Ethiopian Army Commits Genocide With US Blessing

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U.S. State Department Policy Planning Study #23, 1948:

 

Our real task... is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity [u.S. military- economic supremacy]... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming... We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization... we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

 

George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning. U.S. State Department. 1948

 

 

We're talking about 10 to 20 thousand covert actions [the CIA has performed since 1961]. What I found was that lots and lots of people have been killed in these things.... Some of them are very, very bloody.

 

John Stockwell

Former CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1976.

(A lecture given in October, 1987)

 

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Ethiopia: Army Commits Executions, Torture, and Rape in Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia.

 

Donors Should Act to Stop Crimes Against Humanity

 

(Nairobi, June 12, 2008) – In its battle against rebels in eastern Ethiopia’s Somali Region, Ethiopia's army has subjected civilians to executions, torture, and rape, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The widespread violence, part of a vicious counterinsurgency campaign that amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity, has contributed to a looming humanitarian crisis, threatening the survival of thousands of ethnic Somali nomads.

 

The 130-page report "Collective Punishment: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in the Ethipian Occupied Western Somalia Area of Ethiopia's Somali Regional State," documents a dramatic rise in unchecked violence against civilians since June 2007, when the Ethiopian army launched a counterinsurgency campaign against rebels who attacked a Chinese-run oil installation. The Human Rights Watch report provides the first in-depth look at the patterns of abuse in a conflict that remains virtually unknown because of severe restrictions imposed by the Ethiopian government.

 

"The Ethiopian army's answer to the rebels has been to viciously attack civilians in the Ethipian Occupied Western Somalia," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "These widespread and systematic atrocities amount to crimes against humanity. Yet Ethiopia’s major donors, Washington, London and Brussels, seem to be maintaining a conspiracy of silence around the crimes."

 

Human Rights Watch researchers located and interviewed more than 100 victims and eyewitnesses to abuses, as well as traders, business leaders, and regional government officials located in neighboring Kenya, the semi-autonomous region of Somaliland in northern Somalia and in Ethiopia. The research, largely carried out between September and December 2007, was further supplemented with satellite imagery that confirmed the burning of some villages. In chilling accounts, witnesses and victims described to Human Rights Watch nightly beatings with the barrel of a gun, public executions, and the burning of entire villages.

 

The report describes the army's response to the April 2007 attack by the rebel Ethipian Occupied Western Somalia National Liberation Front (ONLF) on a Chinese-run oil installation in Obole that killed more than 70 Chinese and Ethiopian civilians. During the peak of the army’s counterinsurgency campaign from June to September 2007, witnesses described how Ethiopian troops forcibly displaced entire rural communities and destroyed dozens of rural villages; executed at least 150 civilians, sometimes in demonstration killings to terrorize those communities suspected of supporting the ONLF; and arbitrarily detained hundreds of civilians in military barracks where they experienced beatings, torture, and widespread rape and other forms of sexual violence. Thousands of civilians fled the conflict-affected areas for neighboring countries. Some of the patterns of violence are ongoing, and Human Rights Watch believes its findings represent only a fraction of the actual abuses.

 

Ethiopian authorities also stepped up their forced recruitment of local militia forces, many of whom are sent to fight against the ONLF without military training, resulting in large casualty rates.

 

The rebel ONLF has also been responsible for serious violations of the laws of war, including the summary executions of Chinese and Ethiopian civilians during the April 2007 attack on the Obole oil installation and killing suspected government collaborators, which are considered war crimes.

 

Many civilians living in the conflict zone are nomads who must move to fresh grazing areas and regional markets to sell their livestock. Since mid-2007, Ethiopian forces have imposed a series of measures aimed at cutting off economic support to the ONLF, including a trade blockade on the war-affected region, restricted access to water, food and grazing areas, confiscation of livestock and trade goods, and obstruction of humanitarian assistance. In combination with the drought produced by successive poor rains, this “economic war” is threatening the lives of thousands of civilians, yet many of them lack access to food aid due to government manipulation of food distribution.

 

"The government's attacks on civilians, its trade blockade, and restrictions on aid amount to the illegal collective punishment of tens of thousands of people," said Gagnon. “Unless humanitarian agencies get immediate access to independently assess the needs and monitor food distribution, more lives will be lost."

 

The Ethiopian government did not respond to Human Rights Watch’s requests for access to the conflict-affected area, and has tried to stem the flow of information from the region. Some foreign journalists who have attempted to conduct independent investigations have been arrested and residents and witnesses have been threatened and detained in order to prevent them from speaking out. In July 2007, the government expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross from Somali Region, although it has since permitted some UN and nongovernmental humanitarian organizations to operate, albeit under tight controls.

 

The report also analyzes the Ethiopian government and international community’s responses to the continuing abuses. Ethiopia continues to deny the allegations but has yet to investigate them or hold anyone accountable. Human Rights Watch says that donor governments are failing to demand human rights accountability, despite the substantial economic aid to Ethiopia and its partnership in regional counterterrorism efforts.

 

Western governments and institutions alone, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, give at least US$2 billion in aid to Ethiopia annually, but have remained silent on the widespread abuses being committed in the Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia area. The US government, which views Ethiopia as a key partner in regional counterterrorism efforts, has failed to use its significant leverage, including military aid, to press for an end to the crimes.

 

 

 

Human Rights Watch called on major donors to press Ethiopia to end the violence and recommended that:

 

 

 

The US government should investigate reports of abuses by Ethiopian forces, identify the specific units involved, and ensure that they receive no assistance or training from the United States until the Ethiopian government takes effective measures to bring those responsible to justice, as required under the "Leahy law," which prohibits US military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights with impunity.

 

 

The UK government and the European Union should condemn the abuses, publicly call on the Ethiopian government to investigate the crimes in Somali Region, demand that civilian and military officials are held accountable, and monitor development funding to ensure it is not being used for security operations.

 

 

"Influential states use many excuses – such as lack of information and strategic priorities – to downplay the grave human rights concerns in Somali Region," said Gagnon. "But crimes against humanity can't be swept under the carpet. Donor governments should reconsider their policies on Ethiopia until these abuses end and those responsible are brought to justice."

 

Witness accounts from the report:

 

"The soldiers came to Aleen, after they burned down Lahelow. Then they burned Aleen. We were there at the time. The soldiers arrived and ordered the people out of their homes. They gathered all of the people together. Then the commander ordered the village burned. The commander told us, ‘I have told you already to leave these small villages,’ and then they forced us out. Then they burned down all the homes. The houses are just huts, so it is easy to burn them."

– Villager, September 23, 2007

 

"I was taken away with two men, Hassan Abdi Abdullahi and Ahmed Gani Guled. First, they pulled ropes around the necks of the two men and pulled in opposite directions, and both fell down. They put me in a ditch while they were strangling the other two. One soldier tried to strangle me with the metal stick used for cleaning the gun [by pushing it down on my throat], but I twisted his finger until he released me. Then two other soldiers came and they put a rope around my neck and started pulling. That is the last thing I remember, until I woke up, still in the ditch. A naked body was on top of me, it was Ahmed Gani Guled, who was dead. I couldn't move out of the ditch until I was found by some women who came to the waterhole."

– Ridwan Hassan-rage Sahid, October 30, 2007

 

"They started beating me with the backs of their AK-47 guns. They hit me once with the gun in my face, and then started beating me. They also hit me with the gun barrel in my teeth, and broke one of my teeth. Then they started beating me with a fan belt on my back and my feet. It lasted for more than one hour. Then they tied both my legs and lifted me upside down to the ceiling with a rope, and kept beating me more, saying I had to confess. For two months, we underwent this same ordeal, being taken from our rooms at night and being beaten and tortured."

– Thirty-one-year-old shopkeeper, September 20, 2007

 

"They wanted to intimidate the rest of us, so they brought the two girls who they said were the strongest ONLF supporters. They made the rest of us watch while they killed the two girls. First they tried to get them to confess, saying they would kill them otherwise. Then they shot both of them with their guns. Their names were Faduma Hassan, 17, and Samsam Yusuf, 18. Both were students."

– Student, September 23, 2007

 

"We have a well in Qoriley which is surrounded by wire. The army has prohibited us from using it, so you have to sneak in at night. All these things have been imposed on us this year. At nighttime, we will try and get some water to store in our houses. But if the soldiers see you are fetching water, they can kill you."

– Villager, September 22, 2007

 

"If [the federal government] followed the law, it would be good, but even the law they’ve created is not being followed."

– Former regional court judge, December 5, 2007

 

 

( Note: Satellite Images Prove The Ethiopian Genocide of The Somali Ethnic In Their Homeland:)

 

 

Satellite Images Show Destruction of Ethiopian Villages

 

 

Images obtained from satellites confirm reports that Ethiopia’s military has destroyed several towns and villages in the nation’s arid, rocky eastern region of Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia. The images were disclosed Thursday as part of a report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and provide evidence of burning and other destruction in the area.

 

In the past the AAAS has used satellite images to support claims of widespread abuses in Myanmar, Burma, Zimbabwe, Chad and the Darfur region of Sudan.

 

The commercially available images show eight sites in the remote Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia region bordering Somalia with clear signs of burning and other destruction. They corroborate a separate report by the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, also released Thursday, which includes eyewitness testimony of attacks on thousands of ethnic-Somali Muslims, the AAAS said.

 

"The Ethiopian authorities frequently dismiss human rights reports, saying that the witnesses we interviewed are liars and rebel supporters," Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement about the matter.

 

"But it will be much more difficult for them to dismiss the evidence presented in the satellite images, as images like that don't lie.”

 

Ethiopia is a major United States ally in the region. Reports indicate the nation launched its latest attack after the Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia National Liberation Front killed more than 70 people during an attack on a Chinese-run oil field in April 2007.

 

But authorities with the Ethiopian government in Addis Ababa have consistently rejected accusations against their counter-insurgency operations, and claim the rebels are abusing the local population.

 

Lars Bromley, AAAS project director for the Science and Human Rights Program, said several before and after satellite images of villages identified by Human Right Watch as possible locations of human rights violations were analyzed. The images show that eight locations, mostly in villages and small towns in the Wardheer, Dhagabur and Qorrahey Zones, were either burned or destroyed.

 

In the town of Labigah, 40 structures identified in a September 2005 image were destroyed in later images obtained in February of this year. The Human Rights Watch report cited an eyewitness who said the Ethiopian army "went into every village and set it on fire."

 

The accounts are extremely difficult to corroborate because the region "may well be the most isolated place on earth, save perhaps the densest parts of the Congolese or Amazon rain forests," Bromley told Reuters.

 

The AAAS also said it was nearly impossible to determine precisely what is going on in some of the villages.

 

"While some towns are considered permanent, they can grow and shrink over the course of a year due to fluctuations in nomadic populations, and many smaller villages will relocate altogether," the report reads.

 

"To ensure the most accurate results, AAAS for the most part sought to review only permanent towns in the ******, as indicated by their location along a well-defined road and by the presence of square structures with metal-sheet or brick roofing, and most often including a mosque."

 

 

Read all about it in link below :

 

http://hrw.org/repor ts/2008/ethiopia0608 /

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Rape and Other Sexual Violence

 

Human Rights Watch research found that the Ethiopian armed forces have been responsible for numerous instances of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls in conflict-affected areas of Somali Region. Women taken into military custody as suspected ONLF spies or for providing the insurgents military support are frequently raped or otherwise sexually assaulted while being transported to or held in military camps. Soldiers have also assaulted and raped women and girls in urban areas as well as when they are collecting firewood, water, and other vital supplies in rural areas that the ENDF considers “closed.” Human Rights Watch is unaware of any instances since 2007 in which soldiers have been disciplined or punished for committing acts of sexual violence.

 

Rape and other sexual violence is prohibited under the laws of war and is a war crime.122 When committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, it is a crime against humanity.123

 

Rape of Women in Military Custody

 

Human Rights Watch has documented cases of rape of female detainees by government soldiers at military bases in Wardheer, Dhagahbur, Kabridahar, Jijiga, Shilabo, Duhun, and Fiiq towns, and many smaller military bases in the conflict-affected zones, indicating that rape is a widespread abuse in the region. According to many of the women and men interviewed by Human Rights Watch, rape of female detainees regularly occurs in military custody and often involves senior military officials, including base commanders, and interrogators.

 

In June 2007 a 38-year-old woman was detained by soldiers as she entered Dhagahbur town from her home in Kariir to sell some goats. She was taken by the soldiers to the brigade headquarters. She told Human Rights Watch that during her 25-day detention, soldiers had raped her on five separate occasions before she was transferred to a police station.124

 

In June 2007, soldiers arrested a 17-year-old student from her home in Duhun, in Duhun wereda, Fiiq zone, accusing her of being an ONLF supporter. The nine soldiers took her to the Duhun military base, where she was detained together with about 15 other female students in a dark hole in the ground. The soldiers beat her on the first night of her detention, and then beat and raped her the second night. During her three-month detention, she was raped at least 13 times. According to the student, most of the 40 or so women who were detained at various times during those three months were raped, and the camp commander himself participated in the rapes:

 

Every night, they took all of us girls to [interrogations]. They would separate us and beat us.

 

The second time they took me, they raped me. It is hard to talk about, a man who is more powerful than you can do whatever he wants to you, so they violated me and raped me as they wanted. All three of the men raped me, consecutively. Then we were returned to the hole.

 

I was in a lot of pain and there was no doctor, until today I have not seen a doctor. I was held in the prison for three months, and raped on at least 12 other occasions, by different groups of soldiers. The commander of the base also participated in the rapes and beatings. We were all raped—the girls and the mothers. They brought new girls and women all the time, at least 40 girls and women were detained during the three months I was there.125

 

On May 23, 2007, the day after fighting in the area between the army and ONLF forces, the soldiers detained some villagers, including two women and a 16-year-old girl from Toon-Eli village in Korahe zone and took them to the Dhuumo-Dhumodle army base in Kabridahar. The two women and girl were detained there with another nine women, many of them relatives. Soldiers raped at least seven of the 12 women. On the night of May 29-30, soldiers executed Sahan Hussein and Khadar Ali Hussein in front of the other female detainees by strangling them with ropes after forcing them to confess to being ONLF members.126

 

In addition to these cases, based on victims’ accounts, many other former detainees reported witnessing rapes or seeing strong evidence of rape, such as women and girls who returned to their cells with ripped clothes, and bleeding from their private parts. A 19-year-old university student studying in Addis Ababa who was detained in Dhagahbur town in May 2007 when he returned home for a holiday, and kept for two months at a military base there, witnessed several such cases. During his detention, he saw a severely injured 23-year-old woman who was suffering from a swollen belly and an injured right arm after soldiers apparently raped her. She died from her injuries while at the base.127

 

A 30-year-old shopkeeper from Wardheer town was detained from early May until July 28, 2007 at the “Transport Tanks” military base in Wardheer town, accused of providing economic support to the ONLF. He told Human Rights Watch of several cases of rape of women detainees that he personally witnessed:

 

The women were accused of supporting the ONLF, cooking food for the fighters and spying for the ONLF. Most of the women were being raped. As we were moved outside our room, I witnessed women who were interrogated and raped. I saw with my own eyes two girls being raped, at different times. We could hear their screams and could see these things with our own eyes. One girl was raped by five soldiers one night I was taken out, I was handcuffed at the time, and another time two girls were being raped just meters away from me. All the time when they interviewed the girls, they used to force them to undress themselves. Six soldiers were with the two girls when I saw them being raped; the interrogator was there also. When the women refused to answer the questions, the interrogator allowed the soldiers to rape them.128

 

In mid-May 2007, patrolling army soldiers detained a group of women and men from a small, unnamed nomadic settlement about two kilometers south of Shilabo town. The group was divided into several groups and told they would be taken to the military base in Shilabo for questioning. One of the women described how soldiers had taken her and another 10 women into a nearby forest, where they were beaten and raped before being left for dead:

 

Before we reached the town, the soldiers started beating us with thick sticks. They beat me very hard until I fell to the ground. This time while lying on the ground I was raped. I don’t know how many men raped me. Other women were raped too. It is a woodland area. We were about ten women, all of us were raped.

 

After the rape, some of the soldiers continued beating women, others were strangled with a rope but they didn’t die. In our group, we were shot. I was hit behind the left shoulder with a bullet. The army left us in the woodland. We were found by townspeople who took us to the town.129

 

Sexual Violence against Women Collecting Wood and Water

 

 

On May 8, 2007, army soldiers detained a 20-year-old charcoal seller from Kabridahar town while she was collecting wood near the military base in the Bam Burat area. The soldiers accused her of spying for the ONLF, and immediately began beating her with the wood she had collected and jumping on her body. At least three soldiers raped the woman. She lost consciousness from the beatings and the repeated rapes, and woke up nine days later at the military base in Kabridahar. After she was detained a month, her uncle managed to secure her release from the military base. She required extensive medical treatment for her wounds.130

 

In July 2007 patrolling soldiers from the Garbo base raped two young women on consecutive days as they went to fetch water from wells located a day’s walk from their homes in Fiiq zone. The first woman was detained by the soldiers around noon as she left the wells; two soldiers raped her and threw her off a cliff, causing her serious injuries. The second woman, who had just given birth to her first child, was detained around the same time the next day, and raped by three soldiers. Angry villagers protested by throwing stones at the army encampment. When the soldiers responded with gunfire, the villagers fled.131

 

Sexual Violence against Women Collecting Wood and Water

 

On May 8, 2007, army soldiers detained a 20-year-old charcoal seller from Kabridahar town while she was collecting wood near the military base in the Bam Burat area. The soldiers accused her of spying for the ONLF, and immediately began beating her with the wood she had collected and jumping on her body. At least three soldiers raped the woman. She lost consciousness from the beatings and the repeated rapes, and woke up nine days later at the military base in Kabridahar. After she was detained a month, her uncle managed to secure her release from the military base. She required extensive medical treatment for her wounds.130

 

In July 2007 patrolling soldiers from the Garbo base raped two young women on consecutive days as they went to fetch water from wells located a day’s walk from their homes in Fiiq zone. The first woman was detained by the soldiers around noon as she left the wells; two soldiers raped her and threw her off a cliff, causing her serious injuries. The second woman, who had just given birth to her first child, was detained around the same time the next day, and raped by three soldiers. Angry villagers protested by throwing stones at the army encampment. When the soldiers responded with gunfire, the villagers fled

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Cases of Forced Evacuation, Killings, and Village Burnings

 

 

The cases documented below are in general based on multiple eyewitness interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch, and offer detailed accounts of incidents in particular villages. These case studies reflect a pattern of Ethiopian army abuses that have taken place across the conflict-affected region, but this is by no means a comprehensive list. The scale of village burnings, killings, and other abuses is believed to be significantly larger than the number of cases described below.

 

The patterns of such attacks are strikingly similar: the Ethiopian military first issues orders to the villagers to evacuate the villages within two to seven days. When the villagers refuse to evacuate, the army returns to carry out killings and other atrocities, and burns the village. Should soldiers see villagers or pastoralists in the area after the evacuation and burning of the village, they are often beaten and detained, summarily executed or, if women or girls, raped.

 

For example, in late May and early June 2007, the Ethiopian armed forces and regional authorities removed much of the rural population of Wardheer wereda, in Wardheer zone, and some villages in neighboring weredas in Korahe zone towards Wardheer town and other sites including Walwal, Danood, and Qoriley. They evacuated more than a dozen villages in an approximately 60-kilometer radius of Wardheer town alone during this operation, including Daratoole, Lahelow, Neef-Kuceliye, Qamuuda, Dhurwaa-Hararaf, Ubatale, Wa’do, Aado (Caado), Arowela, Yu’ub (Yucub), and Laanjalelo. The majority of these villages were burned after their forced evacuation. Similar operations of forced relocation and occasional burnings of villages have taken place around other major towns, such as Garbo, Sagag, Dhagahbur, and Shilabo.

 

In addition to information from eyewitnesses, Human Rights Watch received numerous accounts from people who were not present at the time of the alleged burnings but saw the villages afterwards while traveling through the region. Sometimes their accounts could not be corroborated by other witness testimony. However, satellite imagery obtained by Human Rights Watch has confirmed that some of the villages mentioned by these individuals did show signs of significant destruction and removal of structures and indications of burning.

 

For example, in October 2007 a 35-year-old refugee in Kenya told Human Rights Watch researchers that when he was fleeing the attacks around Wardheer in July 2007, he observed that Dameerey village, located between Wardheer and Aware towns, was burned. Human Rights Watch was unable to corroborate this claim with other eyewitness accounts, but “before” and “after” satellite images acquired in December 2006 and March 2008 confirm a significant removal of structures and signs of burning in Dameerey village.

 

 

Dameerey— December 23, 2006 (Lat: 7.548; Long: 44.978) © 2008 DigitalGlobe.

 

 

 

 

Dameerey— March 7, 2008: Structures comprising almost the entire town (about 65 structures) were removed, possibly burned, since the collection of the previous image. © 2008 DigitalGlobe.

 

 

 

In another example, several refugees from Shilabo wereda claimed that Lasoole village (near Shilabo town, in Korahe zone) was burned in June or July 2007, but were not eyewitnesses to the events. Satellite imagery later confirmed their allegations.

 

 

Laasoole— March 30, 2005 (Lat: 6.233; Long: 44.754) ©2008 DigitalGlobe.

 

 

 

 

Laasoole— July 17, 2007: About 76 structures, most of the town, were likely removed or damaged since the collection of the previous image, and burning is likely on the roadway. Note that multiple new structures (not shown) also appeared in this area since the collection of the first image. © 2008 DigitalGlobe.

 

Ela-Obo, February 2007

In February 2007, government forces came to the nomadic settlement of Ela-Obo, a watering point in the Fiiq wereda of Fiiq zone, and ordered the civilian population to relocate to nearby Galalshe village. According to an eyewitness, an army commander gathered the population and told them, “The government has decided to move people into one bigger place. You are ordered to leave here and move to Galalshe. If you don’t move to Galalshe, we’ll remove you ourselves.”76

 

When some of the villagers tried to argue with the officer, saying they didn’t want to leave their homes, the commander ordered the arrest of six camel herders, and the rounding up of the camels. In front of the gathered villagers, the commander then ordered the six men executed, and the camels shot. Five men were shot dead: Deq Yusuf Lacag, Hassan Abdurrahman Muhumed Omar, Haji Abdi Ibraahim, Khadar Keenadiid, and Waajir Sheikh Osman, while a sixth survived. Some 20 camels were also killed. After the soldiers left, the survivor was taken away by his relatives and brought to a neighboring village.

 

Four days later soldiers returned to Ela-Obo after receiving information that there had been a survivor of the execution. They detained and summarily executed two female and two male relatives of the survivor: Ardo Muhumed Mohamoud, 18, Hodan Muhumed Mohamoud, 20, Abdullahi Hussein Abdi, and Muhumed Hassan.77 Following the second deadly incident, most villagers fled.

 

In late February, a few weeks after the initial killings, soldiers followed suspected ONLF tracks into Ela-Obo. After the remaining villagers again refused to leave the area, the soldiers summarily executed another nine herders: Ahmed Nur Hussein Mataan, Abdi Aden Ahmed, Nasir Osman Aden, Mohamed Abdi Saahid, Nur Ayaanle Sheikh Mohamed Ali, Mohamed-gurey Ali Taraar, Mohamed Beddel Gaas, and two brothers from the Bashir Mukhtar family. All nine were buried in the nearby settlement of Malqaqa. Seven other men detained that day remain missing and are feared dead.78

 

Wardheer and Shilabo weredas, May/June 2007

In late May and early June 2007, the armed forces and Ethiopian regional authorities began to forcibly displace the rural population from villages in Wardheer and neighboring weredas towards Wardheer town and other designated locations. Many villages in a 60-kilometer radius of Wardheer were affected including Daratoole, Lahelow, Neef-Kuceliye, Qamuuda, Dhurwaa-Hararaf, Ubatale, Wa’di, Aado (Caado), Arowela, Yu’ub (Yucub), and Laanjalelo. Villagers were ordered to evacuate their villages and were warned that failure to obey the orders would lead to the burning of their villages. An elder in Wa’di (Wacdi), a village north of Wardheer town, told Human Rights Watch that on June 15, 2007, Ethiopian officials came to Wa’di and ordered the civilians to leave the village, warning that if they refused the order, their village would be burned.

 

Over the next weeks, many of the villages in the vicinity of Wardheer town were partially or totally burned: Daratoole was burned in mid-June; Qamuuda (in neighboring Shilabo wereda, Korahe zone) was burned on June 21; Neef-Kuceliye on June 23; Wa’di, Laanjalelo, Aado, and Jinnoole were burned in mid-July.79

 

Many additional villages and nomadic settlements in the Wardheer wereda were emptied of their population, either on orders of the government or because the residents feared attacks.

 

Some of the burnings may have been in reprisal for ONLF activity in the area. A person present in Qamuuda when it was burned by the army described the attack to Human Rights Watch, and explained that ONLF fighters had passed through the village just the evening before:

 

When Qamuuda was burned, I was there. It is about 30 houses. It was alleged ONLF visited the village. They entered on that morning and burned around 8 a.m. and left around 3 p.m. They used fuel they found in the village to burn by setting fire. I saw ONLF in Qamuuda several times. They were carrying guns, came out of the bush. When Qamuuda was burned, the ONLF came there just before the burning.80

 

Satellite images confirmed the destruction of Qamuuda.

 

 

Qamuuda— December 23, 2006 (Lat: 6.543; Long: 44.903) ©2008 DigitalGlobe.

 

 

 

 

Qamuuda— March 24, 2008: About 85 structures were likely removed or damaged when compared with the previous image. © 2008 DigitalGlobe.

 

About a week after the burning of Qamuuda, government soldiers entered the nearby village of Jaleelo, also in Shilabo wereda, apparently following the tracks of suspected ONLF fighters operating in the area. A witness told Human Rights Watch that the soldiers stayed in the village for two days, slaughtering and eating some of the goats of the villagers. During their time in the village, the soldiers shot dead two unidentified young men who approached the village and then tried to run away when they saw the soldiers. After two days, the soldiers told the villagers to leave Jaleelo, and burned the homes in the village before departing.81

 

Labiga and Faafan Valley, June 2007

Among the worst killings of civilians by the Ethiopian army were those that occurred during an army operation in the Faafan Valley in June 2007. Soldiers allegedly willfully shot and killed at least 25 civilians, including men, women, and children. The Faafan Valley and the Gohdi basin are located southwest of Dhagahbur town in Dhagahbur zone, and are an ONLF stronghold.82

 

In mid-June 2007, pro-government militias known as tadaaqi came to the Gohdi basin surrounding Labiga town, and began ordering nomads and residents of the smaller settlements to move immediately to Labiga town. When the villagers refused to move, the tadaaqi began rounding up and confiscating the villagers’ camels.

 

According to an eyewitness:

 

Initially, the [tadaaqi] told the villagers from the area to move to Labiga. The villagers refused. Labiga is located in a long valley know as Gohdi, and there are 14 small villages in this valley. All the people from these villages were ordered to relocate to Labiga, which lies on the main road. When the villagers refused, the [tadaaqi] came and confiscated their camels. The [tadaaqi] was holding the camels in an enclosure near Koracelis. They gathered hundreds of camels confiscated from the villages along the valley over several days.83

 

Following the confiscation of the camels, the camel owners sent a delegation of elders to meet with the tadaaqi to try and get the camels released, but the tadaaqi refused the request. The camels were kept in eight traditional xero enclosures (each xero can hold up to 200 camels) in Koracelis town. After failing to negotiate the release of the camels, the camel owners decided to attack the tadaaqi camp and get their camels released by force, according to two eyewitnesses interviewed separately by Human Rights Watch: “The owners of the camels organized themselves, took their weapons, and attacked the [tadaaqi] camp to release the camels.”84

 

During the attack on the tadaaqi camp to free the camels, at least four armed camel owners (Wayel Abdi Iman, Asad Yusuf Iley, Mohammed Abdi Yare, and Miyir), two local residents, and an unknown number of tadaaqi militia members were killed.85

 

Following the attack by the armed camel owners on the tadaaqi camp and the freeing of their camels, the Ethiopian army deployed a large force to the area, burning down the villages and willfully killing at least 20 civilians. A woman living in Diyaar village at the time it was attacked told Human Rights Watch that the soldiers shot dead her husband, Mohammed Abade Hassan, 30, and her father-in-law, Abade Hassan Omar, 70, during the attack:

 

The soldiers arrived from all corners. They went into every village and set it on fire, and they were shooting as they burned them. They started burning Diyaar, Hunjurri, Koracelis, Labiga, and Gohdi. It was early in the morning.

 

There are lots of farms around the area. We owned a farm. My husband was killed that morning, around 5:30 a.m. He was hit by the bullet in front of the house. We were new to the area, I was only there for 13 days when the attack happened. My children were staying with their grandmother who lived in the same area and they fled with them. My husband’s father was also killed in that morning after he was shot. I also saw the bodies of others.86

 

A second eyewitness from Diyaar, a 28-year-old man, was himself shot in the shoulder by the soldiers as he stood in the doorway of his home. Soldiers shot and killed his wife Fadumo Ibrahim, 28, and two young children, Abdinasir Mohammed Farah, 1, and Halima Mohammed Abdi, 2. He told Human Rights Watch:

 

When the fighting happened around Labiga, I was in Diyaar. [The army] launched a [military] operation around 2:30 a.m. The people in the villages confronted them. The soldiers shot me in front of my house. My wife and two children died ten meters away from me. She died in the shooting along with my two children. The bullet hit me in the shoulder and they left me for dead.87

 

At least six other civilians were shot dead during the army attacks on Diyaar and Koracelis, including Sharaf Moallim Abdi Dagaal, 35, and her two children aged 2 and 3; Mohammed Abdi Qara-yar, 63, and Hassan Mataan Moallim Abdi, 25.88

 

Satellite images of Labiga confirm accounts of burning and destruction.

 

 

Labiga— September 26, 2005 (Lat: 8.118; Long: 43.391) © 2008 DigitalGlobe.

 

 

 

 

Labiga— February 28, 2008: Almost the entire town (about 40 structures) was likely removed or damaged subsequent to the collection of the previous image, and the grey/white areas are possible evidence of burning. © 2008 DigitalGlobe.

 

Another 12 civilians were killed around Labiga and Hunjurri villages, according to other eyewitnesses. During the first army raid, soldiers reportedly shot nine civilians in Labiga and Hunjurri, most of them in their farms, their homes, or while trying to run away from the army: Muhumed Yusuf Omar, 23, his brother Muhuyadin Yusuf Omar, 21, and their brother-in-law Ahmed Abdullahi Adan, 41; Abdullahi Muhumed Mataan, 61; Sheikh Mohammed Hassan Wahar, 65; Farhan Ali Shide, 13; Abdullahi Ahmed Af-da’un, 14; Qorgab Ali Abshir, 19; and Moallim Ahmed Mohammed Hashi, 30, a Koranic school teacher. Three days later, soldiers returned to Labiga and killed another three civilians as they attempted to return to their homes: Sheikh Ahmed; and Yusuf Abdi “Adhi-fool” and his young daughter.89

 

Lahelow, June 2007

In June 2007, the military commander of Wardheer came to Lahelow, a nomadic settlement of some 1,000 families located southwest of Wardheer town, near the boundary between Wardheer and Korahe zones, and ordered the population to gather for a meeting. He informed the population that the government ordered them to leave the area within seven days and relocate to Wardheer town. Since most of the population of Lahelow consisted of pastoralists who needed grazing land for their livestock, many residents refused to relocate.

 

When the seven-day deadline expired, a military force of some 200 soldiers returned and detained five civilians: Mohammed Abdi Wayd, 23; two sons of Sheikh Hussein Abdi Gaye, 8 and 19; Bashir Jama Abdullahi, 16; and a girl who used to work in a local vegetable shop. The first night they killed Mohmmed Abdi Wayd by strangling him, and threw his body outside their base. The next day, the villagers found the bodies of the other four detainees, shot to death. Following the summary executions, most of the population of Lahelow fled the area, and soldiers burned some of the homes.90 The army brought 10 commandeered civilian trucks to move the remaining civilian population of Lahelow to Wafdug town.91

 

The army continued to summarily execute civilians who were found in the “closed” zone of Lahelow. A few weeks after the killing of the five civilians, soldiers shot dead a local official from Lahelow, Sulub Mohammed Elmi, when he tried to return home to the village.92 In mid-September 2007, soldiers allegedly shot dead a group of five young camel herders near Lahelow, including Abdulrahman Hassan, 19, and confiscated their camels.93

 

Malqaqa, June 2007

In June 2007 soldiers came to Malqaqa, a settlement of 40 farms in the Fiiq wereda of Fiiq zone, and ordered the villagers to relocate to the neighboring, larger village of Galalshe, where there was an army base. After removing the residents, the soldiers burned all of the farms in the village and destroyed the crops. Soldiers dug up the khat plants, which were the mainstay of the farms, to ensure that villagers would not return to their homes. An eyewitness from Malqaqa told Human Rights Watch that many of the young men from Malqaqa were detained by the army at their base in Galalshe, where they suffered beatings and abuse.94

 

Warandhaab, June 2007

According to a witness, in late June 2007, soon after ONLF fighters ambushed an army convoy near the village of Warandhaab, located on the main road between Kabridahar and Sheygoosh, in Korahe zone, soldiers burned the village:

 

Usually, the soldiers leave their camps [in the main towns] to carry out [counterinsurgency] operations. If the soldiers are ambushed [by the ONLF], then the villages near the ambush are burned. This is what happened in Warandhaab. The soldiers came into the village and told all the villagers to leave and move to Galadiid village. Then, Warandhaab was burned down. Warandhaab had about 40 houses.95

 

Wardheer town, July 2007

Residents of urban centers have not been spared forced resettlement during 2007. After residents of small rural settlements in Wardheer wereda were ordered to move to Wardheer town and had their villages burned down (see above), the Ethiopian army began ordering residents living on the outskirts of Wardheer town to move towards the center of town. Soldiers then began to burn some kebele (neighborhoods) in the town itself. According to two separate eyewitnesses, the army burned parts of kebeles 1 and 4, and Qoddobaha kebele in July.96 One of the residents removed from kebele 4 told Human Rights Watch:

 

I had an iron sheet house and an adjoining hut in neighborhood 4 of Wardheer town. The soldiers came one morning in July, and said, “[name removed], get out of here.” They were removing residents from three [kebeles], 1, 4, and Qoddobaha, and telling people to move deeper into town.97

 

A second eyewitness confirmed that the three neighborhoods had been partially burned and destroyed, adding that “all of the suburban neighborhoods of Wardheer had their residents moved deeper into town.”98

 

Reprisal Killings

In addition to the forced displacement, village burnings and killings associated with the government’s systematic campaign to remove civilian populations from rural, conflict-affected areas, Ethiopian forces have also carried out a large number of reprisal killings and other serious rights violations.

 

In most of the several dozen incidents involving willful killings or summary executions investigated by Human Rights Watch, the armed forces carried out reprisal attacks against civilians after clashes between ONLF fighters and government soldiers near their villages, or after receiving information that ONLF fighters had visited particular villages (often by tracing presumed ONLF tracks). The military has also sought to pressure the relatives and village elders to produce ONLF members, and has detained or killed those who are unable to comply with the order. This is a form of collective punishment. The laws of war do not permit belligerent reprisals during internal armed conflicts,99 and collective punishments are prohibited outright.100

 

Dalal, February 2007

In mid-February 2007, ENDF soldiers came to Dalal village, near Qorrahey village (in Korahe zone), and ordered the civilian population to gather for a meeting. At the meeting, the soldiers accused the residents of supporting and feeding ONLF forces. Sheikh Mohammed and two other village elders told the soldiers they were wrong, saying that their own children were starving and it would be impossible to provide food to the ONLF. The soldiers then accused Sheikh Mohammed’s eldest son of having died fighting for the ONLF, when in fact he had died fighting for the Ethiopian army in Badme during the Ethiopia-Eritrean conflict. Sheikh Mohammed and the two other elders argued back, and the soldiers took them away and summarily executed them.

 

When the soldiers returned the bodies of the three elders to the village, the remaining crowd became enraged. The soldiers began beating and detaining some of the women. Among those detained was the 22-year-old daughter of one of the elders, whom the soldiers beat and raped before releasing.101

 

Gurdumi, April 2007

In early April 2007, an ENDF force came to the village of Gurdumi in Aware wereda, Dhagahbur zone, and the military commander ordered the population to gather at the center of the village, near the administration office. In his speech, the commander ordered the villagers to bring back their ONLF relatives from the bush. The military commander then held lengthy talks with the village elders, who explained to him that they had no power to order ONLF relatives to return from the bush, let alone arrest them. The commander allegedly threatened the elders, saying that those who failed to bring back their “sons” would be killed.

 

A few hours after the meeting, the commander ordered the arrest of the elders. Four or five elders, including Abdullahi Qabille, a local official, and Hiiray Farah were brought to the village center and summarily executed. The army displayed their bodies, and refused the villagers immediate permission to bury them. Several others, including village elder Sheikh Yusuf Abdullahi, were detained and remain unaccounted for.102

 

Gudhis, June 2007

In June 2007 heavy fighting occurred between ONLF insurgents and government troops in the area around Gudhis town, in the Gudhis wereda of Gode zone. A week after the fighting, ENDF soldiers entered Gudhis early in the morning, confiscated five goats, and returned to the nearby bush to slaughter and eat them. The same afternoon, the soldiers returned to Gudhis and detained eight men and a woman. The woman, Fadumo Hashi Aden, and one of the men, Abdiwahad Hassan, were released unharmed. The other seven men were shot near the village, according to a resident whose relatives were among the dead. Those killed were Rashid Gamadiid Abdurahman, Mohammed Mawsar Adan, Ibrahim Geed Abdiweli, Mohammedweli Shukri, Daabuul Mohammed Shukri, Mohammed Good Aden, and Ibrahim Hashi Abdi.103

 

Aleen, July 2007

In early July 2007, fighting took place between government forces and ONLF fighters near the village of Aleen (also known as Caleen), northeast of Shilabo town in Korahe zone. Following the fighting, ENDF soldiers entered the village of Aleen with their wounded. The soldiers, angry because of their losses, began killing civilians in and around the village, accusing them of supporting the ONLF. Among those killed that afternoon was Fatumo Abdi Hussein, 80, the mother of ONLF fighter Nur Faalug Mohamoud. Also killed were two boys, one of them Fatumo’s grandson, Abdullahi Yare Mohamoud Faalug.104

 

As the village was burying the dead the next day, the soldiers returned and opened fire on the mourners, killing at least two and as many as four village elders, including Sheikh Ibrahim Farah and Mohammed Abdi Muse. After the shooting, most of the villagers fled in fear, and soldiers set the village on fire. According to an eyewitness: “They burned Aleen village on this very same day. The people fled the village because of the army’s entrance and the killings that took place. But in the afternoon we saw from a distance the smoke from the burning village.”105

 

A second eyewitness who was present in Aleen during its destruction recalled that the army commander had ordered the village evacuated before the burning:

 

I fled with my wife and children [from Lahelow] to Aleen, which is closer to Shilabo. In Aleen, there is a motorized borehole. We went there to look for water. The soldiers came to Aleen, after they burned down Lahelow. Then they burned Aleen. We were there at the time. The soldiers arrived and ordered the people out of their homes. They gathered all of the people together. Then the commander ordered the village burned. The commander told us, “I have told you already to leave these small villages,” and then they forced us out. Then they burned down all the homes. The houses are just huts, so it is easy to burn them.106

 

Qoriley, July 2007

One of the more gruesome summary executions by Ethiopian forces took place on July 24, 2007 near Qoriley village in Wardheer zone. During the early morning hours, approximately 400 soldiers from the military base in Danood arrived in Qoriley, and then gathered the villagers together for a speech by the military commander. According to an eyewitness:

 

The soldiers entered some houses and took money, food and clothes as they made their way to an old [abandoned] army base in Qoriley. At around 1 p.m., they came out of the base and gathered people around a number of large trees in the village. There were three Somali men who were guiding the army [names withheld]. These Somali men talked to the people, translating the speech of the army commander [name withheld].107

 

Human Rights Watch interviewed two additional witnesses who gave very similar accounts of the commander’s speech. He accused the population of Qoriley of supporting the ONLF, and of not doing enough to bring their ONLF relatives back from the bush, reportedly telling the civilians, “We’ve been very patient with you, but today our patience has run out.”108 The Somali interpreter then read out a list of nine men and two women to be detained. Those detained were Hassan Burale Elmi and his brother Ali Burale Elmi, who had another brother in the ONLF; Ahmed Gani Guled; Hassan Abdi Abdullahi; Farah Hussein Halosi; Abdi-hiis Sheikh Mohamoud Umar; Ilmoge Beddel; Kifah Rage; Bogos Shukri Mataan; and two women, Ayan Ali Good and Ridwan Hassan-rage Sahid, who were accused of being the wives of ONLF members.109

 

Following their arrests, the nine men and two women were taken to the Qoriley military camp, which the soldiers had reoccupied that morning. During the night, the soldiers severely beat the two most senior elders in the group, Farah Hussein Halosi and Hassan Burale Elmi, breaking Hassan Burale Elmi’s hand. The two detained women were also beaten (but not raped), and accused of being married to ONLF members.110

 

The next morning, the soldiers released the youngest of the detainees, Kifah Rage, and ordered him to walk a flock of goats to the Danood army base. The remaining 10 detainees were walked to Babaase village, about an hour’s walk from Qoriley, where they spent a second night in detention.

 

Several eyewitnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch described how the villagers found the strangled bodies of the 10 detainees a few days later outside Babaase village. A businessman from the Qorile area told Human Rights Watch what he had seen: “All the [detainees] were taken to Babaase where they were strangled with ropes. I saw the ropes on their neck when we arrived [at] the scene. I saw the bodies of Ahmed Ghani Guled, Farah Hussein Halosi, and Ayan Ali Good.”111

 

One of the detainees, Ridwan Hassan-rage Sahid, survived the strangulation, and later told Human Rights Watch what she had experienced.112 She explained that the soldiers and the detainees had left the army camp in two groups, and the detainees were strangled soon after they left Babaase. Wounds on her neck appeared consistent with the attempted strangulation she described:

 

It was still early morning, before day break, and we were in a forested area. After a while, the soldiers stopped us under some trees, next to a water-well. The soldiers undressed all the men before they strangled them. They took away their sarongs, watches, and shoes. The women were not undressed.

 

They took away two men, Ilmoge Beddel and Abdi-hiis Sheik Mohamoud Umar. They put a rope around the neck of each of them as we stood watching. Then, they hanged Ilmoge from a tree, after a soldier climbed into the tree and put the rope around a branch. But they did not hang Abdi-hiis. Instead, they put the rope around his neck and two soldiers pulled in opposite directions, strangling him.

 

Then I was taken away with two men, Hassan Abdi Abdullahi and Ahmed Gani Guled. First they pulled ropes around the necks of the two men and pulled in opposite directions, and both fell down. They put me in a ditch while they were strangling the other two. One soldier tried to strangle me with the metal stick used for cleaning the gun [by pushing it down on my throat], but I twisted his finger until he released me. Then two other soldiers came and they put a rope around my neck and started pulling.

 

That is the last thing I remember, until I woke up still in the ditch. A naked body was on top of me, it was Ahmed Gani Guled, who was dead. I couldn’t move out of the ditch until I was found by some women who came to the waterhole.113

 

All other nine detainees were found strangled to death.

 

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a regional government official confirmed to Human Rights Watch that the Ethiopian army had strangled up to 12 detainees in Qoriley. According to the official, the attack on Qoriley occurred shortly after ONLF forces destroyed a commercial truck belonging to the ******* clan outside Qoriley, and the elders of Qoriley refused to provide compensation to the ******* clansmen. The regional official told Human Rights Watch that the actions of the army had outraged some civilian officials, who had gone to complain to the military about the Qoriley killings, but no soldiers had been arrested or punitive action taken by the army.114

 

Galalshe and San-Xaskule, August 2007

After forcing most of the rural population to relocate to the larger village of Galalshe which was home to an ENDF military base (see above), soldiers in August 2007 burned many of Galalshe’s 400 civilian homes. The burning of Galalshe and other villages in the area was apparently in retaliation for heavy fighting between government forces from Galalshe and ONLF fighters in the nearby Daakhato Valley, four hours’ walk away. As the soldiers began burning homes in Galalshe, the inhabitants tried to stop them. In response, the soldiers opened fire on the civilians, killing between eight and 15 civilians, including Mohamoud Rage Egal, 60, Abdulkadir Rage Egal (Mohamoud’s brother), Aydid Muhumed Egal, Sheikh Abdullaahi Omar Egal, Farah Abdi Bade, Omar Faruk Mohammed, Fadumo Mohamoud Rage, and Dalha.115

 

San-Xaskule, another village in the area, was also burned around the same time by army forces, and five civilians were reportedly killed there, including Mohammed Abdi Samad, Fadumo, Mohammed Abdi “Arab,” and Halimo Sharif Mohammed.116

 

Bukudhaba, August 2007

Around August 17, 2007, fierce fighting took place between the army and ONLF forces near the villages of Bukudhaba, Milmil, and Haahi, in Aware wereda, Dhagahbur zone. Afterwards, ENDF soldiers entered Bukudhaba village on August 18, killing at least eight civilians, including six elders, and burned down Bukudhaba and other villages in the area.

 

Bukudhaba was a large village of some 200 households located south of Aware town, and is famous for its large water reservoirs, which serve the pastoralist communities in the area. According to the villagers, Bukudhaba was also regularly visited by ONLF forces.117

 

Several witnesses recounted to Human Rights Watch how the soldiers came to Bukudhaba the morning after the fighting and executed a group of elders at the village mosque before burning down the village. One man told Human Rights Watch:

 

The soldiers came early in the morning, they were looking for men. They went to the mosque and found elders who were praying at the mosque, and shot five elders inside the mosque, including some guests to the village. They killed a sixth man outside the mosque.118

 

Several others gave Human Rights Watch similar accounts of the killings at the mosque. Although she was not in Bukudhaba at the time of the attack, a relative of Hiis Sulub Dagaal, an elder who was partially blind, told Human Rights Watch that he had been shot and killed during the attack on Bukudhaba:

 

He had left Dhagahbur because the army had confiscated all of our properties, so he went to stay […] in Bukudhaba. [During the attack,] only the elderly were left in the village; they found [Hiis Sulub Dagaal] and six other men at the mosque. They shot them. I don’t know whether they killed them in the mosque or outside the mosque, I was only told they were shot. He is buried in the village.119

 

The soldiers returned the next day to burn down the village, and killed two more men, Yusuf Dhiriq and Abdullahi Mohammed Ismael, as well as a woman, Fadumo Ahmed Ali, accusing them of belonging to the ONLF.120 “They shot people and started burning the village,” said a 42-year-old man who described the burning of Bukudhaba to Human Rights Watch.

 

When they were burning Bukudhaba, I was in Baarta village which is less than a kilometer away, and I could see the smoke. The army proceeded to Baarta and burned that village also. Bukudhaba is a big village of about 200 houses with two water reservoirs. They damaged the water reservoirs by blowing up the wooden walls with explosives. This happened on the same day they burned Bukudhaba

[N.O.R.F]

Images back Ethiopia abuse claim

 

( The town of Labigah pictured in 2005 (top) and 2008 (bottom))

 

US scientists say satellite images confirm reports that the Ethiopian military have burnt towns and villages in Ethiopia's Somali region.

 

The American Association for the Advancement of Science says the images back up a Human Rights Watch's report

 

The US-based group says the troops are systematically ill-treating civilians in their counter-insurgency campaign.

 

Ethnic Somali rebels have been fighting for more autonomy for two decades in the region, also known as the ******.

 

HRW also accused the United States and the European Union of ignoring widespread abuses there.

 

The Ethiopia government has described the report as "unfounded and baseless".

 

'Confused'

 

HRW cites evidence of extrajudicial detentions and killings, beatings and rapes in military custody, forced displacement of the rural population and the collective punishment of communities suspected of helping or sympathising with the ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels.

 

"We found that over the last year the Ethiopian army has been killing, raping, torturing and systematically displacing civilians in the ****** region of Ethiopia," HRW's Georgette Gagnon told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

 

She said there was no doubt about the identity of those carrying out the abuses.

 

"All the victims and eyewitnesses that we interviewed clearly identified the Ethiopian army and soldiers as those who had raped them, for example, who had summarily killed people by strangling, and who had forcibly displaced them and burned their villages."

 

According to the AAAS, eight "before" and "after" satellite images identified by HRW as possible locations of abuses bore signs of attacks described.

 

These were primarily in villages and small towns in the Wardheer, Dhagabur, and Qorrahey Zones, the AAAS said.

 

Propaganda

 

One recurrent scenario was of the army's response to ONLF activity in a neighbourhood; they would call the inhabitants together and demand that they hand over the culprits, HRW says.

 

Failure to do so resulted in village elders and others being arrested, beaten, sometimes killed.

 

Young people, both boys and girls, were arbitrarily arrested and accused of being ONLF sympathisers; they were routinely beaten in custody and women often raped, HRW says.

 

The apparently arbitrary nature of many of the arrests was explained to HRW by a former judge in the region who said the army could not tell the difference between rebels and civilians, he said they were confused as to who was who.

 

The report concludes that the army is engaged in a deliberate policy of terrorising the local population; that the abuses are far too systematic and widespread to be considered simply the acts of rogue commanders.

 

But Bereket Simon, special adviser to Ethiopia's prime minister, said that HRW had based its findings on ONLF propaganda.

 

"Human Rights Watch is engaged in misinforming the public based on the information of the ONLF, whose forces have been destroyed by the actions of the Ethiopian government," he told AFP news agency.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7450533.stm

[Abtigiis]

Rag baa jira waxan oo dhanba Propaganda u arka oo Ethiopia is a friend ku leh! Waxaa ka mid ah Naxar Nugaaleed iyo Koora-Tuunshe.

[Nur]

U.S. SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY

 

CONTACT: Office of Senator Leahy, 202-224-4242

VERMONT

 

 

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

Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy,

Assistance For Ethiopia

August 3, 2007

 

Mr. LEAHY. After the overthrow of Ethiopia’s brutal former Prime Minister Mengistu, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi ushered in a period of hope and optimism. On May 15, 2005, Ethiopia held its first open multi-party elections. The international community praised the people of Ethiopia for an astounding 90 percent voter participation rate, an encouraging beginning to a new political process. The Ethiopian people deserve a democratic process in which opposition parties can organize and participate, and journalists can publish freely, without fear of arrest or retribution. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the 2005 election was not the turning point many had hoped for.

 

Early polls suggested the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party would make gains in the Ethiopian Parliament that could threaten the control of Prime Minister Meles’ ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. These reports were followed by credible allegations of manipulation of the vote-counting process. When the government finally announced results that assured its continued hold on power, thousands of people took to the streets in protest. The police arrested over 30,000 people and some 193 people were killed. Although most of the protestors were released soon after their arrest, 70 opposition leaders and journalists remained in prison.

 

Following these events, I wrote to Ethiopia’s Ambassador Kassahun Ayele and officials at the State Department to express my concern with the imprisonment of the Ethiopian politicians. Human rights organizations and other international figures condemned the detentions and urged Prime Minister Meles to release them. These efforts were to no avail.

 

Some detainees remained in jail for over two years before being brought to trial in a manner that was incompatible with international standards of justice. Last month, they were convicted of such vague charges as “outrage against the constitution” and “inciting armed opposition”. They were stripped of their rights to vote and to run for public office. Several were sentenced to life in prison. Nothing was done to prosecute the police officers who fired on the protesters. The situation had gone from bad to worse.

 

Then suddenly, less than two weeks ago, the Ethiopian Government announced the pardon and release of 38 opposition leaders. I am pleased that Prime Minister Meles heeded the pleas of the Ethiopian people and the international community and released these prisoners. The fact is, none of them should have been arrested or tried in the first place. Their release was long overdue and is welcome.

 

I hope the government acts expeditiously to release the remaining political detainees, and bring to justice police officers who used excessive force. I also hope the negotiations that resulted in the prisoners’ release will lead to further discussions between the government and the leaders of the opposition, to ensure that their political rights are fully restored and that future elections are not similarly marred.

 

While this news is positive, it comes at a time when journalists and representatives of humanitarian organizations report human rights abuses of civilians, including torture, rape and extrajudicial killings, by Ethiopian security forces, including those trained and equipped by the U.S., in the Western Somali region.

 

Congressman Donald Payne, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, and a vocal defender of human rights and democracy in Ethiopia, inserted into the Congressional Record a June 18, 2007, New York Times article that described these abuses.

 

This situation is also addressed in the Senate version of the Fiscal Year 2008 State, Foreign Operations Appropriations bill and report, which were reported by the Appropriations Committee on July 10. The Appropriations Committee seeks assurance from the State Department that military assistance for Ethiopia is being adequately monitored and is not being used against civilians by units of Ethiopia’s security forces. We need to know that the State Department is investigating these reports. We also want to see effective measures by the Ethiopian Government to bring to justice anyone responsible for such abuses.

 

Unfortunately, it appears that the Bush administration has made little effort to monitor military aid to Ethiopia. It is no excuse that the Ethiopian military has impeded access to the Western Somali Region as it has done. In fact, this should give rise to a sense of urgency. If we cannot properly investigate these reports, and if the Leahy Law which prohibits U.S. assistance to units of foreign security forces that violate human rights is not being applied because the U.S. Embassy cannot determine the facts, then we should not be supporting these forces.

 

As if the allegations of human rights violations were not enough, the New York Times reported on July 22 that the Ethiopian military is blocking food aid to the Western Somali region. The article also claimed that the military is “siphoning off millions” of dollars intended for food aid and a UN polio eradication program. A subsequent article on July 26 indicated that the World Food Program and the Ethiopian Government have reached agreement, after weeks of discussions, on a process for getting food aid through the military blockade to civilians in the Ethiopian Occupied Somali Region region. But the same article also reported that regional Ethiopian officials have expelled the Red Cross.

 

Mr. President, during the Cold War we supported some of the world’s most brutal, corrupt dictators because they were anti-communist. Their people, and our reputation, suffered as a result. Now the White House seems to support just about anyone who says they are against terrorism, no matter how undemocratic or corrupt. It is short sighted, it tarnishes our image, and it will cost us dearly in the long term.

 

Prime Minister Meles has been an ally against Islamic extremism in the Horn of Africa, for which we are grateful. But there are serious concerns with Ethiopia’s U.S.-supported military invasion of Somalia. It has led to some of the same problems associated with the Bush Administration’s misguided decision to invade Iraq without a plan for leaving the country more stable and secure than before the overthrow of Saddam. Iraq’s partition now seems only a matter of time, and it is hard to be optimistic that Somalia a year from now will be any more secure, or any less of a threat to regional stability, than before the influx of Ethiopian troops.

 

Ethiopia is also a poor country that has faced one natural or man-made disaster after another, and the U.S. has responded with hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian and other assistance. We have a long history of supporting Ethiopia and its people, and we want to continue that support. But our support to the government is not unconditional. We will not ignore the unlawful imprisonment of political opponents or the mistreatment of journalists. We will not ignore reports of abuses of civilians by Ethiopian security forces.

[Fabregas]

And he's gonna get more money and arms as thank you for the job he's done! Oh yeah, and apparently, they'll give money to feed the starving(mainly Muslims) of Ethiopia!

[Nur]

Geeljire bro.

 

Mels Zenawi of Ethiopia was personally invited by his Boss, King George Bush to the G8 Conference held in Japan, thanking him for his proxy handling of the Somali front of his holy war on Islam. Particularly the Ethipian Troops Genocide and rape of Somali women. You know the Somali are Heathen in the Babtist version of Christianity, their suffering is OK.

 

George Bush, A born Again Christian, administring a dose of Mercy for the weak and helpless in Somalia, A Mercy Killing Job By the Ethiopian Tigree Army!

 

Nur

[Nur]

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORT!

 

 

More Blowback from the War on Terror

 

The U.S.-backed Ethiopian military has secreted away scores of "suspects" – including pregnant women and children – and fueled anti-American rancor in Africa.

By Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel, published in Salon

 

October 1, 2008

 

Ishmael, a 37-year-old shepherd from the (Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia) region in Ethiopia, looked at me with tears in his eyes. Ethiopian forces – who had already killed his mother, father, brothers and sisters – murdered his wife days after they were married. They then slaughtered his goats, beat him unconscious, and slashed his shoulder to the bone, he said.

 

In December 2006, Ishmael crossed through Somalia into Kenya, heading for the nearest refugee camp in search of medical care. But when he didn't have enough money to pay a 1,000 shilling ($15) bribe, the Kenyan police bundled him into a car and took him to Nairobi. Less than a month later, he was herded onto an airplane with some 30 others, flown to Somalia and handed over to the Ethiopian military – the same forces that he previously fled.

 

Ishmael is a victim of a 2007 rendition program in the Horn of Africa, involving Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and the United States. There are at least 90 more victims like him. Most have since been sent home. A few – including a Canadian and nine who assert Kenyan nationality – remain in detention even now. The whereabouts of 22 others – including several Somalis, Ethiopian from (Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia), and Eritreans – remain unknown.

 

In late 2006, the Bush administration backed a full-scale Ethiopian military offensive that ousted the Islamist authorities from Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. The fighting caused thousands of Somalis, including some who were suspected of terrorist links, to flee across the Kenya border.

 

Kenyan authorities arrested at least 150 men, women and children from more than 18 countries – including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada – in operations near the Somali border, and held them for weeks without charge in Nairobi. In January and February 2007, the Kenyan government then unlawfully put dozens of these individuals – with no notice to families, lawyers or the detainees themselves – on flights to Somalia, where they were handed over to the Ethiopian military. Ethiopian forces also arrested an unknown number of people in Somalia.

 

Those rendered were later transported to detention centers in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and other parts of Ethiopia, where they effectively disappeared. Denied access to their embassies, their families and international humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the detainees were even denied phone calls home. Several detainees have said that they were housed in solitary cells, some as small as two meters by two meters, with their hands cuffed in painful positions behind their backs and their feet bound together any time they were in their cells.

 

An unknown number of them – likely dozens – were questioned by the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Addis Ababa. From February to May 2007, Ethiopian security officers daily transported detainees – including several pregnant women – to a villa where US officials interrogated them about suspected terrorist links. At night the Ethiopian officers returned the detainees to their cells.

 

For the most part, detainees were sent home soon after their interrogation by US agents ended. Of those known to have been interrogated by US officials, just eight Kenyans remain. (A ninth Kenyan in Addis Ababa was rendered to Ethiopia in August 2007, after US interrogations reportedly stopped.) These men, who have not been subjected to any interrogation since May 2007, would likely have been repatriated long ago but for the Kenyan government’s longstanding refusal to acknowledge their claims to Kenyan citizenship or to take steps to secure their release.

 

Recently I spoke by telephone to several of the still-detained Kenyans. They described water-soaked mattresses, insufficient food and inadequate healthcare. Two said they have trouble walking, following beatings by Ethiopian officials, and a third said he can no longer use his left hand.

 

“I can’t sleep here. I miss my family. Please, I need you to help us to go home,” one detainee pleaded with me.

 

In mid-August 2008, Kenyan authorities visited these men for the first time. The officials reportedly told the detainees they would be home within a few weeks. But more than a month and a half has passed with no apparent follow-up.

 

In addition to working with the US, the Ethiopians used the rendition program for their own ends. For years, the Ethiopian military has been trying to quell domestic Somalis from the (Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia) and Oromo insurgencies that receive support from neighboring countries, such as Ethiopia's archrival, Eritrea. The multinational rendition program provided them a convenient means to continue this internal battle – and get their hands, with US and Kenyan support, on those with suspected insurgent links.

 

Ishmael was one of their victims.

 

The questions his Ethiopian interrogators asked were nonstop, and always the same: "Are you al-Qaida? Are you an ******i rebel? Are you part of the Somali insurgency?" Each time he said no, he was beaten, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness. When he resisted answering, they targeted his testicles.

 

Then, in February 2008 – some 14 months after his original arrest – the Ethiopians decided Ishmael was no longer worth the trouble. They dumped him, along with 27 others, just over the Somali border. The men were met by a Somali officer who told him that he was very sorry, that their arrest was a mistake and that they were all innocent.

 

Now Ishmael is back in the refugee camp, limping and urinating blood. He is still waiting for the healthcare he came searching for nearly two years ago.

 

Almost everyone I spoke with assumed – whether true or not – that the United States backed the arbitrary arrest and unlawful rendition of men like Ishmael and the still-detained Kenyans. Almost everyone assumed that the Ethiopians operate with America's blessing. Their stories have circulated, fueling anger and resentment. As one man, whose childhood friend became one of the rendition victims, told me, "Now when I go to the mosque, I pray to God to punish the Americans."

 

To be sure, the United States is not the main culprit when the Kenyans unlawfully render suspects or the Ethiopians torture them. But when US officials interrogate rendition victims who are being held incommunicado, the United States becomes complicit in the abuse. The U.S. is funding the Ethiopian military, supporting its activities in Somalia and training Kenyan security forces in counterterrorism – so as US-backed military and police forces in the region brutalize their domestic opponents in the name of fighting terrorism, the United States is often blamed.

 

The United States could change those perceptions by demanding higher standards of its foreign partners and cutting off aid to abusers. It otherwise risks fueling the very problem – anti-American militancy – that it seeks to solve. For starters, the US could demand the release or fair trial of any rendition victims still stuck in Ethiopian custody.

 

At the end of our interview, Ishmael looked at me with sad eyes. "I have suffered three times," he told me. "I lost my family; I was beaten and tortured, and then I was arrested and tortured again. Now I have nothing to lose."

[Nur]

WHY AM I HERE?

 

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

 

A REPORT

 

 

Summary

 

Ishmael Noor, a 37-year-old shepherd from the ( Occupied Western Somali Region) in Ethiopia, looked up with tears in his eyes. He said that in 2004, Ethiopian forces—who had already killed his mother, father, brothers, and sisters—murdered his wife days after they were married. They then slaughtered his goats, beat him unconscious, and slashed his shoulder to the bone.

 

In December 2006, Noor crossed through Somalia into Kenya, heading for the nearest refugee camp in search of medical care. But when he did not have enough money to pay a 1,000 shilling ($15) bribe, the Kenyan police bundled him into a car and took him to Nairobi. A few weeks later, he was herded onto an airplane with some 30 others, flown to Somalia, and handed over to Ethiopian military officers—the same forces that he had previously fled. Several days after that, Noor was flown to Ethiopia.

 

Noor’s story fits a larger pattern. In early 2007, at least 90 people were rendered from Kenya to Somalia, and then on to Ethiopia. Many were held incommunicado and without charge for months, and some were held for more than a year. A few—including a Canadian and nine who assert Kenyan nationality—remain in detention even now. The whereabouts of others—including several Somalis, Ethiopian Somalis, and Eritreans—are unknown.

 

These renditions and detentions followed a US-backed Ethiopian military intervention in Somalia. In late 2006, the Ethiopian military, in support of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, ousted Islamist authorities from the Somali capital Mogadishu. The fighting caused thousands of Somalis to flee across the border into Kenya, including some who were suspected of terrorist links.

 

Kenyan authorities arrested at least 150 men, women, and children from more than 18 countries―including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada―in operations carried out near the Somali border. Suspecting the detainees of having links to terrorism, the Kenyans held them for weeks without charge in Nairobi. Over the course of three weeks from January 20 to February 10, 2007, the Kenyan government rendered dozens of these individuals―with no notice to families, lawyers or the detainees themselves―on flights to Somalia, where they were handed over to the Ethiopian military. Ethiopian forces also arrested an unknown number of people in Somalia.

 

Those rendered were then transported to detention centers in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and other parts of Ethiopia, where they effectively disappeared. Denied access to their embassies, their families, and international humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the detainees were even denied phone calls home. Several detainees have said that they were housed in solitary cells—some as small as two-by-two meters—with their hands cuffed in painful positions behind their backs and their feet bound together any time they were in their cells.

 

In Addis Ababa, a number of prisoners were questioned by US intelligence agents. From February to May 2007, Ethiopian security officers daily transported detainees—including several pregnant women—to a villa where US officials interrogated them about suspected terrorist links. At night the Ethiopian officers returned the detainees to their cells.

 

After US officials would end their interrogation of a detainee, the Ethiopian government usually sent them home. Of those known to have been interrogated by the US government, just eight Kenyans remain in Ethiopia. (A ninth Kenyan in Addis Ababa was rendered to Ethiopia in July 2007 after American interrogations reportedly stopped.) These men, who have not been subjected to interrogation since May 2007, would likely have been repatriated long ago but for the Kenyan government’s longstanding refusal to acknowledge their claims to Kenyan citizenship or to take steps to secure their release. In August 2008, Kenyan authorities visited these men for the first time, some 18 months after they were first rendered to Ethiopian custody.

 

The Ethiopian government has also used the rendition program for its own purposes. For years, the Ethiopian military has been trying to quell domestic Somali and Oromo insurgencies that receive support from neighboring countries, such as Ethiopia’s archrival, Eritrea. The Ethiopian intervention in Somalia and the multinational rendition program provided them a convenient means to gain custody over people whom they could interrogate for suspected insurgent links. Once these individuals were in detention, Ethiopian military interrogators and guards reportedly subjected them to brutal beatings and torture.

 

Noor was one of their victims.

 

The questions Noor’s Ethiopian interrogators asked were frequent, he told Human Rights Watch, and always the same: “Are you al Qaeda? Are you an (Somali ) rebel? Are you part of the Somali insurgency?” Each time he said no, he was beaten, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness. When he resisted answering their questions, they targeted his testicles.

 

Then, in February 2008, some 14 months after his original arrest, the Ethiopians evidently decided Noor was no longer worth the trouble. They dumped him, along with 27 others, just over the Somali border. The men were met by a Somali officer who told him that he was very sorry, that their arrest was a mistake, and that they were all innocent.

 

Now Noor is back in a refugee camp, limping, and urinating blood—still waiting for the healthcare he came searching for nearly two years ago.

 

Others are even less fortunate. Bashir Makhtal, for example, a dual Canadian-Ethiopian citizen who was rendered to Somalia on the same plane as Noor, remains in Ethiopian custody because of his alleged connections to the ( Western Somalia Liberation Front) (ONLF). Now reportedly being tried by a military court, Makhtal is still being denied access to his attorney, and has received just one consular visit during his 18 months of detention. Mohammed Abulmalik, a Kenyan arrested in Mombasa in February 2007, taken to Nairobi, and then disappeared for over a month, ultimately ended up in the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, where he is still being held without charge. Several Kenyans are also being held in Addis Ababa, and the whereabouts of other detainees are unknown.

 

Human Rights Watch remains deeply concerned about those individuals mistreated in the Horn of Africa rendition program. It is long past time for the Ethiopian government to provide basic due process rights to the people who remain in its custody, and for Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and the United States—the governments implicated in what are enforced disappearances under international law—to disclose the identities, fates, and whereabouts of past and present detainees.

 

 

Arrest, Detention, Rendition, and Torture

Conflict in Somalia

In June 2006, an alliance of Islamic courts (Islamic Courts Union, ICU) took control of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, driving the then-ruling Somali warlords from power.1 Although many Mogadishu residents welcomed the security brought by the ICU, the bellicose, Islamist bent of some ICU leaders set off alarm bells in Washington and Addis Ababa.

 

Among the leadership of the ICU was Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a former leader of the militant Islamist group known as al-Itihaad, which the United States designated a terrorist group shortly after September 11, 2001.2 US officials warned that the ICU was sheltering suspects responsible for the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, stoking fears that Somalia was fostering Islamic radicalism.3

 

Ethiopia had its own reasons for concern. Ethiopia’s archrival Eritrea supported the ICU, and joint ICU-Eritrean support for Ethiopian insurgency groups, such as the ( Occupied Western Somalia National Liberation Front) (ONLF) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), added to the Ethiopian government’s fears.4

 

In December 2006, following the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1725 authorizing an African Union intervention in Somalia, a US-backed Ethiopian offensive ousted the ICU from Mogadishu and installed the weak Somali Transitional Federal Government in its place. The fighting caused hundreds of people to head towards the Kenyan border, including some suspected of terrorist and insurgent links.5

 

Arrests and Detentions in Kenya and Somalia

As hundreds fled the fighting, Kenyan military and police officers stepped up security along the Kenyan border. During late December 2006 and January 2007, Kenyan security forces arrested at least 150 individuals of some 18 different nationalities—including US, UK, and Canadian citizens—at the Liboi and Kiunga border crossing points with Somalia. Men, women, and children, some as young as seven months old, were then transferred to prisons and other detention facilities in and around Nairobi.

 

Most were held for weeks without access to a lawyer, family members, or diplomatic representatives, and without charge (with one exception), in violation of international law. Their detentions were neither in compliance with Kenyan immigration law6 nor criminal law, which requires a criminal suspect to be charged as soon as is practicable (presumed to be within 24 hours in all non-capital cases and 14 days in all capital cases).7

 

A 23-year-old pregnant woman from Kenya who was arrested in Kiunga said she was held in a filthy jail cell along with a nine-year-old boy. She told Human Rights Watch that when Kenyan police officers learned that her husband had been killed in the fighting in Somalia, they joked about it, saying that now they would date her. When family members tried to visit her, they were turned away. “I used to cry every night,” she said. “It was hell.”8

 

Several detainees reported being interrogated by plainclothes Kenyan police officers who worked for the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU), a specialized wing of the Kenyan police that was set up in 2003 and receives several million dollars in US support each year.9

 

Kenyan security forces and foreign intelligence services also closely cooperated during this initial detention and interrogation phase. US nationals Daniel Maldonado and Amir Meshal, and four UK nationals, were questioned by US and UK intelligence agents, respectively, while at the same time being denied access to a lawyer or even an opportunity to make a phone call.10

 

In some cases, family members, aided by human rights organizations such as the Muslim Human Rights Forum, hired lawyers for these detainees. Lawyers filed more than 30 habeas petitions on their behalf. But in several cases, the authorities blatantly disregarded court orders and ongoing judicial proceedings by moving detainees to other places of detention or rendering them to Somalia.11

 

Others were arrested by the Ethiopian military in Somalia before they ever made it across the border into Kenya. Individuals reported being beaten—sometimes brutally—by the Ethiopian forces that captured them.12 One detainee described being taken to a US outpost near the Kenyan border, but still inside Somalia, where two plainclothes US officials interrogated him for several hours before he was flown to Kismayo and Addis Ababa.13

 

Renditions to Somalia and Ethiopia

 

Over the course of three weeks—on January 20, January 27, and February 10, 2007—Kenyan officials secretly—without notifying relatives or lawyers—flew at least 85 people, including 19 women and 15 children, from Kenya to Somalia.14 The January flights were chartered by African Express Airways from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to Mogadishu; and the February flight was chartered by Bluebird Aviation from Wilson Airport to Baidoa, about 250 kilometers northwest of Mogadishu in Somalia.

 

Individuals described being called out of their cells in the early hours of the morning, transported to the airport, and then handcuffed, blindfolded, and boarded onto planes, without ever being told where they were being taken or why.

 

When the planes arrived in Mogadishu and Baidoa, Kenyan authorities handed the detainees over to Ethiopian military forces. As one detainee described the scene in Mogadishu:

 

The plane was surrounded by Ethiopian military when we got off. We were brought to an open area near the plane and blindfolded. Two soldiers grabbed me and yelled at me: “You are a terrorist. We will kill you. We will sell you.” Then they took me to a so dusty room in the airport with the others where we spent two nights.15

 

Some were flown to Addis Ababa within days, where they were held in various detention facilities. Other detainees reported being driven from Mogadishu to Baidoa, where they were held for months without charge, and interrogated and tortured by men in Ethiopian military uniforms. From there, Ethiopian authorities transported them to a military detention facility in Awassa, Ethiopia, and finally on to another military detention facility in Ambo, Ethiopia, where the torture reportedly continued.

 

In February 2007, Kenyan officials arrested a then-34-year-old Kenyan, Mohammed Abdulmalik, as he was crossing into Kenya from Somalia.16 Abdulmalik was then transported to Nairobi, where he was held without charge, without access to a lawyer or family members, and without ever being brought before a judge. Reportedly moved out of his Nairobi jail cell on February 27, he effectively disappeared until March 26, 2007, when the US Department of Defense issued a press release saying that Abdulmalik had been transferred to Guantanamo.17

 

In July 2007, Kenyan officials also secretly expelled another group of three men overland into Somalia, all of whom were ultimately taken into Ethiopian custody. The Ethiopian authorities released two of these men in July 2008, but one, Adbikadir Mohamed Adan, remains in custody in an Ethiopian prison in Addis Ababa.18

 

Those arrested by Ethiopian forces in southern Somalia reported being taken to Kismayo, then to Baidoa and on from there.19

 

 

US Intelligence in Addis Ababa

 

A US government official confirmed to Human Rights Watch that agents of both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation questioned detainees in Addis Ababa in early 2007.20

 

Former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch have consistently described US intelligence agents as operating out of a villa. Every morning, Ethiopian guards reportedly called some number of detainees out of their cells, blindfolded them, and drove them to the villa to be interrogated by US personnel. Every night the guards returned the detainees to various detention sites throughout Addis Ababa, where they were held without access to international monitors such as the ICRC, lawyers, or consular representatives, and were not allowed to contact their family members to inform them of their whereabouts.

 

One detainee said that during one of these interrogation sessions, the US officials yelled in his ear so loudly that he was convinced he would lose his hearing.21 Another described being forced to stand for some five hours between interrogations with his hands cuffed in a painful position behind his back.22 Others said that the US officials photographed and fingerprinted them, and then asked numerous questions. One detainee told Human Rights Watch:

 

They wanted to know where I was from, what I was doing in Somalia, why I was there. They didn’t believe me for such a long time. They also kept on showing me pictures of people I didn’t know and trying to get me to identify them.23

 

One detainee described being returned each night to a villa guarded by Ethiopian police, where the lights were kept on around the clock, music was blaring, and his hands and legs were tied together so that he could not move around his cell.24

 

Another detainee described being held for nearly two months in solitary confinement in a two-by-two meter corrugated metal cage. He said that he was moved to a communal cell in April 2007, around the same time that the US personnel stopped interrogating him.25

 

By May 2007, interrogations by foreign intelligence officials had reportedly ended. Within a few months, almost all of the detained foreign nationals had been sent home, leaving a Canadian-Ethiopian named Bashir Makhtal, several Kenyans, and an unknown number of Somalis and Eritreans.26

 

US government officials did not respond to Human Rights Watch’s request for additional comment. But US officials have previously argued that they were following the law and justified in their actions because they were investigating past attacks and current threats of terrorism.27

 

Some former detainees described being interrogated by other foreign intelligence officers as well. Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm these allegations.28

 

US Aid to the Region

 

In addition to its direct role in interrogations, the US government provided indirect support to Kenyan and Ethiopian actions through the millions of dollars channeled specifically to Kenyan and Ethiopian counterterrorism initiatives and other security-related programs.

 

In fiscal year 2007, the United States sent Ethiopia some $12 million and Kenya $5 million in security-related assistance.29 Both countries also shared in the $14.2 million provided to Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and Tanzania as part of a new East Africa Regional Security Initiative.30

 

In fiscal year 2008, an estimated $9.4 and $18.4 million in security-related funds are expected to flow from the United States to Ethiopia and Kenya, respectively. More than $1 million is specifically allocated to Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, the unit that reportedly took the lead in the arrests, detentions, and interrogations in Kenya.31

 

 

The Ethiopian Role

 

The Ethiopian government served as the detaining authority for foreign nationals of interest to US and possibly other foreign intelligence officers. For four months between February and May 2007, Ethiopian police and military officers transported detainees back and forth from their cells to interrogation sessions by US officials.

 

Between March and May 2007, Ethiopian authorities also brought several of these detainees to military court, where they were asked a series of biographical questions and then sent back to their prison cells. To our knowledge, none of the detainees were represented by a lawyer, and none were charged with a crime.

 

When US officials lost interest in those held, so did their Ethiopian counterparts. Within a month of the last reported interrogation by a US intelligence officer, almost all of the foreigners from outside the region—including several Swedes, an American, a Dane, and a South African—were released. Of those known to have been interrogated by the United States, only eight remain in Ethiopian custody.32

 

The Ethiopians also used the rendition program for their own purposes.

 

For years, the Ethiopian military has been trying to quell domestic Somali and Oromo insurgencies that receive support from neighboring countries such as Eritrea.33 The multinational rendition program allowed them to take custody of a number of people with suspected insurgent links.

 

Most of these men were never taken to Addis Ababa, but instead were brought from Baidoa to military detention in Awassa, Ethiopia, and then further military detention in Ambo. At each stage, Ethiopian military interrogators and guards reportedly subjected detainees to brutal beatings and torture. Detainees said that guards pulled out their toenails, held loaded guns to their heads, crushed their genitals, and forced them to crawl on their elbows and knees on gravel until they were bloodied and exhausted. They were forced to sign (or fingerprint) papers they could not read. One detainee released in 2008 explained:

 

They handcuffed me and tied my legs together and sat me against the wall. I was told that I was a member of the ICU. I was told that I was a terrorist. I was told that I was a member of the ONLF. I told them they were wrong. Then they started beating me. They used a big wooden stick and a metal rod and beat me on my knees, on my elbows, and on my wrists. Eventually I fainted. When I woke there were burns on the back of my left shoulder. I think they may have used electricity.34

 

Whereas international attention focused on the Western nationals caught up in the rendition program, little attention has focused on these men, who suffered horrific abuse and torture. Several, such as Noor and Yusuf, whose stories are detailed below, were released in February 2008 after months in detention, with only an apology. Both are now living in refugee camps on the Kenyan border, fearing for their safety and still suffering from the torture.

 

 

The “Disappeared”

 

 

In April 2007, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged that Ethiopia was holding in its custody at least 41 individuals who had been transferred from Kenya. It subsequently released all the women and children, as well as several men, between April and August 2007. But Ethiopian officials have never acknowledged the detention of the other rendition victims, even though all accounts indicate that the more than 85 men and women flown to Somalia from Nairobi were handed over to Ethiopian military forces then operating in Somalia as soon as they landed. HumanRights Watch’s request for information from the Ethiopian authorities (see Appendix A) was never answered.

 

As discussed in the section “International Legal Standards” below, an enforced disappearance occurs when state officials or agents arrest or detain an individual followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the person or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places the person outside the protection of the law.35

 

Nine Kenyan nationals and one Canadian-Ethiopian remain in Ethiopian prisons, some 15 to 21 months after they were first arrested. The whereabouts of 22 Somalis, Ethiopian Somalis, Eritreans, and Kenyans rendered to Somalia in early 2007 remain unknown.

 

The following men are known to be in custody in Addis Ababa:

 

 

Bashir Makhtal, a dual Canadian-Ethiopian citizen, born in Ethiopia and granted refugee status by Canada in 1991. Kenyan officials arrested Makhtal at a border crossing in December 2006, secretly flew him to Mogadishu on January 20, 2007, and handed him over to Ethiopian authorities. Three days later, Ethiopian officials flew Makhtal from Mogadishu to Addis Ababa, where he was placed in solitary confinement and kept separate from other detainees.36 Makhtal’s grandfather was reportedly a founding member of the ONLF, which undoubtedly made Makhtal a prime suspect for the Ethiopians.37

 

A now-released detainee who last saw Makhtal in July 2007, as Makhtal was being escorted from the toilet at a prison in Addis Ababa, described his condition: “He was limping. He had a deep cut in one of his legs. He looked weak. He looked so famished.”38

 

Still in Addis Ababa, Makhtal is reportedly slated for trial before a military tribunal for terrorism-related activities and could face the death penalty. In July 2008, Makhtal received his very first consular visit in Ethiopia, some 16 months after he had been rendered there. In August 2008, a representative of the Canadian government who met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said that Makhtal would have legal representation at his trial.39 But his lawyer continues to be denied access and, as far as Human Rights Watch knows, no subsequent consular visits have been allowed.

 

 

Eight Kenyans rendered to Ethiopia in January and February 2007: Said Khamis Mohammed, Kassim Mwarusi, Ali Musa Mwarusi, Swaleh Ali Tunza, Hassan Shaaban Mwazume, Bashir Chirag Hussein, Abdallah Khalfan Tondwe, and Salim Awadh Salim.40

 

Seven of these men (all but Salim Awadh Salim) were told that they were going to be released in May 2007, only to be moved to a private house that served as a detention facility in the outskirts of Addis Ababa. They were held there for almost a year, before being moved back to an old police station where they had been held previously. There, they rejoined Salim.

 

In February 2007, another Kenyan escaped from detention. The Ethiopian police reportedly retaliated against the remaining Kenyans, subjecting them to a brutal beating. Officers were said to have broken the leg of Swaleh Ali Tunza, a 40-year-old Kenyan who now fears he may ultimately lose his leg. Another detainee, 50-year-old Bashir Chirag Hussein, is reportedly weak and in constant pain, due in part to the beatings by the Ethiopian police. A third, Abdallah Khalfan Tondwe, said that he can no longer use his left hand. Beatings reportedly compounded the injuries Tondwe suffered in a car accident when being transported from Mombasa to Nairobi after his initial arrest.41

 

The detainees described insufficient food, inadequate healthcare, and unsanitary conditions in detention. None of the detainees have ever been permitted visits by family members or an international humanitarian organization such as the ICRC, and none have had access to a lawyer since they were brought to Ethiopia.

 

In phone interviews with Human Rights Watch, the Kenyan detainees spoke of their plight. “I can’t sleep well. I miss my family. Please, I need you to help us to go home,” said one detainee.42

 

“I am Kenyan. My mother is Kenyan. My father is Kenyan. Everyone else has been sent home. Why am I still here? Why isn’t Kenya helping us?” said another.43

 

In August 2008, Kenyan police officers visited these men for the first time since they were deported. The officers reportedly told the eight Kenyans that they would be released within weeks.44

 

 

Adbikadir Mohamed Adan—a Kenyan-Somali arrested in July 2007 in Kenya. Kenyan officials reportedly drove Amen and two others across the border, where they were eventually turned over to Ethiopian custody. The other two men were released in June 2008, but Amen remains incarcerated in an old police station in Addis Ababa. He is reportedly being held in solitary confinement in a two-by-two-meter cell, separated from the other Kenyans in the facility.45

 

The whereabouts of another 22 men who were rendered from Kenya to Somalia in January 2007 remain unknown. These men were listed as passengers on the January 20 and 27 flight manifests, yet have not been heard from since. They may have been released; they may still be in Ethiopian custody; or they may have been transferred elsewhere: 46

 

1. Tafara Basisa—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Ethiopian Oromo)

 

2. Lama Takal—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Ethiopian Oromo)

 

3. Badada Lami—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Ethiopian Oromo)

 

4. Tesfale Kidane—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Eritrean)

 

5. Saleh Idris—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Eritrean)

 

6. Hussein Ali Said—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Kenyan)

 

7. Salama Ngama—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Kenyan)

 

8. Saidi Shifa—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Kenyan)

 

9. Tsumo Solomon Adan Ayila—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Kenyan)

 

10. Mugeta Tasiifa—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

11. Nur Mohammad Zain—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

12. Mohammad Hassan—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

13. Abdullahi Mohammad—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

14. Sakata Sakare—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

15. Shariff Jamal—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

16. Jamal Abdal—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

17. Ahmed Hassan—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

18. Mohammad Abdullah—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

19. Abdijani Ahmed—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

20. Abdulrashid Mohamed—rendered 1/27/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Kenyan)

 

21. Abdi Kadir Maalin—rendered 1/27/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Somali)

 

22. Hassan Shaban—rendered 1/27/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown)

 

 

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1 In December 2004, several Islamic law (sharia) courts joined forces under the leadership of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a schoolteacher from Mogadishu, to form the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). By October 2006, the ICU was in control of seven of the ten regions of south-central Somalia.

 

2 For a further analysis of the rise of the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia and related US concerns, see Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked: Civilians Under Siege in Mogadishu¸ vol. 19, no. 12(A), August 2007, http://hrw.org/reports/2007/somalia0807/, pp. 19-22.

 

3 Mike Pflanz, “Al-Qaeda taking over Mogadishu, says US,” The Daily Telegraph, December 16, 2006 (quoting US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer).

 

4 Although the relationship between ICU leaders and Ethiopian insurgencies has never been fully explained, the ONLF and OLF both had a presence in Mogadishu in 2006. In addition, both the ONLF and OLF had previously received Eritrean training as well as logistical and military support. See Human Rights Watch, Collective Punishment: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the ****** area of Ethiopia’s Somali Region, June 2008, http://hrw.org/reports/2008/ethiopia0608/, pp. 29-30; see also Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked, pp. 17-18, 22-23. For a history of the conflict between the Ethiopian government and the ONLF, see Human Rights Watch, Collective Punishment, pp. 13-32.

 

5 See Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked, pp. 23-26.

 

6 Under Kenyan immigration law, those unlawfully in Kenya can be detained pending removal pursuant to an order in writing from the Minister. See Immigration Act (Kenya), sec. 8, as amended 1972. Kenyan law also gives immigration and police officers the authority to arrest those believed to be unlawfully present. Immigration Act, sec. 12. But pursuant to the Kenyan Constitution, art. 72(2), infra n. 7, the individual must either be charged with a crime or subject to a removal order as soon as is reasonably practicable, which is presumed to be 24 hours in non-capital cases. Human Rights Watch is only aware of three deportation orders being issued in these cases, none of which were issued within the 24-hour time limit. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Harun Ndubi, Kenyan lawyer, September 23, 2008.

 

7 Constitution of Kenya, art. 72(2), as amended 1998. If the defendant has not been brought to court within these time periods, then the government has the burden of proving that it was not reasonably practicable to bring the defendant to court sooner.

 

8 Human Rights Watch interview with former detainee, Nairobi, February 23 and 26, 2007 (name withheld).

 

9 Human Rights Watch has learned that the ATPU is expected to receive some US$3 million in direct and indirect US aid in fiscal year 2008.

 

10 Raymond Bonner, “A Lark Back to Africa Turns Into Somali Nightmare,” International Herald Tribune, April 16, 2007; Judy Peet, “Family Asks Congress’ Aid to Rescue Son,” The Star-Ledger, May 17, 2007; Al-Amin Kimanthi and Alan Butt, eds., Muslim Human Rights Forum, Horn of Terror: Revised Edition, September 2008, pp. 28-29; Muslim Human Rights Forum, Horn of Terror: Report of US-Led Mass Extra-ordinary Renditions from Kenya to Somalia, Ethiopia, and Guantanamo Bay, July 6, 2007, p. 10.

 

11 Muslim Human Rights Forum, Horn of Terror, July 6, 2007, p. 8; Muslim Human Rights Forum, Horn of Terror: Revised Edition, September 2008, pp. 22-23.

 

12 Human Rights Watch interviews with former detainees, Nairobi, July 20, 2008, and Ifo Refugee Camp, Kenya, July 23 and 24, 2008 (names withheld); Human Rights Watch telephone interview with former detainee, September 9, 2008 (name withheld).

 

13 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with former detainee, September 9, 2008 (name withheld). This account is consistent with other descriptions of a US presence in Ras Kamboni, Somalia, in January 2007. See Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked, p. 25, n. 82.

 

14 Although the flight manifests list only 85 individuals, there are indications that many more may have been rendered from Kenya to Somalia in early 2007. See, for instance, Muslim Human Rights Forum, Horn of Terror: Revised Edition, September 2008, p. 10, n. 3. For copies of the flight manifests, see Horn of Terror: Revised Edition, pp. 52-55.

 

15 Human Rights Watch Interview with former detainee, Nairobi, July 20, 2008 (name withheld).

 

16 Official Report, [Kenyan] National Assembly, April 3, 2007, p. 285 (Mr. Munya, Assistant Minister, Office of the President, acknowledging Abdulmalik’s arrest and subsequent deportation). Although Kenyan authorities have denied that Abdulmalik has Kenyan citizenship, Human Rights Watch spoke to family members and neighbors who confirmed that Abdulmalik was born in Kenya to parents with Kenyan citizenship.

 

17 US Department of Defense Press Release, no. 343-07, March 26, 2007. Kenyan authorities have claimed that they deported Abdulmalik to Somalia and do not know how he ended up in US custody in Guantanamo. See Official Report, [Kenyan] National Assembly, April 3, 2007, pp. 285-286.

 

18 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Al-Amin Kimanthi, August 28, 2008; Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainee, August 27, 2008 (name withheld).

 

19 Human Rights Watch interview with former detainees, Nairobi, July 30, 2008 (names withheld); Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with former detainee, August 17 and 19, 2007, and September 9, 2008 (name withheld).

 

20 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with FBI official, September 19, 2008 (name withheld).

 

21 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainee, August 27, 2008 (name withheld).

 

22 Human Rights Watch interview with former detainee, July 9, 2007 (name and place withheld).

 

23 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainee, August 27, 2008 (name withheld).

 

24 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with former detainee, September 9, 2008 (name withheld).

 

25 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainee, August 27, 2008 (name withheld).

 

26 One of the Kenyans reportedly escaped in February 2008. Although the Kenyan government has long disputed these men’s claims of Kenyan citizenship, documents provided to Human Rights Watch by Al-Amin Kimanthi of the Muslim Human Rights Forum strongly suggest that these men are in fact Kenyan, or at least have credible claims to Kenyan citizenship.

 

27 Anthony Mitchell, “US Questions Terrorism Suspects at Secret Prison,” Associated Press,April 3, 2007 (citing unnamed US government officials).

 

28 Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with current and former detainees, August 27 and September 9, 2008 (names withheld). Human Rights interview with former detainee, July 9, 2007 (name and place withheld).

 

29 These figures are the sum total of US government funding provided through the following programs: Foreign Military Financing (FMF), International Military Education and Training (IMET), Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining and Related (NADR), Peacekeeping Operations (PKO), Regional Defense Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP), and Department of Defense funding pursuant to Section 1206 of the FY2006 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). See Congressional Budget Justification, Summary Tables, FY 2009, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/101408.pdf (accessed September 10, 2008), pp. 13-14; Nina Serafino, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2006, May 15, 2008, p. 4.

 

30 Nina Serafino, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2006, May 15, 2008, p. 4.

 

31 In addition, approximately $1.9 million-worth of security and law enforcement courses are expected to benefit the ATPU as well as other law enforcement agencies. Data provided to Human Rights Watch by US congressional staff.

 

32 These are the eight still-detained Kenyans that were rendered from Kenya in January and February 2007. One more Kenyan was rendered in July 2007, making a total of nine Kenyans in Ethiopian custody as of this writing.

 

33 For a detailed discussion of abuses perpetrated by the Ethiopian military against suspected insurgents, see Human Rights Watch, Collective Punishment. See also Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked, pp. 18-23.

 

34 Human Rights Watch interview with former detainee, Nairobi, July 20, 2008 (name withheld).

 

35 See UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, adopted December 18, 1992, G.A. res. 47/133, 47 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 207, U.N. Doc. A/47/49 (1992), preamble.

 

36 Human Rights Watch interview with Suleiman Abdi, Ifo Refugee Camp, July 23, 2008; Human Rights Watch interview with Ishmael Noor, Ifo Refugee Camp, July 24, 2008. Abdi was traveling with Makhtal at the time of their arrest; both Abdi and Noor were on the same plane with Makhtal from Nairobi to Mogadishu; and Ethiopian forces brought Noor and Makhtal together on the same plane to Addis Ababa. Suleiman Abdi and Ishmael Noor are pseudonyms.

 

37 Debra Black, “Ottawa Finally Meets with Prisoner,” Toronto Star, July 22, 2008.

 

38 Human Rights Watch interview with former detainee, Ifo Refugee Camp, July 24, 2008 (name withheld).

 

39 Paul Koring, “Canadian in Ethiopian Jail to Get Lawyer, Envoy Says,” Globe and Mail, August 6, 2008; “Canadian in Ethiopia Could Face Death Penalty,” CBC News, June 6, 2008.

 

40 The Kenyan government has long disputed these men’s claims of Kenyan citizenship. But documents provided to Human Rights Watch by Al-Amin Kimanthi of the Muslim Human Rights Forum strongly suggest that these men are in fact Kenyan, or at least have credible claims to Kenyan citizenship.

 

41 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainee, August 27, 2008 (name withheld).

 

42 Ibid.

 

43 Ibid.

 

44 “We Will Only Act After Getting Report,” Sunday Nation, August 6, 2008 (Kenyan Minister of Foreign Affairs Moses Wetang’ula confirming that a team of Kenyan officers traveled to Ethiopia to interview the Kenyans reportedly in Ethiopia custody); Weekly Muslim News Update, “Expedite the Return of the Detainees,” Friday News Bulletin, September 5, 2008 (quoting Kenyan Internal Security Minister George Saitoti as saying that he expected the Kenyans in Ethiopia to be repatriated “within a week”); Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainees, August 27, 2008 (names withheld).

 

45 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Al-Amin Kimanthi, Muslim Human Rights Forum, August 26, 2008.

 

46 This list has been updated based on Human Rights Watch’s information as of September 29, 2008. In addition to those that appeared on the flight manifests and are listed here, the names of two other s reportedly held in Mogadishu—Mohamed Said Mohamed and Nasru Toko, both said to be Kenyans—were relayed in text messages from fellow detainees to their relatives on January 21 and 22, 2007. Telephone interview with Al-Amin Kimanthi, September 29, 2008

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Case Studies

 

Ishmael Noor

 

“I have suffered three times. I lost my family. I was beaten and tortured. And then I was arrested and tortured again. Now I am a refugee whose life hangs in the balance. I have nothing left to lose,” Noor told Human Rights Watch.47

 

Noor, a 37-year-old shepherd from the ****** region of Ethiopia, is now living in a refugee camp along the Kenya-Somali border.

 

Noor told Human Rights Watch that in 2004, days after his marriage, Ethiopian forces murdered his wife. They had already killed Noor’s mother, father, brothers and sisters. Two months later, members of the Ethiopian army attacked him while he was bringing his goats and sheep to a local watering hole. Noor said that they slaughtered some of the animals with a knife and shot the rest. They then beat him unconscious and slashed his shoulder to the bone.

 

A young girl who saw the attack alerted some local villagers, who slowly nursed him back to health. Noor spent two months recuperating, before starting on what turned out to be a three-month journey out of Ethiopia, through Somaliland, and into southern Somalia. He eventually ended up in Dobley, a small Somali town near the Kenyan border where his half-sister lived. “At times I was so desperate for food, I ate grass,” Noor told Human Rights Watch.

 

Noor’s half-sister fed and housed him for close to a year. But the lingering pain from his wounds persisted.

 

“At times, I would lose all feeling in my left side, like I was semi-paralyzed. It would take up to a week for the feeling to come back. Other times, my left side hurt so much it felt like my bones were cracking,” he said.

 

Eventually, his half-sister told him she could no longer afford to support him and talked him into seeking medical care at one of the refugee camps across the border in Kenya. “I didn’t want to go, but she insisted,” Noor said.

 

Arrest and Detention in Kenya

Noor joined seven other families traveling across the border, sometime around late December 2006 or early January 2007. He spent two days in the transit center in Liboi, Kenya, before boarding a bus to the nearest refugee camp, about two hours away.

 

But the journey was cut short when the bus was stopped by Kenyan security personnel. The officers ordered all the passengers to get off the bus and show identification.

 

Noor failed to produce identification, and the officers pulled him aside along with four Somali girls. The girls produced refugee ration cards and were released, but the police held onto Noor, demanding 1,000 Kenyan shillings (about US$15) as a bribe. Noor said that he offered all the money he had—about 600 Kenyan shillings—but the officers were not satisfied. The bus drove away, leaving Noor with the security officers.

 

Noor said that the police then put him in the back of a Land Cruiser and drove him to a local police station, where he spent four nights. On his last night there, five Oromos and one Somali joined him; all six said they had been arrested crossing the border. The next day, a Kenyan officer took them to Garissa, the regional police headquarters, where they spent another four nights in a small room with more than 30 others, before being transported to Nairobi.

 

Noor said that in Nairobi, Kenyan officials interrogated him twice. They asked him about his background, including repeated questions about his connections with the Islamists in Somalia and the ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF), an insurgent group that operates in Ethiopia. After the second interview, a Kenyan-Somali official told Noor that there was no evidence he had done anything wrong, and promised that he would be released.

 

Rendition to Somalia and Ethiopia

Kenyan police officers called Noor out of his cell at around 4:00 a.m. on January 20. He expected to be released. Instead, he was driven to the Nairobi airport, where he joined some 30 others and was forced to board a large white plane. Said Noor:

 

We were handcuffed behind our backs with white plastic cuffs that were very painful. Our shoes were removed and we were pushed into the plane. Our legs were tied and we were tied down to the seat of the plane. I saw one man being beaten—officers were kicking him, punching him, and holding him down. I don’t know why.

 

Noor said he had no idea where they were going until they landed in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. They were met by the very forces that Noor had fled a little more than a year before—the Ethiopian military.

 

“I thought that the Ethiopian forces would shoot and kill me,” Noor said. “I was so scared.”

 

The Ethiopian military led him and the others to a big open space near the sea, where they spent several hours in the hot sun with no water. All 30 were then herded into a dusty room in the airport.

 

Three days later, Noor was called out of his room, along with Canadian-Ethiopian Bashir Makhtal, 11 Oromos, and three Eritreans. They were again handcuffed and taken to what looked like an Ethiopian military plane—again, with no knowledge of where they were going or why. Several hours later, they landed in Addis Ababa.

 

Interrogations and Torture in Ethiopia

Noor spent four months in Maekalawi prison—the central investigation department in the center of Addis Ababa—in a cell with several others, with no fresh air and no natural light.

 

Every few days, members of the Ethiopian military called Noor out for interrogation. He said the questions were almost always the same:

 

They asked me: “Are you a terrorist? Are you part of the Islamic Courts Union? Are you part of ONLF?” When I said no, they told me they would chop me into little pieces if I did not confess. But I refused to confess to something I am not.

 

Then they would start to beat me. They beat me from head to toe. They used a stick made from a tree called bahrasaf that is known for its hardness. The stick was about two feet long, two to three inches wide. They also used the butt of their gun. They beat me on my upper arms, on my legs, on the back of my head, on the bottom of my feet. At one point they broke my foot by my pinky toe. Sometimes it is still so painful that I cannot sleep. They would tie my hands behind my back and force me to lean against the wall. If I fell over, then they would beat me on my side that was exposed.

 

If they thought I was too strong, they would target my testicles. Then I would usually fall unconscious. I often urinated blood. Even now, I still sometimes have drops of blood in my urine. I haven’t had an erection since that time.

 

Noor said that the interrogations and beatings usually lasted 30 minutes or more. They happened every few days. He said that one time he was interrogated and beaten almost continuously for two full days.

 

Sometime in June 2007, the Ethiopian military transported Noor to a military base in Ambo, in Oromia, central Ethiopia, where he joined several other Somalis and Oromos who were already there.

 

After a few months, plainclothes interrogators who reportedly came from Addis Ababa showed up to do their own interrogations. Noor said that the first time they just took pictures and fingerprints and asked questions, without any beatings.

 

But a month later they came back:

 

They started with the same questions: “Are you a terrorist? Are you al Qaeda? Are you part of the Islamic Courts Union? Are you ONLF?” When I said no to all, they put a pistol to my head and told me to confess or I’d be shot dead. They didn’t shoot, but started beating and kicking me.

 

Once I picked up a stick and repelled the hand of an interrogator who was about to strike me. They then started beating me all over my body—my head, my hands, my side, my back. Eventually I fainted. When I awoke, an interrogator who spoke Somali came to help. He took me to get fresh air and water. He then took me to a room, gave me a document with lots of pages and told me to fingerprint each page. I cannot read or write, and no one told me what the document said.

 

Noor said that he was forced to put his fingerprints on three documents during his time in captivity. He claimed that he was never told what any of them said.

 

Release and Return to Kenya

Sometime in late January 2008, Ethiopian military officers told the Ambo prisoners that they were all being sent home. A day later, a large group of Oromos were reportedly released. Ethiopian authorities then loaded the 28 remaining Ethiopian ******is and Somali nationals into a vehicle and drove them over the Somali border to Baidoa.

 

All 28 were then handed to military officers working for Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government. A general came and addressed them. He told them that he was sorry, that he realized the arrests were mistakes, and that they would be free. When someone asked if they could have a letter acknowledging their innocence, he said no. When someone else asked if they could have money or transport home, he again said no. They were then released into the town of Baidoa, without food or money, or any way to get back home.

 

Several local residents took them in, clothed them, fed them, and helped Noor and several others get enough money together to make the trip back to Dobley, near Kenya’s border.

 

Noor showed up at his half-sister’s home in late February, some 14 months after he originally left. “She was shocked,” Noor said. “She thought I was dead.”

 

After a few weeks his half-sister once again told him she could no longer afford to keep him there and urged him to go to Kenya for medical care. He crossed the border once again—headed for the same refugee camp he had tried to reach over a year earlier. He has been living there since March 2008, still limping and urinating blood.

 

“See this stone?” Noor asked, unwrapping the plastic around a small pebble he pulled out of his shirt pocket. “I took this stone when I left the prison in Ethiopia. This is my remembrance. No human rights group, no journalist, no family member, no government ever came to visit me. I can’t read or write. This is my only proof that I was arrested, held, and tortured there.”

 

Salim Awadh Salim

Salim Awadh Salim, a 36-year-old Kenyan, is to date being held without charge in an Ethiopian prison in Addis Ababa—some 20 months after he was arrested.48

 

According to Salim’s wife, Fatima Chande, they traveled from Kenya to Somalia in 2006 looking for work. When after about five months the fighting in Somalia intensified, he and Fatima decided to return to Kenya.

 

They joined several others—including a young woman named Halima—as they made their way across the border and into the southern Kenyan town of Kiunga. As they later learned, Halima Badroudine is the wife of Fazul Abdullah Muhammad, a terrorist suspect long wanted by the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

 

The day after their arrival in Kiunga, the local chief told them that they needed to register with the police. The group of eight, including four children, went to the police station as instructed. But instead of registering them, the officer in charge ordered their arrest.

 

Four days later, Kenyan authorities transported all eight men, women, and children to Nairobi. Men and women were separated into different cells. Plainclothes officers who were believed to work for the Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit interrogated them. At one point, the officers reportedly forced Salim to strip naked as he was interrogated about his alleged connection to Fazul Abdullah Muhammad.

 

On January 27, 2007, Kenyan authorities called both Salim and Fatima out of their cells, blindfolded and handcuffed them, took them to the airport, and forced them onto a plane with approximately 40 others. They did not know where they were going until they landed in Mogadishu. Men and women were separated and held in rooms guarded by Ethiopian soldiers.

 

Ten days later, they were flown by military plane to Baidoa. They spent a night sleeping on the ground near the plane, before being flown to Addis Ababa the next morning.

 

Addis Ababa

 

At first, Salim and Fatima were held in the same detention center. But within a week or so, Salim was moved to solitary confinement in what has been described as a secret house run by Ethiopians. Ethiopian officers cuffed his hands behind his back and tied his legs together whenever he was in the cell.

 

Each morning, Ethiopian officers took him to another secret house for interrogations. There, US interrogators questioned him about his background, his travels to Somalia, and the terrorist suspect, Fazul Abdullah Muhammad.

 

After two months, Ethiopian officers returned Salim to the old police station where Fatima was being held.

 

Ethiopian authorities released Fatima in April 2007. As she was leaving, Salim asked her to pray for him and said that he hoped to join her within a week.49

 

Around that time, the pace of interrogations of Salim slowed. Daily interrogations became weekly interrogations, and then bi-monthly. In May 2007, his US interrogators reportedly told him that they believed him, that they realized he was telling the truth, and that he would soon be released. That was his last interrogation.

 

A few days later, eight other Kenyans were told that they were going to be released and moved out of his cell. Salim spent close to a year alone, thinking that the others had all been sent home to Kenya. A former detainee who last saw Salim in June 2007, described him as “frail, extremely depressed, and starting to lose all hope.”50

 

In May 2008, seven of the Kenyans were returned to his cell, where they are now being held together. They had never been released.

 

None have ever been permitted a visit by family members or a humanitarian organization such as the ICRC, granted access to a lawyer, or ever charged with a crime.

 

“All the other foreigners that we were held with here have been released. No one cares about us,” said Salim. “Please help us.”

 

Ali Yusuf

 

Yusuf, a 30-year-old father of four, was working for the United Nations in Somalia when he was arrested by the Ethiopian military in January 2007. He spent 13 months in Ethiopian custody, where he alleges that he was brutally beaten and tortured before his release in February 2008.51

 

On January 2, 2007, Yusuf and his driver Ahmed were on their way to the Somali town of Kismayo when they were stopped by an Ethiopian military convoy of about 15 trucks. According to Yusuf, at first the officers said they wanted directions and an escort to a nearby town. But soon they started accusing both Yusuf and Ahmed of membership in al Qaeda.

 

Yusuf told Human Rights Watch that the Ethiopian soldiers demanded that he and Ahmed get out of their car. Ethiopian officers stripped Yusuf down to his underwear and a vest, and beat and kicked him until he fell unconscious. When he regained consciousness, he was tied up under a tree with Ahmed, with fighting going on all around them.

 

After several days, they were taken to the airport in Kismayo and then flown to Addis Ababa, where they spent almost three months in a shared prison cell.

 

Their conditions then sharply deteriorated. In March 2007, they were taken to a military base in Awassa, about four hours south of Addis Ababa. For five months they lived in an underground cell, with no light and no fresh air. Food generally consisted of two biscuits a day. Yusuf described a pattern of beatings and abuse:

 

Often at night, the military officers would come to our cell and hit our heads and bodies against the wall. Sometimes they would hit and kick me in the testicles.

 

One time they put a knife in my shoulder and told me I was al Qaeda. When I said no, I wasn’t, they would move the knife around in my shoulder. I was so weak and malnourished that I hardly even bled. But my shoulder still hurts from that injury.

 

Sometime in July or August 2007, Yusuf and Ahmed were moved once again—this time to Ambo. Although a number of other Somalis were being held in Ambo at the same time, Yusuf and Ahmed were kept in a separate, underground cell.

 

According to Yusuf, the interrogations continued:

 

The interrogators kept insisting that I was transporting chemical weapons for al Qaeda. I didn’t know what they were talking about. Finally, they showed me the first aid kit they had taken out of my car when I was first arrested. They took out the flares used for emergencies. They were the plastic kind, with liquid inside, that created large floodlights when broken in two. When I tried to explain, they beat me. Finally, I convinced them to let me show them that they were just lights. But even after that, they still said I was al Qaeda.

 

Another time they cracked the butt of a gun over my head. When I started to faint, a different officer held me up and told me I was a terrorist. I still have the scars from that beating.

 

On January 26, 2008, Ethiopian officers told Yusuf and Ahmed that they were going home. The officers took Yusuf and Ahmed outside where they joined the 26 other Somalis being held in Ambo. It was the first time that they had seen the others. It was also the first time they had seen daylight in months. Yusuf said:

 

My eyes could not adjust to light. Everything was so blurry. It hurt to look. They tried to feed us, but I couldn’t even eat. I was so weak. I could barely stand.

 

On February 5, Ethiopian authorities turned over Yusuf, Ahmed, and the other Somalis to Somali military officers. A general from the Transitional Federal Government apologized to them, told them they were innocent, and ordered their release. None of them had any money, food, or clothes, other than what they were wearing.

 

A hotel owner let Yusuf and Ahmed stay at his place, agreeing to accept payment later. Yusuf borrowed a phone, and called home. It was the first time his family had heard from him since his arrest. A few days later, UN officials helped arrange his transport home.

 

Kamilya Mohamed Tuwein

 

Kamilya Mohamed Tuwein, a 43-year-old mother of three from Dubai, traveled with two business partners to Nairobi on January 9, 2007, in the hopes of securing a deal to supply diesel from Kenya to Tanzania. Their meetings were delayed until January 11, so they went to Malindi in Kenya to pass their two free days.52

 

On January 10, Kenyan security agents showed up at their hotel and raided their rooms. They returned again that evening, ordered the three to pack their things, and took them to the police station. When Tuwein asked why they were arrested, the police would not answer.

 

The next day, Kenyan security officers drove Tuwein, her two business partners, and four others to Nairobi. “When we arrived at Nairobi police headquarters, the police greeted us by saying, ‘Welcome, al Qaeda,’” Tuwein said.

 

The police officers took Tuwein’s cell phone and passport and interrogated her for more than three hours about her alleged al Qaeda connections. They took her to another police station, where she spent 17 nights in a women’s cell that she described as smelly, dirty, and awful. She told Human Rights Watch:

 

We kept asking to speak to our embassies. They said, “When the right time comes.” At one point, one of the police commanders told us if we paid a 35,000 shilling (US$500) bribe, we would be set free.

 

One of the other women’s daughters hired a lawyer after they had all been held in the cell for about two weeks. The lawyer filed a habeas petition, but before Tuwein could be brought to court, she was rendered to Somalia.

 

On January 28, 2007, Kenyan officials took Tuwein to the airport and forced her onto a government-chartered airplane headed for Mogadishu, without telling her where she was going or why. It was her first time in Somalia.

 

After arrival in Mogadishu, Ethiopian soldiers separated the male passengers from the women and children. They took the women and children—about 22 in total—to a crowded, windowless room in the airport, where the group was held for 10 days.

 

Several of the other women were pregnant.

 

On February 5, Ethiopian soldiers took the entire group from the airport room and loaded them onto a military plane. They spent one night in Baidoa, before being taken to Addis Ababa the next morning. Tuwein was put in a cell with three other women—including Halima Badroudine, the wife of Fazul Abdullah Muhammad, and Fatima Chande, the wife of Salim Awadh Salim—and four children.

 

“They didn’t even let me call home, to let my children know I was alive,” Tuwein explained. “Finally I stopped eating. I went on a hunger strike for three days. All I wanted was to be able to make a phone call.”

 

After about two weeks, Ethiopian authorities took Tuwein and six other women to a villa outside of town—about a 45-minute drive. She told Human Rights Watch that a bearded, Caucasian, English-speaking man, who said that he was from a US government agency, took her fingerprints and photos, and asked her several questions once she arrived at the villa.

 

In the evening, the Ethiopian officials returned Tuwein and the others to their prison cells in Addis Ababa. Tuwein told Human Rights Watch that she was only taken to the villa one time, but that Fazul Abdullah Muhammad’s wife, Halima, was transported there daily for a week.

 

Tuwein was released in March 2007, three months after she was first arrested. She was never visited by an embassy representative, an independent humanitarian agency such as the ICRC, or a lawyer at any point during her custody in Kenya, Somalia, or Ethiopia. She was not allowed to make a phone call home until the day that she was released.

 

Suleiman Abdi

 

Abdi is a 40-year-old ethnic Somali from the ( Ethiopian Occupied Western Somali ) area of eastern Ethiopia, now living in a Kenyan refugee camp along the Somali border.53

 

Abdi left the ( Occupied Western Somalia National Liberation Front) region in 2004, and moved to Dobley, a border town about 30 kilometers from Liboi, one of the main crossing points into Kenya. He regularly traveled back and forth to Kenya to buy and sell goods.

 

Around December 28, 2006, Abdi joined a group of seven men—including Canadian-Ethiopian national Bashir Makhtal—headed for the border. Abdi said that he was planning to stay in Kenya only briefly before returning to his home in Dobley. But before they reached the Kenyan-side transit center, they were intercepted by Kenyan police. The police ordered them out of their car and into a police vehicle, and drove them to a nearby police station.

 

“I protested. I crossed the border all the time,” Abdi told Human Rights Watch. “But they didn’t respond to me, and I was taken.”

 

The next day, Kenyan police moved them to the regional headquarters in Garissa, where they were held for five nights in a congested cell and interrogated by plainclothes police. Said Abdi:

 

They interviewed me twice and asked the same things: where I was from, where I grew up, whether or not I had any links with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). At the end of the second interview, a Somali-speaking officer told me that there was no evidence I had any connections with the ICU, but that I would be charged with being illegally in Kenya.

 

On January 15, 2007, Kenyan police bundled Abdi and several others onto police vehicles and drove them to Nairobi. Five days later, on January 20, security officers called Abdi out of his cell and drove him to the airport, where about 30 other detainees had already been assembled. Officers herded them onto an African Express Airways plane, cuffed their hands behind their back and tied their legs to the seat. The plane landed in the Mogadishu airport, surrounded by Ethiopian military.

 

After four nights, Ethiopian military officers drove Abdi and several others to Baidoa, where they were put into a tent with some 80 others, mostly ethnic Oromos. According to Abdi, he was then subjected to interrogations and torture:

 

Every day interrogators would call different people out for interrogations. After two weeks, the interrogators—an Ethiopian and a Somali interpreter—called me. They said I was a member of the Islamic Courts Union, a war criminal, a terrorist plotter. I told them they were wrong. They started torturing me.

 

They pulled out my toenails. They beat me with a wooden stick on my hands, on the tops of my feet, on my knees, on the left side of my face. Eventually I fainted. Other detainees told me that the interrogators dragged me back to the tent, still unconscious.

 

The next day, Ethiopian military officers loaded Abdi and several others onto military vehicles for a three-day journey to Awassa, Ethiopia. The left side of Abdi’s face become swollen from the beatings and affected his vision. He said:

 

I started to feel like I had a big ball in my head. One morning, I couldn’t see. I asked for a light. Everyone started laughing because it was morning and bright. For the next three months, I couldn’t see at all. My fellow prisoners helped me with everything—eating, going to the toilet, everything. I wouldn’t have survived without them.

 

Eventually, military officers took pity on Abdi and took him to a doctor who gave him some drops for his eyes. Slowly, he started to recover vision in his right eye. It took almost a year for him to be able to see light out of his left eye.

 

“Even now, I can’t see clearly out of my left eye,” Abdi said. “I only see vague shapes and color.”

 

In July 2007, Ethiopian authorities again moved Abdi, this time to Ambo, where he was held with several Oromos and Somalis—including Ishmael Noor. The interrogations continued, carried out by plainclothes officers who reportedly came from Addis Ababa. “The questions were always the same,” Abdi said. “They asked about my biography. They wanted me to say that I was a member of the ICU or ONLF. When I wouldn’t agree, they would beat me.”

 

Abdi was released in February 2008, one of the 28 men taken to Baidoa and handed over to military officers belonging to Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government. He has since moved his entire family to a refugee camp in Kenya, close to the Somali border:

 

I was in jail for 13 months and six nights. I was never allowed a phone call home. I was never taken to court. I was never seen by the ICRC or any rights group. I never received any sympathy or help from any government or any individuals. Now I have no peace. I am scared.

 

Swaleh Ali Tunza

 

Swaleh Ali Tunza is a 40-year-old Kenyan who has been held without charge by the Ethiopians since January 2007.54

 

According to family members and an eyewitness, Kenyan officials arrested Tunza in Kiunga in early January 2007 and secretly flew him to Mogadishu on January 28, where he was handed over to Ethiopian authorities, and ultimately transported to Addis Ababa.

 

For two months, Ethiopian authorities held him incommunicado in solitary confinement, in a small two-by-two-meter cage-like cell made of corrugated iron. In the mornings, they regularly took him to a villa to be interrogated by US officials. In the evenings, they returned him to his cell and allegedly handcuffed him in a painful position.

 

Tunza told Human Rights Watch that the US officials showed him photographs of people for him to identify. They accused him of connections to the ICU and terrorism and questioned him about alleged associations. His hands were frequently cuffed behind his back in painful positions. At least once, Ethiopian guards reportedly forced him to stand for hours on a stone block in between interrogations.

 

In April 2007, the interrogations ended. The Ethiopian officials moved Tunza out of solitary confinement into a cell with others. A month later, they told him he would be released—only to move him and seven other Kenyans to a separate place of detention.

 

In February 2008, Ethiopian police officers broke Tunza’s leg just above his ankle during a beating following the escape of one of the other detainees. Tunza said that although he spent almost a month in the hospital, his leg never properly healed, and is now swollen and causes constant pain. Tunza worried that his leg may ultimately need to be amputated.

 

In the 21 months Tunza has been in Ethiopian custody, he has never been charged with a crime, never visited by a lawyer or a humanitarian agency, and never allowed to speak with his family.

 

His brother told Human Rights Watch, “I miss him so much. Our family needs him.”55

 

Abdullah Hamid

 

Hamid, 42 years old, heard that the Islamic Courts Union had brought peace to Mogadishu, and decided to travel there in late 2006. But when the Mogadishu airport was bombed on December 25, he became scared for his safety and joined a group of about 30 people, including several who were sick or injured, going to Kenya.56

 

On January 8, 2007, Ethiopian military forces fired upon the group near the Kenyan border. Hamid and others escaped into the forest where they hid for the night. The next day, Ethiopian soldiers captured Hamid as he went to collect water. They gagged, bound, and beat him, and then airlifted him by helicopter to Ras Kamboni, a Somali town near the Kenyan border.

 

Upon arrival in Ras Kamboni, Ethiopian military forces drove him about 20 minutes to an area that Hamid described as an “American outpost.” According to Hamid, three US officials—two white men and a black man—questioned him about what he was doing in Somalia and told him he had better cooperate or they would hand him over to the Ethiopians.

 

After about three hours, the US officials did in fact hand him to the Ethiopians, who flew him to Kismayo, where he was kept for three days before being taken to Baidoa and then Addis Ababa.

 

Upon arrival in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian authorities took Hamid to a private house, where he was put in a room by himself, with his hands cuffed behind his back and legs shackled at all times he was in the cell. (He later learned that Salim Awadh Salim was held there as well.) Hamid described the detention facility:

 

They would often play music all day and night because they knew we didn’t like to hear music. They kept the lights on and would poke their heads in at any time. The handcuffs were made of rope and tied so tight. It was so painful. In fact, I still have scars from where the rope cut into my skin. But they also brought us really good food. I think they wanted us to be well-fed so that we would be helpful during the interrogations.

 

Just about every morning, the Ethiopian guards took him to a villa for interrogations. Usually he was taken to a villa with US officials, where he was asked to identify people in photos and all kinds of questions about what he was doing in Somalia. “I knew they were Americans because they talked about contacting the White House,” Hamid said. Hamid reported being taken to other villas where he was interrogated by other foreign intelligence officials as well.

 

After about a month, Hamid went on a hunger strike, demanding to be taken to court. In March 2007, he was brought before a military court with several others. The judge told them that the court would determine whether they were prisoners of war or illegal combatants. His request for a lawyer was denied. At the next court session a month later, the military prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence and that they needed to do further investigation. He was never brought back to court.

 

Hamid told Human Rights Watch that sometime around April 2007, the Ethiopian military moved him from the private house to an old police station on Haile Salassie road where he remained in solitary confinement, held in a two-by-two-meter cage. Then, in May he was moved to a cell with several others, and eventually released in June.

 

“Nobody knew what happened to me,” Hamid said. “I thought I would never see my family again. I thought about committing suicide. Now I am just so happy to be free.”

 

 

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

 

47 The account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with Ishmael Noor, Ifo Refugee Camp, Kenya, July 24, 2008. Ishmael Noor is a pseudonym.

 

48 Unless otherwise specified, the account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Salim Awadh Salim, August 27, 2008.

 

49 Human Rights Watch interview with Fatima Chande, Moshi, Tanzania, April 28, 2007.

 

50 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with former detainee, September 9, 2008 (name withheld).

 

51 The account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with Ali Yusuf, Nairobi, Kenya, July 28, 2008. Ali Yusuf is a pseudonym.

 

52 The account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with Kamilya Mohammed Tuwein, Dubai, UAE, April 4, 2007.

 

53 The account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with Suleiman Abdi, Ifo Refugee Camp, Kenya, July 23, 2008. Suleiman Abdi is a pseudonym.

 

54 Unless otherwise specified, the account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Swaleh Ali Tunza, August 27, 2008.

 

55 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Abdallah Ali Tunza, brother of Swaleh Ali Tunza, September 4, 2008.

 

56 The account in this section is based on Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Abdullah Hamid, August 17 and August 19, 2007, and September 9, 2008. Abdullah Hamid is a pseudonym. His nationality has been withheld at his request.

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

 

 

International Legal Standards

 

The systematic rendition of individuals from Kenya to Somalia, and Somalia to Ethiopia, violated several fundamental human rights guarantees under international law. These include the prohibitions on arbitrary detention; torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; and enforced disappearance.57

 

The Ethiopian government violated international law in its torture and other mistreatment of persons in custody. Ethiopia ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1993, and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) in 1994. Both conventions prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

 

By rendering detainees to Somalia, Kenya violated its obligation not to “expel, return (‘refuter’) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”58 In 2006, the UN Committee against Torture, the international expert body responsible for monitoring compliance with the Convention against Torture, explained that in order to fulfill the non-defilement obligation, states “should always ensure that suspects have the possibility to challenge decisions of defilement”—something the Kenyan government has failed to do.

 

The Somali Transitional Federal Government similarly violated its non-refoulement obligation to the extent that it helped facilitate the deportations from Somalia to Ethiopia.59

 

Kenya also violated international law when it expelled individuals who, based on their identification documents, appeared to be Kenyan citizens and those with valid Kenyan visas or residency documents. The Kenyan government’s deportation of Kenyan nationals and other persons lawfully in Kenya to Somalia without judicial or other competent review violates fundamental rights against arbitrary deportation provided under the ICCPR.60

 

Kenya and Ethiopia’s detention of men, women, and children without access to a judicial authority and without charge, and holding them incommunicado from family members, legal counsel, and diplomatic representatives, violated international law prohibitions on arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances.61

 

In 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (Convention against Enforced Disappearance). The convention defines “enforced disappearance” as:

 

The arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.62

 

The Convention against Enforced Disappearance prohibits enforced disappearance both in peacetime and wartime. It requires states to hold all detainees in officially recognized places of detention, authorize communications with detainees’ families and legal counsel, and give competent authorities access to detaineesand maintain official records of all detainees.63 Kenya signed the convention on February 6, 2007, but has not yet ratified it.

 

The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has stated that the crime of enforced disappearance “is a continuous crime until the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person becomes known.”64 Persons “disappeared” in Kenyan, Somali, or Ethiopian custody who have since been transferred elsewhere remain the legal obligation of the relevant state so long as their fate or whereabouts remain unknown.

 

Finally, while the US government was not directly responsible for arresting, detaining, or rendering individuals into Ethiopian custody, it definitely knew of the renditions, and, at a minimum, took advantage of the abusive activities of the Kenyan, Somali, and Ethiopian governments to interrogate terrorist suspects of interest, raising serious concerns about US government complicity in the abuses. The US government also provided substantial funds to the Ethiopian military, supported its operations in Somalia, and trained Kenyan security forces in counterterrorism. It continues to supply millions of dollars in counterterrorism assistance to both Kenya and Ethiopia, describing these nations as key partners in the region, without ever publicly raising concerns about ongoing arbitrary detentions and rendition-related abuses.

 

 

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

 

57 See, for example, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), G.A. res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into forceMarch 23, 1976, arts. 7 & 9; Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture), G.A. res. 39/46, annex, 39 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 51) at 197, U.N. Doc. A/39/51 (1984), entered into force June 26, 1987; Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, G.A. res. 47/133, 47, U.N. GAOR Supp. (No 49) at 207, U.N. Doc. A/47/49 (1992).

 

58 Convention against Torture, art. 3(1).

 

59 Somalia ratified both the ICCPR and the Convention against Torture in 1990.

 

60 ICCPR, art. 12 (“No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country”), and art. 13 (concerning aliens lawfully in the territory of a state party to the ICCPR).

 

61 Article 9 of the ICCPR states that “[n]o one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.” Incommunicado detention arises when detainees are denied access to lawyers, family members, and physicians. In 2003, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution holding that “prolonged incommunicado detention may facilitate the perpetration of torture and can in itself constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or even torture.” 147/1983, Selected Decisions of the Human Rights Committee under the Optional Protocol, UN Doc. CCPR/C/OP/2 1990, p. 176.

 

62 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 20, 2006, opened for signature on February 6, 2007, art. 2. The treaty will enter into force 30 days after 20 states have ratified it in accordance with article 39.

 

63 Convention against Enforced Disappearance, arts. 1, 17.

 

64 Report of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/2006/56, December 27, 2005, para. 10.

[Nur]

Many Approved Torture

 

Eagle Editorial

 

09/10/08 "The Wichita Eagle" -- When it comes to the Bush administration's disgraceful decision to torture terrorism suspects, there are plenty of officials to share the shame.

 

New documents provided to Congress confirm that Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, led meetings in 2002 in which officials discussed specific "enhanced" interrogation methods. Those attending reportedly included Vice President Dick Cheney, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then-CIA Director George Tenet.

 

What's particularly noteworthy about these meetings is that they occurred, and the torturing of detainees began, months before the administration had a legal opinion saying that it was OK to torture -- as shoddy as that opinion was.

 

Torture and degrading treatment are clearly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and by U.S. law. In addition, the 1984 Convention Against Torture specifically states there are "no circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency," that could be "invoked as a justification of torture" or "other acts of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment."

 

To try to circumvent these clear prohibitions, and provide cover for the torturing that had already been occurring, administration attorneys tried to redefine "torture" to be so severe and so prolonged ("lasting months or years") that it was nearly impossible to commit. It also claimed that the infliction of pain had to be the "precise objective" and not a byproduct of the abuse, according to Jane Mayer's authoritative book "The Dark Side." Thus, according to administration attorneys, an interrogator could know that torturing would cause pain, but if "causing such harm is not the objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent" to be guilty of torture.

 

Harold Koh, dean of Yale Law School, described these claims as "perhaps the most clearly erroneous legal opinion I have ever read."

 

In addition to violating the law -- and, according the Red Cross, possibly committing war crimes -- the United States gained little if any new quality intelligence by torturing, according to CIA and FBI officials. In fact, torturing detainees (including some who were innocent) hurt our ability to obtain good intelligence while undermining our ideals and damaging our reputation and credibility worldwide.

 

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly said at one of those White House meetings that "history will not judge us kindly." Nor should the American public.

 

For the editorial board, Phillip Brownlee

 

Copyright The Wichita Eagle

[Nur]

The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency

By Mahmood Mamdani

 

03/10/07 "LRB" -- -- The similarities between Iraq and Darfur are remarkable. The estimate of the number of civilians killed over the past three years is roughly similar. The killers are mostly paramilitaries, closely linked to the official military, which is said to be their main source of arms. The victims too are by and large identified as members of groups, rather than targeted as individuals. But the violence in the two places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said to be a cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency; in Darfur, it is called genocide. Why the difference? Who does the naming? Who is being named? What difference does it make?

 

The most powerful mobilisation in New York City is in relation to Darfur, not Iraq. One would expect the reverse, for no other reason than that most New Yorkers are American citizens and so should feel directly responsible for the violence in occupied Iraq. But Iraq is a messy place in the American imagination, a place with messy politics. Americans worry about what their government should do in Iraq. Should it withdraw? What would happen if it did? In contrast, there is nothing messy about Darfur. It is a place without history and without politics; simply a site where perpetrators clearly identifiable as ‘Arabs’ confront victims clearly identifiable as ‘Africans’.

 

A full-page advertisement has appeared several times a week in the New York Times calling for intervention in Darfur now. It wants the intervening forces to be placed under ‘a chain of command allowing necessary and timely military action without approval from distant political or civilian personnel’. That intervention in Darfur should not be subject to ‘political or civilian’ considerations and that the intervening forces should have the right to shoot – to kill – without permission from distant places: these are said to be ‘humanitarian’ demands. In the same vein, a New Republic editorial on Darfur has called for ‘force as a first-resort response’. What makes the situation even more puzzling is that some of those who are calling for an end to intervention in Iraq are demanding an intervention in Darfur; as the slogan goes, ‘Out of Iraq and into Darfur.’

 

What would happen if we thought of Darfur as we do of Iraq, as a place with a history and politics – a messy politics of insurgency and counter-insurgency? Why should an intervention in Darfur not turn out to be a trigger that escalates rather than reduces the level of violence as intervention in Iraq has done? Why might it not create the actual possibility of genocide, not just rhetorically but in reality? Morally, there is no doubt about the horrific nature of the violence against civilians in Darfur. The ambiguity lies in the politics of the violence, whose sources include both a state-connected counter-insurgency and an organised insurgency, very much like the violence in Iraq.

 

The insurgency and counter-insurgency in Darfur began in 2003. Both were driven by an intermeshing of domestic tensions in the context of a peace-averse international environment defined by the War on Terror. On the one hand, there was a struggle for power within the political class in Sudan, with more marginal interests in the west (following those in the south and in the east) calling for reform at the centre. On the other, there was a community-level split inside Darfur, between nomads and settled farmers, who had earlier forged a way of sharing the use of semi-arid land in the dry season. With the drought that set in towards the late 1970s, co-operation turned into an intense struggle over diminishing resources.

 

As the insurgency took root among the prospering peasant tribes of Darfur, the government trained and armed the poorer nomads and formed a militia – the Janjawiid – that became the vanguard of the unfolding counter-insurgency. The worst violence came from the Janjawiid, but the insurgent movements were also accused of gross violations. Anyone wanting to end the spiralling violence would have to bring about power-sharing at the state level and resource-sharing at the community level, land being the key resource.

 

Since its onset, two official verdicts have been delivered on the violence, the first from the US, the second from the UN. The American verdict was unambiguous: Darfur was the site of an ongoing genocide. The chain of events leading to Washington’s proclamation began with ‘a genocide alert’ from the Management Committee of the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum; according to the Jerusalem Post, the alert was ‘the first ever of its kind, issued by the US Holocaust Museum’. The House of Representatives followed unanimously on 24 June 2004. The last to join the chorus was Colin Powell.

 

The UN Commission on Darfur was created in the aftermath of the American verdict and in response to American pressure. It was more ambiguous. In September 2004, the Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, then the chair of the African Union, visited UN headquarters in New York. Darfur had been the focal point of discussion in the African Union. All concerned were alert to the extreme political sensitivity of the issue. At a press conference at the UN on 23 September Obasanjo was asked to pronounce on the violence in Darfur: was it genocide or not? His response was very clear:

 

Before you can say that this is genocide or ethnic cleansing, we will have to have a definite decision and plan and programme of a government to wipe out a particular group of people, then we will be talking about genocide, ethnic cleansing. What we know is not that. What we know is that there was an uprising, rebellion, and the government armed another group of people to stop that rebellion. That’s what we know. That does not amount to genocide from our own reckoning. It amounts to of course conflict. It amounts to violence.

 

By October, the Security Council had established a five-person commission of inquiry on Darfur and asked it to report within three months on ‘violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Darfur by all parties’, and specifically to determine ‘whether or not acts of genocide have occurred’. Among the members of the commission was the chief prosecutor of South Africa’s TRC, Dumisa Ntsebeza. In its report, submitted on 25 January 2005, the commission concluded that ‘the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide . . . directly or through the militias under its control.’ But the commission did find that the government’s violence was ‘deliberately and indiscriminately directed against civilians’. Indeed, ‘even where rebels may have been present in villages, the impact of attacks on civilians shows that the use of military force was manifestly disproportionate to any threat posed by the rebels.’ These acts, the commission concluded, ‘were conducted on a widespread and systematic basis, and therefore may amount to crimes against humanity’ (my emphasis). Yet, the commission insisted, they did not amount to acts of genocide: ‘The crucial element of genocidal intent appears to be missing . . . it would seem that those who planned and organised attacks on villages pursued the intent to drive the victims from their homes, primarily for purposes of counter-insurgency warfare.’

 

At the same time, the commission assigned secondary responsibility to rebel forces – namely, members of the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement – which it held ‘responsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law which may amount to war crimes’ (my emphasis). If the government stood accused of ‘crimes against humanity’, rebel movements were accused of ‘war crimes’. Finally, the commission identified individual perpetrators and presented the UN secretary-general with a sealed list that included ‘officials of the government of Sudan, members of militia forces, members of rebel groups and certain foreign army officers acting in their personal capacity’. The list named 51 individuals.

 

The commission’s findings highlighted three violations of international law: disproportionate response, conducted on a widespread and systematic basis, targeting entire groups (as opposed to identifiable individuals) but without the intention to eliminate them as groups. It is for this last reason that the commission ruled out the finding of genocide. Its less grave findings of ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘war crimes’ are not unique to Darfur, but fit several other situations of extreme violence: in particular, the US occupation of Iraq, the Hema-Lendu violence in eastern Congo and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Among those in the counter-insurgency accused of war crimes were the ‘foreign army officers acting in their personal capacity’, i.e. mercenaries, presumably recruited from armed forces outside Sudan. The involvement of mercenaries in perpetrating gross violence also fits the occupation in Iraq, where some of them go by the name of ‘contractors’.

 

The journalist in the US most closely identified with consciousness-raising on Darfur is the New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, often identified as a lone crusader on the issue. To peruse Kristof’s Darfur columns over the past three years is to see the reduction of a complex political context to a morality tale unfolding in a world populated by villains and victims who never trade places and so can always and easily be told apart. It is a world where atrocities mount geometrically, the perpetrators so evil and the victims so helpless that the only possibility of relief is a rescue mission from the outside, preferably in the form of a military intervention.

 

Kristof made six highly publicised trips to Darfur, the first in March 2004 and the sixth two years later. He began by writing of it as a case of ‘ethnic cleansing’: ‘Sudan’s Arab rulers’ had ‘forced 700,000 black African Sudanese to flee their villages’ (24 March 2004). Only three days later, he upped the ante: this was no longer ethnic cleansing, but genocide. ‘Right now,’ he wrote on 27 March, ‘the government of Sudan is engaged in genocide against three large African tribes in its Darfur region.’ He continued: ‘The killings are being orchestrated by the Arab-dominated Sudanese government’ and ‘the victims are non-Arabs: blacks in the Zaghawa, Massalliet and Fur tribes.’ He estimated the death toll at a thousand a week. Two months later, on 29 May, he revised the estimates dramatically upwards, citing predictions from the US Agency for International Development to the effect that ‘at best, “only” 100,000 people will die in Darfur this year of malnutrition and disease’ but ‘if things go badly, half a million will die.’

 

The UN commission’s report was released on 25 February 2005. It confirmed ‘massive displacement’ of persons (‘more than a million’ internally displaced and ‘more than 200,000’ refugees in Chad) and the destruction of ‘several hundred’ villages and hamlets as ‘irrefutable facts’; but it gave no confirmed numbers for those killed. Instead, it noted rebel claims that government-allied forces had ‘allegedly killed over 70,000 persons’. Following the publication of the report, Kristof began to scale down his estimates. For the first time, on 23 February 2005, he admitted that ‘the numbers are fuzzy.’ Rather than the usual single total, he went on to give a range of figures, from a low of 70,000, which he dismissed as ‘a UN estimate’, to ‘independent estimates [that] exceed 220,000’. A warning followed: ‘and the number is rising by about ten thousand a month.’

 

The publication of the commission’s report had considerable effect. Internationally, it raised doubts about whether what was going on in Darfur could be termed genocide. Even US officials were unwilling to go along with the high estimates propagated by the broad alliance of organisations that subscribe to the Save Darfur campaign. The effect on American diplomacy was discernible. Three months later, on 3 May, Kristof noted with dismay that not only had ‘Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick pointedly refused to repeat the administration’s past judgment that the killings amount to genocide’: he had ‘also cited an absurdly low estimate of Darfur’s total death toll: 60,000 to 160,000’. As an alternative, Kristof cited the latest estimate of deaths from the Coalition for International Justice as ‘nearly 400,000, and rising by 500 a day’. In three months, Kristof’s estimates had gone up from 10,000 to 15,000 a month. Six months later, on 27 November, Kristof warned that ‘if aid groups pull out . . . the death toll could then rise to 100,000 a month.’ Anyone keeping a tally of the death toll in Darfur as reported in the Kristof columns would find the rise, fall and rise again very bewildering. First he projected the number of dead at 320,000 for 2004 (16 June 2004) but then gave a scaled down estimate of between 70,000 and 220,000 (23 February 2005). The number began once more to climb to ‘nearly 400,000’ (3 May 2005), only to come down yet again to 300,000 (23 April 2006). Each time figures were given with equal confidence but with no attempt to explain their basis. Did the numbers reflect an actual decline in the scale of killing in Darfur or was Kristof simply making an adjustment to the changing mood internationally?

 

In the 23 April column, Kristof expanded the list of perpetrators to include an external power: ‘China is now underwriting its second genocide in three decades. The first was in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and the second is in Darfur, Sudan. Chinese oil purchases have financed Sudan’s pillage of Darfur, Chinese-made AK-47s have been the main weapons used to slaughter several hundred thousand people in Darfur so far and China has protected Sudan in the UN Security Council.’ In the Kristof columns, there is one area of deafening silence, to do with the fact that what is happening in Darfur is a civil war. Hardly a word is said about the insurgency, about the civilian deaths insurgents mete out, about acts that the commission characterised as ‘war crimes’. Would the logic of his 23 April column not lead one to think that those with connections to the insurgency, some of them active in the international campaign to declare Darfur the site of genocide, were also guilty of ‘underwriting’ war crimes in Darfur?

 

Newspaper writing on Darfur has sketched a pornography of violence. It seems fascinated by and fixated on the gory details, describing the worst of the atrocities in gruesome detail and chronicling the rise in the number of them. The implication is that the motivation of the perpetrators lies in biology (‘race’) and, if not that, certainly in ‘culture’. This voyeuristic approach accompanies a moralistic discourse whose effect is both to obscure the politics of the violence and position the reader as a virtuous, not just a concerned observer.

 

Journalism gives us a simple moral world, where a group of perpetrators face a group of victims, but where neither history nor motivation is thinkable because both are outside history and context. Even when newspapers highlight violence as a social phenomenon, they fail to understand the forces that shape the agency of the perpetrator. Instead, they look for a clear and uncomplicated moral that describes the victim as untainted and the perpetrator as simply evil. Where yesterday’s victims are today’s perpetrators, where victims have turned perpetrators, this attempt to find an African replay of the Holocaust not only does not work but also has perverse consequences. Whatever its analytical weaknesses, the depoliticisation of violence has given its proponents distinct political advantages.

 

The conflict in Darfur is highly politicised, and so is the international campaign. One of the campaign’s constant refrains has been that the ongoing genocide is racial: ‘Arabs’ are trying to eliminate ‘Africans’. But both ‘Arab’ and ‘African’ have several meanings in Sudan. There have been at least three meanings of ‘Arab’. Locally, ‘Arab’ was a pejorative reference to the lifestyle of the nomad as uncouth; regionally, it referred to someone whose primary language was Arabic. In this sense, a group could become ‘Arab’ over time. This process, known as Arabisation, was not an anomaly in the region: there was Amharisation in Ethiopia and Swahilisation on the East African coast. The third meaning of ‘Arab’ was ‘privileged and exclusive’; it was the claim of the riverine political aristocracy who had ruled Sudan since independence, and who equated Arabisation with the spread of civilisation and being Arab with descent.

 

‘African’, in this context, was a subaltern identity that also had the potential of being either exclusive or inclusive. The two meanings were not only contradictory but came from the experience of two different insurgencies. The inclusive meaning was more political than racial or even cultural (linguistic), in the sense that an ‘African’ was anyone determined to make a future within Africa. It was pioneered by John Garang, the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in the south, as a way of holding together the New Sudan he hoped to see. In contrast, its exclusive meaning came in two versions, one hard (racial) and the other soft (linguistic) – ‘African’ as Bantu and ‘African’ as the identity of anyone who spoke a language indigenous to Africa. The racial meaning came to take a strong hold in both the counter-insurgency and the insurgency in Darfur. The Save Darfur campaign’s characterisation of the violence as ‘Arab’ against ‘African’ obscured both the fact that the violence was not one-sided and the contest over the meaning of ‘Arab’ and ‘African’: a contest that was critical precisely because it was ultimately about who belonged and who did not in the political community called Sudan. The depoliticisation, naturalisation and, ultimately, demonisation of the notion ‘Arab’, as against ‘African’, has been the deadliest effect, whether intended or not, of the Save Darfur campaign.

 

The depoliticisation of the conflict gave campaigners three advantages. First, they were able to occupy the moral high ground. The campaign presented itself as apolitical but moral, its concern limited only to saving lives. Second, only a single-issue campaign could bring together in a unified chorus forces that are otherwise ranged as adversaries on most important issues of the day: at one end, the Christian right and the Zionist lobby; at the other, a mainly school and university-based peace movement. Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice wrote of the Save Darfur Coalition as ‘an alliance of more than 515 faith-based, humanitarian and human rights organisations’; among the organisers of their Rally to Stop the Genocide in Washington last year were groups as diverse as the American Jewish World Service, the American Society for Muslim Advancement, the National Association of Evangelicals, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Anti-Slavery Group, Amnesty International, Christian Solidarity International, Physicians for Human Rights and the National Black Church Initiative. Surely, such a wide coalition would cease to hold together if the issue shifted to, say, Iraq.

 

To understand the third advantage, we have to return to the question I asked earlier: how could it be that many of those calling for an end to the American and British intervention in Iraq are demanding an intervention in Darfur? It’s tempting to think that the advantage of Darfur lies in its being a small, faraway place where those who drive the War on Terror do not have a vested interest. That this is hardly the case is evident if one compares the American response to Darfur to its non-response to Congo, even though the dimensions of the conflict in Congo seem to give it a mega-Darfur quality: the numbers killed are estimated in the millions rather than the hundreds of thousands; the bulk of the killing, particularly in Kivu, is done by paramilitaries trained, organised and armed by neighbouring governments; and the victims on both sides – Hema and Lendu – are framed in collective rather than individual terms, to the point that one influential version defines both as racial identities and the conflict between the two as a replay of the Rwandan genocide. Given all this, how does one explain the fact that the focus of the most widespread and ambitious humanitarian movement in the US is on Darfur and not on Kivu?

 

Nicholas Kristof was asked this very question by a university audience: ‘When I spoke at Cornell University recently, a woman asked why I always harp on Darfur. It’s a fair question. The number of people killed in Darfur so far is modest in global terms: estimates range from 200,000 to more than 500,000. In contrast, four million people have died since 1998 as a result of the fighting in Congo, the most lethal conflict since World War Two.’ But instead of answering the question, Kristof – now writing his column rather than facing the questioner at Cornell – moved on: ‘And malaria annually kills one million to three million people – meaning that three years’ deaths in Darfur are within the margin of error of the annual global toll from malaria.’ And from there he went on to compare the deaths in Darfur to the deaths from malaria, rather than from the conflict in Congo: ‘We have a moral compass within us and its needle is moved not only by human suffering but also by human evil. That’s what makes genocide special – not just the number of deaths but the government policy behind them. And that in turn is why stopping genocide should be an even higher priority than saving lives from Aids or malaria.’ That did not explain the relative silence on Congo. Could the reason be that in the case of Congo, Hema and Lendu militias – many of them no more than child soldiers – were trained by America’s allies in the region, Rwanda and Uganda? Is that why the violence in Darfur – but not the violence in Kivu – is named as a genocide?

 

It seems that genocide has become a label to be stuck on your worst enemy, a perverse version of the Nobel Prize, part of a rhetorical arsenal that helps you vilify your adversaries while ensuring impunity for your allies. In Kristof’s words, the point is not so much ‘human suffering’ as ‘human evil’. Unlike Kivu, Darfur can be neatly integrated into the War on Terror, for Darfur gives the Warriors on Terror a valuable asset with which to demonise an enemy: a genocide perpetrated by Arabs. This was the third and most valuable advantage that Save Darfur gained from depoliticising the conflict. The more thoroughly Darfur was integrated into the War on Terror, the more the depoliticised violence in Darfur acquired a racial description, as a genocide of ‘Arabs’ killing ‘Africans’. Racial difference purportedly constituted the motive force behind the mass killings. The irony of Kristof’s columns is that they mirror the ideology of Arab supremacism in Sudan by demonising entire communities.[*]

 

Kristof chides Arab peoples and the Arab press for not having the moral fibre to respond to this Muslim-on-Muslim violence, presumably because it is a violence inflicted by Arab Muslims on African Muslims. In one of his early columns in 2004, he was outraged by the silence of Muslim leaders: ‘Do they care about dead Muslims only when the killers are Israelis or Americans?’ Two years later he asked: ‘And where is the Arab press? Isn’t the murder of 300,000 or more Muslims almost as offensive as a Danish cartoon?’ Six months later, Kristof pursued this line on NBC’s Today Show. Elaborating on the ‘real blind spot’ in the Muslim world, he said: ‘You are beginning to get some voices in the Muslim world . . . saying it’s appalling that you have evangelical Christians and American Jews leading an effort to protect Muslims in Sudan and in Chad.’

 

If many of the leading lights in the Darfur campaign are fired by moral indignation, this derives from two events: the Nazi Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. After all, the seeds of the Save Darfur campaign lie in the tenth-anniversary commemoration of what happened in Rwanda. Darfur is today a metaphor for senseless violence in politics, as indeed Rwanda was a decade before. Most writing on the Rwandan genocide in the US was also done by journalists. In We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, the most widely read book on the genocide, Philip Gourevitch envisaged Rwanda as a replay of the Holocaust, with Hutu cast as perpetrators and Tutsi as victims. Again, the encounter between the two seemed to take place outside any context, as part of an eternal encounter between evil and innocence. Many of the journalists who write about Darfur have Rwanda very much in the back of their minds. In December 2004, Kristof recalled the lessons of Rwanda: ‘Early in his presidency, Mr Bush read a report about Bill Clinton’s paralysis during the Rwandan genocide and scrawled in the margin: “Not on my watch.” But in fact the same thing is happening on his watch, and I find that heartbreaking and baffling.’

 

With very few exceptions, the Save Darfur campaign has drawn a single lesson from Rwanda: the problem was the US failure to intervene to stop the genocide. Rwanda is the guilt that America must expiate, and to do so it must be ready to intervene, for good and against evil, even globally. That lesson is inscribed at the heart of Samantha Power’s book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. But it is the wrong lesson. The Rwandan genocide was born of a civil war which intensified when the settlement to contain it broke down. The settlement, reached at the Arusha Conference, broke down because neither the Hutu Power tendency nor the Tutsi-dominated Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) had any interest in observing the power-sharing arrangement at the core of the settlement: the former because it was excluded from the settlement and the latter because it was unwilling to share power in any meaningful way.

 

What the humanitarian intervention lobby fails to see is that the US did intervene in Rwanda, through a proxy. That proxy was the RPF, backed up by entire units from the Uganda Army. The green light was given to the RPF, whose commanding officer, Paul Kagame, had recently returned from training in the US, just as it was lately given to the Ethiopian army in Somalia. Instead of using its resources and influence to bring about a political solution to the civil war, and then strengthen it, the US signalled to one of the parties that it could pursue victory with impunity. This unilateralism was part of what led to the disaster, and that is the real lesson of Rwanda. Applied to Darfur and Sudan, it is sobering. It means recognising that Darfur is not yet another Rwanda. Nurturing hopes of an external military intervention among those in the insurgency who aspire to victory and reinforcing the fears of those in the counter-insurgency who see it as a prelude to defeat are precisely the ways to ensure that it becomes a Rwanda. Strengthening those on both sides who stand for a political settlement to the civil war is the only realistic approach. Solidarity, not intervention, is what will bring peace to Darfur.

 

The dynamic of civil war in Sudan has fed on multiple sources: first, the post-independence monopoly of power enjoyed by a tiny ‘Arabised’ elite from the riverine north of Khartoum, a monopoly that has bred growing resistance among the majority, marginalised populations in the south, east and west of the country; second, the rebel movements which have in their turn bred ambitious leaders unwilling to enter into power-sharing arrangements as a prelude to peace; and, finally, external forces that continue to encourage those who are interested in retaining or obtaining a monopoly of power.

 

The dynamic of peace, by contrast, has fed on a series of power-sharing arrangements, first in the south and then in the east. This process has been intermittent in Darfur. African Union-organised negotiations have been successful in forging a power-sharing arrangement, but only for that arrangement to fall apart time and again. A large part of the explanation, as I suggested earlier, lies in the international context of the War on Terror, which favours parties who are averse to taking risks for peace. To reinforce the peace process must be the first commitment of all those interested in Darfur.

 

The camp of peace needs to come to a second realisation: that peace cannot be built on humanitarian intervention, which is the language of big powers. The history of colonialism should teach us that every major intervention has been justified as humanitarian, a ‘civilising mission’. Nor was it mere idiosyncrasy that inspired the devotion with which many colonial officers and archivists recorded the details of barbarity among the colonised – sati, the ban on widow marriage or the practice of child marriage in India, or slavery and female genital mutilation in Africa. I am not suggesting that this was all invention. I mean only to point out that the chronicling of atrocities had a practical purpose: it provided the moral pretext for intervention. Now, as then, imperial interventions claim to have a dual purpose: on the one hand, to rescue minority victims of ongoing barbarities and, on the other, to quarantine majority perpetrators with the stated aim of civilising them. Iraq should act as a warning on this score. The worst thing in Darfur would be an Iraq-style intervention. That would almost certainly spread the civil war to other parts of Sudan, unravelling the peace process in the east and south and dragging the whole country into the global War on Terror.

 

Footnotes

* Contrast this with the UN commission’s painstaking effort to make sense of the identities ‘Arab’ and ‘African’. The commission’s report concentrated on three related points. First, the claim that the Darfur conflict pitted ‘Arab’ against ‘African’ was facile. ‘In fact, the commission found that many Arabs in Darfur are opposed to the Janjawiid, and some Arabs are fighting with the rebels, such as certain Arab commanders and their men from the Misseriya and Rizeigat tribes. At the same time, many non-Arabs are supporting the government and serving in its army.’ Second, it has never been easy to sort different tribes into the categories ‘Arab’ and ‘African’: ‘The various tribes that have been the object of attacks and killings (chiefly the Fur, Massalit and Zeghawa tribes) do not appear to make up ethnic groups distinct from the ethnic groups to which persons or militias that attack them belong. They speak the same language (Arabic) and embrace the same religion (Muslim). In addition, also due to the high measure of intermarriage, they can hardly be distinguished in their outward physical appearance from the members of tribes that allegedly attacked them. Apparently, the sedentary and nomadic character of the groups constitutes one of the main distinctions between them’ (emphasis mine). Finally, the commission put forward the view that political developments are driving the rapidly growing distinction between ‘Arab’ and ‘African’. On the one hand, ‘Arab’ and ‘African’ seem to have become political identities: ‘Those tribes in Darfur who support rebels have increasingly come to be identified as “African” and those supporting the government as the “Arabs”. A good example to illustrate this is that of the Gimmer, a pro-government African tribe that is seen by the African tribes opposed to the government as having been “Arabised”.’ On the other hand, this development was being promoted from the outside: ‘The Arab-African divide has also been fanned by the growing insistence on such divide in some circles and in the media.’

 

Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and a professor of anthropology at Columbia University. His most recent book is Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror.

[Nur]

Nomads

 

Make Love Not War has a new meaning for Somalia, making love (With Spouse only!) can make up for the hundreds of dead Somalis caught up in the inferno of the Ethiopian and Ugandan indiscriminate bombardments of Mogadishu, and the Ethiopian Genocide of Somalis in Occupied Western Somalia, I am sure that watching the nightly news and the Ethiopian-Warlord alliance killing fields in Somalia is nauseating. If you cant get out of your bed to help in any other way, may be it is time you and your lady helped right in your bed, producing more Somalis to avoid depopulation (Your wife can join resistance by either producing more babies by herself, or making her Jihad by allowing you to get another wife to counterbalance the effect of well planned population genocide) Let us take the Jihad to the bedrooms!

 

 

Nur

[Fabregas]

^^ I shouldn't laugh Sheikhow.

[Nur]

Brother Geel Jire.

 

"Sharrul baliyati maa yudxik!" meaning, worst of afflictions are the ones that make you laugh out loud!

 

This eNuri initiative is not so bad after all, I am sure that many silent Nomads are also laughing at this. I always think of ways to influence readers to make the best of a terrible situation, you see bro. The reason we are suffering these problems in Somalia is because of the bloody warlords turned "government officials", more likely, their parents forgot to mention their Dhiker when they were making love; " Bisinka loo ma qaban markey uurka galeen" taasoo ka dhigtay dhal Sheidaan!

 

Now, if Nomads say their Dhiker during intimate encounters with their spouses, Satan will not share a portion of their kids " Nasiiban mafruudaa ", according to Quraan, " Wa shaarik hum fil amwaali wal awlaad, wa cid hum,wa maa yacidumu sheitaanu illaa ghuruuraa...",

 

So by making love with spouse the Sunnah way with an intention to change Somalia positively after 20 years or so, those of us unable to influence the current mess, can focus on making the future replacement of the present endangered Somali generation, I think this is a worthwhile cause, however, even this feat needs some serious effort (aka Jihad!), and a strong stimulant preparation like Camel Milk!.

 

 

Nur