HRW Report on Ogaden, Contents, Methodology, and Terminology

By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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[ Posted On: 2008-06-18 ]

In two articles (Criminal 'Ethiopia', Charged With Crimes Against the Mankind, Cannot Be Left to Exist / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/64846 and Human Rights Watch Report on Ogaden demands UN Intervention in 'Ethiopia' / http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/64958), I re-published the editorial article published in the Human Rights Watch website along with HRW Report on Ogaden (under title ‘Ethiopia: 'Army Commits Executions, Torture, and Rape in Ogaden’ and subtitle 'Donors Should Act to Stop Crimes Against Humanity') and the Report Summary.

As I promised, today I republish the Contents, the Methodology and the Note on Terminology that complete the preliminary part of the HRW Report. In a forthcoming article, I will re-publish various parts of the Report, and comment extensively on the first main part of the HRW Report, which under the title ‘Background’ reconstitutes part of the Somali – Abyssinian problematic past.

At this point, I want to express my profound consideration for the great effort deployed by the HRW in order to collect all the evidence revealed within this valuable Report.

Contents
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/ethiopia0608/

Collective Punishment

War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia's Somali Region

Map 1: Ethiopia and Somali Regional State

Map 2: Conflict-Affected Zones of Somali Regional State

Summary

• Methodology

• Note on Terminology

Part 1: Background

• Political and Historical Context

• The People and the Area

• The Ogaden and Somali Nationalism in the Colonial Era

• The Role of Somalia and Insurgency Movements in the 1960s and 1970s

• The Somali-Ethiopian War over the Ogaden, 1977-78

• Mengistu's "Secret Wars" in Southeast Ethiopia, 1978-84

• The 1991 Overthrow of Mengistu and the Collapse of Somalia

• Ethnic Federalism and the Somali Region under the EPRDF

• Implementing Federal Policy: Structures of Control

• Renewed Insurgency and Conflict in Somali Region

• The Somalia and Eritrea Connections

• Escalation in 2007

Part 2: Violations by the Ethiopian Government

• Forced Displacement and Destruction of Villages

• Cases of Forced Evacuation, Killings, and Village Burnings

• Reprisal Killings

• Rape and Other Sexual Violence

• Rape of Women in Military Custody

• Sexual Violence against Women Collecting Wood and Water

• Arbitrary Detention, Abuse and Torture, and Execution of Detainees

• Arbitrary Arrest and Detention

• Torture and Beatings

• Extrajudicial Executions at Military Bases

• Former Detainees and Collective Punishment

• Forced Recruitment of Pro-Government Militias

• "Economic war": Confiscation of Livestock, the Trade Embargo, and Other Restrictions

• Effects of the Trade Embargo

• Restrictions on Movement, Herding, and Access to Water Sources

• Restrictions on Humanitarian Assistance

• The Failure of Judicial Protection and the Institutionalization of Collective Punishment

• Enforcing the Law

• Authorizing Collective Punishment

Part 3: Abuses by the Ogaden National Liberation Front

• Summary Executions and Attacks on Civilians by the ONLF

• Attacks on Non-Ogaadeeni Clans and Property

Part 4: Applicable Legal Standards

• Summary Executions and Other Mistreatment of Persons in Custody

• Rape and Other Sexual Violence

• Attacks on Civilians and Civilian Objects

• Forced Displacement

• Collective Punishment and Reprisals

• Individual Criminal Responsibility

Part 5: Responses to Allegations of Human Rights Violations

• The Ethiopian Government's Response

• The International Response: A Wider Silence

• Recommendations

• To the federal government of Ethiopia

• To the regional government of Somali Regional State

• To the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)

• To foreign governments with influence, including the US, UK, China, and European Union

• To the United Nations Security Council

• To the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations

• To oil companies operating in Ethiopia

• Acknowledgements

June 2008 ISBN: 1-56432-322-6

Methodology
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/ethiopia0608/4.htm#_Toc200167123

This report is based largely on interviews with Ethiopian refugees in countries neighboring Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government does not officially bar the media or human rights organizations from Somali Region, and parts of it, including the regional capital, Jijiga, are accessible to visitors. However, the region's five main conflict-affected zones—Fiiq, Wardheer, Dhagahbur, Gode, and Korahe—are under tight military control. Foreigners traveling into this area generally come under close scrutiny, and international journalists who have attempted to research stories have regularly been arrested. Residents of the region, like many other Ethiopians, fear the pervasive state security apparatus. This oppressive atmosphere makes conducting on-site research into human rights abuses an especially difficult task, not least because of the security risks to victims and witnesses.

Human Rights Watch repeatedly requested by letter that the Ethiopian government permit access to the conflict-affected region, but received no response. Because of the severe restrictions and the dangers that would be faced by Ethiopian staff and individuals we sought to interview, Human Rights Watch decided not to attempt to access conflict-affected zones.

Human Rights Watch researchers instead located and interviewed recent refugees from the conflict in neighboring countries, including Kenya, Somalia, and Djibouti. During September and October 2007, Human Rights Watch researchers conducted a month-long field mission to Kenya (Nairobi, Garissa, and several refugee camps around Dadaab) and Hargeysa, Somaliland, where we interviewed more than 70 victims and eyewitnesses of abuses, as well as traders, business leaders, and officials originating from Somali Region. Human Rights Watch researchers also conducted a short research trip to Addis Ababa to interview individuals from Somali Region.

Finally, telephone and in-person interviews were conducted with dozens of additional victims, eyewitnesses, ONLF representatives, regional government officials, journalists, pro-government militia leaders, and aid officials in a variety of locations, including in Somali Region, Addis Ababa, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, and Europe.

Human Rights Watch also sought out persons with particular profiles, such as traders and livestock herders active on the Ethiopian-Somali trading routes for information on trading restrictions, community leaders and regional officials for information on the political dynamics, and scholars and independent analysts with insights into the region's complex history. In November 2007 and March 2008 Human Rights Watch wrote to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and other Ethiopian officials, presented preliminary research findings and requested information on the situation in Somali Region and meetings with Ethiopian federal officials. We also sought further details of allegations of ONLF abuses and the opportunity to interview victims of ONLF attacks in Ethiopia, but to date we have not received any response to these requests.

To the extent possible, all interviews were conducted in private, including in the refugee camps, with only the Human Rights Watch researcher, the interviewee, and (when necessary) a trained interpreter present. Interviewees were asked only to relate events that they personally experienced and witnessed. When allegations of abuse were made during interviews, the interviewees were again asked if they personally witnessed or experienced those abuses. Careful notes were taken during all interviews, and are on file with Human Rights Watch.

For the security of witnesses and their relatives who remain in Ethiopia, the names of most witnesses have been withheld, and other details such as the age, gender, and occupation have been changed where necessary to protect their identities. In some interviews the date and location of the interview is omitted if this could present a security risk to the witness. Ethiopian intelligence officials are active in many locations where Ethiopian refugees reside, including Kenya and the semi-autonomous Somaliland region of northern Somalia. In Somaliland in particular, there have been repeated incidents in which local authorities have detained refugees and forcibly returned them (under arrest) to Ethiopia, under pressure from Ethiopian security services.

In order to further corroborate the widespread allegations of extensive village burnings in Somali Region, Human Rights Watch worked with the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to obtain "before" and "after" satellite images of villages that had been reportedly burned. An initial list of 87 villages that had been reported to Human Rights Watch to have been burned was compiled, and from that list, villages whose exact coordinates could be established were selected as candidates for image acquisition. A further selection was made based on the availability of "before" images for each of those locations, as well as the strength of the eyewitness accounts from those villages.

For villages mentioned in this report as burned, a total of 11 sets of "before" and "after" images were selected. These images were reviewed for signs consistent with the reporting provided by Human Rights Watch, and in eight cases the imagery did provide indications of structural removal and, sometimes, burning. Special care was taken to differentiate nomadic settlements from permanent towns, and to identify changes in those towns associated with traditional nomadic migration rather than violent attacks. Ultimately, image analysis focused on the permanent towns only, given the difficulties of assessing nomadic populations from satellite imagery. Resulting images are highlighted in this report, and more details are available in a corresponding report released by AAAS.

The incidents detailed in this report are only a fraction of the information on abuses obtained by Human Rights Watch and largely focus on events in 2007, although there is credible evidence that many of the patterns of abuses are continuing. Human Rights Watch regrets the lack of cooperation from the Ethiopian authorities in our investigation. Despite our lack of access to Somali Region, this report presents unequivocal evidence from victims and eyewitnesses of numerous serious crimes in Somali Region in violation of international law. Further independent field investigations are urgently needed to address the crimes documented in this report and provide comprehensive documentation for future accountability mechanisms.

Note on Terminology
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/ethiopia0608/5.htm#_Toc200167124

In this report Human Rights Watch uses the current administrative terms "Region 5" (known as kilil amist in Amharic), "Somali Regional State," and "Somali Region" interchangeably to describe Ethiopia's eastern Somali state. Where the term "Ogaden" or "Ogaden area" is used, it refers to either historical usage, or to the smaller geographic area within Somali Region which is largely although far from exclusively inhabited by ethnic Somali members of the Ogaadeen clan.

The Ogaden area roughly corresponds to five of Somali Region's nine zones: Fiiq, Korahe, Dhagahbur, Gode, and Wardheer. The remaining zones—Shinile, Jijiga, Afder, and Liben—incorporate the colonial area known as the Haud, located north of the Ogaden along the border with Somaliland, and parts of former Eastern Hararghe and Bale.

In order to distinguish the clan from the geographic area, in this report the term "Ogaadeen" is used to describe the clan, a member of the Darood clan family, which contains numerous sub-clans represented across the Horn of Africa.

Place names present a challenge in Somali Region. For many years the Somali language had no written form and different spelling conventions were used by Italian and British colonial authorities. In 1972 the Somali Language Commission decided to use a Roman script for the written form of Somali, but included the letters "c" and "x" to represent the Somali sounds "'ayn" and "h" respectively.

Contemporary sources and maps of Somali Region often mix three or more different spellings of geographic locations and ethnic Somali names. For example, alternative spellings of Dhagahbur include Degeh Bur, Dagahbur, Degehabur, and the Somali spelling, Dhagaxbuur. This report generally uses English spellings for locations unless the Somali version appears to be more commonly used in Somali Region and on relevant maps. In some cases where two variants are used by different sources, such as Aado/Caado or Yu'ub/Yucub, this report notes both spellings.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 51, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.

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