In Ethiopia, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality
rc...@mailinator.com
In Ethiopia, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
IN THE OGADEN DESERT, Ethiopia - The rebels march 300 strong across
the crunchy earth, young men with dreadlocks and AK-47s slung over
their shoulders.
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.
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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/africa/18ethiopia.html