Silence essential in Ogaden

29 January 2008, SA

Degahabur - In this remote Ethiopian trading town, people speak of the fight between the government and separatists furtively, in snatches.

They are trapped in the middle, silence and anonymity their only shield.

A woman crouched in a tailor's shop, mending a pair of trousers, said: "We have problems with the (rebels) and the government, both of them,"

"They harm us. People have run away from the city because of the clashes between the two parties."

She looked around as she spoke, wary of being overheard by government agents.

In May, the Ethiopian government launched an offensive against the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), which in April attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field in Ethiopia's southeastern Somali region, killing 74 workers.

Eight-month siege

The ONLF, founded in 1984, is fighting for independence for a large part of Ethiopia's Somali region, known as the Ogaden.

Most of the group's members are part of the large, mostly nomadic Ogadeni clan, the region's predominant clan.

The government claims that an eight-month siege has decimated the rebels, but residents say fighting has not subsided.

Determining what is happening in the Ogaden is difficult.

The government usually keeps outsiders out, citing security fears.

Government officials closely monitored a group of foreign journalists allowed to tour the region earlier this month after criticism from human-rights, aid and other groups that a government crackdown on the rebels had led to systemic abuses of civilians.

Women gave accounts of rapes, mass arrests and attacks by government soldiers.

One man said four college students had been arrested and had their throats slit by government soldiers.

Another told of the arrest of an 80-year-old man, shocking in a culture in which elders are venerated. Hurried, whispered conversations often end with the same refrain, "We are very frightened."

Leslie Lefkow, Human Rights Watch's senior researcher on the Horn of Africa, said her organisation, which the Ethiopian government accuses of bias, has had to gather information on the Ogaden from refugees who have fled the region and other sources.

ONLF fighters accused

"We know that there are ongoing clashes, we know there are abuses of civilians, but it's very difficult to know the exact number of people who are affected," Lefkow said, accusing the government of launching "a campaign of terror intended to terrorise the people who are believed to be supporters of the ONLF".

High-level military officials in the region did not speak to reporters, and reporters were not allowed to visit detention centres in which officials said they were holding ONLF members.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has denied charges his troops are violating his citizens' rights. His officials say it is ONLF fighters, not government soldiers, who have terrorised the Ogaden.

Regional security chief Abdi Mohammed Umar said the guerrilla group had killed 200 civilians in the last two months.

Private conversation overheard

Abdullahi Hassan, the top government official for the region, called the rebels "anti-peace elements" who had killed religious elders and women and mined roads.

Anyone speaking openly of support for the rebels could end up jailed _ at one point during the government-organised tour, the region's security chief quoted details of reporters' private conversations with locals.

Most residents said they supported neither the rebels nor the government.

Lefkow, of Human Rights Watch, described the ONLF uprising as "classic rural insurgency," with clan ties affecting support for the movement.

News24