Ogaden locals allege abuses by soldiers

Ogaden locals allege abuses by soldiers
11/29/2007By ANITA POWELL The Associated Press KEBRIDEHAR, Ethiopia (AP) — In the desert stretches of eastern Ethiopia, locals accuse soldiers fighting an insurgency of burning villages to the ground, committing gang rape and killing people "like goats."

John Holmes, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief, right, greet residents of Kebridehar in the eastern Ethiopian region of Ogaden, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007. John Holmes, urged officials to allow freedom of movement and more aid agencies in the eastern Ethiopian region of Ogaden, where a low-level insurgency has escalated.(AP Photo/Anita Powell)

The allegations have drawn the attention of international human rights campaigners to this remote corner of a key U.S. ally.Ethiopia's prime minister says his troops are fighting against a separatist movement in the region known as the Ogaden, and he denies that soldiers have committed such atrocities."This is a counterinsurgency. I am not going to tell you there hasn't been anyone beaten up. I am absolutely confident that there has not been any widespread violation of human rights," Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told journalists Wednesday.But a thin, pensive 30-year-old man, who spoke on condition of anonymity this week because of fear of reprisals, told The Associated Press that the army had burned two villages — Lebiga and Korelitsa — to the ground Nov. 23, killing one man.The army, the man said, was killing his neighbors "like goats."

Officials in the area, which covers nearly 80,000 square miles, said they had heard similar reports. They also asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.The 30-year-old man described gang rapes and public hangings, and said villagers had been told not to speak to international observers. Officials in the area also said villagers had been told not to speak to outsiders, and that also was mentioned in a September report by a U.N. fact-finding mission.A 26-year-old man, who also asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, accused the government of withholding food to punish fighters and supporters of the Ogaden National Liberation Front

.For more than a decade, the ethnic Somali rebels have been fighting for greater autonomy in the region, which is being heavily explored for oil and gas. In April, they attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field in the region, killing 74 people. The Ethiopian military began counterinsurgency operations in May.The ONLF accuses the government of human rights abuses; the government accuses the rebels of being terrorists funded by its archenemy, Eritrea.

The U.S. looks to Ethiopia to help fight the war on terror 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.But working with Ethiopia against terror means an alliance with a country accused of violating human and political rights. Last year, the Ethiopian government acknowledged its security forces killed 193 civilians protesting a disputed election but insisted excessive force was not used.Earlier this year,

New York-based Human Rights Watch accused the Ethiopian army of blocking aid, burning homes and displacing thousands of civilians in the Ogaden region.Ethiopia expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Dutch branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres from Ogaden. But in recent weeks, the government has allowed 19 non-governmental organizations to return.

In the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, the prime minister told journalists Wednesday that human rights abuses and a humanitarian crisis, "didn't exist. Doesn't exist. Will not exist" in the Ogaden.Meles, a former rebel, said that he would not repeat the measures taken against him by previous regimes and his government will not commit "widespread human rights violations.""We know firsthand how to fight an insurgency and how to avoid stupid mistakes," Meles said.John Holmes, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief, visited the region Tuesday and on Wednesday described the humanitarian situation there as "potentially serious."

He said that he had talked with Meles and other Ethiopian officials about opening up transport and trade, expanding food distribution and addressing human rights concerns. He said Meles took the human rights "issue seriously."Holmes said he heard many secondhand reports of human rights abuses and said that "they come from numerous and sufficiently varied sources to be taken seriously."

He did not give details.The U.N. fact-finding mission said in September that the situation in the Ogaden had deteriorated rapidly and called for an independent investigation.The mission also said that recent fighting in the region had led to a worsening humanitarian situation and called for a substantial increase in emergency food aid.

Source: The Associated Press

Ethiopia forcing untrained civilians to fight rebels, refugees say

NAIROBI, Kenya — Ethiopian soldiers have forcibly drafted hundreds of civilians to fight separatist rebels in the desolate, predominantly Muslim Ogaden region in a shadowy military campaign supported by the Bush administration, according to more than a dozen refugees and former recruits who've fled to neighboring Kenya.

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The untrained and ill-equipped draftees — including students, camel herders and tribal leaders who've never fired weapons in combat — are being thrown into pitched battles with ethnic Somali guerrillas and often suffer heavy casualties, the refugees and ex-recruits said.
Men who resist joining these civilian militias — known as "dabaqodhi," or "puppets" of the government — are beaten, locked up in military prisons or killed, the refugees said in interviews. When recruits perform poorly in combat, as they often do, they're abused and accused of aiding the rebels, refugees said.
The accounts offer a disturbing glimpse into the U.S.-backed Ethiopian government's months-long battle against an ethnic Somali separatist group known as the Ogaden National Liberation Front. The fight has been conducted virtually in secret in the dry, craggy eastern region that's home to about 4 million mostly ethnic Somali nomads.
The refugees' accounts also have renewed questions about the Bush administration's unflinching support for Ethiopia's Christian-led government, its main African ally in the war on terrorism. Ethiopian troops, with U.S. military support, invaded neighboring Somalia last December to oust a hard-line Islamist regime and have been bogged down by a stubborn insurgency there ever since.
Some U.S. and Ethiopian officials think that Islamist fighters from Somalia are aiding the ONLF. On a recent visit to Ethiopia, Jendayi Frazer, the ranking State Department official for Africa, said Ethiopia had a right to defend itself and that allegations of civilian killings were unsubstantiated.
An Ethiopian government spokesman, Zemedkun Tekle, said the allegations were untrue. "The policy of the country to recruit soldiers is on a voluntary basis," he said. "In our country, no one is forced without his will to join the military."
"They came into my school one morning and selected 20 boys and put us into military barracks," said Abdirahman Ali Hashi, a lanky, bookish 23-year-old who described how government troops plucked him last February from his 10th-grade classroom in the town of Degehabur.
With no training other than a cursory lesson on how to fire their AK-47 rifles, they were sent to the battlefield to guide Ethiopian troops who didn't know the terrain, Hashi said. But the guerrillas outgunned them.
Hashi said that soldiers killed another draftee, a childhood friend named Mohammed Abdullah, after their unit came under heavy fire from rebels near the village of Hurale.
"They said he was keeping secrets and accused him of being a member of the ONLF," Hashi said. "When he replied, they used the handles of their guns to beat him. He became unconscious. Then they shot him."
For much of the year, Ethiopia barred journalists and international humanitarian agencies from the region. In recent weeks, however, several relief organizations have been allowed to return, and groups investigating the conflict said they'd also heard accounts of civilians being press-ganged into military service.
"Forced recruitment of militia members is one of a number of very credible allegations of abuses that we've heard coming from the Somali region" of Ethiopia, said Leslie Lefkow, a senior researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch. "There's no question that there has been abuses taking place for many years, but there seems to have been a very serious escalation this year with the government's intensified (military) campaign."
After visiting the Ogaden, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes warned Wednesday of a potentially "serious humanitarian crisis" and recommended that Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi investigate allegations of human rights abuses.
According to former recruits and human rights groups, village elders are forced to produce a quota of fighters from their clan, or tribe. The fighters generally aren't paid or given uniforms, and clans are required to furnish their own weapons. In years past, some elders said that military commanders diverted U.N. food rations from hungry villagers to pay off men who helped recruit fighters.
"They tell you to bring your young boys and give them your guns," said Abdullahi Hassan Mohammed, a 70-year-old clan leader from the Kebredehar district. "They will come to you every morning and demand this, or they will kill you."
The Ogaden nomads — members of a Muslim minority who are tied more closely to tribes in Somalia than they are to the rest of Ethiopia — long have complained that the central government neglects them. Tensions boiled over last April when ONLF rebels attacked a Chinese-run oil field and killed 74 people, most of them Ethiopians.
Since then, the military and the rebels have boasted of winning major battles and capturing or killing dozens from the other side, accounts that have been impossible to verify.
Relief agencies warned of worsening nutrition as government soldiers imposed a blockade on food and humanitarian aid, which they only recently began to lift. Last week, U.S. officials pledged to double humanitarian aid to the Ogaden by sending $45 million in emergency food to the region.
McClatchy Newspapers 2007

One civilian who fought, then ran away

NAIROBI, Kenya — One morning in June, a handful of Ethiopian soldiers came to the town of Lehelow, in the far eastern Warder district, and called the tribal elders together, said Mohammed Abdi, who's 26. "Bring all the young boys," one of the soldiers said.

Shashank Bengali / MCT
Mohammed Abdi, 26, was forced into an Ethiopian government militia to fight separatist rebels in the eastern Ogaden region earlier this year. "I was very worried about being killed," said Abdi, a camel herder who had never fired a weapon except for occasional target practice. View larger image

The elders trotted out 26 men, including Abdi, who ran a tea stall and looked after his family's camels. He was told to bring his rifle, which he often carried to protect his animals from hyenas, but he'd never fired it except in occasional target practice.
"I was very worried about being killed," he recalled.
A few days later, Abdi was forced into battle near the village of Qurarad, a three-hour walk from his home. He was among about 120 militiamen; behind them were 140 Ethiopian soldiers. When the fighting began, Abdi said, he crouched behind the nearest tree and aimed his weapon across a valley at rebel fighters — but didn't fire at anyone.
Twenty militiamen died that day, Abdi said, and the government forces retreated. Back at the base, soldiers abused two of the recruits with the butts of their guns.
Later that week, Abdi's brothers and sisters gave him some money and clothes and stood watch as he fled into the bush toward Somalia, where hundreds of Ogaden refugees already had gathered. After a few weeks, he got word that government soldiers had forced his older brother Ali into battle to replace him and that he'd been killed.
Now Abdi is huddled in the Nairobi neighborhood of Eastleigh, a low-rent Somali enclave that, despite its regal-sounding name, is little more than a sprawling open sewer crisscrossed by tin-and-clapboard shacks and questionable-looking guesthouses. In one of those houses, he shares a 50-square-foot room with five or six other Ogaden refugees.
"There are a lot of people who suffer like this," Abdi said. "Sometimes when I think back on that battle where I was forced to fight, I feel like a madman. Just because of that battle, I lost everything."

McClatchy Newspapers 2007

Who is in power? On the horns of a dilemma

Who is in power? On the horns of a dilemma
Editorial November 12, 2007

Ethiopian opposition figure Brook Kebede (left) of the CUDP-Kinijit speaks with U.S. Congressman Chris Smith as Engineer Gizachew Shiferaw looks on (Photo: Tamagne Beyene; Sept 26, 2007)

The visiting CUDP officials and accompanying hosts are pictured above with The Honorable Donald Payne, member of the US Congress and author of HR 2003 (File Photo: Kinijit-DC). The official word from the Ethiopian government is that they have violated the terms of their release. They are accused of abusing the government’s gesture of good will in releasing them from prison. They have been talking to Congress. They said there is no democracy in Ethiopia . They have been badmouthing the government in the international press. They said there are gross human rights abuses in Ethiopia . They are consorting with the enemy. They are working with the OLF and ONLF. Reportedly, Meles held a recent video conference with the so-called regionanl council presidents, asking them to petition the federal government to charge the Kinijit leaders with treason for their support of H.R. 2003.
“THEY”, of course, are the Kinijit leaders who have been touring North America, Europe and other places over the past couple of months. As they begin to head home following their wildly successful tour, a constant drumbeat of government propaganda awaits them. The objective seems clear. Dampen the public euphoria over their incredibly successful international tour, soil their reputations, and hopefully, scare them into not returning. The short message to them is, “Return at your own risk!”
The government believes the so-called pardon was a contract for the Kinijit leaders to play deaf, mute and blind. By accepting the “pardon”, according to the government, the Kinijit leaders have taken a vow of silence. Strangely enough, not only are they prohibited from having discussions with representatives of the Ethiopian government, they are also forbidden from seeking out the sympathetic ears of public officials in the host countries they are visiting. Ironically, the government conveniently overlooks its own multimillion dollar lobbying efforts to influence and shape public policy in the same host countries. What is good for the goose is certainly not good for the gander, by the government’s calculation.
If the Kinijit leaders are liable for complaining about human rights violations in the legislatures of their host counties, that would be old hat. The whole world has long known the deplorable state of human rights in Ethiopia . There is nothing they can say about human rights abuses in Ethiopia that has not already been said umpteen times by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or the U.S. State Department. As to their alleged alliance and collaboration with certain organizations disapproved by the government, there is not a shred of evidence to support that claim. If they are to be charged with treason, the United States government, who benefited from the treasonous acts, should also be charged as a co-conspirator.
Why make a thinly-veiled threat of arrest and imprisonment at this time? The government is apparently very concerned about an explosive resurgence of popularity for the Kinijit leaders upon their return. Perhaps they could be scared into seeking political asylum in the West. As they have repeatedly stated, they will all return because they love their country. They are also prepared to face the wrath of a ruthless dictatorship. Their choices are limited. As Mrs. Benazir Buhtto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, wrote in the New York Times last week on General Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of martial law, “It is dangerous to stand up to a military dictatorship, but more dangerous not to.” W/t Birtukan Midekssa and the Kinijit leaders know all too well that it is dangerous to stand up to Meles Zenawi’s dictatorship, but more dangerous not to.
The threat of jail is an ever present reality to the Kinijit leaders. But 21 months of imprisonment has not broken their spirit or the Kinijit Spirit. It has not dampened their enthusiasm for democracy or their commitment to the rule of law. They and the government know that the Spirit of Kinijit remains hidden in the hearts of the Ethiopian people intact.
Putting them back in jail on trumped up charges has its obvious disadvantages and consequences both domestically and internationally. It is likely that another arbitrary detention could transform these leaders from heroes to superheroes. But with 21 months under their belt, jail time would not come to them as a surprise. But the more likely scenario is a chapter out of the Pakistani/Burmese Book of Dictatorship. Like Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma and Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan , Birtukan Midekssa and the others may have think about house arrest and constant harassment as an ordinary fact of daily life upon their return.
The triumphant return of the Kinijit leaders from their tour underscores the tenuous nature of the regime’s hold on power, and its total unpopularity with the people. But the usual arsenal of jail, intimidation, propaganda and dirty tricks campaigns against the Kinijit leaders will prove futile. Resort to repressive and intimidatory techniques further demonstrates the government’s complete lack of interest and contempt for a peaceful and negotiated settlement of disputes, and in national reconciliation.
Meles and his regime should understand, as has Musharaf in Pakistan , and rather reluctantly, the junta leaders in Burma , that the answer to political problems lies in dialogue, not brute force. But Meles is unwilling to take advantage of the opportunity for a genuine dialogue with the Kinijit leaders either out of personal antipathy, or genuine fear of losing the political argument on democracy and the moral argument on his regime’s legitimacy, or both. That would not be out of character. Meles will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
The lack of dialogue between the government and the Kinijit leaders and other groups is fueling a gathering storm of opposition at a time when the dark clouds of war and insurrection hang ominously over the land. The winds of war are blowing hard in the Horn of Africa, and the ensuing firestorm will consume all who remain on the warpath. There will be no winners, only losers. This is a prospect Meles Zenawi and his regime should seriously