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Ethiopia: Making Exceptions
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Human Rights Watch (Washington, DC)
ANALYSIS
31 January 2008
Posted to the web 31 January 2008
Tom Porteous
Western policy towards Africa is ill-informed and inconsistent. That's the message of Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, in his interview in the Guardian last week. And there's some truth in what he says. But Meles should be careful what he wishes for.
If the west was better informed about the war crimes and human rights abuses committed by Meles' military forces in Somalia and Ogaden, western taxpayers might balk at the thought that their governments are providing Ethiopia with hundreds of millions of dollars of military and economic aid.
And if western governments were more consistent and less selective in their reaction to human rights abuses around the world, they might be less inclined to turn a blind eye to Ethiopia's failure to abide by international norms in pursuit of its military objectives in Somalia and Ogaden.
Last year, Human Rights Watch documented a disturbing pattern of abuses by all sides, including Ethiopia, in the dangerous armed conflict which erupted after Meles sent his army into Somalia to dislodge the Islamic Courts Union, a group which many say has links to international terrorists. In its subsequent struggle with Somali insurgents, Ethiopia has committed serious violations of the Geneva conventions including the carpet-bombing of residential districts of Mogadishu, the deliberate targeting of hospitals and arbitrary executions.
Human Rights Watch has also documented abuses by Ethiopian forces in its simultaneous counter-insurgency campaign against the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) in the Somali region of southeastern Ethiopia. These include the systematic use of rape, torture and execution as a means of terrorising and collectively punishing the civilian population, a partial trade blockade of districts deemed sympathetic to the rebels and the destruction of villages.
There are good reasons why Ethiopia's western backers do not jump to condemn Meles with the same speed with which they rightly condemn, say, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe or Sudan's Omar al-Bashir. In his almost 20 years in power, Meles, a former rebel leader, has transformed Ethiopia from a war-torn, famine-prone dictatorship into a relatively stable state which combines elements of both democracy and authoritarianism. He has won plaudits from donors for poverty reduction and good economic stewardship.
Meles' supporters also make allowances for the fact that he is the key regional player operating in a tough neighbourhood. Somalia is a failed state; Eritrea is a closed dictatorship that has picked fights with most of its neighbours; Sudan defies the UN and the international criminal court in their efforts to secure peace and accountability in Darfur; and now Kenya is slipping into its worst political crisis since independence.
But above all western politicians and diplomats warm to Meles, because they concur with his analysis that he is a bulwark against the spread of Islamist militancy in the Horn of Africa. Meles plays this card well. He is helped by the fact that the influence of political Islam is strong and growing among the large Muslim populations of the region. Furthermore, Islamist militants, some with links to international terrorist organisations, are operating in Somalia, Kenya and elsewhere in the Horn.
But, while these considerations can help to nuance the west's diplomatic, economic and military relations with Meles, they can be no excuse for the war crimes and gross violations of human rights that Human Rights Watch has documented in Somalia and Ogaden. These unjustifiable acts are not only morally repugnant; they are also counterproductive. They serve to undermine international respect for the rule of law and they are likely to sharpen radicalisation and conflict in what is already one of the most dangerous parts of the world.
The west's failure to acknowledge the reality of what is going on in these remote and inaccessible places and its failure to call for full investigations and accountability leaves the impression that when it comes to counter-terrorism, anything goes. It is a shortsighted policy that is already backfiring in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon - and it will backfire here too.
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Tom Porteous is the London Director for Human Rights Watch. This article was originally published by Guardian Unlimited.
With 3000 years of war, death, destruction, genocide and holocaust in their back yard, the self serving European (Western) marauding bounty hunters has never been interested in the well being of humanity and the least of Africans. Though shedding crocodile tears in the name of God (Christianity), human and civil rights or democracy, through out centuries of human history, the West's vested interest has been proven to be & still remains, enslaving Africans & looting Africa, directly or indirectly. Therefore, hiring, cuddling, certifying & rewarding a few slave-driver African foot-soldieries like Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi is part of the centuries old... [Read Full Text]
Dear respected journalists,
I support the opinion of our respected and loved PM Meles Zenawi in his statement that "western policy towards Africa is ill-informed and inconsistent."
In that I believe the PM does not mean the western governments are working negatively towards Africa.
But in that I believe he means the medias such as yours do not give accurate information to western governments so that result in dysfunctional decisions taken by western gov'ts even by those ally to PM Meles.
For example, regarding the report about "the abuse and rapes" comitted by the Ethiopian Soldiers in Somali is an... [Read Full Text]
This article itself is a good proof how ill informed the west is. I don't believe any of the comments made by the human this and human that. These are people who, wherever a gunshot is heard shout that human rights are abused. I don't blame them; because if they stop shouting for whatever reason, their very existence will be at stake. I am sure that all accusations against the military are false. I know the military. Tom, you are only propagating words of a beaten enemy. If your intention is to systematically inform the bosses in the west that... [Read Full Text]
Ethiopia: 100 Reported Dead After Soldiers Target Civilians in Gambella allAfrica.com 15 December 2003 Posted to the web 15 December 2003 Charles Cobb Jr. Washington, DC Soldiers in the town of Gambella, 450km (280 miles) west of Addis Ababa, are reported to have engaged since Saturday in violent attacks against leading members of a local ethnic group, leaving 100 or more people dead. But local sources say the soldiers' action looked more like a punishment operation against Anuak people. A US church source who wished to remain anonymous for fear of compromising his church's contacts in Gambella, told allAfrica.com: "It... [Read Full Text]
Ethiopia: "Mum, Were We Meant to Suffer All Our Lives?" Inter Press Service (Johannesburg) 31 January 2008 Posted to the web 1 February 2008 Interview with Nadifo Gababa, an Ethiopian refugee in Kenya
The post-election violence here has turned nearly 500,000 Kenyans into internally displaced persons (IDPs). Caught up in this unrest are refugees from neighbouring countries -- such as Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia -- who sought refuge in Kenya but now find themselves destitute once again. Nadifo Gababa fled to Kenya from her home in Ethiopia in 2005. The Ethiopian authorities claimed... [Read Full Text]
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