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Time to Flush
Out the Armed Thugs from Ogaden |
For a while now, many people, such as the
Ogaden Editorial Board, who follow the
happenings in Ogaden closely were aware of
the presence of a group of armed thugs not
numbering more than a dozen in Ogaden. These
thugs were not threatening anyone least of
which was the Ethiopian colonial forces in
Ogaden. They used to roam the country side.
They communicated with the locals only with
an offer to buy food rations or milk from
nomads in the countryside.
There were confirmed reports that these
thugs were sent from neighboring countries
with the specific objective of showing the
presence of a non-existent ‘armed’ wing
supposedly fighting for the rights of the
people of Ogaden. Reports on the ground
confirmed numerous times that the group
rotated in and out of Ogaden every couple of
months without ever firing a single shot
against the Ethiopian colonial forces
terrorizing the Ogaden populace in many
parts of Ogaden.
The mere objective as could be discerned
from the movement, size, and organization of
these thugs was that they were very well
paid and were in the payroll of people
outside Ogaden who were said to claim that
they had an armed wing in Ogaden for their
own selfish reasons.
Since these thugs neither threatened nor
harmed anyone and since some of them were
said to be from the people of Ogaden, Ogaden
National Liberation Front (ONLF) fighters
did not bother fighting them off. Ever since
ONLF carried out the successful military
operation codenamed Mandad against the
militias of the dictatorial regime in Addis
Ababa, the thugs were reported to have
started stopping civilian transport trucks
asking for money and food.
These thugs were warned against disrupting
Ogaden trade and transportation of goods to
and from Ogaden numerous times to no avail.
The same thugs appear to have graduated from
waylaying civilian transport trucks and
trade to the kidnapping of the very relief
workers whose mere presence sustained
countless Ogaden lives. They appear to have
‘courts’, non-existent army, and spokesmen
such as
Abdullahi
Osman Gashan who claimed that his
group has been behind the abduction and the
continued detention of the ICRC relief
workers.
Claiming that the ICRC staff was mistaken to
Oil drilling crews does not fly in the face
of the staff’s marked car whose insignia
would have been visible from kilometers
away. For the reader who knows nothing about
oil drilling crews in Ogaden, these crews
are always escorted by heavily armed
Ethiopian forces and hardly venture outside
their drilling areas.
It is evident that these hoodlums abducted
the relief workers for the advancement of
their own selfish, yet unspecified reasons.
The only raison d’etre of the abduction of
the ICRC relief workers was to use the world
media spotlight generated by the kidnapping
to claim their, thugs’, existence.
Since these thugs do not serve the needs of
the Ogaden populace; Since these thugs’
presence in Ogaden negatively impacts the
cause spearheaded by ONLF as evidenced by
the abduction of the ICRC relief workers;
And finally since their so-called one man
press releases conducted from Mogadishu
voila gives Meles Zenawi’s dying autocracy a
new lease of life, it is about time that
ONLF and its affiliated organizations flush
these thugs out of Ogaden.
These armed goons should no longer be
allowed to endanger the lives of the Ogaden
civilians already traumatized by the
presence and behavior of the unjust and
illegal Ethiopian colonial forces. Enough is
enough; ONLF should act to remove this
gathering cloud of danger from Ogaden. Armed
thugs serving outsider’s interests should
have no hiding grounds in Ogaden.
editorial@ogaden.com
Ogaden Online Editorial
Sept 23, 2006 |
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