WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Satellite images confirm reports that the Ethiopian Woyanne military has burned towns and villages in the remote Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, the American Association for the Advancement of Science reported on Thursday.
Eight sites in the rocky, arid region, which borders Somalia, have clear signs of burning and other destruction, the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program said.
The commercially available images corroborate a report by Human Rights Watch, also issued on Thursday, that uses eyewitness accounts of attacks on tens of thousands of ethnic-Somali Muslims living in the area, the AAAS said.
“The Ethiopian Woyanne authorities frequently dismiss human rights reports, saying that the witnesses we interviewed are liars and rebel supporters,” Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“But it will be much more difficult for them to dismiss the evidence presented in the satellite images, as images like that don’t lie,” he said.
Ethiopia Woyanne, a key regional ally of the United States, launched its latest offensive after the Ogaden National Liberation Front attacked a Chinese-run oil field in the region in April 2007, killing more than 70 people.
Ethiopian Woyanne government officials in Addis Ababa routinely reject allegations against their counter-insurgency operations and accuse the rebels of abusing locals.
Lars Bromley, project director for the Science and Human Rights Program at AAAS, said his team analyzed several before and after satellite images of villages identified by Human Right Watch as possible locations of human rights violations.
They found eight, mostly in villages and small towns in the Wardheer, Dhagabur and Qorrahey Zones, that appeared to have been burned or destroyed recently.
For example, in the town of Labigah, 40 structures identified in a September 2005 image were gone in images taken in February 2008. In the Human Rights Watch report an eyewitness said the Ethiopian army “went into every village and set it on fire.”
Such reports are nearly impossible to corroborate because the region “may well be the most isolated place on earth, save perhaps the densest parts of the Congolese or Amazon rain forests,” Bromley said.
It is also difficult to tell what is going on in some villages, AAAS said.
“While some towns are considered permanent, they can grow and shrink over the course of a year due to fluctuations in nomadic populations, and many smaller villages will relocate altogether,” the report reads.
“To ensure the most accurate results, AAAS for the most part sought to review only permanent towns in the Ogaden, as indicated by their location along a well-defined road and by the presence of square structures with metal-sheet or brick roofing, and most often including a mosque.”
AAAS has used satellite images to support reports of widespread abuses in Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Burma, Chad and the Darfur region of Sudan.
Reporting by Maggie Fox; editing by David Wiessler
(Xinhua) — Somali insurgents attacked the Mogadishu airport and the motorcade of Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf, for the third time in a month, as the president was to fly for Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, presidential spokesman confirmed to Xinhua on Thursday.
“They (insurgent fighter) fired a number of mortars as the president was at the airport to leave for Addis Ababa to attend the Annual AU conference there,” Mohamed Mohamoud Hubsired, presidential spokesman, told Xinhua.
“The president and his delegation were unharmed by the mortar shells and he flew safely,” Hubsired added.
Witnesses also told Xinhua that the presidential motorcade was attacked before on its way to the Mogadishu airport but there are no reports of any casualty.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Somali president but insurgent fighters twice attacked the President’s motorcade late last week as he was to fly to attend the now concluded UN sponsored peace talks between Somali government and one faction of the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia and when he returned home.
Usually insurgent fighters carry out attacks on the Mogadishu airport as Somali government or foreign officials depart or arrive in the restive coastal Somali capital Mogadishu.
The Somali transitional government and the opposition leaders signed a comprehensive cease-fire agreement Monday after weeks of indirect talks sponsored by the United Nations.
Hard-line members of the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) and the Al-shabaab group rejected the results of the talks saying those who attended the meeting did not represent ARS and vowed to continue fighting the Somali and Ethiopian Woyanne troops.
The Asmara based faction threatened to sack the ARS chairman Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed for signing the peace deal with the government.
(AP) Addis Ababa – Eritrean soldiers have crossed the border into Djibouti and begun building defences, Djiboutian officials said. “Eritrean soldiers made an incursion into Djibouti territory two or three days ago in the Ras Doumeira area,” an official who did not want to be identified said in a telephone interview.
“The situation is not clear,” he said, adding, “Top level negotiations are under way to resolve the problem.”
Another source said, “There are Eritreans in Doumeira and work is being done.”
The source said trenches had been dug on both sides of the border, with the Eritreans infringing several hundred metres (yards) on to Djiboutian territory.”
However the official said the Eritreans digging the trenches seemed to be civilian labourers and not troops.
“This region is very isolated and it was a week before Djibouti authorities realised what was going on.”
A military source said French forces based in Djibouti had carried out a reconnaissance on Thursday at the government’s request but had not been able to confirm an incursion.
Djibouti and Eritrea have clashed twice in the past over the border area situated at the southern end of Red Sea. In April 1996 they almost went to war after a Djibouti official accused Asmara of shelling the town of Ras Doumeira.
In 1999 Eritrea accused Djibouti of siding with Asmara’s arch-foe Ethiopia while Djibouti alleged its neighbour was supporting Djiboutian rebels and had designs on the Ras Doumeira region, which Eritrea denied.
Yesterday, in its silly attempt to divert attention from the secret deal that gave away tens of thousands of square kilometers of land to Sudan by the Meles dictatorship, the foreign minister, Seyoum Mesfin, declared ‘flag day’ and handed out 600,000 flags.
The Ethiopian Review Intelligence Unit today has obtained a recent photo of an Ethiopian flag in front of the Bole International Airport in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. As you see below, the flag is torn up and it seems that it has been there for a long time in total neglect. What a better way is there to show the contempt Woyanne has for Ethiopian flag than this one which is displayed at a highly visible place — an international airport?
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Djibouti government and military are filled with khat-addicted whores at the service of the Woyanne mafia. It is a joke that they are calling up retired army and police officers. The minute real fighting starts, they would run to the French military base for cover. Ethiopians will never forget what they did to the 8 helicopter pilots 2 years ago who sought political asylum in Djibouti.
(Reuters) – Djibouti called up retired police and soldiers on Wednesday after a clash with Eritrean troops killed at least two and wounded 21 others on their shared border over looking strategic Red Sea shipping lanes.
Eritrea, without confirming or denying the clashes, dismissed Djibouti’s statements as “anti-Eritrean”.
The first fighting since 1996 between two of Africa’s smallest states broke out on Tuesday, after a nearly two-month standoff. Djibouti hosts French and U.S. military bases and is the main route to the sea for Eritrea’s arch-foe Ethiopia.
Djibouti said the clash began after Eritrean soldiers deserted and the Eritreans fired on them, prompting return fire. A second outbreak followed when Eritrean soldiers demanded their deserters back.
Fighting continued on Wednesday in the Mount Gabla area of northern Djibouti, Djibouti’s Defence Ministry said.
Police officers and soldiers who retired from 2004 to 2008 were ordered to reintegrate with their units, a government statement said.
Mount Gabla, also known as Ras Doumeira, overlooks the strategic Bab al-Mandib straits, which are a major shipping route to and from Europe and the Middle East.
Eritrea’s Foreign Ministry said it would not “get involved in an invitation of squabbles and acts of hostility”.
“(Djibouti) has been making continued futile attempts to drag the government of Eritrea into its concocted animosity,” a statement said.
A Reuters witness at a French hospital in Djibouti said helicopters had ferried in dead and wounded soldiers.
“PICKING A FIGHT”
In mid-April, Djibouti accused Eritrea of digging trenches and building fortifications on the Djiboutian side of the frontier. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki told Reuters in a recent interview that was a “fabrication”.
“It’s just another case of Eritrea picking a fight and finding itself in a position of hostility towards the main Western players in the region,” said Patrick Smith, editor of the Africa Confidential newsletter.
“Eritrea is sending out a warning to Djibouti in particular saying if it chooses to go with Ethiopia then it’s opening itself up to conflict with Asmara,” he said.
Djibouti’s army says nearly 75 percent of its 11,000 troops are now along its boundary with Eritrea, which is one of Africa’s most militarised states and has more than 200,000 soldiers as part of a mandatory conscription programme.
Djibouti and Eritrea are two of Africa’s smallest nations with populations of 820,000 and 4.7 million respectively.
Djibouti hosts two foreign military bases, including one of France’s biggest overseas contingents and a U.S. counter-terrorism task force of about 2,000 soldiers — many of them elite special forces who work with Ethiopian troops.
Former colonial power France signed a mutual defence pact with Djibouti after independence in 1977.
It is also a vital route for landlocked Ethiopia, which has vowed to protect its shipping access in Djibouti if necessary.
Ethiopia blamed Eritrea for the clash.
“Ethiopia firmly believes that such unwarranted action should be stopped immediately and peaceful and diplomatic solution must be sought for the problem,” Bereket Simon, special adviser to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, told Reuters.
Djibouti has turned itself into a regional shipping hub after massive investment from Dubai.
By Omar Hassan
Additional reporting by Jack Kimball in Asmara, Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa; Editing by Bryson Hull and Matthew Tostevin.
EDITOR’S NOTE: These flower farms are fertilizer and water intensive, according to experts. Is it a wise policy to grow flower, instead of teff, corn and other edible crops, when millions of our people are facing death by starvation? Would a government that cares for its people do such a thing? The following is a propaganda piece by a Woyanne information outlet >>
Addis Ababa (Walta Woyanne Information Center) — Some 700 hectares of land has been granted to over 10 horticultural investors on the outskirts of Bahir Dar town during the past two months, according to Ethiopian Horticultural Producers and Exporters Association (EHPEA).
Association Chairman Tsegaye Abebe told WIC that the local and foreign investors are making preparations to begin exporting produces early next year.
The Ethiopian Airports Enterprise and Ethiopian Airlines have also begun furnishing Bahir Dar International Airport with various equipment that enable to smoothly undertake the export, Tsegaye added.
The efforts underway to extend the floriculture and horticulture industry to other parts of the country would further be implemented in Diredawa and SNNP State, it was revealed.
Apart from earning foreign currency and creating jobs, the sector would help promote the positive image of the country, the chairman noted.
Ethiopia, as compared to other countries with long-years experience, has been registering encouraging results in the sector, he further said,adding that the production volume of the current Ethiopian year has shown 30 to 40 percent increase as compared to the previous years.
