ONLF on UN fact finding mission to Ogaden

Press Release | August 25, 2007

We call on the United Nations not to limit the scope of this mission to a humanitarian assessment but to include an preliminary investigation of war crimes being committed against our people by the current Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) led regime. We further urge the United Nations to allow international journalists, who are currently banned from entering Ogaden, to travel with the mission.

The ONLF is prepared to provide all necessary assistance to this mission and members of the international media who may join them in gaining access to all areas of Ogaden.

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Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)

Ethiopia to press Ogaden campaign despite criticism

NAIROBI (Reuters) -The Ethiopian government, facing
low-level, armed opposition in most corners of the country,
shows no sign of letting up in a ruthless drive against rebels
in the remote Ogaden region.

Government soldiers are accused of burning homes, seizing
livestock and killing civilians in the toughest crackdown yet on
insurgents in this near-forgotten part of the vast Horn of
Africa country.

Rights groups say abuses escalated in Ogaden when the
government launched its campaign two months ago to root out
separatist insurgents who attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration
field in April, killing 74 people.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has branded rebels of the Ogaden
National Liberation Front (ONLF) as “terrorists” bankrolled by
arch-foe Eritrea.

Shrugging off pressure from the West, which fears the
conflict may further destabilise the Horn, Meles asserts his
right to rid the region, bordering lawless Somalia, of the
ONLF’s “cold-blooded murderers”.

“No stone will be left unturned,” he has vowed.

With several thousand gunmen thought to be in its ranks and
known for hit-and-run attacks on military targets, the ONLF says
it wants greater autonomy for a homeland that may be rich in
natural gas and oil.

DEEP SENSE OF MARGINALISATION

Few experts expect Meles, equipped with one of Africa’s
biggest armies, to waver from his hardline stance.

His campaign benefits from the remoteness of the area, which
is largely cut off from aid workers and journalists, and the
lack of leverage available to the West to stop it, they say.

The ONLF, which sprang up in 1984, has long traded on a deep
sense of marginalisation felt by the Ogadenis against a central
government dominated by former rebels from the northern Tigray
province to fuel its rebellion.

It says it has the support of the mostly nomadic Ogadenis,
who number anywhere between 4 and 10 million people.

But analysts say the ONLF is held back by lack of a
consistent political aim, making demands for total independence
and inclusion in a “Greater Somalia” at various times.

They say the group exploited a security gap that emerged
when Ethiopian troops in Ogaden moved out to bolster Somalia’s
interim government across the border.

Despite the rebels’ allegations that a trade blockade is
squeezing food supplies and causing starvation, the government
may ride out any Western backlash.

“The Ethiopian government has proved to be quite capable of
weathering international criticism,” one Western academic said.

“There isn’t much leverage the international community can
use. Major donors don’t want to suspend programmes and the
United States needs an ally in its counter-terrorism war.”

ENERGY CONCERNS

A crucial factor that may be driving Meles’s crackdown is
energy. Several oil and gas firms have shown interest in Ogaden,
including Malaysia’s Petronas, China’s Sinopec and India’s GAIL.

Experts on the region suspect energy explorers who signed
deals with the government are putting pressure on Meles to
ensure security in gun-infested Ogaden.

“What hit the government was that all the oil companies
operating there left the region (after the April attack),” said
another foreign analyst. “Now they are all in talks with the
government about solving security, the political situation with
the ONLF and making sure there’s fair distribution of profits.”

Although the ONLF has been accused of targeting civilians
and blamed for a spate of grenade atackss, its complaint of
political inequity touches a nerve with many ethnic groups.

Critics say the government has failed to uphold Article 39
of the constitution, which espouses the unconditional right of
“Every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia” to
self-determination, including the right to secession.

The concept of ethnic federalism was meant to cement
together a nation of 81 million people living in nine states,
encompassing a myriad ethnic groups, scores of languages and
three major religions.

But Abdulkader Sulub Abdi, Geneva-based international
coordinator of the Ogaden Human Rights Committee, accused Meles
of favouring his Tigrayan ethnic group since 1991 when he ousted
Amharic military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.

“The Tigrayans and the Amharas before — the highlanders —
see themselves as the elite with the God-given right to rule
other people. They see themselves as the masters of the land.”

“Meles’s government and his policies are forcing people to
join the rebels,” Abdi told Reuters.

U.S. offers $19 million for Ogaden mergency aid

WASHINGTON, DC (VOA) –
The State Department said Friday Washington is working with the Ethiopian government, international partners and non-governmental organizations in responding to concerns over humanitarian conditions in the eastern region.

The U.S. says most of the $18.7 million will help provide food assistance through the United Nations World Food Program.  Some funds also will help pay for health, nutrition, and livelihood programs.

Years of drought, flooding, civil conflict, disease and food shortages have left residents in Ogaden vulnerable to poverty and famine.
 
Ethiopia’s Ogaden, also known as the Somali region, is an oil-rich, but poor area that is ethnically Somali.  It has long sought autonomy from Addis Ababa.