Under Darkness in the Somali Region of Ethiopia
By GRAHAM PEEBLES
Weekend Edition April 19-21, 2013
No matter how tightly truth is tied down, confined and suffocated, she
slowly escapes. Seeping out through cracks and openings large and small,
illuminating all, revealing the grime and shame, that cowers in the shadows.
The arid Somali (or Ogaden) region of Ethiopia, home to some 5 million
ethnic Somalis has been isolated from the world since 2005, when the
government imposed a ban on all international media and most humanitarian
groups from operating in the area. Human Rights Watch (HRW), report that the
government, "has tried to stem the flow of information from the region. Some
foreign journalists who have attempted to conduct independent investigations
have been arrested and residents and witnesses have been threatened and
detained in order to prevent them from speaking out". Aid workers with the
United Nations (UN), Medecines Sans Frontiers (MSF) and the International
Committee of The Red Cross, plus journalists from a range of western papers,
including The New York Times have all had staff expelled and/or detained, by
the Ethiopian regime, which speaks of democracy yet does act not in
accordance with its own liberal constitution and consistently violates
international law, with total impunity.
Under the cover of media darkness together with donor country indifference,
the Ethiopian government according to a host of human rights organisations,
is committing wide-ranging human rights abuses that amount to war crimes and
crimes against humanity. Serious accusations based on accounts relayed by
refugees and interviews with Ogaden Somalis on the ground, thatgive, one
fears, a hint only of the level of state criminality taking place in the
troubled, largely ignored region. HRW, make clear the seriousness of the
situation, stating that, "tens of thousands of ethnic Somali civilians
living in eastern Ethiopia's Somali Regional State are experiencing serious
abuses. 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 possessions destroyed-and risk death."
The African Rights Monitor (ARM) in their detailed study, conservatively
titled 'Concerns Over the Ogaden Territory', found, "that the Ethiopian
government has systematically and repeatedly arbitrarily detained, tortured
and inhumanly degraded the Ogaden people." Women and children they report,
"are raped, sexually assaulted, and killed". The ruling Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) they found, "systematically attacks
the women and children as they are the weakest in a civil society" and are
unable to defend themselves. Documenting a series of specific cases of
violence, HRW (28/05/2012) report, "an Ethiopian government-backed
paramilitary force [the Liyuu Police] summarily executed 10 men during a
March 2012 operation", HRW "interviewed witnesses and relatives of the
victims who described witnessing at least 10 summary executions.. The actual
number may be higher." Such accounts as these clearly warrant investigation
by independent agencies, and yet they are resolutely ignored. Supporters of
the regime know well what is occurring throughout the Ogaden, and yet they
remain silent. America - the single biggest donor to the country, with
military bases inside Ethiopia from where their deadly drones are launched
into Somalia and Yemen - and Britain are close allies - of the Ethiopian
government it seems, but not of the Ethiopian people it seems.
A Regime of Abuse
Page after page could be filled with detailed accounts of abuse from
refugees who have fled the region, human rights groups and members of the
Ogaden diaspora. Atrocities meted out to innocent civilians suspected of
supporting the ONLF, which Genocide Watch (GW) find, amount to "war crimes
and crimes against humanity". Beaten to death, hanged from a tree, tied with
wire and held over burning chilies, raped, repeatedly and falsely
imprisoned; brutal, unjustifiable acts, justified by the government as part
of a 'counter insurgency operation', against the Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF), predictably branded terrorists.
Documented reports of human rights violations amounting to state terrorism
are dismissed by the EPRDF government, a regime with a notoriously dismal
human rights record - who suggest that such accounts are reports of military
personnel simply carrying out their duty to safeguard the Ethiopian people
by routing out terrorist gangs. A scripted rhetoric of righteousness drafted
in Washington after 9/11, translated worldwide distorted and espoused by
totalitarian governments East and West, North and South to legitimise
methods of control and acts of aggression.
Given the media restrictions, we cannot vouchsafe the governments view, but
"if the Ethiopian government doesn't have anything to hide, why don't they
allow independent investigators and journalists into the region", Leslie
Lefkow, HRW deputy director of Africa, poses the question on the tip of our
tongues that cannot be asked too often. There is, she says with
understatement, " a lot of concern about the human rights situation on the
Ogaden". GW are more blunt, claiming unequivocally that Ethiopia is
committing genocide in the Somali region, as well as to the "Anuak, Oromo
and Omo" ethnic groups (or tribes). And they call on the EPRDF regime to
"cease all attacks on the Ogaden Somali" people and "immediately release all
prisoners", urging them to "adhere to it's own constitution and allow its
provinces the legal autonomy they are guaranteed."
A Captains Story
In 2005, delivery of the Ethiopian government's violent policy of
suppression in the Ogaden shifted from the Military to the newly-formed
paramilitary group, the Liyuu Police. Not a recognisable police force at
all, as Faysal Mohamoud Abdi Wali a defected 38-year-old former Captain in
the Intelligence unit of the Liyuu makes clear, but "an extension of the
military", which operates under a cloak of impunity, lacking all
accountability. Faysal Mohammoud served in the Liyuu from its inception
eight years ago, when it was called the 'Liyuu Xayi' until he defected in
2012. His testimony is of particular interest, especially given the media
ban.
The former Liyuu officer from regiment nine "stationed in the Duhun
districy", was interviewd by Swedish journalists, Amnesty International and
myself. He related how young men are forced to join the force and arrested
should they refuse. Confirming findings by HRW that forced recruitment takes
place amongst tribal groups, who are ordered Faysal says tribal elders are
ordered "to bring at least 80 fighters for every single tribe. If any of
these [recruited fighters] escaped from the Militia they seek and capture
[them, the truant is] then forced to kill one of his relatives or kinship".
He recounts mass killing, in "Hamaro, Sagag, and Dhuhun of Fiq provinces",
where he says "large number of civilians accused of being ONLF sympathizers"
where massacred. "These people are mostly killed by hanging from trees and
girls are gang-raped and then murdered." He goes on to say "the youth in
Dhuhun, the young men and the young women in Hamaro, the young men
slaughtered in Degeh-bur and teens summarily executed [in] Denan and
Dakhato". Extra judicial executions, intimidation and "forceful methods;
strangling and rape of females aged 15 - 25," are used as weapons of terror,
"based on the advice we received from the regional president Abdi Mohamud
Omar who said 'indoctrinate the women with the male phallus and the men with
guns'. Omar was largely responsible for the creation of the Liyuu, which
evolved out of the Ethiopian army, and was embraced by the former Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi.
The Captain states he was an "eye-witness for unaccountable massacres" by
Liyuu Police who, after killing villagers "burned the entire village to the
ground". They forcefully remove them [villagers] from the land and slaughter
their livestock. In remote villages, they sometimes massacre them all. For
example, they forcefully removed many villagers from Gudhis, massacring 125
members from that village and burned the village, in 2007."
Soldiers are rewarded he says, for killing civilians, for the "good job they
have done". Nomads who have the misfortune to see the Liyuu on operations,
are killed, "in order to make sure that their information is not received by
the ONLF rebels". Summary executions, he reports are commonplace, as "in
Dakhato in June 2010. {Where] 43 nomads were killed". Faysal Mohammedd
estimates the number of civilians murdered by the Liyuu since 2005 "to be in
excess of 30, 000 people".
Urgent Action Required
The Somali region, poor and desolate, is potentially the richest part of
Ethiopia. Natural Gas and oil have been discovered to be lying under the
harsh surface and various contracts for exploration have been granted to
international companies, (without consultation with local, indigenous
people, needless to say). The current round of violence is to many people
linked to the discovery of these natural treasures: GW relay how,
"immediately after oil and gas were discovered in the Ogaden, Ethiopian
government forces evicted large numbers of Ogaden Somalis from their
ancestral grazing lands". According to Faysal Mohamoud the federal
government "has strategic economic and land acquisition aim in the Ogaden
region, intended to exploit the natural resources of the region." These are
strategic aims that they are seeking to realise through the silencing of the
indigenous local people.
Whilst some numbers, dates and locations from these and other accounts may
be debated, the weight of claims of human rights violations and state
criminality, is, it would appear beyond dispute - to the extent that GW
have, "called upon the United Nations Security Council to refer the
situation in Ethiopia to the International Criminal Court". This required
measure together with a range of others (including; the immediate release of
all so called political prisoners, the correct distribution of all
humanitarian aid to the needy, journalists granted open and unrestricted
access, and a thorough investigation by independent observers) would be the
right and proper course of action in the region. Action that should be
undertaken, at the insistence of Ethiopia's main donors - America, Britain
and the European Union and with all due urgency.
Graham Peebles is director of the <
http://www.thecreatetrust.org> Create
Trust. He can be reached at: graham_at_thecreatetrust.org
<mailto:graham_at_thecreatetrust.org>
Received on Sat Apr 20 2013 - 14:08:43 EDT
