The government of Kenya has launched a full scale attack against the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and according to human rights groups, Oromo refugees through out Kenya, including the capital city Nairobi, are currently being harassed and abused by Kenyan security forces, a UN news agency reports. Read the full report below.
MOYALE, ETHIOPIA (IRIN) – The presence of an Ethiopian rebel group in northern Kenya, coupled with operations by security forces from both countries, has caused numerous casualties and displacement among local residents, who also complain of arbitrary arrests.
“They are a menace,” Moyale District Commissioner David Rotich said of the secessionist Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which first rose up against Ethiopian authorities three decades ago.
“They pose a major threat to security and development and are linked to a group of gun dealers and poachers across the region,” he alleged.
Residents of Moyale, Isiolo and Marsabit districts told IRIN that civilians were often detained by security agents who accused them of belonging to the OLF, or harassed by the rebels on suspicion of collaborating with the authorities.
A trader at Walda centre in Sololo, Moyale district, said several business people had to close their operations because of a wave of terror acts allegedly arising from the OLF presence in the area.
“Walda trading centre is a risky and difficult area to do business because it is considered the main military base for OLF rebels; Ethiopian Woyanne troops frequently attack us while pursuing the rebel fighters who also attack, abduct, kill and threaten local residents,” the trader said.
Identifying himself only as Wario, a hotelier at Turbi – where at least 80 people were killed four years ago – said the OLF, often comprising Kenyans and Ethiopians, once ordered him close his restaurant business because of his ethnicity.
“Our county council and government issues permits and licences for all traders to conduct business but [I believe] OLF makes the final decision; I was forced to close my restaurant because my crime was simple, I am a Gabra and therefore considered an enemy,” Wario said.
Most of the OLF fighters in northern Kenya are from the Borana community.
A retired chief from Sololo said: “The OLF was at first a pride to the Borana community but it is now a monster; it has killed many of our neighbours.”
On 15 December, 15 people died in Moyale and Marsabit districts after fierce fighting between the OLF and a splinter group in Badarero, Walda and Kate areas.
A Turbi resident, identified only as Ndege, said hundreds of families from his Gabra community remained displaced.
“We have suffered greatly at the hands of OLF; many people have been killed, many families are poor after losing their livestock to OLF, many have moved far away to look for manual work, other are recipients of relief food, beggars in towns and some young orphaned girls have been forced to work as commercial sex workers,” Ndege said.
Police operations
In November, Kenya police launched an operation to flush out the OLF rebels. However, residents said dozens of innocent youth were netted in the operation.
Moyale police commander Nathaniel Langat, told IRIN: “We have intelligence reports, what we are doing now is very different from the past operations, it has achieved a lot, the rebels have fled, many have crossed to Ethiopia, the government could not just sit and watch its citizens being killed, abducted and threatened by this bandits.”
Wenslas Ong’ayo, the Upper Eastern province regional commissioner, said the operation was being conducted “with a human face” and that no incidents had been reported so far. He added that all those arrested were found with weapons and had no permission to be in the country.
However, Wajir human rights network official Mukhtar Nur said an assessment conducted by the group established that local residents were living in fear of security forces and rebel fighters roaming the area.
“Young herders are no longer going out to look after their animals for fear of arrests,” he said. “Women are also afraid to go out to look for water or firewood because some have been arrested along the way, held the whole day and accused of ferrying supplies to the rebels.”
• Meanwhile, in Nairobi, some 200 ethnic Oromos from Ethiopia complained of police harassment at a protest rally on 23 December.
“The police come to our houses in the middle of the night, abusing women, ripping up our refugee documents,” Tsegaye Gudeta, spokesman for the Oromo Refugee Community Welfare Association, told IRIN.
“Besides detention, some of us are facing daily disappearances and abuse. We were afraid for our lives, have no other place to go and we couldn’t wait any more,” he added.
The protest was held outside the UN Refugee Agency, which Gudeta said should work with Kenyan police to increase awareness of refugees’ rights.
A spokesman for the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Ato Lencho Bati, told Ethiopian Review that the report about Gen. Kemal Gelchu being under a virtual house arrest is incorrect and that the general can travel any where he wishes.
Ato Lencho has also said that OLF troops have not been immobilized and that his organization appreciates the Eritrean government for giving shelter to OLF members and supporters while Oromos are being mistreated and brutalized in Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and other countries in the region.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian Review has been informed yesterday that another well-known Ethiopian patriot named Shambel Zewdu has disappeared over a week ago in Eritrea and his current whereabouts remain unknown. Shambel Zewdu was elected to parliament in Ethiopia from the Gonder region at the 2005 election but when Woyanne stole the vote, he decided to join the Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF). Earlier this year, he submitted his resignation after Col. Fitsum (the so-called Eritrean adviser to Ethiopian opposition groups) had tried to arrest him and for the past 11 months he had been living in Asmara as a refugee. Many of the rank-and-file members of EPPF looked upon Shambel Zewdu as a father figure. More details about him later.
In a radio broadcast to Ethiopia yesterday, the Asmara-based EPPF radio that is under the control of the rogue Eritrean colonel has blasted Ethiopian Review editor and 4 others as destructive individuals who are trying to hijack the organization. This is the same corrupt colonel who made EPPF his personal piggy-bank.
The Chief Medical Examiner of Washington DC has ruled today that the death of Ethiopian immigrant Ali Mohammed on Oct. 15 was a homicide. Pending the Medical Examiner’s decision, a court in DC had released on bail the DC9 Club owner and employees who beat up Ali to death. The court also allowed DC9 to reopen. More from 103.5 FM Radio:
WASHINGTON (WTOP 103.5 FM) — The Washington DC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has ruled the death of a man outside a city nightclub two months ago a homicide.
Ali Mohammed, 27, died Oct. 15 after he reportedly threw a brick through the window of DC9 in Northwest and was chased by the club’s owner and four employees.
The medical examiner’s office Tuesday said its forensics examination concluded Mohammed’s death was a homicide caused by “excited delirium associated with arrhythmogenic cardiac anomalies, alcohol intoxication and physical exertion with restraint.”
The five DC9 employees initially had been charged with second-degree murder, but those charges were reduced to aggravated assault after the medical examiner’s office said the cause of his death could not be established through a physical autopsy.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office later dropped the assault charges after saying there was “an insufficient basis to sustain” them. It is not known whether prosecutors plan to revisit charges against the five club employees, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office says in a statement officials plan to review the findings of the forensics report.
“The Medical Examiner’s forensics examination has concluded that a variety of factors led to the death of Mr. Mohammed, and we intend to carefully study these conclusions as part of our legal analysis of this tragic incident,” the office’s statement says.
In a statement Tuesday, Mohammed’s family says they are confident the medical examiner’s findings are “a step toward justice for Ali.”
“The Medical Examiner¹s findings, however, also reminds us that Ali suffered a cruel and senseless death,” the family’s statement says. “Ali did not deserve to die for allegedly breaking a window. The family remains heartbroken and cannot have peace until those responsible for Ali¹s death are brought to justice.”
DC9 was allowed to reopen last week after a hearing before the D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration. The club currently is only open on Fridays and Saturdays.
ABRA spokeswoman Cynthia Simms tells WTOP Tuesday that DC9 will be allowed to remain open for the time being. A follow-up hearing had been scheduled for Jan. 19, at which the board will review the new information, Simms says.
She says the board also will consider whether DC9 has been following new security guidelines agreed to by the club following Mohammed’s death.
WTOP’s Mark Segraves contributed to this report.
As hard currency reserve dwindles in Ethiopia, experts predict that exchange rate could soon reach 20 birr per 1 U.S. dollar in the black market.
The current official exchange rate is 16.76 per $1, but in the black market the rate is 17.50 and in some places it goes as high as 18.50 birr per one dollar.
The primary cause of the hard currency supply shortage in Ethiopia is said to be capital flight, and the biggest culprits are the mega corporations that are owned by the ruling Woyanne junta who are depositing a significant portion of their profits in foreign banks.
Most private businessmen in Ethiopia have little trust in the stability of the financial system and that many of them also take their money out of the country as much as they can.
