July 6, 2012 (QOL) For over a hundred years, the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, which shares its borders with Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti, has been disputed by Ethiopian rulers and the Somali tribesmen that occupy the area. In the early 1990s Ethiopia placed the Ogaden under martial law, under the guise of fighting off the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). Since then, conditions have worsened as the Ethopian regime has employed a policy of ‘encampment’ and imposed emergency laws in Ogaden. In practise, this has resulted in the escalation of violent conflict and a deepening entrenchment of a culture of military rule through human rights abuses, corruption and atrocities in the region. Moreover, reports of widespread rape committed by Ethiopian army officers have been recorded.

Despite the severity and extent of human rights abuses conducted against civilian villagers by the Ethiopian Army under emergency law in Ogaden, the conflict remains little known to the world at large. Yet both Human Rights Watch and the Ogaden Human Rights Committee have documented widespread human rights abuses in Ogaden. These include extra-judicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrest, disappearances and systematic rape. Between 1995 and mid-2007, the Ogaden Human Rights Committee documented 2395 extrajudicial killings, over 3000 forced disappearances, and 1945 rapes.

While civilians have reportedly been targeted with abandon, foreign observers, NGOs, the press, researchers and international bodies and organizations are mostly prevented from entering or residing in Ogaden. Civilians that are suspected of having contact with barred organizations such as the press, are arrested and often brutally tortured. UN fact-finding visits to the area are heavily chaperoned and their interactions with locals are orchestrated by the Ethopian army. Moreover, informal cross-border trading in livestock has been crushed by a trade embargo that has been imposed by the Ethopian regime, while only a quarter of the food aid intended for the area gets through; effectively creating what many refer to as a ‘man-made famine’.

It is clear that the Ethiopian regime is determined to ensure that the Ogaden region remains off-limits to international human rights organisations and escapes the attention of the global public and the International Criminal Court. With the headquarters of the African Union housed in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, it is hardly likely that regional African authorities will take action. And while the United Nations has displayed reluctance in elevating the conflict over Ogaden to the global stage and taking a firm stand against the actions of the Ethiopian army and government, meticulous records of victims of systematic rape are being kept by brave civilians and organisations such as the Ogaden Human Rights Committee and the Ogaden Women Relief Association (OWRA). These organisations, who are not granted free access to the area, maintain contact with the area through networks of civilian activists and informants, who are themselves targeted by the Ethiopian regime in turn for their human rights activities.

Yet the most disturbing pattern of abuse that has emerged is the systematic rape and mutilation of Ogadeeni women by the Ethiopian army. Rape is being employed as part of a military strategy to humiliate and subjugate villagers into accepting their authority. It may also be the case that this is part of a strategy of ethnic cleansing of the region, as reports of Ethiopian Derg being settled in Ogaden indicate.

More recent reports of ‘rape sprees’ by Ethiopian army officers in Ogadeeni villages are disturbing. On 18 February 2012, four young girls were reportedly raped in Hog Dugaag (Dollo region. 17 women were gang-raped in the village of Gabrille in the Nogob region on 27 February 2012. A very young girl was reportedly raped on March 16 2012 in the village of Birquod. More than a dozen women were reportedly raped in the village of Dig (Degahbour) on June 10 2012. The use of sexual violence does not stop there, with young women often being taken as sex-slaves by Ethiopian army officers. Reports of genital mutilation and murder of rape victims by bayoneting have surfaced, indicating that the situation is rapidly escalating into a chaotic free-for-all where the rule of law is entirely absent and the vulnerable communities of Ogaden have no avenues to seek either recourse or justice.

According to the Head of Human Rights Watch in Africa, Georgette Gagnon, atrocities are used to ‘collectively punish communities’. In short, the Ethiopian army is waging a war of intimidation and oppression against the voiceless and powerless, in the name of pursuing a ‘rebel group’, the ONLF. Where rape is employed as a strategy of war, the international community is obliged to investigate and punish whoever is responsible for them. This is not just because of the severity of the crime. It is also because power-crimes, such as rape, indicate that a deep dehumanization is unfolding; where unlimited crimes against Ogadeeni’s are justifiable because they have been stripped of their humanity.

If the Ethiopian army are allowed to continue upon this trajectory it is clear that atrocities will only worsen and entrench themselves as indisputable facts of life in the region. It is not hard to imagine that a bolder campaign of direct ethnic cleansing may emerge to dominate the dispute over the region. Concerted efforts and actions that are taken by the international community now, can help re-rehabilitate the region and re-orientate its politics towards building a more stable and humane society for all those who live in the region in the future. The absence of these efforts and actions have allowed the situation to deteriorate beyond the unimaginable, and the scars that are being wreaked upon the collective Ogadeeni psychology may take generations to exorcise. Moreover, the inevitable backlash that will ultimately unfold may turn out to be equally brutal in return, doubling the scale of this human rights tragedy, and perhaps destabilizing surrounding countries in the East African region in the long term.

This article is written by Mohamed Qani Sheikh Abdi ,ogaden Youth And students union activists who is based in Capetown, south Africa.After i have done thorough Investigation through a reliable sources , be it victims interviewed by Rights Group or eyewitnesses who gave confidential information to Human Rights Watch and Ogaden Human Rights , i came to conclusion that struggle for independence continues no matter how many lives are lost.Our aim is to get total control of our heritage land(Ogadenia)we are not fighting to get a parliamentary seat, schools built, road infrastructure Or whatsoever .

Let Freedom Ring In Ogadenia, Let freedom Ring In Ogadenia