Group accuses Zenawi regime of war crimes in Ogaden
By Elizabeth Kennedy, Associated Press Writer
June 12, 2008
NAIROBI, Kenya - Ethiopia's government is committing
war crimes in its military campaign against rebels in
the Ogaden region, a rights group charged Thursday in
a report that complained the U.S. and other Western
governments have remained silent about abuses.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Ethiopian
troops are beating and strangling civilians, staging
public executions and burning villages in Ogaden. It
said the allegations were based on more than 100
eyewitness accounts.
An Ethiopian official denied the charges.
Washington looks to Ethiopia for help in the fight
against Islamic extremists in East Africa, where
al-Qaida has claimed responsibility for several
attacks, including the 1998 bombings of the U.S.
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 225
people. Ethiopia is helping the U.N.-backed government
in neighboring Somalia against Muslim insurgents.
Ethnic Somalis have been fighting for more than a
decade seeking greater autonomy in the desolate
Ogaden, which is being explored for oil and gas.
Ethiopian forces stepped up operations after rebels
attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field in April
2007, killing 74 people.
"The Ethiopian army's answer to the rebels has been to
viciously attack civilians in the Ogaden," said
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director for Human Rights
Watch.
The group also said the rebel Ogaden National
Liberation Front has violated humanitarian law by
conducting the oil attack and by setting land mines
along roads. Ethiopia accuses the rebels of being
financed by its archenemy, Eritrea.
Bereket Simon, special adviser to Ethiopian Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi, denied all allegations in the
report.
"It's not true," he said. "It's the same old
fabrication."
Asked whether an internal investigation was planned,
he said: "How can we investigate lies and innuendoes?
How can we try to disprove lies by investigating?"
Gagnon chided Ethiopia's leading donors, including the
United States, Britai and the European Union, accusing
them of ignoring what is happening in Ogaden.
"These widespread and systematic atrocities amount to
crimes against humanity," she said. "Yet Ethiopia's
major donors, Washington, London and Brussels, seem to
be maintaining a conspiracy of silence around the
crimes."
Gagnon said Western governments and institutions give
at least $2 billion in aid to Ethiopia every year.
"Influential states use many excuses, such as lack of
information and strategic priorities, to downplay the
grave human rights concerns in Somali Region," she
said. "But crimes against humanity can't be swept
under the carpet."
Human Rights Watch report, “Collective Punishment: War
Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the Ogaden area
of Ethiopia’s Somali Region,” is available at:
http://hrw.org/reports/2008/ethiopia0608/
To view a multimedia feature with interactive
satellite maps of attack sites in Ogaden and a Human
Rights Watch audio interview, please visit:
http://hrw.org/features/ethiopia/
www.eastafricaforum.net http://www.afrol.com/articles/29304 afrol News, Norway Ethiopia separatist rebels launch major operations
10 June 2008
Ethiopia's Ogaden National Liberation Army (ONLF) confirmed to have launched a major "counter-offensive military operations" against government forces on Tuesday.
The group that had earlier claimed to have rebuffed the late May offensive by Ethiopian army, said its two units from the Gorgor Command had already launched two prolonged offensive in Dhagah-Madow district. The ONLF said its attacks also led to the destruction and capture of enemy troops in several military units, including those in Wayne and Dhagah.
"Hundreds of soldiers were captured and causalities were very high," the group said in a statement, claiming to have repelled, degraded and dispersed reinforcements from Harar, Fiq and Dhagah. Having claimed to have either killed, captured or dispersed into wilderness more than 1,800 government soldiers, the ONLF said it is now "in hot pursuit of the remnants."
Ogaden forces who have been leading a liberation struggle for the independence of ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia's vast oil-rich region, also claimed to have captured heavy weaponry, ammunition and military vehicles. Founded in 1884, the group has been at war with the Addis Ababa regime, accusing it of marginalizing the region.
Rebel attacks on Chinese oil workers in April 2007 had sparked a bloody clash between the two sides in Ogaden. The clash left 77 people dead.
Last month, the group accused the Ethiopian government of "deliberately organizing and instigating armed attack on the Oromo." This accusation was pedaled after armed militia from Gumuz, a region bordering Omomia from the west, was reported to have been involved in "wanton killings" of Oromo people. An estimated 400 people were reported killed in the two day terror campaign.
Besides, the Ethiopian High Court sentenced eight ONLF separatist rebel fighters to death in May after they were found guilty of "killing and wounding innocent people."
The rebels detonated grenades into a stadium where some 100,000 people gathered for a national day celebration last year, killing six people and wounding more than 40 others. Several people died in the stampede after police responded to the attack by firing shots in the air.
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http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL11187409.html
Two dead in Djibouti-Eritrea border clash
Wed 11 Jun 2008Omar Hassan
DJIBOUTI, June 11 (Reuters) - Two Djiboutian soldiers were killed and 21 wounded when troops clashed with Eritrean forces along their border overlooking strategic Red Sea shipping lanes, Djibouti said on Wednesday.
The first fighting since 1996 between Eritrea and Djibouti broke out on Tuesday after a nearly two-month standoff. Djibouti hosts French and U.S. military bases and is the main route to the sea for Eritrea's arch-foe Ethiopia.
Djibouti said the clash began after Eritrean soldiers deserted and the Eritreans fired on them, prompting return fire. A second outbreak came when Eritrean soldiers later demanded their deserters back.
Eritrean officials declined to comment and there was no independent confirmation.
Fighting continued on Wednesday in the Mount Gabla area of northern Djibouti, Djibouti's Defence Ministry said.
Also known as Ras Doumeira, it overlooks the strategic Bab al-Mandib straits, which are a major shipping route to and from Europe and the Middle East.
A Reuters witness at a French hospital in Djibouti said helicopters had ferried in dead and wounded soldiers.
In mid-April, Djibouti accused Eritrea of digging trenches and building fortifications on the Djiboutian side of the frontier. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki told Reuters in a recent interview that was a "fabrication."
MILITARISED
The Djiboutian army says nearly 75 percent of its 11,000 troops are now stationed along its boundary with Eritrea, which is one of Africa's most militarised states and has more than 200,000 soldiers as part of a mandatory conscription programme.
Djibouti hosts two foreign military bases, including one of France's biggest overseas contingents and a U.S. counter-terrorism task force of about 2,000 soldiers -- many of them elite special forces.
It is also a vital route for landlocked Ethiopia, which has vowed to protect its shipping access in Djibouti if necessary.
Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a border war in 1998-2000 that killed 70,000 people, and lingering enmity has fuelled conflict in neighbouring Somalia and in Ethiopia's Ogaden region.
Former colonial power France signed a mutual defence pact with Djibouti after the Horn of Africa nation's independence in 1977.
Djibouti has turned itself into a regional shipping hub after massive investment from Dubai.
In a letter to the U.N. Security Council in early May, Djibouti's foreign minister said he suspected a "sinister" move by Eritrea to disrupt shipping lines along the Red Sea.
This weekend, an African Union fact-finding mission was in Djibouti to investigate the issue.
______________________ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-somalia-trucejun11,0,5157086.story
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