11/03/2011

War against terror brings more violence to the Horn of Africa!

Ethiopian Government muzzles journalists! Deaths due to attacks of U.S.-drones in Somalia!

On Thursday, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) warned, that the anti-terror struggle is intensifying human rights abuses and violence at the Horn of Africa. "Ethiopia abuses its anti-terror laws to silence critical local and foreign journalists," criticized the STP's Africa-consultant, Ulrich Delius. Under the pretext of anti-terror measures, press freedom in Ethiopia is being more and more restricted - and conflict regions such as the Ogaden are cut off from the outside world. "Apparently, Ethiopia is able to freely commit human rights abuses, because the country plays an important role for the US and the European Union in the anti-terrorist struggle." The US-military uses an Ethiopian airport to send drones against the radical Islamic Al-Shabaab militia in Somalia. According to reports from Somali eyewitnesses, 38 people were killed by a drone attack in central Somalia on Wednesday. 

After initial denials, the US Department of Defense has now admitted to be launching drones from the military base of Arba Minch in southwestern Ethiopia for observation flights over Somalia - but denies, that these drones carry weapons. However, Somali clan elders from the region Galguduud confirmed that yesterdays missiles against the villages Marodile and Qeydar and the outskirts of the port city Kismayo - which is besieged by Kenyan troops - were fired by drones. Presumably, 38 people were killed and more than 130 people were injured in this incident. "Due to the state of war, these reports cannot be analyzed independently - but it is to be assumed, that US are now directly intervening in the war in Somalia. Thus, the escalation of violence at the Horn of Africa has reached a new critical peak," said Delius. Since 18 US soldiers were murdered in Somalia in 1993, the US have tried to avoid sending troops to the embattled country.

The Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi takes advantage of the US's strategic interests by sending dissidents to trial under the pretext of the war against terror. "Increasingly preposterous accusations are raised against two Swedish Journalists in a show trial," said Delius. The journalists, who had illegally entered the country's conflict region of Ogaden to report on the activities of Swedish oil companies in the war zone, are now accused by high-level police officers to have trained fighters of the Ogaden ONLF liberation movement. "These allegations are absurd and are only meant to imprison the journalists for supporting terrorism and - by doing so - effectively scare off foreign media representatives from illegally entering the embattled Ogaden region."