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OPINION: APPEAL FOR
PROTECTION OF THE DEFENSELESS IN ETHIOPIA
By
Idris Shaankkore*
The continuing reports of
arbitrary arrests, detentions, torture and random killings of students,
farmers, and political activists by the Ethiopian Government authorities
in Ogaden, Gambella, Sidama, and Oromiya regions of Ethiopia alarms the
Diaspora Community from the respective Regions. It is also reported that
those in custody are imprisoned in remote prisons located in malaria
infested areas and deprived the fundamental rights established by
international law and incorporated in the Ethiopian constitution. The
Diaspora Community notes its concern that the systematic, and wide
spread human rights abuses, rapes, arsons, beatings, harassment,
disappearances, and intimidation of defenseless and leaderless civilians
continues to escalate aided by deployment of additional military and
security forces by the Ethiopian authorities. According to recent
reports about 50,000 military personnel have been stationed in different
parts of Sidama both in rural as well as urban areas and another 50,000
to 75,000 in various parts of Ogaden, Gambella, and Oromiya.
The Ethiopian authorities
are also engaged in a well-organized plan to draw sovereign neighboring
nations to be complicit in the violations of international law. Factions
of the Sudan’s People”s Liberation Army (SPLA) based in the area
have assisted the Ethiopian authorities in military operations, using
helicopter gunships and jet fighters deployed from Kigile airfield in
Sudan, against the civilian populations in the Western Wollega, Oromiya,
and Gambella, near the Sudanese border. The Diaspora Community is
mindful of the indiscriminate killings of Southerners and Easterners by
Ethiopian authorities, including the documented crimes of genocide
perpetrated against the Annuak in Gambella, and widely reported to the
international community by notable international human rights
organizations. Genocide Watch confirmed that the genocidal massacres of
Anuak people in and around Gambella, Ethiopia in December 2003 was led
and carried out by Ethiopian government forces in uniform. The United
States Department of State also confirmed the crime of genocide
perpetrated by Ethiopian authorities and protested these massacres at
the highest level of the Ethiopian government.
On January 20, 2006, the
Ogaden Human Rights Committee (OHRC) called upon the international
community to censure the government of Ethiopia and the administration
of the breakaway republic of Somaliland for mass killings,
disappearances, torture and other forms of inhumane treatment being
suffered on Ethiopian Southerners in both countries. The Ethiopian
authorities continue to induce the breakaway Republic of Somaliland to
the arrest and refoul Southern Ethiopian refugees in Somaliland, in
exchange for weapons and arms in direct violation of international law
and the international sanctions imposed on Somalia.
The Diaspora Community of
the respective Regions has appealed to the Gambella Liberation Front (GLF),
the Sidama Liberation Front (SLF), and the Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF), the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and the Front for
Independent Democratic Oromiya (FIDO), to convene a summit to devise and
coordinate defensive measures for the protection of the innocent unarmed
civilian populations in their Regions.
== Published February 10, 2006 ==
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