The previous evening, he had participated in an attack against Ethiopian troops near the town of Babile. “The assault lasted only a few minutes but we managed to kill nine government soldiers,” he said.

“We are no match for direct combat, so we must rely on quick surprise attacks.” The armed resistance began in 1994 after the ONLF, then a political organisation, broached the idea of splitting from Ethiopia.

 The central government responded by imprisoning Ogaden leaders and, according to academics and human rights groups, assassinating others. ‘Point of no-return’ “In 1994, as a student in Dire Dawa, I was not allowed take the final examinations because I was an Ogadenian,” said Ahmed.

 ”I was arrested two years later on false charges of belonging to the ONLF, they kept me there for four years and I was beaten repeatedly, sometimes even subjected to electric torture. While in detention, my father was killed by government soldiers.” On his release in 2001, he immediately joined the rebellion but his mother remains in jail in Jijiga.

Fearing for his family, Ahmed convinced his wife to flee with their two daughters. “They are refugees in Kenya, I haven’t seen them for three years. “There comes a point of no-return when you know you don’t belong in this country,” he said.

 ’Human shields’ Over the past two years the conflict has escalated following the ONLF’s April 2007 attack on a Chinese-run oil exploration field. This resulted in the death of 74 people, including Ethiopian guards and Chinese workers.

 Ahmed claims that Ethiopian troops killed almost 1500 people The central government calls the rebels “terrorists”, however watchdogs have accused the government of human rights violations. “This is a complete fabrication and these are unfounded allegations,” said Berhanu Kebede, Ethiopia’s ambassador to the UK. “

The Ethiopian government has no intention of harming civilians, it is the ONLF that use civilians as human shields.” Near the deserted village of Galashe, which Ethiopian troops allegedly stormed in January 2009, Ahmed explains what lies beneath the numerous piles of rocks. “There are about 50 bodies under each pile.

“The Ethiopian soldiers stayed here for a couple of months, they terrorised inhabitants, killing as many as 1,500 people.” In this village, they crushed babies’ heads with stones and in another, they cut up bodies and scattered the parts to prevent remaining villagers from burying the dead Ahmed In Galashe and across Ogaden, civilians attest to the same horrors, the gang-raping of women, the burning of huts and killing of livestock. But the Ethiopian ambassador denied this claim. “This was recently the subject of an independent investigation and this has made it clear that no such crimes were committed.

 ”This is a vast area with a population of 4.5 million, who are mostly nomadic and you won’t see graveyards because people bury their relatives anywhere they can,” said Mr Berhanu. The government has closed off all access to the Ogaden region.

 Ahmed believes the Ethiopian government is trying to cut them off from the local population which supplied the rebels with food Rebel alert One of Ahmed’s main tasks is to train the younger recruits.

“They are very angry but it is important that they remember to stay organised, especially when things appear calm,” he said. The Ethiopian government has been trying to find a political solution to the problem. The rebels say that they cannot live under Ethiopian rule but we are a federal state. Berhanu Kebede “We are approaching them through their elders to explain that the constitution provides enough political space for a peaceful resolution of the problem but they must renounce the armed struggle and wage their political agenda peacefully,” said Mr Berhanu.

“The rebels say that they cannot live under Ethiopian rule but we are a federal state.” Ethiopia remains one of the world’s most aid-dependent countries, receiving more than $2bn in foreign assistance every year. Evidently, no aid reaches the Ogaden region despite the government’s insistence that hostilities have ceased. “Why does the international community remain silent?” said Ahmed.

“The UN must come to the Ogaden to see what [Prime Minister]Meles is doing to us.

” Yannick Demoustier is a French journalist for Rue des Pommiers news agency and Jonathan Alpeyrie is an independent photojournalist.

June 26, 2009: Shades of Nigeria? The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) has been threatening to attack oil exploration and production companies operating in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region. The region is a predominantly ethnic Somali area. The ONLF attacked a Chinese oil operation in 2007 and killed over 70 people. Since early spring 2009 the ONLF’s threats to attack petroleum operations have increased. A recent ONLF accusation claimed that oil companies had cleared 1600 square kilometers in the Ogaden, destroying vegetation and forcing people off the land. Ethiopia’s and Nigeria’s political, topographical, and historical situations differ, but rebel outfits in Nigeria attack oil facilities in the Niger delta to inflict economic damage on the government and to get international headlines. The ONLF’s limited attacks have certainly gotten media attention. Ethiopia knows oil and gas deposits are a national economic asset, which is one reason it has deployed troops and police to the region to protect exploration crews and drilling operations. The stage is set for another “guerrilla oil war” in Africa.June 25, 2009: In a turnabout, the Ethiopian government said that it had “not ruled out” deploying troops in Somalia. The government, however, cautioned that Ethiopia would not act alone, saying that other nations would have to be involved in a “response” to the Islamist militias who are battling Somalia’s Transitional National Government (TNG –also called the Transitional Federal Government). The Ethiopian government called for an “international mandate,” which suggests a UN mandate or perhaps a request from the African Union and European Union. The African Union is seeking more peacekeeping forces for Somalia. The AU has around 4,300 soldiers in Somalia, which is an inadequate force. The key quote from the Ethiopian prime minister: “”We do not want to find ourselves in a situation where a so-called Ethiopian horse would be trying to take the chestnut out of the fire on behalf of everybody else…and this horse being whipped by every idiot and his grandmother.”"

June 21, 2009: The Ethiopian government said that it would not send troops to the aid of the Somali government. Somalia’s government has requested military support. Ethiopia came to the aid of Somalia’s TNG and attacked Islamist militias in Somalia in December 2006.

June 18, 2009: The confrontation between Eritrea and Ethiopia over the border area around the town of Badme continues to be the most likely cause of renewed conventional war between the two nations. In many respects Ethiopia’s war against the ONLF, Eritrea’s battles with Djibouti, and the on-going civil war in Somalia are “shadow wars” (proxy wars) between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Algiers Peace Agreement and the Ethiopia-Eritrea Border Commission (EEBC) were supposed to resolve the border dispute. The EEBC ruled in favor of Eritrea and despite a mutual commitment to binding arbitration, Ethiopia refused to accept the border demarcation commission’s ruling. The peace agreement did lead to the release of prisoners and return of displaced persons. But giving up Badme is seen, by Ethiopias leaders, as political dynamite inside Ethiopia.

June 15, 2009: Eritrea is suffering from water shortages. Southern Eritrea is particularly hard hit, as wells are going dry or turning salty. Drought is the cause. The country also faces a “food crisis,” as crop losses mount from lack of rain. A UN source estimates that up to two million Eritreans face “hunger and malnourishment.” Eritrea has a population of around 3.7 million, so that is half of the country. The government is concerned about the cities. Lack of water and food become a huge political problem (like, a reason to demonstrate and even revolt). Eritrea’s radical government has got itself in a political bind with the UN and many food aid NGOs, the agencies that could help mitigate the looming food crisis. Eritrea has accused the UN of favoring Ethiopia (in the Eritrea-Ethiopia confrontation) and sees most NGOs as representatives of an “international community” that is anti-Eritrea.

June 14, 2009: Somalia accused Eritrea of providing weapons and support to Islamist militias operating in Somalia. The Somali statement said that Eritrea provides “the majority of the weapons” used by the Islamists. The Somalis contend Eritrea’s long-range target is Ethiopia. Training and supplying the Islamist militias gives Eritrea an operational base for training guerrillas to operate against Ethiopia.

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/ethiopi/articles/20090626.aspx

June 27, 2009 The U.S. government has provided about 40 tons of weapons and ammunition to shore up the besieged government of Somalia in the past six weeks and has sent funding to train Somali soldiers, a senior State Department official said yesterday, in the most complete accounting to date of the new American efforts in the strife-torn country.

 The official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the military aid was worth less than $10 million and had been approved by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the National Security Council.

“We do not want to see Somalia become a safe haven for foreign terrorists,” the official said. Hard-line Islamist rebels allegedly linked to al-Qaeda have launched an offensive to topple Somalia’s relatively moderate government, which has appealed to the United States and other African countries for help.

 The fighting has killed 250 civilians and forced more than 160,000 people out of their homes in the past month, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

In an indication of the rebels’ growing power, they held a ceremony Thursday in the capital, Mogadishu, in which they chopped off a hand and foot from each of four men convicted of stealing cellphones and other items, according to news reports from the region.

The punishment was in line with the rebels’ harsh version of Islam. The United States considers the rebel group, al-Shabab, a terrorist organization. Somalia has been racked by violence since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. U.S.

officials say the bloodshed and lawlessness in the country have caused a massive outflow of refugees and contributed to an upsurge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden. The country has also become a haven for al-Qaeda operatives alleged to have carried out attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, U.S. officials say.

The African Union has sent troops from Uganda and Burundi to help Somalia’s fragile government keep order. The U.S. aid does not involve the deployment of any troops to Somalia, where 18 American soldiers were killed in the 1993 raid depicted in the movie “Black Hawk Down.” In order to strengthen Somalia’s military, the U.S. government is providing cash to its government to buy weapons, and has asked Ugandan military forces there to give Somali soldiers small arms and ammunition, the official said.

 The U.S. government is then resupplying the Ugandans, he said. The U.S. government will also help pay for the Kenyan, Burundi and Ugandan militaries to train Somali soldiers, and is providing logistical support for the African Union troops, the official said. Clinton called Somalia’s president, Sharif Ahmed, in recent weeks to consult on the crisis, according to another U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. He said the U.S. aid would likely encourage other African countries to do more to help Somalia’s government. U.S. officials accuse Eritrea of supporting the Somali rebels as part of a proxy war with its rival, Ethiopia. But efforts by State Department officials to meet with the Eritrean government have been fruitless so far, the official said.

Often when they pass through a village, the entire village lines up, one sunken cheekbone to the next, to squint at them.

“May God bring you victory,” one woman whispered.

This is the Ogaden, a spindle-legged corner of Ethiopia that the urbane officials in Addis Ababa, the capital, would rather outsiders never see. It is the epicenter of a separatist war pitting impoverished nomads against one of the biggest armies in Africa.

What goes on here seems to be starkly different from the carefully constructed up-and-coming image that Ethiopia — a country that the United States increasingly relies on to fight militant Islam in the Horn of Africa — tries to project.
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In village after village, people said they had been brutalized by government troops. They described a widespread and longstanding reign of terror, with Ethiopian soldiers gang-raping women, burning down huts and killing civilians at will.

It is the same military that the American government helps train and equip — and provides with prized intelligence. The two nations have been allies for years, but recently they have grown especially close, teaming up last winter to oust an Islamic movement that controlled much of Somalia and rid the region of a potential terrorist threat.

The Bush administration, particularly the military, considers Ethiopia its best bet in the volatile Horn — which, with Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, is fast becoming intensely violent, virulently anti-American and an incubator for terrorism.

But an emerging concern for American officials is the way that the Ethiopian military operates inside its own borders, especially in war zones like the Ogaden.

Anab, a 40-year-old camel herder who was too frightened, like many others, to give her last name, said soldiers took her to a police station, put her in a cell and twisted her nipples with pliers. She said government security forces routinely rounded up young women under the pretext that they were rebel supporters so they could bring them to jail and rape them.

“Me, I am old,” she said, “but they raped me, too.”

Moualin, a rheumy-eyed elder, said Ethiopian troops stormed his village, Sasabene, in January looking for rebels and burned much of it down. “They hit us in the face with the hardest part of their guns,” he said.

The villagers said the abuses had intensified since April, when the rebels attacked a Chinese-run oil field, killing nine Chinese workers and more than 60 Ethiopian soldiers and employees. The Ethiopian government has vowed to crush the rebels but rejects all claims that it abuses civilians.

“Our soldiers are not allowed to do these kinds of things,” said Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman. “This is only propaganda and cannot be justified. If a government soldier did this type of thing they would be brought before the courts.”

Even so, the State Department, the European Parliament and many human rights groups, mostly outside Ethiopia, have cited thousands of cases of torture, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings — enough to raise questions in Congress about American support of the Ethiopian government.

“This is a country that is abusing its own people and has no respect for democracy,” said Representative Donald M. Payne, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa and global health.

“We’ve not only looked the other way but we’ve pushed them to intrude in other sovereign nations,” he added, referring to the satellite images and other strategic help the American military gave Ethiopia in December, when thousands of Ethiopian troops poured into Somalia and overthrew the Islamist leadership.

According to Georgette Gagnon, deputy director for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, Ethiopia is one of the most repressive countries in Africa.

“What the Ethiopian security forces are doing,” she said, “may amount to crimes against humanity.”

Human Rights Watch issued a report in 2005 that documented a rampage by government troops against members of the Anuak, a minority tribe in western Ethiopia, in which soldiers ransacked homes, beat villagers to death with iron bars and in one case, according to a witness, tied up a prisoner and ran over him with a military truck.

After the report came out, the researcher who wrote it was banned by the Ethiopian government from returning to the country. Similarly, three New York Times journalists who visited the Ogaden to cover this story were imprisoned for five days and had all their equipment confiscated before being released without charges.

Ethiopia’s Tiananmen Square

In many ways, Ethiopia has a lot going for it these days: new buildings, new roads, low crime and a booming trade in cut flowers and coffee. It is the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa, behind Nigeria, with 77 million people.

Its leaders, many whom were once rebels themselves, from a neglected patch of northern Ethiopia, are widely known as some of the savviest officials on the continent. They had promised to let some air into a very stultified political system during the national elections of 2005, which were billed as a milestone on the road to democracy.

Instead, they turned into Ethiopia’s version of Tiananmen Square. With the opposition poised to win a record number of seats in Parliament, the government cracked down brutally, opening fire on demonstrators, rounding up tens of thousands of opposition supporters and students and leveling charges of treason and even attempted to kill top opposition leaders, including the man elected mayor of Addis Ababa.

Many opposition members are now in jail or in exile. The rest seem demoralized.

“There are no real steps toward democracy,” said Merera Gudina, vice president of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, a leading opposition party. “No real steps toward opening up space, no real steps toward ending repression.”

Ethiopian officials have routinely dismissed such complaints, accusing political protesters of stoking civil unrest and poking their finger into a well-known sore spot. Ethiopia has always had an authoritarian streak. This is a country, after all, where until the 1970s rulers claimed to be direct descendants of King Solomon. It is big, poor, famine-stricken, about half-Christian and half-Muslim, surrounded by hostile enemies and full of heavily armed separatist factions. As one high-ranking Ethiopian official put it, “This country has never been easy to rule.”

That has certainly been true for the Ogaden desert, a huge, dagger-shaped chunk of territory between the highlands of Ethiopia and the border of Somalia. The people here are mostly ethnic Somalis, and they have been chafing against Ethiopian rule since 1897, when the British ceded their claims to the area.

The colonial officials did not think the Ogaden was worth much. They saw thorny hills and thirsty people. Even today, it is still like that. What passes for a town is a huddle of bubble-shaped huts, the movable homes of camel-thwacking nomads who somehow survive out here. For roads, picture Tonka truck tracks running through a sandbox. The primary elements in this world are skin and bone and sun and rock. And guns. Loads of them.

Camel herders carry rifles to protect their animals. Young women carry pistols to protect their bodies. And then there is the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the machine-gun-toting rebels fighting for control of this desiccated wasteland.

Rebels Live Off the Land

Lion. Radio. Fearless. Peacock. Most of the men have nicknames that conceal their real identities. Peacock, who spoke some English, served as a guide. He shared the bitter little plums the soldiers pick from thorn bushes — “Ogaden chocolate,” he called them. He showed the way to gently skim water from the top of a mud puddle to minimize the amount of dirt that ends up in your stomach — even in the rainy season this is all there is to drink.

He pointed out the anthills, the coming storm clouds, the especially ruthless thorn trees and even a graveyard that stood incongruously in the middle of the desert. The graves — crude pyramids of stones — were from the war in 1977-78, when Somalia tried, disastrously, to pry the Ogaden out of Ethiopia’s hands and lost thousands of men. “It’s up to us now,” Peacock said.

Peacock was typical of the rebels. He was driven by anger. He said Ethiopian soldiers hanged his mother, raped his sister and beat his father. “I know, it’s hard to believe,” he said. “But it’s true.”

He had the hunch of a broken man and a voice that seemed far too tired for his 28 years. “It’s not that I like living in the bush,” he said. “But I have nowhere else to go.”

The armed resistance began in 1994, after the Ogaden National Liberation Front, then a political organization, broached the idea of splitting off from Ethiopia. The central government responded by imprisoning Ogadeni leaders, and according to academics and human rights groups, assassinating others. The Ogaden is part of the Somali National Regional State, one of nine ethnic-based states within Ethiopia’s unusual ethnic-based federal system. On paper, all states have the right to secede, if they follow the proper procedures. But it seemed that the government feared that if the Somalis broke away, so too would the Oromos, the Afar and many other ethnic groups pining for a country of their own.

The Ethiopian government calls the Ogaden rebels terrorists and says they are armed and trained by Eritrea, Ethiopia’s neighbor and bitter enemy. One of the reasons Ethiopia decided to invade Somalia was to prevent the rebels from using it as a base.

The government blames them for a string of recent bombings and assassinations and says they often single out rival clan members. Ethiopian officials have been pressuring the State Department to add the Ogaden National Liberation Front to its list of designated foreign terrorist organizations. Until recently, American officials refused, saying the rebels had not threatened civilians or American interests.

“But after the oil field attack in April,” said one American official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “we are reassessing that.”

American policy toward Ethiopia seems to be in flux. Administration officials are trying to increase the amount of nonhumanitarian aid to Ethiopia to $481 million next year, from $284 million this year. But key Democrats in Congress, including Mr. Payne, are questioning this, saying that because of Ethiopia’s human rights record, it is time to stop writing the country a blank check.

In April, European Commission officials began investigating Ethiopia for war crimes in connection to hundreds of Somali civilians killed by Ethiopian troops during heavy fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.

Women Are Suffering the Most

In the Ogaden, it is not clear how many people are dying. The vast area is essentially a no-go zone for most human rights workers and journalists and where the Ethiopian military, by its own admission, is waging an intense counterinsurgency campaign.

The violence has been particularly acute against women, villagers said, and many have recently fled.

Asma, 19, who now lives in neighboring Somaliland, said she was stuck in an underground cell for more than six months last year, raped and tortured. “They beat me on the feet and breasts,” she said. She was freed only after her father paid the soldiers ransom, she said, though she did not know how much.

Ambaro, 25, now living in Addis Ababa, said she was gang-raped by five Ethiopian soldiers in January near the town of Fik. She said troops came to her village every night to pluck another young woman.

“I’m in pain now, all over my body,” she said. “ I’m worried that I’ll become crazy because of what happened.”

Many Ogaden villagers said that when they tried to bring up abuses with clan chiefs or local authorities, they were told it was better to keep quiet.

The rebels said thats was precisely why they attacked the Chinese oil field: to get publicity for their cause and the plight of their region (and to discourage foreign companies from exploiting local resources). According to them, they strike freely in the Ogaden all the time, ambushing military convoys and raiding police stations.

Mr. Mohammed, the government spokesman, denied that, saying the rebels “will not confront Ethiopian military forces because they are not well trained.”

Expert or not, they are determined. They march for hours powered by a few handfuls of rice. They travel extremely light, carrying only their guns, two clips of bullets, a grenade and a tarp. They brag about how many Ethiopians they have killed, and every piece of their camouflage, they say, is pulled off dead soldiers. They joke about slaughtering Ethiopian troops the same way they slaughter goats.

Their morale seems high, especially for men who sleep in the dirt every night. Their throats are constantly dry, but they like to sing.

“A camel is delivering a baby today and the milk of the camel is coming,” goes one campfire song. “Who is the owner of this land?”

Will Connors contributed reporting from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said he believed that president Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s government would not be overthrown easily.

However, he said Ethiopia was ready to support Somalia at any point, including with military aid. “We believe the situation could be stabilised without a deployment of Ethiopian troops,” said Mr Meles of escalating violence between the Somali government troops and the Islamic militants.

Although he acknowledged the increasing threat of Al Shabaab and other insurgent groups, he said he did not believe they were capable of toppling the administration.

He said the urgent call made by the Somali parliament last week was a little exaggerated. “Our reading of the situation in Somalia is slightly different from that of the speaker… (who said) that if there was no foreign military intervention within 24 hours, the government would collapse,” he said.

Rather than deploying foreign troops, Mr Meles recommended the beefing up of the African Union Amisom peace keepers.

However, Mr Meles said his position would change as soon there was any threat to his country’s security and national interests from Somali insurgents.

Ethiopia awaits the Inter Governmental Authority on Development and the African Union’s consultations on Somalia, before it takes a final stand. It had also earlier said it could send troops if the mission was mandated by the international community.

In 2006, Ethiopia went toSomalia to support the Somali government and successfully removed Islamic insurgents. Ethiopia withdrew from Somalia at the beginning of this year after a two-year mission.

Ethiopia is pointing an accusing finger at Eritrea’s President Isayas Afeworki, saying he was bent on destabilising Somalia, claims which the latter has denied.

Report reaching Horusocod Media from Dhagahbour Region in the eastern Part of Ethiopia, Ogaden Region says last night there where heavy fightings between ONLF fighters and Ethiopian troops near by Gashamo, one of District in Dhagahbour Zone.

Source says number of Ethiopian soldiers and Two drivers of Somalis militia Dead on the spot but still now there is no any comments from ONLF, local people said on phone early morning.

The last three weeks are reported more clashes from different area in Ogaden Region, in Godey Ethiopian troops frustrated while youth consist of 26 joined the ONLF troops and ordered local elders to bring back them, and finally more then 16 elders were arrested for the move.

On the Other hand Ethiopian troops killed one of ONLF leaders Sheekh Deeq Wife and the step was shocked by many people in Region, the local Administration named Somali-State had no any comment.

ONLF is nationalist movement fighting for self determination of Ogaden Region since from 1984. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the region was conquered by Menelik II and Ethiopia solidified their occupation by treaties in 1897.

Horusocod Media

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Alison Williams)