The Woyanne dictatorship has warned Human Rights Watch to stop reporting abuses in Ethiopia and Somalia, including war crimes. The following is a report by the Woyanne-controlled ‘Ethiopian News Agency.’
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(ENA) Ethiopia has urged on Human Rights Watch the need to take upon itself to refrain from being catalyst, wittingly or otherwise, to forces that prove themselves unheeding to human rights.

In a statement it issued on Saturday, the Ministry of Information said Human Rights Watch has launched persistent campaigns against Ethiopia and other African countries in the disguise of human rights violations. “It has been preparing as part of this campaign to issue a statement with an aim of victimizing Ethiopia.”

The latest campaign by Human Rights Watch revolves around the usual fabrication of a claim that Ethiopia has committed a war crime in Somalia, and that the world showed indifference, the statement said.

It goes without saying that Somalia has suffered from anarchy for nearly two decades, during which time and in the absence of any functional government, Somalis paid dearly in the face of turmoil and in the hands of gangs and those who could muster some muscle to exercise local power, the statement noted.

The wounds left in Somalia by the anarchy and civil strife is still fresh to remind how the international community failed the state of Somalia all through those years of civil ordeals, the statement said.

It said, during those long years when Somalis were suffering untold suffering and paying sacrifices with their lives, Human Rights Watch had never raised its voice calling for an end to the injustices Somalis had been burdened with. “What was Human Rights Watch doing then,” it asks, “during those decades when the hopes of Somalis for good governance and development had very much been eroded and they had been made to suffer at the hands of the benefiting warlords.”

Human Rights Watch did not seem to have eyes to see and ears to hear when, to add insult on injury, the extremist forces came with their coercive and tyrannical rule whereby they persecute Somalis for watching movie, the statement said.

Human Rights Watch has now come out of the blue with recriminations and finger pointing at Ethiopia and the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia at this time when Somalia has come back on the road to peace and stability.

The statement recalled also that those extremist forces had gone farther than exercising their tyranny in Somalia to have expressed time and again their resolve and determination to bring all the Somali speaking peoples in Eastern Africa under their hegemony.

Human Rights Watch turned a blind eye also to the unprovoked aggressions of the extremist forces against Ethiopia, the country which they see their prime enemy.

Ethiopia strongly held that the people in Somalia shouldered the brunt of the anarchy that had prevailed in their country, the statement said. But, it would surely have spread to other societies in the Horn of Africa, it indicated.

Ethiopia has been firm on its stance that any international effort aimed at supporting Somalia should take off from an honest bid to extricate Somalis from the turmoil and warlordism, it said. “Ethiopia has also been unequivocal on its natural right to defend itself from aggressions it was beginning to suffer at the hands of the extremists in Somalia and stooges harbored there.”

Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia, which only followed a request by the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, was grounded on these two basic matters, the statement noted. “And it paid off now that Somalia is well on the road to sustainable peace and security.”

The recent peace and reconciliation conference ongoing in Somalia, but shows this trend, it added. This being the fact, however, Human Rights Watch has been busy as of late to incriminate Ethiopia and the TFG as has been catalyzed by groups and organizations linked directly to the deposed UIC (Union of Islamic Courts), it said.

These groups and organizations operate under orders from UIC leaders now in their hideouts, it indicated. Human Rights Watch would do better trying to get to the bottom of things before making allegations on the basis of information obtained from such sources, that cannot in any way claim impartiality, it said. Directly or indirectly, Human Rights Watch has thus been being instrument to the propaganda of the UIC, the statement said.

It would be self-defeating for Human Rights Watch trying to incriminate Ethiopia on the basis of fabrications by those groups who refuse to see through the window of hope now created in Somalia.

Therefore, Ethiopia would like to urge on the Human Rights Watch the wisdom of refraining from being a catalyst, wittingly or otherwise, to these forces that proved unheeding to human rights.