20 February 2008
Addis Ababa — Over 300 police officers suspected of links with separatists rebels have been arrested in Ethiopia's restive Ogaden region in a government crackdown, AFP reported citing a state news agency on Monday.
" Some 309 police officers suspected of having links with the anti-peace elements of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) have been apprehended," the report quoted Regional police commissioner Yussuf Mohammed as saying: It was not clear which state media was cited for the report.
The report said Yussuf did not give a time span but said "rebel hideouts" and communication avenues had been "wiped out" by government forces.
"We are in a position to completely destroy the ONLF in a very short period of time," he said.
Recent Ethiopian military campaign follows high-profile ONLF attacks in the region, including the April attack on the Chinese oil site at Obole and the May attacks on Jigjiga and Dhagahbur.
ONLF forces have also been responsible for serious abuses. An April attack on Obole, an oil field in northern Somali region, reportedly killed dozens of civilians, including nine Chinese oil workers, and at least 28 civilians working on a farm in nearby Sandhore village.
On May 28, ONLF fighters allegedly targeted two large gatherings in Jigjiga and Dhagahbur with hand grenades. The blasts, and the crowd stampedes that followed, killed 17 people and wounded dozens, including the regional president of Somali region.
In a June 9 news conference, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi stated that the Ethiopian military was launching a "political and military operation to try to contain the activities of the ONLF." .
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Ethiopia set up a system in the mid-1990s called ethnic federalism, which carved the country into ethnic-based regions, each with broad power — at least on paper — including the right to secede. But Ethiopia's leaders soon concluded that too much regional autonomy would tear the country apart, and Ethiopia is now more or less centrally controlled by members of a small ethnic group. By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN New York Times, February 15, 2008
the people of my own country of Ogadenia stand to get back their dignety as well as their rights.we were born free and no one can make as slaves. this war is leberating our people we want to make an African state which is real Democracy.Ethipia says that we could not feed ourselves but we can.we do not allow anybody to exploit our natural resourses.Ethipia is looting us,killing the innocent people,torturing,hanging the civilians on the trees and dinying t the people to burry the bodies that they killed.they are really the terrorists.victory to oppressed people of the Horn of Africa.
Although this article blames "serious abuses" on the ONLF it does not mention the even more serious human rights abuses that the Ethiopian military has committed against civilians in the Ogaden. They military has carried out a blockade which in effect has attempted to starve the region so that the ONLF will have no base. They are pushing people in the Ogaden off their native land to make way for Chinese oil installments, just like the Sudanese governement is doing in the oil-rich Abjei region.
Ethiopia set up a system in the mid-1990s called ethnic federalism, which carved the country into ethnic-based regions, each with broad power — at least on paper — including the right to secede. But Ethiopia's leaders soon concluded that too much regional autonomy would tear the country apart, and Ethiopia is now more or less centrally controlled by members of a small ethnic group. By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN New York Times, February 15, 2008