WASHINGTON DC – Ethiopians in Washington DC held a rally to protest the widespread human rights violation against innocent civilians and systematic repression of ethnic Somalis that is taking place in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia.

As reported by the international media and the recent extensive report made public by Human Rights Watch, in areas inhabited by Ogaden people in eastern Ethiopia, the TPLF/EPRDF regime security forces have raped and sexually assaulted numerous women; displaced entire rural communities and destroyed dozens of rural villages; forced residents to flee to the neighboring countries; summarily executed thousands of of civilians; arbitrarily detained tens of thousands of people; intentionally restricted the delivery of humanitarian assistance and access to food and medical supplies in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. Similarly, in the southern and western parts of Ethiopia that are inhabited mostly by Oromo communities, tens of thousands have been detained, tortured or otherwise mistreated.

At the rally organized on Friday October 24, 2008, in front of the US State Department, Ato Fitsum Achamyeleh Alemu, a Virginia based Attorney at law and human rights activist, representing the organizers, talked about gross violation of human rights committed in the past 17 and half years by the TPLF-EPRDF regime.

Fitsum said that from 1992-2008 the TPLF-EPRDF regime killed tens of thousands, forced millions to be displaced or to leave their country, detained and tortured hundreds of thousands. He based his statement on reports US State Department, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. He also stated that the TPLF-EPRDF also instigated ethnic and religious violence.

The protesters asked the US government to take leadership and stop the violence, the killing, the torture of Ethiopians. They also asked a new, independent commission to investigate the human rights situation in every province of Ethiopia and the US, the UN and the European Union to take the human rights situation in Ethiopia seriously and to bring perpetrators of the crimes to justice.

Ato Guled Kassim, a human rights activist in the Washington DC area and originally from Ogaden, also spoke at the rally. Guled challenged the US government, US lawmakers and the international community for looking the other way when such a gross violation of human rights is committed in the Ogaden. He said that US tax payers’ money should not be funneled to dictators like Meles Zenawi.

The Ethiopian Television Network (ETN), the VOA and members of the Ethiopian media were present to provide news coverage at the rally,

At the end of the rally, Ato Fitsum Alemu, Ato Neamin Zeleke, Dr. Kassa Aylew, and Dr. Mekdes Befekdau Mr. John Wysham, head of Ethiopia Desk at the State Department, and handed him the letter addressed to Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State.

The letter urges the US government to hold the Meles Zenawi regime accountable for its widespread and gross violation of human rights against thousands of innocent civilians in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia as in other places of Ethiopia.

It also urges the US to send a fact finding mission to the region in order to conduct an investigation of the wide spread and systematic human rights violations by the security forces of the Meles regime, identify those who are directly involved, and ensure that they receive no assistance or training from the United States, as required under the “Leahy law”.