Oromo Liberation Army Killed Enemy Soldiers and Captured Weapons

Oromo rebels reportedly killed 30 soldiers in eastern Ethiopia

June 28, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — The rebel Oromo Liberation Army OLA), armed wing of Oromo Liberation Front, killed over 30 soldiers and captured nine others in an attack the Ethiopian troops in eastern zone, a rebel radio reported.

The eastern zonal commander has said that on 19 June 2007 the OLA took a punitive strike against Ethiopian troops at a place called Fulale in the district of Boku, East Hararge Zone, killing over 20 soldiers and wounding 10 others. Besides killing and wounding Ethiopian soldiers in the attack on their base, the OLA captured nine soldiers.

In the attack, the OLA captured over 10 AK-47 assault rifles, six F1 grenades, over 350 firearm rounds as well as other materiel and turned them into an asset for Oromo liberation Army, reported the rebel radio Voice of Oromo Liberation.

On top of the military action against the Ethiopian forces, the OLA stormed a jail and freed 12 Oromo prisoners languishing in there.

On the same date, OLA operating in eastern zone expanded its activity. It overpowered and disarmed a large number of village militiamen the government had set up to fight the rebel OLA.

After subduing and confiscating many Kalashnikov rifles from the militiamen, the OLA explained to them the objectives of the Oromo liberation struggle spearheaded by the OLF, about the OLA military activities. The militiamen were then allowed to return to their home areas.

Sudan Tribune

Brooks family celebrates life in Canada

Alex McCuaig
Thursday, June 28, 2007

by Alex McCuaig
Brooks Bulletin

For many native Canadians, July 1 represents an annual holiday to celebrate the birth of a country. For a large portion of the citizens of Brooks, it represents a day to rejoice in new found freedoms and opportunities many people take for granted.

The city and country has seen a large influx of immigrants from across the planet in recent years, and with good reason.

With wars and persecution of minorities the mainstay of several countries on all continents, the principals developed over the last 140 years in Canada have acted as a beacon of hope for those wishing to escape the tyranny and slaughter in their native lands.

Brooks resident and soon to be Canadian citizen, Abdi Dawid, knows the story well.

Originally from Ethiopia, Dawid came to the country six years ago after spending nine years as a refugee in Djibouti (a small country on the horn of Africa).

He is reluctant to call himself Ethiopian though, preferring Oromo - a distinct indigenous culture located predominantly in eastern Ethiopia.

“I couldn’t say I’m Oromo or I’d be arrested. So I left,” he said.

“Even now I can’t go back or I’ll be arrested and I haven’t seen my extended family for 15 years.”

In recent years, concerns over the treatment of Oromos have come to the attention of human rights groups and governments.

Last week the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the sentencing of 38 opposition leaders to jail and death.

Members of a commission of inquiry set up by the Ethiopian government to look at irregularities during their last election were forced to flee when they reported the results were falsified, according to the European Parliament.

“I came to Canada because it represents freedom,” Dawid said.

“Back home I would see it on TV and read about it in books.”

Dawid said when he decided to come to this country he started carrying a small Canadian flag in his wallet.

He married in Djibouti and they had a son and daughter before he was allowed to emigrate. His wife and daughter joined him in 2004 while his son had to wait until last May before being reunited with the rest of the family. The Dawids have had a second daughter since being together again - the first Canadian in the family.

“I came here with only $100, so I came to Brooks in 2001 to work at Lakeside,” he said.

“Now I have a house, a car and a better life than I did in Africa.”

While getting himself and his family here was a struggle, Dawid said completing the process of citizenship has involved a lot of hard work.

“My first application was rejected after waiting one year,” he said.

“I went to Monte Solberg’s office and they helped me write another letter and after two years of calling every day they told me the Calgary office has had some problems.”

Dawid persisted and last month wrote his citizenship test. He said now he has to wait for the results before being officially sworn in as a citizen.

“This is the best country,” he said.

“I have a reason to stay in Brooks, my wife can work and we can take care of our children.”

Dawid said Lakeside has given many immigrants the chance to work and escape countries where they didn’t have the opportunities that Brooks offers. An active member of the community, Dawid said he enjoys helping to improve Brooks.

He recently worked for the city on the municipal census and since 2002 has taken part in the Canada Day celebrations at the museum and Kinsmen rodeo grounds as part of the Brooks Oromo Community Group.

“Every July 1 we celebrate with the people of Canada. We make food and dance our traditional dances,” he said.

“We are ready to join with Canadians again this year.”

Members of several dozen different ethnic groups from around the world currently living in Brooks will be celebrating Canada - and the freedoms it offers - this weekend at events throughout the city and county.

http://www.brooksbulletin.com/news/lifestyles.asp?itemid=63745

"We have accepted, without conditions, the boundary commission's ruling" Meles

Ethiopia accepts border ruling

28/06/2007

Addis Ababa - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Thursday he had accepted a 2002-border ruling with the country's arch-foe Eritrea, but insisted on new talks on how to implement it.

"Regarding Eritrea, we opt to settle our differences peacefully. We have accepted, without conditions, the boundary commission's ruling," Meles told parliament.

"But we have announced our intention to negotiate the implementation, since this is the only way to avoid more problems," he added.

The two neighbours signed a peace deal ending their 1998-2000 war over the precise demarcation of their border, but tensions have remained high as they continue to bicker over the fate of the boundary ruling.

Although an independent boundary commission formed after the peace deal awarded the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea, it has remained under Ethiopian control.

Ethiopia insists the ruling should be altered since it will split families and villages between the two countries.

Eritrea has meanwhile repeatedly rejected calls for renegotiation of the border ruling and instead introduced restrictions including bans on air patrols and United Nations peacekeepers monitoring the buffer zone, blaming the UN Security Council for failing to press Addis Ababa to fully implement the peace deal.

Meles said on Thursday his nation was prepared to tackle any attack from Eritrea.

"Our military capability has been strengthened to avoid any threat to our sovereignty. With economic consideration, sufficient budgetary support has been allocated to crush any Eritrean invasion on our territory," he said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned of the potential for a new outbreak of hostilities between the two east African countries, pointing to a worsening situation with heavy troop deployments in the border buffer zone.

www.news24.com

Ethiopia Building Up Army, PM Says

By ANITA POWELL

The Associated Press
Thursday, June 28, 2007

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- Ethiopia's prime minister said Thursday he is building up the army's capabilities because he fears an imminent attack by Eritrea, which he also accused of arming rebel groups inside his country.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, in a routine address to parliament, said the Eritrean government was not cooperating in efforts to end a border dispute between the two countries and that the Ethiopian army needed to be prepared for an attack.

"It is deemed necessary to make the necessary military preparations for deterring a possible Eritrean invasion and to repulse such an invasion should it occur," Meles said.

Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war. Following a 1998-2000 border war that left tens of thousands dead, the neighbors initially promised to accept a U.N. boundary commission's 2002 ruling awarding the town of Badme to Eritrea, but Ethiopia has not handed it over.

The Eritrean information minister, Ali Abdu, said his government was not planning to attack Ethiopia.

"It is totally fabricated and political posturing with the intention of diverting the attention of the Ethiopian people," he said.

Meles also warned that Eritrea may try to disrupt or strike during Ethiopian Millennium celebrations in September. Ethiopia is fighting two rebel forces, one in the eastern Ogaden region and the other in the southern Oromia region. The Ogaden National Liberation Front has recently carried out several attacks along the Somali and Eritrean borders.

Washington Post

UNHCR honours world refugee day

Scores of refugees, especially Somalis, gathered on Wednesday at the Cultural Center in Sana’a to commemorate World Refugee Day and honor the refugee experience. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Sana’a conducted this celebration, the slogan of which was In Order Not to Forget the Refugees, in cooperation with the Interaction Development Foundation. The refugees thanked the efforts made by the UNHCR to improve the refugees’ conditions in Yemen, but they still asked the UNHCR to find solutions for the problems they face in Yemen.

According to the refugee representative’s statement, many male refugees are sitting jobless on the pavements, especially Somalis. This has forced Somali women to provide much of their families’ incomes. They are compelled to work at a number of jobs in order to meet their families’ basic needs. “My husband died, so there is not any other one else to be responsible for our expenses in this life. I worked a lot of jobs to support my family. I am now responsible for myself and my three children,” said Amnah Abdullah, 45, a Somali refugee who has lived in Yemen for 13 years. Others have similar struggles.

“My husband is alive but he is jobless,” said Zainab Musa, 30, a Somali refugee who has lived here for 15 years and has five children. “I faced a lot of difficulties to pay the rent of the house, because it is increasing. The rent was YR 8,000 and then it increased to YR 20,000. I also pay the fees of the water and electricity. I am now afraid of increasing these fees this month. The UNHCR was responsible to support us with the costs of medicines but we are now responsible for these costs.” The refugees also asked the UNHCR to find a solution for their secondary school students.

A lot of those high-school graduates left their secondary schools with high rates qualifying them to study in the universities, but they were not accepted to continue their studies in Yemeni universities. “I graduated from the secondary school, but I am now sitting at home because I am not accepted in the Yemeni universities,” said Asia Ahmed, 23. “I lived in Yemen since I was just five years old. But I never forget my country; this day just makes us remember our more than any other day and in a collective way. I remember my country when I am at home, walking in street, receiving friends or new refugees from far and different countries.

A limited number of refugees are accepted to study in the Yemeni universities after facing a lot of difficulties.” “I am eager to see my children, because I did not see them for about 15 years. They are in Somalia and there is not any way to see them,” said Makkah Abdi, 45, a Somali refugee. The event began at 10 a.m. The National Somali Anthem was sung by a Somali band. The Somali refugees stood to show respect for their homeland. A lot of Somali songs were played by Somali bands, which made a lot of older refugees cry. A number of Somali female refugees were honored by the IDF because they represented good examples of working refugee women.

The United Nations General Assembly designated June 20, 2001 as World Refugee Day to recognize and celebrate the contribution of refugees throughout the world. Since then, World Refugee Day has become an annual commemoration marked by a variety of events in over a hundred countries. This year, the UNHCR commemorated World Refugee Day for this sixth time with the theme “A New Home, A New Life,” in order to draw the public’s attention to the millions of refugees worldwide who are forced to flee their homes, and their contributions to their new communities. Pursuant to the Refugee Act of 1980, the United States defines a refugee as a person who is unable to return to his or her country of origin because of a well-founded fear of persecution, based on their race, religion, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

Some 40 million people worldwide are already uprooted by violence and persecution, and it is likely that the future will see more people on the run as a growing number of push factors compound one another to create conditions for further forced displacement. “I have spent the past few days in Sudan, a country at the epicenter of one of the world’s great displacements. Here I have seen firsthand the stark reality of forced displacement as well as some of the solutions,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, in his message on this day, which was delivered by Dr. Adel Jasmin, a representative from UNHCR.

“But there’s good news too, as here in the remote south of Sudan, where tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees are making the choice to return to their devastated homeland after decades of conflict. Although largely unreported, they are coming home with UN help from refugee camps in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic. Others are returning from exile in Libya and Egypt, as well as from other parts of Sudan itself.” “It is time to recognize that we are facing what is nothing less than a new paradigm of displacement in the 21st Century.

There are no easy answers, but while the international community grapples with the root causes of displacement, it must pay more attention to protecting the vulnerable and building opportunities for their futures,” he said. Today people do not just flee persecution and war but also injustice, exclusion, environmental pressures, competition for scarce resources and all the miserable human consequences of dysfunctional states. “And then there are the stateless, those who because of their ethnicity or history are simply denied the right to a nationality.

For them, “going home” may not depend on a peace accord and repatriation, but rather, on overcoming bureaucratic obstacles and securing an official identity. Though the estimate of stateless people worldwide has six million in some 60 countries, the figure signals growing international willingness to recognize and address the problem,” said the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, in his message on this day.

Senior Ethiopian Government Official in Coma After Car Accident

Addis Fortune

26 June 2007

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Senior Ethiopian government official, Siraj Fegessa, minister of Federal Affairs, suffered a stunning car accident in Saudi Arabia last week.

The accident occurred on Thursday, June 14, 2007, as he was travelling from Jida to a city called At Ta'if. Until the time Fortune went to press, the Minister was in a comma, sustaining a serious injury while one passenger in the car died, according to sources close to the situation.

Siraj, who went to the United States (US) to lobby for Ethiopians in the Diaspora to return home during the Millennium and to encourage those from the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) living abroad to invest in their native country.

The official went to Saudi after a brief stay in the US. After he held talks with Ethiopians living in Jida, his car crashed, driven by an Ethiopian Embassy employee.

His wife and the Silte Zone Administrator, where Siraj was born, went to Saudi on June 18, 2007, immediately after they heard about the tragedy.

(Compiled By Issayas Mekuria, Fortune Staff Writer)

Ethiopia rebels say govt killed 40 in air raids

Nairobi, Kenya

Rebels in Ethiopia's remote eastern Somali region accused the government on Monday of using war planes to bomb three villages, killing about 40 people, in an escalating offensive against the insurgents.

The government said it had the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) "on the run", but denied using planes during fighting in the poor and arid region on the border of Ethiopia and Somalia in the Horn of Africa.

An ONLF spokesperson said as well as the victims of air raids, 57 more civilians had died in the past 10 days or so of battles.

"This is a big offensive, mostly targeting the population because they cannot beat us," Abdirahman Mahdi, an ONLF founder member and now its United Kingdom-based spokesperson, told Reuters.

"We hear from our commanders that they carpet-bombed three villages -- Abaaqorow, Dar es Salaam, and Ayun -- with MiG jets last Thursday. About 40 civilians died. Another 57 died in other incidents."

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi announced a crackdown against the ONLF, one of several guerrilla groups fighting his government from remote corners of the vast nation.

The ONLF drew international attention with an April raid on a Chinese-run oil exploration field that killed 74 people.

That was one of the bloodiest attacks in a sporadic but long-running conflict between government forces and the ONLF, which seeks more autonomy for the underdeveloped region.

The government calls them terrorists and says they are supported by neighbour and arch-foe Eritrea.

Mahdi said the Ethiopian army had lost between 200 and 300 soldiers in the last 10 days or so, compared with 20 to 30 deaths on the rebel side. "That is very high casualties for us," he said.

A senior Ethiopian official said the ONLF information was false and meant to disguise its own oppression of locals.

"The terrorists are on the run and the allegation that Ethiopia's government uses war planes to carpet-bomb civilians is unfounded. Ethiopia does not have any policy to use war planes for internal conflicts," Zenawi's special adviser Bereket Simon said. "The claim by the ONLF is to cover its own crimes inflicted upon civilians."

Reuters