The Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV) appealed on Monday to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, to investigate immediately the the charge that Ethiopia has committed serious war crimes in the east of the country. Local human rights workers report that Ethiopian soldiers summarily shot unarmed Somali village elders and small farmers in raids in Ogaden. It appears that more than 70 civilians were the victims of these war crimes. A list of 34 names has been sent to the STP, which the human rights organisation has passed on to the United Nations. "These serious charges must be cleared up before Ethiopia takes its place as planned at the G20 summit meeting in Canada at the end of June”, demanded the STP Africa consultant, Ulrich Delius. Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, was invited by the industrial nations to take part in a summit meeting of the industrial and developing countries in Toronto on 26 /27th June 2010.

The murders are reported to have taken place following an attack of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) on the garrison town of Malqala on 18th May 2010. In the attack on the town on the strategically important road joining Harar and Jigjiga in the north-west of the Ethiopian region, which is inhabited by Somalis, 94 Ethiopian soldiers are stated by the ONLF to have been killed. Ethiopia denied that the town had been taken by the rebels. However the army combed the outlying villages and sealed them hermetically off from the outside world. In Fafen, Farso, Goray, Bambas and Galaalshe village elders and farmers were often shot in front of their families, reported eye-witnesses. At the end of the blockade many people fled the region in the midst of the conflict.

"Only Pillay and the United Nations have any chance of conducting an independent investigation into the truth of the charges”, said Delius. "For independent human rights organisations and journalists cannot carry out free research in Ogaden. Even the officials of international aid agencies are subjected to immense pressure from the authorities.”

Ogaden, which is inhabited in the main by Moslem Somalis is larger than Germany and Belgium together. Only eight million people live in the huge area, which is being fought over by Ethiopia and Somalia. Human rights organisations already accused Ethiopia of war crimes in 2007/2008. At that time also Ethiopian soldiers used brutal methods against unarmed Somalis, who were accused en bloc of supporting the ONLF. The liberation movement is fighting for more self-government for the Somalis and for an end to the mining of oil by foreign companies.

Ulrich Delius can be reached at asien@gfbv.de