Ethiopia’s Scorched Earth Tactic in ******ia.

[Gar-haye]

Ethiopia's war on its own

template_bas

template_bas

The government is accused of a reign of terror similar to what is happening in Darfur.

By Ronan Farrow

February 25, 2008

DADAAB, KENYA -- The bullet tore through Ibrahim Hamad's torso and lodged in his hip. The 26-year-old teacher was at home with his elderly father when government forces swept through his town in the ****** region of Ethiopia, burning huts and killing civilians. "The young girls were the first to die. The soldiers shot them and gathered the bodies and burned them," he said. The troops demanded that surviving men join their ranks, threatening those who refused with torture, imprisonment and death.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOR THE RECORD:

An earlier version of this article made reference to "Somalia's Darfur region." Darfur is in Sudan. Also, Ethiopia was misspelled in the headline as Ethiopa.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

"When they came to my home, I told them, 'I am just a schoolteacher, I will not leave my family,' " said Hamad. In a bleak whisper, he recounted the ordeal that followed. "They strangled my father with a wire and hung his body in a tree. Then they shot me and left me for dead."

 

Hamad now struggles to survive in this remote refugee camp in northern Kenya, joining thousands who have fled a reign of terror by the Ethiopian army. Little noticed by the world, Ethiopia is waging war against its own people in the ****** desert. Long-simmering tensions erupted last April when separatist rebels attacked a Chinese-run oil field. The Ethiopian government responded by ejecting humanitarian agencies and launching a scorched-earth campaign in the region.

 

The targeting of the predominantly ethnic-Somali ****** population has led to accusations of ethnic cleansing. In October, Human Rights Watch warned that events in ****** were following a "frighteningly familiar pattern" to those in Sudan's Darfur region, noting "ethnic overtones" to attacks and accusing Ethiopia of "displac[ing] large populations" and "deliberately attack[ing] civilians." Government forces have been implicated in escalating looting, burnings and atrocities. Recently, soldiers have begun a brutal campaign of forced conscription, often torturing or killing those who refuse to join.

 

The Ethiopian government has suppressed most news from the region, sealing ******'s borders and denying access to the media. Last May, three New York Times reporters researching the crisis were held for five days and had their equipment confiscated. Ethiopian officials have been quick to dismiss mounting reports of bloodshed as propaganda. But in this camp, refugees fleeing ****** tell stories of rape, torture and mass murder perpetrated against civilian villages by Ethiopia's military.

 

However, it is the U.S. government, not Ethiopia's, that elicits the most anger from Hamad and the other ******is seeking shelter in Dadaab. The bullet that shattered Hamad's hip, and the gun that fired it, were likely supplied by the United States. The soldier who pulled the trigger was almost certainly compensated with U.S. military aid.

 

The U.S. has historically provided Ethiopian forces with arms, funding and training. In recent years, the bond has deepened, with Ethiopia's military serving as a proxy for American interests in a region increasingly viewed as a crucial front in the war on terrorism. Since 9/11, military aid to Ethiopia has soared, growing at least 2 1/2 times by 2006. A close intelligence-sharing relationship between the governments has burgeoned.

 

In the face of mounting evidence of atrocities, some U.S. officials are questioning the no-strings-attached backing of Ethiopia's army. "This is a country that is abusing its own people," said Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-N.J.), chairman of the House subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, accusing the Bush administration of "look[ing] the other way" as Ethiopia's abuses worsen. Last fall, the House passed the Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act, sponsored by Payne, to limit military aid to Ethiopia. It awaits action by the Senate. "The United States cannot afford to allow cooperation on the war on terror," Payne said, "to prevent us from taking a principled stance on democracy and human rights issues."

 

Ironically, unbridled support of Ethiopia's army in the interest of combating terrorism may serve as a powerful catalyst for anti-U.S. sentiment. "We hate the U.S.A. more than the Ethiopians," one ******i told me. "It is guns and money from the U.S.A. that are killing our people."

 

If Washington wants to fight the rising tide of terrorism in the Horn of Africa, it cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the abuses of its closest ally in the region. The U.S. wields unique influence over Ethiopia; how it uses that influence will determine ******'s future. Legislators should continue to press the Bush administration to help stop the bloodshed. Current levels of U.S. aid should be made contingent on Ethiopia halting its attacks on civilians. That might sacrifice some goodwill with Ethiopian officials -- but it could save the people of the ******.

 

Ronan Farrow, a student at Yale Law School, has worked on human rights issues for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and recently accompanied a congressional delegation to the Horn of Africa.

 

 

[Gar-haye]

Keep quiet about atrocities, Ethiopia warns aid workers 27 Feb 2008 16:44:00 GMT

 

Written by: Joanne Tomkinson

An Ethiopian man carries food aid received from a relief agency near Mekele, north east Ethiopia. REUTERS/Radu Sigheti

 

Aid workers in Ethiopia's remote ****** region are currently facing an impossible dilemma. In order to carry on helping people in the east of the country, the government has warned them that they better keep quiet about allegations of army atrocities in the area.

 

International humanitarian staff have spoken anonymously to the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor about public executions, rapes, torture, arbitrary detentions and beatings of civilians by government forces in ******, where most people are ethnic Somalis.

Aid workers also accuse separatist rebels in the ****** National Liberations Front (ONLF) of terrible crimes against civilians who refuse to help them.

 

Relief agencies were expelled from ****** during Ethiopian government crackdowns on the ONLF in late 2007. They are now gradually being allowed to return with food and medicines - but only if they stay silent about what they see.

 

"We have two options: either we come out with a nasty press release tomorrow on protection of human rights, and we will have to leave behind a substantial population still facing atrocities, or we just do our work," an aid worker said to the Monitor.

 

******'s residents have greeted aid workers enthusiastically, eager to share their stories with humanitarians. "They have begged us to stay," an aid worker tells the paper.

 

Conflicting reports from locals, and a ban on journalists entering the area, mean that allegations are hard to verify. The government denies its troops have committed any atrocities.

 

"I can assure you that the government is not in the business of killing people and putting them in mass graves," government spokesman Bereket Simon told the Monitor.

 

The need for aid workers in ****** is great. Food and water are in short supply and medical supplies in the Somali area ran out long ago. The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights still has no access to investigate allegations, and the World Food Programme's food aid distributions have been hampered by conflict in the area.

 

"You always come down on the same side," the director of one organisation operating in the region said to the Monitor. "It's better to keep yourself operational and to do something."

 

Some frustrated aid workers are beginning to speak out discreetly, but it's dangerous. International staff run the risk of being expelled or seeing their operations closed down, but the stakes are even higher for local staff. Many said they didn't want to say anything to the Monitor for fear they might be imprisoned or killed.

 

One local aid worker who talked to the paper said: "It's a relief to speak with you. You hear these things and they weigh on your heart."

 

But for now, most aid workers are just getting on with the job of delivering humanitarian relief.

 

When does the moral duty to bear witness outweigh the need to try to save lives? Or where is it more important to stick by people who are suffering, even if it means not speaking out about what's going on?

 

Does it depend how many aid agencies are on the scene? Is it possible to tell the truth and keep running a relief programme?

 

What should aid agencies do?

[Gar-haye]

In Ethiopia, does staying silent save lives?

February 26, 2008

 

 

Government warns aid workers if they talk to press about atrocities in Somali region, they will lose access.

By Nicholas Benequista | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

 

Jijiga, Ethiopia

Spotting a plume of dust from an approaching vehicle, residents of Gudis village ran to tell their neighbors to hide. Then someone saw the flag on the white Land Cruiser; international aid workers were coming. "We thought you were the military," said one man to an aid worker who later recounted the story.

 

The residents of Gudis, a village of pastoralists in Ethiopia's Somali region, had not seen an aid worker in the six months since the Ethiopian military sent thousands of troops to the area to put down a renewed surge by a separatist rebel group, the ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF). Now the village was eager to share its secrets.

In the middle: Villagers, like these in Degahabur, are caught between separatist rebels and Ethiopian government forces.

anita powell/ap

 

 

At dusk, accompanied by just one villager, the group drove a few miles beyond the cluster of thatched roofs to four, freshly dug mass graves.

 

"They begged us to stay," said the aid worker, requesting anonymity.

 

Indeed, aid workers want to stay, but their presence in places like Gudis comes at a price. As the military campaign winds down in the vast portion of the Somali region known as the ******, international humanitarian groups have been gradually allowed to return, though only in exchange for their silence.

 

"We have two options: either we come out with a nasty press release tomorrow on protection of human rights, and we will have to leave behind a substantial population still facing atrocities, or we just do our work," the aid worker said.

 

Those who do talk – and they are few – whisper stories of public executions, arbitrary detentions, rapes, beatings, and torture of civilians by government forces intent on crushing a guerrilla insurgency that draws on sympathetic villagers for support. Others describe equally heinous acts committed by rebel forces against those civilians – often from rival clans – who refuse to help the insurgents, whom the government labels as terrorists.

 

With journalists prohibited from entering the area under military occupation, most of these allegations are hard to verify, and conflicting versions of the same story are common. For instance, Gudis residents told the aid workers that the 47 young men buried in the mass graves were innocent civilians killed by government forces. An elder from the Abdili subclan that inhabits Gudis said the 47 had been coerced to join a government militia and were slaughtered in a confrontation with the ONLF.

 

The government denies any wrongdoing by federal troops, including the allegation that soldiers have forced civilians to form militias.

 

"I can assure you that the government is not in the business of killing people and putting them in mass graves," says government spokesman Bereket Simon. "That is why we fought against the military regime." Mr. Bereket, like Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and many high-ranking members of Ethiopia's government, was himself once an insurgent in the movement that overthrew a socialist military dictatorship in 1991. The former revolutionaries claim to know from experience how brutal military tactics can backfire by galvanizing support for rebels.

 

The ONLF has been fighting to win greater autonomy for Somali-speakers, about 5 percent of the population, for more than two decades. The simmering conflict flared up again last April when the ONLF attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration facility, killing 74 people.

 

The United Nations has called for an independent investigation into allegations across the region, but the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights still has no access; meanwhile, international aid workers say they cannot wait for justice.

 

In Gudis, and in hundreds of similar villages, food and water are in short supply, leaving the residents to rely mostly on camel's milk for sustenance. Medical supplies ran out long ago.

 

"You always come down on the same side," said the director of one organization operating in the region. "It's better to keep yourself operational and to do something."

 

Still, questions remain about whether the food aid is reaching the people who need it – about 750,000, according to a recent US-funded assessment. Amid the conflict, food disbursements have been slow. The World Food Program (WFP) planned to distribute 53,000 metric tons of food aid in the ****** in the three months beginning in December. As of last week, less than 10,700 metric tons had reached beneficiaries.

 

"One of the things we want to make sure about is that the food gets to the people," said Gregory Beals, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the agency acting as interlocutor for aid efforts in the region. "That may mean that the food will go a little slower than we originally planned."

 

Yet even at the slow pace, aid workers and clan elders say that regional government officials and military forces still manage to divert supplies away from villages suspected of sympathies with the ONLF.

 

Some aid workers, increasingly frustrated by the situation, are discreetly speaking out. Many say they quietly and privately inform the head of the UN mission in Ethiopia, Fidele Sarassoro. The US Embassy has also convened a roundtable meeting on the Somali region.

 

For international staff, these surreptitious confessions may put their mission at risk, but for national staff – some who are from the Somali region – the stakes are even higher. Most refused to cooperate on this article for fear that they might be imprisoned or killed.

 

In spite of the perceived risk, a few local aid workers are eager to confide.

 

"It's a relief to speak with you," said one local aid worker. "You hear these things and they weigh on your heart."

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0226/p07s03-woaf.htm

 

[Gar-haye]

The stories and the evidence of endless brutality are telling of Ethiopia’s scorched earth strategy against the @gaden people. It’s no secret anymore that the Ethiopian government is in the business of killing people and putting them in mass graves. It’s evident to everyone in the world that actions truly do speak louder than voice. hence those who value human life should stand for what is moral right and to quote what Sen. Feingold said, the world and "The Bush administration must live up to its own rhetoric in promoting democracy and human rights by making it clear that we do not – and will not -- tolerant the Ethiopian government’s abuses and illegal behavior."

[Gar-haye]

update: massacre continues.

 

the 9th of March, 2008

 

 

 

Ethiopians carry out mass murder in Cambule

March 09, 2008 Reports reaching our service desk from the town of Cambule confirm mass murder carried out by the Ethiopian military and the local Somali police. Cambule is on the paved road between Djibouti and Addis Ababa.

 

Credible sources within the Ethiopian government confirmed that Meles Zenawi, the head of the Ethiopian ruling clique, personally ordered the mass murder carried out by the Ethiopians. A venerable resident of the town confirmed that Mohamoud Dirir, a minister in the Ethiopian federal government, and the local administration spearheaded the despicable operation carried against the ****** civilians in the town of Cambule.

 

It is reported that the whole town was firebombed. Most of the basic Somali dwellings in the town are said to have been destroyed by the deliberate fire. It has been difficult to receive accurate information from the town since the Ethiopians and their allied local administration have refused anyone to leave or enter the town. So far the death of six civilians whose bodies are on the town streets have been confirmed.

 

The civilians who were able to escape the death and destruction caused by the marauding Ethiopian military and its associated local administration police are reported to be camping outside the town. It also reported that these civilians are now in need of food and drinking water, which have not been supplied by neither the Ethiopians nor the non-governmental organizations present in neighboring towns and cities.

 

--****** Online News

 

[Gar-haye]

the 9th of March, 2008

 

 

 

Garabaciise businesses Looted

March 09, 2008 Reports reaching our service desk from Garabciise indicate massive looting of businesses in the town. Most of the business looted belonged to ****** Somalis. The looting is said to have been organized and carried out by the Ethiopian military. The objective is said to forcefully remove the local Somali entrepreneurs from the environs of the road that connects Djibouti and Addis Ababa. Garbciise is a business town. Locals familiar with the business in the town estimate the value of the businesses there at around one hundred million Birs.

 

This looting follows mass murder carried out recently by the Ethiopian military in the town of Cambule, which is also in the vicinity of the road between Djibouti and Addis Ababa. So far eyewitnesses confirmed the detention of up to 37 civilians. 25 of these 37 are said to have already been transferred to Addis Ababa. Only 12 remain in the Havana prison in Jig Jiga

 

--****** Online News

 

[Gar-haye]

the 9th of March, 2008

 

 

 

Khadkii Telefonada ee Jigjiga oo la jarey

March 09, 2008 Wararka ka imanaya magaalada Jigjiga ayaa sheegaya in doraad wadooyinka magaalada la soo dhoobey Ciidamo aad u badan, kuwaas oo xayirey dhamaan isu socodka ganacsiga ee magaalada.

 

Ciidamadan ayaa waxaa lagu sii dhexdaayey bulshada dhexdeeda iyaga oo xabsiga dhigayey qofkii aanan haysan waraaqaha aqoonsiga.

 

Sidoo kale, waxaa isla doraad la jarey dhamaan khadka Telefonada ee Magaalada.

 

Dhinaca kale, waxaa aad looga soo calaacalayaa xaalada abaareed ee saamaysay shacabka dalka oo dhan, haba ugu darnaato biyo la aani.

 

Sida warku sheegayo waxay Ciidamada Itoobiya hor istaageen booyado biyaha ka ganacsada oo doonaya in ay dadka tabaaleysan biyaha ka iibiyaan.

 

Halkii Foosto ee biyo ah ayaa hadii la helo waxay magaalada Dhagaxbuur ka maraysaa 30 Bir.

 

 

--****** Online News

 

 

[stoit]

How fleeting are our memories. We forget too quickly. Constant reminders such as this of the atrocities commited against our brothers and sisters must act to strenghen our commitement to one another. As a token of love, our hearts goes out to our brothers and sisters.

 

We understand and we share their sorrows and pains and although we cant really help ,not even ourselves, we keep you where you belong (in our hearts)so that in times of health we may extend a helping hand aamiin.

 

May we all get freed from occupation, corruption and bad governance aamiin

[stoit]

Ethiopia is not abusing them because it thinks them as "its own people" but precisely because it knows that they are not its own people.

 

For the same reason the NFD was underfunded and thus under developed as compared to the rest of kenya because they were not really seen as belonging to them. I have to say though that NFD was still much better than the ****** region.

[Gar-haye]

^^^

Ethiopia is not abusing them because it thinks them as "its own people" but precisely because it knows that they are not its own people.

Brother/Sister that is precisely why ethiopia is subjugating these innocent people so mercilously. they wish to eradicate and done away with them. cadawtinimadha etiopia waa mid aad uu qoto dheer. the somali character coupled with the religion of islam, they fear, is the ingredients to the extinction of their very existance. they think and approach problems in a very perimitive ways. you have seen what they have have done in moqdishu the past couple of weeks. here check it out similarly that is what they have been doing and still doing in ******ia today.

[Geel_jire]

and yet some of our own ........ continue to support our enemy............. amazing

[Gar-haye]

^^^true you would find dabaqodhi in every society.

 

 

The land of widows, and orphans: The land of ******

Mar 08, 2008

 

First Lieutenant Abraha’s ‘Decisive’ Measures

 

By Abdullahi Dahir Moge

 

First Lieutenant Abraha, the commander of the army in ******, was in no mood for mercy or compromise. If they had to celebrate their ‘silly Eid’ of the end of Ramadan, it is not my business, he thought. Indeed, if he has to teach them a lesson on how hard losing a comrade is, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Last night, as he oversaw the burial ceremony of the fallen Tigrayan compatriots, his heart bled. Someone will have to pay dearly!

 

He is not a judge or a priest to take the time to ascertain who is innocent or guilty! He is a soldier. And, a 'fine' one for that! He always believed they are all the same — 'yaw nachaw'; his catch word. All the Somali’s! Leboch (thieves)!

 

Until now, Abdi, who is a lame man, has escaped the suspicion of the Tigrayan military. However, the killing of six senior army intelligence officers by unidentified gunmen last night in front of the plot of land where he sells imported second-hand clothes muddied the waters.

 

A week ago, when two soldiers were ambushed and killed near the main motorized water well in the center of the town, the army commander responded by heading straight to the house of the district chairman, Omar-Dahir, and putting ten bullets in his skull in front of his children. He later justified his soldier’s actions in the joint security meeting with the ‘civilian’ administrators; stating that he had 'evidence' of the chairman's involvement in the ambush. No one dared to question his 'evidences.'

 

In the mud house of Amran, apart from the Eid (holiday), the jubilation was for one more reason. It was at the dawn of the same day that she finally delivered a health baby girl after long hours of labouring. Nim'o was born on that Thursday, a day of feast and happiness.

 

Hours later, Abraha was addressing the over two hundred men who were praying in garoonka, a vast area enclosed for Eid prayers. These men were the last ones leaving the scene, having done their Salat (prayers), when they were surrounded by three land cruiser pick-up trucks full of soldiers. Stay put where you are; one soldier ordered-before Abraha majestically jumped out of the cabin of one of the cars. He made a speech.

 

"Listen! Ye Somale shimagilewooch (Somali elders!). Last night, six of our bravest fighters — flag-bearers — of the "generation that rocked mountains," who played pivotal role in defeating the 'cannibal' Derg army, were killed by your sons. I don't care if they are called URLF, or GST, or Al-Itahaad or Al-Mubaarakat! I am in no mood to indulge in etymology of weird acronyms and Arabic nouns. They are all Somali's. You know them and you supply information, money and moral support to them. Now, I give you an ultimatum: produce the killers right here, or no one is walking from this sun alive."

 

He was not finished. "When one of your own is killed by another, you find out and take revenge or settle the issue through reparations. When one of our men is killed, all of a sudden you play deaf and dumb. That is not going to work anymore."

 

After 'soaking up' the sun for nearly three hours, with Abraha taking shade under one of the vehicles, one frail old man stood and spoke, trembling. "I think we have seen many governments before. We have also witnessed similar incidents. But this is the first time that, on a day of mammoth significance to us, we are forced to sit under the sun and confess 'crimes' which a) we don't know who did, b) we haven't done, and c) even if we knew, we could have done nothing to stop it."

 

The old man was agitated. "Is this fair? What kind of justice is this? What kind of humans are you when you don't respect men in their seventies and eighties who just concluded a tough holly month; and for your information, haven't eaten since this morning? It is already 3 in the afternoon and our children are waiting to share the Eid with us. Order your 'intelligence folks' to investigate and let us go to our homes."

 

First, Lt. Abraha stepped forward and caught the left ear of the old man with a vicious slap. "Quch bel (sit down)" he ordered him. The old man fell to the ground well before the order. As he walked back to his car, he told the 'hostages,': "Fine. I see you have decided to protect your darlings. You can go now. I know what to do. Tayalaachu (you will see it)." The dust of his speeding vehicles dirtied some white dresses close by as he dashed to the military camp.

 

That afternoon, Abraha took out a piece of paper and asked all the members of the district executive committee to name the most influential personalities in their sub-clans. When the list reached forty-eight, he was satisfied. For each of the Tigrayan 'hero' murdered, he will kill eight Somalis. Of course, some might spoil his plan if they 'buy themselves out' of the death sentences. That is, if they pay ten thousand Birr each. If that happens, the monetary gain will offset some of his disappointment, as long as a minimum of twenty are killed.

 

In retrospect, it is still unbelievable how Amran’s husband, Abdi, hadn’t heard of what virtually everyone in town knew about. That the army commander, Lt. Abraha, mentioned his name in a recent meeting as the 'number one' conduit and supplier of information to the rebels. Almost everyone in town who heard of this news rushed to warn him.

 

The first was his elder brother, who whispered to him, "Wait for me till I finish my prayers, I have a piece of information for you." But Abdi completely forgot this message as he limped off hurriedly to the main market to get supplies to the new mother and her baby. When his brother was done with prayers, and saw that he is not around, he dashed to the only market where he knew he would find him. He wasn't there. Instead, he opted to spend time with few Eid revelers.

 

Abdi’s friend, who knew that his friend is in danger, thought he can wait until next day. He was of the opinion that he shouldn’t dampen his sprits on this important day.

 

Even Halima, Abdi’s younger sister, who was sent by a member of the district administration, a sympathetic fellow clans-man, to warn her brother, couldn’t deliver the message. She had a bad week with her fiancée, and when he insisted that she must see him, she never thought it would take her that long. By the time she was done and came out of her lover’s tiny house, Abdi had already been picked up.

 

They got him near his house just after sun set, as he walked to his house to deliver clothes and food stuffs he bought for his wife and the new baby. He must have been coming, most likely, from Habiib’s house — his neighbour — where he was watching latest news from the lonely satellite dish in the town. Half-a-dozen soldiers suddenly stopped him. They didn’t produce any warrant, nor did they say a word. They pushed and shoved him, and took him away. He begged them to let him see his new baby; but quickly gave up as one of the soldiers hit his groin with the butt of the gun he was carrying.

 

Amran is not mystic and doesn’t believe in presentiments and ominous auguries. If she did, the falling of Abdi’s shirt three times from the nail on the wall of her room could have given her a critical hint. She was surprised, but she took it as one of many 'inexplicable experiences' she encountered all her life.

 

The Commander, Abraha, knows he had ordered the execution of twenty-six of the men arrested that night. And had it not been for the wicked 'ingenuity' of his deputy, the diminutive Takle, he would have displayed all of the dead bodies. Takle suggested that fourteen of them be strangled to death and their bodies buried inside the camp. Unlike his bullish boss, Takle is more calculative and cunning. But his meanness and barbarism is unmatched by any in his regiment. His undisguised hypertrophic sense of 'gallantry' is annoying to most of his subordinates, as well.

 

Displaying the dead will satisfy his burning desire for revenge, in addition to the ‘terror’ that it will send down the spine of the 'coward' Somali's. Hiding the rest of the dead will quell the feeling of desperation that could result in an outburst of violence, and will serve the purpose of extorting extra 'income' from anxious family members.

 

Three months after the Eid, the fortunate ones who cheated death by the grace of God, came out one after another to the hug and cries of their beloved families. Amran and Abdi's family stood there for hours waiting patiently. All in all, the numbers of men who walked out of the military camp were fourteen. If all twenty-six ordered executions were carried out that Ciid night, there will still be eight more men an accounted for. To date, no one can tell where they are. The army that took them didn’t offer any explanation, not only about them, but also about those buried en mass in undisclosed location.

 

Dr. Roble is not a psychiatrist, but a general practitioner. Yet, the enormity and diversity of health problems in this small town turned him into 'a doctor for all.' He just can’t sit back and protest it is not his area of specialization whenever desperate villagers bring all kinds of patients into his two-room pharmacy/clinic. He does his best, and the community is grateful. When they brought Amran to him, nearly a year after that eventful Thursday, she had already lost her sanity. They told him that she looked for her husband in all the jails of the country, in vain.

 

Amran's account of that 'epoch of lunacy' is different, as she told her brother-in-law when she brought Nim'o for medical treatment thirteen years later. She says she saw her husband walking in the street and run after him to tell him how much pain she has gone through while he was away. She says, she is sure that it was him. Those that witnessed the incident in which she threw away her toddler and run bare-footed into the traffic in Harar say they saw no one in the direction she ran to.

 

She still claims that every night, analogues to the character in James Joyce's Finnegan's wake, her sub-conscious "breaks open" as she sleeps, Abdi walks in silently, and then they would have a fabulous time together. That is why she dislikes the crow of cocks in the early morning, which "puts back together" her skull in the morning.

 

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's acclaimed novel, Love in the time of Cholera, the lovesick Florentino Ariza, at one point conflated his physical agony with his amorous agony; when he vomits after eating flowers in order to imbibe Farmina's scent — his love who is happily married to the respectable medical doctor, Dr. Urbino. The novel is a tale of unrequited love that explores the idea that suffering for love is a kind of nobility.

 

In a bizarre analogy, Amran, in this desolate town in Hawd, finds similar solace from knowing all her misery is for her lost husband. Florentino Ariza lived long enough in that fifty-year love triangle, to share moments of happiness with the widow Farmina after the tragic death of her beloved husband. The societal view that love is a young person's prerogative, when indeed they were now ebbing to their last days, was the only drawback to their enthralling tale.

 

Amran finds happiness in the fantasy realm of her own imagination. Only in that mystical world does her passionate heart overwhelm her passionless mind. For her, "in the beginning was the love-not the thought." All the real word offers to her is the glaring tragedy of her "loss", of the promising days that never materialized, of the deprived joy of lifetime with the irreplaceable Abdi; and that awakes her to the odour of putrefaction inside her.

 

She views accepting the endless "you can't kill yourself like this," and "keep up your spirits, life goes on" advices of well-wishers as being tantamount to profanation of the purity of her love to her late husband. Cruelly, that augurs an uncertain future to her. So, she neither listens nor adheres to it. Long ago, she has forfeited the temptations of carnality, and opted to live in the 'spiritually rewarding' world of madness.

 

It doesn't matter what she argues, and in the definition of this society, she is a 'mentally unfit' women. Sadly for her, that is also the judgment of the last psychiatrist who saw her. He said, if she follows medication properly and lowers her stress, the frequency of the lapses she encounters would reduce.

 

It is only Amran who still buys into that story of the unaccounted 'eight'. She believes her man is alive somewhere. "I know he is," she murmurs indignantly whenever they tell her to "move on." Poor pitiful woman! Her daughter also doesn't refer to her father as "the late." When she has to talk about him, it is "my missing" father. Since the day she started identifying the good from the evil, she vowed not to celebrate any Eid. When her peers ask her when she shall dance with them, she replies, when my father comes back!

 

Amran's misery is not something that was done purposely to spoil her life. She is too insignificant to have been targeted. Her crime is more like the young princes who had to be butchered trying to get through the thorn-hedge that surrounded the proverbial sleeping beauty, just because they had the bad luck to be born before her hundred-year curse expired.

 

Amran had the bad luck to have been born to the arid land of acacia and camels of Hawd (******) where a militia of an 'angry' tribe descended on and decided to 'rule' — or rather misrule — by the barrel of the gun. She is even more wretched, as 'her curse' — unlike that of the sleeping beauty — is indefinite. Neither the 'good fairy', which made the princess sleep, nor the prince’s son who would kiss and awaken her, are guaranteed to come for her emancipation.

 

That grisly Eid-day, when women’s wailing and ear-piercing cries replaced the customary cheers and rhymes of hope and ecstasy, left a panoptic memory of pain in the minds of all those who had the misfortune to witness it. It left a picture of the savagery of the 'devil' in the skin of a human, and of an endless suffering of the 'cursed people'.

 

That day's ordeal was too horrific even by the standards of the land of widows, and orphans!! The land of ******.

————————

The writer can be reached at

moogedahas2008@yahoo.com

 

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Ciil badnaa. Walaalaheena Soomaaliyeed Eebba ha u gargaaro -- aamiin, Eebboow, aamiin. Walaahi waa ciil ciil dhalay.. Isla Xabashada waxaan galabsaneyso dad "Soomaali" sheeganaayo u daba socdo, dabanaageynaayo. Friggin' unbelievable.

[Gar-haye]

the atrocities continue.

 

ttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-survive23mar23,1,3999263,full.story

 

From the Los Angeles Times

Ethiopia war gets little attention

Hundreds have died as ethnic Somali rebels fight for autonomy for the ****** region. Government troops are accused of indiscriminate killings.

By Edmund Sanders

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

 

March 23, 2008

 

NAIROBI, KENYA — The teenager awoke under a pile of corpses to a pricking sensation on her face. Ants were biting her eyelids and the inside of her mouth.

 

The pain, however, brought relief to the 17-year-old.

 

"I thought, 'I'm alive,' " Ridwan Hassan Sahid remembers. She felt blood oozing from rope burns around her neck and the weight of a body against her back. But fearing that the Ethiopian soldiers who had left her for dead in a roadside ditch would return, she quickly brushed away the ants and shut her eyes, then slipped back into unconsciousness.

 

The brutal assault and her miraculous escape mark one of the most chilling stories to emerge from an unfolding tragedy in eastern Ethiopia that has largely escaped the attention of a world transfixed by the humanitarian crisis in neighboring Sudan's Darfur region.

 

Ever since exiting colonialists arbitrarily stuck a triangle-shaped wedge of land with 4 million ethnic Somalis inside Ethiopia's border, violence and suffering have plagued the region. Now, many of them have been caught up in a war between the Ethiopian government and a separatist group known as the ****** National Liberation Front.

 

Hundreds of civilians have been killed and tens of thousands were displaced in the last year alone, though exact figures are unknown because the area is remote and Ethiopian officials restrict access for humanitarian groups and journalists.

 

Survivors such as Sahid offer the only glimpse of the tragedy.

The petite young woman, who lives at a secret location, shared her story recently with The Times.

 

Now 18, Sahid at times seems to be an average teen, picking absent-mindedly at her henna-stained fingernails and blushing when strangers express interest in her.

 

But behind her soft brown eyes is a weariness that belies her age, and a necklace of scar tissue rings her throat where the rope cut into her skin.

 

She recounts her ordeal without emotion. Only occasionally does her veneer crack long enough for a tear to roll down her check, which she self-consciously laughs off and wipes away.

 

"I wonder sometimes," she says, "what kind of life I can have now."

 

She grew up in the village of Qorile with eight siblings. The family, like most everyone else in the area, were semi-nomadic cattle and sheep herders.

 

Ever since she can remember, Ethiopian authorities have been seen as the enemy.

 

"We feel as if we are living under occupation," she says. "We grew up afraid of them."

 

The ****** conflict dates to the 1940s, when, after World War II, European nations lost or began to relinquish their colonies in the Horn of Africa.

 

After some years under British administration, ****** and surrounding areas were placed under Ethiopian control, but the decision was never accepted by the ethnic Somalis living there, spurring two wars between Ethiopia and Somalia and spawning a string of rebel movements seeking autonomy or unification with Somalia.

 

Ethiopian officials accuse the ****** rebels of using terrorist tactics, including bombs, land mines and harassing the civilians it claims to represent. In April 2007, the rebels killed more than 70 people at a Chinese-run exploration facility in the region.

 

The attack prompted what aid groups and witnesses call a heavy-handed response by the Ethiopian government. Troops are accused of burning down villages believed to be rebel havens, raping women, forcibly recruiting young men into government militias and imposing a commercial blockade that sent food prices and malnutrition rates soaring.

 

"They used mass indiscriminate measures to collectively punish the entire population," Human Rights Watch researcher Leslie Lefkow said.

 

Ethiopian officials deny any widespread human rights abuses and blame rebels for the violence. "They are working with internationally known terrorists," said Zemedkun Tekle, spokesman for Ethiopia's Information Ministry.

 

Sahid says her family always tried to stay out of the fray: "We are not political people."

 

But she found herself caught in the middle in July, when several hundred Ethiopian troops surrounded her village. Her father was away tending animals in the fields and her mother was shopping in a nearby town. Sahid was washing her face when soldiers kicked in the door that morning.

 

"You are guerrillas," they shouted as they ransacked the house, stealing food and supplies, Sahid remembers. She escaped through a back door and huddled with other frightened villagers. Soon soldiers gathered them all at a well and read names from a list of "spies" and rebel sympathizers.

 

"Nobody knew who would be selected, but you knew if your name was called, you would be killed," says Fathi Abdulla, 22, a cousin of Sahid who lives in the same village. Sahid froze when she heard her name called. She and 10 others were taken to the school, which became a makeshift prison for interrogation and torture.

 

"They took us one by one," Sahid says.

 

Soldiers accused her of taking supplies to rebels. They tied her hands and legs together behind her back.

 

"They kicked me and stepped on my back," she says. "I told them that in my whole life, the only person I've ever helped was my mother."

 

The next morning, Sahid and the other prisoners were marched for hours to another village.

 

"They beat us like animals when we couldn't keep up," she says. "Mentally, I was already dead. I was just waiting to die."

 

Arriving at the village, Sahid says, she watched as soldiers looted the town and burned down all the huts. That night, none of the prisoners slept, fearing what the next day would bring.

 

At daybreak, without explanation, soldiers began executing them, Sahid says. Two villagers were hanged from trees. Two others were choked with metal rods and rope.

 

Sahid was the last attacked. She remembers hearing the others scream and beg for mercy, but couldn't move or make a sound herself.

 

"At that point, I was like a tree. I had no feeling. I was like a statue."

 

Two soldiers ordered her into the ditch, but she refused. Finally one pounced, choking Sahid with a metal rod used to clean guns. They struggled for a minute, but she did not lose consciousness and the soldier gave up.

 

Next, two exasperated soldiers grabbed the girl and tied a rope around her neck. They pulled in different directions until she collapsed into the ditch.

 

The next thing Sahid recalls are the ants. The midday sun was beating down and she felt disoriented. Blood flowed from her nose and neck. Her legs were trapped under a man's naked body. She says she closed her eyes again, uncertain whether she would live or die.

 

Back in her village, friends and family formed a search party, following the soldiers' footprints. They expected to recover nothing more than bodies.

 

After several hours of walking, they encountered a group of nomads who told them about a nearby field with some bodies. Remarkably, they said, a young girl was still alive.

 

"We rushed to the place," Abdulla says. The scene was grisly. Two men hung from nooses in a tree. Other victims lay naked, with belts and ropes still around their necks.

 

Sahid was in the ditch, under two bodies.

 

"As we came closer, she opened her eyes and looked at us! We were so shocked."

 

They moved her under a tree, but feared she would soon die. They buried the bodies and awaited help. Eventually camels were brought and friends began a weeks-long journey to secretly move Sahid out of the country.

 

She remembers little of the escape or her recovery. She still can't use her right hand because of nerve damage from the beatings.

 

With an uncertain future, Sahid spends most days indoors. Venturing outside sometimes brings panic attacks.

 

She says the quiet moments are the hardest to bear.

 

"Whenever I sit for even a minute, I draw my mind back to those events. And I start to cry."

[Gar-haye]

"She remembers little of the escape or her recovery. She still can't use her right hand because of nerve damage from the beatings ."