By Barry Malone
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – An Ethiopian rebel group on Wednesday warned international oil companies against exploring in a region of the Horn of Africa nation where the rebels attacked a Chinese-run field in 2007 killing 74 people.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) — whose hundreds of fighters seek autonomy for the ethnically Somali Ogaden region — said oil firms had cleared some 1,600 square kilometers, displacing locals and destroying vegetation.
“Certain multinational oil corporations are intent on exploiting Ogaden fossil fuel resources in alliance with the current Ethiopian regime that is committing genocide and war crimes in Ogaden,” it said in an emailed statement.
“Besides destroying the livelihood of the rural population in the affected areas, these companies are filling the coffers of this regime and financing its criminal activities in occupied Ogaden.”
The group has in the past directly threatened Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned company, which is one of more than a dozen international explorers hunting for oil and gas in Ethiopia.
Cash-strapped Ethiopia is keen to attract foreign investors and denies the rebels are still a threat.
Ethiopian forces launched an assault against the rebels — who have been fighting for more than twenty years — after the 2007 attack on an exploration field owned by a subsidiary of Sinopec, China’s biggest refiner and petrochemicals producer.
Addis Ababa now says the ONLF has been defeated.
The rebel statement said any firm working in the region would be considered complicit in crimes by Ethiopia’s military.
“In order to accommodate these immoral and gluttonous rushes for oil in Ogaden, Ethiopia killed, raped and illegally detained thousands of Ogaden civilian and imposed economic and aid blockade at a time of when there was a full-blown drought in the Ogaden,” it said.
“ONLF has persistently warned these unscrupulous multinational companies and their governments … the ONLF has been left no alternative but to take all measures necessary to protect the inalienable rights of the Ogaden people.”
Ethiopian officials deny rights abuses in the Ogaden region, saying the rebels are the ones perpetrating crimes there on locals.
(Editing by Matthew Jones)
8 thoughts on “Ethiopian rebel group threatens foreign oil companies”
I respectfully disagree with folks in ONLF. Cessation is out of question. Then why disrupt progress? I am sure people in the Ogaden will benefit from such development in the long run. You should let it develop now but continue your struggle. Sooner of later, the goons from Adwa will be relegated to the dustbin of history and the people of Ethiopia including you will have a day in justice, equal rights and peace. If you think you are following the path our Eritrean brothers and sisters took for more than 30 years until independence, you should know that you have chosen the wrong path that will take you to nowhere. Eritrean reality was diametrically different from what the reality was in the Ogaden. It is like comparing apples to oranges. We can go into a routine of compare and contrast. Come come!!! Come together with us. We share your hurts and the agony of being dominated and oppressed. We are sensible and enlightened people like Elias, Sileshi, I, Issas, Afars, Amharas, Tigrayans, Kafichos, Gumuz, My dear brother Mr. Obang Metho and the wonderful Anuaks, my kin and kits of the Oromo nation and many, many more kind-hearted people of Ethiopia. Come on home and let’s build a house where we as a people are not afraid of the government but we are feared by it instead for a simple fact that we possess a very powerful and a telling ballot that no one will ever be able to take it away from us. Insha Allah!!!!
ATo Gabra, i dont think ogaden people will benefit from it.
Gabra, you are too innocent or must be Weyane agent or opportunist,. Did you ask what happen to the 193 ethiopians who murdered by Agazi Militia cold blood in Addis?
Did you ask why tens of thousands of political prisoners including Birtukan Mideksa still in ethiopia who are languising without justice?
do you want to live in such country where there is no freedom and justice? So why dont you go yourself?
To comment #1 (gabra)
In Ethiopias constitution article#39 is clearly stipulated that “Self determination upto secession”. So it is applied to ONLF too, although it is counter productive. They can’t join you to develop and explore oil at the current situation when the people of Ogaden are hunted and exterminated by Woyane. These people have been marginalized for decades. Crime against humanity is in progress in that area. Do not try to be Mahatma Ghandi with woyane.
Gabra,
You used to claim that you are an Oromo. Do you then know the meaning of the following Oromo proverb? “ibiddi abbaa irra bu’e guba”. If you know the meaning, you do not advocate the exploration of oil in Ogaden under killer TPLF. If the exploration is successful, the revenue collected from such schemes is used to purchase napalm and other weapons to exterminate Oromo and Ogadenis, while at the same time developing Tigray. The so called development for us has been elusive for almost 120 years. The development we know in our region is arrest, torture, killing and genocide.
I want due justice for what I am being wrongfully labeled by Werqitu and merebai above. Is there anywhere in my comment I called for working with the barbaric Weyane? Any where? The unity I proposed is with people and groups like Elias, Sileshi, I, Issas, Afars, Amharas, Tigrayans, Kafichos, Gumuz, My dear brother Mr. Obang Metho and the wonderful Anuaks, my kin and kits of the Oromo nation and many, many more kind-hearted people of Ethiopia. Are these Weyane’s? I don’t think so. May be you know what I don’t. Why are we so fast in name calling and hurling insults at innocent individuals? I did not say anything derogatory about those who are politically clean. The only strong statement I used was against narrow nationalism in that it stinks to high heaven. I used even stronger terms against chauvinism before. It is a fact that narrow nationalism stings so bad it gags the buzzard!!!(Thanks Dan Rather) Even worse…it committed untold atrocities against humanity in Rwanda, Burundi, Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, Croatia, Malaysia, Nigeria and in almost every corner of the globe. It has erred a lot and barbarically even in our own country. In stead flapping your narrow minded mouth against me, you should hurry up and shake hands with brothers and sisters like Elias, Sileshi, I, Issas, Afars, Amharas, Tigrayans, Kafichos, Gumuz, My dear brother Mr. Obang Metho and the wonderful Anuaks, my kin and kits of the Oromo nation and many, many more kind-hearted people of Ethiopia. I am not Gandhi but a concerned Ethiopian. Get it? Ethiopian!!!
My brothers and sisters you tell me who have been immune from woyanne’s gross crime except the woyannes and thier Hodam clicks.If we keep on talking this article#39 shit we will be wicking our unity we are all victimes of wayanne.Let us Focus on what we can do,to bring them to justice in the language they understood.Our Unity is Our bigest Asset.When Our house is on fire destroying what our fathers build for us Rule #1 is to put out the fire.then we will build our house together at mutual respect and punish those who have been machineries to the woyanne’s killing machine.
Gabra,
If you don’t have any sensible idea to contribute, it is worthwhile to know that you are not obliged to comment on any given discussion topic just for the sake it.
From your comment, it is clear that you either have no slightest idea of what has been happening in Ogaden and Ethiopia at large eversince TPLF came to power or you are simply blinded by your allegiance to the Woyanes.
It would be better to know your target audience.
You said: “Then why disrupt progress? I am sure people in the Ogaden will benefit from such development in the long run.” I thought by now even the most loyal and die-hard TPLF cadres would be ashamed to utter word “progress” in a sentence when discussing about Ethiopian affairs.
It`s very discouraging to see people such as Gabra who think that the Woyannes are misunderstood by the Ogadenis and others in Ethiopia.More than three hundred villages have been burned to the ground in Ogaden by Meles and his TPLF army and Ogaden is a closed place to the rest of the world.The Ogadenis cann`t allow the Woyannes to enrich themselves from their oil.The geedy oil COs.should know that Meles is not the rightful owner of the oil.