በሚሊኒየሙ ምክንያት ድሆቹን ጠራርገው ከአዲስ አበባ ሊያስወጧቸው ነው ማለትን አንብቤ አዝኜ የኔን ድምጽ የድሆቹ አድርጌ ወዲያውኑ የገጠምኩት ነው:: ለማንበብ እዚህ ላይ ይጫኑ::

በሚሊኒየሙ ምክንያት ድሆቹን ጠራርገው ከአዲስ አበባ ሊያስወጧቸው ነው ማለትን አንብቤ አዝኜ የኔን ድምጽ የድሆቹ አድርጌ ወዲያውኑ የገጠምኩት ነው:: ለማንበብ እዚህ ላይ ይጫኑ::

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — A human rights organisation in Ethiopia said Wednesday that the government has been holding three of its members without charge for more than two weeks in the west of the country.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) said three members of its branch in Nekemte, 220 kilometres (135 miles) west of Addis Ababa, were detained on August 23 after police came to search their homes.

“Three of our members in Nekemte have been detained without an arrest warrant for 16 days,” Tesfaye Desalegn, the group’s public relations officer, told AFP.

“They were looking for arms and papers they claimed were used to incite violence, but even though nothing was found, they haven’t released or tried them yet,” he added.

Regional security officials have not responded to appeals, he added.

In a statement, the group urged the government to either release the three or press charges against them.

Nekemte lies in the Oromo region, where rebels have been battling the government for years.

By Xan Rice in Nairobi
The Guardian

A humanitarian crisis has developed in Ethiopia’s remote Ogaden region, where government [Woyanne] forces are trying to quell a rebel insurgency, according to a leading international aid agency.

Médecins Sans Frontières said 400,000 people, including thousands forcibly displaced when their villages were burned down, had little or no access to medicine due to a government-installed blockade.

MSF said that following an exploratory mission to Ogaden in July which revealed a “deeply precarious situation”, repeated requests to work in the worst hit areas have been denied by both regional authorities and the government in Addis Abada.

“We were told that we could only begin work once ‘operations’ were finished,” said Loris De Filippi, Ethiopia coordinator for MSF. “We said that humanitarian aid is not about putting flowers on graves, but they just ignored us.”

The government Woyanne denies creating no-go zones anywhere in the country. But six weeks ago it expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross from Ogaden and has refused to let the organisation resume its work. Journalists are barred from visiting “for their own safety”.

The army crackdown began in earnest in June, shortly after rebels from the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration facility, killing 74 people, including nine Chinese workers.

The ONLF, described by the government as terrorists, says it is fighting for greater autonomy for the region’s people, who are mainly ethnic Somalis, and will not allow their natural resources to be exploited until this happens.

The raid and other attacks on civilians attracted international condemnation. But the Ethiopian government’s Woyanne’s response has drawn even more criticism. In early July, a Human Rights Watch report accused the army of forcibly displacing thousands of civilians, and included eyewitness accounts of soldiers torching homes, property and food stocks. The report said the government had imposed a trade blockade to force civilians from rural areas to larger towns, and so deny the rebels a support base.

Accounts from MSF staff, who held a press conference in neighbouring Kenya yesterday to protest about the Ethiopian government’s denial of access to Ogaden, appeared to corroborate the reports.

“We saw about 30 villages that had been burned by armed groups or simply abandoned,” Mr De Filippi said. “There were a few donkeys carrying water when normally there would have been hundreds of commercial trucks.”

Aid workers also reported seeing soldiers chasing women and children away from wells where they were drawing water. Mr De Filippi said the government Woyanne had refused even to allow MSF a window of 24 hours to take drugs to an area called Fiq, which has not received medical supplies for six months.

The United Nations has sent a fact-finding team to the region, but it remains unclear whether it will be allowed to visit the worst affected areas.

This captivating 13-page article in Amharic by Tegaye Yifter asks whose blood Zenawi’s “democratic revolution” will spill next.

የሚቀጥለው ደም…

ከጠጋዬ ይፍጠር

የመለስ ዜናዊ ነጻ አውጭ “አብዮት” — ደም የተገበረበት አብዮት — በእርግጥ አመለጣቸው:: ምክንያቱም የሚቀጥለው “ደም” የሌላ ሰው ሊሆን አይችልምና! … ለመቀጠል እዚህ ይጫኑ continue reading here.

By Andrew Cawthorne

NAIROBI (Reuters) – A senior Somali Islamist leader said on Tuesday the Islamic Courts movement ousted from Mogadishu in a brief war at the end of 2006 remained unbroken and better-supported than before among the population.

“The movement is intact. The leadership is still there. Many of them are inside the country, in Mogadishu and elsewhere, in hiding. Others are abroad,” said Ibrahim Hussein Adow, foreign affairs pointman for the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC).

Adow, who has made Yemen his home in exile, said Somalis had seen the contrast between violence by the Ethiopian military backing Somalia’s interim government, and the stability the Courts brought during their six-month rule of the south in 2006.

“When the Islamic Courts came in, things changed. Tribes were united, the port and airport opened, weapons were collected, we even stopped piracy,” he said by telephone during a trip to Doha.

“The movement changed people’s lives for the better…The Ethiopians  Woyannes and Transitional Federal Government have created violence and genocide…So the support for the (Islamic Courts) movement is more than before.” Many in Mogadishu and elsewhere in south Somalia credited the Islamists last year for bringing peace to areas knowing little but warlord rule and anarchy since 1991, when the Horn of Africa nation descended into chaos with the fall of a dictator.

But Somalis, who are generally moderate Muslims, also complained of hardline practices by the SICC such as enforcing dress codes and banning public viewing of films.

Addis Ababa Woyanne sent thousands of troops into Somalia to help the interim government of President Abdullahi Yusuf drive the Islamists out of power at the New Year, scattering their fighters around the south and sending leaders into hiding.

But some Islamist fighters regrouped to spearhead an insurgency against the Ethiopian Woyanne troops and government.

“It is not the Islamic Courts organising this, but the population organising itself,” Adow said of the daily attacks.

“Ethiopians Woyannes killed so many people with their indiscriminate bombing and their tanks. Their violence is behind the problem, they have alienated the population.”

Adow said the recent National Reconciliation Conference in Mogadishu was a failure as it was run by the Ethiopians Woyanne and government, and never intended to bring opponents on board.

A U.S.-educated lecturer in education and international affairs, Adow, in his mid-fifties, said he advocated peaceful engagement of all the Somali factions at a neutral venue.

“We will go anywhere, provided talks are inclusive, there is an independent body present, and the place is safe,” he said.