ONLA Military Communiqué

October 15, 2015

 The Ethiopian Army has deployed a division in three adjacent regions around Jeexdin (Calub) and Elele (Hilala) oil and gas fields. The Army is forcefully evacuating  thousands of pastoralist families,  dislocating them from vast swaths of the rural areas from Godey to Qalafe and Wardheer regions. The Army has created exclusion zones near the exploration sites, confiscating livestock and raping women in order to chase away families from the area. In the fields near people are being harassed by the Ethiopian army and forced to leave their grazing lands. Thousands of trees are cut and the exclusion zone is denuded and both fauna and flora destroyed. Barbed-wire fences are being erected.

 Oil Exploration companies, foremost of which is Poly GCL from China are aware of the crimes committed and are funding these blatant violations of the human and economic rights of the Ogaden pastoral communities and the Somali people in Ogaden in general.

The Ethiopian army and government are forcefully disinheriting the Somali people and ONLA has no alternative other than to defend the Somali people’s rights by all means possible. Ethiopia does not fully control the Ogaden and is deluding these scrupulous companies into a false sense of security. No oil or gas will be exported from the Ogaden as long as Ethiopia denies the rights of the Somali people under its rule. No amount of spin can hide the crimes that Ethiopia committed against the Ogaden people.

Ogaden is a war zone and ONLA will engage the Ethiopian army everywhere in Ogaden and any entity that associates with it does so at its own risk since the Ethiopian army is a legitimate military target.

ONLA calls upon all Somalis in Ogaden to stand up to this challenge and defend their people and land along side their liberation army.

Issued By

Ogaden National Liberation Army

October 15, 2015

Ogaden