Ethiopian Annihilation of The Ogaden People
By <
http://www.eurasiareview.com/author/graham-peebles/> Graham Peebles --
(February 25, 2013)
Besieged, abused, ignored
In the harsh Ogaden region of Ethiopia, impoverished ethnic Somali people
are being murdered and tortured, raped, persecuted and displaced by
government paramilitary forces. Illegal actions carried out with the
knowledge and tacit support of donor countries, seemingly content to turn a
blind eye to war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by their
brutal, repressive ally in the region; and a deaf ear to the pain and
suffering of the Ogaden Somali people.
Around five million traditionally nomadic pastoralists – live in what is one
of the least developed corners of the world besieged by military oppression,
drought and famine.
Democracy denied
When the British, with due colonial duplicity, arrogantly handed the Ogaden
region over to Ethiopia in 1954, the ethnic Somali people found themselves
under occupation by, what they regard as a foreign power. The centuries old
struggle for self-determination, has since 1984 been taken up by the Ogaden
National Liberation Front (ONLF), predictably regarded as ‘terrorists’ by
the Ethiopian government; which hunts them down and, with impunity,
tortures, imprisons and rapes its members and suspected supporters while
carrying out widespread extrajudicial killings.
In 1992 as part of the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front’s
(EPRDF) much trumpeted, never realized policy of Ethnic Federalism, that
promised autonomy and cultural respect to the many tribal groups in the
country; ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden were officially acknowledged and
inaugural regional elections held. The ONLF, a secular group in a largely
Muslim region, “won 60% of seats… and formed the new (regional) government”
Human Rights Watch (HRW)i reported. Two years later, and in response to the
will of the people, the ONLF called for a referendum on self-determination.
The government’s reaction to such democratic gall was to kill 81 unarmed
civilians in the town of Wardheer, disband the regional parliament, arrest
and imprison the vice-president and several other members of the parliament,
instigate mass arrests and indiscriminate killings; this brutal act ignited
the current struggle and drove the ONLF into the shadows and its current
guerilla war.
Resource rich
The region, rich in oil and gas reserves, is potentially the wealthiest area
of Ethiopia. Resources that the indigenous people are understandably keen to
benefit from, that the EPRDF sees as another party asset to add to its
burgeoning portfolio. Genocide Watch (GW) ii tell us that, “immediately
after oil and gas were discovered in the Ogaden, Ethiopian government forces
evicted large numbers of [Ogaden Somalis] from their ancestral grazing lands
and herded them into Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, causing a
humanitarian disaster”. If the ONLF are correct and their view sounds more
than plausible, the Ethiopian military intends to secure the resources for
the government and exclude the local people. The Africa Faith and Justice
Networkiii confirms such suspicions, saying: “With the discovery of
petroleum leading to exploration missions by foreign companies, the
government’s motives are questionable.”
Upfront fees for exploration rights are reputed to have been sold to foreign
corporations for between $50 – $100 million, paid by under-informed,
overexcited multinationals, who subsequently pull out, having underestimated
the logistical problems of working in the region. China Petroleum was one
such; they were subjected to an unprecedented ill-judged attack by the ONLF
in 2007 that caused the deaths of nine Chinese workmen and, according to
China Dailyiv, “65 Ethiopian employees”. The Ethiopian government, itching
to intensify the conflict that had been simmering for over three decades,
retaliated with excessive brutality, by HRW reports, “launching a brutal
counter-insurgency campaign in the five zones of [the] Somali Region
primarily affected by the conflict… [Where] the Ethiopian National Defense
Forces (ENDF) has deliberately and repeatedly attacked civilian
populations,” killing hundreds of men women and children.
Displaced & destitute
Thousands of terrified Ogaden Somalis have since fled the affected areas.
They seek refuge “in neighbouring Somalia and Kenya from widespread
Ethiopian military attacks on civilians and villages that amount to war
crimes and crimes against humanity,“(ibid). Large numbers have been made
homeless and destitute, accurate numbers are difficult to collate due to
restricted access, however human rights groups estimate the number, to be
greater than one hundred thousand.
The Ogaden, GW states “has been transformed into a vast military occupied
area, with thousands in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps.” Most
displaced persons, the International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)v
reports, “sought shelter with relatives or safety in the bush, rather than
gathering in organized camps,” where widespread abuse is known to take
place, including starvation that GW describes as “genocide by attrition”.
These desperate, frightened people are not regarded as refugees and so
receive no humanitarian aid support from the United Nations High Commission
for Refugees (UNHCR). And the EPRDF, consistent with their duplicitous
approach to governance, fails to meet dutiful obligations under the historic
Kampala Conventionvi which “reaffirms that national authorities have the
primary responsibility to provide assistance to IDPs…. (And) … to address
the plight of people uprooted within their borders”. The ruling party
ignores these requirements, acting not in accordance with international law,
the federal constitution or indeed their moral duty.
Especially violent
In 2009, after widespread condemnation of the Ethiopian army’s conduct in
the region, the regime formed the highly suspect Liyu (Special) Police.
Somaliland Press (26/9/12)vii states, the government “deliberately recruited
unemployed youths from the streets”. This shadowy paramilitary force of
10,000 – 14,000, fits, HRWviii says, “into the context of impunity where
security forces can more or less do what they want.” Not a group, then, that
the British government should be supporting. In a baffling move however,
according to The Guardian (10/1/13)ix, the Department for International
Development (DFID)x has submitted, a “tender to train security forces in the
Somali region of Ogaden”, Amnesty International’s Claire Beston said: “It
was highly concerning that the UK was planning to engage with the Special
Police..…. There is no doubt that the Special Police have become a
significant source of fear in the region.”(Ibid) The DFID in denying the
report ambiguously states that, “reforming the Special Police is critical
for achieving a safe and secure Somali Region”, failing to recognize that
the Liyu force needs not reforming but disbanding and, along with all
Ethiopian military personnel, marched out of the region immediately.
State-sanctioned terrorism and genocide
In addition to murder and rape, appalling levels of torture and
extrajudicial execution are reported. Thousands, according to GW, “have been
arrested without any charges and held in desolate desert prisons”. Mass
detention “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”, HRW report.
Children and women being the most vulnerable suffer acutely, the rape of
Ogaden Somali women is a favored weapon of the Ethiopian paramilitary; held
in military barracks women are imprisoned as sex slaves, where they are
subjected to multiple gang rape and torture. African Rights Monitor (ARM)xi
recount one woman’s story that mirrors many and shocks us all. She claims to
have been, “raped by fifty soldiers for a period of twelve hours and hung
upside down over a pit of fire that had chili powder in…. to suffocate her
lungs”.
Statistics of abuse are impossible to state, the numbers are perhaps of less
importance than the crimes and the suffering caused, survivors bear the
physical scars and mental trauma of their ordeals, from which many may never
recover.
A scorched-earth policy involving burning of crops and homes and killing
cattle is part of the campaign of state terror, as HRW record, “Confiscation
of livestock [the main asset], restrictions on access to water, food, and
other essential commodities” have “been used as weapons in an economic war”.
As has the destruction of villages, confirmed by evidence from the American
Association for the Advancement of Science,xii proving, “that the Ethiopian
military has attacked civilians and burned towns and villages in eight
locations across the remote Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia.” Such
inhumane methods are employed by the EPRDF to instill fear in the Ogaden
Somali people and suppress their legitimate demands for autonomy. It is
shocking criminal abuse which staggeringly, “GW considers to have already
reached stage 7 [of 8], genocidal massacres against many [Ogadeni, Anuk,
Oromo and Omo] of its people”. International donors however, who provide a
third of Ethiopia’s total federal budget – around $4 billion a year, to
their utter shame say and do nothing; neglect constituting complicity.
Village executions
With the region virtually shut off, video evidence smuggled out of Ethiopia
by Abdullahi Hussein, a former Ethiopian civil servant is rare. Revealing
Somaliland Press (26/9/12)xiii say that, “whole villages have been emptied
of inhabitants through executions and mass flight from terror… you can hear
members of the Liyu Police desecrate a civilian they have just killed. They
stomp on his head and poke his face with a stick.” Such attacks on
settlements are routine: Demanding our attention is Qurille village in the
Wardeer district attacked in September 2012: Ogaden Online xiv recounts how
troops: “Shoot each resident of the town in their custody at point blank
range” including women and children. Bodies are hung from trees in a public
display of state terrorism, to engender lasting fear. This type of brutality
is widespread. HRWxv records how in Raqda village in the Gashaamo district
during March 2012, “the Liyu police force summarily executed at least 10 men
– in their custody, killed at least nine residents… [and] abducted at least
24 men.”
The killing continued two days later on 17th March, when “Liyu police took
another four men from their homes and summarily executed them. A woman whose
brother was a veterinarian told HRW: “They caught my brother and took him
outside. They shot him in the head and then slit his throat.” Defenseless
villages are easy prey for the Liyu and their brutal methodology, as HRWxvi
state, “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 possessions destroyed—and risk death”. Page upon page
could be filled with such violent disturbing accounts.
Exclusion of foreign media and aid workers
Contrary to constitutional and human rights law, the EPRDF has imposed a
widespread blockade on the Ogaden region, seeking to control the flow of
information outside the country as it does within its borders, where it
allows no freedom of the media; of expression, of assembly or of political
dissent. Add to this the outlawing of trade unions and the partisan
distribution of aid and a picture of a brutal totalitarian regime emerges
from the duplicitous mist of politically correct, democratic rhetoric.
Attempts to work in the region by international media and humanitarian
groups are seen as criminal acts, punishable under the widely condemned
anti-terrorist proclamation. Two Swedish journalists investigating human
rights abuses in the Ogaden, made headlines in July 2011 when they were
attacked and arrested by the Liyu police and subjected to a terrifying
‘mock’ execution. Charged and sentenced in Ethiopia’s kangaroo court to 11
years imprisonment, they were later released having served 400 days in
appalling conditions. Reporters from the New York Times, The Telegraph and
Voice of America have also been imprisoned and expelled, so too United
Nations (UN) workers and staff from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) who were
arrested and accused of being spies! Wrapped in paranoia, the EPRDF
suspended 42 NGOs in 2009 for reporting government human rights abuses in
the region and, in 2007 in what must be the EPRDF’s Pièce de résistance, the
International Committee of the Red Cross were expelled.
In addition to the information embargo, the region is subject to what HRW
describe as “severe restrictions on movement and commercial trade, minimal
access to independent relief assistance,” and the “politicized manipulation
of humanitarian operations, particularly food distribution”; meaning food
supplied by donor countries is stolen to feed the Ethiopian army and the
Liyu force. This in one of the worst areas for drought and famine in the
country, where, In-Depth Africaxvii reports, “1,539,279 people (30% of the
population) in the region lack food, water and health services”.
Peace and justice for the people
The little known conflict in the Ogaden is a cause of intense tension
between Ethiopia and Somalia and a destabilizing issue in an unstable
region. It is a fight that has been distorted by the former Government of
Somalia, which sought to misrepresent the issue and transform it into a
boundary dispute; a misconception that suits the Ethiopian regime keen to
avoid the substantive point of regional autonomy.
All efforts to facilitate a lasting peaceful resolution to what is an
age-old struggle should be urgently made, Ethiopia’s donors and
facilitators, principally America, along with the European Union and Britain
must act with due responsibility. Action should be taken to: Close down IDP
camps and the people allowed to return to their communities; aid provided
for rebuilding villages (not to train the Liyu) destroyed by the military;
regional elections organised and a referendum on self-determination held.
The appalling atrocities committed daily by the Ethiopian paramilitary
constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity that should immediately be
referred to the International Criminal Court for prosecution. They are,
though, just the deepest wounds within a scarred body of human rights
abuses, violating federal and international law, being perpetrated by the
EPRDF regime throughout the country and with utter impunity. This must end
and the Ogaden Somali people, allowed to determine their own destiny and to
live in peace.
i.
http://www.hrw.org/node/62175/section/4
ii.
http://www.genocidewatch.org/ethiopia.html
iii.
http://www.afjn.org/focus-campaigns/other/other-continental-issues/80-democr
acy-and-governance/874-the-ogaden-crisis-the-horn-of-africas-invisible-human
itarian-disaster.html
iv.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-04/24/content_858956.htm
v.
http://www.internal-displacement.org/countries/ethiopia
vi.
http://www.internal-displacement.org/kampala-convention
vii.
http://somalilandpress.com/ethiopia-a-wave-of-atrocities-against-villages-in
-ogaden-35429
viii. [1]
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/09/201291795840290803.html
ix.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/10/ethiopia-forces-human-rights-fun
ding
x.
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/news/press-statements/
xi. www.africanrightsmonitor.org/pubs/1.pdf Concerns over the Ogaden
Territory Report
xii.
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2008/0612ethiopia_intro.shtml
xiii.
http://somalilandpress.com/ethiopia-a-wave-of-atrocities-against-villages-in
-ogaden-35429
xiv.
http://ogaden.com/hornnews/ogaden/1495-ethiopian-mass-murder-in-miirdanbas-q
oriile.html– By Mohamud A. Dubet
xv.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/05/28/ethiopia-special-police-execute-10
xvi. www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/features/ethiopia/index.html
xvii.
http://indepthafrica.com/in-ethiopia-a-war-on-humanitarian-agencies-and-staf
f/#.UPBCpVRl8Xw In Ethiopia: A War on Humanitarian Agencies and Staff
<
http://www.eurasiareview.com/author/graham-peebles/>
Received on Tue Feb 26 2013 - 10:25:20 EST
