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Haphazard
reporting, Ignorance, or Reliance on a Single Source |
The
newly released 2005 Human rights report
on Ethiopia paints the grim picture of lack
of basic human rights in Ethiopia. It also
provides anecdotal evidence on the goings on
in Ethiopia for the past year.
However the Ogaden Editorial board believes that this
report does no justice to our people and to
our cherished land of Ogadenia. Our perusal
of the report revealed that this report does
not even document a single case of a human
rights tragedy within Ogadenia for the past
year.
Does this lack of reporting of the
daily human rights violations that are now
the norm in Ogadenia mean that these well
documented cases do not exist or are being
ignored by those who put together reports
like this? Does it also mean that the Tigray
militia and its military ruler Zenawi now
have the carte blanche to continue their
illegal acts of mass detentions,
extrajudicial killings, rape, and torture of
the Ogaden citizenry?
The fact that the
multi-page report only mentions Ogadenia
once is a testament of either haphazard
reporting, ignorance on the part of the US
State department researchers or an overly
reliance on a single source such as the
Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) which
has no presence in Ogadenia.
There were well published and documented
human rights tragedies in Ogadenia in the
past year. Major tragedies took place within
the latter parts of the year. There was the
massacre of innocent ‘prisoners’ in the city
of Qabridahar.
There was the burning of the
hamlet of Fool Jeex which resulted in the
destruction of precious property, the loss
of a year’s worth of harvest at the onset of
the current drought, and mass displacement
of the hamlet’s inhabitants.
While the world
media such as the BBC, Reuters and even the
Washington Post reported these events it is
indeed a crime and a great injustice that a
country report published by the US state
department will have no place for the mass
human rights violations that took place in Ogadenia for the past year.
We believe that
the US state department should investigate
as to why this report although called
country report only reports of what happened
in Oromo and Amhara areas while other
regions are mentioned in a passing note.
It
is our inherent believe that US State
department researchers should use venerable
sources such as the Ogaden Human Rights
Committee which has presence throughout
Ogadenia in order to document the tragic
human rights violations that are taking
place in Ogadenia.
Other Editorial articles:http://www.ogaden.com/Editor.htm
editorial@ogaden.com
Ogaden Online Editorial
March 11, 2006 |
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