Collective Punishment

IN JUNE 2007 New York Times Video Report on ONLF - Ogaden Somali Fighters



War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia’s Somali Region

ONE YEAR LATER JUNE 2008 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORT
Summary
Tens of thousands of ethnic Somali civilians living in eastern Ethiopia’s Somali
Regional State are experiencing serious abuses and a looming humanitarian crisis in
the context of a little-known conflict between the Ethiopian government and an
Ethiopian Somali rebel movement. The situation is critical. Since mid-2007,
thousands of people have fled, seeking refuge in neighboring Somalia and Kenya
from widespread Ethiopian military attacks on civilians and villages that amount to
war crimes and crimes against humanity.
For those who remain in the war-affected area, continuing abuses by both rebels and
Ethiopian troops pose a direct threat to their survival and create a pervasive culture
of fear. The Ethiopian military campaign of forced relocations and destruction of
villages reduced in early 2008 compared to its peak in mid-2007, but other abuses—
including arbitrary detentions, torture, and mistreatment in detention—are
continuing. These are combining with severe restrictions on movement and
commercial trade, minimal access to independent relief assistance, a worsening
drought, and rising food prices to create a highly vulnerable population at risk of
humanitarian disaster.
Although the conflict has been simmering for years with intermittent allegations of
abuses, it took on dramatic new momentum after the Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF) attacked a Chinese-run oil installation in Somali Region in April 2007,
killing more than 70 Chinese and Ethiopian civilians. The Ethiopian People’s
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government, led by Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi, responded by launching a brutal counter-insurgency campaign in the five
zones of Somali Region primarily affected by the conflict: Fiiq, Korahe, Gode,
Wardheer, and Dhagahbur. In these zones the Ethiopian National Defense Forces
(ENDF) have deliberately and repeatedly attacked civilian populations in an effort to
root out the insurgency.
Ethiopian troops have forcibly displaced entire rural communities, ordering villagers
to leave their homes within a few days or witness their houses being burnt down and
Collective Punishment 4
their possessions destroyed—and risk death. Over the past year, Human Rights
Watch has documented the execution of more than 150 individuals, many of them in
demonstration killings, with Ethiopian soldiers singling out relatives of suspected
ONLF members, or making apparently arbitrary judgments that individuals
complaining to soldiers or resisting their orders are ONLF supporters. These
executions have sometimes involved strangulation, after which their bodies are left
lying in the open as a warning, for villagers to bury. The information confirmed by
Human Rights Watch is only a glimpse of what is taking place—real figures are likely
to be higher.
Mass detentions without any judicial oversight are routine. Hundreds—and possibly
thousands—of individuals have been arrested and held in military barracks,
sometimes multiple times, where they have been tortured, raped, and assaulted.
Confiscation of livestock (the main asset among the largely pastoralist population),
restrictions on access to water, food, and other essential commodities, and
obstruction of commercial traffic and humanitarian assistance have been used as
weapons in an economic war aimed at cutting off ONLF supplies and collectively
punishing communities that are suspected of supporting the rebels.
To read the whole report please follow the above link