Tigre militia claims to have killed 500 Somalis in Somali Galbeed region.

[Jabhad]

Ethiopia says killed 500 ****** rebels

 

By Tseyaye Tadesse

 

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Reuters) Ethiopia said on Wednesday it had killed more than 500 rebels and captured 170 in the past two months during an offensive in the volatile but energy-rich ****** region bordering Somalia.

 

The ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF) dismissed the statement as an attempt by the government to lull oil companies interested in the region into a "false sense of security," and urged foreign firms to stay away.

 

The local president of ******, Abdullahi Hassan Mohammed, said Ethiopian security forces had killed 502 ONLF fighters in a two-month military campaign against the "terrorists."

 

"Rebel activities in the region... have been eliminated," he added in a statement.

 

But the ONLF, which carried out a deadly attack on a Chinese-run oilfield in the area in April, said the government was trying to hide the fact that it had lost control of ******.

 

"Pursuing oil and natural gas exploration activities in ****** at this stage can only be characterized as gross corporate irresponsibility," the rebels said.

 

Related Links

 

Ethiopia says 200 rebels killed in crackdown (AFP)

 

Ethiopia Claims Gains Over ONLF Rebels (VOA)

 

Special Section: ****** Ethiopia

 

 

In the attack on the Chinese-run oilfield, they killed 74 people and kidnapped seven workers.

 

"Recent claims that the government has been able to realize military gains are designed to give a false sense of security to oil companies," the ONLF added in its statement.

 

The rebels say they are fighting for self-determination for their home region, an arid land of mainly nomadic herders.

 

Addis Ababa calls the ONLF a terrorist group supported by arch-foe Eritrea, and the army has sent large numbers of troops to the region in an effort to root out the rebels.

 

Also on Wednesday, an ******-based rights group urged the United States and the European Union to intervene to stop what it said were killings, rapes, torture and starvation carried out or caused by Ethiopian troops.

 

The ****** Human Rights Committee, which calls itself independent, urged the United Nations to censure Addis Ababa and to designate a safe haven for those fleeing "senseless carnage."

 

"The Ethiopian government should be held responsible for mass killings, disappearances, rape, arbitrary arrests, torture," the group said in a report from its Geneva office.

 

Citing victims' accounts, the group said it had documented 2,395 extrajudicial killings, 1,945 rapes and 3,091 forced disappearances in the region since 1991, when the current government came to power.

 

"The Ethiopian government... encourages, decorates and promotes violators to higher ranks," the report said.

 

(Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis in Geneva and Nicolo Gnecchi in Nairobi)

[Jabhad]

Wednesday August 8, 2007

 

The Guardian

 

Rising tensions in the ****** region of eastern Ethiopia, combined with chronic instability in neighbouring Somalia, Eritrean enmity, and human rights concerns, are testing US support for the Addis Ababa government led by Clinton-era good governance pin-up Meles Zenawi.

 

The Bush administration welcomed the recent release of 38 opposition politicians detained after violent protests over the conduct of elections in 2005. But it has kept quiet over Ethiopia's subsequent expulsion of Red Cross workers from ******'s Somali regional state, following claims they were aiding ****** National Liberation Front separatists (ONLF).

 

The Red Cross condemned Ethiopia's action, warning it would have "an inevitable, negative impact" on an already impoverished, largely nomadic population. The ONLF claimed the expulsions, and a ban on foreign media, were an attempt to prevent the international community witnessing "the war crimes taking place against the civilians of ****** at the hands of the Ethiopian regime".

 

 

The rebels also blamed Ethiopian government forces for the killing in a roadside attack on July 29 of two leaders of the main indigenous relief organisation, the ****** Welfare and Development Association. Despite Ethiopian denials, the ONLF says the government continues to enforce "a virtual blockade against aid and commercial goods in ******". It has repeatedly called for UN intervention.

 

Congress's Africa committee endorsed legislation last month that could oblige President George Bush to withhold US financial and military assistance to Ethiopia's government unless all political prisoners are freed, freedom of speech and information are respected, and human rights groups can operate unhindered.

 

"Ethiopia's authoritarian prime minister Meles Zenawi was once a darling of the Clinton administration and has forged close ties with the Bush administration. With Washington's blessing, Meles sent troops to Somalia in December to expel the radical Islamic Courts movement linked to al-Qaida," a Washington Post editorial noted. But the paper said the "preposterous" charges against opposition activists, abuses in Somalia and reported atrocities in the "internal war" in ****** meant ties might have to be reviewed.

 

A recent report for the international watchdog Human Rights Watch quoted witnesses describing how Ethiopian troops burned homes and, in some cases, killed fleeing civilians.

 

Human Rights Watch said the separatists were also guilty of serious abuses, a refrain vigorously pursued by the Ethiopian government. "The ONLF, a terrorist group acting in collaboration with the defunct Islamic Courts [in Somalia] and the Eritrean government, has been committing atrocities and human rights violations, including indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians," the foreign ministry said.

 

Wider US interests in the Horn of Africa suggest Washington will be minded to continue to accept Addis Ababa's side of the story, unless the situation grows egregious and the international community becomes more involved. Those US interests include Ethiopia's role in supporting the enfeebled transitional government in Somalia and opposing the spread of Islamist extremism across the region.

 

Keeping a firm hand on ethnically Somali, Muslim ******, the scene of a cold war-era proxy conflict, is a long-standing US objective. The US has also sought Ethiopia's support in peacemaking in southern Sudan and Darfur.

 

But region-wide instability seems to be increasing. Nearly 30,000 Somalis were displaced from Mogadishu in July. Political reconciliation efforts have made no headway so far. Despite their political differences, many if not most Somalis regard the Ethiopian troops as a hostile occupation force.

 

Eritrea, its bitter border dispute with Ethiopia still simmering, is shipping "huge quantities of arms" to insurgents in Somalia, according to a UN report. Concerns about a spreading humanitarian and refugee emergency grow, even as international aid targets undershoot. And now, far from being "defunct", Somalia's Islamist movement may be gaining friends and influence in an increasingly isolated, radicalised ******

[Jabhad]

Ethiopia's dirty war

 

By Tom Porteous

 

August 5, 2007 12:00 PM

 

 

The Guardian 'Comment Is Free' section

 

While the west agonises over Darfur, another humanitarian and human rights disaster is brewing in the Horn of Africa.

 

In June, the Ethiopian government launched a major military campaign in the ******, a sparsely populated and remote region on Ethiopia's border with Somalia. The counter insurgency operation was aimed at eliminating the ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF), a rebel group which has been fighting for years for self-determination for the ******'s predominantly Somali population.

 

In less than two months, Ethiopia's military campaign has triggered a serious humanitarian crisis. Human Rights Watch has learned that dozens of civilians have been killed in what appears to be a deliberate effort to mete out collective punishment against a civilian population suspected of sympathising with the rebels.

 

Villages have been attacked, sacked and burnt. Livestock - the lynchpin of the region's pastoralist economy - have been confiscated or destroyed. A partial trade blockade has been imposed on the region leading to serious food shortages. Relatives of suspected rebels have been taken hostage. Thousands of civilians have been displaced, fleeing across the borders of Ethiopia into northern Kenya and Somaliland.

 

Last week, with little objection from the international community, the Ethiopian government expelled from the ****** the International Committee of the Red Cross, one of the few neutral observers of the crisis left in the region.

 

Vague promise of finding oil drives violence in Ethiopia, complicating a region already embroiled in civil war, as nation's real natural gas reserves attract global attention

 

This is not Darfur. But the situation in ****** follows a familiar pattern of a counter insurgency operation in which government forces show little regard for the safety of the civilian population and commit serious abuses, including deliberate attacks on civilians, mass displacement of populations and interference with humanitarian assistance.

 

Unlike in Darfur, however, the state that is perpetrating abuses against its people in ****** is a key western ally and recipient of large amounts of western aid. Furthermore the crisis in ****** is linked to a military intervention by Ethiopia in Somalia that has been justified in terms of counter terrorism and is firmly supported by the United States and other western donors.

 

Ethiopia has often justified military action in Somalia on grounds of cooperation between what it calls "terrorist" groups in Somalia and the rebellion in ******. The ONLF certainly has strong ethnic and political links to Somali insurgents now fighting against the Ethiopian military presence in Somalia. It may have decided to escalate its rebellion in ****** in response to Ethiopia's full-scale military intervention in Somalia in December last year.

 

Now there are reliable reports that, as a result of Ethiopian military pressure inside Somalia, Somali insurgents including members the militant Islamist al-Shabaab have sought refuge in ****** where they could be regrouping. Thus instead of containing and calming the situation in Somalia, the actions of Ethiopia's forces there may well be exacerbating the conflict and regionalising it.

 

The emerging crisis in the ****** is indicative of an increasingly volatile political and military situation in the Horn of Africa. Predictably civilians are bearing the brunt of the crisis both in the ****** and in Somalia where hundreds of thousands have been displaced by fighting since the Ethiopian intervention. Predictably human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war are being perpetrated by all sides. It could all get a lot worse, especially if it leads to a resumption of the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

 

So why isn't the international community doing more to address this crisis. Hasn't the UN being saying for years that crisis prevention is better than cure?

 

The EU and the United States have significant leverage over Ethiopia in the form of foreign aid and political influence. They should use it instead of turning a blind eye to abuses carried out by the Ethiopian security forces in the name of counter terrorism.

 

Western support for Ethiopia's counter insurgency efforts in the Horn of Africa is not only morally wrong and riddled with double standards, it is also ineffective and counterproductive. It will lead to the escalation and regionalisation of the conflicts of the region and may well help to radicalise its large and young Muslim population

[Jabhad]

"The Ethiopian government should be held responsible for mass killings, disappearances, rape, arbitrary arrests, torture," the group said in a report from its Geneva office.

 

Citing victims' accounts, the group said it had documented 2,395 extrajudicial killings, 1,945 rapes and 3,091 forced disappearances in the region since 1991, when the current government came to power.

 

"The Ethiopian government... encourages, decorates and promotes violators to higher ranks," the report said.

Sadly, decades of enslavement, brutality and inhumane treatment of Somali Galbeed citizens continues......

[Jabhad]

Wararka

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

 

 

650 lagu diley gobolka Somalida

8 Aug 8, 2007 - 5:37:07 PM

 

 

 

I daacadda Ethiopia ayaa sheegtay in ciidammada Ethiopia ay ku dileen dileen gobolka Soomaalida ee Ethiopia in ka badan 650 ruux oo mucaarad ah.

 

Idaacaddu waxay sheegtay in dadkaas lagu dilay hawlgal ay ciidammada Ethiopia ka fulinayeen gobolka tan iyo bishii May ee sannadkan.

 

Raadiyaha Addis Ababa waxaa uu yiri: Ciidanka Ethiopia, oo kaashanaya hoggaamiyayaasha dhaqanka ee degaanku, waxay dileen dadka nabad-diidka ah intooda badan.

 

Wasiirka Difaaca ee Ethiopia, ayaa wakaaladda wararka AFP u sheegay in in ka badan 200 oo fallaago ah lagu dilay gobolka bishii July.

 

Dadka la dilay waxay isugu jiraan, sida ay idaacaddu sheegtay, 500 oo ruux oo ka tirsan jabhadda ONLF, 147 ka tirsan Jabhadda Oromada ee ONLF iyo 8 ka tirsan ururka al Itixaad.

 

War ay soo saartay jabhadda ONLF, waxay beenisay sheegashadan, waxayna ku tilmaantay in ciidankeeda aan wax weyn oo isu dhimay jirin.

 

ONLF waxay tiri Ethiopia si buuxda gacanta uguma hayso gobolka ******.

 

Xigasho/BBC

[Observer]

@ SOMALI-GALBEED.

[Jacaylbaro]

what is so funny about the name ??

[Abdulladiif Al-Fiqih]

Jabhadow warka waad ku diirsatey haye?

 

JB-Ninka kaa koreeya ilka waa waynaa...iska ilaali bal

[Jabhad]

^Cajiib!!!War Xagee igala qaaday adigana..Ma daba-dhilifka ayaad igu qaladay ninyahoow mise dhibaatada Tigreegu ku hayo umada Soomaaliyeed hala qariyo weeye sheekadaadu. Warka cadee awoowe yaa u cayaartaa horta adigu, ma daba-dhilif[pro-occupation pro-slavery] team mise Gumeeysidiid[anti occupation anti slavery]team. Somali kalabaxdaye.

[Jabhad]

Observer, whats so funny about the name Somali Galbeed sxb? Mise magaca gumeysigu bixiyay si umada Soomaaliyeed lookala qeeybiyo ayaan isticmaalnaa.

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Would it make one less happy if one calls that Xabashi-occupied land Soomaali Galbeed, a neutral, Soomaali-created name, instead of a clan name by a former colonial that had an ulterior motive to divide Soomaalis?

 

Yaab badanaa.

 

It is in the interest of all oppressed Soomaalis who inhabit that province and their liberation, which needs all its inhabitants support, that one should call the even-handed and non-clan name of Soomaali Galbeed.

[Observer]

Wrong name = Somali-Galbeed....the correct one Kilil 5

[Abdulladiif Al-Fiqih]

^Cajiib!!!War Xagee igala qaaday adigana..Ma daba-dhilifka ayaad igu qaladay ninyahoow

Abti far baa kugu godan kow dheh.......saan saan Tadhaaqina waad leedahay e laba dheh.....teedakale, magucu waa siduu observer kuu sheegey 'kilil 5' e laqabso hadii kale labada dhinac intaad iska fiirisid dhabaha cagta saar

[Jabhad]

^Atheer bal fikradaada kadhiibo waxa kor ku qoran aniga aan kuu dambeeyee. Teeda kale ama kilil 5naad ama magac qabiil kii caqligaadu ku siiyo ugu yeere ee waxa aad noo sheegtaa sida aan ugu diirsaday the minority Tigre government and their claim of killing 500 Somalis? Let the Sylvia Brown side of you speak sxb. I'm sure you can help us explore the hidden minds of many SOlers!!