Taken from Yahoo News, 12 June 2008
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya - Ethiopia's government is committing war crimes in its military campaign against rebels in the Ogaden region, a rights group charged Thursday in a report that complained the U.S. and other Western governments have remained silent about abuses.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Ethiopian troops are beating and strangling civilians, staging public executions and burning villages in Ogaden. It said the allegations were based on more than 100 eyewitness accounts.
An Ethiopian official denied the charges.
A State Department spokesman, Gonzalo Gallegos, said officials had not seen the report. He declined to comment generally about the insurgency in the Ogaden.
Washington looks to Ethiopia for help in the fight against Islamic extremists in East Africa, where al-Qaida has claimed responsibility for several attacks, including the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 225 people. Ethiopia is helping the U.N.-backed government in neighboring Somalia against Muslim insurgents.
"The silence of the U.S. government is not a silence based on ignorance," said Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch. "They are ignoring the information available to them."
Ethnic Somalis have been fighting for more than a decade seeking greater autonomy in the desolate Ogaden, which is being explored for oil and gas. Ethiopian forces stepped up operations after rebels attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field in April 2007, killing 74 people.
"The Ethiopian army's answer to the rebels has been to viciously attack civilians in the Ogaden," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director for Human Rights Watch.
The group also said the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front has violated humanitarian law by conducting the oil attack and by setting land mines along roads. Ethiopia accuses the rebels of being financed by its archenemy, Eritrea.
Bereket Simon, special adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, denied all allegations in the report.
"It's not true," he said. "It's the same old fabrication."
Asked whether an internal investigation was planned, he said: "How can we investigate lies and innuendoes? How can we try to disprove lies by investigating?"
Gagnon chided Ethiopia's leading donors, including the United States, Britain and the European Union, accusing them of ignoring what is happening in Ogaden.
"These widespread and systematic atrocities amount to crimes against humanity," she said. "Yet Ethiopia's major donors, Washington, London and Brussels, seem to be maintaining a conspiracy of silence around the crimes."
Gagnon said Western governments and institutions give at least $2 billion in aid to Ethiopia every year.
"Influential states use many excuses, such as lack of information and strategic priorities, to downplay the grave human rights concerns in Somali Region," she said. "But crimes against humanity can't be swept under the carpet."
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It is sad that the Ethopian regime does not get regular mention of their war crimes in the news (let alone from our politicians) - it seems that certain news pieces have a higher agenda than others. Another case where Oil is more important than people? or maybe a case like Israel where human rights crimes are ignored as Ethopia (like Israel) is a friend of the west. Looks like more double standards by the United States, Britain and the European Union.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Ethiopia committing war crimes - says HRW
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Ethiopian child brides give themselves to tradition
Taken from the Times, UK, May 17, 2008
By Ross Appleyard
Wube-Enat cowers under a brightly embroidered blanket, peering out at the festivities going on around her. Bemused and bewildered, she has little understanding of why she is suddenly the focus of so much attention.
It is her wedding day; Wube-Enat is 10 years old. Her husband, Abebe, is 14.
For the first time in her life she has discarded her grubby smock and is dressed in traditional robes. “I like my new husband,” she says shyly. “But I don't really know him. In fact, I've never met him.”
The ceremony, in the remote Amhara region of Ethiopia, is conducted by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Child weddings are common in this region, although it is illegal to marry below the age of 18. The priest justified conducting the wedding by saying: “We marry the girls so young to ensure they are virgins. If she was older we wouldn't marry her - someone might have raped her.”
Tradition is paramount in this part of Ethiopia but practices such as child marriage can have terrible repercussions for the girls. In Amhara half of all girls are married before they are 15.
Most get pregnant as soon as it is physically possible. Simegne, 12, is eight months pregnant. “I am looking forward to giving my mother a grandchild,” she said. “But I would rather be back at school.”
Almost all the girls give birth at home without proper healthcare and with no way of reaching a hospital if anything goes wrong - which is often.
Achawache was 15 when she got pregnant. She spent 12 days in labour before eventually giving birth to a stillborn baby. She was left incontinent. The condition is caused during a prolonged labour leading to a hole forming between the bladder and the vagina. It was six years before she heard of a hospital that would treat her. Because she was incontinent, bus drivers refused to let her on board to get to the medical treatment she needed. In many cases the condition leads to the girl being ostracised and deserted by her husband. The Government is determined to stamp out child marriages and has increased the penalties for anyone arranging such a ceremony. Getting the message to areas such as Amhara is difficult.
“Part of the problem is that it happens in areas that are so remote communication is difficult,” Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Health Minister, said. “We are also battling against deep-rooted traditions.”
More than 90 per cent of the 77 million people in Ethiopia live in rural areas. The Orthodox Church has a massive influence over the communities. While the Christian hierarchy claims to want an end to child marriages, its priests - there are half a million in the country - still carry them out. “Most of these priests are also carpenters and farmers,” the Church's head, His Holiness Abune Paulos said. “It will take time for the message to filter down that they must not be a part of this tradition.”
The British-based charity Safe Hands for Mothers has been working with the UN Population Fund to increase awareness. “It is not for us to interfere with cultural traditions that go back hundreds of years but we must alert people to the dangers of early marriage,” Nancy Durrell McKenna, its executive director, said. “We are working alongside our partners to make films that show the physical and psychological effects of child marriage on these vulnerable young girls. Some of the stories we have come across are heartbreaking.”
For more information visit safehands.org
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Ethiopian Premier Admits Errors on Somalia
Taken from The Washington Post, Friday, June 29, 2007; Page A16
By Stephanie McCrummen
NAIROBI, June 28 -- Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Thursday that his government "made a wrong political calculation" when it intervened in Somalia, where Ethiopian troops are bogged down in a fight against a growing insurgency.
Addressing Ethiopia's Parliament, Meles said his government incorrectly assumed that breaking up the Islamic movement that took control of most of Somalia in June 2006 would subdue the country. He also said he wrongly believed that Somali clan leaders would live up to unspecified "promises."
"We made these wrong assumptions," Meles said on a day when a roadside bomb killed two Ethiopian soldiers in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, and two aid workers were shot dead in northern Somalia.
Opposition members of Parliament have accused Meles of making the same mistake in Somalia that critics say the United States made in Iraq: launching a military intervention without having a political plan.
Many Ethiopian intellectuals and political leaders opposed the intervention because they said it would inevitably create the conditions for the sort of Somalia-based terrorist attacks that Meles intended to contain by invading the country.
In December, Ethiopian forces backing Somalia's transitional government dislodged the Islamic movement, which was popular for the relative security it had brought after years of brutal warlord rule.
Ethiopia and the United States said the Islamic movement had been hijacked by extremists and accused it of harboring terrorists, including three suspects in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, a charge the Islamic leaders denied.
Since January, fighting between insurgents and Ethiopian and Somali government troops has displaced more than half of Mogadishu's population while the humanitarian situation has deteriorated. On Thursday, Amnesty International accused Kenya of blocking 141 trucks of food and other aid headed for more than 200,000 displaced Somalis suffering from "alarming levels" of malnutrition.
Many businessmen and civil society leaders in Mogadishu say that over the past two weeks, they have been unjustly labeled "al-Qaeda" and their homes and offices have been ransacked by Ethiopian and Somali troops.
One internationally known civil society leader, Abdulkadir Nur, said that troops plundered equipment in his offices and that his colleagues and relatives had been arrested without charge.
Nur said he is simply against what he considers an Ethiopian occupation.
"I do have the right to express my personal views," he said in a statement. "And the transitional government has no right to abuse its power to destroy my livelihood, my personal property and abuse my colleagues and co-workers."
Special correspondent Kassahun Addis in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, contributed to this report.
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Like the WMD issue in Iraq, Eithopia (backed heavily by the US) assumed something that wasn't true. Without any proper evidence they launched a military intervention in an area of Sudan that had stability and law and order after decades of lawlessness and fighting between warlords. Yes it was a rival to the Federal Governmentval administration but it provided stability and hope to the people living in the region. Just because a political or social group has Islamic in it's title doesn't mean that they are a threat to society. When the UIC took over they opened the ports and airports -first time in decades and resumed commerce with other neighbouring countries. The only people threatened were the Warlords and the countries that were supported these warlords.
In an interview featured in the BBC Online Somali section in June 2006, Sheik Sharif Shaykh Ahmed said "the union of Islamic courts was established to ensure that Somali people suffering for 15 years would gain peace and full justice and freedom from the anarchic rule of warlords who refuted their people to no direction." After capturing Mogadishu, the Islamic Courts had enacted a series of decrees and laws that had temporarily brought hope for Somali expatriates, local minorities and women.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Three Swedes Freed From Ethiopia
Taken from The BBC, 19 May 2007
Three Swedish men have been released by Ethiopia after being detained for five months on suspicion of helping Islamist militants in Somalia.
A spokeswoman for Sweden's foreign ministry said the three men, who were originally arrested in Somalia, were now back in Sweden.
Spokeswoman Nina Ersman said the three had not been charged with any offence.
Ethiopia has said it detained a number of people after its army helped drive Islamists out of Somalia's capital.
Two of the men are Swedish nationals and one has permanent residency status in Sweden. Their names have not been released.
Sweden's foreign ministry had been demanding the release of the detainees for several weeks.
"I would like to express my gratitude to all foreign ministry officials who made this possible," Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said in a statement.
A lawyer for the three men said there had been no notification from Ethiopia that they would be released.
Ethiopia's government said in April that it had detained 41 people from 17 countries after its army helped Somalia's transitional government drive militias allied to the Union of Islamic Courts out of Mogadishu at the end of last year.
Some detainees were deported from Kenya, where many Somalis fled the fighting in Mogadishu.
Ethiopia has defended the detentions as part of its efforts to combat international terrorism in the Horn of Africa.
Human rights groups say US agents have been allowed to interrogate the detainees as part of the hunt for al-Qaeda suspects in the region.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Ethiopia Secret Prisons Under Scrutiny
Taken from Yahoo News, 05 Apr 2007
By ANTHONY MITCHELL, Associated Press
Ethiopia was under pressure Thursday to release details on detainees from 19 countries held at secret prisons in the country where U.S. agents have carried out interrogations in the hunt for al-Qaida in the Horn of Africa.
Canada, Eritrea and Sweden were lobbying for information about their citizens. Human rights groups say hundreds of prisoners, including women and children, have been transferred secretly and illegally to the prisons in Ethiopia. An investigation by The Associated Press found that
CIA and FBI agents have been interrogating the detainees.
Officials from Ethiopia were not immediately available for comment, but in the past have refused to acknowledge the existence of the prisons.
Ethiopia has a long history of human rights abuses. In recent years, it has also been a key U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaida, which has been trying to sink roots among Muslims in the Horn of Africa.
Canadian citizen Bashir Makhtal is among the detainees, Canadian authorities said.
"We know that he is in Ethiopia," Canadian Foreign Affairs spokesman Rejean Beaulieu said.
"We've been making, and continue to make, representations both here in Ottawa and in Ethiopia to get access to him," Beaulieu said.
Some detainees were swept up by Ethiopian troops who drove a radical Islamist government out of neighboring Somalia late last year, according to Kenyan officials and police. Others have been deported from Kenya, where many Somalis have fled the continuing violence in their homeland, they said.
They are kept without charge or access to lawyers and families.
The CIA began an aggressive program in 2002 to interrogate suspected terrorists at an unknown number of secret locations from Southeast Asia to Europe. Prisoners were frequently picked up in one country and transferred to a prison in another, where they were held incommunicado by a cooperative intelligence service. But President Bush announced in September that all the detainees had been moved to military custody at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
U.S. government officials contacted by AP have acknowledged questioning prisoners in Ethiopia. But they said American agents were following the law and were fully justified in their actions because they are investigating past attacks and current threats of terrorism.
The detainees include at least one U.S. citizen and some from Canada, Sweden and France, according to a list compiled by a Kenyan Muslim rights group and flight manifests obtained by AP. They also include citizens from Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Tunisia and Morocco.
Eritrea is asking Kenyan authorities for details on three of its citizens, handed over to Somalia on Jan. 20. Human rights groups say they are in Ethiopia.
"At this juncture, the Government of Eritrea again calls on the Kenyan authorities to get the three Eritrean citizens released at the earliest and repatriate them to their country," according to a statement by Eritrea's Information Ministry. "Furthermore, it reminds the Kenyan authorities that the responsibility for the lives of the Eritrean citizens rests on them."
Eritrea and Ethiopia are bitter rivals and have no diplomatic relations.
Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said the government had no comment to make until it received an official communication from the Eritrean government.
Swedish Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nina Ersman said they had managed to gain access to its nationals still being detained, including two Swedish citizens and one who holds a permanent residence permit.
"We have visited them, but not in recent days," she told the AP. She said she did not know the dates of the visit.
Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law who has been assisting the family of a detained U.S. citizen, 24-year-old Amir Mohamed Meshal, said Thursday he had still not spoken to him.
The State Department said late Wednesday that a U.S. Embassy official made a third visit to Meshal on Wednesday.
In a message passed from the official to his parents, Amir Meshal asked his family to be "patient."
Associated Press writers Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Sweden, and Rebecca Santana in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
