ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopian rebels who killed 74 people and seized seven Chinese workers in a raid on an oilfield said on Thursday they had no plans to hold the hostages or to attack other foreign companies.
A London-based spokesman of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) said the group had warned investors the area was a war zone and that it expected the conflict to escalate.
“We have no new plans to attack foreign companies at the moment,” Abdirahman Mohammed Mahdi told Reuters by telephone.
“But our general policy is that foreigners are not allowed to explore for oil or gas in the Ogaden. Any company which does that will be responsible for what happens.”
The separatist rebels, who have been fighting the government since 1984, stormed the oilfield in Ethiopia’s barren southeast region on Tuesday, killing 65 locals and 9 Chinese in one of the worst attacks yet on Beijing’s growing interests in Africa.
Mahdi said the ONLF was “terribly sorry” for the deaths of the Chinese, who he said were caught in the crossfire during a mission the guerrillas had planned for six months. And he said the group was trying to return the seven Chinese it had seized.
“We do not consider them hostages. We took them away for their own safety. We are trying to contact the appropriate authorities, the Red Cross or whoever, to return them,” he said.
ARMY THREATENED
He warned the military against launching a rescue mission.
“They will be responsible for any debacle that happens,” Mahdi said. “That would be a most foolish thing to do.”
The ONLF has repeatedly told energy companies they will not allow oil and gas exploration in the area as long as the Ogaden people are “denied their rights to self-determination”.
Last year it told a state-run Indian company vying for a gas concession to drop its plans.
Mahdi said the rebels had captured lots of weapons in recent operations against Ethiopian troops and he expected the fighting in Ogaden to intensify as the military retaliated.
“We control the countryside … Ethiopian army camps will be attacked wherever they are,” he said.
China has condemned the killings of staff working for Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, part of the larger China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec).
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said China had sent foreign and commerce ministry officials as well as Sinopec representatives to the Horn of Africa nation.
Chinese diplomats were also helping efforts to secure the release of the kidnapped staff, he said, adding that China was evaluating the safety of its workers overseas.
Ethiopia renewed its vow to hunt down the rebels it says are “terrorists” backed by its arch-foe and regional rival Eritrea.
Asmara denies the allegations and accuses Addis Ababa of trying to divert attention from the two nations’ border dispute.
“The defence forces are in hot pursuit to apprehend ONLF criminals who committed this heinous crime,” Ethiopian Foreign Affairs spokesman Ambassador Soloman Abebe told Reuters.
“We will bring them to justice.”
(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing)