Somali insurgents assassinated a local official on Thursday and attacked Ethiopian [Woyanne] troops overnight just hours after a second attempt to start a peace conference was postponed, residents said.
Islamist-led insurgents have been fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian [Woyanne] allies since the New Year
when they were ousted from Mogadishu in a two-week offensive.
Large-scale battles have given way to guerrilla-style hits, and the overnight strikes on the Ethiopian [Woyanne] troop positions were the heaviest attacks since last month.
Witnesses said two civilians died when the attackers simultaneously opened fire and launched rocket-propelled grenades around midnight at three positions held by the Ethiopian troops, in Somalia to support the interim government.
“It was a brief but heavy exchange,” resident Ibrahim Maalim said. “Gunmen simultaneously attacked Ethiopian [Woyanne] troops staying at the old pasta factory, the stadium and the former defense headquarters.”
He said he saw one man killed near the pasta factory, and residents said a woman was also killed close to the stadium. Heavily-armed Ethiopian troops sealed off the whole area.
A Somali jihadist group calling itself the Young Mujahideen Movement claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Ethiopians, saying it suffered no casualties but “it is expected there were some killed and wounded among the enemy ranks.”
The Web posting could not be immediately verified but was on a site used by al Qaeda and other Islamists.
A Reuters correspondent heard heavy explosions and automatic fire that lit up the night sky during the
assaults.
“BLOOD EVERYWHERE”
“The gunmen hurled two hand grenades at Ethiopian [Woyanne] troops staying at the pasta factory,” said Ruqia Ali, who lives nearby. “The troops returned fire. It was a nightmare. A heavy exchange ensued. I had to hide under the bed.”
In a separate attack on Thursday morning, two men with pistols shot dead a district commissioner from the
Shibis area of north Mogadishu, locals said. “He was walking alone when they shot him several times. I saw his body lying on the ground, with blood everywhere,” resident Abdullahi Ahmed said.
The flare-up of violence — which also included a grenade attack on Ethiopian trucks that killed one civilian on Wednesday — followed the one-month postponement of a peace conference that had been due to start on Thursday.
The government-organized and internationally backed National Reconciliation Conference, which was first postponed from April, had been intended to bring together in Mogadishu 1,355 delegates from different clans and factions across Somalia.
The meeting was delayed because many delegates have not yet been chosen and the venue, a rundown and
bullet-scarred former police compound, is still not ready.
Foreign diplomats had pinned their hopes on the conference as the best way to try to secure lasting peace in Somalia, which has been in anarchy since the ousting of a dictator in 1991.
The Somali government had no official comment on the latest violence in Mogadishu. But a security source,
who asked not to be named, said authorities had arrested several people for the attacks on the Ethiopian troops.
The recent beheading of three Ethiopian nationals by the Saudi government was a sad moment for all Ethiopians and for all others who believe in the goodness of all human beings. But for some of us, the event was more sad because of the misplaced emotional outburst directed against the religion of Islam rather that the perpetrators of the act. In order to have a rational discussion on the matter, we need to put the facts in order before we jump on the bandwagon of bashing Arabs and the religion of Islam. Although the view most Ethiopians have about Saudi Arabia largely depends on their religious background and personal experiences, it will help a great deal to understand what’s going on if we laid out some basic realities about the country and its rulers.
1. Saudi Arabia is a country where the Sharia Law as prescribed by the Quran is put into practice which includes beheading and severing limbs on those who committed the particular crime. And if we read what the Quran says about capital punishment, we will find that there is no ambiguity in it interpretation. A verse from the Quran on the subject states “….If anyone kills a person – unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he killed all people. And if anyone saves a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all people” (Qur’an 5:32). And like most other faiths, Islam holds life sacred and again quoting from the Qu’ran, it is stated “…take not life, which God has made sacred, except by way of justice and law (Qur’an 6:151). And as such, according to Islamic law (in the first verse quoted above), the following two crimes can be punishable by death; intentional murder and spreading mischief in the land. It is very clear that the Qur’an legislates the death penalty for murder, but forgiveness and compassion are strongly encouraged. The murder victim’s family is given a choice to either insist on the death penalty, or to pardon the perpetrator and accept monetary compensation for their loss (2:178).
2. The court system in Saudi Arabia is as backward as one can imagine with nepotism and favoritism being the basic tenet. The law that uphold the belief that one is innocent until proven guilty, which is a basic tenet of Islam, is only paid liservice and is rarely practiced.
Having laid out the above stated realities, it would help us to examine the justness of the two cases that led to the loss of three Ethiopian lives. The Islamic penal code strictly adheres that “ … one must be properly convicted in an Islamic court of law before the punishment can be meted out. The severity of the punishment requires that very strict evidence standards must be met before a conviction is found. The court also has flexibility to order less than the ultimate punishment (for example, imposing fines or prison sentences), on a case-by-case basis.” People who follow different faiths can argue about the merits of the law as stated in the Quran, but that is a subject for a different time. For our purpose, it is sufficient to point out the basis of the law of the land. The basis of the law, in this case, the Qu’ran also orders to have ample evidence, and if convicted to show leniency in carrying out the sentence, which bring us to our second point. Does the Saudi court system strictly adhere to these principles and guidelines as stipulated in the Qu’ran? No, not by a long shot.
If there is a country that is corrupt and rotten to the core, it is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is a land that is basically ruled by a system of family relationships. Most everyone in important government and ruling positions are related to each other. One would hardly be pressed to find an iota of democratic practices in the land. Since it is impossible to find any semblance of democracy in any area of the royal ruling system, why would anyone expect to find justice and fairness in the court system? Every aspect of life depends on the whims of individuals who are related to the royal family, which number in the thousands, who sit in judgment of the whole population, both locals and foreigners. The point I am trying to make is that we should be very clear in looking where the problem lies in our particular cases. The root cause of the problem is the system of government and its everyday practices that filters through all its agencies that adversely affect all the population. The case of the three Ethiopian lives that we have lost should be seen in this light. Some of our fellow Ethiopians find it easier to vent their anger on the religion of Islam, and by extension on all Arabs, the majority of whom are followers of Isalm; but let us not forget that it is not only Ethiopians who were made to suffer under this totalitarian system, but people of other nations including Muslims and Arabs too.
There are many countries that have the death sentence as a final solution in criminal cases in the world including the United States. Discussing the pros and cons of capital punishment and weather if it is has any place in this day and age is a topic for another time. But taking the realities of the land into consideration, is it possible to say that all those who have been convicted in the Saudi legal system and put under the sword got a fair trial and representation? From what we know about the facts about Saudi Arabia, it does not take much to conclude that the court system, among many others, is neither fair nor just, but quite the opposite. The governments of many countries whose nationals got the short end of the Saudi court system have given up any hopes of getting fair trail and are in a state desperation. Since the Ethiopian government does not much care about its national, its silence in these particular cases is not surprising, though unconscionable.
If given the opportunity, the majority of the population in our country would rather leave its native land in search of a better life. Ethiopia has become a land of extremes when it comes to the issue of the economy. A handful of people who rub shoulders with the government make millions oblivious to the living conditions of millions of others. And the vast majority of our population suffers in abject misery coupled with a number of communicable diseases to top it all. Since the majority of the population has given any hope of seeing any tangible improvement in its living conditions, they have opted to take any kind of actions that promises to alleviate its conditions. Unfortunately, the only option that made itself available to the vast majority of the population is leaving ones beloved country and relatives and face what life has in store for them in a foreign land. Because of that, we have Ethiopians scattered all over the globe in search of a better life albeit sometimes with tragic consequences. And the government’s reactions in these and other similar episodes borders on total neglect for the welfare of its citizens. It seems that the only objective of the government is to facilitate the migration of thousands of Ethiopians into foreign lands so that it can be the beneficiary of the foreign currency that the poor souls pour into the country as well as the reduction of people from the unemployment line. It is indeed a win-win solution for the government without showing any responsibility and protection for the welfare of the people whom it is supposed to serve.
In a period of nine years from 1992-2201, a little more than 6,000 female domestic workers left for the Gulf states, according to the statistics provided by the government. But these figures take into consideration only those who have registered through legal employment agencies which accounts for only twenty percent of the migrants. It is estimated that more than twenty thousand Ethiopian domestic workers are serving in Lebanon alone. A conservative rough estimate of Ethiopians who have left their country is somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000. Ethiopian Airlines has found a new source of business transporting plane loads of these poor souls to different destinations in the Gulf states and neighboring countries two or three times a week. For further reading in the lives of Ethiopian domestic workers, please follow the link to read a brief chronicle in an article written by Bathseba H. Belai for The Reporter newspasper.
In order to address the issue properly and find a lasting solution, it is incumbent upon all of us to analyze the root cause of the problem. A great deal of the culpability rests on the shoulders of the government which is busy sending thousands of innocent souls into countries they are barely familiar with. A friend of mine told me a sad incident that he encountered at Bole Airport in his recent trip to Addis, which I find to support the rgument that I am advancing of the carelessness on the part of the government in not giving proper orientation to these Ethiopian domestic workers. While filling out exit forms at Bole on his way to the US, he said a woman who was on her way to a certain Gulf state approached him to help her fill out her forms. He said he started asking her all the pertinent information that was required and wrote it down accordingly. And then when he asked her the next question in regards to her destination, the woman was at a loss for words; she said she does not remember what she had been told by the employment agency. Although he was also in a hurry not to miss his flight because of all kinds of delays, he took the trouble of going through her documents to find out where it was. And I told him the obvious fact that the woman had made a decision that any place is better than her own homeland because of the sad reality of our country.
People who chose to support the government will cite all kinds of meaningless statistics, some made up and others distorted to fit ones objectives, in order to propagate what the government has done to improve the economy and as a result the lives of its citizens. But almost all Ethiopians know that this is empty nothing. The sad reality of our country and people is that it is meaningless to even record the unemployment rate because more than half the working population is out of work. And because of poor economic policies, which was forcefully pushed on our throats by IMF and the World Bank in total collaboration with the present regime, the devaluation of the currency has thrown a vast majority of the population in deep poverty. Ours is a county of two extremes where we have a handful of millionaires on the one hand and a sea of poverty for the rest, with no middle class to speak of. If it was not for the transfer of funds from the Ethiopian diaspora, it is unthinkable what life would look like in Ethiopia. Although it has been said time and again, we can not escape from the fact that we need a change from top down. A change in government that serves the wishes of its subjects and respects all norms of civilized behavior and democracy as its base is the only answer to solve the myriads of problems popping up all over the place. A government that is not accountable to anyone and engages in a senseless war that divides communities and countries, not to speak of the senselessly wasted human lives and resources, has got to go and every effort should be targeted towards that endeavor.
Projecting ones nightmares onto others will only lead to insanity and ultimate doom
The Treason charge and conviction once again proves the politics of projection that has been consistently applied on the people of Ethiopia by the TPLF. However, such defenses will not help the TPLF defend itself, except forcing it to try to flee from its horrendous acts hastening its and ultimate doom.
Elementary psychology tells us that failure to adjust to challenging situations lead to certain behaviors marking defective personality. These Defense mechanisms are created when one rejects reality or the emerging change. Defenses such as denial, repression and projection can be detrimental if used as long-term response mechanisms.
Unraveling the underlying behavior of the TPLF regime points to a recurring pattern of psychological defense mechanisms or projection. The TPLF has been using projection- blaming its fault on the opposition- as one of its key policies.
The TPLF policy of projection is a manifestation of its leaders’ psychotic behavior- Delusional Projection of psychotic proportions- manifested by frank delusions and paranoia about external reality, usually of a hostile nature. TPLF leaders still see the Ethiopian people and Ethiopia as a threat to their own paranoid ambitions and psychosis- maintain indefinite control of power and government structures to achieve their untimate goal of dividing and ruling Ethiopia.
TPLF leaders’ operation in the realm of the immoral is a sign of deep psychological derangement. Who could have thought by inciting violence and jailing innocent kinijit leaders, TPLF would reverse the democratic process in Ethiopia at a time when opposition leaders seemed to be on the strongest bargaining position? The answer lies in the realm of the immoral, viciousness and the rules of the jungle.
I think, if one wants to understand the TPLF junta, one has to look for immoral, not moral and ethical cues. Practical examples of such immorality include their accusation of opposition leaders and their supporters of charges of genocide and treason, narrow nationalism or ethnism or ethno-nationalism, inciting armed rebellion, breaking the constitutional order and lying.
The TPLF leadership and cadres are responsible for all the mess in Ethiopia. The experience and the reality of the last 16 years in Ethiopia proved this beyond doubt. They are the ones who contemplated genocidal intent against those who did not vote for them. They are the ones who committed treason against Ethiopia and Ethiopians. They are the ones who strongly advocated for narrow nationalism in Ethiopia. They are the ones who instigated armed rebellion by rigging people’s votes and breaking the constitutional order to attempt to change the course of democracy and freedom in Ethiopia.
At the heart of projection is the behaviour of compulsive lying. TPLF has been, still is, lying to the Ethiopian people. They accuse opposition of lying when in fact they are the ones who lied and are lying. This is another proof of the politics of political projection by the TPLF mafia.
The motivations behind the politics of projection are clear. The TPLF leaders always attempt to hide from the truth because truth threatens them psychologically. They deny the truth and project their lies on the opposition hoping to remove their psychological guilt and insanity.
More importantly, such TPLF psychological defenses are pre-emptive measures aimed at blocking any likely course of action that TPLF leaders perceive the opposition might take, but which they can not stand to hear or see happening. Cases in point include alleged treason and inciting armed rebellion.
Defense mechanisms may help to silence subconscious fears and pathogenic anxiety for a time, but cannot deal with long-term psychological problems or lead to long-term solutions. One has to face the reality to be able to cope with psychological problems in the long-term. Such is true of the TPLF leadership that is trying to avoid reality all the time by blaming the opposition for its vicious faults and paranoid tendencies and ambitions.
The result of such behaviour is obviously insanity and ultimate doom. The junta cannot cheat the nation anymore. TPLF could not outgrow its guerrilla behaviour even after 16 years as government. It could not mature, as it has failed to adjust to the expectations of both the Ethiopian people, the international community, and the 21-st century reality. TPLF will continue to flee from its own shadow and its own paranoid fear and guilt, which will only lead to more viciousness and insanity. Such feelings of psychological inadequacy in TPLF leaders’ minds cannot lead to long-term adjustment and harmony with the Ethiopian people and their legitmate representatives. It will only hasten their viciousness and ultimate doom.
On 12 June 2007, the UN’s Human Rights Council issued a damning report on widespread human rights violations against the Somali population between December 2006 and April 2007. What is not clear from this report is who are the perpetrators committing these crimes against humanity. In this report, there are victims but no perpetrators! This is strange. So, how did the UN’s Human Rights Council has collected its evidence? What method has it used to find such mass gross human rights violations, including rape, looting, mass killing and 400,000 internally displaced people, indiscriminate shelling of heavy populated neighborhoods, but was not able to find who the are people responsible for these gross human rights violations? Thus, we have victims but no predators, victimizers, rapists, looters! How can this report be taken seriously?
Well, I, also have been collecting evidence on the gross human rights violations in Somalia and my sources are more persuasive than the ones used by the UN’ Human Rights Council. My sources are, primarily widely and publicly accessible media reports on the human rights violations in Somalia sine Zinawi’s Tigre army and the warlords have invaded Somalia with US backing. Let me quote from the UN’s Human Rights Council’s report first and then compare it to my sources.
“The human right situation in Somalia is deteriorating as hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee their homes while others are being subject to threats, rape and violence in the war-torn East African nation, a United Nations expert said today. Ghanim Alnajjar, the Independent Expert on the situation of Human Rights in Somalia, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the current circumstances in the country are much worse than they were when he last briefed the 47-member body in September 2006.”
Note, in the above quote, we have not been told who is ‘forcing’ hundreds of thousands of civilians out of their homes, nor are we told who is ‘threatening,’ raping Somali women? While the UN has difficult naming who are the people responsible for the current unspeakable suffering in Somalia, the international media has no such difficulties. Here is how the British newspaper, the Observer has described what the UN’s Human Rights Council can only call “human rights situation.”
“Somalia’s recent agonies are a direct consequence of the American-backed invasion by Ethiopia four months ago to topple Mogadishu’s Islamic Courts Union and install the weak and largely secular transitional federal government.”
Observer’s reporter names who are the people doing raping, looting and menacing the Somalis population: The Ethiopian (Woyanne) soldiers and the warlords.
“There are already signs that the transitional federal government is using aid as a weapon – restricting food aid deliveries to hundreds of thousands of civilians, who are also being charged to shelter under trees on the road out of the capital to Afgoye, 30km away. According to the European Union’s head of humanitarian aid, Louis Michel, Somalis fleeing the fighting have endured ‘systematic looting, extortion and rape by uniformed troops’ – only the Ethiopian and government forces have uniforms. And last week uniformed troops commandeered 12 trucks and helped themselves to tonnes of sugar and computers from the recently opened Coca-Cola factory in Mogadishu. Only after aggressive intervention from the Americans and EU did the government agree to allow enough food for 32,000, less than a tenth of the number in need, through its roadblocks heading west on Friday.” – The Observer, April 29, 2007
Again, in the UN report on the human rights situation in Somalia, things get curious because the report does not make judicious point on why the violence in Somalia as has increased significantly since December, 2006. This is because, in this report there is no mention of the December 2006 Ethiopian (Woyanne) invasion of Somalia and that April 2007 was bloodiest month of Somalia because of crackdown by the occupation forces against local resistance forces. The whole notion of Somalia as an occupied country appears nowhere in this report. If fact, there is a misleading suggestion that these atrocities were part of ongoing old civil war in Somalia!
The Observer reports: “There have been widespread reports of indiscriminate artillery fire in the capital Mogadishu between December 2006 and April 2007, he said, and the wounded were blocked from fleeing or receiving aid and protection while the delivery of urgent relief supplies was impeded. Thousands of people are estimated to have been killed or injured during that period, and the UN has assessed that approximately 400,000 people had been forced from their homes in Mogadishu by the violence between February and May of this year, he noted.”
Again, the international media has no trouble either noting Somalia as an occupied country and naming the chief instigators of these mass human rights violations. Thus, in 18 May 2007, Newsweek front page feature report “Disaster in Somalia,” has no problem naming the warlords Gedi and Yusuf as the primary cause of the current crisis in Somalia. It also had no trouble showing how transitional federal government has been obstructing and undermining humanitarian efforts of the international relief workers to reach hundred of thousands of internally displaces refugees in Somalia.
“How bad is it in Somalia? Bad enough that people fleeing the capital have been reduced to renting trees for shelter. It’s the sort of thing that happens when drug-addled warlords roam the countryside, imposing taxes of 50 percent on aid recipients. And the sort of thing to be expected of a government whose prime minister, Ali Mohamad Gedi, has publicly accused the United Nations agency feeding the country of spreading cholera along with food deliveries. And that’s the internationally recognized government, which enjoys U.S. support, although it is widely unpopular in southern Somalia and the capital, Mogadishu. That’s not surprising, since the prime minister is from a clan that’s hostile to the clan that dominates the capital, and the president, Abdulahi Yusuf, is from Puntland, in northern Somalia, a breakaway region that is best known as the homeland of Somalia’s pirates, who once again are on the prowl, bedeviling aid shipments even further.” – Newsweek, May 18, 2007
Even though the the UN’s Human Rights Council briefing on Somalia’s human rights situation, was based on commissioned research by independent expert, it did not mention much report phenomenon of warlords menacing the civilians or obstructing aide delivers the displaced civilian population. Things just happens, it seems.
“Additionally, Mr. Alnajjar said that there are 400,000 more who are internally displaced and spread out throughout Somalia. These internally displaced persons (IDPs) exposed to being threatened, intimidated, robbed, assaulted and raped, and many of them are forced to take refuge in crowded camps where there is a paucity of water, food, sanitation, basic health services and shelter. Widespread harassment continued to plague human rights defenders, he said, often leading to targeted killings of such defenders, journalists, aid workers and public figures. Due to the violence, women and girls are now more vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence, the Independent Expert said, and some children have been recruited as soldiers while school enrolment has dipped considerably.”– UN New, June 12, 2007
Why has the UN failed to name whose responsible for the death and destruction in Somalia? Perhaps, the UN has an emotive reason not to name Zinawi, Gedi and Yusuf as the ones wrecking death and destruction in Somalia? Perhaps, the UN is mindful that it did back the US sponsorship of the overthrow of Union of Islamic Court? Perhaps, the UN does not dare admit that continues backing the very warlords regime of TFG, as corrupt, violent and menacing and naming them will entail naming the UN’s own complicity of what is taking place in Somalia? Again, I will refer to mainstream media reporting out of Somalia to show the media has no difficult pointing the finger at the warlords and Zinawi’s occupation armies as main aggressors and violators of the human rights of the civilian population in Somalia.
“In the past month Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia’s deeply unpopular Government have pounded residential areas controlled by insurgents. The civilian death toll has reached four figures. Thousands more have been maimed and injured. An estimated 320,000 inhabitants — nearly a third of Mogadishu’s population — have fled in terror. In five days spent in and around a city reverberating with the constant thud of mortars and bursts of gunfire, The Times saw burnt-out slums, huge refugee encampments, hospitals overflowing with the sick and injured, and enough misery to last a lifetime. It is hard to overstate the suffering of this forgotten country. Last year Somalia tasted peace for the first time in 15 years of bloody civil war when the Islamic Courts movement drove out the warlords who had made their country a byword for anarchy and mayhem. But Washington saw the Courts as a new Taleban sympathetic to al-Qaeda, so it conspired with neighbouring Ethiopia to remove them as part of its War on Terror.” – Times, April 26, 2007
It is pertinent to ask why is the UN’s Council of Human Rights avoiding naming the warlords of the transitional government and the Zinawi’s occupying Tigre army or even the UIC insurgents and clan militias? After all, the UN has authorized US sponsorship of the Ethiopian invasion of peaceful Somalia in the name of war against terror. Thus, in the place of clarity and judicious placing the blame of who is causing the current mayhem in Somalia, the Zinawi’s Tigre army and with the thuggish warlords of Gedi and Yusuf, the UN’s Human Rights Council is resorting to silence, obfuscation and doublespeak in the faces of utter death and destruction in Somalia. We also know that there are no Al Qaida terrorists and training camps in Somalia, despite Bush’s continues insistence there are Al Qaida terrorists in Somalia. A recently published report by the U.S. Military’ Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point concludes that Al Qaida has failed to gain a foothold in Somalia.
Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda has failed for more than a decade to establish an operational base in Somalia due to the country’s austere environment and inhospitable clans, a new U.S. military report says. Fears that Somalia, on the Horn of Africa and accessible by land and sea, is ripe to become an al Qaeda hub have so far failed to materialize. “Al Qaeda found more adversity than success in Somalia,” states the report by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point “In order to project power, al Qaeda needed to be able to promote its ideology, gain an operational safe haven, manipulate underlying conditions to secure popular support and have adequate financing for continued operations. It achieved none of these objectives. – Scarborugh, Rowan, May 1, 2007
It is equally pertinent to ask why 6 days after the European Parliament has issued a damning communiqué of Meles Zinawi’s gross human rights violations against his own citizens, that he name has not been mentioned either on the 6 June communiqué by the Contact Group for Somalia or the 12 June 2007 Press report on human rights situation in Somalia by the UN’s Council for Human Rights? In its 5 June 2007 communiqué, European Parliament states that, even though it was accused of committing gross human rights violation, Zinawi’s government did not bother sending representative to attend the EU Parliament meeting on Ethiopia’s human rights situation.
“The lack of democracy and the large-scale human rights violations in Ethiopia were condemned by MEPs on Tuesday at a hearing held by the EP’s Development Committee and the Human Rights Subcommittee. The Ethiopian Government’s refusal to send a representative to speak to MEPs was also criticised. “The human rights situation has deteriorated since 2005 with the imprisonment of members of the opposition and human rights defenders who still await trial”, said Josep Borrell (PES, ES), chair of the Development Committee, at the start of the meeting. The former President of the European Parliament expressed disappointment at the refusal to attend the meeting by the ambassador of Ethiopia to the EU, Ato Berhane Gebre-Christos. In a letter addressed to MEPs, the Ethiopian foreign minister stated that the invitation could not be accepted, partly because “the list of invited speakers to this hearing does not indicate any intention to try and reach a balanced or accurate assessment of the stage of democratisation in Ethiopia today.” – European Parliament, June 5, 2007
In fact, is an illegitimate leaders and usurper of political power by arresting, killing and maiming his political opponents; ruthlessness which he duplicated in Somalia.
Referring to the parliamentary elections of May 2005, which were marred by fraud, the chair of the Human Rights Subcommittee, Flautre (Greens/EFA, FR), emphasised “the importance of envisaging follow-ups to election observations”. “By acting as if there was nothing wrong, we strip the European Union’s policy in this area of all credibility”, she said. Judge Woldemichael Meshesha Damtto, former vice-chair of the commission of inquiry set up following the protests which took place in June and October 2005 against the election results, said the members of the commission had been pressed by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to alter their findings. “The civilians used no weapons, the forces used excessive violence, 193 people were killed, 760 were injured and 20,000 were arrested and held in military camps”, he said. – European Parliament, June 5, 2007
Thus, rather than facing crude human rights record of Zinawi’ and thuggish Somali warlords currently in power, thanks to the Bush administration, Security Council and African Union, the UN’s Human Rights Council is using spin, omission and obfuscation tactics to manage what is nothing short than a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Somalia. It is no secrete that the Bush administration is determined to turn Somalia to a client state. Thus, Zinawi’s capacity for ruthlessness is now being deployed to kill, terrorize and maim the Somali population. As a result, in the face of overwhelming unmitigated death and destruction against the civilian population in Somalia since the arrival of Zinawi’s Tigre army and the Somali thuggish warlords of Gedi and Yusuf, the UN officials can only resort to vague language, deliberate obfuscation, double speak and silence. It is only in this obscene context that we can make sense the UN recommendation for giving more powers and moral legitimacy to the warlord regime of Gedi and Yusuf and for be silent about Ethiopia’s illegal occupation of Somalia.
In the coming few days, Kinijit International Leadership, the group that has been delegated to represent the top leaders of the Coalition for Unity & Democracy Party (Kinijit), will elect a new chairman and restructure itself.
Ever since this committee was formed in May 2006, it had faced a series of internal and external challenges, mainly due to severe lack of leadership. Five months into its existence, four of its members led by the chairman split and claimed that the committee doesn’t exist any more, and that the jailed leaders in Qaliti did not authorize it. Several months later, after exposing the leaders in Qaliti to extreme dangers and hardships, finally, last weekend, an agreement was reached between the splinter group and the rest of the committee members to keep the committee united. All of them now publicly acknowledge that Kinijit International is the legitimate and sole representative of the jailed leaders. This is after 4 months of mediation by two senior members of the Kinijit Central Council who were sent to Washington DC by the leaders in Qaliti to resolve the crisis. Meanwhile, as we all know, the struggle has suffered an incalculable damage.
So what is next?
What is important now is how will Kinijit move forward under the leadership of its International Committee. One of the most important first steps should be electing a strong, competent individual to the chairmanship position.
The restructuring and election of top officials that will take place in the next few days will determine the very survival of Kinijit as a viable political party. Although under the existing rule committee members elect the top executives among themselves, considering the seriousness of the decision, Kinijit members and supporters around the world must be given a chance to air their views.
As a supporter of Kinijit, Ethiopian Review would like to make its own recommendations:
1- The two mediators who are currently in Washington DC to conduct the elections.
2- Establish a set of qualifications.
3- Qualifications to the chairmanship position to include knowledge of Ethiopian and world politics, strong no-nonsense result-oriented leadership style, commitment to work full time, and the ability to articulate Kinijit’s policies and plans.
To elect some one who doesn’t meet these qualifications is tantamount to passing a death sentence on Kinijit, while Woyanne is preparing to do the same thing on its top leaders.
Members of the Kinijit International Leadership have so far failed their leaders in Qaliti, and most importantly, they failed the people of Ethiopia. They have shown themselves to be “ye ahya bal…” by failing to rescue their leaders who are currently being brutalized by Woyanne thugs.
The Kinijit International Leadership Committee is provided with another chance to lead, and for its members to redeem themselves. Please do the right thing.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s (EOTC) Holy Synod issued a statement strongly denouncing the court verdict on Monday, June 11, against opposition leaders in Ethiopia as “an injustice and an obstacle to peace.”
The Holy Synod’s stated that the charges against the opposition leaders, journalists and humanitarians had been “fabricated” and the trial had been secretive and unfair. It added that the Holy Synod’s position in this regard is supported by governments and organizations around the world.
