Background
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) has been fighting a long-running insurgency against the Ethiopian government, seeking more autonomy for the underdeveloped, Muslim ethnic Somali region.
- Ethiopia cracks down on rebels after deadly attack on Chinese oil installation Troops accused of burning homes, displacing thousands Ethiopia accuses rival Eritrea of backing rebels it calls terrorists
- Prime Minister Menes Zenawi announced a crackdown on the ONLF after the rebels killed 74 people in an attack on a Chinese-run oil exploration field, the bloodiest single attack as violence rose in 2007. Seven Chinese workers taken prisoner were later released.
U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch said the government had blocked trade in the region from June, burnt homes, confiscated livestock and arbitrarily detained civilians. It reported allegations that troops had killed 21 villagers after they resisted attempts to take their animals.
Youtube.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IFf_pa0HprM
UN referendum for Ogaden Independence – Close down Morgue ‘Ethiopia’.....
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=29207
June 10, 2007
Deal Near on Food for Sealed Area of Ethiopia
25/07/07, By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
LAMU, Kenya — United Nations officials and the Ethiopian government appear to have reached an agreement to allow emergency food aid into a conflict-ridden area that the Ethiopian military has been blockading for several weeks, both sides said on Wednesday.
Courtenay Morris for The New York Times Villagers in the Ogaden recently counted sacks of grain while rebel fighters watched. But Ethiopian officials expelled the Red Cross from the same area after accusing its workers of being rebel spies.
According to Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman, food deliveries will soon begin to most parts of the eastern Ogaden region, which the Ethiopian military has recently sealed off in an apparent effort to squeeze a growing rebel movement there.
“The food distribution has started from the center to different areas,” Mr. Mohammed said. “I think it will reach most places soon. But where there is no security, there will not be deliveries.”
Peter Smerdon, a spokesman for the United Nations’ World Food Program, said that United Nations officials had been meeting with the Ethiopian government for several weeks about access for food aid and that teams had reached most parts of the conflict region to determine how much aid was needed.
“The food is still not there in all the zones, but there is a process under way,” Mr. Smerdon said. “We are working with Ethiopian officials and others on exactly how the food will be dispatched.”
Mr. Smerdon said that with food prices rapidly rising, local markets empty and the flood season beginning next month, there could be a “humanitarian crisis” in some areas unless the military lifted restrictions on food aid and commercial traffic.
The Ogaden is one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest countries, and also the site of an intense insurgency and counterinsurgency.
The most active rebel group in the area, and possibly all of Ethiopia, is the Ogaden National Liberation Front. The government considers it a group of rebel terrorists, especially after members attacked a Chinese oil field in the area in April, killing more than 60 soldiers and Chinese workers.
At the same time, human rights groups and villagers say that Ethiopian troops have gang-raped women, burned down villages and tortured civilians.
Several former administrators from the area and a member of Parliament who recently defected have accused the Ethiopian military and its proxy militias of skimming food aid and using a United Nations polio eradication program to funnel money to fighters.
The Ethiopian government has denied the accusations and said it was the Ogaden rebels who were stealing food aid and abusing the population. The government has also accused the Front of getting arms and training from Eritrea, Ethiopia’s enemy.
Western diplomats and lawmakers in Congress have expressed concern about Ethiopia’s human rights record. Several measures are moving through the House and Senate that would place strict conditions on assistance to Ethiopia, which receives nearly half a billion dollars in American aid each year.
Western diplomats in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, said their biggest issue was the military blockade, which they said was putting hundreds of thousands of impoverished nomads at risk of starvation.
Several humanitarian officials have said that they need to temper their criticisms or not speak publicly so as to prevent their organizations from being permanently blocked from the area.
On Tuesday, regional government officials, who oversee the Ogaden, expelled the Red Cross. “They were spies,” Mr. Mohammed said. “They were following regional officials and relaying information to the rebels.”
Red Cross officials declined to comment, saying they were still negotiating with the government to find a way to stay. The regional government has given the Red Cross, which runs water and livestock projects in the Ogaden, seven days to leave; its projects in other parts of the country would not be affected.
It seems that the Ethiopian government is increasingly suspicious about foreign involvement in the Ogaden, a desert on the Somali border where most residents are ethnic Somalis and where a separatist movement has brewed for decades.
Mohamed Abdi, an Ethiopian-American working as an interpreter for the American military in the Ogaden, has been held incommunicado and without charges in a prison in eastern Ethiopia since he was arrested in early May.
Relatives and American Embassy officials said Mr. Abdi, 45, was working on humanitarian projects in the Ogaden when Ethiopian troops detained him and two American soldiers, who were soon released.
Source:the new york times
NYT Video. Rebels With a Cause.
http://nytimes.feedroom.com/?fr_story=bc02d861ff39cd67d51cfeb3b8ea36350b43cd35
Ethiopia deadline for Red Cross to leave the ogaden region with in 7 days
25/07/07
The Red Cross has been given seven days to leave the Ogaden region bordering Somalia by the Ethiopian government. The ICRC has been carrying out water and sanitation projects there. An army crackdown in the area after a series of rebel attacks has restricted the movement of essential goods. The rebel group, the Ogaden National Liberation Movement, accuses the government of blockading the region, and producing a "man-made famine".
On Monday, the New York Times carried an article saying that Ethiopian troops were preventing emergency aid reaching the mainly Somali speaking region. But aid agencies have been reluctant to complain publicly about the lack of access, fearing that it might compromise their work in the future.
The regional president of Ethiopia's Somali region, Abdullai Hassan, told the BBC that the ICRC had been given seven days to leave the area. He accused the organisation of collaborating with the enemy and of spreading baseless accusations against the regional government on its website.
Ethiopia's eastern Ogaden region shares a long and porous border with Somalia, and most of its people are of the Somali ethnic group.
The ONLF has fought for the secession of the Ogaden region since the early 1990s. In April, rebels attacked a Chinese-run oil field killing nine Chinese and 65 Ethiopians.
Source:allafrica.com
ONLF Statement On Explosions In Jijiga
5 August 2007
Today's attack on a Jijiga market and Church represent a despicable act of desperation by cronies of the Ethiopian regime tasked with misrepresenting the just struggle of the people of Ogaden. Similar to the deliberate attack by the regime on the leadership and staff of the Ogaden Welfare & Development Association (OWDA) last week, this latest attack serves no political purpose other than to seek to justify continued war crimes against our people.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) strongly condemns this act of cowardice targeting our civilian population in Jijiga. We particularly condemn the deliberate targeting of a place of worship to further a sinister political objective aimed at deceiving the international community.
These attacks confirm that the Ethiopian regime will support any act which they perceive will give them cover for continuing war crimes in Ogaden.
We reiterate our call for immediate international intervention in Ogaden before the situation deteriorates further.
Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)
http://www.onlf.org/onlf_aug052007.html
TPLF’s Ogaden Crackdown: Will it Work This Time?
Aug 01, 2007
By: Saafi Labafidhin
The current Ethiopian regime led by Meles Zenawi of Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) repeatedly tried in the past to obliterate Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) from the Ogaden territory. ONLF started its highly effective guerrilla military campaigns against TPLF militias masquerading as the de facto Ethiopian military in Ogaden following TPLF crack down on the democratically elected ranks of ONLF in Godey, Wardheer, Qabridahar, and Jigjiga in late 1993 and early 1994. The idea was and still is to harass and frustrate TPLF forces in Ogaden with the use of ongoing surprise raids, which sap the morale of the TPLF conscripts and their associated militias.
The now quarterly announcements of yet another ‘crackdown’ in Ogaden emanating from the Addis mafia are a testament to the successes ONLF is having against TPLF forces in Ogaden. The latest pronouncement of one such ‘crackdown’ came last Month (June, 9) when the TPLF head Mr. Zenawi announced in a hastily convened news conference. He claimed to have launched a political and military operation to try to contain the activities of the ONLF in the region. He added that over the past few days, the military plans have started to be implemented."2
In all past manoeuvres of what the TPLF terms a ‘crackdown, the TPLF ended up by targeting the poorest of the poor Ogaden pastorals and unarmed civilians. TPLF militias have killed as many civilians and livestock as they could lay hands on; They also burned down entire towns and hamlets resulting the loss of all property and food supplies; They have also carried out mass detentions and extra judicial killings and maiming of Ogaden civilians. The question though is whether this latest crackdown of Ogaden civilians will work this time.
Glancing back at the recent history of failed TPLF crackdowns in Ogaden, let us look at the TPLF operation against the ONLF, which was executed between August and December last year. At the time, thousands of TPLF military conscripts were deployed in Ogaden not only to fight ONLF but also to secure the border and counter what the Addis Ababa administration ‘perceived’ as a threat by the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in Somalia.3 However, the illegal actions and extra judicial killings carried out by the Ethiopian troops have only increased the number ONLF recruits who joined the front after the Highland Christian dominated TPLF troops killed civilians as well as their livestock and burned down villages before they were ordered to take part of the Somali invasion.
Successive Ethiopian regimes have done more harm than good to the people of starting with the underhand British hand over of the region to Abyssinia. Unlike other Ethiopian administrations, some people hoped that under the TPLF’s carefully crafted constitution, Ogaden would get its share of the ‘Ethiopian Cake’. As a result, many begun to declare openly a newly Ethiopian Ogaden identity. The then BBC’s distinguished reporter, Mohammed Adow, the only BBC reporter to have travelled as far as Shilabo, once reported that:
"Many Ethiopian Somalis in the Ogaden do not trust the government soldiers, who are mainly from northern Ethiopia, with no familiarity with the territory or culture, sent to the region. "We would very much like to be Ethiopians, but is not that easy. We have been fighting for secession for close to fifty years now, and I think it will take another 50 years of armed struggle for us to get recognition or to be accepted as Ethiopians," Ali Hassan Ali told Adow.4
The fact that TPLF did not accept and/or trust their new identity and the oppression of the greatest extent unfolded in the history of the region not against rebels like ONLF but against the common community members, many people are now withdrawing their identity manifestation. In one particular incident, when the Ethiopian Troops killed a dozen of elderly, women and children, a woman was helplessly screaming to get her children’s milk before her hut was being burnt!! She was reported to have said to the Army Leader “why are you doing this to us? Are you not a human being?” Whereas he replied “I was ordered to protect the LAND, not ITS PEOPLE!!”5
All these and more create strength and unity for the Ogaden people on the ground and abroad which is one reason why the Zenawi and his minions’ terror campaign will not achieve its objectives let alone its goal.
Although the TPLF regime is enjoying the blind support of the Bush Administration for its ‘War on Terror’, the Western press is opening their humanly door to the Ogaden Tragedy and unlike any other time people in the corners of the world are standing shoulder to shoulder with the victimized Ogaden Somalis. Human Rights Watch and other Humanitarian Organizations are openly disclosing the arbitrary and cruel exercise of power by TPLF regime.6
Moreover, unlike Ethiopian highlanders, the people of Ogaden are more open, social and live by sharing whatever they have. So those who are lucky to escape the Zenawi massacre and are able to access water for their livestock will somehow survive on the mere animal products such as milk and for them the food blockading will simply not work.
The brutal highland army is already overstretched in different fronts from the North (border with Eritrea) to Somalia and is morally and strategically weak. Everyday they are attacked in Mogadishu by insurgents who are committed to die for liberating their country from the Ethiopian Invasion, but for the invading army majority of whom are non Tigrayans but still who cannot even dare to ask their minority Tigray leaders why they are dying without a cause, theirs is a life filled with permanent fear, daily nightmare and distress and they are only fighting for they themselves do not have a way out and need to be liberated! Remember when some of them tried to escape to Yemen and failed. Same is true for those in the Ogaden as they surrender to the ONLF which is quite normal these days.
Last but not least, it is well known every time the hostile troops are about to implement an operation against the people of Ogaden, the troops must travel in large convoys (lest they are ambushed by ONLF) which needs a great deal of logistical manoeuvrings. This will have consumed all their resources (and the regions unutilized resources which is diverted to military pockets instead of development for the poor!). All the above facts and other underlying phenomenon make it clear that the Zenawi Terror campaign IS NOT REALLY WORKING NOR WILL IT WORK. And if it works somehow, it will only work against its planners and executors.
References:
Personal Accounts and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogaden_National_Liberation_Front
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/MCON74S8Q9?OpenDocument
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5383012.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5383012.stm
Interview with Witnesses
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/07/02/ethiop16327.htm
By: Saafi Labafidhin
HRW: Ogaden Crackdown Carries High Human Cost
IPS 6 July 07 - An intensified counter-insurgency campaign against Somali rebels and their suspected civilian supporters in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region is drawing growing criticism by human rights groups and concern from the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, a staunch ally of Addis Ababa.
Jim Lobe/IPS, Washington - The campaign, which some experts date to an April attack by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) on a Chinese oil installation in which 74 people were killed, including nine Chinese, is causing immense suffering by the local Somali population, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW) which released a statement on the situation Wednesday.
"Ethiopian troops are destroying villages and property, confiscating livestock and forcing civilians to relocate," according to Peter Takirambudde, HRW’s Africa director. "Whatever the military strategy behind them, these abuses violate the laws of war."
But the campaign is also putting additional pressure on Ethiopia’s army at a moment when, much like U.S. troops in Iraq, it appears increasingly bogged down in a low-level guerrilla war in neighbouring Somalia and faces growing tensions along its still-contested border with Eritrea with which it fought a bloody conflict from 1998 to 2000.
Even Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi conceded last week that his government "made a wrong political calculation" when it intervened in Somalia late last year, driving the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) from power in Mogadishu and most of the rest of the country.
Since then, neither the transitional federal government (TFG) nor an African peacekeeping force — for which only about 1,500 Ugandan troops have been deployed so far — has been able to exert control over the capital, leaving an estimated 10,000 Ethiopian troops to maintain order in what most observers see as a deteriorating security situation in which anti-Ethiopian forces are steadily gaining strength.
"Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia has led to more instability and chaos in Somalia, and made Ethiopia more vulnerable in different fronts," according to Ted Dagne, a Horn of Africa specialist at the Congressional Research Service here. "When your forces deployed on multiple fronts, it definitely weakens your strategic position."
The Bush administration, which backed Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia and even carried out several attacks against specific "terrorist" targets in the country since the invasion, has declined to publicly criticise the ongoing counter-insurgency campaign in Ogaden.
At the same time, however, U.S. officials have privately expressed concern about the serious rights abuses, including murders, rapes, and the burning of villages, committed by the army and the possibility that its continuation could attract ICU, which Washington has accused of harbouring al Qaeda militants, and other anti-Ethiopian forces to the Ogaden, effectively transforming what are currently two distinct conflicts into a broader, regional war.
The Meles government has long insisted that links between ONLF and the ICU already exist, but that charge is questioned by independent experts here and strongly denied by the ONLF itself.
"The ONLF wishes to make clear to the international community that we are not, have not been and will not be a party to the ongoing conflict in Somalia as a matter of policy and principle," it said last month.
The State Department has also rejected Ethiopian requests that it list the ONLF as an international terrorist organisation.
The Ogaden, which is dominated by the Somali Dorad clan and came under Ethiopian rule only in the mid-19th century, has been the scene of a near-constant tug-of-war between Somalia and Ethiopia since the former became independent in 1960. The conflict emerged into open warfare in the late 1970s when then-President Siad Barre tried unsuccessfully to realise a "Greater Somalia" by invading the region.
Barre was eventually forced from power in 1991, the same year that his Ethiopian nemesis, Haile Mengistu Mariam, was ousted in Addis Ababa and replaced by Meles and his Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front.
At the time, the ONLF joined the government but then left it when the Meles government launched its crackdown against the group in 1993 for advocating substantial autonomy or independence, both of which were permitted under Ethiopia’s new constitution.
Since then, it has waged a low-level guerrilla campaign that, until its attack on the Chinese installation this year, has gained almost no international attention, in part due to the remoteness of the region and obstacles placed by the government to human-rights monitors and journalists who wanted to travel there.
"The Ogaden is the forgotten tragedy," according to Dagne, who noted that Ogadenis have remained loyal citizens under successive Ethiopian governments who have long suffered discrimination by Addis Ababa.
In recent weeks, Ethiopia’s counter-insurgency efforts in the Ogaden have intensified dramatically, according to HRW, which said thousands of civilians have been displaced, even in places where there is no known ONLF presence.
In tactics reminiscent of Sudan’s counter-insurgency campaign in Darfur, witnesses told HRW’s investigators that Ethiopian troops have burned homes and property, including the recent harvest and other food stocks, confiscated livestock and, in a few cases, fired on and killed fleeting civilians. In addition, they have arrested dozens of people in the larger towns, particularly family members of suspected ONLF members.
Bombing by Ethiopian warplanes has also been reported.
The government has also imposed a trade and food blockade on the region in an apparent effort to force thousands of people in rural areas to move to larger towns and thus deny the ONLF a support base, according to HRW, which also criticised abuses by the ONLF, including the attack on the Chinese installation and the killing of at least 28 civilians on a nearby farm.
"At this point, the question whether this is similar to Darfur is very difficult to say because of the inability of international human rights monitors, the press, and others to get full access to the region and find out exactly what’s going on," Georgette Gagnon, a regional specialist at HRW, told IPS.
"But for the people suffering in the Ogaden, the situation is incredibly serious, and the government needs to rein in its troops and stop attacking civilians and burning them out of their homes," she added.
The HRW report was anticipated by a lengthy, front-page article in the New York Times from the Ogaden three weeks ago which described a "reign of terror" by Ethiopian troops and depicted the ONLF as an indigenous movement with strong popular support.
The Times reporter, Jeffrey Gettleman, and two of his colleagues who contributed to the article were imprisoned for five days by the Ethiopian authorities after it was published and had all of their equipment confiscated.
UN Human Rights Committee
Somalia: Crackdown in East Punishes Civilians
4 July 2007
Mogadishu The Ethiopian military has forcibly displaced thousands of civilians in the country's eastern Somali region in recent weeks while escalating its campaign against a separatist insurgency movement, Human Rights Watch said today.
Both the government and rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) must protect civilians and ensure their access to humanitarian relief.
In Ethiopia's eastern Somali region, also known as the Ogaden or Region 5, the Ethiopian military attacks on villages have displaced civilians in the Wardheer, Qorahey and Dhagahbur zones, even in areas where there is no known ONLF presence.
"Ethiopian troops are destroying villages and property, confiscating livestock and forcing civilians to relocate," said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director of Human Rights Watch. "Whatever the military strategy behind them, these abuses violate the laws of war."
Eyewitnesses told Human Rights Watch that Ethiopian troops burned or ordered civilians to vacate at least a dozen villages around the towns of Dhagahbur (Degehabur), Qabridahare (Kebre Dehar) and Wardheer.
In Wardheer zone, many of the residents of villages located within a 100-kilometer radius of Wardheer town have been forced to relocate to other towns because of attacks on their villages, orders from the Ethiopian military or - less frequently - fighting between the Ethiopian army and the ONLF.
Villages around Shilaabo, in Qorahey zone, and around Dhagahbur and Qabridahare towns have also been affected by the Ethiopian army campaign.
Witnesses described Ethiopian troops burning homes and property, including the recent harvest and other food stocks intended for the civilian population, confiscating livestock and, in a few cases, firing upon and killing fleeing civilians.
Ethiopian security forces are also responsible for arbitrary detentions in the larger towns, particularly of family members of suspected ONLF members.
In Dhagahbur, at least 20 families who were suspected to have relatives in the ONLF had their camels confiscated. On June 18, in Labiga village, south of Dhagahbur town, Ethiopian forces allegedly killed 21 villagers who resisted when Ethiopian forces tried to take their livestock.
The Ethiopian authorities have also imposed a trade blockade on the region since June, with few goods (including food) permitted into the area, which depends on commercial traffic from neighboring northern Somalia, particularly the coastal towns of Hargeysa and Bosaso. The attacks on villages and the economic blockade may be part of a strategy to force thousands of people from rural areas to larger towns and deny the ONLF a support base.
ONLF forces have also been responsible for serious abuses. An April attack on Obole, an oil field in northern Somali region, reportedly killed dozens of civilians, including nine Chinese oil workers, and at least 28 civilians working on a farm in nearby Sandhore village.
On May 28, ONLF fighters allegedly targeted two large gatherings in Jigjiga and Dhagahbur with hand grenades. The blasts, and the crowd stampedes that followed, killed 17 people and wounded dozens, including the regional president of Somali region. Most of those who died in these two simultaneous attacks were civilians, including a 17 year-old school boy and a number of women.
The ONLF denied responsibility for the attacks, but have a record of targeting civilian officials and clan leaders who refuse to support the insurgency. "Civilians in Somali region are trapped between the warring parties," said Takirambudde. "The Ethiopian government appears to be pursuing an illegal strategy of collective punishment of the civilian population, and the ONLF has targeted civilians for attack."
Human Rights Watch called on both the Ethiopian government and the ONLF to ensure that civilians and civilian property are protected from targeted or indiscriminate attacks and independent international aid agencies have full, unhindered access to civilians in need of humanitarian assistance.
International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, requires that all warring parties distinguish between military and civilians, protect civilians and their property and take all feasible steps to minimize the harm of military operations on civilians.
Collective punishment - or the punishment of one or more individuals for the acts of others - is also prohibited by international humanitarian law. Hostage taking, which is the holding or use of a person to compel a third party to act or refrain from acting, is also prohibited. Detaining the family member of a combatant to compel the combatant to surrender would thus be unlawful.
Moreover, starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited. It is thus unlawful to destroy or otherwise render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. Parties to an internal armed conflict must allow humanitarian relief to reach civilian populations suffering undue hardship owing to a lack of foodstuffs and medical supplies essential for their survival.
International humanitarian law also prohibits the forced displacement of the civilian population for reasons connected to the conflict - except when done for the "security of the civilians involved" or for "imperative military reasons." These prohibitions are applicable to both governments and insurgents.
Background
Ethiopia's eastern Somali region, known as Region 5 or the Ogaden, is the site of a long-running, low-intensity armed conflict between the Ethiopian government and the ONLF.
The ONLF fought against the Derg, the military dictatorship of Menghistu Haile Mariam, but was not allied to the Tigrean People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the guerrilla movement led by Ethiopia's current prime minister, Meles Zenawi. In 1992, the ONLF won control of the government of Ethiopia's newly formed Somali region, becoming the only party not allied to the TPLF to score such a success. However, the ONLF's open advocacy of secession for Somali region and its frosty relations with the ruling party led to its ouster from government in 1995. The ONLF then reverted to waging armed attacks against the Ethiopian government, which has continued in the intervening years. For more than a decade, a heavy Ethiopian military presence in the region has been accompanied by widespread reports of human rights abuses committed by both sides.
Those reports have generally been difficult to confirm because of the Ethiopian military's effective closure of the region to independent research and reporting.
The escalating Ethiopian military campaign is likely catalyzed by several recent high-profile ONLF attacks in the region, including the April attack on the Chinese oil site at Obole and the May attacks on Jigjiga and Dhagahbur.
In a June 9 news conference, Meles stated that the Ethiopian military was launching a "political and military operation to try to contain the activities of the ONLF."
The current campaign in Somali region is also linked to Ethiopian military operations in south-central Somalia. One motive for Ethiopia's ouster of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in December 2006 may have been to cut the links between the ONLF, the ruling Islamic Courts and Eritrea, including arms and logistical supply lines from Eritrea and Somalia to the ONLF in Ethiopia's eastern region.
Source:human righ watch
Ethiopia rebels warn catastrophe looming in Ogaden
NAIROBI, July 23 (Reuters) - Ogaden rebels warned of a looming "man-made famine" in Ethiopia's remote area bordering Somalia and called on Monday for a U.N. investigation into accusations the government was blocking food aid to the region.
On Sunday, a New York Times report quoted Western diplomats and relief officials as saying Ethiopia's government was blockading emergency food aid and choking off trade to Ogaden.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), which is seeking more autonomy for its homeland but which Addis Ababa says it is a terrorist group bankrolled by Eritrea, called for a U.N. fact-finding mission.
"The ONLF wishes to affirm to the international community that if there is no immediate intervention in the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Ogaden, there will be a man-made famine created by the current regime of Meles Zenawi," the ONLF said in a statement.
Ethiopian government officials were not immediately available to comment.
On Monday, the ONLF said Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's administration was engaged in a systematic and deliberate campaign of violence against its people.
"These war crimes include diverting humanitarian assistance for use by the regime's armed forces ... deliberate burning of villages, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, torture, a blockade on food aid as well as other commercial goods and other forms of collective punishment," the ONLF said in a statement.
"The United Nations bears a particular responsibility to investigate war crimes in Ogaden given recent reports that its humanitarian assistance is deliberately being diverted to armed forces and militias responsible for these war crimes," it said.
The ONLF itself has been accused of carrying out atrocities, including an April raid on a Chinese-run oil field in which 74 people were killed and seven Chinese workers taken hostage.
They were later freed but in the wake of the attack, Meles announced a crackdown on the rebels.
It is difficult to get independent information out of the desolate region, which is ethnically Somali.
A fact-finding mission for Ethiopia's Ogaden region?
By Tia Goldenberg Jul 23, 2007
Addis Ababa/Nairobi - An Ethiopian rebel group on Monday called on the United Nations to investigate alleged war crimes in the country's remote Ogaden region, but getting an international mission into the vast desert area may be a long shot.
The Ethiopian government has been cracking down on its eastern Ogaden region, hoping to flush out insurgents from the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), an ethnic-Somali separatist group that has waged a rebellion against Addis Ababa since its creation in 1984.
The ONLF echoed warnings from rights groups when it said on Monday that Ethiopia was diverting humanitarian assistance, razing down villages and terrorizing civilians in what it said are war crimes that have reached 'alarming levels.'
But the region has been shrouded in secrecy, with very little information emerging - exactly the way Ethiopia wants it to be, analysts said.
'I don't see in this any willingness on the side of Ethiopia. I don't think Ethiopia wants to draw any more attention to Ogaden. So, no, a fact-finding mission is not going to happen,' said Richard Cornwell, senior research fellow at the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies.
The ONLF has meanwhile drawn attention to the region itself, with two attacks this year - one on a Chinese-owned oil firm that killed up to 74 people and a smaller attack on a crowd at national holiday celebrations - part of its escalating campaign against the government.
Cornwell added that Ethiopia has in the past obstructed UN work near its border with Eritrea, hindering the implementation of a peace agreement and that foreign observers in Ogaden would face the same impediments.
In May, three New York Times journalists covering the conflict were arrested and detained for five days by the military, their computers, cameras and other equipment seized.
But getting the UN into Ogaden goes beyond Ethiopia's efforts to keep the situation under wraps.
For one, it is seen as one of the more stable countries in the region, with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi once touted as the West's donor darling and part of a new breed of democratic African leaders.
'The international community is worried about speaking out against Ethiopia because of its importance in the region. There is an unwillingness to blow the trumpet on what's happening,' said Hannah Stogdon, junior analyst with conflict think-tank International Crisis Group.
Its key role in the Horn of Africa is least underestimated by the United States. Ethiopia led a Washington-blessed assault on an Islamist group which has alleged ties to al-Qaeda in Somalia in December 2006 and has been seen as a major regional ally in the war on terror.
But the US stance on Ethiopia's Ogaden crackdown is unclear. And if it does chide Ethiopia for it, Addis Ababa may not care.
'Ethiopia has been cooperating in the war on terror and probably receives a certain amount of political protection because of that,' Stogdon said, 'but Ethiopia acts on its own and may not be the puppet everyone thinks it is.'
Meanwhile, Zenawi's government has been painting its actions in Ogaden as part of global counter-terrorism efforts - a statement that isn't completely false - which has given it some legitimacy in light of the US's own drive.
Cornwell said that remnants of Somalia's Islamists have been deployed to Ogaden, according to intelligence reports he had received.
'It's not unlikely that certain elements from Somalia have made the most of what's happened in Ogaden and are adding their two pence. They want to make the Ethiopians feel it at home,' he said, referring to the ongoing battles between Ethiopian-backed Somali troops and insurgents in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
But despite its calls for international observation, the ONLF could face scrutiny as well.
Advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said both Ethiopia and the ONLF were trapping civilians in their war.
'The Ethiopian government appears to be pursuing an illegal strategy of collective punishment of the civilian population, and the ONLF has targeted civilians for attack,' said Peter Takirambudde, head of HRW's Africa program.
But with Ethiopia's ongoing scorched earth campaign and fears of a 'man-made famine', the ONLF may not care.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/
OGADEN: TERROR, EXTRAJUDICAIL KILLINGS AND MASS ARRESTS
In the last two months (April and May 2007), the Ethiopian security and armed forces rounded up and detained hundreds of civilians in all main towns in the Ogaden. The detainees were massed in military detention camps. Extrajudicial executions, torture, rape and widespread looting by the government forces were reported and confirmed by adequate witnesses (survivors of the killings, released detainees and/or relatives as well as Ogaden Human Rights Committee's researchers throughout the Ogaden).
In retaliation to Ogaden National Liberation Front's attack, which resulted in the killing of 65 Ethiopian soldiers, 28 civilian Ogaden Somalis, 9 Chinese workers and the abduction of 7 Chinese workers, in Cobolle oil exploration field, on 24th April 2007.The Ethiopian government forces stepped up its human rights violations in the Ogaden by committing unspeakable atrocities against the civilian population.
On May 28th 2007, two terrorist hand grenade attacks took place in Dhagaxbuur and Jigjiga, killing and wounding a number of defenceless civilians, who were attending two gatherings sponsored by the Ethiopian Government.............
http://www.ogadenrights.org/.
Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)
Author: Rebecca Bloom
Updated: June 18, 2007
Introduction
The Horn of Africa has been marked by struggle for decades. Behind some of the violence, including a recent major attack on a Chinese oil rig in Ethiopia, is the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). The ONLF, a group of ethnic Somali nationalists based in eastern Ethiopia, takes up the banner of past groups seeking self-governance for ethnic Somalis throughout the region. Their attacks threaten the delicate stability of the region and could set off a new chill on much-needed foreign investment.
What is the Ogaden National Liberation Front?
The ONLF describes itself on its website as a “grassroots social and political movement” that serves as an “advocate for and defender of” Somalis in Ogaden, a region of eastern Ethiopia with a large ethnic Somali population, against Ethiopian regimes. Founded in 1984 by members of a variety of ethnic Somali liberation groups, it can also be described as a separatist, insurgent rebel group fighting to make Ogaden an independent state. Its main tactics in the conflict include countering government influence in the region and using violent force, including kidnappings and bombings. The ONLF is believed to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of government forces. The U.S. State Department does not include the OLNF on its Foreign Terrorist Organization list, and the group is not on similar lists maintained by the European Union and Britain.
How was the ONLF formed?
The ONLF formed in the wake of the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), which lost the support of Somalis living in Ogaden after the 1977-1978 war in which Ethiopia crushed Somali government forces that were attempting to gain control of areas with large ethnic Somali populations. WSLF members helped found the ONLF and then recruited their former colleagues to join them. By the time the WSLF was disbanded, the ONLF had gained full support among nearly all ethnic Somalis residing in Ethiopia. By the late 1980s, the ONLF had become the most dangerous insurgent group in Ethiopia, and in 1992 its political candidates won 80 percent of the region’s local parliament seats, confirming its power and influence in the region.
What does the ONLF want?
At the root of its ideology and insurgency is the goal of a “Greater Somalia,” in which all areas populated by Somalis are unified into one country. This concept flourished in the mid-1970s, when Somalia’s then-president Mohamed Siad Barre advocated the expansion of the country’s borders to include all ethnic Somalis in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. Ogaden has a population of four million ethnic Somalis and shares a lengthy, porous border with Somalia, helping to make that goal seem within reach. The ONLF also claims that the Ethiopian government has committed human rights abuses in the Ogaden, including interfering with relief work and international aid intended for the area, and that it wants retribution.
What has the ONLF done?
The ONLF has instigated ambushes and guerrilla-style raids against Ethiopian troops since its inception, and has kidnapped foreign workers presumed to be agents or supporters of Ethiopia’s government. It has launched attacks on Ethiopian military convoys, and it has been accused of bombings in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. A particularly fierce dispute has long simmered between the two parties over the presence of energy companies in the region; the ONLF insists it will not allow the exploration of oil and gas in the area until the Ogaden gains independence, and threatens foreign companies that try. This issue reached its apex on April 24, 2007, when ONLF gunmen killed at least seventy-four people, including sixty-five Ethiopians and nine Chinese oil workers, and kidnapped seven, on an oil field in Abole, a remote region of Ethiopia populated by ethnic Somalis. China has attempted to increase its investments in Africa in an effort to secure future energy supplies. The ONLF took responsibility for the attack on its website and claimed that the violence had not been without warning.
Should the United States worry about the ONLF?
The ONLF is not on any of the U.S. State Department terrorist lists, and as it stands now it does not pose a threat to the United States. However, Ethiopia is Washington’s closest ally in the region, and should the United States ever decide to intervene in the conflict on behalf of Ethiopia, or any other country that wants to drill for oil there, it could face serious and violent opposition. Additionally, there have been rumors of ties between the ONLF and al-Qaeda, which would involve the United States in an entirely different manner, but some experts suspect that the Ethiopian government spread those rumors to gain international support on the issue.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13208/