UN referendum for Ogaden Independence – Close down Morgue ‘Ethiopia’

Reproducing the same pathetic logic and the hypocritical reasoning that helped expand Islamic Terrorism in other parts of the world will fast produce an unprecedented domino effect across Africa. The despair is such that the developments will precipitate. If no other way is left to achieve National Independence and Dignity but an alliance with the Somali Islamists, all the tyrannized peoples of Abyssinia, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Algeria and other African pseudo-countries will ally themselves with the rising force for African Independence.

Will that have a good result for them? Certainly not, but when you are met with monumental G-8 idiocy, based on the shameful concept of financial aid that turns out to be the most successful tool for the perpetuation of vicious exploitation of African resources by non Africans, then you pay little attention to macro-economics. In addition, it will have an ominous impact on Israel, Europe and America.

The Name of Terrorism: Meles Zenawi

Monotonously repeated clichés about what is Terrorism and what is not should stop immediately, and the Language of Truth must displace the perfidious colonial political lies. Terrorism has a name in Africa: it is Meles Zenawi, the African Hitler, the Black Continent’s most criminal gangster. This is the only reality – bitterly and bloodily lived daily by the outright majority of the tyrannized peoples of Abyssinia.

As the demented Tigray dictator loses control, and starts being blatantly rejected by many of his fellow tribesmen, the US, EU, and the G-8 have the possibility to trigger developments, better involving the UN and the AU, that will avert the Islamist explosion in the loathsome Morgue ‘Ethiopia’. The UN soldiers’ mandate should be extended throughout Ogaden territory.

With the immediate removal of the few remaining Abyssinian soldiers, who hardly control half of Ogaden’s territory, the UN soldiers will guarantee the successful accomplishment of a UN monitored referendum whereby Ogadenis will vote for their National Independence. With Ogaden respectfully taking its place among the world’s nations, and the subsequent international recognition of Somaliland and Puntland in the northern parts of the former united Somalia, the explosive situation in the Somali South will - for the first time - be put under control.

Tolerant, peaceful and traditional Muslims, the Ogadenis have nothing in common with radicalized Muslim masses in Nigeria, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan and Iran. Wahhabism is still unknown here; the only chance to keep it like that is to see in the Ogaden Liberation Front the trustful interlocutor and the main factor in implementing Democracy throughout the Horn of Africa.

How can US and European diplomats so easily negotiate with terrorists like the lewd, bogus-kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and support the renowned Turkish and Palestinian terrorists Erdogan and M. Abbas, and at the same time they do not find in the Ogadeni political and academic elite a dignified interlocutor?

To demonstrate the tolerant and pacifist profile of the Ogadeni intellectual elite, we give space to Ms. Fowsia Abdulkadir, PhD candidate & external lecturer, Aalborg University,Denmark. In a free Republic of Ogaden, she would be a minister or a highly placed expert on Women’s Affairs, Culture or Education.

The moderate and reasonable voice of the Ogadeni intellectuals is still the best guarantee of a salutary exit from the Horn of Africa nightmare. Ms. Abdulkadir’s speech was given 4 years ago in Canada; we reproduce it here integrally. The Genocidal practices of the Abyssinian tyranny in Ogaden are – quite unfortunately – a most imperative issue, due to unexcused, quasi-suicidal Western apathy.

Genocidal Policies & Poor Human Rights Record in the Ogaden: A
Historical Perspective

(first published in: www.ogaden.com/Genocidal_Policies.pdf)

By Fowsia Abdulkadir
PhD candidate & external lecturer, Aalborg University,Denmark
Ogaden Human Rights Committee, Ottawa, Canada

Presented at the Fifth International Biennial Conference Of The International Association of Genocide Scholars - June 7th to 10th, 2003, Galway, Ireland

Introduction

For the purposes of contextualzing the discussion this paper will briefly identify the Ogaden/Somali region in Ethiopia, and provide a glimpse of history. Then it will analyse the region’s genocide and gross human rights violations through a historical perspective. It is the premise of this paper that there are indeed genocidal policies in place in Ethiopia and the people of Ogaden are the victims of these policies.

Historical Background

The Ogaden, is also known as the Somali region in Ethiopia, and is a Somali territory, this territory lies between Oromia to the West, Afar land to the Northeast, The Republic of Djibouti to the North, Kenya to the South, and The Somali Republic to the East1.

The complexity of the history of this region is recorded and accounted for in many scholarly documents and it is indeed beyond the extent of this paper. Nevertheless, one cannot embark on any critical analysis without looking back at this complex chain of historical events, which contributed and led to the current state of affairs in Ethiopia in general and Ogaden in particular.

The Somali region, Ogaden, was integrated into what was then the Abyssinian Empire at the end of the 19th century. This well known historical fact took place at the initial stages of European colonization of the continent of Africa. Another historical fact is that one hundred years ago Abyssinia was a tiny kingdom limited to the mountainous areas of the Abyssinian highlands2.

According to Louis Fitz Gibbon, the Abyssinian kingdom was small, and enclosed to the rest of the world; Fitz Gibbon posits that the ‘realpolitik’ of the Europeans’ at the turn of the century placed in the hands of the then Abyssinian Emperor Menelik the instrument he needed to subdue his neighbours; the possession of firearms.

Another fact recorded in history is that Menelik’s expansionist ideas led to the growth of Abyssinia which resulted in its capital moving ‘ever-south-wards’ from Axum to Gondor and lastly to Addis Ababa. With this expansion came the feudal system, exported from Abyssinia, where the land was ruled by a handful of nobles and priests while the rest starved in poverty and oppression3.

The oppression is continued today, after Menelik by his successor Haile Selassie, and Haile Selassie’s deposer Mengistu Haile Marim, who is also known in the history books as, "The Red Terror" in the Horn of Africa, and by every successor who came to power in Ethiopia. The fact that the Ogaden was awarded by the British to Menelik in the last years of the 19th century, highlight another important fact that Abyssinia – now Ethiopia, was a player in the powerful game of divide and conquer in the Horn. Another fact is that it was the British government that had concluded ‘Protectorate’ with some of the major Somali clans, which eventually let the Somalis down4. These historical facts are well articulated by many authors such as Louis Fitz Gibbon and Mohamed H. Khalif & Martin Doornbos, who provide, as a background to their article "The Somali Region in Ethiopia: A Neglected Human Rights Tragedy", an essential synopsis of the region’s historical trajectory. Then came the independence of many African states during the early sixties. The people of the continent of Africa, just like the people of Asia have struggled with European colonizers to get their independence.

Many lives were lost in the struggles for freedom in different parts of the world. The European colonizers realizing that they were no longer able to hold complete control over these lands and their resources engaged in negotiating freedom talks with the sole intent of safeguarding their trade interests. Not minimizing the losses incurred for the cause of freedom, it was historical fact that people in the continent of Africa inherited with their freedom an unjust distribution of power and complex set of issues pertaining to the arbitrarily drawn geographical boundaries.

As it is clearly articulated in many a historical document, the borders which divide the continent of Africa into the newly formed nation states, in respective countries, were left behind by the European colonizers. The European colonizers arbitrarily divided the land in order to share control over them. This has resulted the division of the land of many African tribes and ethnic groups into fragments under different nation states/countries, making one tribe become a minority in one country while they are a majority in a neighboring country. The Masai people in Kenya and Tanzania, and the Somalis are examples of this in East Africa.

After independence, some African countries, like the Somali Democratic Republic, embarked on an intensive diplomatic initiative attempting to address the border issues in Africa. Well documented is the failure of such attempts and the subsequent military conflicts and or full-scale wars that were waged in pursuit of solutions resolving the border issues in Africa. For instance, the Biafra war in Nigeria in the early sixties and the war of 1977 between the Republic of Somalia and Ethiopia.

The Europeans designed these borders arbitrarily and at the wake of independence advised the African governing bodies to accept these borders the way they were, giving such advice based on their trade interests. The Organization of African Unity denied the people of African the opportunity to deal with the border issues right after independence, hence denying any recourse to rectify the European colonizers’ blunder. The conflicts that resulted from these fundamental mistakes have never been addressed with a due process. These conflicts festered and festered and evolved into a constant arms race between neighboring African countries. Which played into the hands of Europeans and their Super Power Allies at the wake of the cold war era with its set geopolitical complexities. What has ensued is the mayhem of competition for African countries to ally themselves with one of the super power, and the rest as they say is "history".

Genocide in the Ogaden

Historical genocidal policies in the Ogaden fit very well with Roger W. Smith’s ‘monopolistic genocide’. "Monopolistic Genocide", according to R. W. Smith, is enocide which is directed outward; and its major goals are conquest and colonial exploitation5. Mr. Smith posits that prior to the twentieth century, genocide was mostly external; it was directed at groups that lived outside one’s territories and boundaries. Given what has taken place in the Horn of Africa, the Somali region, Ogaden, was subjected to ‘monopolistic genocide’ first by the European colonizers, namely the British, the French and the Italians and secondly by the Abyssinians.

R. W. Smith further posits that today most genocide is internal, people or groups within one’s territories are destroyed. Although the author notes some exceptions, he, nevertheless, concludes that there are many examples of genocide in the twentieth century which have been directed inward. He further underlines that problems that were not encountered at the externally directed genocide are major to today’s genocide:

"Who belongs, who is to have a voice in the society, what is to be the basic shape of the community, what should its purpose be?6".

To further highlight the complexity of the issues in the context of Ogaden, the Somali region in Ethiopia, it is evident that what has started as an externally directed genocide has, through history evolved into internally directed genocide with a completely different set of issues to sort out. The people of Ogaden have not had an opportunity to define and resolve their grievances on the first account of historical plunders and genocide, which were the results of European and Abyssinian colonial exploitation agendas. These issues have since been transformed into yet another set. Identifying the people of Ogaden as part of a newly formed nation state, forcing them to abide by ‘international laws’ that protect the rights of sovereign states over the people they massacre; that they had no say and which exasperated their unheard cries for justice.

R. W. Smith identifies major problems: such as the problem of international control, of the distribution of power, and of who governs. He posits that while these problems can exist in any political system, they have been fundamental to conflicts and battles that have emerged in places like Pakistan, Burundi, Nigeria, Ethiopia and other countries that have pervasive cleavage between racial, religious, and ethnic groups. These multi-ethnic, multi-religion and multi-racial societies are for the most part a legacy of nineteenth century colonialism. But the sad tragedy and the fact of the matter is, their genocidal violence takes place today within the framework of self-determination. The sad irony of this is that having been subjected to colonial genocide and exploitation, they are now utchering themselves7.

The currently accepted definition of genocide is the one contained in the 1984 United Nations Convention on Genocide:

-- the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnical, racial or religious groups, as such: 1) Killing members of the group; 2) Causing serious bodily harm to members of the group; 3) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 4) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; 5) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group8.

Considering historical genocide in the Ogaden, and the genocidal policies of all the Ethiopian regimes towards the people of Ogaden, which our organization OHRC has documented, we would argue that the genocide that has taken place, and often still does, in Ogaden would easily fit in the first three categories. Indeed there is evidence, which would substantiate this argument. Appendix A, (Report on: Ethiopian Atrocities on the Ogaden Community), of this paper provides more detailed information on some of the horrendous acts of genocide and atrocities that were committed against the people of Ogaden.

Human Rights Violations in the Ogaden

"Human rights violations reports are body counts, torture practices, an endless list of horrors, the violations seem beyond comprehension, madmen acting without reason. And the reports seem to be written by someone with the stomach of a physician and the mind of a statistician9".

Indeed reading all the reports of Ogaden Human Rights violations and going through document after document reporting the raping of innocent young boys and girls, the hijacking of privately owned vehicles, publicly shooting innocent people to instill fear in the communities, looting people’s properties and the general dehumanizing acts of the Ethiopia military was the most challenging research we have ever done.

Human rights violations are defined as: ‘torture, disappearances, killings, detentions and unfair trails’; these acts occur continuously around the world, and particularly in Ethiopia, in a gross and blatant manner. According to David Matas these violation occur for a purpose; he argues that torture, disappearances, extra-judicial executions, unfair trials do not take place in ideological vacuum. But on the contrary, in many instances these acts are manifestations of an ideology.

In an attempt to analyse the root causes of human rights violations, David Matas looks at ideology as a root cause for human rights violations. He argues that these violations are often times done intentionally, in search of a particular cause, and that violations can at times be the consequences of an ideology. If implementing an ideology entails applying an idea logically, according to David Matas, there are ideologies for which a logical result is human rights violations10. For example the ideology of racism took a totalitarian form in Hitler’s Germany. In an attempt to answer age-old question: ‘what leads to human rights violation?’ the author provides analysis to explain why human rights violation occur as well as provide a guide as to what nongovernmental organizations, governments and the United Nations can do to counter violations. In his book he examines four ideologies as examples, which can be root causes of human rights violations: the national security state, religion, communism, and apartheid. We would go further and extend his analysis to include colonialism as one of the ideologies that can be a root cause of human rights violations. The idea of colonialism is wrong at so many levels that one cannot examine all its fronts and layers in one short paper like this.

Customarily, exploitation and oppression were institutionalized attributes of Ethiopia’s feudal society, being entrenched in the customs and laws, which administered relations between the ruling nobility and the mass of serfs. As a result of this tradition, the Ethiopian socio-political establishments were devoid of human rights considerations11.

The first Ethiopian constitution was written in 1931when Haile Selassie came to power, that first constitution did not have any human rights terms in it. In 1955, when it was revised there were human rights terms incorporated into it, borrowed from the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, however, in practice the Haile Selassie regime did not respect human rights. In 1974 the Dergue regime of Mengistu H. Miriam came to power, after a long struggle and resistance to the human rights violations of Haile Selassie’s regime.

However, the human rights record of the Dergue is so atrocious that even the unwilling have to acknowledge its existence, it surpassed its predecessor’s record. The cries of the different peoples in Ethiopia have fell onto deaf ears, as far as the international community is concerned. Torture, disappearances and random detention marked the gory and unstable period known as the Red Terror from 1977 to March 1978, during which several thousand civilians were massacred. Resistance to the Dergue was not limited to Eritreans, the peoples of Tigray, Oromia, Sidamo or Ogaden; even Amaharas, who belonged to the ruling nobility, bled under the iron boot of this pitiless regime12.

In 1991, the EPRDF came to power, this group brought with them economic liberalization, a multi-party political structure and endorsed the existence of freedom of the press – only on paper. Chapter three of the new Ethiopian constitution, in written form, adheres to fundamental human rights principles. According to M.H. Khalif and M. Doornbos, it is impressively comprehensive and the human rights provisions are explicitly clear13.

However, just like all its predecessors, the EPDRF soon revealed its true colors. To the disappointment of the international community and many Ethiopians, international human rights organizations reported continuous violations of basic constitutional rights that this regime had written and vowed to protect14.

Appendix A of this paper provides a long list the names of people and places highlighting the atrocities the EPDRF regime is committing against the people of Ogaden. Human rights violations have been widely publicized. As cited in the article by Khalif and Doornbos, the Economist shockingly reported huge gaps between Ethiopia’s written policy position on human rights and its practice: "In the Oromia and Somali regions, the parties that had established strong local identities by fighting the Mengistu regime, such as the Oromo Liberation Front and Ogaden National Liberation Front, have been suppressed as ‘terrorists’. Indeed, both these parties grew out of guerilla movements. But the government also accuses the All Amhara People’s Organization and Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Coalition of waging war, without producing much evidence that these parties use or advocate violence. People unwilling to join the EPDRF, let alone those known to favor secession, are described as ‘narrow nationalists’. They are often imprisoned and their meetings banned. In Oromia and Somali regions, human rights groups have documented hundreds of ‘disappearances"15.

The Washington Post, in an article published on April 13th of 1998, condemned Ethiopia’s bleak performance with regards to basic human rights. According to Khalif and Doornbos, the current Ethiopian regime had arrested and kept in detention more journalists in the previous three years than any other government in the continent of Africa16.

Before concluding this paper we briefly focus on the sovereignty of the nation state given the historical context to the Somali region in Ethiopia. Considering the contradictions between safe guarding the rights of the masses versus the rights of the sovereign state, particularly the Ethiopian state and how it was formed. Critically thinking about the modern nation state, Ali Jimale Ahmed in his article, in the book "The Invention of Somalia" cites Raymond Williams, the Year 2000:

"’Nation’ as a term is radically connected with ‘native’. We are born into relationships which are typically settled in a place. The form of primary and ‘placeable’ bonding is of quite fundamental human and natural importance. Yet the jump from that to anything like the modern nation state is entirely ‘artificial." 17.

The process which forms the modern nation state does not occur naturally, but rather is artificial man made process. In the context of Africa, looking through the historical lenses of the 19th century colonial genocide, the people of the continent were denied any peaceful process of socio-political evolution; one is left wondering what could have been the fate of Africa without colonial legacies. I guess we will never know what could have been. Having said that, the world has certainly witnessed the horrors and atrocities that are committed in the name of national security. The people of Ogaden have witnessed and suffered more than their share of violent aggressions by the state machinery.

For instance, during the early forties, one man, who lived in Werdheer, recalls from his childhood how he witnessed Ethiopian military forcefully entering the houses in the neighborhood and rounded-up his father, uncles and older brother. Forcing them to remove their clothes and make them stand in the heat of the sun bare feet for six hours. He remembers how they lived under constant fear of not knowing what the military would do next. Things have not improved since the forties to the contrary the people of Ogaden are far worse off under the current regime. Another woman talks about how women would delivery babies at home, because it was not safe to go the hospital.

Hospitals are not safe because the military decides when to turn-off the power, and they would sometimes shut the power while people were having medical procedures. Moreover, hospitals are not easily accessible; people must travel a long distance in unsafe areas to get to the nearest hospital. The education system, if it can be called a system, and facilities are in shambles; school buildings are used by the militia as military barracks and detention centers. Jigjiga Secondary School is the only high school in the entire Somali region. The people of Ogaden are not allowed to own private businesses, because the military can come and loot their property when they so desire. There is not decent employment for these people to earn a living.

The different peoples of Ethiopia, particularly the Somalis, have suffered under every regime that came to power in Ethiopia and are obviously oppressed by the current regime. They are politically marginalized. In the last decade alone, seven elected officials from the Somali region have been detained without any proper charges and judicial process and trials. They did not get to complete their terms. They were discharged from their official duties and all of them were accused of corruption and mismanagement of public funds. They were all released after lengthy detention periods, intended to intimidate others in the community.

The dilemmas that the people of Ogaden are dealing with are entrenched in the paradoxical reality of a well-drafted constitution that invites people to participate in the socio-political processes in the country; and the EPDRF regime, just like all its predecessors, which is oppressive.

To conclude, obviously the people of Ogaden have been subjected to cruel and inhumane situation over a long period of time. We constantly ask ourselves, do all these gross human rights abuses amount to genocide? The answer is an unequivocal YES, they have been massacred, detained, tortured, and they were subjected to mass exodus and had to flee their homeland numerous time. These are indeed genocidal policies that are directed at the people of Ogaden.

Bibliography

Fitz Gibbon, Louis; "The Evaded Duty" First Published by Rex Collins Ltd, 6
Paddington Street, London; 1985

Khalif, Mohamud H., & Doornbos, Martin; "The Somali Region in Ethiopia: A
Neglected Human Rights Tragedy", in "Review of African Political Economy"; No. 91:73-94; © ROAPE Publications Ltd., 2002

Smith, Roger W., "Human Destructiveness and Politics: the Twentieth Century
As an Age of Genocide" in "Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death"; edited by Isidor Wallimann and Michael N. Dobkowski; Contributions to the Study of World History, Number 3; Greenwood Press

Matas, David; "No More: The Battle Against Human Rights Violations"1994
Dundurn Press Ltd., Toronto, Canada.

Ahmed, Ali Jimale; "Daybreak Is Near, Won’t You Become Sour?: Going Beyond the Current Rhetoric In Somali Studies"; in "The Invention of Somalia"; edited
by Ali Jimale Ahmed; published by Red Sea Press Inc.

Charny, Isreal W. edited; "Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review"; vol.2;
published by Facts On File

Harf, Brabara; "Genocide and Human Rights: International Legal and Political Issues"; Monograph Series in World Affairs; Graduate School of International Studies; University of Denver; Denver, Colorado 80208

Kuper, Leo; Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century"; Yale
University Press

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Notes

1 History Centre; http://ogaden.com/History.htm

2 "The Evaded Duty", Louis FitzGibbon; ch. 2; p. 7

3 Ibid, p. 6 to 8

4 "The Somali Region in Ethiopia: A Neglected Human Rights Tragedy"; by M. H. Khalif & M. Doornbos; published in Review of African

5 Roger W. Smith, "Human Destructiveness and Politics: the Twentieth Century As an Age of Genocide" in "Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death"; edited by Isidor Wallimann and Michael N. Dobkowski

6 ibid

7 ibid

8 ibid

9 "No More: The Battle Against Human Rights Violations" David Matas, 1994; Dundurn Press Ltd., Toronto, Canada. p. 3

10 ibid

11 "The Somali Region in Ethiopia: A Neglected Human Rights Tragedy", M.H. Khalif & M. Doornbos, Review of African Political Economy No.91: 73-94; © ROAPE Publications Ltd., 2002

12 ibid, p. 76

13 ibid

14 ibid

15 ibid p. 77

16 ibid

17 "Daybreak Is Near, Won’t You Become Sour? Going Beyond the Current Rhetoric In Somali Studies" by Ali Jimale Ahmed; in the book "The Invention of Somalia" Edited by Ali Jimale Ahmed; published by The Red Sea Press, Inc.; p. 135.

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Note:

Fighters of the Ogaden National Liberation Front control a sizeable part of Ogaden as morgue 'Ethiopia' is about to collapse.