|
|
Somalia: More Civilians Arrested for Alleged Links to Ethiopia Rebels
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Garowe Online (Garowe)
14 May 2008
Posted to the web 15 May 2008
Garowe
Five Somalis who landed at an airport in the country's northern sub-state of Puntland were arrested Wednesday minutes after they get off an airplane from neighboring Djibouti, a government official told Radio Garowe.
Yasin Said, the governor of Karkar region in Puntland, told Radio Garowe the group of five Somalis was arrested by Puntland Intelligence Service (PIS) officers at Bossaso airport.
The detainees were then loaded onto vehicles and transported towards Garowe, the capital of Puntland.
But an intervention by a senior government official in Puntland halted the detainees' trip to Garowe, according to the governor.
"The Security Minister [Abdullahi Said Samatar] gave the order to return the detainees [back] to Bossaso," Gov. Said, referring to the region's commercial hub.
The governor of Karkar region, which is located south of Bossaso, said he accompanied police units to a checkpoint in the northern part of Qardho, the provincial capital.
Gov. Said stated that he was "displeased" by the detentions, while indicating to Radio Garowe that such an act only harms the image and security of Puntland.
Many people in Bossaso, including traditional elders and community leaders, have condemned the arbitrary arrests of the five Somali civilians.
A Puntland government source said the five detained civilians are accused of receiving military training in Eritrea and of having alleged links with the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), ), an Ethiopian rebel movement made up of ethnic Somali fighters.
A community source privately told Garowe Online that local activists contacted Puntland Vice President Hassan Dahir Afqura, pleading with him to stop PIS agents from transferring the detainees over to the Ethiopian government.
But the Vice President said that he can do nothing in the matter, since a "third hand" was directly involved in the arrests.
The Puntland leader, Gen. Adde Muse, was then contacted in Addis Ababa, where he has been staying for a number of weeks for reasons undisclosed to the public.
Last month, PIS agents in Garowe arrested and handed over to Ethiopian intelligence services two politicians with the ONLF.
Days later, a group of eight civilians were detained by the PIS and later transferred to Ethiopian authorities.
|
International human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have accused the Ethiopian government of committing war crimes in Somalia and torturing domestic opponents of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
Actually, AI does not care about stability of nations. It fights and cries only for very few terrorists, mad and adveturous 'journalists' and war mongers in the cover of human rights protection.
Exiled Anuak prepare to confront Ethiopia official
By MARTIGA LOHN, Associated Press WriterSat May 31, 11:08 AM ET
Being in the same Minneapolis hotel building is about as close as Peter Omot wants to get to Omot Obang Olom, the Ethiopian official he holds responsible for the massacre of more than 400 of his ethnic kin.
Peter Omot, a 35-year-old member of the Anuak ethnic minority, says he won't enter the room where Omot, the governor of the country's western Gambella region, will speak to the local community-in-exile on Saturday.
Gov. Omot was in charge of security when, according to... [Read Full Text]
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Garowe Online. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
