Ethiopia: Abdullahi Hussein holds Seminar in Support of Ogaden Human Rights

June 24, 2015 Ogaden

By Ahmed Abdi

The Ogaden whistle-blower, Abdullahi Hussein, has held a seminar addressing the current human rights abuses in the occupied Ogaden region, Southeastern of Ethiopia.

 

Hussein held the seminar at Folkhogskola school in Västerås, Sweden, after being invited to update the human rights atrocities being committed against the Ogadeni civilians by the Ethiopian Security Forces and allied fighters known as special (Liyuu) Police, which have also been known as Ethiopian Janjaweed. 

 

The seminar was attended by professors, Horn of Africa experts, politicians and the school’s students, among others.

 

Hussein stated that the Ogaden region requires United Nation’s sponsored fact finding mission to investigate the recent extra-judicial killings that occurred in the Shilavo area near the border of Somalia.

” Ethiopian Security forces are targeting civilians to eliminate them in part of its campaign, apparently to make the area uninhabitable so that the oil corporations can easily have an access to Ogaden basin mainly Calub and Hilala gas fields without being passed their information to the Ogaden National Liberation Army (ONLA) [the group’s military wing],” he said.

Abdullahi Hussein

Hussein Said that in Sweden today people are aware the human rights violations in Ogaden region, following after Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson were arrested upon their entrance into to the Ogaden territory to dig deeper about the relationship between Oil companies and Ogaden human rights violations.

 

At least 500 people mostly civilians were killed in Ogaden in recent past, while  the whereabouts of another 7oo still unknown. 

The images and video of the deceased bodies of purportedly civilians surfaced on the media such as YouTubobe, twitter and Facebook,  only when Liyuu Police itself allowed to be found out. Being an example to the terrifying reality of the scale of atrocities committed by the Ethiopian Security forces and allied fighters of Liyuu Police.

Addis Ababa is waging a brutal counterinsurgency campaign against its battle-hardened rebel group,Ogaden National Liberation Front or ONLF, which has been fighting to create an independent state in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region . 

 

Ethiopia bans media international access to Ogaden and expelled the region all international Humanitarian agencies including International Committee of the Red Cross and Medicine Sans Frontieres, which were doing good services to the eight to 10 million Somali ethnic in Ogaden region. 

Government and ONLF talks stalled in October 17, 2012. following ONLF’s refusal to accept a pre-condition imposed by Ethiopian negotiation team, which regarded a violation to the initial agreements reached by warring sides. 

 

Ethiopia freed two ONLF senior officials,Sulub Abdi Ahmed and Ali Ahmed Hussein (Ali-Dheere), who were abducted in Nairobi last year by the Ethiopian Security forces when they were paving the way for possible peace talks. ONLF welcomed the release of its two-key negotiators and termed it ” a positive development that removes an obstacle to progress in the peace talks.”

 

Ogaden, the politically and economically marginalized region was handed over to Ethiopia in 1954 by the Great Britain. 100’s of thousands of people are believed to have been killed since the ONLF waged the army struggle against the Ethiopian colonial troops stationed in Ogaden region in 1994.