Since mid-May, there was a surge of indiscriminate manhunt of Somalis from the Ogaden civilians visiting to “Somaliland”. As a result, 27 people from Ogaden, some of whom were even Liyu Police on leave were arrested and handed over to Ethiopian security. The few Liyu police among them who were later released disclosed the fate of poor civilians who were tortured and detained indefinitely.

This blank detention and violation of Universal Declaration principles is intended by Hargeisa Administration to solicit favour from the regime in Addis Ababa. Since the proclamation of “Somaliland” entity, more than 300 innocent Somalis from the Ogaden were handed over to Ethiopia.

ONLF holds responsible the warlords in Hargeisa for these crimes against humanity for the dire consequences such a vile act brings. The Somali people lives on both sides of the border and such senseless acts exacerbates the already fragile inter-communal relationship that was severely marred by the civil war among the Somali people.

ONLF calls the attention of international community and human right Organizations to condemn the human trafficking between Addis Ababa and Hargeisa and take effective measures to bring to an end this crime of deportation of Ogaden people to Ethiopia by the Somali war lords who seek support from Ethiopia for their tribal fiefdoms in Somalia.

Issued by ONLF

25-05-2013.

The Ethiopian Army and Liyu Police trained and Armed by Ethiopia and funded from Donor money (Read) have killed more than three hundred civilians since the beginning of this year. The Ethiopian Army based in Galalshe has committed countless massacres in the Area and Human Rights groups have previously documented its ruthless violations.

The names of those shot in the village is listed below and the rest will be available later.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front condemns this heinous act and calls upon the international community to make the Ethiopian regime accountable for its violations of the Human Rights of the Ogaden people.

Issued by ONLF 

The available names of victims:

Mr Macalin Mustafe Hassan Taraar

Mr Shaafi Aw khaliif Ibrahim

Mr Abdullaahi Abdi Ali

Mr Shakul Abdi Dhubbad

Mr Farah Mohamed Ibaahim

Mr Abdihayi Sheikh Ahmednur

Mr Abdrashiid Shafici

]]> http://onlf.org/?feed=rss2&p=529 0 http://onlf.org/?p=520 http://onlf.org/?p=520#comments Wed, 06 Mar 2013 07:36:20 +0000 maamule http://onlf.org/?p=520 The 2013 Humanitarian Requirements Document (HRD) (Ethiopia-HRD_Jan_June-2013-1) covering the first half of the year (Jan-June) was launched on 28 February. The document identifies emergency requirements in the food and non-food sectors based on the findings of the joint multi-sectoral assessment conducted from 20 November to 15 December 2012, as well as government early warning information. In the first half of 2013, some 2.4 million people will require relief food assistance nationwide. As in the previous year, the regions with the highest requirements are Somali (963,801) beneficiaries or 38 per cent), and Oromia (846,417 beneficiaries or 34 per cent).
The pastoralist and agro-pastoralist parts of southern Oromia, central and southern Somali and northern Afar Regions will also likely experience water and pasture shortages, through the next rainy season. However, since mid-February, the Ethiopian Army and its Associated militia-the Liyu Police has occupied most of Ogaden well during the rainy season and has imposed drac onian scheme to collect illegal money on the poor agro pastoral communities.

An average family may bring to the wells 50 camels, 80 goats and sheep, 2 camels carrying water containers for the families ( Dhaan), four members of the family (5950 Bir a day). This may happen twice for the camel watering and four times for the sheep/goat and people a month. The cost to family for a month will be around 12, 800 EBir, which is equivalent to 640 USD (12800 x 0.05). The cost for a family with 40 cows, 2 water-carrying camels, 2 donkeys, 50 goats and sheep, and 3 family members may be around 10,500 Ebir, which is equivalent to 525 USD. The Ogaden Somalis are the poorest in Ethiopia and forced to pay each month six times the amount of Ethiopia’s annual per Capita GDP of 1200 USD.

Ethiopian Review.

March 3, 2013

Since mid-February, the Ethiopian Army and its Associated militia-the Liyu Police has occupied most of Ogaden well during the rainy season and has imposed draconian scheme to collect illegal money on the poor agro pastoral communities.

The EA is forcing the people to pay the following amounts of Ethiopian Bir per animal and per person every time the families come to water their livestock or draw water from the wells.

An average family may bring to the wells 50 camels, 80 goats and sheep, 2 camels carrying water containers for the families ( Dhaan), four members of the family (5950 Bir a day). This may happen twice for the camel watering and four times for the sheep/goat and people a month. The cost to family for a month will be around 12, 800 EBir, which is equivalent to 640 USD (12800 x 0.05). The cost for a family with 40 cows, 2 water-carrying camels, 2 donkeys, 50 goats and sheep, and 3 family members may be around 10,500 Ebir, which is equivalent to 525 USD. The Ogaden Somalis are the poorest in Ethiopia and forced to pay each month six times the amount of Ethiopia’s annual per Capita GDP of 1200 USD.

Imposing these hefty sums to a people already burdened by the economic and aid embargo and constant oppression during the dry Jilaal season, when life is hard in the Ogaden is tantamount to genocide and is intended to destroy the livelihood of the Ogaden people.

ONLF calls the international community and the UN to intervene immediately and stop this new attempt to annihilate the Ogaden people. Furthermore, ONLF calls the international NGO’s working in Ogaden to stop kowtowing to Ethiopian government bullying and speak about the atrocities they are witnessing on a daily basis.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front strongly condemns this callous and inhuman act and hold accountable for any human catastrophe that results from this to the Ethiopian Prime Minister and his administration.

Issued by ONLF

Annex 1.

Hundreds of progressive organisations and individuals attended the Congress, which was held from February 22 to 23, 2013, from all continents of the world that support the right of self-determination of all peoples. In addition, Liberation Fronts from the following countries seeking self-determination also attended the conference- Western Sahara, Ogaden, Palestine, Kurdistan, and Colombia and Philippines.

Some of the delegates attending the conference came from Morocco, South Africa, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Salvador, Sao Paulo, Philippines, Greek, Norway, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Catalan, Galicia, Swaziland, South Sudan, Mexico, Australia, Northern Ireland and the Netherlands.

All the delegates reiterated their firm support of the rights of oppressed peoples’ self-determination and in particular the Basque people, who were forming SORTU at this stage of their national struggle. The ONLF delegation met with many delegates, exchanged views, and established friendly relationships.

The ONLF, on behalf of the Ogaden people, sent the following supporting statement to the SORTU congress:

ONLF-Salutes-SORTUand-the-Basque-People

ONA.

Soon after the statement was released to the media, several international media houses picked up the story and published it under the headline: “Ethiopian Rebels Warn Canadian Oil Company”.

By and large most of the newspapers which had published the ONLF statement did so in a balanced manner, correctly quoting the ONLF and getting the Ethiopian government version of the story.

But there was an exception: Sudan Tribune. This paper which had in the past fairly reported about Ogaden issues has lately been hijacked by its Addis Abbaba based reporter, a man named Tesfa-Alem Tekle, who writes as TPLF/EPRDF party cadre and government functionary than credible journalist. Mr. Tekle has honed his journalistic training in Mekelle University in Tigray province and is known to be more hawkish at times than the propaganda ministers Bereket Simon and Shimeles Kemal. In his latest attempt to out-do Ethiopian Communications Minister Shimeles Kemal (“Ethiopian Rebels threaten Canadian oil company,” Sudan Tribune, Tuesday, February 19, 2013), Mr. Tekle went an extra mile and invented several ONLF ‘splinter groups,’  ‘factions,’ and absurdly ‘A third separate rival wing’ to Kemal’s one ‘remaining faction’ statement.

Tekle’s word choice in the headline of the report ‘Ethiopian rebels “threaten” Canadian oil company’; his preferred categorization of  ONLF as ‘a terrorist designated rebel group’; and his claim that the Kenyan-led mediation efforts failed “after the splinter group refused to accept a precondition to respect the country’s constitution,” are all standard Ethiopian government propaganda talking points. However what is different is the name and authority under which these lies are regurgitated – the Sudan Tribune. Mr. Tekle – and by extension Sudan Tribune which seems to agree with him by carrying his calumny piece – are entitled to their opinion, but not to their own facts.

Separating facts from fiction

For a start, there are no ONLF factions, splinter groups, and rival wings. These are all Ethiopian propaganda creations which we have debunked time and again, but the regime keeps repeating them in the vain hope that it will be accepted as truth.

The ONLF represent the collective wishes and aspirations of the Ogaden citizenry and consists of the entire strata of Ogaden society. It has an efficient and effective armed forces (ONLA) which operate in every province in Ogaden, led by hard-to-crack competent and able commanders. Combined with this are more than 40 community organizations, social groups, youth formations which are active throughout the world campaigning for the Ogaden cause, all of them united under the ONLF banner. The organisation itself has a political hierarchy which consists of Executive Committee, Central Committee, departments, bureaus, sections and subsections, that deal with foreign policy, information, research, finance, organisational affairs, mobilization, in effect a mini government.

So far the Ethiopian regime has never been able to buy any one of the prominent ONLF leaders, in the army or in the political or social formations, other than parading for the media one or two captured junior commanders and few who were expelled from the organisation for violating organisational rules and regulations. That shows the mantle of the ONLF.  Throughout the history of the confrontation between oppressor and oppressed sellouts and turn-coats have never been in short supply on the side of the oppressed, and the Ogaden struggle is no different. However, given the asymmetrical nature of this conflict and the backing the Ethiopian regime gets from world powers, and how it cannot vanquish the Ogaden struggle – through brute force, persuasion, treachery or bribes – shows our just struggle is set to prevail. Our struggle has already crossed the proverbial Rubicon Valley and there is no turning back.

After failing to defeat ONLF, the Ethiopian government resorted to finding solace in misinformation and creating a false perception in the minds of the international community by claiming false agreements with no-existent ONLF ‘factions’ or stating that the Ogaden is peaceful. What is strange is no one questions the validity of Ethiopian government assertions regarding its nemesis – ONLF. Where are these phantom ONLFs that are reaching agreements with Ethiopia? Why do hear about them only when the proper ONLF issues statements?

People shall ask themselves why Ethiopia refuses to allow international media free and unfettered access to Ogaden to show that Ogaden is peaceful and corroborate it’s claim that the majority of ONLF had laid down its arms and are participating in development – the new catch-word Ethiopia is clutching to in order to stay from drowning.ONLF is at its strongest and is very much active in Ogaden and anyone who is interested in the truth can find out that instead of just taking the Ethiopian government’s empty utterances at face value.

As long as the rights of Ogaden people are ignored and Ethiopian Genocide in Ogaden is pushed under the table, no one can benefit from Ogaden natural resources.

The Ethiopian regime is desperately trying to achieve in propaganda (by co-opting journalists like Tekle) what it could not achieve in its collective punishment, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ogaden.

Finally we advice Sudan Tribune and other media houses not to become the conduit through which the Ethiopian regime spreads its propaganda.

ONLF Information Bureau.

February 18, 2013

Ogaden National Liberation Front

 For the last few Months, African Oil Corporation, an upstart oil company has been engaged in a propaganda stunt conspiring with the tyrannical Ethiopian regime in order to exploit Ogaden oil and try to bury and deny the documented human rights abuses committed by the Ethiopian Army in Ogaden.

On February 17, 2013, Keith C. Hill, President and CEO of African Oil, started to regurgitate Ethiopian government false propaganda in an interview with reporters from the Swedish Expressen Newspaper. He stated that “most of the ONLF has now basically made peace with government and laid down arms” and that “there is one faction left and they’re conducting talks with the new administration”. Mr Hill further claimed that the people of the Ogaden were happy and that his company was providing services to help them develop. Mr Hill made similar statements to Swedish journalists last in Sweden.

Then the journalists were  invited to visit Addis Ababa to interview Ethiopia’s Minister of Minerals, Mrs Sinkinesh Ejigu, who, irritated by the journalists’ questions about the human rights violations in Ogaden, furiously responded by saying those making the accusations are “lying” and claimed that there was no a human-rights abuse or torture in Ogaden. The Journalist were then taken to Hargelle town, which was nothing more than few dusty huts, although it is classed as the  regional Capital of the Afdheer region, a vivid reminder of the legacy of systematic marginalization of the Ogaden. There, the journalists were led through an arranged tour of Hargelle  to meet with some of the town’s residents and ‘students’ who were assembled to give a well-choreographed Soviet-style speeches about how happy they were with African Oil’s presence in the region.  What the Ethiopian minister did not know was that the journalists had already visited Dadaab refugee camps and had seen victims who were tortured by the Ethiopian Army and forcefully displaced from their lands and communities!

Setting the record straight

ONLF wishes to categorically refute the false claims made by Africa Oil’s President and CEO Mr Keith C. Hill, that the majority of ONLF has laid down arms and made peace with the Ethiopian government; and the other absurd claim about the existence of one ONLF ‘faction’ which is conducting talks with the Ethiopian government. Furthermore, the Ogaden National Liberation Army and the Ethiopian government are currently engaged in an active armed combat and the Ogaden is a battle zone that is not safe for an oil company to operate. For more than ten years, this has been Ethiopian government propaganda and it is tasteless and immoral when the CEO of an international company decides to repeat it without any qualms.

First, ONLF has no factions and there are no ongoing talks between ONLF and the Ethiopian government, since the Ethiopian government stomped out of the Kenyan mediation efforts last October. The Ethiopian regime’s phantasmagorical creations will not stop the march of the Ogaden people towards attaining their self-determination, nor will such artless and outmoded machinations bring peace to the Horn of African region.

Secondly, the Ethiopian government is committing gross human rights violations in Ogaden and has refused to allow neutral international human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, African Rights Monitor, Amnesty International, the ICRC, UN human rights rapporteurs and independent journalists to visit the Ogaden freely and investigate the state of affairs in Ogaden. Therefore, African Oil’s association with Ethiopian government constitutes a deliberate act of collaboration in the on-going violations in Ogaden as Ethiopia uses the money they receive from the oil company to fund its army and local militia who perpetrate human rights violations in Ogaden.

Therefore, ONLF calls upon African Oil to desist from paying blood money to Ethiopia until a just settlement of the conflict is achieved and the people of the Ogaden are in a position to be masters of their wealth and interest.

ONLF draws the attention of the UN and the international community to the fact that African Oil and cohorts are violating the norms “on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights (U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/12/Rev.2 -2003)”,  by engaging in unscrupulous business in a conflict zone, where the Ethiopian government is committing violations against the Ogaden civilian population which is tantamount to genocide.

Finally, ONLF calls on the UN and the Human Rights Commission to re-start the investigation on the rampant human rights violations that the Ethiopian government is committing in Ogaden.

Issued by ONLF

Sources:

http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/kvinnorna-ar-nagra-av-oljebolagens-offer/

http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/trakigt-att-de-fick-sitta-sa-lange/

http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/gruvministern-det-finns-ingen-tortyr/

This letter is in response to the Guardian article on the UK government’s support to the Ethiopian Special Police and the letters from DFID and the Ethiopian Embassy in London which specializes in sugar coating crimes perpetrated by the Ethiopian regime in Ogaden.

ONLF thanks the Guardian for airing this important issue. Brave journalists are the bane of all dictatorial regimes and the regime in Addis Ababa is so apprehensive in the media airing the crimes they are committing in ogaden, they have adopted the policy of shoot on sight of any journalist who venture to the Ogaden.

The Ogaden national Liberation Front (ONLF) would like to thank also the UK government for its public commitment to help the Somali people in Ogaden. However, development and security in the Ogaden will require justice, peace and stability that involve a resolution of the long-standing armed conflict that has blighted the Ogaden.

The assumption that the Special police or other security services that operate in the Ogaden can be professionalised without a robust commitment to investigate and prosecute them for their crime is deeply flawed. The ONLF supports calls for an independent investigation and prosecution of perpetrators of human rights violations in the Ogaden. Therefore, ONLF is deeply concerned by the UK government’s decision to fund training for the special “Liyu“ police, who have committed widespread killings, summary executions, rape, destroyed of hundreds of villages, and displaced of more than hundred thousand people and committed other inhumane acts in the Ogaden.

The Liyu Police were set up by the Ethiopian government as a tool for counter-insurgency and control, meting out collective punishment to the Ogaden civilian population who hold aspirations for self-determination and an attempt to reframe the conflict between the ONLF and the Ethiopian government as an internal conflict within the Ogaden people. There have been no recent independent investigations into the Ethiopian Army’s crimes against humanity by international Humanitarian organisations and independent international media. Furthermore, it’s unfortunate that the UK government has decided to support the Ethiopian government when they have consistently refused access to international human rights agencies and media into the region to report on these crimes. If Ethiopia has nothing to hide, let it accept the recommendations of the UN human Rights council and allow an independent investigation by the UN human Rights rapporteur, international Human Rights organisations and unfettered access for international media.

Although providing training to the Liyu police will not change the balance of power in Ogaden, what is at risk in this decision is the neutrality of safety of international humanitarian actors – NGO’s, UN aid agencies and international Humanitarian effort in Ogaden. The funding of Liyu police training or other Ethiopian government oppressive security establishments by the UK government and the involvement of international NGO’s in their training will risk making it a part to the human rights violations of the Ogaden people in the eyes of the those who have suffered considerably at the hands of the Liyu police or those similar institutions. Therefore, no amount of re-branding of this paramilitary force or other similar oppressive instrument of the Ethiopian government will remedy the damage already done to the Ogaden civilians.

The Ogaden National liberation Front is deeply committed to finding a resolution to this conflict through political dialogue. Despite this provocative decision, it informs the UK government and international community, that ONLF will uphold its position of refraining from any attacks upon all civilians including all international NGO’s and other aid agencies in the Ogaden though it will not be able to guarantee their safety.

The ONLF kindly requests the UK government to amend this project in a way that is transparent and does not involve any of the warring parties or stop such project and instead concentrate on vigorously supporting an internationally mediated solution to the Ogaden conflict as it did in other parts of Africa. ONLF believes that this is the only way to attain a sustainable peace and stability in the whole Horn of Africa.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Therefore, isn’t it insane that Ethiopian government keeps creating “ ONLF factions” or other terrorist groups and claiming to negotiate and reach peace agreements with them, while running away from the genuine mediation efforts by neutral third parties, such as the recent Kenyan government led effort and expecting the Ogaden conflict will evaporate into thin air. Accordingly, the Ethiopian government must realise that Peace and Justice are two sides of the same coin and it cannot have one while avoiding the other. The leadership of the current Ethiopian regime resided in London in the early seventies and eighties and if being dissents in a foreign country is a crime, they shall be the ones to be brought to trial.

Finally, it is an open secret that the Ethiopian government funds through proxies many of the extremists in the Horn of Africa, in order to ride the band-wagon of the War on Terror and hide the many crimes it commits against the Ogaden and its own people. ONLF is fighting for the right of the Somali people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination without any pre-conditions in an internationally supervised plebiscite. The Ogaden issue precedes the Ethiopian constitution or the situation in the failed state of Somalia and is a national liberation issues. Therefore,  Ethiopia’s attempt to reduce it to a religious issues is cheap and has already failed. ONLF has no relationship with Al-Shabab or for that matter any other organization that professes the terror against unarmed civilians.

Issued by ONLF
22 January 2013

The Ethiopian regime believes it is at war with other forces in the Horn of Africa region who reject its hegemony of the region and wants to convince world powers that it alone is fit to become the regional superpower. This is not something which was started by the late Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi, who immensely benefited from the collapse of the Somali State and the subsequent opportunity the 9/11 attacks presented him, but it was a process that has been going on for centuries under different pretexts ever-since Abyssinian Kings begun invading other ethnic communities’ lands and expanded their empire from the Northern Highland region to the South, in the process  conquering the territories of the Oromos, Afars, Sidamas, Somalis and others. Emperor Menelik II’s 1878 letter to Queen Victoria of England in which he claims “Ethiopia has been for four centuries a Christian island in a sea of pagans” and beg the assistance of the government of her Majesty and other Christian powers to help him ‘to regain our  sea frontiers,’ offers a historic glimpse of the extent to which different Ethiopian rulers will resorted to in order to occupy other people’s lands and the tactics they employed to achieve their goal.

During the eras of King Johannes IV, Emperor Menelik II and Hallie Selassie, the ruse to attract the support of the prevailing Western powers of the time was to create the hype of a tiny Christian nation facing extinction due Islamic encirclement and expansion (Menelik II’s “If truly you are the protectors of Christians, it is today that you must give us proof,” typifies this era), today it is the imaginary existential threat posed by Islamic extremists to Ethiopia.

The destruction of the Somali State, which had made the Somali race vulnerable to exploitation and abuse with no one to protect them, coupled with the competition for resources in the strategic region the Somalis inhabit (described by some as ‘empty and ungoverned spaces’) by the rising power of China and Western powers, had made Somalis the object of the ‘Empires’ Gaze’ so to speak, and Ethiopia, as usual and as in the past, wants to become the Dilala – dealer of the region. So if Menelik II insisted in his time, during the European Scramble for Africa: “I have no intention at all of being an indifferent spectator, if the distant Powers hold the idea of dividing up Africa…” and that he wants to secure his share – which he got eventually as the only black power that took part in the Scramble for Africa – the current Ethiopian rulers are fighting tooth and nail to secure their piece of the Somali pie which is up for grabs, using Islamic terrorism to solicit the backing of the terrorism-weary Western world.

For the West to believe that the Ethiopian regime is genuinely fighting terrorism as it claims, the regime occasionally manufactures evidence to support its claim. And it comes handy in different forms: Alshabaab related terrorists captured here; an exposed bomb plot there; a plot to blow up the African Union headquarters prevented and foiled; killed tourists blamed to be orchestrated from a neighboring country and attacked, and so on and so forth.

Although some people may consider it as Conspiracy Theory however it is widely known (by those who’re familiar with operations and tactics of the Ethiopian regime) that the Ethiopian regime’s secret services planted operatives inside Alshabaab ranks who help them direct how the terrorist movement operates. In the past, the Ethiopian regime justified its involvement in Alshabaab ranks on the pretext of wanting to know Alshabaab plots against Ethiopia, which may have convinced some in the international community as some of them also run a similar scheme, however it has become evidently clear that the strategy of the Ethiopian regime and the game it is playing is totally different from the one it has sold to Western powers: that Alshabaab poses existential threat to the security and stability of the Ethiopian State and that they’re fighting them inside Somalia in order to prevent the group from crossing into Ethiopia and causing chaos.

It has also been revealed that Alshabaab receive the bulk of their weaponry from Ethiopia and that the Ethiopian regime doesn’t want Alshabab to be defeated, for Alshabaab is both a cash cow for the Ethiopian regime which it milks the International Community, and a nasty force that fights to prevent the re-establishment of strong and unified Somali State.

Ethiopia’s support for Alshabaab came to light when the Kenyan-led AMISON forces, which were backed by the international community, decided to clear Alshabaab from the Juba region and captured Kismayo in September last year.  The first failed step the Ethiopian regime took was the planes loaded with weapons it has sent to Alshabaab held Baidoa. And before anyone else knew about the planes, Somalia’s former TGF president Shiekh  Shariif, who was intricately connected to the Ethiopian regime, immediately claimed that Eritrea sent the weapons to Alshabaab. The subsequent UN investigation cleared Eritrea of any wrongdoing but stopped short of accusing Ethiopia when it became clear that all arrows of suspicion pointed to the Ethiopian direction.

Many times the inhabitants of Somalia’s Bay and Bakool region have witnessed Ethiopian troops crossing into their region and dumping loads of arms and ammunition in prearranged sites, and soon after they leave Alshabaab militants arriving to collect the weapons consignment. Therefore it is no coincidence that Ethiopian troops always publicise which Alshabaab held territory they intend to attack in order to give Alshabaab enough time to vacate the area. That is why there is rarely face-to-face confrontation between Alshabab militants and Ethiopian forces.

Why the latest terrorism hype now?

Ethiopian Muslims have been marking this past week the first anniversary since they begun the peaceful protest against the Ethiopian government’s unlawful interference in their religious affairs. The protests begun when the regime tried to impose – at the behest of Iran – an alien Shia sect on the body that runs Islamic affairs in Ethiopia, the Islamic Affairs Supreme Council of Ethiopia (EIASC). Many religious rights organisation condemned Ethiopia’s crackdown of the peaceful Muslim protesters, among them the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) which issued strongly worded statement:  “The arrests, terrorism charges and takeover of Ethiopia Islamic Affairs Supreme Council (EIASC) signify a troubling escalation in the government’s attempts to control Ethiopia’s Muslim community.”

Faced with this dilemma, the regime resorted to the only game it knows best: to smear the peaceful protesters and link them to terrorist groups. In this way the regime hopes to attract Western support for its crackdown of Muslim protesters.

It is not difficult for the Ethiopian regime to sneak into Addis Ababa Alshabaab elements and orchestrate bombing campaigns which might cause huge civilian casualties and then claim that the Alshabab group, which Ethiopian troops  helped to defeat in Somalia, have crossed into Ethiopian territory  to exact their revenge on Ethiopia.The regime has already claimed the peaceful protesters have been infiltrated and inspired by violent extremist groups. It is was only a matter time before they produced ‘evidence’ to proof this accusation.

By demonizing Ethiopian Muslim protesters and linking them to Alshabab militants, the Ethiopian regime wants to kills two birds with one stone: on the one hand, they want to re-energize the waning Western support for their sinister adventures in Somalia; and on the other hand, they want to prevent (by crushing them down with Western approval) the Muslim protesters from coalescing into a popular national, all ethnic and all religious, civic protest movement that can threaten the regime.

But the International Community knows too well to be duped by the treacherous designs of Ethiopia’s ruling Woyane ethnic clique.

ONA

The Ethiopian regime’s desperate attempt to hide its failure in Ogaden by concocting yet again another false peace agreement with a so-called ONLF

There are no on-going talks between ONLF and the Ethiopian government currently. However, the Ethiopian regime is peddling that it is holding peace talks in Addis Ababa with what they portray as Ogaden National Liberation Front by using a junior defector, from ONLF Foreign Office, called Abdinur Abdullahi, whom it elevated to the rank of ONLF Executive Committee member. This practice was done two years ago with Salahdin Maow, a man who was expelled from the organization, but still the Ethiopian regime paraded him in front of the international media and claimed that he represented a major ONLF faction. Nevertheless, after the expensive hype of claiming that the regime has signed a peace agreement with a major ONLF faction that was intended to delude the international community failed, the Ethiopian regime finally sought the help of the Kenyan government to try to broker a peace deal with ONLF.

However, after two rounds of talks in Nairobi, Kenya, the Ethiopian regime, which was expecting an easy ride and capitulation from ONLF stormed out of the talks and declared that the talks had failed when it realized that ONLF will not accept its unilateral preconditions, but was ready to engage in serious and principled negotiation process.
All these malevolent attempts by the Ethiopian regime of engaging in false negotiations is intended to deceive the international community in order to counter the criticism that came from its recent debacle at the Nairobi talks.

Finally, such irresponsible machinations of resorting to this type of behavior shows that the Ethiopian regime has not yet  learned  that deceit and denial of the severity of the Ogaden conflict and the need to engage in a genuine peace process to find a just solution that accepts the exercise of the right of self-determination of the Ogaden people. Such a Machiavellian attitude will not serve the interests and well-being of all the people in the Horn of Africa nor will it stop the Ogaden people’s legitimate resistance against the Ethiopian regime’s unjust rule and inhuman suppression.

ONLF Foreign Office Bureau