According to witnesses from Gambella, in the
last few weeks, two to three thousand TPLF/EPRDF defense troops have been sent
to the area following the ambush of a passenger bus on March 4, 2012 where 19 innocent
people—mostly young students returning from school—were killed.
Despite an absence of evidence, the Anuak rebels in the bush have been blamed
and with them, the Anuak in general, especially men and older boys who all
“look” suspicious in the eyes of this regime. It has resulted in a
spiraling number of incidents of violence and arrests of Anuak by the military,
creating an atmosphere reminiscent of the Anuak massacre of December 13-15,
2003 and the two or more years of human rights abuses that followed.
The TPLF/EPRDF regime is justifying this clampdown as
necessary to protect the region—and the investors—from these
“anti-peace” insurgents; however,
from our investigations, we in
the SMNE have found no evidence of their involvement and instead, reason to
suspect that the tragic murder of these 19 Ethiopians may be another
Meles-conspired false flag operation, where disguised TPLF agents attacked the
bus themselves in order to blame the local people, especially those who are
opposed to the land grabs.
In the last year, Wikileaks
released a report that attributed responsibility for a car bomb that exploded
in Addis Ababa following the 2005 national election to Meles’ own agents
who had then used the incident to arrest members of the Oromo Liberation Front.
On the morning of the genocidal massacre of Anuak of December 13-15, 2003, a UN
vehicle was ambushed and all its occupants, including an Anuak driver, were
brutally murdered and the bodies were strategically laid out in the center of
Gambella town, inciting the residents. Anuak
insurgents were blamed; however, the plans to eliminate Anuak resistance to the
oil drilling, Operation Sunny Mountain,
began in Meles’ offices in September 2003, according to documents
retrieved from the office of Mr. Omot Obang Olom, the current Gambella
regional governor who was Chief of Security during the massacre.
These are only some examples of the
long-standing pattern of
widespread human rights violations by this one-ethnic dominated apartheid
regime that makes it one of the worst human rights violators in Africa. The
crimes in the Gambella region only declined because the TPLF/EPRDF troops were
moved to commit the same or even worse crimes in the Ogaden
and into Somalia. These violations include genocide, crimes against humanity,
war crimes and other atrocities that they have perpetrated and continue to
perpetrate with impunity; much of it documented by multiple human rights
organizations.
Eight years after the Anuak genocide, Gambella is again
in the spotlight. This region has become the epicenter of land grabs on the
African continent and with it, human rights violations in response to dissent;
however, with the return of TPLF/EPRDF troops, the numbers and breadth of these
incidents have multiplied. From the testimony from people in Gambella, the very
heavy presence of troops has terrorized many, triggering post-traumatic
memories of the past genocide.
Some of the schools in the Gambella
districts of Abobo and Gok,
where much of the land development is going on, have now been shut down and the
children are no longer going to school. Men and older teens are being intimidated
and harassed with reports of many arrests and torture. Troops have been
rounding up the men and ordering them to go into the bush, barehanded, to
search for unknown insurgents who are now accused of the killings despite a
lack of evidence.
Many local people are questioning the
regime’s assumption of guilt. Instead,many believe that the government
was behind the ambush as a covert means to protect the investors with thousands
of troops. There has been no peace or stability in the region since
their arrival as they target the local farmers in these rural towns and
villages. Now, anyone walking by themselves is labeled as a rebel; particularly
any men, young and old.
On March 25th, defense troops went to the
teacher’s college to arrest three Anuak students and one Nuer
student.These students claimed
they had committed no crimes and had nothing to do with the ambush or other
rebel activity.They resisted going
with them and as they did, faculty members called the police. Many of the
police force are local Anuak and should have been the ones to arrest them or
otherwise to protect them.
As the incident created a public spectacle, the defense
troops backed off and did nothing. When the police came, they arrested the
students and jailed them; however, in the middle of the night, the military
removed them from their cells and brought them to the army base for
interrogation, all in violation of the law. The outcome of these students is
still unknown. One of the students Mr. Opiew Obang allegedly
was suspected because his father, a police officer, had been arrested in the Abobo area on March 17th for refusing to search
for the insurgents saying he had no idea of their whereabouts. This is only
further evidence that no justice exists in this country.
The federal government has now taken complete control of
the Gambella region although the governor, Omot Obang Olom, remains as a figurehead. Why is the TPLF/EPRDF regime
panicking so much? Was this ambush part of a plan to protect the investors? After
the car was ambushed, the government-controlled news agency put out a press
release regarding the bus ambush and the killing of the 19 students. This is
quite unusual for them because they usually do not usually put out a press
release. When one puts it all together, we believe it may be all a strategy to
protect the regime’s investments in the area as well as the investors
with their work crews and professional staff who have been feeling fearful with
some threatening to leave according to rumors from the ground.
The motivation to use a high-profile and horrific killing
of innocent students to justify bringing in so many troops to assure the
investors to stay or even as a means to provide cheap labor (TPLF/EPRDF troops)
for the investors if their crews leave is not far-fetched for a government such
as the Meles regime who has a long history of pseudo-operations.
On March 21, federal representatives went to South Sudan
to meet with the Anuak Commissioner of Pochalla where thousands of Anuak remain who had fled from
Gambella during the massacre and its aftermath. They wanted the commissioner to
hand over approximately twenty Anuak who they believed might be involved in the
insurgency and hiding in the refugee camp in South Sudan. The Anuak there said they did not know the whereabouts of these
people. Now, the TPLF/EPRDF regime is exerting pressure on South Sudan to
return all of the Anuak refugees to Gambella, against international law.
In the last two weeks, an extensive campaign has been
launched, especially in the three Anuak districts where the land development is
going on. Mr. Omot Obang and federal officials went
to meet with some of the Anuak elders and people in these districts to
literally beg them not to join the resistance and instead to work with the
government against the “anti-peace” elements in the bush. Great
efforts were made to convince the Anuak that this land investment was good for
the people and that the TPLF was the best government for them because it was a
minority government that respected the rights of the minorities and
marginalized, unlike the Derg under Mengistu.
Efforts to discourage the Anuak from joining or supporting
the resistance are ongoing. On March 26th Mr. AlekaTsegayBerhe an official from the
office of the Minister of Defense was in Gambella town and met with the teachers
at the college. On March 27th they met with the students; both times with the message to not support the insurgents.
One of the government representatives at the Anuak village meetings with the elders was Mr. Shefarwa W/Mariam the man who replaced Barnabas Gebre-Ab, the former Minister of Federal Affairs for the
State of Gambella, who had been an architect of the Anuak
massacre. In response to their attempts to gain support of the government, the
Anuak elders, at every location, told the officials that one of the problems in
the region was Omot Obang and that until he was out
of power, the problems would continue. When Mr. Omot
was asked about this, he said that these elders had been “…brainwashed by the intellectual Anuak who are against me
and those people are not only in Gambella, but also in the Diaspora.” He
further said, “These are the people who are against the land deals and
who also hold a grudge for December 13th.”
For this reason, in the afternoon of March
26, 2012, Omot Obang, the police commissioner, Mr. TsegayBerhe the defense
commander and the Supreme Court Justice of the Gambella Region made a decision
that the Anuak insurgents who are in the bush must have a link to the those
Anuak in the West as well as to the intellectual Anuak in the region who do not
want him—Omot Obang—to be in power. So on
March 27th, instead of having an open meeting at the governor’s office as
usual, a secret meeting was held at the Police Commissioner’s office
which lasted for only ten minutes.
The decision was made to declare a war on
intellectuals. What this meant was that they would identify guilty suspects by
retrieving telephone records from the state-owned telecommunication office so
as to reveal who had talked to people in the Diaspora. Once identified, those
who had engaged in such calls would be arrested. From tomorrow forward, anyone
under suspicion by Omot Obang or anyone he thought
did not “like” him, he would target for arrest.
This is all a strong indication that things will get
worse. There will be many more arrests, disappearances, torture and killings,
the way it was done before in Gambella and in the manner that is still going on
in the Ogaden. We call on human rights groups to
investigate and for pressure to be put on the Ethiopian government to go after
those in the bush, if they can prove their guilt, rather than those in their
homes. Even more importantly, they should stop the abuses of the innocent and
hold their own troops accountable for human rights crimes already committed.
The SMNE is already collecting the names of the people who have disappeared or
who have been arrested or tortured. We now have 27 names, with more names
forthcoming. We will make this information public when we are ready.
In conclusion, caution should be exercised by every
Ethiopian citizen so as not to be entrapped by any TPLF/EPRDF deceit and
efforts to divide people along ethnic lines, skin color or as highlanders or
lowlanders as a ruse to maintain power, and with it, access to land and
resources. We Ethiopians must see the humanity in each of us if we are ever to
live in that New Ethiopia.===============================================
