By Chris Floyd
(The Baltimore Chronicle) — Earlier this week, we noted reports that Ethiopian Woyanne invaders in Somalia had killed several clerics and other unarmed people in a mosque north of Mogadishu during the recent bloody reprisals against civilian areas launched by the Bush-backed invaders and their Somali allies. At the time, sketchy reports from the BBC indicated that at least 10 people had been killed in the mosque.
Now Amnesty International has charged Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers with killing 21 people in the mosque — and slitting the throats of seven of their victims, the Herald-Sun reports. Amnesty said the invaders are also holding dozens of children they captured during the raid:
Amnesty said those killed at the mosque included imam Sheikh Saiid Yaha and several scholars of the moderate Tabligh group that operated there.
“Eye-witnesses report that those killed inside the mosque were unarmed civilians taking no active part in hostilities,” Amnesty said. “Seven of the 21 were reported to have died after their throats were cut – a form of extra-judicial execution practiced by Ethiopian forces in Somalia.”
Amnesty urged the Ethiopian Woyanne military to release all 41 children it said were held after the mosque raid. “Witnesses have told Amnesty International that Ethiopian Woyanne forces would only release the children from their military base in north Mogadishu ‘once they had been investigated’ and ‘if they were not terrorists’,” it said.
Some of the children — who were aged as young as nine — were reported to have been freed, though the majority were still in custody, Amnesty said.
Witnesses said they had seen beheaded bodies lying outside the mosque after the fighting.
Let us stress the plain fact once again: These atrocities are the direct result of a “regime change” operation launched with the funding, arming, training — and direct military intervention — of the United States government.
Bush has gladly embraced the Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi whose soldiers are entering mosques and beheading unarmed clerics and kidnapping children. Bush has even sent in American troops to support the efforts of his Ethiopian proxies. All of this is being done, ostensibly, as part of the effort to “combat terrorism.” In reality, of course, the Bush-Zenawi “regime change” operation is itself a massive and ongoing act of state terrorism, one that dwarfs any of the outrages perpetrated by Islamic extremists. And of course, such atrocities only beget more extremism.
They are also hindering efforts to bring the carnage in Ethiopia to an end, as the story by the Herald-Sun’s Andrew Cawthorne makes clear: Some moderate Islamist leaders have reacted to the mosque incident, and a recent upsurge of fighting in Mogadishu, by postponing plans to join UN-sponsored peace talks.
But no doubt this suits Bush, Zenawi, and the CIA-paid Somali allies very well. As in the other “regime changes” of the Terror War, Bush and his clients do not want “peace” — unless it is the peace of the grave that comes from the annihilation.
What did the American “papers of record” have to say about this American-backed atrocity? Both The New York Times and the Washington Post ran the same small Reuters story trumpeting Ethiopia’s Woyanne’s denial of the killings. Except for a two-sentence summary of Amnesty’s charges, the entire top half of the story dealt with statements from minions of the Ethiopian dictator, denouncing Amnesty’s “lies.” The story also describes the Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers as being “stationed” in Somalia, in order “to bolster the interim government.”
Ethiopia Woyanne is occupying Somalia by force of arms and engaging in murderous reprisals — yet all the Times and Post can bring themselves to say is that Bush’s brutal allies are merely “stationed” in Somalia. No doubt the Völkischer Beobachter used to speak of Nazi troops “stationed” in France, Poland and Russia, just as Pravda spoke of Soviet troops “stationed” in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
This is the precise moral level of the Terror War. The American Establishment — and the two “progressive” Democratic presidential candidates — accept it. The American press abets it. The deluge of innocent blood will go on.
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Chris Floyd has been a writer and editor for more than 25 years, working in the United States, Great Britain and Russia for various newspapers, magazines, the U.S. government and Oxford University. Floyd co-founded the blog Empire Burlesque, and is also chief editor of Atlantic Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].
2 thoughts on “Bush’s ‘anti-terror’ ally beheads Somali civilians”
“the Bush-Zenawi massive and ongoing act of state terrorism, one that dwarfs any of the outrages perpetrated by Islamic extremists. And of course, such atrocities only beget more extremism”.
well said writer, when state starts to kill scholars, religiuos leaders, women and children it is called state sponsored terrisom. Ethiopia Wayane regime is a terrorist government that is funded by the U.S. government.
Friends, we need to expose what is happening in the Horn of Africa because the enemy is trying to silence us all by infiltrating the media, intimitating oppositions, human rights, scholars so they can do their dirty work with out the world and the American people knowldge. We must Stop the atrocities and massacres that is happening in the name of fighting terrorism. Good watch the innocent Somalis.
“Eye for an eye” is not Gandhi’s or King’s way to bring peace to the troubled world of ours.
To avenge the killings and the dragging of the dead bodies of the Woyanne soldiers in the streets of Mogadishu by the Islamist insurgents might have provoked the Woyanne soldiers to raise their hands against the clerics and to slash the throats, maim the hands, and cut the feet of the innocent Somalis.
In a war time, no body is innocent except the killers, the soldiers who commit such disgusting crimes against humanity. They are innocent because they have been ordered by their superiors – Bush and Meles Seitanawi – from Washington and Addis Ababa respectively. These are well-trained professional soldiers who know by heart their commander-in-chiefs’ orders – to kill, slash, maim, and burn the bodies of the enemies and scatter their ashes into the air. They may kill and continue to kill their enemies in the battlefields but they should never raise their murderous hands against the clerics in the house of worship or prayer.
We remember what king Saul’s soldiers did when the king ordered them to kill the priests of God, and this is what the Bible says: “Then the king ordered the guards at his side: ‘Turn and kill the priests of the Lord….’ But the king’s officials were not willing to raise a hand to strike the priests of the Lord” (1Samuel 22:17). I’m sure the Woyanne soldiers know what the Bible says about raising a hand against the priests of God, but it seems to them that the Bush’s or Meles Seitanawi’s command is more important than the story in the Bible, so they went ahead and slaughtered the clerics in the house of God. These clerics were not idol-worshipers: they were servants of God.
President Bush and perhaps Meles Seitanawi are leaving their offices very soon, and that may be the reason why they allow such cruelty to happen on the Somali people just because they are Muslims and allegedly connected to the terrorists. Even if they leave their offices soon, they should not live in peace before they have paid the ultimate price for the crimes they have committed against humanity. The American Congress may impeach George W. Bush for leading the American people into the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars and for causing economic crises in the whole world, but the Ethiopian people do not have democratically elected representatives that would impeach Meles Seitanawi and send him to Kaliti.
Meles has been a self-declared dictator, commander-in-chief of the army, a parliamentarian, a judge, a diplomat, a banker, a merchant, a farmer, a trader, a teacher, a curriculum leader, a patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and, of course, a prime minister of the Woyanne regime, and since all the departments of Ethiopia do not function without Meles’ say, then he is the head of every department in Ethiopia. The only place, however, he may not have a say is in the decentralized business activities such as the prostitution, performed during the night in a red-lighted brothels.
With all the powers he has been waging against his own people, against his neighbors, and for becoming a bad example of other African countries by intimidating and jailing the opposition parties and falsifying the election results, Meles Seitanawi will never go unpunished in the court of law and justice. Right now, it seems that Zimbabwe is emulating the example of Woyanne’s fraudulent election of 2005, and other countries may follow the same bad examples. Therefore, for this and other criminal activities, Meles Seitanawi must be punished summarily; his wife must be husbandless; his children, fatherless; his bankers, penniless; his friends, friendless; his political hopefuls, hopeless, and his country, leaderless, for Ethiopia better govern itself than be governed by ruthless dictators like Meles Seitanawi; Ethiopia needs someone to avenge the bloodsheds of its innocent children by Meles Seitanawi and by his political allies in Washington.
After the Meles’ and George W. Bush’s times in office are over, any country that offers an asylum for Meles Seitanawi will be considered the enemy of Ethiopia and Somalia, and for that matter, the enemy of the entire continent of Africa.
George W. Bush’s presidency will be remembered as a presidency in which the whole world has no confidence at all, a presidency that has not brought economic and political victory for the American people. Under his presidency, the price of commodities has sky rocketed, and the living conditions in America and especially in the developing countries have become very painful; in some countries, mothers have abandoned their children because they cannot afford to buy baby milk for their children. In America, bank robbery is up because thousands of people have lost their jobs, could not find any other jobs, and could not sell their houses because people don’t have enough money to purchase them. This is a presidency that has disappointed so many Americans, America’ friends, and has created too many enemies for the peace-loving America.
What are the people of Ethiopia and the people of Somalia going to tell their children about the America of Bush? Yes, they will tell them how America’s trained Woyanne soldiers equipped with America-made weapons slaughtered the Somalis and the people of Ogaden, and the blood of these innocent people is appealing to God for justice and revenge. The irony is that we see America working hard day and night to bring peace to the Middle East, to negotiate peace between Israel and the Palestinian people, and at the same time, we see America waging expensive and bloody war against Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and against the people of Ogaden. Sometimes, it becomes very hard to find which America is a peace- loving America, and which America is the America of the hawks.
The people of the world, especially the people of Somalia and the people of Ethiopia, are watching earnestly the presidential election results in the United States so that they can hope for a better life for themselves and for their children under the new American president, whoever he/she might be. They have seen enough about the Republican presidency and suffered too much under that presidency, but they want to see a change in the White House so that the change may deliver them from a dictatorial rule and the hardship of facing hunger and diseases every day, all the times. May God help America to vote for the right person for America and for the whole world since America is the only super power on this earth!