Before dawn this morning At 0430 AM local time in Ogaden, the ’ Dufaan’ commando unit of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) conducted a military operation in the vicinity of Obala, 30km North-West of Degah-Bur in in Northern Ogaden. The operation targeted 3 military units of the TPLF regime who were guarding an oil exploration field. Exploration activities at the field began recently following an agreement between the Ethiopian government and a Chinese company.
As part of this agreement large areas inhabited by ethnic Somalis were cleared with civilians being forcefully removed from their homes by Ethiopian troops. In addition, Ethiopian forces closed off a large area denying the local nomadic population their traditional grazing areas in order to establish a security perimeter guarded by Ethiopian troops for the oil facility.
TPLF forces in Obala have now been wiped out with many having surrendered to ONLF commandos. Nearly 400 Ethiopian troops have been wounded or killed. Explosions caused by munitions during the battle resulted in the death of a handful of Chinese oil workers. The oil facility itself has been completely destroyed.
ONLF forces rounding up Ethiopian military prisoners following the battle came across 6 Chinese workers. They have been removed from the battlefield for their own safety and are being treated well.
The ONLF has stated on numerous occasions that we will not allow the mineral resources of our people to be exploited by this regime or any firm that it enters into an illegal contract with so long as the people of Ogaden are denied their rights to self-determination.
By refusing to discuss a comprehensive political solution to the Ogaden issue in a neutral country and in the presence of a third party, the TPLF regime has made clear its intention to continue to pursue a military solution in Ogaden. As such, we wish to reaffirm to the international community that the Ogaden region continues to be a battle zone between armed forces of the current TPLF led regime and our liberation forces. It is not a safe environment for any oil exploration to occur.
The ONLF has informed the Chinese government in the past that it would be unwise to pursue discussions with the TPLF as it was not in a position to guarantee the safety of any firm operating in Ogaden nor was it in a position to enter into contracts with foreign companies for Oil exploration in Ogaden. Unfortunately this warning fell on deaf ears.
We urge all international oil companies to refrain from entering into agreements with the Ethiopian government as it is not in effective control of the Ogaden despite the claims it makes.
Oil investments in Ogaden will result in a similar loss for any firm that believes assurances of security it receives from the Ethiopian government which has never been in effective control of Ogaden
More than 16 people were killed and dozens more were wounded in the port city of Kismayu, 500 km south of the capital Mogadishu, Monday after a heavy gun battle between rival clans, Majegten and Marehan, took place in the town. Shabelle reporter in Kismayu, Mohammed Ahmed, said the fighting stopped around 2:00 PM local time as the town fell into the hands of Marehan militias.
The rival clans fighting in Kismayu have long been challenging over the leadership of the town since contingents of Ethiopian troops deserted the town in mid February.
Somali Prime Minister, Ali Mohammed Gedi, who held a press conference in the capital Monday pointed out that the fighting in Kismayu, was organized in Mogadishu. “The fighting in Kismayu was orchestrated by the terrorists in Mogadishu and the current fighting in the capital and the other hostilities that took place between Puntland and Somaliland were also linked to terrorism organized by the terrorists based in Mogadishu,” he said.
The fighting comes as the deadliest battle rages in the capital for the fifth straight day. More than 400 people, most of them civilians who were caught between the cross-fire of the rocket explosions, are believed to have died, while more than 1,000 were wounded, according to hospital sources.
Witnesses told Shabelle that government troops that hail form the rival clan Marehan, took off their military dresses and joined the militias that took control of the port town near the Kenyan border.
(SomaliNet) At least 20 people mostly civilians have been killed and more than 40 others were wounded in a renewed fighting that raged in the Somalia capital Mogadishu overnight, local medical sources said on Wednesday – the anticipated hopes dashed out with crisis worsening.
The latest fighting came when Islamic insurgents attacked a convoy of Ethiopian [Woyanne] forces that were passing Wardhigley neighborhood south of the capital.
Heavy artillery weapons were haphazardly exchanged by the rival sides as deafening sound of weapons could be heard throughout the city. The clashes which lasted for several hours started around 8:30pm local time.
During the fighting, many residents fled their homes fearing that the fighting could escalate to an all out war.
Most of the civilians were either killed or injured by mortar and artillery fires that slammed onto their houses.
Some of the fired shells hit the biggest market in Somalia, Bakara Market in Mogadishu, killing two persons and injuring four. The bombing of the market mounted a grow concern to many business people who are now planning to evacuate their commercial belongings out of the market.
The latest round of fighting came barely two days after the Ethiopian military officials rejected to withdraw its troops from areas they had captured in the early battle. It seems the ceasefire is no longer holding.
Sana’a – Scores of Ethiopian army troops serving the Woyanne tribal junta have arrived off the coast of Yemen onboard two boats belonging to smugglers after they fled fighting with Islamic insurgents in Somalia, a press report said on Tuesday.
Some 89 Ethiopian soldiers arrived in the Arqa area in southern Yemen after crossing the Gulf of Aden from Bosaso city in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northeast Somalia, the al-Ayyam daily newspaper said in a report on its website.
The paper said 49 Somali refugees were aboard the boats that carried the soldiers, who were wearing civilian clothes.
An Ethiopian army officer was quoted as saying that he and his comrades had fled the ranks of Ethiopian troops in Somalia after a dramatic escalation in fierce fighting with Somali Islamic insurgents.
‘I am a member of the Ethiopian army and I took part in toppling the rule of the Islamic courts (in Somalia),’ said the officer, identified as Muhammad Hassan.
‘We did not expect the fighting to reach this level of fiercity or that it could turn into a guerrilla war,’ he said.
The officer added that many other Ethiopian troops had decided to flee Somalia after they found themselves stuck amid a ‘flaming hell.’
A police official in Arqa, about 600 kilometres from Sana’a, said that 10 Ethiopian women and seven civilian men were among the group that reached the shores of Arqa on Sunday.
The official, who wanted to remain anonymous, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the soldiers were transferred by military truck to the southern Yemeni port city of Aden on Monday.
Ethiopia sent army forces into Somalia last December to back the country’s interim government to drive out forces from the Union of Islamic Courts that controlled most of central and southern Somalia for nearly six months last year.
The deputy prime minister of Somalia’s transitional government, Hussein Mohamed Farah Aideed, has accused Ethiopian troops of committing “genocide” against the Somali people in the capital, Mogadishu, taking already high tensions to a new level.
Such an accusation coming from a high-ranking Somali official, such as Aideed – the son of another, late and powerful politician – goes beyond the typical opposition propaganda and could create pressure for a formal international investigation into the recent death and destruction in Mogadishu.
[The Woyanne tribal regime of] Ethiopia has understandably dismissed Aideed’s allegation as an absolute fabrication. In a recent statement, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tekede Alemu said such accusations were “expected from someone with no interest in peace and stability in Somalia.”
Ethiopian [Woyanne] officials are still considering an interview request by ISN Security Watch in response our recent coverage of the conflict in Somalia.
Alemu said Ethiopian [Woyanne] troops and Somali forces had been “sitting ducks” for four months of mortars attack – attacks to which they did not respond with force, and it was only when extremists began shooting down aircraft serving African Union troops that a forceful response was made.
Aideed is a member of the dominant Hawiye clan, which inhabits southern Somalia, and has vowed to fight attempts by the transitional government and Ethiopian troops to secure control of the country. The government accuses the clan of harboring Islamists, who earlier last year had taken control of much of the country before being pushed back by Somali forces with the support of Ethiopian troops. The clan denies it is working with the Islamists. The Hawiye elders accuse the government forces of being exclusively from the president’s clan, the Darood, and are trying to disarm them. Before this, Somalia was in a state of anarchy without a government for 16 years.
Earlier on, Aideed was one of the staunchest supporters of Ethiopian involvement in Somalia and even called for the unification of the two countries when Ethiopian troops first arrived in Mogadishu last December. But now he is accusing Ethiopian troops of “war crimes” and calling on them to leave.
“Ethiopian [Woyanne] troops must leave Somali territory to let the Somalis decide their own fate,” Aideed said in a brief interview broadcast on Eritrean state-run EriTV on 8 April.
Aideed, who is currently in Eritrea – Ethiopia’s [Woyanne’s] nemesis and the center of the opposition to Ethiopia’s presence in Somalia – expressed fears that his country was turning into “another Iraq.”
Four days of ferocious violence between anti-Ethiopian forces and Ethiopian [Woyanne] soldiers in Mogadishu earlier this month led to “the worst violence in 15 years” and claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians and wounded thousands, while uprooting tens of thousands of others, according to human rights groups and local media reports.
Last week, the EU called for an investigation into the excesses of force used by Ethiopian troops, with vague talk of possible war crimes charges.
However, there has been little movement toward an international investigation, because of the complexity of the conflict and the fact that some view the Ethiopian engagement in Somali as a necessary part of Washington’s expanded war on terror.
Ali Hussein, a lawyer in Mogadishu, told ISN Security Watch that the campaign against international terror often clouded excesses by military personnel the world over and it would be difficult to charge anyone for what has happened in Somalia in this age of “inhumanity and impunity.” Human rights, he said, would likely have to take a back seat to the greater good of the war on terror.
According to some analysts in Mogadishu, the shaky ceasefire in place in the capital is untenable and there is little prospect of any of the belligerents withdrawing any time soon.
In the meantime, the civilians are bearing the brunt of the death and destruction in the urban warfare – and they place blame on all sides in the power struggle.
Asli Diiriye, the mother of six-month-old baby killed by shrapnel, told ISN Security Watch that she holds the Ethiopian government, which she views as an occupying force, and clan insurgents for her loss. Her views seems to by fairly representative of Somali residents here caught in the crossfire of a battle they never wanted.
She says she wants justice from the UN, but first and foremost she wants protection – which she believes is only possible through a type of international intervention not directly connected to the US-led war on terror.
As both sides in the conflict gird for an all-out war with no concrete efforts underway to resolve things peacefully, Somali civilians are preparing for the worst and placing little hope in international intervention on their side, or an end to the flagrant disregard for the suffering of the innocent in the Horn of Africa, where human rights are easy to overlook.
Abdurrahman Warsemeh is a correspondent for ISN Security Watch in Mogadishu.
Ghimbi, Ethiopia — First, the police threw Tesfaye into a dark cell. Then, each day for 17 days, it was the same routine: Electric shocks on his legs and back, followed by beatings with rubber truncheons. Four or five officers would then surround and kick him. At last, a large bottle of water would be tied around his testicles. He’d pass out.
Tesfaye’s crime? Maybe it’s that he refused to join the ruling party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. He was accused of organizing street protests in late 2005. Police suspect he’s a member of a rebel group called the Oromo Liberation Front. Tesfaye doesn’t know for sure because no court ever charged him with a crime.
“They took us turn by turn to a dark place, and they would shock us and say, ‘What do you think now? You won’t change your ways now? Do you want to be a member of our party now?’ ” Tesfaye recalled of his time in prison early last year. He refused to give his last name for fear of being rearrested.
Accounts like this are common in today’s Ethiopia. Interviews with dozens of people across the country, coupled with testimony given to diplomats and human rights groups, paint a picture of a nation that jails its citizens without reason or trial, and tortures many of them — despite government claims to the contrary.
Such cases are especially troubling because the U.S. government, a key Ethiopian ally, has acknowledged interrogating terrorism suspects in Ethiopian prisons, where some detainees were sent after being arrested in connection with Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia in December. There have been no reports that those jailed have been tortured. The invasion ousted an Islamic movement accused of having ties to al Qaeda that threatened to topple an interim Somali government struggling to control the country.
The Bush administration maintains that Meles’ government, a leading partner in its war on terror in East Africa, is committed to democratic and human rights reform. The government was severely criticized for a 2005 crackdown that saw tens of thousands of opposition members jailed and nearly 200 people killed following elections in which the opposition made major gains.
People across Ethiopia recounted stories of a government backsliding on human rights issues. They told of confinement for days in tiny, dark cells with their hands bound 24 hours a day; electric shocks; beatings with rubber clubs; police who held guns to prisoners’ heads; mutilation or pain inflicted on the genitals.
“If you think differently, that is enough to put you on the side of the opposition,” said 34-year-old Teferi, who recently was released from prison after two months without being charged with a crime. “If you say, ‘This is not right, this is right, it’s good to rule peacefully,’ if you talk something fair, it’s over for you because there is no fairness from them.”
Teferi said a police source told him that he was arrested because he played too much pingpong — and that police suspected he was recruiting people to a rebel group while he played. He said he was imprisoned at a police training camp called Sankele outside the city of Ambo, which the International Committee of the Red Cross has been barred from visiting.
Ethiopian officials dismiss stories of torture as lies, and have taken the further step of expelling everyone from foreign journalists to representatives of human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Ethiopian reporters for the U.S.-financed Voice of America must work in secret for fear of harassment.
Bereket Simon, a top adviser to Meles [and a psychopathic liar], said it’s in the interests of rights groups to lie about the situation, and he rejected the idea that torture occurs in Ethiopia.
“No way. No way. No way. I think you know, these are prohibited by laws, by Ethiopian laws — torture, any human treatments,” Bereket said. “In fact, we have been improving on our prison standards. We’ve been working hard to train the police forces, the interrogators.”
U.S. officials say Washington’s close alliance with the government in Addis Ababa allows it to raise concerns about Ethiopia’s record privately. The State Department is requesting more than $500 million for Ethiopian aid in fiscal 2008, almost all of it for HIV/AIDS relief. The United States trains Ethiopian troops, and the two governments have shared intelligence about Somalia.
U.S. Ambassador Donald Yamamoto said he wants to investigate claims of abuse, but warned against making allegations about Ethiopia’s actions without proof.
“There’s a lot of misinformation about Ethiopia — I mean, it’s amazing,” Yamamoto said. “The problem comes in trying to divide or separate what is fact and what’s fiction, and trying to keep an open mind on every issue. … There are problems, and we’re free to admit that, and the Ethiopians are open to admitting that as well.”
Ethiopia’s critics are skeptical of the government’s promises to improve its human rights record.
“Over the years, the more I see, the more I become convinced that not only does the government tolerate it, but I think they direct this kind of behavior,” said Ethiopian-born Theodros Dagne, a senior aide to Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., a leading critic of Ethiopian practices on human rights.
European diplomats and employees of Western aid groups, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they keep quiet about abuses because they fear the government will freeze them out of aid work. About 2.8 million of Ethiopia’s 75 million people depend on foreign food aid.
Washington’s steadfast support has led some Ethiopian opposition leaders to assert that Meles’ government has only been emboldened.
“We fully believe that the international community is not going to democratize this place — it’s going to be the tough task of the Ethiopians,” said Beyene Petros, a lawmaker and leader of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, a coalition of opposition groups. “Simply, the U.S. State Department’s or the U.S. government’s position on Ethiopia is that it’s a friendly government, and how can you go and quarrel with your friend because somebody told on him?”
Zoe Alsop contributed to this story, which was reported with a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
