ONLF – Clarifying Ethiopian False claims against The Swedish Journalists illegally detained

                        





  Statement :
                               
                                                                      Date.October 17 2011

     ONLF – Clarifying Ethiopian False claims against The Swedish Journalists illegally detained


The Ethiopian regime of Meles Zenawei is going to charge Matin Schibbye and Johan Perrson tomorrow in A Kangaroo Court in Addis Ababa on a trumpeted charge of Terrorism. The regime has set up an elaborate program of manufacturing false and concocted ‘evidence’ after their ill-trained solders in Ogaden shot the unarmed Journalists in Ogaden. First they falsely claimed that they had captured two ONLF liberation Army members, in order to say later they have witnesses from ONLF to testify against the Journalists. No ONLF Liberation Army soldiers or members were captured with the two journalists, but since Ethiopia has succeeded in deluding even the UN Somalia Monitoring Group, who interviewed and used as evidence against Eritrea, tortured inmates in Jail ogaden, the Ethiopian regime is planning the same tactic in using poor victims in Jail ogaden to testify against the journalists.

Secondly, they manufactured a ‘video’ doctored with a few additions from the journalists personal souvenir clips and forced the journalists, in violation of the Geneva conventions, to implicate themselves. Furthermore, the regime claimed that the journalists were trained by ONLF fighter in Galkayo- Somalia to use small arms. No ONLF member is safe in Puntland, let alone having training camp there. It is on record that even civilians from Ogaden are harassed and forcefully sent back to Ethiopian security. Therefore, the claim that ONLF trained the Journalists is a baseless, cheap and pathetic attempt to hide a heinous crime committed by the Ethiopian Army. Actually, this is a clear proof to the world about culture and webs of lie this regime engages in in denying the rights of the Ogaden and Ethiopian peoples.

The Ethiopian government is greatly threatened specifically by these two journalists because it was afraid they will uncover the scorched earth policy and genocide it committed in Ogaden in order to clear the land for oil companies such as Lundin, which has now re-invented itself as African Oil, PETRONAS and others, in whose name hundreds of thousands of Ogaden Somalis were either displaced, killed or starved.

The Ethiopian government is systematically violating the Human, Economic, political and Humanitarian Rights of the Ogaden people. It is committing genocide in Ogaden by denying the people the right to life by blockading aid and trade against specific clans in Ogaden. Furthermore, ONLF was part of the government, during the transitional period in Ethiopia, but the regime denying ONLF the opportunity to pursue peacefully the right of the Ogaden people to self-determination by attacking ONLF and destroying the democratically elected Ogaden parliament in 1994. Hence, ONLF is fighting a defensive war that has been imposed on It by the Zenawi regime and has called on many occasions for an internationally mediated settlement of the Ogaden issue. Instead, Ethiopia refused all attempts by the international community to mediate and as such, the Ethiopian claim that ONLF is a terrorist organisation has no legal or moral basis. If the right of people to defend themselves from unjust rule is terrorism, Meles Zenawi himself and the TPLF would qualify for terrorism and all liberation movements including those that liberated USA and most of the African countries from colonialism and oppression would qualify as terrorists.

Finally, ONLF calls upon all people with conscience to condemn Ethiopian government mockery of justice and stand up for both the Journalists imprisoned and humiliated in Ethiopia and the voiceless multitudes in Ogaden and Ethiopia.

Ogaden National Liberation Front