Ethiopia: Army Commits Torture, Rape

On April 28, 2012, unidentified armed men attacked the compound of Saudi Star Agricultural
Development Plc., a company that has leased thousands of hectares of land for
rice farming in Gambella region. The gunmen killed at
least one Pakistani and four Ethiopian employees. Gambella
residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that in the following days and
weeks, Ethiopian soldiers went house to house looking for the gunmen in
villages near the Saudi Star camp, arbitrarily arresting and beating young men
and raping female relatives of suspects.

Human Rights Watch has previously reported on the Ethiopian government’s policy
of “villagization” or resettlement of Gambella residents from their traditional lands to clear
the way for the commercial farms. The government has used threats,
intimidation, and violence against those who resist moving.

Hundreds of villagers from Abobo woreda
(district) fled the military operation and crossed into neighboring South Sudan
in the months since the attack on Saudi Star. In June Human Rights Watch
interviewed more than 80 recent arrivals from Gambella
in South Sudan.

Witnesses described to Human Rights Watch the military’s human rights abuses
against people in the vicinity of Saudi Star. The day after the Saudi Star
attack, Ethiopian soldiers shot and killed four of the company’s Anuak guards, accusing them of complicity in the attack. In
April and May Ethiopian security forces entered the five villages closest to
the Saudi Star compound in Abobo woreda,
rounded up scores of young men and detained them in military barracks in Gambella. Many alleged that they were tortured.

One former detainee told Human Rights Watch: “They said we were to go into the
bush and show them where the rebels are – with whom they claimed we had a
relationship. They beat me after I said I didn’t know where the rebels are.
After they beat me they took me to the barracks. I was in custody for three
days. At night they took me out and asked me to show them where the rebels are.
I said I don’t know. So they beat me and took off their sock and put it in my
mouth to stop the screams.”

Human Rights Watch heard six accounts from women and girls of rape by soldiers
either in their homes or in detention, when the soldiers could not find the
male relatives they were seeking.

Numerous credible sources in Gambella believe the
April attack is linked to the government’s villagization
program and the leases of land. The attack followed a March 12 attack by armed
men on a bus in Gambella in which 19 people were
killed. It is not clear whether the two incidents are linked.

The gunmen who carried out the attacks have not publicly identified themselves
or their motives, but one man interviewed by Human Rights Watch claimed to have
been among the group who attacked the Saudi Star compound. He said that the
April attack was in retaliation for the land leasing by Saudi Star and other
foreign investors in Gambella region.

Most of the attackers were reportedly captured in May by the Sudan People’s
Liberation Army (SPLA) in Pochalla, South Sudan
following a gun battle that left four of the attackers and two SPLA soldiers
dead. Tensions have remained high in Gambella since.

“The military’s abusive response to the Saudi Star attack is only making an
already turbulent situation in Gambella worse,” Lefkow said. “After what the people in the region have
suffered at the government’s hands, the only thing that will begin to clear the
air is a comprehensive and independent inquiry into the situation.”

Villagers who recently fled Gambella to South Sudan
reported new abuses by the security forces under the villagization
program. They reported a persistent lack of services in the sites to which they
had been moved, despite government pledges to provide them. And existing
villages from where people were moved are being destroyed to prevent people
from returning to their original homes.

Human Rights Watch urged the Ethiopian government to stop the arbitrary
arrests, beatings, and intimidation of Gambella
residents and to release those who have been arbitrarily detained. The
government should investigate and prosecute military personnel and officials
implicated in human rights violations associated with the villagization
process, Human Rights Watch said.

Many of those forcibly displaced by the villagization
program are indigenous people. Under Ethiopian and international law the
Ethiopian government needs to obtain the free, informed, and prior consent of
indigenous people it wishes to move and compensate them for their loss of
assets and land.

“The abuses we found in the government’s relocation program in Gambella a year ago are still happening today,” Lefkow said. “Whatever the government’s rationale for ‘villagization,’ it doesn’t justify beatings and torture.”