Ogaden Human Rights Group, O.H.R.G.
Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) and civilian militia groups target Ogaden civilians. Extra-judicial killings, rape, disappearances, destruction of livelihood and the displacement of thousands of Ogaden people continue. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
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A WAR CRIME COMMITTED BY ETHIOPIAN MILITARY The legal definition of GENOCIDE: The international legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. Article II describes the two elements that constitute the crime of genocide: 1. The mental element, meaning the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such", and 2. The physical element, which includes five types of violence described in sections [a] through [e] as follows: [a]Killing members of the group; [b] Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; [c] Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; [d] Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [e] Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
• GENOCIDE is taking place in OGADEN: The intent of the Ethiopian government to destroy, in whole or in part of Somali ethnic communities in Ogaden region is clear from evidence as reported by Human Rights Watch. Moreover, international legal precedent holds that genocidal intent can be inferred from the context of the perpetration of culpable acts when they are systematically directed against a group. Finally, there is the testimony of survivors of genocide in Ogaden that often the perpetrators of the atrocities clearly stated their intentions to destroy these groups.
• In Ogaden during the past two years, the physical acts of violence have been systematically directed against the targeted groups and have included all five types listed in the convention and has resulted in the deaths of nearly half a million people:
• [a] Thousands people have been killed by government forces; [b] bodily and mental harm to thousands of women and young girls raped by soldiers; [c] the destruction of homes, crops, water resources and the physical displacement of thousands people now in Somalia, Kenya, Eritrea, Yemen, and Djibouti. Similarly, more than half million internally displaced who dispersed inside the Ogaden to save their live. These have resulted in conditions designed to bring about their destruction through famine and disease epidemics and has already claimed thousands of lives; [d] the killing of pregnant women; and [e] the use of rape as a weapon of genocide. This genocide has largely been carried out under a cloak of silence, as the Ethiopian government barred entry to the region to journalists, human rights groups, and humanitarian aid groups for more than one year and continues to severely restrict access.
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• “From the viewpoint of criminal law, what matters is not the motive, but rather whether or not there exists the requisite special intent to destroy a group [as defined by the terms of the 1948 Genocide Convention].” (Para. 493)
Massive human rights violations committed in the region include: extra-judicial executions, unlawful killings of civilians, torture, rapes, abductions, destruction of villages and property, looting of cattle and property, the destruction of the means of livelihood of the population attacked and forced displacement. These human rights violations have been committed in a systematic manner by the Ethiopian Federal Army. Many of the crimes committed in Ogaden constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. There are evidences with reliable information pointing at the responsibility of the Ethiopian government in the human rights violations committed in Ogaden. In addition to the military and logistical support and the impunity that it provides to the Federal Army of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian government has used a policy of repression to deal with the Ogaden region problems. It has engaged in arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions, "disappearances," rape, economic blockade, torching homes and villages, and torture in order to punish people suspected of ONLF supporters, families accused their sons and daughters joined rebel movement, leaders and members of communities in Ogaden. IMMGAES OF RECENTLY TORTURED AND RAPED VICTIMS IN OGADEN “Tales of rape and murder from refugees fleeing Ethiopia's Ogaden region offer a glimpse of the violence wracking the hermetic rebel zone, off limits now even to foreign aid groups. "It's worse than hell, what is happening in Ethiopia," said Fardosa, whose eyes seem to have frozen wide open since her own ordeal. "A group of Ethiopians came to my house in early August and four soldiers took me into my bedroom and assaulted me," said the thin young woman, cradling a nine-month-old baby.” Ethiopia’s isolated Ogaden: refugees tell tale of repression Ethiopia's isolated Ogaden: refugees tell tale of repression, BOSASO, Somalia (AFP
