The past 30 years have been remarkable for many developing countries while disappointing for countries such as Ethiopia. In the late 1970s China emerged from Cultural Revolution and embarked on reform. As a result more than 1 billion people – one fifth of earth’s population have experienced a period of sustained growth and poverty reduction that has no precedent in human history. In the 1980’s 400 million people in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union embarked on transitions from Command economy towards democracy and market economy. India’s growth began to pick up in the 1980’s, and in the early 1990’s, it initiated far-reaching economic change. Today India is seeing growth and poverty reduction on a scale that would have been dismissed as highly improbable by many analysts in the 1970s and 1980s. Thirty years ago just one-third of the World’s countries could be described as democratic now that share is closer to two thirds… Read more >>
Berhanu Nega reassures Kinijit supporters
Addis Ababa Mayor-Elect, Dr Berhanu Nega, gave reassurances to Kinijit supporters today that the party will take the necessary steps to get back on the right track.
In a 2-hour interview with the Ethiopian Current Affairs Discussion Forum (ECADF), Dr Berhanu said that his colleagues, members of the Kinijit central council, must start to enforce the party’s rules and procedures in order fix the ongoing leadership crisis and start addressing the real issues affecting the people of Ethiopia, such as the atrocities being committed against our people in the Ogaden region.
Dr Berthanu expressed regret that the crisis inside the Kinijit leadership has completely paralyzed the party to the point that it is not able to even speak out against the rape, torture and killing of fellow Ethiopians in Ogaden.
Many Kinijit supporters expressed concern that the top leadership is allowing anarchy to prevail in the party by hesitating to enforce its decisions and the organization’s basic rules.
Dr Berhanu said that a party that does not respect its own rule cannot be taken seriously by any one. He said, let do what we have to. “Let’s move forward.”
The interview was broadcast live by the Ethiopian Review Radio Network.
We will try to post the recorded audio of the interview shortly.
Human Rights Watch
UN Security Council should press Ethiopian Woyanne and Somalia to put an end to abuses
(New York, December 3, 2007) – The United Nations Security Council should urgently press the Ethiopian Woyanne and Somali governments to end the grave human rights abuses that are fueling the worsening humanitarian crisis in Somalia and eastern Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, Human Rights Watch said today.
On December 3, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, concludes a one-week visit to the Horn of Africa. Last month, UN officials described the situation in Somalia as the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.
“The humanitarian suffering we see in Somalia and Ethiopia’s Somali region is the direct result of serious international crimes,” said Steve Crawshaw, UN advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Concerned governments and the UN Security Council need to press Ethiopia and Somalia to end these abuses and ensure accountability for their armed forces.”
The conflict in Somalia has steadily intensified since last December, when Ethiopian Woyanne forces supporting the Somali Transitional Federal Government ousted the Islamic Courts Union from Mogadishu. Ethiopian Woyanne forces quickly came under attack from a growing coalition of insurgent groups, and fighting in March and April 2007 forced as many as 400,000 residents of the city to flee their homes.
Both sides were responsible for war crimes during the fighting, including deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
Clashes intensified again in November, driving tens of thousands of people from Mogadishu yet again. The November clashes have been marked by increasing brutality toward civilians, including summary executions and enforced disappearances of individuals by Ethiopian Woyanne forces.
Aid workers and the media have also been targeted by the warring parties. Eight journalists have been killed this year. The transitional Somali government has repeatedly shut down media outlets. Three of Mogadishu’s independent radio stations and a human rights organization remain closed.
The Somali government has repeatedly harassed and obstructed humanitarian organizations trying to assist the displaced population. The mayor of Mogadishu, former warlord Mohamed Dheere, detained the head of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) for five days in October, causing WFP to temporarily suspend food distributions to at least 75,000 people.
“Key governments are ignoring the rampant human rights abuses in Somalia at their own peril,” said Crawshaw. “Their action is a catastrophe for victims today, and it’s also likely to radicalize younger Somalis and create tomorrow’s fighters.”
The conflict in Somalia is also affecting the region. Since early this year, part of eastern Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State known as the Ogaden, which borders Somalia, has experienced a sharp escalation in a longstanding conflict between the Ethiopian Woyanne government and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a rebel movement that claims it is fighting for self-determination for the region.
The ONLF attacked a Chinese oil installation in April, and Ethiopian Woyanne military forces launched a brutal crackdown in June, targeting civilians perceived to be supporting the ONLF in five key zones of Somali Region. ONLF forces have also been responsible for abuses, particularly killings of suspected collaborators and the use of anti-vehicle mines in indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
Human Rights Watch has found that Ethiopian Woyanne troops have used scorched-earth tactics to depopulate the rural areas and terrorize rural communities in the Somali Region. Their crimes include the burning of villages, public summary executions, sexual violence against women and girls, and confiscation of livestock – the main asset of the predominantly pastoralist population.
The Ethiopian Woyanne government imposed a trade and commercial blockade on much of the affected region and expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross from Ethiopia’s Somali Region in July.
Although Ethiopia and the UN recently signed an agreement to increase humanitarian assistance to civilians in the country’s Somali Region, there are credible reports of ongoing abuses.
Human Rights Watch welcomed UN Under-Secretary-General John Holmes’s visit to the region and his call for further investigation of abuses in the Ogaden.
“Improving civilian access to humanitarian assistance in the Ogaden is a positive step,” said Crawshaw. “But unless the Ethiopian government lifts the trade blockade, ends these appalling crimes, and ensures accountability, it will be too little, too late.”
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Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA
PRESS RELEASE
The executive committees of Ethiopian Democratic Action League (Tegbar) and the Ethiopian People Patriotic Front’s Youth League (Youth League) have agreed to merge their organizations and create a unified political movement.
The primary objective of the merged group is to enable the people of Ethiopia defend ourselves from the repression and atrocities of the ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (Woyanne) by any means available to us.
To this end, the new movement seeks to work with all Ethiopian organizations who have similar objectives.
The movement fully supports and stands in solidarity with the newly created alliance, Unity of Ethiopians for Democratic Change (UEDC).
The movement strives to establish mutually beneficial relations with the Government of Eritrea, and other neighboring countries, as well as the European Union and U.S. Government, particularly the U.S. Congress and European Parliament, which appear to be sympathetic to the plight of the people of Ethiopia.
The movement’s leading demand is: The illegitimate, criminal regime of Meles Zenawi must be removed and be brought to justice!
The name of the new organization and its program will be released after ratification by members.
For further info:
[email protected]
www.tegbar.org
By Steve Bloomfield, Africa Correspondent
The Independent
Ethiopia’s remote Ogaden region is facing a “major humanitarian crisis”, a senior United Nations official has warned. Speaking after a visit to the region, Sir John Holmes, the UN’s emergency relief co-ordinator, said the Ogaden’s 4.5 million inhabitants urgently need aid to be delivered.
The Ogaden region, which borders Somalia, has been the scene of a violent insurgency by rebels calling for greater autonomy. Ethiopia’s government has responded with a brutal counter-insurgency operation which has paralysed trade and forced thousands to flee their homes.
Refugees who have fled the Ogaden to Somalia told The Independent in October that Ethiopian soldiers are burning villages, raping women and killing civilians as part of a systematic campaign to drive them from their homes.
They said dozens of villages had been destroyed and accused the Ethiopian government of forcibly starving its own people by preventing food convoys reaching villages and destroying crops and livestock.
Sir John called on Ethiopia’s Prime Minister dictator, Meles Zenawi, to sanction an independent investigation of alleged human rights abuses carried out by Ethiopian troops.
“The Prime Minister dictator told me that counter-insurgency operations are not picnics,” Sir John said. “But the allegations must be taken seriously and there must be an independent investigation.”
“He did not say yes. But he did not say no either.”
Human rights investigators are gathering evidence of widespread use of rape, with women reporting gang-rapes by up to a dozen soldiers. In some villages men have been abducted at night, their dead bodies dumped in the village the next morning.
A UN team visited the Ogaden in October to assess the humanitarian situation, following reports of abuses. Aid agencies and journalists had been banned from the region. Since then Ethiopia has allowed the UN’s humanitarian office to set up two bases within the region and has allowed aid agencies to return.
Following his trip to Ethiopia, Sir John travelled to Sudan where he visited the El-Neem camp in Darfur that is home to more than 50,000 people who fled attacks by Sudanese troops and janjaweed militia.
In recent weeks Sudan has stepped up efforts to close down the camps, which President Omar al-Bashir called “museums of despair”. Rebel groups have been arming supporters inside the camps, although pro-government groups have also been given weapons by Khartoum.
The Wali of South Darfur has threatened to begin forcibly disarming rebel supporters in Kalma camp, near the town of Nyala, this month.
Sir John said the camps have become “tinderboxes”, warning that any moves to forcibly disarm people inside the camps would be “very dangerous”.
“The wish to make camps safer places is entirely legitimate,” he said, “but the government must be extremely careful. It could be very counter-productive.”
The UN itself has come under fire from senior aid officials working in Darfur for not dealing strongly enough with the Khartoum government.
