Deadly battle for quixotic prize: Vague promise of finding oil drives violence in Ethiopia, complicating a region already embroiled in civil war, as nation’s real natural gas reserves attract global attention
Chicago Tribune
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Petroleum nearly killed Eskedar (Eskinder?) Demissew. Or at least the illusion of it did. In the predawn gloom of a morning in April, insurgents rousted the stocky truck driver from his tent at a remote oil prospecting camp in Ethiopia’s Ogaden desert. They lined him up in the sand with other workers. And without further ceremony, they sprayed them with machine-gun fire.
Demissew survived, just barely, by playing dead. But 74 other people, including nine Chinese contractors, died in one of the worst attacks on an African oil facility in recent memory.
“I will never work in oil again,” Demissew said quietly at his tiny house in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where he was popping painkillers and hoping to regain full use of his nerve-damaged arms. “It isn’t worth it.”
Unfortunately, when it comes to getting shot over disputed energy resources, that’s especially true for the Ogaden, where little oil actually has been found.
Indeed, while lucrative pools of crude have inflamed conflicts in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, even the merest promise of oil wealth — most of it tragically overblown — is stoking violence in the arid wastes of eastern Ethiopia, one of the poorest corners of the world and home to a secessionist movement that has been bubbling for decades.
Rebels with the Ogaden National Liberation Front have added oil operations to their usual targets of army convoys and police stations in the Ogaden, warning all foreign companies not to steal “the mineral resources of our people” on pain of further guerrilla attacks. At the same time, Ethiopia’s government has assured exploration firms that recent security crackdowns in the region have again made prospecting safe. And local conspiracy theorists now hold that the ugly civil war in the Ogaden is heating up only because the U.S. and China are vying over its hydrocarbon riches.
All of which is belied by a startling fact: Today there isn’t a single functioning oil field in the Ogaden, a tract of scrubland the size of Nebraska near the Somalia border. Most of the wells drilled to date have been dry holes. Natural gas is another matter: Exploitable reserves abound. But even this relatively modest bonanza is many years away from profitable development, experts say, because of the area’s profound isolation and instability.
“You’ve heard about resource wars, right?” said a geologist in Ethiopia familiar with that nation’s energy potential. Asking not to be named because of the political sensitivity of the issue, he added, “Well, this one involves an unusual resource. It’s called imaginary oil.”
The main trouble in the Ogaden doesn’t involve squabbling over supplies of black gold.
Ogadeni insurgents have been battling for independence from Ethiopia since 1984, complaining of discrimination by the central government against the region’s Somali-speaking nomads.
In recent months the rebels have accused the federal army of mass rapes, torching villages and withholding food aid in the famine-prone region. Ethiopia angrily denies the charges.
But in response to the spectacular rebel attack on the Chinese-run Abole exploration project on April 24, some of the war’s bitterest rhetoric has involved the ownership of the Ogaden’s underground wealth. And grossly exaggerated notions regarding the size of that bounty — whether it be used to bankroll a future Ogaden state or alleviate poverty in a unified Ethiopia — have only complicated a seemingly intractable civil war, analysts say.
“It is my opinion that oil will eventually contribute significantly to the country’s economy,” Alemayehu Tegenu, Ethiopia’s minister of Mines and Energy, predicted in an interview. “We need three or four more years of exploration to fully understand our potential. After that, I see oil as a unifying force.”
But many residents of Ethiopia’s Ogaden beg to differ.
“The oil is under our land,” insisted Kadija, a wizened trader from the dusty Ogaden capital of Jijiga who was too worried about government reprisals to share her full name. “These foreign companies should be giving money to our Somali elders. They should be building schools here.”
In fact, there simply is no oil money to give out.
According to industry reports, some of the Ogaden’s rock formations match those found across the Red Sea in oil-sodden Saudi Arabia. But years of drilling, some by American companies, have proved disappointing. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says that Ethiopia can muster a paltry 428,000 barrels of estimated crude reserves — what neighboring Sudan exports every 24 hours.
The real prize in the poverty-stricken country seems to be natural gas, experts say. An estimated 4 trillion cubic feet worth of gas has drawn large companies such as Malaysia’s Petronas and Sweden’s Lundin to the volatile and nearly roadless Ogaden. Chinese subcontractors do much of the prospecting.
All the activity in the Ogaden is part of a new hunt for oil in Northeast Africa, industry analysts say.
Exploration projects are under way in such improbable oil sources as Uganda, Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea and even war-racked Somalia. Contrary to local gossip, the volumes of potential reserves involved haven’t attracted American or Chinese oil majors, which are wrestling for access to bigger subsurface treasures elsewhere in Africa, mainly Nigeria and Angola.
The snooping in Africa’s Horn is spurred mostly by energy nationalism locking up supplies on other continents, experts say. Yet that hasn’t stifled wild expectations that oil will yank some of the world’s poorest nations out of misery.
“It seems like a buzz, but we’re really just turning over stones at this stage,” said an executive in Addis Ababa who refused to be identified because Ogaden rebels were making death threats against some oil companies. “With Russia and the Middle East closed off to us, we’re working around the margins.”
Mitchell noted that the Falklands War between Britain and Argentina was stoked in part by murky reports of offshore oil — reserves that remain untapped to this day. And theoretical crude deposits in the high Arctic are now causing friction between Russia and its circumpolar neighbors, he said.
On Thursday, a Russian submarine dropped a flag onto the seabed at the North Pole in a gesture meant to strengthen its claim over potential oil supplies hidden away there. With global warming melting the northern ice cap, the Arctic is drawing the energy-hungry gaze of several nations.
In Ethiopia, Demissew, the wounded truck driver, said he could not care less whether his abandoned oil prospect produced anything. With three bullet holes in his body, he considered himself lucky to be alive. Most of his tent-mates, he said, were dead.
“Nobody told us the company had been warned by the rebels,” he said, cradling a useless arm in his lap.
Back in the Ogaden, meanwhile, industry sources said that Demissew’s former employers were already replacing the oil camp vehicles and generators destroyed during the rebel attack.
Hope and death spring eternal in the Ogaden, it seems, even when oil doesn’t.
By Mohamed Abdi Farah
(SomaliNet) Somalia’s government troops backed by Ethiopian [Woyanne] forces carried out massive security operations in southern part of the capital Mogadishu on Sunday, officials and residents said.
The forces raided houses and businesses in Hodan and Howlwadag districts arresting dozens of people, they have also discovered weapons including rifles.
Abdulahi Hassan Barise, a Somali police commander told reporters that the raid targeted what he called ‘the Islamist remnants’
“The security operations will be continued till the Islamist elements are cleared from the capital and now we are making progress in restoring peace and stability,” said Hassan.
The government forces have also suspended traffic movement during the operations, witnesses said.
“This morning, we could not get the civilian buses because the government soldiers have stopped,” Mustaf Osman, a resident in southern Mogadishu said.
The operations came amid escalating situation in the war ravaged capital Mogadishu as local insurgents carry out hit and run attacks on the government positions.
By Tom Porteous
Guardian
In June, the Ethiopian [Woyanne] government launched a major military campaign in the Ogaden, a sparsely populated and remote region on Ethiopia’s border with Somalia. The counter insurgency operation was aimed at eliminating the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a rebel group which has been fighting for years for self-determination for the Ogaden’s predominantly Somali population.
In less than two months, the Woyanne military campaign has triggered a serious humanitarian crisis. Human Rights Watch has learned that dozens of civilians have been killed in what appears to be a deliberate effort to mete out collective punishment against a civilian population suspected of sympathising with the rebels.
Villages have been attacked, sacked and burnt. Livestock – the lynchpin of the region’s pastoralist economy – have been confiscated or destroyed. A partial trade blockade has been imposed on the region leading to serious food shortages. Relatives of suspected rebels have been taken hostage. Thousands of civilians have been displaced, fleeing across the borders of Ethiopia into northern Kenya and Somaliland.
Last week, with little objection from the international community, the Woyanne government expelled from the Ogaden the International Committee of the Red Cross, one of the few neutral observers of the crisis left in the region.
This is not Darfur. But the situation in Ogaden follows a familiar pattern of a counter insurgency operation in which government forces show little regard for the safety of the civilian population and commit serious abuses, including deliberate attacks on civilians, mass displacement of populations and interference with humanitarian assistance.
Unlike in Darfur, however, the state that is perpetrating abuses against its people in Ogaden is a key western ally and recipient of large amounts of western aid. Furthermore the crisis in Ogaden is linked to a military intervention by the Woyanne regime of Ethiopia in Somalia that has been justified in terms of counter terrorism and is firmly supported by the United States and other western donors.
Ethiopia’s Woyanne regime has often justified military action in Somalia on grounds of cooperation between what it calls “terrorist” groups in Somalia and the rebellion in Ogaden. The ONLF certainly has strong ethnic and political links to Somali insurgents now fighting against the Woyanne military presence in Somalia. It may have decided to escalate its rebellion in Ogaden in response to Woyanne’s full-scale military intervention in Somalia in December last year.
Now there are reliable reports that, as a result of Woyanne military pressure inside Somalia, Somali insurgents including members the militant Islamist al-Shabaab have sought refuge in Ogaden where they could be regrouping. Thus instead of containing and calming the situation in Somalia, the actions of Woyanne’s forces there may well be exacerbating the conflict and regionalising it.
The emerging crisis in the Ogaden is indicative of an increasingly volatile political and military situation in the Horn of Africa. Predictably civilians are bearing the brunt of the crisis both in the Ogaden and in Somalia where hundreds of thousands have been displaced by fighting since the Woyanne intervention. Predictably human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war are being perpetrated by all sides. It could all get a lot worse, especially if it leads to a resumption of the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
So why isn’t the international community doing more to address this crisis. Hasn’t the UN being saying for years that crisis prevention is better than cure?
The EU and the United States have significant leverage over Woyanne in the form of foreign aid and political influence. They should use it instead of turning a blind eye to abuses carried out by the Ethiopian security forces in the name of counter terrorism.
Western support for Woyanne’s counter insurgency efforts in the Horn of Africa is not only morally wrong and riddled with double standards, it is also ineffective and counterproductive. It will lead to the escalation and regionalisation of the conflicts of the region and may well help to radicalise its large and young Muslim population.
New York (AP): Haile Gebrselassie won the New York City Half Marathon in 59 minutes, 24 seconds on Sunday, cruising away two-thirds through the race to win his eighth half marathon in eight attempts.
Gebrselassie, a two-time Olympic gold medalist for Ethiopia, pulled away from Abdi Abdirahman of the United States shortly after they emerged from Central Park along with two-time Boston Marathon champion Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya.
Hilda Kibet of Kenya won the women’s race in 1:10:32, outkicking defending champion Catherine Ndereba by 1.15 seconds. Nina Rillstone of New Zealand, a surprise leader until the last 500 meters when the two Kenyans passed her, was 3.75 back in third.
Near the 13-kilometer mark, the Somalia-born Abdirahman surged ahead to leave Cheruiyot behind, and then Gebrselassie left Abdirahman behind for the final eight kilometers of the race.
Gebrselassie appeared comfortable as he ran alone down the West Side highway. One fan near the finish at Battery Park on New York Harbor waved an Ethiopian flag in honor of Gebrselassie.
The temperature in Central Park was 70 degrees (21 Celsius) after a week of oppressive heat and humidity in New York.
Gebrselassie, who has won three marathons in the past two years, won gold in the 10,000 meters in Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000. His time was the second-fastest half marathon run in the United States, second only to his own 58:55 in Tempe, Arizona, last year.
Sport
By Wondimu Mekonnen
There is a disturbing new development in the premises of the Ethiopian Teachers Association (ETA) in Addis Ababa, this week. The time is a summer break for teachers in Ethiopia. Using this opportunity, the Addis Ababa branch of the ETA decided to hold a meeting to discuss how to carry of their professional duties in the forthcoming academic year, in the absence of the ETA-Addis Ababa chairman, Ato Kassahun Kebede, the victim of the Woyanne’s miscarriage of justice.
As soon as the delegates started arriving, the Woyanne Federal Police Force and undercover agents started detaining and searching them. In the process, the security men found in the bag of Ato Tesfaye Yirga, the Secretary General of the Addis Ababa branch of ETA, the Educational Internationale’s campaign cards, addressed to the leaders of respective countries to release imprisoned teachers in Ethiopia, Guatemala and Botswana. The Woyanne agents started freaking out as if they found secret weapon. They took away Ato Tesfaye Yirga to an unknown destination.
After arresting Tesfaye, the Federal Police prevented the delegates from holding any meeting any where. The delegates stayed in the cafeteria and waited to face all the harassments. In the meantime, the Woyanne agents went into the office and started harassing Ato Abate Angore, Woizero Elfinesh Demissie, Woizero Berhanework Zewdie and Ato Wassihun Melesse (all ETA Executive Board members), saying why they wouldn’t leave the country like their colleagues instead of staying in the country and disturbing the peace.
The ETA leaders were puzzled by such irresponsible comment from the Woyanne agents and simply ignored them. The premises of the ETA is surrounded by Woyanne agents as this report is written.
Ato Kassahun Kebede, chairman of the ETA’s Addis Ababa branch, had been released in April 2007 after being jailed for almost two and half years. Recently, the prosecutors appealed against his release and obtained a warrant to rearrest him. The Woyanne agents then went to his home and the ETA head office but he has eluded them. Kassahun has now disappeared and no one knows his whereabouts.
