Ogaden Online Editorial

Back in June 2008 this year, the internationally recognized human rights organization known as the Human Rights Watch (HRW) published the most detailed, first hand account of the type of atrocities and genocide carried out by the dictatorial regime in Ethiopian against the Ogaden civilians throughout Ogaden.

Among the HRW report’s findings and the indisputable facts submitted as evidence of Ethiopian army brutality were satellite imagery of before and after still images of the areas that were burned down.

Not only did the HRW report condemn the brutality and genocide carried out by the current Ethiopian regime led by Mr. Meles Zenawi, but it also, for the first time, put on the spotlight those Western countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America that perpetually supported the regime in Ethiopia under myriad pretexts.

At the time of the HRW publication and up until yesterday, the bevy of Ethiopian spokesman could not refute a single fact mentioned in the HRW’s report. Almost five months to the day when the widely received HRW report about Zenawi’s genocide in Ogaden were first published, the clique in Addis Ababa finally responded with what it billed as an ‘independent’ report.

This report is the furthest to anything a sane human being would call ‘independent’; hence let us call a spade a spade.

First, the report’s author is none other than a former Tigrian People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) foot soldier. In his own words, Mr. Lisanne Yohannes claims to be a “former high school Chemistry (sic) teacher, a Biochemistry (M.Sc.) graduate [who] then went on to join the TPLF to fight against the defunct regime, the DERG .”

Second, Mr. Yohannes is currently the chairman of a company based in Addis Ababa called GeoSpace Analytical Services (GeoSAS). In the ‘about us’ section of the GeoSAS website, the brief biography about Mr. Yohannes posits in part, “[that] in 1991 he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as Chief of Cabinet of the Minister, Chairman of the Horn of Africa Standing Committee on Somalia, Special Envoy of the President of the Transitional Government/ Prime Minister of the FDRE and Head of Mission in PRC.”

How can a former TPLF soldier and an ex-Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs employee be tasked with investigating the very crimes that this ministry, the TPLF cadre, and the clique in Addis Ababa are accused of?

We, the Ogaden Editorial Board, do not know of any biochemistry training that could give Mr. Yohannes expertise in investigating the type of gross human rights violations and genocide that the Ethiopian regime is accused of in the HRW report published back in June this year.

We do not know of any objectivity scale that would confer credibility of independency on a former TPLF soldier such as Mr. Yohannes. We, further, have no idea how crass the Ethiopian regime is to present a former employee of the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an ‘independent’ expert who can refute the facts supported among other things by satellite imagery that was provided by the HRW back in June.

What we do know for a fact is the very expertise that Mr. Yohannes’ GeoSAS company claims to have is the only piece of technology that could either corroborate what was presented in the HRW report or refute it conclusively. The fact Mr. Yohannes did not present evidence from the satellites he claims to employ in his company’s consulting engagements is proof enough that he had nothing to bring to the fore to refute the irrefutable, genocidal findings detailed in the HRW report.

Accusing the HRW of using ‘flawed methodology and unsubstantiated allegation’ is one thing, but using only victim interview as an investigative methodology with the presence of the very individuals and TPLF militias that were accused of having carried out genocide in Ogaden is nothing short of a badly executed public relations stunt on behalf of the TPLF regime.

The world community should not only forcefully act on the HRW report, but it should also prosecute individuals such as Yohannes who not only condone the genocidal policies of the TPLF regime, but also act as propaganda mouthpieces for such a despicable regime.

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Ogaden Online Editorial
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