Several neighborhoods in the Somali capital, Mogadishu are virtually deserted as residents flee to avoid fighting between Ethiopian Woyanne troops and Islamist-led insurgents Somali freedom fighters. From the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, VOA’s Peter Heinlein reports Ethiopia has rejected charges its troops engaged in reprisal killings after rebels dragged the bodies of dead soldiers through Mogadishu’s streets.
Reporters in the Somali capital say streets are empty in some of the most dangerous areas. The sprawling Bakara market in the southern part of the city was reported closed for a second day.
Tens of thousands of people fled during the past few days to avoid what one witness told VOA was some of the worst violence in Mogadishu in months.
It began Thursday, when Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers launched house to house searches and shelled suspected insurgent hideouts in southern parts of the city.
Civilians complained that the Ethiopian Woyanne troops had fired indiscriminately in reprisal attacks after insurgents dragged the mutilated bodies of dead soldiers through the streets of the capital.
The group Human Rights Watch accused both soldiers and insurgents of violating the laws of war during the exchange of hostilities.
But Bereket Simon, a senior adviser to Ethiopia’s prime minister dictator, vehemently denied there had been any revenge attacks or targeting of civilians.
“Our army is not trained in that fashion,” said Bereket Simon. “It is an army who knows its mission and gives top priority to the safety of the civilian people. So that is not true.”
Ethiopian Woyanne spokesman Bereket soundly rejected any comparison between events of the past few days and the Black Hawk incident.
“This is an accident and it cannot have an impact on Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers, I assure you,” he said. “We have made some sacrifices, but that is not that serious in our opinion. We have improved the situation in Somalia. There is more or less stability in most parts of Mogadishu, and last time somehow this accident happened, and we are singling out the perpetrators and targeting them, so it cannot be contrasted with Black Hawk Down.”
Military analysts say Ethiopia Woyanne sent as many as 2,000 fresh troops to Somalia in the past week, to bolster a force estimated to be in excess of 50,000. Ethiopia Woyanne dispatched troops to Somalia almost a year ago to aid an interim government overwhelmed by Islamist insurgents Somali freedom fighters.
Ethiopian Woyanne leaders have said they would withdraw from Somalia in favor of a robust international peacekeeping force capable of restoring order in a country that has suffered more than a decade and a half of political turmoil. But U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says sending peacekeepers to Somalia under current conditions is ‘not a realistic or viable option’.
ER Research Unit has obtained an information that a Woyanne helicopter gunship has been missing since Friday. The helicopter took off from Debre Zeit and landed in Gode for refuel. From Gode it was to head to Mogadishu with two other helicopters. But soon after take off, the helicopter, which was fully armed, disappeared. Top officials from the Ministry of Defense in Addis Ababa flew to Debre Zeit as soon as the news of the disappearance reached them. So far there is no radio contact and no sign of crash. The Woyanne officials now fear that the helicopter may have gone to Eritrea.
(CNN) — Some athletes earn the right to be considered a sporting legend. Few, in truth, are truly deserving of such an honor. But there can be no quarrel over the greatness of Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie who, in a career spanning 16 years, has redefined the art of long-distance running.
Born in the rural town of Asela in the central province of Arsi, Haile Gebrselassie was seven years old when the Ethiopian Miruts Yifter triumphed in the 10,000 meters final at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
Listening to the victory on the family radio the feat implanted not only a desire to run, but also a belief that it was possible for Ethiopian athletes to succeed at the highest level.
Gebrselassie soon took up running. Poor transport services in Ethiopia necessitated that he regularly run 10 kilometers to school and back with his books tucked under his left arm.
When he began to run competitively — he won his first 1500 meter race at primary school when he was eight years old — he ran with a crooked arm, as if the books were still there. But the bent arm didn’t hinder him and it has remained a distinctive feature of his running style ever since.
Spurred on by his physical education teacher, Gebrselassie started training after school. Extra sessions running around his father’s farm soon reaped rewards as he began to win not only local but regional races. When he was 15 years old, he and his brother joined an athletics club in Addis Ababa and tried to make the national team.
The young Gebrselassie’s devotion to running initially annoyed his father, who implored his son to forge a career as a doctor or a teacher, but he kept up his training schedule and the more he practiced, the faster he got.
In 1992, the same year he met his future wife Alem, a 19 year-old Gebrselassie won the 5,000 and 10,000 meter finals at the World Junior Athletic Championships. The following season his senior career would take off in spectacular fashion.
At the World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany he claimed the 10,000 meter title. The following year he broke his first world record — 5,000 meters at a meet in Hengelo, Holland — surpassing the time set by the Moroccan Said Aouita seven years earlier.
1995 produced further extraordinary success. Not only did Gebrselassie retain his World 10,000 meter crown — he would eventually win four — but he clocked three world records in just 71 days.
Still only 23 years old, his fledgling career reached its pinnacle when he won the 10,000 meter Olympic gold at Atlanta in 1996. In doing so, Gebrselassie had emulated his boyhood hero Miruts Yifter.
The next four years saw Gebrselassie go unbeaten over 5,000 and 10,000 meters, smash records indoors and out — taking his career world record tally to 15 — and star in the 1999 Disney movie “Endurance” which chronicled his life.
His triumph over his great rival, Kenyan Paul Tergat at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 is perhaps his most famous race. Gebrselassie — who had spent the weeks prior to the games struggling with an Achilles tendon injury — piped Tergat on the line by 0.09 seconds to retain his 10,000 meter Olympic title in dramatic fashion.
The victory secured him national hero status at home in Ethiopia, and hundreds of thousands of fans cheered him through the streets of Addis Ababa in a homecoming parade.
His attempts to win an unprecedented third Olympic title in Athens in 2004 were dashed by a recurrence of the Achilles tendon injury. Any sense of personal disappointment — it is difficult to tell as Gebrselassie has always worn a smile in triumph or defeat — was replaced with elation as his protégé and countryman Kenenisa Bekele took the gold medal. The previous year Gebrselassie had finished runner-up to Bekele in the World Championship 10,000 meters in Paris.
Gebrselassie soon turned his attentions away from the track and began to focus on road running, in particular the half-marathon and the marathon. In 2006, he duly added the half-marathon world record to his collection and in September 2007 he broke the marathon world record in Berlin to register his 25th world record mark.
Now 34 years old, his body shows no signs of fatigue — physical or mental — and he retains a hunger to achieve. Whatever happens in the future, his performances merit a permanent place in the pantheon of truly great sportsmen.
Off the track, Gebrselassie has maintained his links with Ethiopia, choosing to live and work in Addis Ababa. He remains committed to promoting the Ethiopian cause, not always through charity — although he lends his vigorous support to numerous projects — but by repeating the mantra of reward through hard work. There can be few better role models for sport and life than he.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Friday urged “maximum restraint” by Ethiopia and Eritrea amid concern over a new border war between the two east African foes.
“We are concerned about the military build-up and tension on the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
“We call on the governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia to exercise maximum restraint and avoid any actions that might further heighten tension or reignite conflict,” he said.
Ethiopia, which Washington sees as one of its closest allies in the region, said on Friday it had no plans to invade Eritrea, even as Asmara claimed for the fourth time in two weeks that Addis Ababa was preparing to launch an assault.
The United States has difficult relations with Eritrea, which it accuses of backing Somali Islamists. Eritrea, for its part, accuses the United States of fueling conflicts in the Horn of Africa region.
A 1998-2000 war on the border between the two neighbors killed 70,000 people and both sides accuse the other of preparing for a new war by moving troops closer to their disputed frontier area.
“We urge both governments to disengage militarily from the most critical locations along the border and to cooperate with the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea,” said McCormack.
McCormack said both governments must respect commitments made in a 2000 cease-fire deal, adding that they must embrace efforts by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to resolve their boundary impasse and normalize relations.
The United Nations has a peacekeeping force of 1,700 people charged with monitoring a security buffer zone on Eritrea’s side of the 1,000-km (620-mile) frontier. Under the terms of a June 2000 cease-fire, the zone is meant to be demilitarized.
(Reporting by Sue Pleming; editing by Todd Eastham)
Woyanne is currently engaged in a shooting war on multiple fronts. The worst fighting is going on in Ogaden with ONLF and in neighboring Somalia with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The news coming from these fronts are encouraging — the Woyanne military is getting its nose bloodied by the ICU and the ONLF freedom fighters. Woyanne is now about to open another front in the north — Badme. Woyanne and Shabia are amassing hundreds of thousands of troops in the area. According to various sources, a major war could start any time. The question for Ethiopians, particularly those of us who wish to see a united Ethiopia free from the Woyanne tribal junta, is what should be our stand?
There are two options:
1) Do not take side in the absolutely senseless war, or
2) Take an active stand against Woyanne by helping Eritrean, ONLF, OLF, and all the other anti-Woyanne forces. An active stand against Woyanne includes agitating troops not to fight, causing damages to Woyanne supply lines, etc. Blockading the road from Addis Ababa to Tigray alone would cripple the Woyanne military machine.
Ethiopian Review encourages the second option. Here is why:
1) Woyanne is the real enemy of Ethiopia that has left us land-locked. On top of that, it has been committing one atrocity after another against the people of Ethiopia for the past 17 years. In several parts of Ethiopia, such as Ogaden and Gambella, Woyanne forces annihilated whole villages of people. What is going on currently in Ogaden is a genocide by any standard. Not looking at the pictures of dead women and children whose heads are splattered by high caliber bullets from Woyanne helicopter gunships, whose bodies pulverized by Woyanne rockets does not lessen the horror of Woyanne atrocities. Woyanne must be stopped from carrying out these atrocities by any means necessary.
2) It is not the Eritrean regime, not the ONLF, not the OLF, not the ICU that had thrown over 100,000 Ethiopians in Zeway, Shoa Robit, Donkoro Chaka and other disease-infested concentration camps after stealing the May 2005 elections. It is Woyanne that ignored the will of the people and enslaved 70 million Ethiopians through its blood thirsty military machine that is currently busy wreaking havoc in Ogaden and Somalia. Woyanne has no mandate to govern Ethiopia, has no right to enslave us and must be removed by any means necessary.
3) As Woyanne moneyman Sebhat Nega himself said a few months ago on a Woyanne radio station, Woyanne has done more than Shabia for the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia, leaving 70 million people landlocked. Notwithstanding the Woyanne propaganda, the impending Woyanne-Shabia war does not advance the national interest of Ethiopia an iota. It is war over a small plot of land that has no strategic significance for Ethiopia. It is a war that is intended to divert attention from Woyanne’s internal political crisis and the Somalia quagmire. Ethiopia can get back her sea outlet through a negotiated, mutually beneficial settlement with Eritreans. The only obstacle to such a negotiated settlement with Eritreans is the illegitimate Woyanne regime. For this reason alone, Ethiopian pro-unity forces need to help Shabia defeat Woyanne.
Let’s ignore the Woyanne propaganda for a moment and be frank with each other. Which is the lesser evil? Shabia or Woyanne? Both are brutal dictators, but who is currently tormenting Ethiopians? Both will not bring democracy to Ethiopia, but whose defeat will present an opportunity for change in Ethiopia?
If Woyanne wins against Shabia and all its opponents, for the people of Ethiopia it would mean more slavery at the hands of an emboldened Woyanne. If Shabia wins, it would mean no more Woyanne’s brutal rule. The best case scenario is for Shabia to break the backbone of Woyanne, which will force it to:
1) Immediately pull out of Somalia,
2) Pull its forces out of Ogaden, Oromia, and other regions of Ethiopia and rush them to Tigray to protect its base of power,
3) Seek reconciliation with Ethiopian opposition forces.
The most likely outcome
If Woyanne starts war with Shabia, this time it will lose for the following reasons:
1) Those troops who are not hardcore members of Woyanne will not fight the way they did in the 1998-2000 war. They will surrender or put down their weapons and run to Sudan. Even better, they could turn their guns against Woyanne officers.
2) Shabia will not engage Woyanne in a conventional battle of troops against troops, and thanks against thanks this time. What Shabia will do is let Woyanne come deep into the Eritrean territory, even all the way to Asmara. Then engage Woyanne’s over-stretched military in a protracted, guerrilla style warfare. With a well-coordinated propaganda campaign, most non-Tigrean soldiers could desert in massive numbers. Even Tigreans who are not hard core Woyannes would hesitate to fight. After all, what did Woyanne bring to the people of Tigray except more suffering, more war, more repression, and more poverty? Most of the developments in Tigray are benefiting only Woyanne members who are not more than 200,000 Tigreans. By all accounts, the 7 million Tigreans have not benefited from the Woyanne rule what so ever.
Most dictatorships have terrible ends. Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam, Chauchesku, Charles Taylor, to mention a few. With the way things are going on in Somalia, Woyanne’s end is already becoming messy, ugly and horrifying.
Ethiopian Review sources are reporting that the Woyanne junta cut telephone services to Badme and other nearby towns in the past few days and moved all civilian government employees to Mekele over the weekend. The reason for cutting telephone services is to keep military movements in the area secret, according to ER sources. Eye witnesses also informed Ethiopian Review that hundreds of buses filled with soldiers are heading to the border. Yesterday, over 50 buses carrying new recruits left the city of Nazreth (Adama), according to residents.
Meanwhile, the American embassy in Addis Ababa has issued this warning to U.S. citizens:
In light of the recent increase in tensions along the Ethiopia-Eritrea border, the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa strongly advises American citizens to exercise caution when traveling to areas along Ethiopia’s border with Eritrea. The U.S. Embassy continues to restrict all travel of Embassy personnel to this region and recommends that American citizens residing in Ethiopia follow similar guidelines.
U.S. Embassy personnel have been advised to remain 60 miles from the Ethiopia-Eritrea border in the area east of Adigrat (Ethiopia) to Bure (Ethiopia), and the Djiboutian border; and 30 miles from the Ethiopia-Eritrea border in the area west of Adigrat to the Ethiopia-Sudan border, with the exception of the town of Axum.
American citizens who must travel in these areas are encouraged to avoid travel between urban areas at night, and to return to well secured locations in developed urban areas before nightfall. Travel into rural and undeveloped areas in close proximity to the above areas should be executed only when essential and with extreme care.
For the latest security information, Americans living and traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs internet website at http://travel.state.gov/, where the current Worldwide Caution, Public Announcements, and Travel Warnings can be found. Up-to-date information on security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S. and Canada, or, for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444. These numbers are available from 8 AM to 8 PM Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. Federal Holidays.)
The U.S. Embassy is located at Entoto Avenue, P.O. Box 1014, in Addis Ababa. American citizens with questions or concerns may telephone the Consular Section at 251-11-124-2424; emergency after-hours telephone: 251-11-124-2400; consular fax: 251-11-124-2435; website: http://addisababa.usembassy.gov/.
