allAfrica.com: Eritrea: Ogaden - An Incident Calling for the TPLF's Liability for Crime Against Humanity (Page 1 of 1)

Eritrea: Ogaden - An Incident Calling for the TPLF's Liability for Crime Against Humanity

In addition to the horrific humanitarian crisis in Somalia , the unrest in the Ogaden region is another dangerous development in the Horn region as a result of the US Administration's erroneous policies.

Provoked further by the TPLF regime's ethnic cleansing attacks against the Ogaden people, the prolonged armed struggle in the Ogaden region gained strong momentum and has become a cause for anxiety to the TPLF regime and its masters.

Frustrated by and unable to withstand the violent and continuous attacks of the opposition forces in Ogaden, the TPLF regime launched a massive military campaign in which it burnt down several villages in the region and displaced thousands of people from their homes. It even went on to block the provision of aid to the region in an attempt to use famine as weapon to wipe out the people. However, the TPLF regime's resort to massive force and evil tactics of ethnic cleansing has not only failed to weaken the Ogaden people's just cause but has, on the contrary, fueled it.

Now that the TPLF regime's brutality and genocide against the Ogaden people is drawing international attention, instead of learning from their past actions, the regime's masters seem to be committing mistake after mistake. In raising the aid extended to the TPLF in the name of the Ogaden people from $19 million to $45 million USD, USAID seemed to be giving the regime a pat on the back for its devious actions. For someone who understands the language of these aid agencies, it is clear that in increasing the amount of aid extended to the TPLF regime, while knowing very well to what purpose it is being put to, USAID is encouraging the regime to equally step up its aggression against the Ogaden people.

As the New York Times had revealed once, in an article quoting WFP employees and managers of other aid agencies, TPLF military officials in Ogaden, together with administrators, had used the food aid to the region to amass personal wealth by selling aid items in the markets and by demanding a 40 dollars payment from each vehicle transporting food aid. The sources had further revealed that TPLF officials had even funneled into their accounts the money provided by the UN for a polio-eradication campaign.

Although certain quarters are expressing their distress over the humanitarian crisis, the TPLF regime continues to inflict on the Ogaden people by blocking the supply of food aid to the region; their voices have fallen on deaf ears. In distributing the aid that comes for the Ogaden region among its military officials, it is a well known fact that the TPLF regime has been using food aid as the main weapon in the fight against the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). Some media outlets even revealed instances where TPLF soldiers promised food aid as a compensation to the women they violated. Persecuting the people of Ogaden did not seem to be sufficient for the TPLF; even the animals in the region were not spared from the regime's brutality. Ample evidences reveal that the TPLF regime deliberately infected the camels in the region with a communicable virus. Food aid has long since been used as a tool to finance wars and conflicts, as well as to cultivate a culture of dependency among peoples; hence the TPLF's actions against the Ogaden people should not come as a surprise.

The current crisis in Ogaden is a continuation of the US Administration's strategy in the Horn and in other parts of the world. The vast amounts of aid extended to the TPLF regime is merely a way of subsidizing the means by which the strategy could succeed. When the genocide in the Ogaden region was put forth before the UN, Washington officials took it upon themselves to speak on behalf of their servant regime and unashamedly claimed that nothing unusual has happened in the region. This fact only reveals that the US Administration was the real architect behind the TPLF regime's aggression against the Ogaden people. However, such evil collaboration and tactics will not stifle the just cause of the people, but will on the contrary backfire on the architects and perpetrators of the evil strategy; for no amount of force and resources can suppress a just cause!

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