The Ogaden territory lies between Oromia to the west Afar land to the northeast, the republic of Djibouti to the North, Kenya to the South and Somali republic to the East. As is common knowledge today, it is known, borders in the African continent were left behind by the European colonizers, which arbitrarily divided African countries and communities among themselves. The Ogaden territory was integrated into what was then the Abyssinian Empire currently known as Ethiopia at the end of the 19th century. This well known historical fact took place at the early stage of European colonization of Africa. It is therefore absurd for the remnants of the former Abyssinian emperor i.e. present day Ethiopian rulers to lay legal or moral claim on the Ogaden land.

In 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia helped bring an end to the Thirty Years War in Europe. Under the terms of this treaty the boundaries of the various nation-states within Europe were clearly demarcated, and the respective governments of these political entities were provided with the legal authority to police their own territories. On the contrary the Organization of African Unity, OAU, denied the people of Africa the opportunity to deal with the border issues right after independence and because of OAU’s fundamental acceptance of existing borders, the Ogaden Somali people remain under Ethiopian colonial rule, which consistently violates their basic human rights.

Ogaden citizens face a strategy of genocide devised at their prejudice by the TPLF[1] dominated Ethiopian government under an undeclared martial law and journalists are effectively blocked from the region. Extrajudicial killings, arrests, extensive practice of torture, national denigration and religious denigrations carried out against Ogaden Somalis over many long decades alienated them completely from the Ethiopian totalitarian state where they never felt they belonged in the first place.

While the international community is rightly focused on one of the worst crisis ever, the Darfur tragedy, we, the international community, cannot afford to divert our attention away from one of the worst man-made tragedies of our lifetimes: the genocide in Ogaden. It has been six months since the international media declared that genocide was occurring in Ogaden. Since then, however, the Ethiopian government intensified its military operations against the innocent civilian population and the situation has deteriorated to the extent where even relief organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross ICRC and Médicins Sans Frontières were expelled from the region

Yet, as horrifying reports continue to emerge, and as a humanitarian emergency grows, there is no indication that the United States or the United Nations are prepared to intervene, despite promises of never again and explicit obligations under the 1948 Convention on Genocide. There is now a real risk of another imminent, extraordinary human catastrophe right under the eyes of the United Nations Security Council, and they are not acting promptly to stop the genocide taking root in Ogaden.

If the world community continues its Ogaden watch without intervening on behalf of the Ogaden populace, it is estimated that thousands of lives will be lost over the next few months from killings by Ethiopian troops, but also starvation because of the Ethiopian regime’s imposition of a blockage on trade and movement of food supplies. As a result of the blockade, hundreds of thousands of displaced persons are cut off from humanitarian assistance. There has been no visible international effort to put the brakes of the run away genocide being perpetrated against the Ogaden populace by the Ethiopian regime. 

As the Ogaden tragedy unfolds, history is watching, and international community will be judged by only one test: Did we stop the genocide in Ogaden? Unless the answer is yes, then no summit, no U.N. Security Council resolution or no act of Congress has any meaning. With that in mind, it is time for the United Nations and the international community to take prompt action to stop the genocide in Ogaden before it is too late.

The United Nations was effectively set up to stop genocidal acts from occurring and to foster world peace. But six months after the human catastrophe in Ogaden began, not one punitive measure has been imposed on the government of Ethiopia. It is too late to change the historical genocide record on Rwanda. But it is not too late to set a better precedent for the Ogaden Somalis. So it is time for the United Nations and United States to understand that anything other than demonstrable rapid international action led by the United States will result human catastrophe in Ogaden.

The United States should put effective pressure on the government of Ethiopia. A clear signal must be sent that the United States will not reward the Ethiopian regime for its so-called efforts on the global war on terror in Horn of Africa unless there are real and verifiable changes in Ogaden, including unrestricted access for humanitarian organizations and concrete actions to rein in on the Ethiopian troops.

In the meantime, the United Nations should go to the Security Council and insist on a series of sanctions, beginning with an arms embargo against the Ethiopian regime, travel restrictions on senior Ethiopian officials and a freeze on the assets of companies controlled by the ruling party (EPRDF[2]) that do business abroad. There are members of the Security Council that may oppose sanctions at the expense of their interest in the region, but this time international community cannot take no for an answer.

United States should better risk a veto than to pass unanimous resolutions that do nothing to end the violence and the international community must also hold Ethiopia to account by exerting serious diplomatic pressure on countries that oppose sanctions against the Ethiopian regime.

The international community at large has a moral obligation to do everything to stop the genocide in Ogaden and ethnic cleansing to bringing about a permanent end to these atrocities and let the Ethiopian regime know that genocide in Ogaden will not be tolerated. The genocide in Ogaden is a tragedy that shocks the conscience of everyone who cares about human rights and basic human dignity.

The crisis in the Ogaden region will not be resolved without sustained and effective leadership from the United States and the United States has a chance to change course from a destructive policy in the Horn of Africa based on the global war on terror towards a policy based on democracy and the protection of basic human rights. Thus the nited States and the international community must do everything possible to force the Ethiopian regime to halt the genocide in Ogaden; allow unimpeded access for humanitarian workers and supplies; and undertake political negotiations aimed at ending the crisis in Ogaden.

The UN should also be laying the groundwork for accountability. It has been more than two months since the weeklong United Nations mission in Ogaden recommended the establishment of a commission of inquiry that was to investigate the atrocities in Ogaden. The international community should be providing support for the commission and preparing mechanisms to bring those who are responsible of the Ogaden tragedy to justice.