[dehai-news] (ER) Ethiopians in DC protest Woyanne war crimes in Ogaden


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From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Sat Oct 25 2008 - 16:06:02 EDT


Ethiopians in DC protest Woyanne war crimes in Ogaden
 
October 25th, 2008, Ethiopian Review
 
WASHINGTON DC - Ethiopians in Washington DC held a rally to protest the
widespread human rights violation against innocent civilians and
systematic repression of ethnic Somalis that is taking place in the
Ogaden region of Ethiopia.
 
As reported by the international media and the recent extensive report
made public by Human Rights Watch, in areas inhabited by Ogaden people
in eastern Ethiopia, the TPLF/EPRDF regime security forces have raped
and sexually assaulted numerous women; displaced entire rural
communities and destroyed dozens of rural villages; forced residents to
flee to the neighboring countries; summarily executed thousands of of
civilians; arbitrarily detained tens of thousands of people;
intentionally restricted the delivery of humanitarian assistance and
access to food and medical supplies in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia.
Similarly, in the southern and western parts of Ethiopia that are
inhabited mostly by Oromo communities, tens of thousands have been
detained, tortured or otherwise mistreated.
 
At the rally organized on Friday October 24, 2008, in front of the US
State Department, Ato Fitsum Achamyeleh Alemu, a Virginia based Attorney
at law and human rights activist, representing the organizers, talked
about gross violation of human rights committed in the past 17 and half
years by the TPLF-EPRDF regime.
 
Fitsum said that from 1992-2008 the TPLF-EPRDF regime killed tens of
thousands, forced millions to be displaced or to leave their country,
detained and tortured hundreds of thousands. He based his statement on
reports US State Department, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International. He also stated that the TPLF-EPRDF also instigated ethnic
and religious violence.
 
The protesters asked the US government to take leadership and stop the
violence, the killing, the torture of Ethiopians. They also asked a new,
independent commission to investigate the human rights situation in
every province of Ethiopia and the US, the UN and the European Union to
take the human rights situation in Ethiopia seriously and to bring
perpetrators of the crimes to justice.
 
Ato Guled Kassim, a human rights activist in the Washington DC area and
originally from Ogaden, also spoke at the rally. Guled challenged the US
government, US lawmakers and the international community for looking the
other way when such a gross violation of human rights is committed in
the Ogaden. He said that US tax payers' money should not be funneled to
dictators like Meles Zenawi.
 
The Ethiopian Television Network (ETN), the VOA and members of the
Ethiopian media were present to provide news coverage at the rally,
 
At the end of the rally, Ato Fitsum Alemu, Ato Neamin Zeleke, Dr. Kassa
Aylew, and Dr. Mekdes Befekdau Mr. John Wysham, head of Ethiopia Desk at
the State Department, and handed him the letter addressed to Dr.
Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State.
 
The letter urges the US government to hold the Meles Zenawi regime
accountable for its widespread and gross violation of human rights
against thousands of innocent civilians in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia
as in other places of Ethiopia.
 
It also urges the US to send a fact finding mission to the region in
order to conduct an investigation of the wide spread and systematic
human rights violations by the security forces of the Meles regime,
identify those who are directly involved, and ensure that they receive
no assistance or training from the United States, as required under the
"Leahy law".
 
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/5716

 
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