Fierce Fighting In Somalia As Mujahideen Step Up Attacks Against US-Imposed Government
Sep 12, 2007, Jihad Unspun
As fierce fighting took place overnight at the former defense ministry that now houses Ethiopian occupiers in the southern part of Mogadishu, diplomats met to discuss the war torn country and the Mujahideen issued reports of their latest exploits.
Last nights fighting started around 11:20 pm between Ethiopian occupation forces and the Mujahideen who are intent on expelling the invaders from the country. Shabelle reported that an exchange of heavy gunfire and mortar rounds could be heard through the area where of the former defense ministry that is now occupied by Ethiopians forces.
Meanwhile, Somalia's US-backed so-called Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi is in critical and confidential discussion with the former president of Somalia Mr. Abdu Kassim Salad Hassan who was ousted by the Islamic Courts movement. Talk between the two is not expected to affect events on the ground as Gedi is talking to the wrong party. The Islamic Courts rose to government based on the will of the people and the two US puppets have little support among the populace. Rather than negotiating with the Islamic Courts, it appears Gedi is trying to garner what’s left of Hassan’s support base.
Full scale jihad is now underway in Somalia, a direct result of America’s destabilization efforts to quell another Islamic state from rising, and daily attacks against the imposed so-called government and their Ethiopian allies. The Youth Islamic Movement have released the following report on some of their recent activities, published here uncut and uncensored, as translated by JUS.
"We remind our viewers that the opinions and points of view expressed in this statement are those of the author and shall not be deemed to mean that they are necessarily those of JUS, the publisher, editor, writers, contributors or staff".
YOUTH ISLAMIC MOVEMENT MILITARY REPORT FOR SEPTEMBER 10TH, 2007
In The Name Of Allah The Most Gracious The Most Merciful
All praise be to Allah, The Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds. Peace and prayer be upon our prophet, Muhammad, his family, and his companions.
To proceed: This is the harvest of the jihad in Somalia from your brothers in the Youth Islamic Movement on the 28th Shaaban 1428 corresponding to September 10, 2007. On the night of 28 Shabaan 1428, the Mujahideen bombed on of the army headquarters in Somalia and accomplished a direct hit, all praise and thanks is to Allah.
In addition, the Mujahideen also bombed the most important centre for the Ethiopian army in the city centre which is the Mogadishu stadium and in the wake of the attack, the Mujahideen carried out a surprise attack in the surrounding area. The enemy suffered great losses and all praise and thanks is to Allah!
The Mujahideen also attacked a truck carrying the apostate army, 90km west of Mogadishu on the Mogadishu to Bidou highway and it was completely destroyed. The troops were forced to evacuate to headquarters nearby the scene of the operation and so they fled and all praise and thanks be to Allah.
Oh Allah, defeat the Ethiopian cross worshippers and their apostate brothers and those who are like them.
And your brothers of the Youth Mujahideen Movement are on their way, going forth in Jihad against the occupiers and disbelievers so that the word of Allah is the highest and there is no more fitnah on earth and the religion is solely for Allah.
Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!
Your brothers, Youth Islamic Movement, 29 Shabaan 1428, September 11, 2007
http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=108934&list=/home.php
Somali Opposition Forms New 'Liberation Movement'
By VOA News, 12 September 2007
Somali opposition leaders meeting in Eritrea's capital, Asmara, have united to form an alliance against the Ethiopian forces now in Somalia. Opposition spokesman, Zakariya Mahamud Abdi told reporters Wednesday that group is calling itself the Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia.
The spokesman issued a warning to the Ethiopian forces in Somalia, saying it is now or never for them to withdraw.
Some 350 delegates, including Somali Islamist leaders, have been meeting in Asmara since last week. The conference is aimed at unifying opposition groups to press for the Ethiopians' exit from Somalia.
The opposition group has called on all African nations to take action against Ethiopia for its military presence in Somalia.
The group also has criticized the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, saying it is not neutral.
Islamist-led insurgents in Somalia have been fighting Ethiopian and Somali government forces for months in the capital, Mogadishu.
The Somali interim government pushed a rival Islamist movement from power in Mogadishu and other cities late last year. However, the government has struggled to assert authority in the face of chronic violence that has displaced more than 100,000 city residents.
Somali opposition forms new coalition, alarms government
ASMARA (AFP) — Somali opposition leaders meeting in Eritrea united Wednesday in a common alliance against Ethiopian forces, warning Addis Ababa it was "now or never" for its troops to withdraw.
But Somalia's government warned that the group was "upgrading terrorism cells" in the country, which western intelligence fear could become a haven for extremists, a spokesman said.
The new opposition coalition, called the Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia, includes a 191-member "central committee" that will function as a parliament.
A 10-person "executive committee" is expected to be announced on Thursday, closing the opposition congress that kicked off in the Eritrean capital Asmara on September 6. "We have reached a concrete and viable resolution in seven days... something few Somali conferences have been able to do," congress spokesman Zakariya Mahamud Abdi told reporters.
But he had a stark warning for Ethiopian troops, heavily deployed in Somalia since they rescued embattled transitional government forces last year."We warn Ethiopia to withdraw immediately... it is now or never and in a few weeks they will not have a route to withdraw," Abdi said.
In Mogadishu, Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed expressed alarm over the development."We do not see it a liberation group, but a terrorism group. It is just upgrading terrorism cells in the country," said Gedi's spokesman Abdullahi Muhidin Mohamed.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys -- wanted by Washington for suspected links to Al-Qaeda -- and several other key leaders of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) that briefly controlled large parts of Somalia last year were present at the meeting.
The Western-backed transitional government in Mogadishu has blamed the Islamists for the violence that has continued to rock the devastated seaside capital.
But the opposition forces gathered in Asmara retort that their struggle against Ethiopian occupation is legitimate and blamed Ethiopia and its US allies for the continued instability in Somalia. "We will have a two-track strategy -- the first to engage the international community and regional countries to support us in our cause," Abdi said. "We are the victims and Ethiopia are the villains."
The 350 opposition figures and diaspora representatives also discussed military strategy against Ethiopia, whose vastly superior military inflicted a heavy defeat on the ICU earlier this year.
"The other (track) will be armed struggle -- what was taken by force will be taken back by force," Abdi said.
Abdi said the delegates had vowed to work and fight until Somali was freed and urged the Somalia population to do the same.
"The Somali people are warriors. We have no real military machines but we are a people armed to the teeth -- there are 1.5 million small arms in Somalia," he said.
The elected leaders of the new alliance are expected to remain in Eritrea to hold further consultations but participants in the congress that the organisation would then locate its headquarters inside Somalia.
Abdi reiterated the opposition's call on the United States to change its policies in Somalia and the rest of the region.
"There are no terrorists in Somalia, but the policies of the United States will create extremists by their presence," he said. "It is very dangerous and we don't want to engage the region in a religious dog fight."
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hp684RUKwrT6D6KCcwLTD_eP24dQ
Taking the war on terror to Africa
Sept. 1, 2007 issue - America is quietly expanding its fight against terror on the African front. Two years ago the United States set up the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership with nine countries in central and western Africa. There is no permanent presence, but the hope is to generate support and suppress radicalism by both sharing U.S. weapons and tactics with friendly regimes and winning friends through a vast humanitarian program assembled by USAID, including well building and vocational training. In places like Chad, American Special Forces train and arm police or border guards using what it calls a "holistic approach to counterterrorism." Sgt. Chris Rourke, a U.S. Army reservist in a 12-man American Civil Affairs unit living in Dire Dawa, in eastern Ethiopia, says it comes down to this: "It's the Peace Corps with a weapon."
Sometime in the coming months, after a vetting process to find a good partner country, the United States plans to establish a new headquarters in Africa to spearhead this armed battle for hearts, minds and the capture of terror suspects. The Pentagon says Africom—the first new U.S. strategic command established since 2002—will integrate existing diplomatic, economic and humanitarian programs into a single strategic vision for Africa, bring more attention to long-ignored American intelligence-gathering and energy concerns on the continent, and elevate African interests to the same level of importance as those of Asia and the Middle East. Africom joins 10 other commands, including CENTCOM in Florida, the now famous nerve center for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not surprisingly, the establishment of a major American base in Africa is inspiring new criticism from European and African critics of U.S. imperial overreach.
The Pentagon says Africom will bring its hearts-and-minds campaign closer to the people; critics say it represents the militarization of U.S. Africa policy. Already, the United States has identified the Sahel, a region stretching west from Eritrea across the broadest part of Africa, as the next critical zone in the War on Terror and started working with repressive governments in Chad and Algeria, among others, to further American interests there. Worried U.S. allies argue that Africom will only strengthen America's ties with unsavory regimes—including the Ethiopians, who have become U.S. proxies in an expanding civil war in Somalia—by prioritizing counterterror over development and diplomacy.
Among the nations most often mentioned as candidates to host the Africom headquarters: Ghana, Liberia, Tanzania and Ethiopia, which now has one of the worst human-rights records in Africa. "If you have soldiers hugging trees and painting hospitals at the same time as they're killing people, the perception of the local populations is going to be altered significantly," says one European official, who spoke to NEWSWEEK on the condition that his identity be kept secret.
In fact, the U.S. military footprint in Africa has been expanding significantly in recent years. The armed forces didn't have a permanent troop presence anywhere on the continent in 2001. Two years later, nearly 1,800 military and civilian members of a combined task force were operating out of Camp Lemonier in Djibouti. Today, they are responsible for a swath of 10 countries in East Africa. And now they're looking farther afield. Civil Affairs teams from Djibouti are negotiating entrance into Sudan, NEWSWEEK has learned.
Africom would take these piecemeal efforts and expand them substantially. The outlines are already visible. In Dire Dawa, a dozen American reservists and Army National Guardsmen on a yearlong tour live together in a four-story house that serves as both base and home. Each morning they raise two flags: Ethiopian and American. With a $1 million budget they hope to build enough schools and wells and bridges to wrestle key local leaders, clan elders and unemployed youth over to their vision of Ethiopia's future. Africom, with its cadre of officer corps and civilian expertise, could then integrate those smaller efforts with larger strategic objectives across the continent, sharing intelligence and speeding up communications. Amazingly, China now has more embassies and consulates—and thus more listening posts—in Africa than the United States.
But it's halting and frustrating work. In the town of Hurso, most residents don't have access to drinking water, so the team spent $98,000 and built a well on a site picked by a Washington-based hydrologist. (The well failed; the team is negotiating another contract.) Nearby, in Melekajebdu, it's building a 19-classroom school, but construction has stalled because no one can figure out how to wire the $463,000 cost electronically to Ethiopia. In Wahil, a largely Muslim village, a donated computer covered with stickers that say from the american people sits unused in a clinic because the generator is too weak. "This all falls under the global War on Terror," says the group's leader, Lt. Col. Joseph Gamble, 57, a U.S. Army reservist.
Some analysts argue that Africom may strengthen America's image by overseeing more patronage from a central location. It will not only coordinate counterterror and aid work, it will centralize the control of U.S. military operations in Africa, which are now handled by three separate commands: Europe, Central and Pacific. "Africa should welcome that," says Robert Rotberg, an Africa specialist at Harvard. "Africom could mean more training, more peacemaking, more conflict resolution alongside African armies."
The problem is that, increasingly, African leaders appear not to want Africom. They see it as the next phase of the War on Terror—a way to pursue jihadists inside Africa's weak or failed states, which many U.S. officials have described as breeding grounds for terror. They worry that the flow of arms will overwhelm the flow of aid, and that U.S. counterterrorism will further destabilize a region already prone to civil wars. Two weeks ago South Africa's Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota called for a continental ban on Africom and said 14 nations of southern Africa—including South Africa, Zambia and Tanzania—would reject the presence of "foreign forces." Senior South African officials have refused to meet with Gen. William (Kip) Ward, whom President George W. Bush recently named as the eventual head of Africom. "I can imagine that countries are very nervous about what Africom means," Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of State for African affairs, conceded to NEWSWEEK.
Perhaps the biggest source of concern is the recent U.S. track record in the Horn of Africa, where Washington has been pursuing an increasingly militarized policy for more than a year with disastrous results. Twice in the past year, the United States has intervened in Somalia—first by supporting local warlords, then by backing an Ethiopian invasion—to undermine the regime of the fundamentalist Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which Washington accuses of maintaining links with Al Qaeda. Fighting has raged across Mogadishu ever since, killing hundreds of innocent civilians and forcing some 400,000 from their homes, without decisively toppling the Islamists. U.S. and European attempts to create a government of national unity have failed spectacularly.
Now the conflict is spreading west to Ethiopia—where tensions between ethnic Somalis and Ethiopians are at a high—and north to Eritrea, which the United States accuses of harboring Qaeda operatives with ties to the ICU. The Bush administration is now on the verge of labeling Eritrea, once a U.S. ally, a state sponsor of terror. None of this helps Washington sell the idea that Africom will be a force for peace. "We have done a horrible job in getting our message out in the War on Terror," says one senior U.S. official in Ethiopia, who provided comment on the condition that his name not be used. "We've ceded the battlefield to these extremist elements."
One of the mistakes Washington has made—a mistake the creation of Africom might compound—has been to rely so heavily on Ethiopia. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who just 10 years ago President Bill Clinton hailed as one of a "new generation of African leaders," now has one of the worst human-rights records in Africa. Secret police repress opposition members while the Meles government intimidates international aid organizations, kicking the medical charity Doctors Without Borders out of Ethiopia's conflicted eastern border region last week.
Similar concerns elsewhere may make it harder for Africom to find a permanent base. But there will probably always be takers. Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has offered her country as a possible location. And Frazer maintains that she's "positive" Africom will find a home on the continent somewhere. But with so much hostility, it may never feel entirely welcome.
With Jason McLure in Dire Dawa, and Silvia Spring and Alexandra Polier in Nairobi
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20657234/site/newsweek/
SOMALIA: Numbers of IDPs overwhelming border town
NAIROBI, 11 September 2007 (IRIN) - At least 8,000 Somalis who fled violence in the capital, Mogadishu, are facing hunger, disease and lack of shelter in Dobley town, near the Kenyan border, local officials said.
"Our estimate is that since the end of April, between 5,000 and 8,000 have arrived in Dobley," Ali Hussein Nur, the district commissioner, told IRIN.
Households in the small town, he added, were hosting two to three displaced families each. Some of the homeless people had set up makeshift shelters under trees. Nur said buses and trucks carrying internally displaced persons (IDPs) had been arriving daily from Mogadishu. "We had three buses bringing about 70 people this morning [11 September]."
Nur said the number of displaced people arriving in Dobley had risen recently. "We have seen more people coming in late July and August than at any time since February," he added, noting that some had crossed the border into refugee camps in Kenya.
Ali Hussein Goni, an official from the Swedish African Welfare Alliance (SAWA), said the IDPs were facing food shortages, lack of shelter and medicines.
“There has been no food distribution in the town for about five months,” said Nur. "We have been making appeals but it seems no one is listening."
Goni said that Dobley, with an estimated population of 15,000 before the influx, had seen the number of residents almost double. "On every street and under every tree you will find people sheltering," he added.
"In my own house, my family of seven is hosting nine people. It is like that in every house," he said.
Abdiaziz Ilmi, 35, who arrived from Mogadishu on 8 September, said: "I came here on Saturday with my family of 12, including my 70-year-old mother, to escape the violence," he told IRIN. He and his family are sharing a compound. "Twenty-four of us live in the compound."
He said so far they had depended on the kindness of the locals. "God bless them, they have been helping us with water and whatever else they could afford."
"WFP [UN World Food Programme] is in the process of verifying IDP caseloads in Lower and Middle Juba regions and the possibility of accessing Dobley," Said Warsame, WFP Somalia Information Officer, told IRIN.
Nur said both the IDPs and locals need immediate assistance. With the onset of the ‘deyr’ rainy season expected in early October and the holy month of Ramadan starting in a few days, many families will face serious food shortages.
"The people [locals] have exhausted their capacity to help," he said.
Persistent insecurity in parts of southern Somalia has limited the ability of aid agencies to provide aid.
Since intense fighting between Ethiopian-backed government troops and insurgents began in February, at least 1,000 people reportedly have been killed and more than 400,000 displaced.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74227
Ethiopia: Call for a Millennium for Human Rights
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, 11 September 2007
As Ethiopia celebrates a new Millennium on 12 September 2007 according to the country's officially-used Julian calendar, Amnesty International calls on the Ethiopian government to mark the Millennium with a special declaration of commitment to protection of human rights.
In the year 2000 when the rest of the world celebrated the new Millennium according to the international Gregorian calendar, world leaders at the United Nations adopted the Millennium Declaration to reduce poverty. They also stated, "We will spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for all internationally recognized human rights."
For the Ethiopian Millennium, concerts and parties are being held over the coming year to celebrate Ethiopia's rich cultural heritage. Events are being organized by the government, civil society and the Ethiopian diaspora in many countries throughout the world. The development initiatives, such as tree-planting, and fundraising for schools and clinics, match UN Millennium Development Goals.
Respect for human rights should also have a place in Ethiopia's Millennium objectives.
Prisoners of conscience: Two human rights defenders arrested in November 2005 and on trial for political offences carrying possible death sentences will be judged on 8 October - Daniel Bekele of ActionAid and Netsanet Demissie of the Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia. All other defendants in this and another related trial, including opposition party leaders and journalists considered by Amnesty International to be prisoners of conscience, were convicted, sentenced to life imprisonment or other prison terms, then swiftly pardoned in July-August 2007, after signing a negotiated pardon request. Amnesty International has welcomed their release, while reserving final analysis about the fairness of the trials. Three Ethiopian Teachers Association officials, who are torture survivors considered by Amnesty International to be prisoners of conscience, have been in detention since May-June 2007 and have not been formally charged to date. Amnesty International calls for the immediate release of these and all other prisoners of conscience.
Torture: Amnesty International is deeply concerned about reports of torture of opposition party activists arrested in December 2006, most of whom are still in custody. The government should order impartial and independent investigations into these and other allegations of torture and take all necessary steps to prevent torture of prisoners.
Death Penalty: On 6 August 2007 an execution took place -- the second execution since the present government came to power in 1991. On a positive note, the President commuted 10 death sentences in a New Year's amnesty in September 2006. However, Amnesty International was concerned that the prosecution in the above-mentioned political trial demanded the death penalty for all defendants -- though it was not imposed by the court. Members of the pre-1991 Dergue government who were convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in June, including former President Mengistu Hailemariam in his absence in Zimbabwe, were not sentenced to death, but to life imprisonment -- although the prosecution has appealed to the Supreme Court for the death penalty to be imposed instead. Several death sentences for homicide and politically-related violent crimes await the results of judicial appeals or applications for clemency. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty as a violation of human rights and calls for it to be abolished in Ethiopia and worldwide.
The Somali Region: Amnesty International is deeply concerned about reports of grave violations of human rights and a humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia's Somali Region in the southeast, also known as the Ogaden. This is a result of the government's military operations against the armed opposition Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), following the ONLF's attack on a Chinese oil installation in Abole on 24 April 2007. Amnesty International condemned the ONLF's killing of some 65 Ethiopian civilians and seven Chinese civilians in this incident. Amnesty International calls now on the government for a full lifting of its blockage on humanitarian aid and movement of food supplies to the conflict-affected parts, and an end to extrajudicial executions.
A Millennium Appeal
Amnesty International appeals to the Government of Ethiopia to take the opportunity of this Millennium to affirm commitment to human rights, and to uphold its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law. Amnesty International calls on the government to release all prisoners of conscience, publicly declare a strict prohibition of the use of torture, abolish the death penalty and lift blockage of humanitarian aid to the Somali Region.
Amnesty International is inviting support from Ethiopians in all sectors of society for opening up a new era for human rights in Ethiopia to mark the Millennium.
Ethiopia on the eve of a new millennium
Tia Goldenberg | Addis Ababa,11 September 2007
Gebre Alemayu hopes to achieve one goal for Ethiopia's millennium: to be able to run 5km in less than 14 minutes.
The 18-year-old runner was on Tuesday taking a break from his practice at central Addis Ababa's Meskel Square, which was draped in posters and banners celebrating the Ethiopian millennium.
But unlike party-goers from around the world and many Ethiopians, Gebre will not be joining in on the lavish festivities set for Tuesday night.
"I have to work tonight. I am a shoe-shine boy and will make about 50 cents in one day," he said.
Ethiopia follows a 13-month Coptic calendar that was discarded by the church in the sixth century AD and sees the Horn of Africa country adopt a seven-year delay from the rest of the world.
Ethiopia's ubiquitous runners filled the square, which was decorated with large doves and light displays.
In contrast, scores of people in bedraggled clothing sat aimlessly around the square on Tuesday afternoon, many of them unemployed young men who said they could not celebrate the millennium by attending concerts, but had hope for what the new year might bring.
"I'm happy for the millennium. I hope that I can run 5km in under 14 minutes. That is my vision," said Gebre.
"I have hope to gain good things," said Yohannes Megersa, a student. "But tonight I will watch the celebrations on television."
Yosef Tassrew, a 25-year-old engineering student, said he was excited for the new millennium, despite being unable to find work in accounting, in which he holds a degree.
But, he added, Ethiopians -- more than half of whom live on less than $1 a day -- must take their future into their own hands if they want change. "We have to be creative and we need motivation. We must be devoted. That is my vision."
Ethiopia is hoping the millennium bash will shed a positive light on the country best known for its 1984 famine that killed nearly one million people.
"It is one of the biggest image-recovery projects. We are known for the famine but that is not the whole of Ethiopia. We have so much to offer," said Seyoum Bereded, head of the Millennium Secretariat.
A concert featuring United States hip-hop band the Black Eyed Peas is set to draw up to 20 000 people but tickets cost $165 -- more than an average Ethiopian makes in two months.
Free events are happening at other venues in the capital, with the main concert set to be simulcast at the other locations.
"The concert will be nice, but I can't afford it," said Yosef, who added he will sit at home with his family to mark the millennium, until next year, he said, when he might find a job.
"In the future, I will get a job," he said, arm-in-arm with a friend. "The future will be bright." -- Sapa-dpa
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=318934&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Ethiopia criticises UN team
10/09/2007
Addis Ababa - Ethiopia criticised on Monday the work of a commission appointed by the United Nations to demarcate the disputed border with Eritrea.
In a statement received by AFP, the foreign ministry condemned the commission's announcement that the border defined last year would be final if no progress was made by November 2007.
"Ethiopia cannot accept the commission's co-ordinates. Demarcation requires a valid process," the statement said.
The ministry charged that the commission had "abandoned its own demarcation process because Eritrea" made fieldwork impossible by barring UN helicopters and deploying its army in the temporary security zone along the border.
Officials from both countries met last week in The Hague, together with the UN panel, in a last-ditch attempt to break the deadlock that followed their deadly 1998-2000 border conflict.
But talks broke down and Eritrea had already accused Ethiopia of refusing to co-operate.
Following the 2000 peace agreement reached by the two foes in Algiers, the border commission had made a decision in 2002 granting a key border town to Eritrea, prompting Ethiopia to reject the ruling.
The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission is to be dissolved in November and the border demarcation to be definitive if no breakthrough is reached between the two neighbours by then.
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2180682,00.html
Jendayi Frazer :Unofficial TPLF Spokeswoman or a Top US Official?
Sept 09m 2007
At a time when multiple sources including human rights and Non-Governmental Organizations, NGOs, working in Ogaden have detailed not only the type of atrocities but also the extent of the war crimes committed against the Ogaden citizenry by the TPLF army and its’ associated militias;
At a moment when no international journalist is allowed to set foot in Ogaden, it is quiet disappointing, to say the least, to hear the recent outburst from Jendayi Frazer who is a host to the same Ethiopian junta that has not only ordered but carried out the current war crimes reported in Ogaden.
When Frazer terms the genocide that has and is taking place in Ogaden as merely allegations that are 'unsubstantiated', which happens to be the same terms used by Zenawi in the recent Time’s interview, we are left to wonder whether Frazer is a top US diplomat for African affairs or an unofficial spokeswoman for the Tigrian People’s Liberation Front, TPLF.
What evidence, other than the propaganda fed to her by the TPLF misinformation minions, does Frazer have that can make all the horror stories provided the internationally renowned human rights organizations, Ogaden survivors of the current Ogaden war crimes, and the NGOs who have an innate knowledge of the Ogaden landscape and people, as mere ‘unsubstantiated’ allegations?
We, the Ogaden Editorial Board, EOB, believe that Frazer has accepted in face value, the misinformation provided by the TPLF junta headed by Zenawi. EOB also believes that merely accepting TPLF propaganda in face value harms not only the image of the United States of America as a champion of democracy but also US security interests in the horn.
Instead of acting as an unofficial TPLF spokeswoman, EOB hopes that Frazer will closely scrutinize the actions of the TPLF junta in Addis Ababa. The US State department should use its clout in order to put the brakes on the war crimes that are taking place in Ogaden.
http://www.ogaden.com/edit090907.htm
Why We Don't Hear About the Conflict in the Ogaden.
When an American reporter started digging, he was forced out of Ethiopia
In recent months, reports have begun to spill out of Ethiopia detailing human rights abuses and misuse of food aid in its eastern Ogaden region. Human Rights Watch issued a report urging Ethiopia to stop "abuses [that] violate the laws of war."
The U.S. government considers Ethiopia an important ally in the war on terror, since it shares borders with Eritrea, Sudan, and Somalia, the latter invaded by Ethiopia this past Christmas with Washington's approval. Ethiopia has not been able to extricate itself from Somalia, and the military has been accused of possible war crimes there. Mogadishu even has a new nickname: "Baghdad on the Sea."
In addition to sending nearly half a billion dollars in aid money to Ethiopia every year, more than to any other sub-Saharan African country, the United States also supplies the Ethiopian military with funds, arms, and special forces training from Army Rangers.
Yet with all the recent negative attention focused on Ethiopia, it is easy to forget that the country had been on the right track. In 2005, poverty was down, growth was up, the local press was flourishing, and the capital, Addis Ababa, was brimming with hope and excitement about upcoming elections.
When the results of those elections were made public, however, many felt that something was amiss. The opposition, enormously popular in the capital, came up suspiciously short. They called the elections fraudulent. Many election observers agreed. Protests took place throughout the country.
At this moment, with the international community watching, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his ruling party had a chance to show the world that it was indeed a burgeoning democracy. Instead, it took several steps backward and made Western leaders like Tony Blair, who'd appointed Zenawi to his Commission for Africa, look foolish.
During post-election demonstrations, at least 30,000 people were arrested, and more than 100 were killed. Snipers were used on protesters. All the top opposition leaders were arrested, as was the mayor-elect of Addis Ababa.
I, too, was arrested. At the time I was working for a regional African newspaper, and I had been caught taking photos of federal police beating young boys. For 12 hours I sat on a dirt floor in an old customs house, and, because I am American, I was largely ignored. The detained Ethiopians were beaten and forced to crawl over sharp rocks and hop up and down on bloodied feet. The lucky ones were released after a few weeks. Others were taken to rural prisons and not heard from for months.
The crackdown was remarkably effective. Fledgling newspapers were shut down, and their editors jailed along with the opposition leaders. Average Ethiopians once again became hesitant to speak out in public about anything potentially sensitive. Government agents are everywhere, friends would whisper to me when I tried to initiate conversations about politics.
Initially, I scoffed at their reluctance to talk and told them they were being dramatic. I did not understand that after this short period of euphoria and political engagement, Ethiopia had quickly sunk back into an era of repression and suspicion, an atmosphere of fear exactly like the ones that had defined the country's previous regimes, one socialist and one monarchic.
Just how naive I was in 2005 did not become clear, however, until this summer, when I began reporting on the region of Ethiopia known as the Ogaden.
The Ogaden is a hot and unforgiving landscape populated almost entirely by ethnically Somali pastoralists; it takes up a large swath of the Somali region of eastern Ethiopia. Depending on whom you ask, it has a population of 4 million or 7 million people.
Long ignored, the government has started to pay closer attention to the region in recent years, not only because of security concerns posed by rebel groups and Islamists from neighboring Somalia, but also because it has realized it has a valuable asset in the possible oil deposits there.
In April, an Ogadeni rebel group attacked a Chinese-run oil field and killed more than 70 Chinese and Ethiopian workers. After the attack, the Ethiopian military swooped in and vowed "to hunt down" the rebels. They began this effort by closing all roads into the region to commercial and humanitarian traffic, and then terrorizing the civilian population.
When three journalists from the New York Times traveled to the region to try to understand why the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a relatively unknown group, had lashed out so violently, they were detained by the Ethiopian military, threatened, had all their equipment confiscated, and were finally released without charge five days later.
Because I was contributing reporting to the Times, the Ethiopian government began to pay attention to me as well. I would later discover that my phone had been tapped months earlier, and there were rumors that I was being followed. While I knew I was under some kind of surveillance, I also knew that I had to begin reporting in earnest on the Ogaden, and so I sought out people who had fled that region and had ended up in Addis Ababa.
In Addis, there are several neighborhoods populated by ethnic Somalis, and one was made up almost entirely of internally displaced people from the Ogaden. I started spending time there, meeting secretly in living rooms with cautious, veiled women and angry men, young and old.
They would tell me their stories and show me their scars. One elderly woman even removed her hijab, exposing her shoulder and back, to show me the grotesque, deep scar hidden there. Ten months earlier, she had been stabbed with a bayonet by an Ethiopian soldier. "He asked me to stand up, and I guess I did this too slowly for him," she said, focusing her rheumy, blue-rimmed eyes on mine. "He meant to hit my face."
Every person I interviewed had a similar story. Their villages had been burned. Their men and women had been jailed, tortured, and raped. Many had been killed. One student I spoke with said, "There are only two options for us: Join the rebels or flee."
After a Times piece detailed these accusations, aid workers and officials within the government became more willing to speak about other things that were happening in the Ogaden, but none would comment on the record or meet publicly. They were afraid to jeopardize their operations in the country. The government had effectively cowed not only the civilian population, but also aid groups, the United Nations, and foreign embassies.
In addition to having my phone tapped, I was now sure I was being followed by plainclothes intelligence agents. On several occasions, after I exited a taxi, the driver would be interrogated by police.
One day, two men in civilian clothes identifying themselves as police officers showed up at my house and questioned my cook, a 15-year-old girl who'd just finished the eighth grade and knew nothing about my work. She was shaken by the experience, and I knew things had changed.
I began to consider leaving Ethiopia. My love for the country collided with my ever-increasing fear and disdain for those who were making my life, and the lives of those who knew me, difficult. For the first time in two years of living in this beautiful place, I was afraid to leave my home. The government's goal was intimidation, and it was working.
Everyone around me told me to leave, including the U.S. ambassador, who offered to escort me to the airport. It was not an official expulsion, but there was a real chance that I would be arrested and charged under local laws if I stayed. The next day, I reluctantly bought a ticket and packed my bags.
Early on a Saturday morning, I hailed a taxi to take me to the American Embassy. As we pulled away from my house, I noticed my landlord looking out from his door. He had seen me put luggage into the taxi, and I knew he would immediately call the police with this information.
Earlier that week, I had learned that the man I had lived not 200 yards from for two years, the man I paid my rent to and chatted amiably about America with, was an unofficial government spy. In 2005, he had identified and turned in dozens of neighborhood people he suspected of supporting the opposition party. He even appeared on the state-run TV channel urging the ruling party and the police to more effectively punish the city's young people.
I urged the taxi driver to hurry. At the embassy, I was greeted by the ambassador, who shook my hand and tossed my suitcase into the trunk of his waiting SUV. "I wonder if there'll be any Ethiopian intelligence guys waiting for you at the airport," he said, chuckling.
There were not. Only glassy-eyed airport employees and passengers going about the business of waiting. I boarded the plane, and without any fanfare except my own nervous breathing, flew away from Ethiopia—the country I loved that, in the end, didn't love me back.
http://www.slate.com/id/2173264
US, UN concern over Ethiopian rebel crackdown Sat Sep 8
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - The United States and the United Nations expressed concern Saturday at an Ethiopian crackdown on insurgents in its restive Ogaden region, urging the government to respect human rights.
"We are indeed very concerned by reports we have heard of what is happening there, on the effects of military operations on the humanitarian situation there," said UN aid chief John Holmes.
Holmes denounced a decision by Ethiopian authorities to expel two global charities -- the Medecins Sans Frontiers and International Committee for the Red Cross -- from the area. "We have been talking to the government of Ethiopia about this intensively," he told reporters in Nairobi.
Government forces are carrying out a military crackdown against rebel groups in the Ogaden, a vast territory in southeastern Ethiopia.
Human rights groups have accused the army of razing villages, displacing thousands of civilians and imposing an economic blockade on the region, which has suffered flooding and drought. "We urge all governments to respect the human rights, but it is difficult when you are fighting an insurgency," said Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs at the US State Department. "The Ethiopian government is dealing with an insurgency in Ogaden. Civilians are always the most negatively affected. We continue to ask the Ethiopian government to avoid those casualties," Frazer said, speaking in Addis Ababa.
A UN fact-finding mission left the region on Thursday and Holmes said he was waiting for their report. The rebels claim that the government has carried out rights abuses in Ogaden.
The ICRC and MSF have been expelled from the flashpoint region for allegedly meddling in politics.
The Ethiopian military launched their crackdown following an attack by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebel group against a Chinese oil venture in which 77 people were killed.
A United Nations fact-finding mission is currently in the Ogaden region but it is unclear whether they were allowed to enter some of the areas described by MSF as the worst-hit.
The ONLF rebels, who declared a unilateral ceasefire Sunday to facilitate the mission, urged the "UN to put in place mechanisms that will protect the civilian population Ogaden from continued war crimes."
Formed in 1984, the ONLF is fighting for the independence of ethnic Somalis in Ogaden, saying they have been marginalised by Addis Ababa.
Frazer said the group was being supported by neighbouring Eritrea. "Eritrea is undermining the security and the stability in the Horn of Africa," she said. "They harbor terrorists, it is a state sponsoring terrorism. We hope they will stop doing so if not we'll see what actions to take."
Ogaden, an arid area in the Somali state of eastern Ethiopia, is believed to contain oil and natural gas, but rebel activities have scuppered efforts to carry out conclusive explorations.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070908/wl_africa_afp/ethiopiarebelsrights_070908221422
Rebels With a Cause
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT IN ETHIOPIA
Essays on Underdevelopment, Democracy and Self-Determination
Edited by Seyoum Hameso and Mohammed Hassen
Various authors have narrated the reasons that led to the abject Ethiopian condition. But this book is unique because it is an in-depth treatment of the subject covering socio-political history, contemporary political economy, and politics of nationalist struggles. Furthermore, the diverse cultural predisposition, academic training, and scholarly caliber of the contributors make their messages a timely work of immense role and great importance.
The book explores the root causes of arrested development. It exposes oppressive mechanisms used by the Ethiopian state to suppress the creative talents of its subjects. It depicts not only the lack of respect for basic human rights in Ethiopia, but also the denial of the people’s right to freely determine the governance of their choice and the pace of their socio-economic progress. The contributors to this book passionately believe that the problems facing the majority peoples in Ethiopia are neither inevitable nor insurmountable.
Synopsis
Dissecting contemporary Ethiopia, this work includes the voices of conflict in the emerging third world. This is a collection of essays exploring the contradicting paradigms of oppression and liberation in Ethiopia. Since the creation of the Ethiopian Empire in the 1880s, political, social and military power has been dominated by the elites of two minority groups. The vast majority of the peoples in Ethiopia have been subjected to political subjugation, economic marginalisation and cultural dehumanisation. While the ruling ethnic groups have sought to maintain the status quo, the oppressed majority have been struggling to free themselves from tyrannical rule. As a result, contemporary Ethiopia is a mass of contradictions and contest revolving around the paradigms of oppression and liberation - producing decades of civil wars, violation of human rights, poverty, famine and misery in monumental proportions. These essays explore the root causes of arrested development. They expose the oppressive mechanisms used by the Ethiopian state to suppress the creative talents of its subjects. As much as they are inspired by the long suffering of the oppressed people, they are informed by the search for solutions, articulating a yearning for freedom, human dignity, self-determination and democracy.
SOMALIA-KENYA: Women bear the brunt of Somali conflict
GARISSA, 7 Sep.2007 (IRIN) - Zamzam Abdinoor, a 16-year-old orphan, has already been married and widowed twice and is now a single mother of two.
She was first married off to a militiaman in the port town of Kismayo. He was killed in one of Somalia's many factional confrontations just a year into the marriage. Her uncle then found another militiaman and she was soon married off again. The second husband also met with a violent death.
"I was devastated and vowed never to marry any man with a gun again. I was heavily pregnant with an orphan and about to deliver," said Abdinoor, now a refugee in the Kenyan town of Garissa after fleeing fighting between Somali government troops and forces of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) early in 2007.
"Even without a man my two children can eat and wear good clothes. Our men are evil," said Abdinoor, who now sells tea, food and khat, a leafy stimulant chewed by many in the Horn of Africa.
Jawahir Farah (not her real name), 17, became the third wife of a militiaman, but the mother of one now finds herself alone, her husband having disappeared during the height of fighting between Ethiopian troops and UIC forces in Mogadishu early in 2007.
"My parents married me to the man. He was a fighter and in charge of revenue collection at the busy Bakara market [in the capital, Mogadishu], Farah told IRIN, her six-month-old baby strapped to her back. "He was rich and I was happy to be married to him because he could afford to buy anything, gold jewellery, the best clothes and food. "Now I cannot tell whether he is alive or dead. I have received conflicting reports. Some say he is hiding while others said he is dead," she said.
Most vulnerable
Women and children are the most vulnerable to civil strife in Somalia, according to Abdirahman Yussuf Meygan, a conflict resolution expert. They form the majority of Somali refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries, he said. "When militiamen die they leave behind several widows and orphans. Some might be lucky to get assistance, but often they are left to suffer," said Meygan.
Nemia Temporal, head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' sub-office in the Dadaab refugee camps in eastern Kenya, said the agency runs programmes to help vulnerable women, providing protection and integration services, counselling and resettlement assistance. "Single mothers either abandoned or separated from their husbands as a result of the conflicts are vulnerable to harassment, discrimination and physical harm," said Temporal.
Abdia Sheikh, another refugee and widowed survivor of the Somali conflict, said women in her situation could take care of themselves if they were helped to set up small businesses.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74174
Somalia: Somalis in Kenya help themselves.
http://www.irinnews.org/audiofiles/050920071.rm
The Leading Factions behind the Somali Insurgency
By Andrew McGregor
The U.S.-supported Ethiopian invasion that expelled Somalia's Islamist government last December is rapidly deteriorating into a multi-layered conflict that will prove resistant to resolution. Resistance to Ethiopian troops and the Ethiopian-installed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is inspired by nationalism, religion, economic factors and clan loyalties, yet all of these motivations are part of a constantly shifting pattern of allegiances in which the only common characteristic is a desire to expel foreign troops from Somalia. Local warlords and clan leaders who were deprived of power by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) are now scrambling to reassert control over their small fiefdoms in Mogadishu, while many former ICU gunmen have transferred their allegiance to clan militias.
Fighting in the Somali capital of Mogadishu has created over 300,000 civilian refugees. Thousands more (nearly all from the Hawiye clan that dominates the capital) have been killed as residential areas become battlegrounds. Only one overwhelmed hospital is open as Ethiopian troops are using other hospitals as barracks. The Somali TFG is exacerbating the situation by imposing bureaucratic delays on the delivery of relief aid arriving in Mogadishu. Unable to resist the Ethiopian incursion, the ICU dissolved December 27, 2006, returning its stockpiles of weapons and vehicles to the clans and militias who had donated them. Since then, a number of leading elements in the resistance have emerged.
The Hawiye
The Hawiye (one of Somalia's four major clans) provided important support for the ICU in the south-central region of Somalia, which includes Mogadishu. Hawiye members (especially those of the powerful Habr Gidir Ayr sub-clan) dominated all of the ICU's decision-making bodies. Former ICU leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys is a member of the Habr Gidir Ayr (one of four major sub-clans of the Hawiye). The Hawiye sub-clans have fought each other for years in Mogadishu, but there are signs that opposition to Ethiopian/TFG forces is beginning to unify formerly antagonistic groups.
Now operating from Yemen, Sheikh Aweys claims that U.S. government support for the Ethiopian occupation and the resulting civilian deaths is motivated by a need to exact revenge for the deaths of U.S. troops in Somalia in the early 1990s. The former ICU chairman insists that Ugandan and other African Union troops will receive the same treatment as the Ethiopians. According to the sheikh, negotiations with the TFG are impossible until all foreign troops are removed from Somalia (Qaadisiya.com, April 15). On April 13, a sub-committee was formed from Hawiye representatives and Ethiopian officers in order to negotiate the terms of a cease-fire (HornAfrik Radio, April 13). A spokesman for the Hawiye cease-fire committee lashed out at the United States for its support of the Ethiopian invasion (Shabelle Media Network, April 7).
The TFG is dominated by the Darod, another of the four major clans. The Hawiye suspect that the TFG is dedicated to the advancement of the Darod and the elimination of the Hawiye. Elders of the Hawiye clan pin responsibility for the devastation of Mogadishu on the TFG and have asked for an international commission to investigate the circumstances of the conflict (Radio Shabelle, April 15; Radio Banadir, April 14). Hawiye elders also accuse the TFG of recruiting only Darod into the army. To deflect such criticism, TFG Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi recently appointed a notorious Hawiye warlord to the post of Somali chief of police (Garowe Online, April 18).
TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad is from the Majerteen sub-clan of the Darod. He commanded Darod forces in battles against the Hawiye in the 1990s. The Hawiye believe that the Ethiopians are set on installing a Darod-dominated government intent on eliminating their clan. Claims of "ethnic-cleansing," "war crimes" and "genocide" are increasingly used by the Hawiye to describe Ethiopian actions in Mogadishu.
Relations between the Hawiye and the Darod clans were irreparably poisoned by the massacres of Darod by the Hawiye in Mogadishu after the overthrow of Somali dictator Siad Barre in 1991. Given this history, the arrival of President Yusuf and his well-armed veteran Darod militia was especially alarming to the Hawiye, who now fear retribution for the massacres of 1991. The intense fighting of the last month began when the president announced plans to forcibly disarm non-government militias in Mogadishu.
Deputy Prime Minister Husein Mohammed Farah Aideed has angered his comrades in the TFG by visiting the Eritrean capital of Asmara, where he accused Ethiopia of planning "genocide" in Somalia. Aideed, a former U.S. Marine, leads a militia drawn from the Habr Gidir Sa'ad sub-clan of the Hawiye. Notorious for changing sides, Aideed created a controversy earlier this year when he suggested Somalis and Ethiopians use a common passport. Having survived the resulting firestorm, Aideed appears to have made a strategic decision to now oppose the Ethiopian invasion.
Shabaab
Shabaab (Youth) once served as an ICU-controlled elite militia. The group was formed in August 2006 from a core of fighters who played an important role in last year's defeat of the Anti-Terrorist Alliance, a U.S. supported coalition of Somali warlords (Somaliland Times, August 12, 2006). The group became known for its ruthless methods that often discredited the ICU in international opinion. Many ICU leaders distanced themselves from Shabaab, fearing the militia's radicalism would spark a new round of internecine fighting. Shabaab took heavy losses attempting to resist the Ethiopian advance into Somalia last December, but now it is more at home in the vicious urban warfare of Mogadishu.
After Aweys fled to Yemen, leadership of Shabaab passed to his former aide, Adan Hashi Ayro, a U.S.- and UN-designated terrorist and radical Islamist who is reported to have trained in Afghanistan prior to the September 11 attacks. U.S. spokesmen claimed that a January 8 airstrike by U.S. gunships wounded Ayro. The roughly 30 year-old Shabaab leader released an audiotape in March denying rumors of his death: "I will fight the troops who are enemies of my religion and who have invaded my homeland…and I am certain I will remove them by force soon" (Garowe Online, March 7). The Shabaab leader has several disputes with his own Habr Gidir Ayr sub-clan.
Mukhtar Robow ("Abu Mansur") is another prominent Shabaab leader, accused by the United States of providing logistical support to al-Qaeda (U.S. Department of State, African Affairs Fact Sheet, January 25). Other Shabaab leaders include Afghanistan veteran Ahmad Abdi Godane and Ibrahim Haji Jama ("al-Afghani"), who is reported to have fought in Kashmir as well as in Afghanistan. "Al-Afghani" is wanted in the quasi-independent state of Somaliland, where he was sentenced last December to 25 years in prison on terrorism charges (Somaliland Times, December 9, 2006).
Typical of many Salafi militant groups, Shabaab offers an alternative to clan- or tribal-based movements, drawing on a wide base of recruits. The typical Shabaab gunman is a poorly-educated youth in his late teens or early twenties who has grown up in the midst of Somalia's violent rivalries. Unlike former ICU colleagues who have found work with the re-emerging clan militias, the Shabaab fighter holds a rather inflexible and radical interpretation of Islam that compels him to undertake dangerous missions in the cause of creating an Islamist Somalia. This is a fairly new development in Somalia, where allegiance to ideology has tended to take second place to family and clan loyalties when under pressure. Many Shabaab fighters are reported to have undergone military training in Eritrea (Voice of America, January 6).
Shabaab fighters are often referred to as "the masked men" due to their habit of drawing red scarves across their faces during assaults on TFG and Ethiopian troops. The masks protect their identity not only from government forces, but also from Mogadishu residents, many of whom are bitterly unhappy about the civilian carnage resulting from Shabaab's poorly-aimed mortars and the brutal retaliation of Ethiopian artillery on the residential districts that Shabaab uses as launching points for its reckless assaults. Many Mogadishu neighborhoods have hired vigilantes to prevent their use as firing-points by Shabaab fighters. Shabaab leader Adan Hashi Ayro claims that the mortar shells raining down on Mogadishu homes are fired by Ethiopian troops. Although Shabaab once numbered several thousand fighters, it probably does not field more than several hundred men at the moment.
In early April, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer claimed that Eritrea and the "global jihadist network" were supporting Shabaab (Shabelle Media Network, April 7). Eritrea denies accusations from the United States that it is supporting and supplying the Somali insurgency, but there is little doubt that Asmara takes delight in the predicament of Ethiopia, a bitter enemy of Eritrea since the two countries fought an inconclusive but bloody border war in 1998-2000 that claimed 70,000 lives. A Hawiye spokesman insisted that clan leaders have no contact with Eritrea or the former ICU leadership (Radio Shabelle, April 9).
The Popular Resistance Movement
Another resistance group formed in January of this year is al-Harakah al-Muqawamah al-Sha'biyah fi al-Bilad al-Hijratayn (The Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of the Two Migrations, PRMLTM) (Qaadisiya.com, January 19). Led in the Banadir region by Sheikh Abdikadir, the movement has issued warnings to African Union peacekeepers that they can expect no different treatment than the Ethiopians. The PRM has since claimed responsibility for a March 12 attack on a Ugandan convoy. On March 21, an Ethiopian offensive against Habr Gidir strongholds in south Mogadishu was ambushed by hundreds of masked gunmen. The Ethiopians withdrew after a firefight lasting several hours, leaving their dead behind to suffer mutilation and burning before being dragged through the streets. The PRM claimed responsibility for the ambush (Associated Press, March 22).
Other Resistance Factions
Responsibility for a March 6 assault on the Mogadishu airport and a March 16 mortar attack on the presidential palace was claimed by the Tawhid wa'l-Jihad Brigades in Somalia (Unity and Struggle), apparently in response to the alleged rapes of Somali women by Ethiopian troops. The group promises a series of suicide attacks.
The Young Mujahideen Movement in Somalia is another group that has claimed attacks on Ethiopian troops, including an April 19 suicide bombing that allegedly involved the use of chemicals (SomaliNet, April 21).
Al-Qaeda in Somalia?
TFG Prime Minister Gedi maintains that the relentless shelling of north Mogadishu is designed to clear out "terrorist groups." Using the now familiar language of those seeking U.S. military support, Gedi referred to "al-Qaeda operatives" while insisting that only terrorists opposed the government: "there are no Hawiye people involved in the conflict" (Somaliweyn Radio, April 21). The TFG seems well aware that clan warfare rarely brings the type of U.S. support that can be expected by allies in the war on terrorism. According to a Hawiye spokesman, Ethiopian officers insisted during a meeting with the Hawiye cease-fire committee that the attacks on Ethiopian positions in the capital were being carried out by al-Qaeda, a suggestion the Hawiye rejected. The spokesman added that the Hawiye community would prefer death over giving allegiance to President Abdullahi Yusuf (Radio Shabelle, March 23).
After an April 23 battle between two Darod sub-clans for control of the southern port of Kismayo, Prime Minister Gedi denied that there was any clan struggle for the city, blaming the fighting there on "al-Qaeda-linked terrorists from Mogadishu," whom he alleged were also responsible for the deteriorating relations between Somaliland and Puntland (Shabelle Media Network, April 23).
Statements of support from al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri, foreign volunteers and diaspora returnees (not necessarily al-Qaeda affiliated) appear to have had little influence on the fighting so far. Scores of these poorly-trained fighters have been detained at the Kenyan border or picked up in Ethiopian security sweeps.
Conclusion
Ethiopia will never support a strong central government in Mogadishu that might ultimately prove capable of pressing Somali claims in the Ogaden region. Thus far, however, Ethiopia's attempt to establish a weak Somali government that owes its existence to Ethiopian power has been a failure. On the other hand, the descent into chaos means Somalia no longer represents a threat to Ethiopia's territorial integrity. If Ethiopia can manage to extricate its troops from Somalia in the near future, this might be interpreted as a victory in Addis Ababa.
Somali life is shaped by a unique social system that aids the survival of the individual, but in turn promotes schisms and hinders the creation of enduring alliances or devotion to ideological causes.
Foreign occupation is possibly the only factor capable of uniting Somalis, but there are signs that resistance to Ethiopian/African Union troops may soon exist simultaneously with a Hawiye/Darod clan war. If the situation is allowed to deteriorate to that point, it may be years before peace can be re-established in Somalia.
http://www.oromonet.org/The%20leading%20factions%20in%20Somalia.htm
ONLF rebellion.
Article by Jonathan Alpeyrie.
Ogadenia is a forgotten land wrecked by war and very harsh living conditions. The region, which is still today at the center of the volatile Horn of Africa, has seen little economic progress since its first taste of brief independence in the first Ogaden war of 1977/78. In 1991, the Meles government came into power. The region remains to this day a barren land with only two main roads a few large towns like Kabri Dahar, Jijiga and Quabribayah, which are controlled by government forces trying to tame the rebellion led by the ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front). However, to fully understand the war of today’s Ogadenia, one needs to go back further in history and take a look at the European influence in the region.
With the defeat of the Somali forces and Ogaden rebels in 1978 in the hands of the Russian backed Ethiopian army, Ogadenia was reconquered entirely. Many of the militia survivors retreated to fight another day. Three years later, the ONLF was created to continue the fighting to force the Ethiopian government into giving Ogadenia its long due independence. The ONLF, which was Founded in 1984 by Abdirahman Mahdi, the Chairman of the, Western Somali Liberation Movement Youth Union, systematically recruited their own kin and replaced WSLF in the Ogaden as the WSLF support from Somalia dwindled and finally dried up in the late eighties. By 1993, the ONLF fully consolidated its support among all of the Ogaden Somalis in Somalian territory under Ethiopian rule.
In 1994, the ONLF was a fully functional military force and Chairman Admiral Mohammed Omar Osman was reelected for a second term in 2004.
The ONLF announced elections in December 1992 for the five Ogaden districts, and won 80% of the seats of the local parliament. When Ethiopia tried to force ONLF to accept a new constitution and the ONLF refused: the Meles government declared war on them. The rebel faction continues to operate in the Ogaden as of 2006 and is the target of full-scale military operations by the Ethiopian army after ONLF stated that it would not allow Malaysian oil company Petronas to extract oil from the Ogaden, let alone give them independence.
In 2005, Ethiopia proposed peace talks with ONLF, which the rebel group accepted on the condition that talks be held in a neutral country and with the presence of a neutral mediator from the international community. The talks broke down due to Ethiopia's insistence that the two parties meet without an arbitrator and held in countries closely allied in the Horn of Africa. ONLF became a part of the Alliance for freedom and democracy on May 21st 2006, fighting occurred alongside OLF and smaller rebel groups operating in the North like TPDM.
Again in 2006, the Meles government, with the full support of US and UK governments, has vowed to crush the ONLF rebellion once and for all, reinforcing the 15 thousand permanent men garrisoned in Ogadenia with a further: 25 thousand troops, jet fighters, armored cars and some helicopters. Between February and July 2006, the army tried to destroy the rebellion, but failed completely, losing thousands of troops in the process. The ONLF remained undefeated. Why did the government, with such an overwhelming force managed to fail in its plan? They didn’t face more than 5 to 7 thousand ONLF troops through out the region. The answer to this is complex. Above all the ONLF’s strong support base with the local civilian population is key. The systematic brutalization of Ogaden civilians, and the lack of military discipline and cohesion within government troops is another reason they weren’t defeated. Lastly, there were totally inadequate strategies and tactics employed against the rebels.
Indeed, the government has found itself in a sticky spot. Its 250 thousand men army is ill equipped to fight a war on many fronts: against the five active rebel groups operating within Ethiopia’s border, the perpetual tensions on the Eritrean border, and now the rise of Islam in Somalia. Furthermore, its ranks are racked with desertion, and lack of discipline due to the internal ethnic strife, which reigns from within its units.
Meles has given key positions to his own ethnic kin, the Tigray, both in the government, and in the army, making his policies unpopular among lesser Ethnic groups fighting alongside the Tigrays. The officer corps is overwhelmingly from Tigray “terroir”, leaving other ethnic groups less attractive positions within the army. Therefore, blocking any possibilities for them to go up the ladder, the officer corps often uses same ethnic groups to fight each other, pitting Oromos against Oromos, or Sidamas against Sidamas. The poorly led Oromo, Amhara soldier is sometimes forced to desert, finding it unbearable to kill his own kin. As a consequence, a non-negligible amount of government soldiers desert their unit to escape the grueling reality of the Ogaden front.
This is the case of Thomas Gin Ernest an ethnic Hadiyan from Southern Ethiopia, drafted by force into Meles’s army, who decided after serving for six years to desert with a few others to the ONLF. “During our walk to ONLF lines, half of our party changed their minds and returned to the military camp. They were shot for treason soon after” He says this happy to have made the right choice. When captured, Mr. Gin Ernest was given some money so he can go home to his family and be reunited. By treating the prisoners with respect and dignity, the rebels attract more allies to their cause.
More importantly, government forces have created their own monster by using terror tactics against the local population. The government’s military forces are known to use violence and killings against locals Ogadens. These procedures show how Meles’s forces underestimate their enemy. Soldiers will usually enter a village to look for potential ONLF rebels, helpers and sympathizers pick people randomly. In essence, Ogadens sympathize with the struggle and contribute to it, either by joining the fighting units, or supplying them with food, water, and guns, making them all traitors to an angry eye.
Also, many civilians have experienced repeated violence, either personally, or a relative. Alimo Ahment, a 24-year-old Ogaden woman, has a common story to tell. She joined up like so many before her, because her relatives were accused of helping the ONLF, her father was put to jail and tortured for three months These kinds of terror tactics has had the exact opposite results than those expected by the government: Thus, it has increased the number of Ogadens wanting to join up with the ONLF in ranks, and hatred against the government persists within the Ogaden population--creating an entire new generation of freedom fighters in the region.
The widespread tortures, imprisonment, and killings in the region, has seen thousands of students and locals put in jail. It is said that in the main town of Jijiga where 20 thousand souls reside, 10% are currently in military camps or local jails. Most of them are accused of helping the ONLF. Many are put in confinement without trial for a minimum of three months, which is the regular torture period, unless the prisoner is rich enough to pay a bribe. Tortures are a daily reality and a well-orchestrated practice. It starts at 6AM when guards grab the prisoner into a small room, or sometimes an unusable bathroom. There, the interrogation begins, with the simple question. If the prisoner is part of the ONLF organization, and each time the answer is no, he or she is beaten, electrocuted, or raped if the prisoner is a woman. This torture is repeated twice a day for four hours each time. Survivors have recorded extreme examples of pregnant women being tortured.
Shamaad Wali, a 29 year ONLF female fighter recalls: “During my time in prison, I remember the guards throwing in an eight month pregnant woman. They repeatedly beat her until she gave birth, but the baby was already dead. They just threw it away like garbage”. She says with tears in her eyes. The government of course denies such claims, but in each village such stories of tortures and killings are quite common and widespread.
Thirdly, and lastly, government forces have failed to contain the rebellion, which has gained in strength and confidence. On the ground, the heavily burdened Ethiopian soldiers are not able to catch or kill large numbers of ONLF troopers, who operate in small band using hit and run tactics; a pretty common problem for a conventional force. The ONLF has been able to keep the initiative, attacking on their terms, ambushing reinforcing convoys, infantry columns, and villages held by enemy forces. Ethiopian forces lose thousands of troops each year due to desertions and ONLF attacks. To be sent to Ogadenia is considered by soldiers as a punishment. Prisoners all agree that fighting the Ogadens is the worst enemy they can encounter in Ethiopia. Known for their warlike behavior and fighting skills, they are waging an efficient insurgency in Ogadenia.
Governmental troops do not control the land or the local population.
For ONLF cadre, victory is now within reach. From the rebel’s point of view, the situation in Addis is quickly becoming unsustainable, suggesting a partition within the country, due to the rise of ethnic separatism. To put it in one of the commander’s words: “We started in 1994 with less than one hundred soldiers, and now look at us with seven thousand freedom fighters willing to fight and die for the liberation of our people,” says proudly the 50-year-old veteran commander. As it is true that Mr. Meles’s government is fighting on many fronts, and his army cannot defeat these various rebellions throughout the country.
Powerful Western allies, such as the United Kingdom, provide him with weapons and money to sustain the war effort, back him; while US funding also contribute to fight against terrorism in Ethiopia and contain Somalia’s Islamic rise. However, it is well established that no terrorist operates in Ethiopia, but for many of his allies in the West, Ethiopia is seen as a Christian state with common values. This can block the spread of Islam in East Africa. This kind of Western strategies and political thought will surely continue to block any attempts by rebels to challenge the government, and its military institutions leading to their replacement.
http://www.winne.com/specialsections/2007/jonathan_alpeyrie/index.php