Ethiopia’s Starvation Strategy in the Somali Region

[Xudeedi]

WardheerNews Editorial

July 28 , 2007

While much of the world has focused its attention on Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur, the lives of millions of battered Somalis are in danger of being permanently eclipsed.

 

In the past three months, the Ethiopian government unleashed inhumane and brutal collective punishment against its own Somali population in the Somali region of Ethiopia. The government of Meles Zenawi ordered the implementation of a range of officially-orchestrated repressive and intimidating measures intended to terrorize the entire population in the Somali region of Ethiopia, although the worsening of the condition in the region was triggered by an assault of the ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF) on a Chinese oil exploration site that left 74 dead, including nine Chinese oil workers in April. The Ethiopian government has been fighting this pro-independence insurgency since early 1990s.

 

State induced large scale starvation and other atrocities intended to inflict fear, terror and widespread displacement is jeopardizing the lives of an entire population encircled by undisciplined marauding Ethiopian military forces. Unabated terror reigns supreme as a result.

 

 

Ethiopian troops, for example, mounted total blockage through a web of extensive roadblocks and checkpoints to stop all vehicular traffic, movement of commercial goods and population between the major towns with a view to impose economic strangulation that is likely to generate unprecedented large scale man-made famine. A Western humanitarian official talking to New York Times has aptly stated that “It’s a starve-out-the-population strategy. If something isn’t done on the diplomatic front soon, we’re going to have a government-caused famine on our hands.”

 

The Somali region has already been experiencing rampant poverty, political and social injustices and chronic food shortages brought about by drought and limited agricultural activity prior to the current Ethiopian government imposed blockade to emergency food aid and choking of trade flows. Aggravating further the prevailing food and medical shortages, the Ethiopia government continues to forbid the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Somali region. Aid agencies, journalist and representatives of human rights groups are barred from traveling to the beleaguered region.

 

In the past several months, the government forces have manifestly committed gross human rights abuses with impunity, including widespread gang-raping of women and pillage, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention of thousands of persons, disappearances, and burning of entire settlements and blocking of access to water wells for both the civilian population and their livestock. Thousands of villagers were forcibly displaced in what constitutes a tragic case of an all out ethnic cleansing.

 

“Ethiopian troops are destroying villages and property, confiscating livestock and forcing civilians to relocate,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director of Human Rights Watch. “Whatever the military strategy behind them, these abuses violate the laws of war.”

 

Civilian population in the major towns and cities has been stifled, harassed, and persecuted. Thousands of business traders, clan elders, politicians, students and women, perceived as dissidents were arrested and subjected to physical beatings and torture and thrown into illegal military punishment camps that notoriously resemble the Soviet Gulags.

 

 

“Witnesses described Ethiopian troops burning homes and property, including the recent harvest and other food stocks intended for the civilian population, confiscating livestock and, in a few cases, firing upon and killing fleeing civilians” states a recent report of Human Rights Watch titled Ethiopia: Crackdown in East Punishes Civilians.

 

Just this week, Mr. Abdullahi Hassan “Lug Buur,” the president of the largely dysfunctional Somali Regional State of Ethiopia - an acolyte of the Ethiopian government, had announced the expulsion of ICRC, the Swiss-based Red Cross, from the region. ICRC was the sole provider of health care in many parts of the state. Mr. Lug Buur accused ICRC, as he put it, of siding with “our enemy”. Furthermore the eastern provincial capital of Wardheer is now totally under quarantine with the military prohibiting even the use of water points, causing thousands to flee the city and outlying villages in the region.

 

Similar human rights violations and all out atrocities have been perpetuated by previous Ethiopian regimes against the Somalis in this region (e.g., Aisha, Qorahay, Jigjiga Plains and Ina Guuxa in 1963) who have time and again expressed their intent for independence from Ethiopian rule. Like his predecessors, Meles wants to keep Somalis weak and divided. Emboldened by his recent conquest of Somalia, Meles is determined to turn into an Ethiopian sphere of influence the entire Somali inhabited regions in the Horn of Africa.

 

 

The Western countries lip-sealing silence towards ongoing Ethiopia’s atrocities in the Somali region is indicative of West’s indifference to the plight of beleaguered civilians. The ongoing officially-orchestrated collective punishment in the Somali region of Ethiopia would only breed more hostilities and increased Somalis dissension towards the Muslim dominated but Christian ruled Ethiopia.

 

WardheerNews would call upon the West to step up its efforts to have Mr. Zenawi restrained in his massive blockade of the region and ill-treatment of his own population and let humanitarian assistance reach the innocent civilians in the region. We also welcome Senator Patrick Laheay’s effort to stop all bilateral aid to Ethiopia and have Mr. Zenawi be accountable for his actions.

 

Source: http://www.wardheernews.com/Editorial/editorial_42.html

[xiinfaniin]

Thanks much yaa Maakhir!

 

You may want forward this editorial those news outlets that covered this region recently, like New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune etc.

[RedSea]

Trucks caring food supplies and other goods can no longer beyond northern tip of this region. Most of the trucks from Port city of berbera and other areas like Pland were told not to cross into certain parts and thus food cannot get there for them to survive. ladies and gents this man named Melez is one cold blooded mother effer.

[Xudeedi]

It is very difficult to copy with what we read and hear regarding the systematic atrocities of Ethiopian troops on the civilians in all Somali inhabited areas. Many agree that our Conflict-ridden Somalia in the Horn of Africa owed its existence to our lack of internal cohesion reducing our nation into this unfortunate predicament that quickly facilitated the current occupation. We aren’t the only country but many other countries in the Horn of Africa are stuck with both external and internal conflict.

But I mull over what condition factors bring out the third world’s state behavior and its radical military actions. Without the least doubt, Ethiopia was made to perceive itself as a Christian Island in a Muslim Sea, and it has its range radar systems focused mainly on both Somalia, Eritrea, and the diverse ethnic groups that make up its nation, but its forced struggle to fuse all these diverse groups and form one national identity is still difficult to achieve except if it changes its behaviour and the same aggressive policies that brought its predecessors down..

The west and AU should pressure the Horn of African states to take action programs that address such unresolved internal problems whose fundamental resolution is forcing those states to engage in a genuine dialogue with their opposition groups or forcing them to implement democratic institutions like independent judiciary and free press. Therefore, African states must start working on evolutionary approach of regime change as opposed to the constant revolutionary approach that are known and seem to define their governments. But it is obvious from historical role and interference that external powers perpetrate the escalation of both inter-state and within-state conflicts with ulterior motives to engineer our society into its current social dislocation and fragmentation. Kebede notes this glaring fact in his Security and Conflict in the Horn of Africa paper “External powers still make capital out of the tensions and conflicts which plague the states of the Horn of Africa. They fuel the fire of conflict by supplying weapons or support services, thus perpetuating the vicious circle in which local or regional instability brings about external powers’ interference which, in turn, increases instability (Chege, 1987).” http://diplomacymonitor.com/stu/dm.nsf/dn/dn181E3C6F43CC9DD2852572F7003C2D7F

 

In the name of regional security, Ethiopia as well as many emerging African states have been forced to misplace many priorities of equal resource allocation and public services yet purchase sophisticated weapons for their own internal and external defense strategy, thus repeated vicious cycle of violence , intimidation, state terror on its citizens as long as the means justify the end—holding and maintaining power.

 

However, we all know that Somalia with self-inflicted wounds presented lost opportunity for the United States and its chief client state to invade and illegally occupy. Viewing Somalia as a heaven for militant groups and a place suitable for subversive activities that can result in security challenges for Ethiopia and Kenya, invasion was inevitable, partly to deflect criticism of rising internal discontent for the former. Eritrea is also part of conflict through its sponsoring of inter-state subversive activities as a means to thwart potential insecurity challenges from both external and internal disruptions.

 

 

An old edition of New York Times(1963) lit gleaming light on the complicated issues of Ethiopia and Somalia as countries that cannot coexist as two sovereign countries peacefully.

 

“Ethiopians consider that , for their own safety, the entire seaboard of the horn of Africa should belong to them. They were invaded twice from the sea. They still remember the Italian occupation of 1935-41. They are not sure that the United Nations could restrain a united Somalia from aggression”

[Xudeedi]

The Addis Regime’s Killing & Pillaging Intensifies on the Somali Nationality in Ethiopia

 

By Ahmed H. Haile

August 5, 2007

 

Since the Zenawi regime’s crimes became an international news to its dismay, sane-minded people in different places had expressed a hope that the Ethiopian government would halt its genocidal policies which resulted in the brutal massacre of thousands of innocent civilians in different parts of the vast areas of the Somali Regional State and the torching of over 40 (forty) mini-towns and villages. The Ethiopian government has decided to put ruthless measures into execution through starvation. According to western reporters the Ethiopian regime has blockaded the whole region by banning the use of trade routes, and orders were issued to the military to fire upon or impound every type of transport no matter where it came from.

 

The disclosure of the regime’s dehumanizing and sadistic policies throughout the country but especially more severe in the Somali regions has so far, only intensified its rage. It has refined and made its methods more violent and indiscriminate in their application against the innocent civilian society as demonstrated by its military action in the town of Qoriile, in the eastern region of Wardheer. As reported in that township a large number of the army came, rounded up the town’s entire inhabitants and strangulated to death 9 men including 8-year-old using wire-strings. They followed it with torching houses and buildings in this important centre; the water-point which is the sole source of drinkable water in the area both for the humans and livestock. They shot also a mother of several children even though, for a reason unfathomable to the hapless people, was wounded in the arm but still remained alive. Furthermore, warnings were issued verbally to the terrified residents not to remain there without telling them the rationale neither behind the cold-blooded killing or where they should go to live if evicted from their own piece of land.

 

The provincial capital, Wardheer, as of now, is no different from a concentration camp with no one allowed to exit or draw water from in town and nearby water-wells. The latest ominous news relates the stationing of Ethiopian rag-tag army detachments around the major wells of Waaf Dhuug, Garloogube, Uubataale, Walwaal and others which are the main water source for the whole region. They were declared clandestinely off-limit to both the nomadic population and their livestock; life has become hellish beyond description. However, most appalling news emanating from the area involves the neighboring Qorrahay zone where Ethiopian military and political cadres (the ruling party’s goons) have held meetings with elders in the area ordering that they assemble their fellow clansmen’s entire livestock at Qorahay valley, something the elders balked and stated their inability to carry out. This was preceded by the machine-gunning of thousands of camels. The inference drawn from their actions and demand was that there is a decision to decimate the livestock population in order to further accentuate the already existing dismal poverty in the region; poverty caused by deliberate policies of underdevelopment, neglect and a status of second-class citizenship.

 

The Ethiopian regime remains totally defiant to the valid criticism addressed to it by prominent members in the U.S. Congress on both sides of the isle in reaction to the deplorable condition existing in the Somali Regional State. The Congressmen requested from Zenawi’s government to lift the un-called-for food and trade blockade and the cessation of all abominable activities directed against the innocent civilian population. Rather than relenting to this reasonable pressure, the Addis-Ababa regime resorted instead to denials and the issuing of sinister and alarming statements. Mr. Berket Simon, The Prime Minister’s Senior Advisor (and perhaps his Ambassador-at-Large to confuse the international community), in an answer to a question posed to him in regard to the disaster in the Somali Regional State, is quoted as saying: “If the abusive treatment said to have been meted out to the population is true, then it would mean that we are instigating the people to rise against us.” He neither denied nor confirmed the government’s mistreatment of the civilians and the destruction of the basic structure of their existence. The Prime Minister, on his part, at a news-conference in Addis Ababa, had furiously and negatively reacted to the American Congressional concerns by stating: “The Ethiopian government is Not a Banana Republic to be Controlled from the Capitol Hill meaning the U.S. Congress Building. It is indeed a very surprising and a galling statement. It is a rejection of an advice from the very country that his nation relies on for economic and military assistance. The country that provided him a waiver of few months to enable Ethiopia to purchase heavy military hardware from, of all countries in the world, Communist North Korea which is listed as a promoter of terrorism and thus a rogue regime.

 

The Meles Zenawi’s and Berket Simon’s sophistry and trickery can no longer be off radar but that the regime had out-foxed the U.S. in its diabolical scheme based on dictatorship and refusal to even acknowledge the plain truths relating to its ugly and heinous crimes against innocent citizens under their control. It is, luckily, a matter that can no longer be hidden under the blanket of “fighting terrorism” and the inventing of “scapegoats.” After the serious human rights violations by the regime were rightly uncovered by the reputable U.S. newspaper for the record, The New York Times, rather than rectifying its regrettable policies, the regime seems to have been thrown into tailspin and contradictions.

 

Deviating from the international norms governing international relations, the Addis Ababa regime ordered a powerless Somali Regional State official to announce to the world the immediate expulsion of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Committee (ICRC) headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The ICRC had proven its efficacy through out the world in either meeting or heading off both natural and man-made disasters at global scale. The reason for the expulsion of this renowned humanitarian organization and the others that were included on the expulsion list attests to the evil nature of the Zenawi regime. The regional official had no credential to announce the expulsion since the Federal Government is the one responsible to deal with foreign countries as well as the international humanitarian organization(NGOS). THE CHARGE THAT the ICRC was paying money to “our enemy” without identifying “that enemy” or providing anything that could substantiate the concocted accusation is ridiculous to say the least . The order had something to do with the regime’s determination to extirpate the civilian populace in a clandestine manner and therefore the “need to boot out foreign organizations’ staff” from the Somali State. Another part of the hidden agenda is to accelerate the killing-rate and the destruction of the limited structure that serve the society to survive. The Ethiopian regime’s actions are counter-productive in every sense of the word. The humanitarian agencies they are expelling are the very ones that every year come to its aid in the provision of food-stuff and medicine in Northern Ethiopia’s yearly food crisis. So, it is also biting the hands that feed it attending to the concerns of the miserable.

 

It is a high time for the United States, as the world’s preeminent power with close ties to Ethiopia, to confront the manipulative machinations of the elements in power in Addis-Ababa by taking concrete steps tailored to forcing it to accepting the rule of law and fully adhere, in action, to the contents of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Whole and Not Selectively. This 1949 internationally passed principles is at variance and in speedy collision with particular reference to Article 1 (Right to Equality); Article 4 (Freedom from slavery - irrespective of color); article 5 (Freedom from torture and degrading treatment); article 6 (Right to Recognition as a Person Before the Law); article 19 (Freedom of Opinion & Information). Ethiopia has, in fact, been ignoring the charter whenever it chose

 

The calamitous policies pursued by the current regime have a parallel in world history unless it is checked by force or by persuasion through economic, social military means if necessary. History books are replete with the names of Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka and many others where millions of innocent Jews were either gassed, shot or met death by starvation. These were ghastly concentration camps designed and set up by the Nazis to carry out what was called ‘Final Solution to the Jewish problem.’ The tragic events in the second war are a reality haunting the world conscience as of today. The Addis apparatus, while lacking the technological capability to exactly carry out a type of such human disaster, is without question engaged in destroying the long-abused and long-neglected people in that country.

Ethiopia’s position runs counter to American values and doctrine when, as a result of above mentioned tragedy, had publicly stated its firm commitment to avert any second holocaust or something akin to it anywhere on the globe. Today’s U.S.-Ethiopian-partnership that has been going on for sometime should not eclipse its declared opposition to genocide. The friendship based on flimsy convenience must be subordinate to the higher principle and cherished values inherent in a democratic society.

 

Despite the world’s attention and obsession with the situation in Darfur Region in Sudan where camel-riding men of Arab origin play havoc on the region’s population, the Ethiopian atrocities in the Somali-owned regions in Ethiopia are far greater in enormity, scale and in terms of potential consequences. The immediate intervention of the international community and the United States in such a noble enterprise is indeed a need that can longer wait any further. As a U.S. citizen originally from the Somali Region in Ethiopia, I am morally bound to speak out against Ethiopia’s campaign to annihilate the innocent civilian population in the Somali region; I am proud to live in a country where I can express my views freely and responsibly and do the best I can to bring the plight of the Somali population in Ethiopia to the attention of the American public and Administration.

 

Ahmed Hussein Haile

E-Mail:ahmed_haile@myway.com

 

http://www.wardheernews.com/articles_07/august/05_Addis_Regime_Haile.html

[Xudeedi]

Ethiopia's dirty war

 

Tom Porteous

 

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 Oggaden, a sparsely populated and remote region on Ethiopia's border with Somalia. The counter insurgency operation was aimed at eliminating the Oggaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a rebel group which has been fighting for years for self-determination for the Oggaden'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 Oggaden the International Committee of the Red Cross, one of the few neutral observers of the crisis left in the region.

 

This is not Darfur. But the situation in Oggaden 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 Oggaden is a key western ally and recipient of large amounts of western aid. Furthermore the crisis in Oggaden 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 Oggaden. 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 Oggaden 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 Oggaden 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 Oggaden 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 Oggaden 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.

 

 

Source: Guardian