The Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia: Mohamed Hussein heard the grenade explode and he froze. Hussein, 39, knew what was coming next, because he has been through it before: gunfire coming from every direction as soldiers frantically tried to kill the person who had thrown the weapon.
When the shots finally stopped, Hussein saw four bloodied corpses, all of them civilians caught in the crossfire. It’s a tragic, common story in this capital, where streets are marked with blood and the sight of burned out cars is common. Nearly 3,000 civilians have died since December as Islamic insurgents launched a guerrilla war against the government and its Ethiopian [Woyanne] military backers, human rights groups say.
“The whole time I was frozen in terror and shock,” Hussein said of the attack last month. “Government soldiers fired in every direction, killing four innocent people on the spot.”
The seemingly endless stream of death is shocking even in this bloodstained city: pregnant women, the elderly, entire families — all victims of Somalia’s devastating violence. Last month, five children who stopped to play with a land mine — apparently mistaking the device for a toy — were blown away when it detonated.
Somalia and Ethiopian Woyanne officials refused to say how many of their troops have been wounded or killed, and no other groups have compiled figures. The chaos makes counting difficult, but witness reports indicate the numbers of combatants killed are far fewer than the civilian casualties. Somali officials say they are desperately trying to pacify Mogadishu, but they need to wipe out insurgents.
Abdi Haji Gobdon, the government spokesman, refused further comment on civilian deaths.
John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, has said the fighting in the city has violated international humanitarian law. “When you have a pitched battle going on in a city full of civilians, that is not in accordance with the Geneva Conventions,” he told The Associated Press in May.
Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, then turned on each other. The U.N.-backed transitional government formed in 2004 has struggled to assert any real control.
A radical Islamic group with ties to al-Qaida ruled the capital and much of southern Somalia for six months last year, but they were driven out in December when Ethiopia’s Woyanne regime sent troops here. Remnants of the group have launched an Iraq-style insurgency, with near-daily roadside bombs, land mines and grenade attacks.
The attacks generally aim for Somali troops and their Woyanne allies. Yusuf Osman Hussein, a spokesman for Mogadishu police, said civilians are so often caught because officers and soldiers simply don’t know the people they’re targeting. The insurgents wear no uniforms.
“The attackers are in civilians clothes, so it would be difficult for the soldiers to recognize and chase them,” he said. “For their own defense they open fire, that is why the civilians are caught in the crossfire.”
He also said trained officers — unlike civilians — know how to recognize an imminent attack.
“The kind of bombs (insurgents) throw at the soldiers hiss seconds before they go off, and the soldiers immediately take positions and duck,” he said. “The untrained civilians are mainly caught.”
Ali Hassan, 44, said a roadside bomb went off near him recently, prompting a swift barrage of gunfire from soldiers.
“I was a breadwinner of large family before government soldiers crippled me,” said Hassan, 44. “I am always in a state of shock and sorrow, because I lost my precious leg. All this I blame on government soldiers.”
Sudan Ali Ahmed, chairman of Elman Human Rights, an independent Somali group, said 2,894 civilians have been killed since December. He said his organization collected the figures from hospitals, local residents and its own recording of burials in the Mogadishu.
A National Reconciliation Conference — which also has been the target of insurgents — has been going on since last month, but leaders of the Islamic group have not joined and are largely in hiding.
On Wednesday, officials said delegates at the reconciliation conference have signed a truce — but it does not include the Islamic militants who have been waging an insurgency.
The agreement was signed last week and took effect Aug. 1, which has now been designated a “national day of forgiveness,” Mohamed Ali Nur, Somalia’s ambassador to Kenya, said in Nairobi.
Nur did not say how the truce would be enforced, but said Somalia’s Islamic militants “are not for peace.”
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AP writers Salad Duhul in Mogadishu and Elizabeth A. Kennedy and Tom Maliti in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.
A six-member high-level delegation of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit) headed by Ato Hailu Shawel will depart Ethiopia for the United States on August 20, according to Ethiopian Review sources.
The delegates include Ato Hailu Shawel (president), Wzr Bertukan Mideksa (vice president), Dr Hailu Araya (spokesperson), Dr Berhanu Nega (Mayor of Addis Ababa), Ato Gizachew Shiferraw (executive committee member), and Ato Brook Kebede (executive committee member).
The Kinijit executive committee has also decided that the initial receiving of the delegation will be coordinated by a three-member team including Dr Alemayehu G. Mariam, Ato Tamagn Beyene, and Ato Solomon Alemu, with the collaboration and assistance of Kinijit North America.
The executive committee, in a letter sent out today (በአማርኛ, pdf), asked the Kinijit North America support groups to assist the three individuals in organizing Kinijit supporters and the Ethiopian community to provide a warm reception for the delegates when they arrive in Washington DC.
The delegation plans to visit several cities in the United States. Kinijit North America support groups are expected to take over the coordination of the tour following their initial arrival at the United States.
(Reuters) The Woyanne regime in Ethiopia said it had killed more than 500 rebels and captured 170 in the past two months during an offensive in the volatile but energy-rich Ogaden region bordering Somalia.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) dismissed the statement as an attempt by the Government to lull oil companies interested in the region into a “false sense of security”, and urged foreign firms to stay away.
The local president of Ogaden, Abdullahi Hassan Mohammed, said Ethiopian security forces had killed 502 ONLF fighters in a two-month military campaign against the “terrorists.”
“Rebel activities in the region have been eliminated,” he added.
But the ONLF said the Government was trying to hide the fact that it had lost control of Ogaden.
“Pursuing oil and natural gas exploration activities in Ogaden at this stage can only be characterised as gross corporate irresponsibility,” the rebels said.
“Recent claims that the Government has been able to realise military gains are designed to give a false sense of security to oil companies,” the ONLF added.
Also, an Ogaden-based rights group urged the US and the European Union to intervene to stop what it said were killings, rapes, torture and starvation carried out or caused by Ethiopian troops.
The Ogaden Human Rights Committee, which calls itself independent, urged the UN to censure Addis Ababa and to designate a safe haven for those fleeing “senseless carnage.”
“The Ethiopian Government should be held responsible for mass killings, disappearances, rape, arbitrary arrests, torture,” the group said.
Citing victims’ accounts, the group said it had documented 2395 extrajudicial killings, 1945 rapes and 3091 forced disappearances in the region since 1991, when the current government came to power.
“The government encourages, decorates and promotes violators to higher ranks,” the report said.
The Ethiopian Somali Advocacy Council (ESAC)
Washington, Dc
Press Release
The inhuman attack on a market and religious place, a church, in Jigjiga, in the capital of Somali Region shows that the authoritarian regime of Meles Zenawi is on his last leg. History has showed that the last resort of dictator is to use a tactic to diverting the attention from his horrendous and barbaric act. Meles Zenawi, who imposed Gestapo style of ruling on Ethiopian Somalis, is employed all kind of tactic to export his own internal crisis to another dimension of an ephemeral political element, terrorism.
A reliable resource from the capital of Somali Region has allegly indicated that the Ethiopian regime is the primary culprit of this barbaric acts. The Federal government of Ethiopia is blocking food and other basic necessities that the ordinary people are badly needed. Ethiopian TV has showed many innocent and poor young Ethiopian Somali rounded up in the name of fighting terrorism and destabilizing factors, but Meles Zenawi’s long repressive arm will not stop the aspiration of Ethiopian Somali.
As Boston Globe simply put in its editorial of this week, THE UNITED STATES is expanding its military presence in the Horn of Africa in an attempt to counteract terrorist groups in the region. But military activity is not the way to achieve that goal. Instead, the United States needs to put more effort into solving the outstanding political dispute there: the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, involving all Somalis clan in peace and reconciliation in Somalia, and allowing freedom of speech of all Ethiopian political organizations.
As one Somali elderly eloquently sum up, “we thought that the demise of cold war will herald a new democracy and rule of law in Horn of Africa, but we, Somalis, are condemned to live in constant war by simply being a neighbor of Ethiopia that is ruled by Meles Zenawi.”
It is not altogether difficult to understand those who rhapsodize on democracy as the preferred form of government in the contemporary world. The collapse of the ‘totalitarian’ regimes in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s thereby heralding ballot-box democracy, freedom of the press, an independent judiciary, the right to be different and all the other appurtenances of democratic praxis, would seem to have confirmed Churchill’s euphoria.
If for the better part of the 20th century, we had lived in a divided world of competing ideologies, we were henceforth to be treated to a monochromatic diet of liberal democracy and human rights, symbolized by periodic elections based on free enterprise capitalism. But, the new component, terrorism has ushered a hot war in this era of globalization and the dictator regime of Meles Zenawi is using its utmost this component in Horn of Africa.
Meles regime has been ruling for 17 years. It is about time that he relinquishes the power peacefully. In 2005, Kinijit has defeated Meles political accolade in Addis Ababa and his new chieftain of kilil will not silence the genuine struggle of Ethiopian Somalis, Oromos, Afar and Gambelas. A real federal system that allows regional autonomy is badly needed, not the one party system ruling of EPRDF.
The Western world and particularly the United States can help by putting more pressure on Ethiopia, a de facto ally and the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. We, Ethiopian Somali Advocacy Council urge our call to all international peace loving people that Meles Regime has to stop harassing innocent people in the regional Somali State.
Abdul S. Ibrahim (President)
[email protected]
The Ethiopian Somali Advocacy Council (ESAC) is a non-partisan organization that promotes democracy, good governance and human rights in the Horn of Africa region. 1340 W Street, NW, Washington, Dc 20009, Telephone 202-204-2758, Fax number 202-588-0559 www.galbeed.com
ONLF Press Release
Recent sensational claims by the Woyanne regime in Ethiopia that it has been able to realize military gains in Ogaden have no basis in reality and are designed to give a false sense of security to oil companies being urged
by the regime not to abandon their exploration plans in Ogaden.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) would like to make clear that our forces are largely intact,
operational and effective. We also wish to confirm that the regime of Melez Zenawi does not have effective
control of Ogaden, a factor which has contributed to their policy of denying entry to international journalists and expulsion of the ICRC.
Pursuing oil and natural gas exploration activities in Ogaden at this stage can only be characterized as
gross corporate irresponsibility given the war crimes being committed against our civilian population.
The ONLF will continue to uphold the principle of justice, democracy and respect for human rights before oil exploration in Ogaden and as such, we will not allow this regime to benefit from our peoples natural resources.
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Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)
