| June 12, 2008 An
international human rights group has accused the Ethiopian
army of carrying out executions, rapes and torture against
civilians in the eastern Ogaden region of the country.
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released on Thursday also
criticised the country's main donors - the US, Britain and
the European Union - of ignoring their actions.
The 130-page report says that violence has increased since
June 2007 when the army launched a campaign against the
Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) following an attack
on a Chinese-run oil installation.
The attack on the oil installation left 74 Ethiopian and
Chinese civilians dead.
'Public executions'
Georgette Gagnon, HRW's director for Africa, said in a
statement: "The Ethiopian army's attacks to the fighters
have been to viciously attack civilians in Ogaden."
The army is said to have forcibly displaced entire villages,
destroyed homes and executed at least 150 civilians.
HRW says that some executions were carried out publicly to
terrorise communities.
The army is also accused of capriciously detaining hundreds
of people in military bases.
The report quotes witnesses who say that villages were razed
to the ground and people beaten with rifle handles and
barrels.
"It lasted for more than an hour. They tied both my legs and
lifted me upside down to the ceiling with a rope and kept
beating me more saying I had to confess," one witness said.
"For two months we underwent this same ordeal."
'ONLF propaganda'
However, Bereket Simon, special adviser to Ethiopian prime
minister Meles Zenawi, dismissed the report saying that HRW
had founded its claims on ONLF propaganda.
"Human Rights Watch is engaged in misinforming the public
based on the information of the ONLF, whose forces have been
destroyed by the actions of the Ethiopian government," he
said.
"They don't have any representative on the ground but have
chosen to issue a report on hearsay from the ONLF
apparatus."
When questioned about whether the government would launch an
investigation Simon said: "How can we investigate lies and
innuendoes? How can we try to disprove lies by
investigating?''
HRW accused Ethiopia's main donors – the US, UK and EU, who
together contribute $2bn of aid annually to the Ethiopian
government – of "maintaining a conspiracy of silence around
the crimes."
Ethiopia has forged an imperialistic alliance with Bush
administration to pursuit its brutal policies in the Horn of
Africa region where criminalities and flaws of so-called war
on terror are commonplace.
'Wilfully blind'
"The United States is being wilfully blind" Gagnon said.
"Because Ethiopia is viewed as a key ally in the
counterterrorism efforts, they are perhaps prepared to look
the other way at abuses committed by Ethiopian soldiers.
HRW, who undertook the investigation between September and
December last year, interviewed more than 100 victims.
The report says that violence has decreased in 2008, but
that abuses are continuing.
The US and EU have declined to comment on the situation in
Ogadan.
At a news conference in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, HRW said
that its information gathering process had been rigorous and
that it was "100 per cent confident" about its findings.
They called on Washignton to investigate what they called
war crimes to comply with the Leahy law, a human rights
stipulation in the US foreign assistance legislation.
The Ogaden is an arid stretch of land the size of Britain on
the border with Somalia.
It has a population of about four million people and is
being explored for oil and gas.
Fighting has been taking place in the region for more than
10 years as ethnic Somalis there seek greater autonomy or an
independent state.
Ethiopians have illegally occupied the Somali region since
1977. |
