(Mail & Guardian)
Suleikha Mohamed Adan, a 30-year-old widow and mother of five, was living a difficult nomadic life in the harsh Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia when government Woyanne soldiers came to her house and arrested her.
Her husband and father were killed last year by government forces, who accused them of the same crime for which she was arrested: sympathising with the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a group fighting for self-determination for the Ogaden region.
“My five children were crying when they tied my hands behind my back and kicked me to the ground,” said Adan, who now lives in Kenya, as she wiped the tears from her face. “I was blindfolded and they threw me like a ball on to a military truck.”
After two nights, Adan found herself in an underground prison in the town of Godey where she was kept for 15 months with hundreds of other prisoners.
“Soldiers would take me out to beat me up and sometimes rape me,” she said, sitting in her room in Eastleigh, Nairobi. “Younger women were the soldiers’ favourites. While I was there I saw two old men hanged from the roof with a wire and they both died.”
Adan escaped and feels very lucky to have got away from the worsening situation in Ogaden, a region that has been embroiled in conflict for decades.
Somalia and Ethiopia have twice gone to war over the region, which is populated by ethnic Somalis, and which each country claims as part of its territory.
The Ethiopian Woyanne military campaign has intensified since the ONLF attacked a Chinese-run oil installation in April last year, killing 75 people, including nine Chinese workers.
A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) released late last month accuses the Ethiopian Woyanne regime of committing widespread abuses against civilians. “The Ethiopian Woyanne army’s answer to the rebels has been to viciously attack civilians in Ogaden,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at HRW.
“These widespread and systematic atrocities amount to crimes against humanity. Yet Ethiopia’s Woyanne’s major donors — Washington, London and Brussels — seem to be maintaining a conspiracy of silence around the crimes.”
Ethiopia Woyannegovernments and institutions — including the US, the United Kingdom, and the European Union — give the country at least $2billion in aid each year.
Many of the civilians living in the conflict zone in Ogaden are nomads who are constantly on the move in search of fresh grazing.
Maryan Nur Ahmed (52) said her house, in a village near the town of Shilabo, was raided at night by the Ethiopian military.
Jailed by Ethiopian Woyanne forces, she was repeatedly tortured but the soldiers considered her too old to be raped. Instead, they raped her daughter when she visited the prison.
“They used to say [an] old woman is [no use],” said Ahmed, who is now also in exile in Kenya. “I have 10 children, but my youngest child is the only one with me here in Kenya. I do not know if the others are safe.”
She said that the soldiers often tortured and killed prisoners. After five of her fellow inmates were killed, she decided to escape. “One night, I realised the guard was falling asleep and I used my chest to walk like a snake,” she said, describing how she wriggled out of the prison.
HRW has also condemned Ethiopian Woyanne forces for imposing a series of measures aimed at cutting off economic support to the ONLF, including a trade blockade of the war-affected region and the obstruction of humanitarian assistance.
“The government’s attacks on civilians, its trade blockade and restrictions on aid amount to the illegal collective punishment of tens of thousands of people,” said Gagnon. “Unless humanitarian agencies get immediate access to independently assess the needs and monitor food distribution, more lives will be lost.”
In July last year the Ethiopian Woyanne government expelled the Red Cross from the region. It has since permitted some United Nations agencies and NGOs to operate, but only under tight controls.
HRW has also criticised the ONLF for violating the laws of war, including summary executions of Chinese and Ethiopian civilians during the Obole attack and the killing of suspected government collaborators.
The Ethiopian Woyanne government has denied HRW’s allegations. Foreign journalists who have attempted to conduct independent investigations have been arrested.
EDITOR’S NOTE: There is no doubt that the Meles regime itself is behind the bombings.
ADDIS ABABA (Xinhua) — Suspects of terrorist bombings have been seized over the past months at a few places in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, said the Federal Police (Meles Zenawi’s private death squad) on Saturday.
Police said in a statement that they put under control some of the suspects while activities to track down on the others continued.
A mini-bus exploded on May 20 in central Addis Ababa, in which six passengers were killed and five injured, police said.
Police said they have managed now to identify the remaining suspects. Meanwhile, they said suspects of bombing at two filling stations in the capital city on May 14 have been seized.
One of the seized ones who goes by the name of Yisak Gute is the most notorious terrorist who coordinated terrorists acts, solicited money, faked documents, among other things, said the police statement.
Yadessa Serbessa Bonsa, who had received training outside Ethiopia, coordinated both bombings, police said.
By Yilma Bekele
It is an old saying. What it means is bad or illegal acts committed in the past are liable to cause problems today. In other words, there is no escaping the past. Sooner or later the day of reckoning will come. In Amharic we have the same saying ‘be seferut kuna yeseferu’.
What brought this is the news of the arrival of International Criminal Court (ICC) Deputy Prosecutor Mrs. Fatou Bensouda in Addis. Apparently there is report of imminent indictment against Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir regarding his crimes in Darfur.
Sudan’s name comes from the Arabic “bilad al-sudan”, or land of the blacks. Sudan is a very big country in terms of size. It is slightly more than one-quarter the size of the US. Our dear friend al- Bashir is one of those tin pot dictators that litter our continent. It was in 1989 he took power as Chairman of Sudan’s Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and served as chief of state, chairman of RCC, prime minister and minister of defense. It is a situation of ‘le ras sekorsu ayasansu’. In the good old tradition of African despots he got legitimacy by organizing a national election and winning 86.5% of the popular vote. Al-Bashir is not very greedy it seems. Normally African despots like 99.9%.
Al-Bashir is the same individual that suspended all political parties upon assuming power as a military leader. He also introduced the Islamic Sharia legal code on a national level. This was an affront to the southern Christians and others. In 1998 he wrote and adapted a new constitution. In 1999 he passed a law allowing limited political association but made sure that it was a ‘castrated opposition’. It did not last long. In December of 1999 he drove his tank to the parliament and ousted his friend and mentor Hassan al-Turabi who was the speaker of parliament.
So much for tolerance and limited democracy. Sudan is internationally known for its civil war between the southern half and Islamic North. The conflict has been going on for the last twenty years. Our own Emperor has worked very hard to bring the warring factions together. The conflict has caused millions to be ‘displaced, starved, and deprived of education and health care’. Much progress was made throughout 2003, and in early 2004 al-Bashir agreed to grant autonomy to the south for six years, split the country’s oil revenues with the southern provinces, and allow the southerners to vote in a referendum of independence at the end of the six-year period. al-Bashir has managed to break the agreement on several occasions.
As the situation in the South was somewhat stabilizing, another conflict broke out in Northern Darfur on the western part of the country. Since 2004 a pro-government militia called Janjawweed has been a carrying out a policy of wholesale massacre and collective punishment against the local population. According to Amnesty International, Human Right Watch the government has facilitated the killing of between 200,000 and 300,000 civilians and the displacement of more than 1 million people.
This is the situation that has brought the International Criminal Court to get involved in this high stake poker game. The action by the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina, will mark the first time that the tribunal in The Hague charges a sitting head of state with such crimes, and represents a major step by the court to implicate the highest levels of the Sudanese government for the atrocities in Darfur. The African Union is crying foul and invoking all kinds of obscure phrases such as sovereignty, internal affairs and the untouchability of a sitting head of state. Crocodile tears if you ask me. Each and every one of them is afraid the precedent set by such far-reaching action.
We in Ethiopia are very much exited about such a development. The crimes being committed in the Ogaden against our fellow citizens have been amply recorded by a host of International organizations and displaced persons languishing in Kenya and elsewhere. We call upon the ICC to look into the human catastrophe-taking place in Ogaden, Gambella, Gondar and Southern Ethiopia.
We are in agreement with the principle that no one is above the law. That no government is immune from prosecution. That massacre of civilians, deliberate acts of starvation and acts of collective punishment of peaceful UN armed civilians is cause for indictment and those who commit such crimes should answer to a court of law. We are hopeful that al-Basher and his associates will be made to answer for their hideous acts and the Sudanese people will find solace in knowing that ‘the chickens are coming home to roost’. I am sure Professor Al is paying close attention to this development. We feel empowered.
Not all travel deals can be called ideal vacation packages. Some offer cheap hotels but expensive travelling. Some have great rental cars but expensive stay arrangements. In this regard cruises are a better option.
EDITOR’S NOTE: African Union (AU) is a corrupt organization that is created to protect the interests of African vampires like Meles and al-Bashir, not the interest of Africans.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — The African Union said Saturday that plans by the International Criminal Court to prosecute Sudanese government officials for alleged warcrimes could jeopardize peace efforts in Darfur.
In a statement released after a meeting in the Ethiopian capital, the body’s Peace and Security Council “expressed its strong conviction that the search for justice should be pursued in a way that does not impede or jeopardize efforts aimed at promoting lasting peace…”
The statement follows reports that prosecutors of the international court may seek the arrest of President Omar al-Beshir for warcrimes committed by his forces in the western province of Darfur.
The Council said it had been briefed on the ICC’s plans on Friday by the court’s deputy prosecutor, and “reiterated the AU’s concern with the misuse of indictments against African leaders.”
It said the UN Security Council itself, in a March 2005 resolution, had “emphasized the need to promote healing and reconciliation” in the region.
ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced on Thursday that he would unveil a new case on Darfur and name suspects next Monday.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Friday confirmed newspaper reports that ICC prosecutors would seek an arrest warrant for Beshir.
It would mark the first-ever bid by the ICC, based in The Hague, to charge a sitting head of state.
By Sara Israelsen-Hartley, Deseret News
PROVO, UTAH — An Ethiopian native who seemed destined for deportation after a felony conviction will now be allowed to stay in the country.
Immigration officials in Arizona have decided not to deport Kiddus Chane Yohannes, 21, whom a jury found guilty in February of possessing his roommate’s ATM card, said prosecutor Chad Grunander.
“(It) is a surprise,” Grunander said. “We thought that with a felony conviction he’d be deported. I don’t know if the factor that he was here on political asylum (made a difference). I suppose it certainly could have.”
Yohannes came to the United States in 1997 on political asylum after his father — an Ethiopian equivalent to a U.S. appellate court justice — angered the government by writing about human rights violations in their country.
Yohannes was granted the status of lawful permanent resident in 2003 and had been attending Utah Valley State College, now Utah Valley University, when he was arrested in June 2007.
Yohannes’ roommate — the same one whose card was missing — called Orem police, concerned that Yohannes was watching violent Internet videos, buying guns and making threatening comments against police officers and military officials.
