Ogaden Somalis seek Ethiopia abuse inquiry
Ogaden community in South Africa calls on International Criminal Court to investigate alleged rights abuses in Ethiopia.
February 15, 2012 (Aljazeera) – The Ogaden Somali Community in South Africa says it has filed a complaint with the country’s top prosecutor and the International Criminal Court (ICC), urging an investigation into the actions of the Ethiopian government against the Ogaden people.
In a statement released on Tuesday on behalf of the community, a South African media advocacy group, Media Review Network, called on ICC authorities to probe complaints of alleged crimes in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia.
The crimes include extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, rape, torture, disappearances, the destruction of livelihood, the burning of villages and the destroying of life stock, the statement said.
“South Africa is the best place in Africa to file this complaint, especially in terms of law and and human respect; we believe that South Africans still remember what they underwent during Apartheid, just as how we are under minority rule in our region,” Mohamed Fadel Abdullahi, a Somali Ogaden activist based in Johannesburg, told Al Jazeera. Read more…
Categories: Ogaden Tags:
ONLF inflicts heavy losses on Ethiopian Army
Ogaden online – ONLF website (Jan. 18) Initial reports received from the Ogaden National Army (ONLA ) central command which were corroborated by reliable local, civilian eyewitnesses confirm the success of the ONLA forces in inflicting heavy losses to the Woyane (Ethiopian Army) militias in and around Villages of Caado, Duudciid and Geedi Aar. Read more…
Sweden: Weekend demonstrations lash out against Swedish Foreign Minister
Jan 18, 2012, Stockholm (Radio Sweden) – Protestors demonstrated against foreign minister, Carl Bildt, in several Swedish cities Saturday, to express their disapproval with how Bildt and the government have handled the case of two Swedish journalists who were recently convicted to serve 11 years in prison in Ethiopia for supporting terrorism.-
Some 300 people gathered in Sergels Torg in Stockholm, about 250 in Gothenburg, som 60 in Malmö and about 30 in Helsingborg.
Several of the protestors carried placards demanding the foreign minister’s resignation. Read more…
Categories: Ogaden Tags:
Ethiopia’s secessionist group that is hunted in Kenya
January 6, 2012 (The Standard) - It is hard to find the leaders of Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), the rebel group fighting Ethiopian government for southeastern Ethiopia’s self determination, to talk to.
They are paranoid fearing that anyone seeking them is part of the Ethiopian intelligence network that they claim is hunting them down in Kenya.
But when they are certain that one is not an agent of the Ethiopian government, they open up.
Ogaden region is a no go zone for media, human rights activists and aid agencies. But from Kenya, the organisation’s leaders have managed to sneak journalists into Ethiopia where they try to justify their rebellion to the outside world. Read more…
Categories: Ogaden Tags:
China, Oil and Ethnic Cleansing in Horn of Africa
Jan 4, 2012 (Ogaden Online) – Chinese oil workers once again seem to be at the center of a nasty counterinsurgency in the Horn of Africa, in the Ogaden, located in south east Ethiopia.
The Ogaden is home to what is reported to be major deposits of gas and oil, though as in South Sudan, just how much is actually there is still just guess work.
In the 1960’s Western oil companies started finding lots of natural gas and maybe even oil in the region.
Then came various wars and then the US invasion of Somalia in 1992-3 and all the murder and mayhem this little war unleashed amongst the Somali people. So the western Big Oil mafia has stayed away. Read more…
Categories: Ogaden Tags:
Major protests erupt against Ethiopian delegation in Minneapolis despite Cold Weather
On Saturday Dec 3rd, 2011, hundreds of members of Ogaden Community staged a well organized protests in front of a venue where a delegation led by Ethiopian Ambassador in Washington and others said to be visiting from Ethiopia was holding a meeting. The meeting was billed as a ‘meeting of the minds’ to discuss investment opportunities inside Ethiopia. This is not the first time Ethiopian regime used such propaganda. Read more…
Categories: Ogaden Tags:
Ethiopian army said “forcefully relocating” natives in southeast
October 28, 2011 (ONLF) – From mid-October, the Ethiopian army has started forcefully relocating thousands of families in the rural areas around Obole [in the restive Ogaden region in southeastern Ethiopia, where government forces are engaged in fighting against rebels of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, ONLF] where the Chinese company, PetroTrans, is conducting illegal oil exploration. The Ethiopian army is rounding up all adults and detaining them in few designated villages around the road between Jijiga and Degeh Bur, leaving behind their children and livestock unattended at the mercy of wild beasts.
Furthermore, the Ethiopian army is separating the women and taking them to military camps for sexual abuse. Some of the villages used as concentration camps are Obole, Higlalay, Magalo-cad, Bilcil-bur, Gosolalay and Ararso. Read more…
Categories: Ogaden Tags:
