Ethiopia’s Starvation Strategy in the Somali Region

[me]

Ethiopia’s Starvation Strategy in the Somali Region

is endangering the lives of millions

 

WardheerNews Editorial

July 28 , 2007

 

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

 

 

Ethiopia - Administrative Regions and Zones

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

Send your Comments to: WardheerNews Editorial Board

 

Wardheernews