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Testimony of Saman Zarifi, Human Rights
Watch’s Washington Advocate
On October 2, 2007
Before The House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa and
Global Health
 “The Human
Rights and Humanitarian Situation in the Horn of Africa: The Cases of
Somalia and the Ogaden Region of Ethiopia”
Thank you Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, for providing Human Rights
Watch this opportunity to voice our concerns about the dire, and
deteriorating, human rights and humanitarian situation in the Horn of
Africa, and particularly in regard to Somalia and the Somali region of
Ethiopia.
We are at a critical moment for the Horn of Africa and its people. Over the
past year we have seen an already volatile region become even more violent
and unstable, with hundreds of thousands of civilians suffering massive
crimes. There has been little or no response from important voices in the
international community, including the United States.
These crimes are not only a serious issue from a human rights perspective,
they need to be understood as part of a deepening political and security
crisis across the Horn of Africa. The situation in the Horn today is
complex, but what is clear is that if we are to avert a deepening regional
crisis we must see an urgent and radical change of policy by some of the key
regional actors—and their international supporters—in order to address the
current dynamic of increasing violence, instability, and human suffering.
Human Rights Watch has been closely monitoring events in Somalia and
Ethiopia, and recently published an in-depth investigation of crimes
committed in Mogadishu, a city where hundreds have died and up to 400,000
people were displaced from the past six months of intense violence. Our
research on the Ogaden area of Somali region, some of it as recent as this
week, has uncovered a civilian population under siege and nearly driven to
starvation by the various parties to the conflict.
Mr. Chairman, there are no clean hands among the hostile parties in these
two conflicts. Human Rights Watch has documented serious abuses of civilians
in the Ogaden, including summary executions, by the forces of the rebel
Ogaden National Liberation Front. We have published an in-depth
investigation that describes a variety of crimes by insurgent groups in
Mogadishu, including indiscriminate attacks and killings of civilians. We
have also raised concerns about abuses by the forces of the Somali
Transitional Federal Government, including repeated looting and obstruction
of humanitarian assistance. We are enormously concerned by the Eritrean
government’s extreme and systematic repression of its citizens.
However today Human Rights Watch would like to focus on the conduct of the
Ethiopian military, not only because the Ethiopian government’s military
forces have systematically committed atrocities and violated the basic laws
of war, but because Ethiopia is a key ally and partner of the United States
in the Horn of Africa.
The crimes committed by Ethiopian forces in the Ogaden and in Somalia are
not unique, on the contrary they add to a mounting toll of abuses that have
made Ethiopian security forces among the most abusive on the continent.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented crimes against humanity by
Ethiopian military forces in Gambella, and serious abuses in Oromia, Addis
Ababa and other parts of Ethiopia.
We recognize that Ethiopia has legitimate and serious domestic and regional
security concerns, and that all of the warring parties share responsibility
for atrocities against civilians. Nevertheless, nothing justifies the severe
violations we are witnessing today in the Ogaden, or the conduct of
Ethiopian forces and their allies in Mogadishu.
In the Ogaden, we have documented massive crimes by the Ethiopian army,
including civilians targeted intentionally; villages burned to the ground as
part of a campaign of collective punishment; public executions meant to
terrify onlooking villagers; rampant sexual violence used as a tool of
warfare; thousands of arbitrary arrests and widespread and sometimes deadly
torture and beatings in military custody; a humanitarian and trade blockade
on the entire conflict area; and hundreds of thousands of people forced away
from their homes and driven to hunger and malnutrition.
The Ogaden is not Darfur. But the situation in Ogaden follows a
frighteningly familiar pattern: a brutal counter insurgency operation with
ethnic overtones in which government forces deliberately attacks civilians
and displace large populations, coupled with severe restrictions on
humanitarian assistance.
Unlike in Darfur, however, the state that is perpetrating abuses against its
people in Ogaden is a key US ally and recipient of seemingly unquestioning
US military, political, and financial support. Furthermore the crisis in
Ogaden is linked to a U.S.-supported military intervention by Ethiopia in
Somalia that has been justified in terms of counter terrorism. Because the
United States has until now supported Ethiopia so closely, there is a
widespread and growing sentiment in the region that the United States also
shares some of the blame for the Ethiopian military’s abusive conduct. The
increasing resentment produced by the silence over these atrocities risks
radicalizing parts of the large Muslim population in the region and
undermining the United States’ stated goal of combating militant Islamist
groups in the region. It is imperative for the United States to use its
influence in the region to end these abuses and ensure the well-being of
civilians caught in these conflicts.
A crucial first step would be for the U.S. government to publicly
acknowledge the depth of the suffering, especially in the Somali region of
Ethiopia—and then, immediately, take concrete steps to alleviate that
misery. Doing so would comply with the United States’ obligations under
international law. It would also be the right thing to do, and, I’m sure of
some interest to you, it would probably serve the national interest of the
United States much better than the Administration’s current policy. We hope
this hearing will help achieve those results.
The Conflict in the Somali Region of Ethiopia
In June, the Ethiopian government (the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, or
ENDF) launched a major military campaign in the Ogaden, part of Ethiopia’s
Somali Region, a sparsely populated and remote area on Ethiopia's border
with Somalia. There are 4 million Ethiopians of Somali ethnicity living in
the Somali Regional State, one of the poorest in Ethiopia. The area known as
the Ogaden, where the majority Ogaden clan reside, is at the heart of this
area. An estimated 1.8 million live in the five zones where current military
operations are ongoing.
The counter insurgency operation was aimed at eliminating the Ogaden
National Liberation Front (ONLF), a rebel group that has been fighting for
years for self-determination. The ongoing Ethiopian military campaign was
triggered by several recent high-profile ONLF attacks in the region,
including the April attack on an oil installation operated by Chinese
personnel at Obole and attacks in May in Dhagahbur and Jigjiga, the regional
capital, which nearly killed the Regional State President, Abdullahi Hassan.
Although the Ethiopian government has frequently called for the ONLF to be
placed on terrorism lists, the ONLF is widely viewed as a secular
nationalist group; indeed, prior to Ethiopia’s demand that US forces
withdraw from the Ogaden, the US military apparently cooperated with the
ONLF in efforts to monitor the region for alleged terrorist activity.
The current campaign in Somali region is also linked to Ethiopian military
operations in south-central Somalia. Ethiopia has justified military action
in Somalia on the grounds that it was removing a “terrorist threat,” and
that militant groups in Somalia were connected to the rebellion in Ogaden.
One motive for Ethiopia’s ouster of the Union of Islamic Courts in December
2006 may have been to cut what the Ethiopian government believed to be links
between the ONLF, the ruling Islamic Courts and Eritrea, including arms and
logistical supply lines from Eritrea and Somalia to the ONLF in Ethiopia’s
eastern region. While Ethiopia may have legitimate security concerns about
Eritrea’s support to Ethiopian insurgency groups, the rhetoric of counter
terrorism is increasingly being used in the region to camouflage domestic or
regional political and military agendas.
Abuses by Ethiopian Forces in Ethiopia’s Somali Region
In July, Human Rights Watch warned of serious violations occurring in the
Somali region of Ethiopia. Predictably, the government of Ethiopia denied
our findings. On September 7, the US Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, also dismissed our findings of abuse by the
ENDF as “unsubstantiated.”
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