Ethiopia: Gov’t punishes civilians in rebel crackdown-U.S group

(SomaliNet) The Ethiopian military was on Wednesday accused by a U.S.-based human rights group of burning homes and forcibly displacing thousands of villagers in a campaign against separatist rebels in the southeastern Ogaden region.

Ethiopian premier Meles Zenawi announced a crackdown last month on insurgents in Ogaden who raided a Chinese-run oil exploration field in April, killing 74 people.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) is seeking more autonomy for its ethnically Somali region, bordering Somalia.

Ethiopian government in Addis Ababa says it is a terrorist group bankrolled by arch-foe Eritrea. Soldiers had destroyed property, confiscatedlivestock and reduced recent harvests to cinders as part of an escalating crackdown on the group, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

Quoting witnesses, it said in a few cases Ethiopian troops fired on and killed fleeing civilians.

\"Whatever the military strategy behind them, these abuses violate the laws of war,\" HRW Africa director Peter Takirambudde said in a statement.

Ethiopian officials declined comment. HRW accused security forces of being responsible for the arbitrary detention in the Ogaden\'s larger towns, particularly of family members of suspected ONLF insurgents.

It alleged Ethiopian troops killed 21 villagers on June 18, in Labiga village, south of Dhagahbur town, as they resisted military attempts to take their livestock.

HRW said Ethiopian authorities had blocked trade to Ogaden since June, squeezing food supplies to the remote region of largely nomadic herders.

HRW said ONLF fighters allegedly targeted two large gatherings in the towns of Jigjiga and Dhagahbur with hand grenades in May. The blasts and the crowd stampedes they caused killed 17 and wounded dozens including Ogaden\'s regional leader.

HRW said the ONLF, which denied responsibility for the attacks, has a record of targeting officials and clan leaderswho refuse to support the insurgency.

\"Civilians in Somali region are trapped between the warring parties,\" Takirambudde said.

\"The Ethiopian government appears to be pursuing an illegal strategy of collective punishment of the civilian population, and the ONLF has targeted civilians for attack.\" -Reuters