own devices. It further calls into question why Ethiopia is denying the international community and media access to Ogaden if it has nothing to hide.

In response to HRW's report, the ONLF leadership has resolved the following

1. The ONLF is prepared to facilitate entry into Ogaden for Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI) and any other legitimate international human rights organization which chooses to take advantage of our open invitation to come and investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in areas under ONLF control. The ONLF will in no way interfere with the work of those human rights investigators who choose to take advantage of our invitation.

2. The ONLF calls upon international human rights organizations to designate a liaison to work directly with the ONLF's leadership on any and all matters relating to the conduct of ONLF military personnel. We are confident that a thorough investigation of the facts will continue to confirm that the ONLF enjoys widespread support among the people of Ogaden particularly because of the professional conduct of our armed forces. This is an opportunity for human rights organizations to work constructively with a subject of their research in order to address human rights concerns. This cooperation will also facilitate future investigations.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) will continue to act as both a defender of and advocate for the Somali people of Ogaden in their legitimate pursuit of a free and unfettered exercise of their right to self-determination.

Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)

Posted by halgan at 11:01:13 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Collective punishment: War crimes and crimes against humanity in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia's Somali regional state


 
Summary

Tens of thousands of ethnic Somali civilians living in eastern Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State are experiencing serious abuses and a looming humanitarian crisis in the context of a little-known conflict between the Ethiopian government and an Ethiopian Somali rebel movement. The situation is critical. Since mid-2007, thousands of people have fled, seeking refuge in neighboring Somalia and Kenya from widespread Ethiopian military attacks on civilians and villages that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

For those who remain in the war-affected area, continuing abuses by both rebels and Ethiopian troops pose a direct threat to their survival and create a pervasive culture of fear. The Ethiopian military campaign of forced relocations and destruction of villages reduced in early 2008 compared to its peak in mid-2007, but other abuses — including arbitrary detentions, torture, and mistreatment in detention—are continuing. These are combining with severe restrictions on movement and commercial trade, minimal access to independent relief assistance, a worsening drought, and rising food prices to create a highly vulnerable population at risk of humanitarian disaster.

Although the conflict has been simmering for years with intermittent allegations of abuses, it took on dramatic new momentum after the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) attacked a Chinese-run oil installation in Somali Region in April 2007, killing more than 70 Chinese and Ethiopian civilians. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government, led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, responded by launching a brutal counter-insurgency campaign in the five zones of Somali Region primarily affected by the conflict: Fiiq, Korahe, Gode, Wardheer, and Dhagahbur. In these zones the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) have deliberately and repeatedly attacked civilian populations in an effort to root out the insurgency.

Ethiopian troops have forcibly displaced entire rural communities, ordering villagers to leave their homes within a few days or witness their houses being burnt down and their possessions destroyed—and risk death. Over the past year, Human Rights Watch has documented the execution of more than 150 individuals, many of them in demonstration killings, with Ethiopian soldiers singling out relatives of suspected ONLF members, or making apparently arbitrary judgments that individuals complaining to soldiers or resisting their orders are ONLF supporters. These executions have sometimes involved strangulation, after which their bodies are left lying in the open as a warning, for villagers to bury. The information confirmed by Human Rights Watch is only a glimpse of what is taking place—real figures are likely to be higher.

Mass detentions without any judicial oversight are routine. Hundreds—and possibly thousands—of individuals have been arrested and held in military barracks, sometimes multiple times, where they have been tortured, raped, and assaulted. Confiscation of livestock (the main asset among the largely pastoralist population), restrictions on access to water, food, and other essential commodities, and obstruction of commercial traffic and humanitarian assistance have been used as weapons in an economic war aimed at cutting off ONLF supplies and collectively punishing communities that are suspected of supporting the rebels.

These crimes are being committed with total impunity, on the thinnest of pretexts. They are generating a perception in the area that simply being an ethnic Somali —and particularly a member of the Ogaadeeni clan which constitutes the backbone of the ONLF—is enough to render a person suspect in the eyes of the national government. As one young man told Human Rights Watch, ‘Anyone with a bowl of water is suspected of supplying the ONLF.’

Ethiopian military personnel who ordered or participated in attacks on civilians should be held responsible for war crimes. Senior military and civilian officials who knew or should have known of such crimes but took no action may be criminally liable as a matter of command responsibility. The widespread and apparently systematic nature of the attacks on villages throughout Somali Region is strong evidence that the killings, torture, rape, and forced displacement are also crimes against humanity for which the Ethiopian government bears ultimate responsibility.

The ONLF has also been responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war). These include the summary execution of dozens of Chinese and Ethiopian civilians in the context of its April 2007 attack on the oil installation, the ONLF practice of killing suspected government collaborators, and the indiscriminate mining of roads used by government convoys. Those who ordered or carried out such acts are responsible for war crimes. Many civilians feel trapped with no refuge from ONLF pressure or the abuses by Ethiopian troops.

The Ethiopian government has repeatedly dismissed or minimized concerns about the human rights and humanitarian situation in Somali Region. It often claims, particularly to the international audience, that insecurity in the region is the work of Eritrean-backed ‘terrorists’ seeking to destabilize Ethiopia. There is no question that the political dynamics in Somali Region intertwine with regional dynamics and are influenced by the continuing hostility between Eritrea and Ethiopia as well as events in neighboring Somalia. The application of terrorist rhetoric to the internal conflict with the ONLF, however, appears designed mainly to attract support from the United States as part of the ‘war on terror.’ It does not justify violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

The government faces complex challenges in Somali Region. The ONLF, which claims to be seeking self-determination for the region, represents only a segment of the divided Ethiopian Somali community. There are legitimate fears that the escalating conflict across the border in Somalia could spill into Ethiopia. The authorities face difficult questions on how to best establish the rule of law in a remote, povertystricken region largely inhabited by pastoralists who have little knowledge of or confidence in state institutions that have long neglected them. Instead of addressing these challenges in good faith with efforts to build institutions and accountability to support the rule of law and reduce the appeal of armed groups, the government has implemented violent repression, echoing the response to the region of previous Ethiopian administrations.

The Ethiopian government’s reaction to reports of abuses in 2007 has been to deny the allegations, disparage the sources, and actively restrict or control access to the region by journalists, human rights groups, and aid organizations (including by expelling the International Committee of the Red Cross in July 2007).

Due to increasing alarm over humanitarian conditions, particularly malnutrition rates among children, the UN and some nongovernmental organizations were permitted to expand humanitarian programs in parts of the region in late 2007, a small positive step. However these operations have been limited to certain geographic areas, are vulnerable to constant government threats and harassment, are sometimes unable to operate with sufficient independence from government control, and have no protection mandate or capacity to respond to the attacks on civilians which remain the biggest priority for many affected communities.

The Ethiopian government’s politicized manipulation of humanitarian operations, particularly food distribution, plus the continued restrictions on commercial traffic and trade are creating a situation that—in combination with the drought produced by failed rains—could quickly slip into catastrophe. The Ethiopian government should take urgent action to ensure that the needs of vulnerable civilians in Somali Region are prioritized, including in emergency appeals. Yet due to government obstruction and restrictions on access to conflict-affected zones, humanitarian agencies cannot even conduct the independent nutritional assessments needed to fully assess the scale and formulate a proper response to the potential crisis.

The international response to the situation ranges from insipid to disingenuous. Western governments, including the US, UK, and European Union, which cumulatively provide almost US$2 billion of aid to Ethiopia every year and rely on the Ethiopian government as a key ally in a volatile region, have sent a number of delegations to the region but have refrained from even mild public concern, much less criticism. The US government, which is a staunch Ethiopian ally—particularly in counter-terrorism efforts—and has probably the greatest leverage of any of the donor governments, has minimized and possibly actively ignored internal concerns and reporting on the situation.

Instead of maintaining the complicity of silence, donor governments should start using their leverage to insist on three sets of immediate actions in Somali Region. Full recommendations are given below.

First, both the Ethiopian government and the ONLF should support full, unhindered and immediate access to the region for independent aid organizations, the media, and human rights groups, and the government should lift restrictions on commercial trade and civilian and livestock movement, including across the border with Somaliland. Implementing this recommendation would have an immediate positive effect on civilian access to water and grazing for their livestock, food, and local markets and could mitigate the impending food crisis. Humanitarian organizations should also have immediate, unimpeded access to conduct independent nutritional surveys in all affected areas and properly monitor food distribution to ensure it is not diverted.

Second, the Ethiopian government should immediately issue clear public orders to the armed forces and all other security agencies in Somali Region to cease abuses of civilians, including the military’s forced relocations, extrajudicial executions, mass detentions, and mistreatment of detainees. The ONLF should also cease killings of civilians, including government officials, desist from the indiscriminate use of mines along key roads in Somali Region and publicly commit to abide by international humanitarian law.

Third, Ethiopian authorities should establish an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the allegations of abuses by all parties to the conflict and begin short and long-term efforts to ensure accountability for abuses by government security forces in Somali Region and elsewhere, including judicial and security sector reforms.

Rapid implementation of these recommendations could help to avert catastrophe in Somali Region. If the abuses continue, denied by the Ethiopian government and ignored by international donors, the outcome is all too clear: yet another cycle of human rights devastation, famine, and impoverishment in a region which already knows these trends all too well, and thousands of new victims, embittered by the repeated denial of their rights as human beings and Ethiopians.


 Full_Report (pdf* format - 1.6 Mbytes)
 
Posted by halgan at 09:49:20 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

ONLF:Military communiqué

10 June 2008


The Ogaden National Liberation Army has started Major Operations in The Ogaden After rebuffing the late May offensive by the "Ethiopian" Army. ONLA has started a major counter-offensive today. The Units from the Gorgor Command (Eagle Command) have launched two pronged offensive in Dhagah-Madow district west of Dhagahbur and the Dudumo-Ad Garrison near Baabili district. In Dhagah-Madow districts there were three Wayane Battalions and their support units and in Dudumo- Ad Garrison there were two battalions and their support Units. Both Garrisons were captured and enemy troops destroyed.

Hundreds of soldiers were captured and causalities were very high. Reinforcement forces from Harar, Fiq and Dhagah bur were also repelled, degraded and dispersed and ONLA is in hot pursuit of the remnants. In total more than 1800 Wayane troops were either killed, captured or had dispersed in the Ogaden wilderness. Heavy weaponry, ammunition and military vehicles were also captured. These two garrisons are strategic locations for the control of the area south and North West of the Jarar Valley.

The Battle is escalating and may spread into other cities in the Ogaden. Further details will be provided when the full report reaches ONLF information Bureau.
 

Posted by halgan at 11:51:36 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

ONLF Commandos Overrun Ethiopian Defenses in Ogaden Towns



June 10, 2008 Reports reaching our service desk confirm that the Gorgor battalion of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) successfully overruns the Ethiopian defenses in the towns of Dhagax-madoow and Dundumo-cadka. Dhagax-madow is in the Jarar province which the Ethiopian military and its associated militias have had a major military garrison. Dundumo-cadka is only kilometers away room the strategic town of Baabili.

Eyewitnesses reported the Gorgor battalion captured both towns and the military garrisons in and around them. Most of the Ethiopian soldiers in these garrisons are reported to either have been killed, captured alive, or are unaccounted for at the time of going to press. It is reported that Ethiopian re-enforcements could not reach both towns since these re-enforcements are said to have been waylaid by ONLF forces, which were strategically placed in all the roads leading to these towns.

Camel herders who were in the area at the time reported that Ethiopian re-enforcements from Dhagax Bur were surprised by a large ONLF force stationed near outskirts of the city. The surprise attack is said to have forced these re-enforcements to return back to Dhagax Bur.

On the Baabili side, ONLF army personnel stationed in the roads leading to Dundumo-cadka ambushed Ethiopian re-enforcements. It is said that these re-enforcements could not successfully reach the town to help out the garrison that was overrun in the town.

There has been no accurate casualty counts in the battles in Dhagax Madoow, and Dundomo-cadka. Locals interviewed by our reporters in these towns indicated that the armies in the garrison overrun by ONLF numbered around 1800 military personnel.

Our reporters in the area reported that the Gorgor battalion is the said battalion that overran the Cobolo oil exploration sites in April 2007. Locals told our reporters in these towns how ecstatic they were in finally seeing the backs of the Ethiopian militias who have been harassing the town folks and looting property for months now.

One of our senior reporters in the area said that the latest successful destruction of main military garrisons belies the recent claims by the Ethiopian prime minister that his army destroyed over 95% of the ONLF army. This senior reporter added that reliable ONLF forces intimated with him that the Gorgor commando operation is only the first of planned ONLF military incursions targeting major Ethiopian military garrisons throughout Ogaden in the coming months.

--Ogaden Online News
Posted by halgan at 11:49:33 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |