February 17, 2014

The British Government halted last year a support fund to the Liyu police after British media highlighted that the Liyu police committed Human Rights violations in Ogaden. The Liyu- Police is a Janjaweed-style Militia organized trained and armed by the Ethiopian regime in Ogaden. The Ethiopian Army recruited the Liyu Police, by forcing the rural population to exchange food aid for boys. After they were recruited and trained, the Ethiopian government funded them through donor grants under the dubious development programs that the Ethiopian regime uses to divert attention from international scrutiny of its undemocratic rule.

Since the formation of the Liyu Police, the human right violations in the Ogaden escalated. Thousands of women are raped publicly, more than fifty thousand civilians are in makeshift detentions allover the Ogaden. Thousands of men and women were summarily executed. The trade and aid embargo was further tightened and today there is man-made famine in the Ogaden with civilians dying of hunger, especially children and the weak.

However, the story of the massive human rights violations committed by the Liyu Police slowly reached the international community and funds from donors, especially Britain and the EU started to dry up. Since then, the Ethiopian regime and its administration in the Somali, territory under its rule had mounted a concerted effort to rebrand the Liyu-police as a force for development and attainment of rule of law. Initially they staged elaborate photo sessions showing the killer Liyu Police vaccinating  livestock in villages. Most of those villages are already ghost settlements whose inhabitants were either killed, detained or escaped to Kenyan refugee camps. Further staged media events showed the Militia helping farmers harvest their crops or giving medicine to ill children.

After this staged public relations stunt, the Ethiopian regime sent a high level delegation to London and Brussels to acquire more funds for the Liyu police so that they could continue their systematically planned killing sprees in Ogaden killing field and torture chambers.

Last week, the Ethiopian regime Army commander that controls the Ogaden and its administration and the head of the Ethiopian administration in the Somali Ogaden occupied Territory, held a seminar purporting to educate the Liyu-Police, the prison and the Justice services in Ogaden. This was intended to satisfy donor’s condition that the Liyu-police and the Justice system abide by the rule of law and respect the Human rights of the people.

Unfortunately, the reason why these institutions violate the Human rights of the people is not due to lack of knowledge, but rather, a deliberate policy of the Ethiopian government, that specifically formed and trained these groups to suppress, weaken, and destroy the dignity and  the humanity of the Ogaden people so that they could willingly accept slavery under Ethiopian rule.

Retraining the Liyu-police, the Ethiopian army or the Justice system in that country will not change the crimes those entities commented against the Somali people in Ogaden. This groups stand for what the Gestapo stood- the extermination and dehumanization of a whole race- the Somali people in Ogaden.

ONLF