The Melez Zenawi regime in Ethiopia and his ruling Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) are currently engaged in a systematic and deliberate campaign of violence against the people of Ogaden which can only be described as war crimes. These war crimes include diverting humanitarian assistance for use by the regimes armed forces in Ogaden, the deliberate burning of villages, arbitrary arrests, extra-judicial killings, torture, a blockade on food aid as well as other commercial goods and other forms of collective punishment against the civilian population of Ogaden.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) wishes to inform the international community that the war crimes being committed in Ogaden by the current Ethiopian regime have now reached alarming levels warranting international intervention in the form of a United Nations mandated fact finding mission. The United Nations bears a particular responsibility to investigate war crimes in Ogaden given recent reports that its humanitarian assistance is deliberately being diverted to armed forces and militias responsible for these war crimes.

In that context, the ONLF appeals to General-Secretary Ban Ki-Moon to realize a fact finding mission and take all necessary steps to ensure that humanitarian assistance to the people of Ogaden provided by the United Nations actually reaches the people of Ogaden. The ONLF wishes to affirm to the international community that if there is no immediate intervention in the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Ogaden, there will be a man made famine created by the current regime of Melez Zenawi.

The ONLF will cooperate with and welcome all humanitarian agencies and human rights monitors who choose to visit Ogaden.

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Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)