Ethiopia forcing untrained civilians to fight rebels

[Wareer]

Ethiopia forcing untrained civilians to fight rebels

Telegraph - Herald. NAIROBI, Kenya (MCT) Dec 1- Ethiopian soldiers have forcibly drafted hundreds of civilians to fight separatist rebels in the desolate, predominantly Muslim Ogaden region in a shadowy military campaign supported by the Bush administration, according to more than a dozen refugees and former recruits who've fled to neighboring Kenya.

The untrained and ill-equipped draftees - including students, camel herders and tribal leaders who've never fired weapons in combat - are being thrown into pitched battles with ethnic Somali guerrillas and often suffer heavy casualties, the refugees and ex-recruits said.

Men who resist joining these civilian militias - known as "dabaqodhi," or "puppets" of the government - are beaten, locked up in military prisons or killed, the refugees said in interviews. When recruits perform poorly in combat, as they often do, they're abused and accused of aiding the rebels, refugees said.

The accounts offer a disturbing glimpse into the U.S.-backed Ethiopian government's months-long battle against an ethnic Somali separatist group known as the Ogaden National Liberation Front. The fight has been conducted virtually in secret in the dry, craggy eastern region that's home to about 4 million mostly ethnic Somali nomads.

The refugees'accounts also have renewed questions about the Bush administration's unflinching support for Ethiopia's Christian-led government, its main African ally in the war on terrorism. Ethiopian troops, with U.S. military support, invaded neighboring Somalia last December to oust a hard-line Islamist regime and have been bogged down by a stubborn insurgency there ever since.

Some U.S. and Ethiopian officials think that Islamist fighters from Somalia are aiding the ONLF. On a recent visit to Ethiopia, Jendayi Frazer, the ranking State Department official for Africa, said Ethiopia had a right to defend itself and that allegations of civilian killings were unsubstantiated.

An Ethiopian government spokesman, Zemedkun Tekle, said the allegations were untrue. "The policy of the country to recruit soldiers is on a voluntary basis," he said. "In our country, no one is forced without his will to join the military."

"They came into my school one morning and selected 20 boys and put us into military barracks," said Abdirahman Ali Hashi, a lanky, bookish 23-year-old who described how government troops plucked him last February from his 10th-grade classroom in the town of Degehabur.

With no training other than a cursory lesson on how to fire their AK-47 rifles, they were sent to the battlefield to guide Ethiopian troops who didn't know the terrain, Hashi said. But the guerrillas outgunned them.

[Shirib]

Xabashi bastards. Viva ONLF.

[Wareer]

they recruit innocent people who know the terrain. lool.

[El Loco]

I love the prhase "US-backed". That applies to China or Russia or the Phillipines...... for a few examples. Anyone we have dealing with, which is about 150 countries, is "US-backed".

[Lacageylacag]

Only the cheap lives are Ethiopian.
The war, weapons and finances are all American.

[El Loco]

Lac
As usual you are talking out of your a$$. No surpise here though.

If you bothered to investigate, you would find out there are almost NO US weapons in Ethiopia. They use the much cheaper Eastern Block stuff. ALL of the Artillery, aircraft, tanks and small arms are of Eastern Block origin (or CHICOM rip-offs).

The US also only provides a small portion of the Ethiopian military budget.

Do your focking homework, you dipshit.

[Lacageylacag]

You must be Mad Mac if you reason like that.
Because the guy was army cook and he was commenting on military affairs.

The training, weapons, intelligence and expenses are all from the CIA.
We know these from somalis who work with them.