By Mohamed Abdi Farah, SomaliNet

Five government soldiers including the commander of the police station in Dharkenley district, southwest of the capital were wounded in a bomb explosion which occurred in the settlement overnight, sources say on Tuesday.

A bomb was hurled at a car carrying the police station commander and a number of his security guards as they were patrolling near Macmacanka tea-shops in Dharkenley district, according to the district commissioner Abdulahi Moalim.

“The injury of the commander was not serious and now he is in hospital, we will find those who were behind the attack,” said Moalim. The security forces reached the area of the blast and began investigations to find the attacker.

Meanwhile, around 8:00pm local time last night two explosions happened in Bulo-Hubey area near the main airport of Mogadishu.

Residents told Somalinet that the target of the blast seemed to be on the Ethiopian soldiers who yesterday searched several houses and found weapons.

There is no immediate casualty on the Ethiopians.

Early this morning the Ethiopian forces raided a mosque near the area of the last night’s explosion arresting several worshipers.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s champion distance runner Haile Gebreselassie will make his New York racing debut in the NYC Half-Marathon on August 5, the New York Road Runners said on Tuesday.

Gebrselassie, fresh off a double world record effort last month when he established world bests for the one-hour run and 20,000 meters on the track at the golden Spike Grand Prix in Ostrava, has set 22 world records in his career.

The 34-year-old Ethiopian has won all seven of his previous 13.1-mile races, including a world-record time of 58 minutes, 55 seconds in 2006 in Tempe, Arizona, that was later surpassed by Samuel Wanjiru of Kenya.

“I’m so happy to run my first half-marathon in the Big Apple next month. I’m sure I will like the race and the atmosphere,” said nine-times world champion Gebrselassie, the 1996 and 2000 Olympic 10,000-metre gold medalist.

More than 10,000 runners from around the world have entered the race, which will also have a women’s field in what will serve as a tune-up for top international runners ahead of the world athletics championships August 25-September 2 in Osaka, Japan.

ADDIS ABABA, July 10 (Reuters) – Rescuers used motor boats on Tuesday to try to reach at least 4,000 pastoralists marooned by floods in Ethiopia’s remote southeast.

A senior official in South Omo region said 1,800 people had been moved to safety so far since hundreds of families were surrounded when the Wotio River burst its banks last week.

“The flood covered Erbor locality, which is flat, and formed a lake encircling the inhabitants,” deputy administrator Negatu Dansa told Reuters by telephone. No one had died, he said.

Local disaster relief officials were providing the displaced with food and shelter, he said. Some 48,000 Ethiopians were uprooted by flooding last year, according to U.N. estimates.

Floods typically hit lowland areas after heavy rains between June and September drench the country’s highlands.

The Federal Supreme Court in Ethiopia today sentenced former defense minister Siye Abraha to five years imprisonment on charges of corruption.

Since Siye has already been in jail for more than five years, he will be released. Siye, who many suspect, was jailed by the Woyanne regime because of his serious policy differences with Meles Zenawi, looked happy when the decision was read by the court.

The court sentenced the other defendants on the case, Fitsumzeab Asgedom, Beshah Azmete, Assefa Abaha and Tamrat Layne to five years, eight years, nine years, and three months imprisonment respectively. It means Fitsumzeab will also be released.

Source: Ethio-Zagol

Press Release
The Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party
Kinijit International Leadership

The regime in Ethiopia has recently escalated its campaign of terror against innocent civilians, this time in the Ogaden region of the country. It has been reported by international human rights organizations and confirmed by major media outlets that the Government has been engaged in a systematic campaign of violence against civilians under the pretext that they support the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) which the regime blamed for last April’s unfortunate death of civilians in an oil exploration facility run by Chinese experts. It has always been the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party’s (CUDP) position that it strongly condemns the deliberate targeting of civilians, by any party to a conflict, and for any cause whatsoever.

According to several well-founded reports, the TPLF army launched a series of attacks last month against innocent civilians throughout the Ogaden region. The attacks destroyed several villages and left dozens of civilians dead. The continued and well planned attack has also forced hundreds of civilians to flee their homes in search of food and shelter across the border with Somalia.

Although the latest situation in the Ogaden region indeed raises grave concern, it is, however, part of a pattern of behavior followed by the regime in unleashing a government sponsored violence in response to legitimate and peaceful demands from the Ethiopian people. The regime’s track record since its ascension to power in 1991 is studded with the brutal murder of popular union leaders, civil rights activists, peaceful demonstrators, political leaders, and influential figures in academia. Almost all of the mass killings that took place over the last seventeen years have been carried out under the personal order of the Prime Minister. Moreover, Mr. Zenawi’s army has been exceptionally even-handed on eliminating its opposition from each and every region of the country. The people of the Ogaden region have, in fact, taken more than their share of the tragedy as this is not the first time for them to be slaughtered by the regime. What we are witnessing currently in the Ogaden is a replay of the tragedy that was committed by the regime, albeit in a much larger proportion, in Gambella in 2003-2004, which in turn was a reproduction of similar killing sprees that took place in Awassa, Tepi, Ambo, Guder, Jimma, Addis Ababa, and many other parts of Oromiya, Amhara, and the Afar regions.

The latest demonstration of brute force by the government against unarmed civilians demonstrates the heavy price that Ethiopians have been and are paying to bring democratic changes in their country. As similar scorched earth campaigns waged by the regime to frustrate the people’s demand have been unsuccessful in the past, neither will the current campaign stifle the peaceful and democratic struggle of the people against tyranny. TPLF crackdown follows a similar pattern in that the campaigns always begin with the pretext of fighting armed rebels or “terrorists” ending up in a Janjaweed-type operation against innocent civilians.

What is more depressing is that the people of the Ogaden, like all other Ethiopians, have barely emerged from the apocalyptic calamities of drought, famine, and mass displacement when they are once again confronted by the killing machines of a government army.

The Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party is convinced that the recent crackdown in the Ogaden is yet another reminder of the stark truth that the only path to a democratic system is to coordinate the people’s struggle against the regime. It is CUD’s conviction that only a coordinated struggle through a holistic approach can deliver us from the current predicament which is partly exacerbated by the isolated and regional nature of our reaction to the tyranny that has amply proved to be a common enemy of the Ethiopian people without regard to our religious or ethnic identity. A coordinated effort can only guarantee success in our struggle and lead to national reconciliation and an inclusive system the returns of which could be partaken by the current regime as well. CUD, for its part, is trying to work along several dimensions to coordinate the democratic struggle with other groups with which CUD share similar visions of democratic change in our country.

Although, it increasingly appears that only a coordinated struggle of their own can deliver Ethiopians from their predicament, the international community can not remain indifferent as the regime in Ethiopia continue maiming civilians in front of a world media and human rights observers. Unfortunately, the regime’s opportunistic alliance with major world powers that provide the military and financial assistance, while turning a blind eye to the horrendous human rights has emboldened the Zenawi regime to unleash its post-election reign of terror through out the country.

The types of crimes that have been committed against civilians in other parts of the country as well as in the Ogaden is counter to the various international human rights conventions, to which the regime is a party to. As has been established from the Gambella tragedy, the regime’s army has committed widespread murder, rape, and torture against civilians.consistently and systematically against civilians including children, the elderly and nursing mothers. The regime has also been defrauding the international community through charades of investigations and mock trials, and other times by falsifying reports of Inquiry Commissions. Nevertheless, it is indisputable that offenses committed as part of a systematic and widespread attack against civilians are crimes against humanity under international law.

CUD urges donor governments and major international organizations to publicly condemn the regime in Ethiopia for the atrocities committed by its army in the Ogaden region. The CUD also calls upon the international community, especially the EU, AU and the United States, to set up an international commission for an independent inquiry into the systematic and widespread civilian killings committed by government forces in Ethiopia, including the post election mass murder and the recent crackdown in the Ogaden region of Eastern Ethiopia.

The CUD also avails this opportunity to remind the regime in Ethiopia that pursuing military solutions to problems that can be solved peacefully, and without the huge cost to human lives, would inevitably backfire against the regime itself. The CUD and other opposition parties continue to remind the ruling party that it is never too late to abandon its wanton course of murder and mayhem, and to choose the safest course of peaceful national reconciliation and a broad-based democratic system from which all Ethiopians stand to benefit.

Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit)