Ethiopia: US
Government Wants Gambella Violence Investigated
UN Integrated Regional
Information Networks
NEWS
February 23, 2004
Posted to the web February 23,
2004
Addis Ababa
Written by keith harmon snow
The US
government has called for "transparent, independent" inquiries into
clashes in Ethiopia's troubled western border region where hundreds have been
killed.
In a
statement from Washington on 20 February, the US said the government must
investigate allegations that its troops were involved in the killings. Adam
Ereli, the US government deputy spokesman, also told journalists in Washington
that the crisis in Gambella region was "deteriorating" following
fighting between ethnic groups and the Ethiopian armed forces.
"Fully
transparent and independent investigations by the government would encourage
restoration of peace in the troubled region," Ereli said in a statement.
The
government, however, rejected the allegations that its troops were involved in
the fighting, and told IRIN that they were restoring order.
The US
call came as two human rights organisations condemned the international
community for its silence over the "atrocities" being perpetrated in
Gambella, which is about 800 km west of the capital, Addis Ababa. The US-based
Genocide Watch (GW) and Survivors' Rights International (SRI) alleged that the
Anyuak ethnic group was being subjected to rape, executions and torture.
Clashes
first erupted in Gambella in early December after eight government officials
were attacked and murdered while travelling in a United Nations vehicle. The
Anyuak, who make up around one-third of the 228,000 people who live in the
remote region, were blamed for the attack and targeted for brutal reprisals, in
which hundreds of people were killed.
Gambella
is a fertile, but swampy, malaria-infested area, which borders war-torn Sudan.
It is however also rich in natural resources like gold and oil, which, GW and
SRI say, may be serving to fuel the three-month orgy of violence, inasmuch as
the Anyuaks believe that much of the land in the area belongs to them.
"The
Ethiopian government continues to deny, downplay and mis-characterise the
massacres as justifiable responses to the Anyuak attack," said their
23-page report. "The fact is that most of the victims have been unarmed
Anyuak civilians who were hunted down and murdered," Keith Harmon Snow,
the report's author, asserted. "Numerous assailants have been identified,
including government officials, soldiers and civilians," he added, while
also calling for an independent inquiry into the killings.
"Numerous
reports indicate that summary executions, mass rape and disappearances continue
to occur in contravention of international legal standards," he said.
Snow's
report was compiled after conducting interviews in January and February with
Anyuaks who had fled across the porous border into neighbouring Sudan.
In a
statement released last week, the government said 200 people had been killed in
one attack led by Anyuak at a gold mine, and 10,000 people had fled the region.
The
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme
say they have evacuated all their international staff from parts of western
Ethiopia.
The
killings mark some of the worst violence for years in Ethiopia, a landlocked
country of 70 million people divided into numerous linguistic and ethnic
groups. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council said earlier this month that ethnic
violence was increasing in the country as a result of government policies
forming local administrations along tribal lines.
But the
government, a four-party ethnic coalition which has been in power since 1991,
accused the group of being politically motivated and dismissed its accusations.
"These statements from the human rights groups are not correct. The
government troops are not there to kill Anyuaks, they are there to make peace.
We have stated this time and again," Zemedkun Tekle, the information
ministry spokesman, told IRIN.
The
federal affairs ministry, which is investigating the violence, was unavailable
for comment on the latest claims surrounding the fighting in Gambella.