NAIROBI (AFP)–Ethiopia’s Ogaden rebels Friday scoffed at government statements they were losing their battle and said that Addis Ababa was attempting to divert world attention from a spiraling famine.
Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi Wednesday said that 95% of rebels in the Ogaden, an oil-rich region populated by ethnic Somalis, had been killed or captured.
However, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, or ONLF, laughed off the assertion as “a sign of the level of desperation the current regime has reached in dealing with the realities in the Ogaden.”
“ONLF is stronger and more effective than ever and is capable of launching operations at will, when and where it wants,” the rebel group said in a statement received by AFP in Nairobi.
The Ethiopian Woyanne army launched a crackdown in Ogaden after ONLF rebels attacked a Chinese oil venture in April 2007 that left 77 people dead.
Access to the area has been largely denied to humanitarian groups and journalists, sparking international concern over the fate of its estimated 4 million inhabitants.
“These utterances of Meles are PR exercises intended to divert attention from the fact that millions of Ethiopians are facing famine and hunger,” the ONLF said.
According to the U.N., 3.4 million Ethiopians require food aid in southern and central regions as a result of a devastating drought.
The Ethiopia and Sudan Border Issues Committee has issued a statement today denouncing the latest lie by Meles Zenawi who told the fake parliament in Addis Ababa that no body was displaced because of the border re-demarcation. Until this week all Woyanne regime officials, cadres, and opportunist supporters were denying that there was a land give away deal with Sudan. Finally, after the VOA and DW radios interviewed the displaced people at the border, Meles was forced to admit that there was in fact a border agreement with al Bashir’s regime in Sudan. The fake parliament was not informed about the agreement, proving that every one of those members of parliament are no better than potted plants. Read the Committee’s statement here [Amharic, pdf]
Meles Zenawi’s pack animal (donkey) Kuma Demeksa has been named mayor of Addis Ababa by the fake city council on Tuesday. Kuma is a person without conscience. He would sell his own mother for the highest bidder. According to ER sources, these days Kuma is busy working on multi-million-dollar real estate deals. He is building several condos. He will not have time to run the city. Even if he has the time, he is too dummy to run any thing except carry load for Meles.
The legitimately elected mayor, Dr Berhanu Nega, has the legal and moral authority — and obligation — to issue a directive outlawing Kuma’s fake mayorship. As a matter of fact, it is appropriate for Dr Berhanu to warn any one from engaging in any type of long terms deals, such as construction projects, with Kuma’s illegal city administration. This will freez a lot of activities by opportunist businessmen who will be scared that they will lose their investment after Woyanne is gone — which will not be too far.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia will import 150,000 tonnes of wheat to stabilise grain prices amid rising world commodity costs, the prime minister said on Wednesday.
Higher prices for staple foods and fuel have hit developing nations hard as government of some food-growing countries impose export curbs because of worries about domestic shortages.
“The government has signed an agreement to import 1.5 million quintals (150,000 tonnes) of wheat within the next one and half months to stabilise food grain prices,” Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told parliament.
“Food grain price stability was not achieved in some communities due to illegal practices by traders operating outside the law,” he said.
The leader of sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous country did not say where the grain would come from nor how much it would cost.
The Ministry of Finance says inflation stands at 19 percent, mostly due to high petrol prices.
Meles said the government will take action against black market operators. Last week, police arrested 45 traders.
Food shortages are worse in sub-Saharan Africa because per capita production has fallen in recent years. Drought-prone Ethiopia was one of the most-affected African countries.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Monday that Ethiopia should tap low-interest loans or grants to help it deal with rising food prices.
A U.S.-funded early warning system, FEWSNET, has said that up to nine million Ethiopians may need food assistance in 2008 due to drought.
(Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse, editing by Jack Kimball and Peter Blackburn)
(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit http://africa.reuters.com/). ([email protected]; +254 20 2224 717)
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – An Ethiopian [kangaroo] court sentenced eight people to death for a grenade attack that killed five people last year in the Horn of Africa nation’s restive Somali region, local media reported on Thursday.
The assault at a packed ceremony in 2007 was blamed on the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a separatist movement in the remote eastern area. A stampede after police fired over the crowd killed another six people.
“The Somali state high court sentenced to death the eight people after evidence presented by the prosecution proved that the accused killed and wounded civilians,” the state-run Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) quoted the court as saying.
The eight have a right to appeal to higher courts under Ethiopian law. Death sentences must also be approved by the state president.
The ONLF says it is fighting for autonomy of the ethnic-Somali region. Both the government and the rebels accuse each other of human rights abuses.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told parliament that the rebel group has been largely “neutralised” by a military offensive going on for the past year.
The ONLF denies this, saying it still has operations in the countryside. Addis Ababa says its neighbour Eritrea is training and supplying the ONLF, but Asmara denies that.
EDITORS’S NOTE: Meles Zenawi admitted yesterday in the parliament that he signed a border agreement with Sudan, but as usual he lied that no body was displaced as a result. Members of the fake parliament did not dare to point out to him that agreements with foreign countries must be approved by them. We wonder what explanation Woyanne cadres and sympathizers will come up with now after telling us that there is no border deal with Sudan.
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APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) The demarcation of the Ethiopia-Sudan border will not displace anybody on either side, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zewani told parliament on Wednesday.
He said Sudan and Ethiopia have agreed that the border demarcation, to start in the near future, will not displace any individuals from the land they occupy.
“We, Ethiopia and Sudan, have signed an agreement not to displace any single individual from both sides to whom the demarcation benefits,” he said.
The border between Ethiopia and Sudan dates back to 1907 when Sudan was under British colonial rule.
The two countries have so far been unable to physically identify their borders.
Recent reports said that Ethiopian farmers were displaced by Sudanese troops at two border areas but Meles told the parliament that this was land that was occupied by Ethiopia in 1996, which was given to two investors by the Ethiopian government, and Sudan complained about it.
“We have given back this land, which was occupied in 1996. This land before 1996 belonged to Sudanese farmers. There is no single individual displaced at the border as it is being reported by some media,” Meles said.
