Citizens International forwards this story from the New York times about the quiet war that is going on in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government is responding to attempts for independence in the region with a blunt repression of the civilian population in the area. Gang rapes, burning down of villages and killings of civilians have become common place. Meanwhile, the United States continues to arm the government, purportedly for its help in fighting terrorism in the region.
June 18, 2007
In Ethiopia, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
IN THE OGADEN DESERT, Ethiopia — The rebels march 300 strong across the crunchy earth, young men with dreadlocks and AK-47s slung over their shoulders.
Often when they pass through a village, the entire village lines up, one sunken cheekbone to the next, to squint at them.
“May God bring you victory,” one woman whispered.
This is the Ogaden, a spindle-legged corner of Ethiopia that the urbane officials in Addis Ababa, the capital, would rather outsiders never see. It is the epicenter of a separatist war pitting impoverished nomads against one of the biggest armies in Africa.
What goes on here seems to be starkly different from the carefully constructed up-and-coming image that Ethiopia — a country that the United States increasingly relies on to fight militant Islam in the Horn of Africa — tries to project.
In village after village, people said they had been brutalized by government troops. They described a widespread and longstanding reign of terror, with Ethiopian soldiers gang-raping women, burning down huts and killing civilians at will.
It is the same military that the American government helps train and equip — and provides with prized intelligence. The two nations have been allies for years, but recently they have grown especially close, teaming up last winter to oust an Islamic movement that controlled much of Somalia and rid the region of a potential terrorist threat.
The Bush administration, particularly the military, considers Ethiopia its best bet in the volatile Horn — which, with Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, is fast becoming intensely violent, virulently anti-American and an incubator for terrorism.
But an emerging concern for American officials is the way that the Ethiopian military operates inside its own borders, especially in war zones like the Ogaden.
Anab, a 40-year-old camel herder who was too frightened, like many others, to give her last name, said soldiers took her to a police station, put her in a cell and twisted her nipples with pliers. She said government security forces routinely rounded up young women under the pretext that they were rebel supporters so they could bring them to jail and rape them.
“Me, I am old,” she said, “but they raped me, too.”
Moualin, a rheumy-eyed elder, said Ethiopian troops stormed his village, Sasabene, in January looking for rebels and burned much of it down. “They hit us in the face with the hardest part of their guns,” he said.
The villagers said the abuses had intensified since April, when the rebels attacked a Chinese-run oil field, killing nine Chinese workers and more than 60 Ethiopian soldiers and employees. The Ethiopian government has vowed to crush the rebels but rejects all claims that it abuses civilians.
“Our soldiers are not allowed to do these kinds of things,” said Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman. “This is only propaganda and cannot be justified. If a government soldier did this type of thing they would be brought before the courts.”
Even so, the State Department, the European Parliament and many human rights groups, mostly outside Ethiopia, have cited thousands of cases of torture, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings — enough to raise questions in Congress about American support of the Ethiopian government.
“This is a country that is abusing its own people and has no respect for democracy,” said Representative Donald M. Payne, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa and global health.
“We’ve not only looked the other way but we’ve pushed them to intrude in other sovereign nations,” he added, referring to the satellite images and other strategic help the American military gave Ethiopia in December, when thousands of Ethiopian troops poured into Somalia and overthrew the Islamist leadership.
According to Georgette Gagnon, deputy director for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, Ethiopia is one of the most repressive countries in Africa.
“What the Ethiopian security forces are doing,” she said, “may amount to crimes against humanity.”
Human Rights Watch issued a report in 2005 that documented a rampage by government troops against members of the Anuak, a minority tribe in western Ethiopia, in which soldiers ransacked homes, beat villagers to death with iron bars and in one case, according to a witness, tied up a prisoner and ran over him with a military truck.
After the report came out, the researcher who wrote it was banned by the Ethiopian government from returning to the country. Similarly, three New York Times journalists who visited the Ogaden to cover this story were imprisoned for five days and had all their equipment confiscated before being released without charges.
Ethiopia’s Tiananmen Square
In many ways, Ethiopia has a lot going for it these days: new buildings, new roads, low crime and a booming trade in cut flowers and coffee. It is the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa, behind Nigeria, with 77 million people.
Its leaders, many whom were once rebels themselves, from a neglected patch of northern Ethiopia, are widely known as some of the savviest officials on the continent. They had promised to let some air into a very stultified political system during the national elections of 2005, which were billed as a milestone on the road to democracy.
Instead, they turned into Ethiopia’s version of Tiananmen Square. With the opposition poised to win a record number of seats in Parliament, the government cracked down brutally, opening fire on demonstrators, rounding up tens of thousands of opposition supporters and students and leveling charges of treason and even attempted to kill top opposition leaders, including the man elected mayor of Addis Ababa.
Many opposition members are now in jail or in exile. The rest seem demoralized.
“There are no real steps toward democracy,” said Merera Gudina, vice president of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, a leading opposition party. “No real steps toward opening up space, no real steps toward ending repression.”
Ethiopian officials have routinely dismissed such complaints, accusing political protesters of stoking civil unrest and poking their finger into a well-known sore spot. Ethiopia has always had an authoritarian streak. This is a country, after all, where until the 1970s rulers claimed to be direct descendants of King Solomon. It is big, poor, famine-stricken, about half-Christian and half-Muslim, surrounded by hostile enemies and full of heavily armed separatist factions. As one high-ranking Ethiopian official put it, “This country has never been easy to rule.”
That has certainly been true for the Ogaden desert, a huge, dagger-shaped chunk of territory between the highlands of Ethiopia and the border of Somalia. The people here are mostly ethnic Somalis, and they have been chafing against Ethiopian rule since 1897, when the British ceded their claims to the area.
The colonial officials did not think the Ogaden was worth much. They saw thorny hills and thirsty people. Even today, it is still like that. What passes for a town is a huddle of bubble-shaped huts, the movable homes of camel-thwacking nomads who somehow survive out here. For roads, picture Tonka truck tracks running through a sandbox. The primary elements in this world are skin and bone and sun and rock. And guns. Loads of them.
Camel herders carry rifles to protect their animals. Young women carry pistols to protect their bodies. And then there is the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the machine-gun-toting rebels fighting for control of this desiccated wasteland.
Rebels Live Off the Land
Lion. Radio. Fearless. Peacock. Most of the men have nicknames that conceal their real identities. Peacock, who spoke some English, served as a guide. He shared the bitter little plums the soldiers pick from thorn bushes — “Ogaden chocolate,” he called them. He showed the way to gently skim water from the top of a mud puddle to minimize the amount of dirt that ends up in your stomach — even in the rainy season this is all there is to drink.
He pointed out the anthills, the coming storm clouds, the especially ruthless thorn trees and even a graveyard that stood incongruously in the middle of the desert. The graves — crude pyramids of stones — were from the war in 1977-78, when Somalia tried, disastrously, to pry the Ogaden out of Ethiopia’s hands and lost thousands of men. “It’s up to us now,” Peacock said.
Peacock was typical of the rebels. He was driven by anger. He said Ethiopian soldiers hanged his mother, raped his sister and beat his father. “I know, it’s hard to believe,” he said. “But it’s true.”
He had the hunch of a broken man and a voice that seemed far too tired for his 28 years. “It’s not that I like living in the bush,” he said. “But I have nowhere else to go.”
The armed resistance began in 1994, after the Ogaden National Liberation Front, then a political organization, broached the idea of splitting off from Ethiopia. The central government responded by imprisoning Ogadeni leaders, and according to academics and human rights groups, assassinating others. The Ogaden is part of the Somali National Regional State, one of nine ethnic-based states within Ethiopia’s unusual ethnic-based federal system. On paper, all states have the right to secede, if they follow the proper procedures. But it seemed that the government feared that if the Somalis broke away, so too would the Oromos, the Afar and many other ethnic groups pining for a country of their own.
The Ethiopian government calls the Ogaden rebels terrorists and says they are armed and trained by Eritrea, Ethiopia’s neighbor and bitter enemy. One of the reasons Ethiopia decided to invade Somalia was to prevent the rebels from using it as a base.
The government blames them for a string of recent bombings and assassinations and says they often single out rival clan members. Ethiopian officials have been pressuring the State Department to add the Ogaden National Liberation Front to its list of designated foreign terrorist organizations. Until recently, American officials refused, saying the rebels had not threatened civilians or American interests.
“But after the oil field attack in April,” said one American official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “we are reassessing that.”
American policy toward Ethiopia seems to be in flux. Administration officials are trying to increase the amount of nonhumanitarian aid to Ethiopia to $481 million next year, from $284 million this year. But key Democrats in Congress, including Mr. Payne, are questioning this, saying that because of Ethiopia’s human rights record, it is time to stop writing the country a blank check.
In April, European Commission officials began investigating Ethiopia for war crimes in connection to hundreds of Somali civilians killed by Ethiopian troops during heavy fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.
Women Are Suffering the Most
In the Ogaden, it is not clear how many people are dying. The vast area is essentially a no-go zone for most human rights workers and journalists and where the Ethiopian military, by its own admission, is waging an intense counterinsurgency campaign.
The violence has been particularly acute against women, villagers said, and many have recently fled.
Asma, 19, who now lives in neighboring Somaliland, said she was stuck in an underground cell for more than six months last year, raped and tortured. “They beat me on the feet and breasts,” she said. She was freed only after her father paid the soldiers ransom, she said, though she did not know how much.
Ambaro, 25, now living in Addis Ababa, said she was gang-raped by five Ethiopian soldiers in January near the town of Fik. She said troops came to her village every night to pluck another young woman.
“I’m in pain now, all over my body,” she said. “ I’m worried that I’ll become crazy because of what happened.”
Many Ogaden villagers said that when they tried to bring up abuses with clan chiefs or local authorities, they were told it was better to keep quiet.
The rebels said thats was precisely why they attacked the Chinese oil field: to get publicity for their cause and the plight of their region (and to discourage foreign companies from exploiting local resources). According to them, they strike freely in the Ogaden all the time, ambushing military convoys and raiding police stations.
Mr. Mohammed, the government spokesman, denied that, saying the rebels “will not confront Ethiopian military forces because they are not well trained.”
Expert or not, they are determined. They march for hours powered by a few handfuls of rice. They travel extremely light, carrying only their guns, two clips of bullets, a grenade and a tarp. They brag about how many Ethiopians they have killed, and every piece of their camouflage, they say, is pulled off dead soldiers. They joke about slaughtering Ethiopian troops the same way they slaughter goats.
Their morale seems high, especially for men who sleep in the dirt every night. Their throats are constantly dry, but they like to sing.
“A camel is delivering a baby today and the milk of the camel is coming,” goes one campfire song. “Who is the owner of this land?”
Will Connors contributed reporting from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Paris-Geneva, April 19, 2007. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), in the framework of their joint programme, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, have been informed of a recent update in the trial of human rights defenders, opposition leaders, and journalists that has been pending December 2005, and which was subsequent to massive protests and violent crackdowns in the aftermath of the parliamentary elections in May 2005[1].
The federal prosecution completed presenting its evidence on November 29, 2006 and the case was adjourned to February 10, 2007 for ruling. After some new adjournments, the court read out its ruling on the six working days between March 30 and April 9, 2007. According to the ruling, the prosecution was unable to prove its charge on counts of “attempted genocide” and “high treason”, and these two charges were dropped. Moreover, some 25 of the defendants (of which 8 are journalists), including Mr. Kassahun Kebede, Director of the Addis Ababa branch of the Ethiopian Teachers’ Association (ETA), were acquitted and released. Charges against some defendants who have been tried in absentia have also been either suspended or dropped.
However, the court said that the prosecution has proven its case against leaders of the main opposition party and most of the members and supporters, especially on the first count, i.e. “crime of outrage against the constitutional order”. So far, except Mr. Daniel Bekele, Head of Policy Research and Advocacy Department of Action Aid Ethiopia, and Mr. Netsanet Desmissie, founder of the Organisation for Social Justice in Ethiopia (OSJE), all the accused persons have refused to defend themselves, claiming that the charges are politically motivated and that they have no faith in the independence of the court. The case has been adjourned to April 30, 2007.
The Observatory recalls that it sent two international missions of judicial observation to Ethiopia in order to observe this trial in February and October 2006[2]. In view of its findings, the Observatory considered the charges to be arbitrary and disproportionate to the nature of the events that occurred in the aftermath of the May 2005 elections. The Observatory also expressed its deepest concern about the fairness of this trial, as it believed it to be a way to silence any political criticism of the current regime.
The Observatory also condemns the continuing repression of human rights defenders and expresses its particular concern about the situation of members of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO). Indeed, since the second crackdown on mass protests, several of EHRCO’s veteran staff have been forced into exile for fear of their lives. Besides, several EHRCO members have been arrested arbitrarily and held in detention for various periods of time in 2006 (See Observatory Annual Report 2006).
Therefore, the Observatory reiterates its recommendations to the Ethiopian authorities urging them to:
- Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of human rights defenders;
- Ensure that people subjected to arbitrary arrests, arbitrary charges or those without charges or conviction against them, including Mr. Daniel Bekele, and Mr. Netsanet Desmissie, be immediately released;
- End all forms of harassment and ill-treatment of human rights defenders in Ethiopia, and guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders and organisations are able to carry out their work without any hindrance;
- Conform with the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, especially its article 1, which states that “everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels” and article 12.2, which provides that “the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration”;
- Conform with the recommendations, conclusions and observations made by Special Procedures of the United Nations concerning Ethiopia, as well as with the resolution adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights at its 38th Session in Banjul, in December 2005, and endorsed by African Heads of States and Governments at the African Union Summit held in the Gambia in July 2006;
- More generally, ensure in all circumstances the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms throughout the country in accordance with international human rights instruments ratified by Ethiopia.
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[1] 131 people (including legal persons), presumed to be linked with these events, had been charged with crimes including “conspiracy”, “outrage against the Constitution”, “inciting, organising and leading armed rebellion”, “crime against the territorial integrity of the country”, “high treason” and “genocide”, all these charges being liable to sentences ranging from 25 years’ imprisonment to death penalty, though not all were charged on all counts. Later on, the Federal Prosecution withdrew its charge of “crime against the territorial integrity of the country”, and the charge of “genocide” was reframed as “attempted genocide”.
Three human rights defenders were part of the co-accused, namely Mr. Kassahun Kebede, Director of the Addis Ababa branch of the Ethiopian Teachers’ Association (ETA), Mr. Daniel Bekele, Head of Policy Research and Advocacy Department of Action Aid Ethiopia, and Mr. Netsanet Desmissie, founder of the Organisation for Social Justice in Ethiopia (OSJE), who were all charged with “crime of outrage against the Constitutional order”.
[2] See the mission report that was released on December 22, 2006, at: www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/et221206a.pdf or www.omct.org/pdf/Observatory/2006/report/ethiopia_obs463-2_1106_eng.pdf
During the 1960's and 70's, Dutch company HVA International established and ran sugar factories in Ethiopia. Apparently, their activities resulted in toxic levels of fluoride appearing in the drinking water. Excessive fluoride causes dental and skeletal fluorosis. In the former, teeth are stained and the tooth emanel are pittled, while the latter leads to changes in bone structure and making them extremely weak and brittle. In its most severe cases it results in calcification of ligaments, immobility, muscle wasting, and neurological problems related to spinal cord compression. These are not reversible diseases.
According to its successor company (operating under the same name), when HVA International learned of the use of fluoride, it installed fluorination filters and later paid compensation to the Ethiopian government. The people from the affected areas, however, did not benefit from such measures.
A lone Wonji activist, Almaz Mequanint, has taken on their cause, appealing to the company and the United Nations. While I'm unable to ascertain what responsibility HVA may have, it is clear that the Ethiopian government has the obligation under international law to provide the affected population with reparations, including access to medical care. I have written to the authorities reminding them of such obligations and I urge you to do the same:
* Prime Minister, His Excellency Meles Zenawi, Office of the Prime Minister, P O Box 1031, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Fax:+ 251 1 552020 / 552030
* Ambassador Fisseha Yimer, Permanent Mission of Ethiopia to the United Nations in Geneva, 56 rue de Moillebeau, Case postale 338, 1211 Geneva 19, Switzerland, Email: mission.ethiopia@ties.itu.int / info@ethiopiamission.ch, Fax: +41 22 919 70 29
The horror in this story is about Wonji, Wonji/Shoa and Metehara victims, which are still suffering for four generations by the environmental pollution in Ethiopia. I strongly believe that HVA International, which is a Dutch-run giant company-which are still operating in many countries including in Africa had committed this horrible environmental crime.
HVA International was established in 1879 and started business activities in Indonesia. HVA had sugar factories in Java and rubber, fibers, tea and coffee estates in Sumatra. After the proclamation of Indonesian sovereignty in 1945 HVA suffered revolutionary turmoil in 1945 and 1946 and all Dutch assets was nationalized in 1958. So, HVA's next move was in Africa and in 1954 HVA established it's first sugar factory in Ethiopia in Wonji. Then in Wonji/Shoa and Metehara sugar factories were established in 1960 and 1968.
I grew up in Wonji and I got married and also my two children were born and raised there. What I found disturbing all those years was finding solutions and whom to blame. Most residents were suffering from teeth decay and severe skeletal fluorosis, osteoporosis, noise pollution, asbestos pollution, respiration problems, arthritic pain and decaying teeth caused by drinking water with excessive levels of fluoride. I am suffering from asthma caused by air pollution and had an operation on my left knee due to fluoride. My children's teeth most are decayed with a lot of cavities. My whole family and I are lifelong victims. Our conditions are irreversible. Many beautiful young boys and girls in Wonji when they smile reveal a good set of teeth discolored and decayed.
The Dutch knew in 1957 the existence of excess fluoride in the drinking water so in 1962 they installed two defluoridation plants in two villages where the Dutch family lived protecting themselves and exposing us. Then after the revolution in 1974 the Dutch knowing that they will be nationalized planted 10 deflouridated water to all villages. The huge damages to those communities were overwhelming because they were holding information for 17 years and warning us at the time of their departure about the poisonous water we were consuming. This is deliberate violation of trust and responsibility. Is this environmental crime or not?
The Dutch held a referendum and amended their constitution to prevent their water from being fluoridated in the Netherlands but when it comes to blacks, the poor and unfortunate they care less to protect. Employees in Wonji were used as disposable tools literally.
The irrigation system was designed to penetrate through our villages to the plantation and had caused mosquitos to produce and many children drowned but no questions were asked for those lost lives. Two workers were murdered in Metehara by a Dutch worker and the cause of death was claimed that they drowned in the Dutch swimming pool while trying to swim. But it was believed that they were killed outside and their bodies damped in the swimming pool such as a cover up.
All houses roofs are built by asbestos while asbestos was banned for may years in the Netherlands-and many are affected by this pollution. The sugar factories produce harmful waste and gases in the air. Instead of paving asphalt molasses was poured on to the streets, making them sticky to walk, foul smell, which attracted many flies in our villages.
The Dutch were living in a secluded area called "Shebo Gibi" means wired village. They built our village far from they lived. The Dutch also had their own school and club in their village. There was a cinema hall attached to their club and movies was seen by the Dutch on Tuesday and Saturday and we blacks are allowed to see movie on Wednesday and Sunday that means after the Dutch had seen the movies.
Another inhumane treatment of the Dutch was poor medical treatment. The Dutch were treated direct by a doctor while we have to go through nurse, health officer, then after 2-3 month we will be able to see a doctor. The hospital was divided in floors where the upper floors were for the white and the lower floors are for the blacks. The food and medicine given by the hospital varies as well. Very few educated black employees were allowed to use some facilities as the Dutch-such as housing and medical treatment. In the factories black employees were suffering countless physical and verbal abuses including losing their jobs with little or no reasons by their Dutch bosses. The living conditions in the camps where the sugarcane cutters live are horrendous. They were extremely filthy and riddled with mosquitoes, flies and other insects. All workers in those three sugar factories were given below minimum wage.
Moreover, when HVA and the Netherlands government were asked about my allegation by UN rapport 2004 they gave a very ugly statement mix of misinformation, propaganda, posturing, hypocrisy and denial. And the worst thing is that they stated that they paid undisclosed amount of money for the Ethiopian regime at the time for the fluoride victims. Why do they have to wait until they got nationalized to help the victims and secondly, why don't they gave it directly to the victims? Plus, how do they asses the number of the victims to pay reasonable amount of compensation. Their statement was rubbish and ridiculous-nobody with right mind will buy it.
The Ethiopian communist regime at that time who were given the money are not in power to testify and I guess this is a statement done by the Dutch as a fabrication to veil the truth and the guilt. It is at best stupid alibi, at worse very deceitful. Any way, we've been dehumanized and violated in unspeakable way. To prove all these I have a compelling evidence to prove their guilt. Here below is the website of the UN Rapport regarding Wonji.
E/CN.4/2004/46/Add.1 Page 11
http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/e06a5300f90fa0238025668700518ca4/537cc11206078a27c1256e27003798aa/$FILE/G0317267.pdf and also please view this website,http://www.newint.org/issue363/dirty.htm, thank you.
I cannot stop thinking about the victims of Wonji until they get the justice they deserve as equal as any other human beings in this divisive planet. To combat evil and survive, between commitment and courage I urge you to investigate this matter further and to appeal and to confront this corporate polluter HVA International and attempt to instill accountability and remedy. These neglected victims especially by major western media I am wondering-what's going to be their fate? The answer is triple death sentence. The Dutch which their city is the Hague ironically the City of Peace and Justice, international criminal court, international convention, Unicef City in 2005/2006 and the home to over 150 international legal organizations are the human right violators of these poor and helpless victims. In my opinion, all those offices should be moved from the Hague to another country. What is luminously clear the response for their acts is for HVA and The Netherlands is: "Guilty!"
Sincerely,
Almaz Mequanint