Although prestigious international and national
human rights organizations, have issued several reports about
well-documented human rights violations in the Ogaden and elsewhere
in Ethiopia by the current Ethiopian government, the international
community has remained tight-lipped about those violations for
the last nineteen years. Nevertheless, the Ogaden Human Rights
Committee has not given up hope of the international community's
help to force Ethiopia to honour its commitments to internationally
accepted human rights principles. Hence, the OHRC requests and
recommends the following:
RECOMMEENDATIONS AND APPEALS:
To: International Community, United Nations, Ethiopian
Government and Ogaden National Liberation Front:
The Ethiopian government and the Ogaden National
Liberation Front, declare immediate, comprehensive, unconditional
and verifiable cease-fire in the Ogaden.
The international community exert more pressure
on all the parties to the conflict in the Ogaden in order to
reach a peaceful negotiated settlement, which guarantees the
Ogaden people’s inalienable right to self-determination
through a fair and free referendum.
Since there is no confidence between the warring
sides the Ogaden Human Rights Committee urges the United States
and European Union to act as mediators and facilitators in order
to put an end the senseless carnage in the Ogaden.
The Ogaden Human Rights Committee urges the Ethiopian
government, the Ogaden National Liberation Front to allow all
humanitarian and relief organisations to operate freely in the
Ogaden as well as international and local human rights organisations
and the international press.
Perpetrators of war crimes and other atrocities in the Ogaden
should be brought before an international tribunal.
The United Nations appoint a Special Rapporteur
for Human Rights in the Ogaden.
The Ethiopian government and Ogaden National Liberation Front
give ICRC free access to all detainees in their custodies.
For the last sixteen years, aid workers in the
Ogaden were abducted, harassed, intimidated and looted at gunpoint
and each of the warring sides accused them of helping the other
side.
Ethiopian Authorities, who do not like the outside
world to know the real situation in the Ogaden, expelled International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Medecins Sans Frontieres
(MSF) - Doctors without Borders and other International Humanitarian
Organizations from the Ogaden, in July 2007. At the time the
International Humanitarian Organizations, which operate in some
parts of the Ogaden, expressed timidly their concern and apprehension
at the Ethiopian government’s depopulation and starvation
campaign in the region as well as mismanaging of the humanitarian
aid and commandeering their transportation and using it for
military purposes.
In April 2011, Mr Jakob Kellenberger, President
of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), met
in Addis Ababa with the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi
and asked him the return of the ICRC delegation to the Ogaden
to resume its humanitarian work. But the Ethiopian Prime Minister
has refused his request.
The Ogaden Human Rights Committee deplores the
Ethiopian government’s decision to not allow ICRC’s
staff to resume its much needed humanitarian work in the Ogaden
and demands its reversal as well as allowing more humanitarian
and relief organisations to operate in the Ogaden without restrictions,
regardless of nationality or religion.
On 14th May 2011, United Nations' World Food Programme
(WFP) said that one of its drivers had been killed in an ambush
by unknown gunmen in an attack that left another staff member
wounded. Two other persons were also missing. The incident took
place in Galaalshe, Fiiq region.
The Ogaden Human Rights Committee (OHRC) is shocked
and distressed by the killing and targeting humanitarian workers
in the Ogaden and extends its sincere condolences to the family
and relatives who lost their loved one in this despicable terror
attack, and asks for an independent, transparent and thorough
investigation into the circumstances, which led to this human
tragedy as well as the immediate and unconstitutional release
of the missing two individuals.
The Ogaden Human Rights Committee reiterates its
condemnation and disapproval of imposing restrictions on humanitarian
organisations’ movements, intimidation and abduction of
aid workers as well as targeting civilian population in the
Ogaden.
As has been repeatedly documented by the Ogaden
Human Rights Committee and international human rights organizations,
the state of human rights in the Ogaden has gone from bad to
worse in the recent past. The abysmal track record of the Ethiopian
Government has been recently aggravated by natural calamities-mostly
man made- and senseless wars, which had primarily been caused
by the ill-devised policies of the current government.
Today, the situation in the Ogaden is very tense
and alarming. The ongoing struggle for self-determination and
independence in the Ogaden continues to cause more human suffering
and threatens peace and stability in the volatile region of
the Horn of Africa.
The Ethiopian government’s scorched earth
policy in the Ogaden was in place since early 1992 when the
ONLF has called for referendum on self-determination and independence
for the Ogaden.
The Ethiopian government’s strategy in the
Ogaden is based on; deliberate economic strangulation, political
marginalization and use of brutal military force to suppress
all legitimate demands from the population including the right
to self-determination.
As a part of the Ethiopian government’s
policy of starving out the civilian population in the Ogaden
to submission, its army has imposed an economic blockade on
many towns and villages in the region. This blockade has caused
an enormous human suffering. The most affected areas by the
military campaign are: the regions of Dhagaxbuur, Fiiq, Qabridaharre,
Wardheer, Godey and some parts of Jigjiga, where many civilians
were killed and their villages were depopulated by the government
troops and allied militias, modelled on Sudanese Janjaweed militias,
known locally as Liyu Police.
Article 54 -Protection of objects indispensable
to the survival of the civilian population -of the protocols
additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 states
that "Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is
prohibited. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render
useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian
population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production
of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations
and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose
of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population
or to the adverse party, whatever the motive, whether in order
to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for
any other motives."
However, in an attempt to restrict people's movements,
terrorize the civilian population and stop trade movements,
the Ethiopian government has blocked up all commercial roads
leading to the main commercial centres in the region. And confiscated
lorries carrying food supplies in order to starve out the civilian
population. It also depopulated and razed entirely to the ground
many villages and hamlets.
There is no doubt that the human rights situation
will continue to deteriorate dramatically in the Ogaden unless
the international community steps in to stop the inhuman policies
of the Ethiopian government in the Ogaden.
The Ogaden conflict is not different from other
conflicts in the world, which the international community is
involved and committed to resolving as a mediator or facilitator.
The last conflict in Africa, which was resolved through negotiation
with the help of the international community, was the war in
the Southern Sudan. The conflict in the Ogaden deserves the
attention and the positive intervention of the international
community.