Testimony of Saman Zarifi, Human Rights Watch’s Washington Advocate

October 3, 2007

The U.S House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health

“The Human Rights and Humanitarian Situation in the Horn of Africa: The Cases of Somalia and the Ogaden Region of Ethiopia”

Thank you Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, for providing Human Rights Watch this opportunity to voice our concerns about the dire, and deteriorating, human rights and humanitarian situation in the Horn of Africa, and particularly in regard to Somalia and the Somali region of Ethiopia.

We are at a critical moment for the Horn of Africa and its people. Over the past year we have seen an already volatile region become even more violent and unstable, with hundreds of thousands of civilians suffering massive crimes. There has been little or no response from important voices in the international community, including the United States.

These crimes are not only a serious issue from a human rights perspective, they need to be understood as part of a deepening political and security crisis across the Horn of Africa. The situation in the Horn today is complex, but what is clear is that if we are to avert a deepening regional crisis we must see an urgent and radical change of policy by some of the key regional actors—and their international supporters—in order to address the current dynamic of increasing violence, instability, and human suffering.

Human Rights Watch has been closely monitoring events in Somalia and Ethiopia, and recently published an in-depth investigation of crimes committed in Mogadishu, a city where hundreds have died and up to 400,000 people were displaced from the past six months of intense violence. Our research on the Ogaden area of Somali region, some of it as recent as this week, has uncovered a civilian population under siege and nearly driven to starvation by the various parties to the conflict.

Mr. Chairman, there are no clean hands among the hostile parties in these two conflicts. Human Rights Watch has documented serious abuses of civilians in the Ogaden, including summary executions, by the forces of the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front. We have published an in-depth investigation that describes a variety of crimes by insurgent groups in Mogadishu, including indiscriminate attacks and killings of civilians. We have also raised concerns about abuses by the forces of the Somali Transitional Federal Government, including repeated looting and obstruction of humanitarian assistance. We are enormously concerned by the Eritrean government’s extreme and systematic repression of its citizens.

However today Human Rights Watch would like to focus on the conduct of the Ethiopian military, not only because the Ethiopian government’s military forces have systematically committed atrocities and violated the basic laws of war, but because Ethiopia is a key ally and partner of the United States in the Horn of Africa.

The crimes committed by Ethiopian forces in the Ogaden and in Somalia are not unique, on the contrary they add to a mounting toll of abuses that have made Ethiopian security forces among the most abusive on the continent. Human Rights Watch has previously documented crimes against humanity by Ethiopian military forces in Gambella, and serious abuses in Oromia, Addis Ababa and other parts of Ethiopia.

We recognize that Ethiopia has legitimate and serious domestic and regional security concerns, and that all of the warring parties share responsibility for atrocities against civilians. Nevertheless, nothing justifies the severe violations we are witnessing today in the Ogaden, or the conduct of Ethiopian forces and their allies in Mogadishu.

In the Ogaden, we have documented massive crimes by the Ethiopian army, including civilians targeted intentionally; villages burned to the ground as part of a campaign of collective punishment; public executions meant to terrify onlooking villagers; rampant sexual violence used as a tool of warfare; thousands of arbitrary arrests and widespread and sometimes deadly torture and beatings in military custody; a humanitarian and trade blockade on the entire conflict area; and hundreds of thousands of people forced away from their homes and driven to hunger and malnutrition.

The Ogaden is not Darfur. But the situation in Ogaden follows a frighteningly familiar pattern: a brutal counter insurgency operation with ethnic overtones in which government forces deliberately attacks civilians and displace large populations, coupled with severe restrictions on humanitarian assistance.

Unlike in Darfur, however, the state that is perpetrating abuses against its people in Ogaden is a key US ally and recipient of seemingly unquestioning US military, political, and financial support. Furthermore the crisis in Ogaden is linked to a U.S.-supported military intervention by Ethiopia in Somalia that has been justified in terms of counter terrorism. Because the United States has until now supported Ethiopia so closely, there is a widespread and growing sentiment in the region that the United States also shares some of the blame for the Ethiopian military’s abusive conduct. The increasing resentment produced by the silence over these atrocities risks radicalizing parts of the large Muslim population in the region and undermining the United States’ stated goal of combating militant Islamist groups in the region. It is imperative for the United States to use its influence in the region to end these abuses and ensure the well-being of civilians caught in these conflicts.