Ogaden, ONLF, and the UN – US Task to Prevent Famine: Eliminate the Abyssinian Culture of Death
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
September 18, 2008
This is the only perspective based on humanitarian values and policies, the only approach to honour the UN and the US, if the correct policy is adopted and implemented.
Ogaden does not belong to Abyssinia (fallaciously re-baptized Ethiopia); never did the Ogadenis accept the illegal deals of the departing (in the late 1940s and early 1950s) English, who transferred their colonial authority to the barbaric, criminal butcher Haile Selassie, the Amhara trash of pseudo-king.
The best proof that Ogaden does not belong to Abyssinia is provided – in a most spectacular way – by the Abyssinians themselves. It is only normal that you love your land and only deplorable that you hate the land of another nation. Despite the fact that Ogaden has been annexed for no less than 53 years, never did the Amhara and Tigray Monophysitic Abyssinians manage to force themselves to love the province that was illegally brought under their control. They hate it; they must therefore leave the place. Ogaden does not belong to them.
The racist Amharas viewed Ogaden as an empty territory, a mere figure that would only help show their colonial country´s population as larger, and the total area as even greater. This attitude is not called a ´country´ but a ´gang´; and truly the Amharas were the only existing anti-Ogadeni ´gang´ in the world.
The monstrous Tigrays viewed Ogaden as a means to make fortune at the detriment of the local inhabitants whose Somali identity and historicity dwarfs the Abyssinian past and makes it look pale, mean and insignificant. As not a single nation in the world can tolerate the illegal extraction and usurpation of its territory´s national resources, the Ogadenis - rejecting the bestial Abyssinian tyranny - rebelled and flocked in the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), the fully accredited organization that struggles for Ogaden´s liberation.
In the darkest moments of the Abyssinian tyranny, ONLF proved to be the only help, the only recourse, and the only hope for the persecuted Ogadenis; having placed under its control a sizeable part of the Ogadeni territory (contradicting sources offer data oscillating between 35% and 65% of Ogaden´s territory), ONLF has been most venerated by all Ogadenis. Raped (by Amhara ´soldiers´) Ogadeni women enroll in the ONLF and fight for Free Ogaden.
The paranoid carpet-bombarding of Ogadeni towns in the summer 2007 and the unprecedented tyrannical policies of the Zenawi administration attracted the global interest, and made of Ogaden a matter of global concern for the first time after the 1977 – 1978 war. The vicinity of Somalia, and the danger of an extreme radicalization in both, Somalia and Ogaden, alarmed many headquarters and services allover the world. It became clear that the Ogaden Genocide cannot be tolerated, and the price of the continued Abyssinian presence will be too high for the entire world to pay.
Human Rights Watch Report on Ogaden (issued last June) came only to reconfirm the conclusions and to cancel the last doubts and reservations; the Amhara and Tigray thugs, who impersonate the Abyssinian ´national´ army, perpetrated indeed a most abhorrent Genocide, proving to be worse than the most lunatic Taliban of Afghanistan.
Fake ´Ethiopia´ (the name does not belong to this country, it is usurped, stolen) cannot be allowed to still control Ogaden; further the Abyssinian soldiers stay there, darker pages of Genocide are being written.
What currently happens in Ogaden is another type of Genocide; withholding aid sent for Ogaden by NGOs and other associations, prohibiting vehicle movements, diverting part of aid sent for Ogaden to the tribal, pseudo-national army, and deliberately and malignantly isolating the Ogadeni Nation, the state of ´Ethiopia´ (along with any oppositional party that still dares support the unitary monster-state) demonstrated their guilt.
The intention of the inhuman, racist elites of ´Ethiopia´ is to cause the death of millions of Ogadenis through deliberately imposed famine – in order to thus facilitate the continuation of the monstrous Abyssinian control of the Oil rich area.
The world has to rush to Ogaden before the Islamists arrive first to turn the Somali inland plateau to a graveyard for every criminal Amhara and Tigray soldier and to a laboratory for the forthcoming Islamic Republic of East Africa.
The only way to ensure peace and to promote humanitarian concern is a concerted UN – US effort, negotiations with ONLF, and a UN Security Council resolution calling for immediate withdrawal of every ´Ethiopian´ authority from Ogaden, deployment of UN peacekeeping forces and humanitarian NGOs throughout Ogaden, and UN-monitored referendum for Ogaden´s secession from ´Ethiopia´ and national independence.
The criminal Amhara and Tigray policy of enforced starvation and deliberate annihilation of millions of Ogadenis is nothing else than the result of the Abyssinian Culture of Death. The Amhara and Tigray soldiers´ activities in Ogaden are the equivalent of the Palestinian suicide bombers. The Mankind cannot tolerate either.
I republish here a focus on the ´Somali region facing food and water crisis´ (from IRINnews) and a leading editorial from The Times, written by Jonathan Rugman in Jijiga (capital of Ogaden) in which the courageous journalist demonstrates that ´Ethiopia´ stands "accused of hiding famine as millions starve" and illuminates how the Abyssinian army "is keeping food from rebel areas".
Ethiopia: Somali region facing food and water crisis
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80436
Addis Ababa, 17 September 2008 (IRIN) - The Somali region of south-eastern Ethiopia is facing critical food and water shortages, with many families eating only one meal a day and others migrating to urban areas, the UN and aid agencies said.
As a result, malnutrition levels are increasing, especially in Korahe, Warder, Degehabur, Gode, Fiiq and parts of Liben and Afder zones, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), reported.
"Concerns are growing about the potential exacerbation of existing drought conditions as the Karan [July-September] rains in Jijiga and Shinile zones are [close to failing]," OCHA said on 15 September.
"Immediate interventions in food, income and livelihood protection support, feed and water supply are among priority responses identified by the regional DPPB [Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Bureau]."
The Somali region has experienced successive rainfall failure in recent years. In the southern areas, livelihoods have also been affected by conflict between the government and the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).
Aid workers say the conflict has disrupted trade, transport and social services, and hampered humanitarian access. Médecins Sans Frontières Switzerland (MSF-Swiss) recently withdrew from the region, saying repeated administrative hurdles and intimidation had prevented the provision of medical care to vulnerable people in Fiiq.
The government, which has previously cited insecurity in the region, denied the MSF-Swiss claims. The NGO, it suggested, might instead have had its "own double agenda".
More recently, access to vulnerable populations has improved, with more NGOs being allowed to operate in the region, according to OCHA. But the ONLF disputes this and insists the situation remains grim.
"The Ethiopian [government] continues to severely restrict humanitarian assistance to our people while using what little food aid that gets through as a political weapon aimed at collectively our villagers and nomads," the rebels said on 15 September.
Last year, Human Rights Watch said both the government and rebels were responsible for atrocities in the remote region. "There are no clean hands among the hostile parties in the Ogaden conflict," it said, adding that its researchers had documented serious abuses of civilians, including summary executions by the ONLF.
Poor rains
This year, the "gu" [mid-April to June] rains performed poorly throughout the region, leading to widespread water and pasture shortages, and affecting crops in agro-pastoral and riverine areas.
Rains started three to four weeks late in Jijiga and Shinile zones, and not at all in other areas. But halfway through the season, the rains ceased in some parts of the region.
"The overall prospect for gu crop production is a total failure in all parts of the region," according to the regional Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency. Presenting preliminary findings of a July assessment at a meeting in Jijiga, the agency noted significant livestock deaths in Gode, Shinile, Jijiga and Warder Zones because of lack of pasture and water.
"Huge livestock migrations driven by feed and water scarcity have been seen since mid-May 2008," it said. "These migrations have created huge concentrations into the few districts and pocket areas that currently have some pasture as a result of better rains during May.
"The migrations are very unusual from the point of distance (50-250km) and scale as they involve the largest number of animals in the last seven years. In many areas these also include entire household movements, which is [also] unusual."
Throughout the region, food prices have sharply increased due to limited cereal supplies. Many water ponds and seasonal streams have dried up.
"The overall food security situation in 49 districts of the region is much below normal," the agency said, adding that more people were expected to face food deficits over the six months between July and December. School drop-out rates have risen because of food shortages.
UN Under-Secretary General and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes, who recently visited Somali region, described the situation there as "worrying".
"We need to give it special attention in the months to come," Holmes said in Addis Ababa on 3 September. "There is a need to speed up the arrival of food aid and to make sure that this has been distributed in the most effective and equitable way possible."
tw/eo/mw
Ethiopia accused of hiding famine as millions starve - Army ´is keeping food from rebel areas´
By Jonathan Rugman in Jijiga / The Times, UK - September 18, 2008
http://www.topix.net/world/ethiopia/2008/09/ethiopia-accused-of-hiding-famine-as-millions-starve#inlinePostAnchor; http://www.ayyaantuu.com/Oromiyaa/NewsBlog/tabid/36/EntryID/3244/Default.aspx
Ethiopia has been accused of deliberately underestimating the scale of a deadly drought facing millions of its people, some of whom are being deprived of emergency food aid by the country´s military.
The humanitarian crisis, caused by three years of failed rains, currently affects about 4.6 million people, though the official number could jump to as high as 6.7 million this week.
United Nations agencies say that the real number at risk is above 8 million, an estimate disputed hotly by Addis Ababa, which is insisting on publishing a much lower figure.
"The figure has risen very substantially, maybe even doubled," said Sir John Holmes, the UN´s emergency relief co-ordinator, who visited Ethiopia earlier this month. "Any government doesn´t want to be perceived as always in the position of receiving aid."
The crisis is at its most worrying in the vast deserts of the Ogaden region, where the UN´s World Food Programme (WFP) says in a confidential alert to donors that it is receiving "increasing reports of hunger-related mortality". About two million people are at risk until the main rains fall next spring – if they fall at all. The Ogaden is Ethiopia´s biggest and most remote state.
Nomadic tribes there are resorting to eating dead leaves and cactus fruit to survive the worst drought since the famines of 1984-85, when an estimated one million Ethiopians died.
A twenty-mile trek on foot into the bush revealed mediaeval mud-hut villages, where ethnic Somali herdsmen say that their children have died after eating poisonous buds from trees, for lack of anything else to eat. Others say that they depend on camel milk and meat because cattle, sheep and goats have perished in their thousands.
"I am ill and hungry," said one man, removing his shirt to reveal his rib cage visible through taut skin. "Because of the drought we have nothing to eat. The only people who receive food are the military forces."
The UN has raised about 60 per cent of $325 million (£181 million) it is seeking in emergency relief for Ethiopia and says that it is suffering a shortfall of about 300,000 tonnes of aid.
The WFP has told donors that it blames Ethiopia´s "delays in recognising the extent of need" for causing the rapid depletion of existing food stocks. But a Channel 4 News investigation tonight claims that the army has withheld food from villages in the Ogaden deliberately as part of a "scorched earth" policy against separatist rebels of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).
Herdsmen in villages almost completely cut off from the outside world said that many of their animals had been killed by Ethiopian soldiers, who also deprived them of water.
"We walk for eight hours to collect water," said Abdi, a villager about three hours from Jijiga, the regional capital. "Then the military take the water from us. They say the rebels pass through our villages and that we give them supplies. But what can we give? We are dying of hunger. We have nothing to give to our own children."
The UN says that it has negotiated with the Ethiopian army for the military´s role in food distribution to be kept to a minimum. "If there is a situation where food is taken by the military, we protest," said Mohammed Diab, the WFP´s Ethiopia director.
However, a confidential investigation by USAid, the US Government´s disaster relief agency, complained in March that "literally hundreds of areas . . . have neither been assessed nor received any food assistance", with "populations we met terrorised by the inability to access food".
"This situation would be shameful in any other country," the report concludes. "The US Government cannot in good conscience allow the food operation to continue in its current manifestation." The US is spending more than £230 million on food aid for Ethiopia this year but is hamstrung from being too critical in public; Washington sees Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia´s Prime Minister, as an ally in the War on Terror after Ethiopia´s invasion of Somalia in 2005, which ousted an Islamist administration from power.
Britain has doubled its annual aid to Ethiopia in the last three years to £130 million, including £15 million this summer through the UN´s Humanitarian Response Fund, while Save the Children (SCF) is halfway through a campaign to raise £10 million for the country. Two SCF workers were expelled from the Ogaden last year amid allegations – rejected by SCF – that they had diverted food to ONLF rebels. The British charity abandoned a full-scale feeding programme, fearing supplies could be diverted.
Note
Picture: A goat herder in the Ogaden desert. Herdsmen say that their children have died from eating poisonous buds from trees for lack of anything else to eat.
(From The Times)