Grenade attack wounds Ethiopians

[Jacpher]

Grenade attack wounds Ethiopians

 

By Andrew Heavens

 

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The president of Ethiopia’s volatile Somali region was wounded in the leg in a grenade attack on Monday during a ceremony in the regional capital Jijiga, a senior government official said.

 

The blast that wounded Abdullahi Hassan also killed at least five people in the crowd around him and set off a stampede in which up to six more died, witnesses and aid workers said.

 

But government official Bereket Simon said no one was killed at the stadium though five people had been killed elsewhere in the region by a booby-trap.

 

Bereket told reporters Hassan had been wounded in the grenade attack and said "The culprit is none other than a member of the ONLF which is supported by Eritrea."

 

The ****** National Liberation Movement is a separatist rebel group that has been increasingly active in the remote east and last month attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field, killing 74.

 

But Adurahmin Mohammed Mahdi, a London-based ONLF spokesman, said his movement had nothing to do with Monday’s attack.

 

"Our policy is not to attack civilian targets or Jijiga," he told Reuters. "The ONLF attacks military targets only."

 

Aid agency sources said the attack took place while hundreds of people were in the stadium in Jijiga’s Revolutionary Square for a ceremony marking the overthrow of former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.

 

An eyewitness in the crowd, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal in the heavily militarised region, said Hassan was hurled into the air by the blast.

 

"It was a huge explosion, bigger than hand grenades. It was like lots of dynamite," he told Reuters by phone.

 

"The president was speaking, surrounded by people from the band and a traditional dance group. Then the explosion happened and he was blown 10 metres away. Most of the people injured were from the band.... I saw five bodies later in the hospital."

 

"HUGE STAMPEDE"

 

Police started firing after the blast, the witness said. "After the shooting, there was a huge stampede and some children were killed there -- I think six," he said.

 

An international aid worker in Jijiga, who asked not to be named, said the president was attacked with two grenades.

 

"Five people were killed on the spot then three people were killed afterwards when shooting broke out," he said. "We are all in our compounds, staying in to keep safe."

 

Bereket contradicted the accounts of people in Jijiga, saying that no one had died there, but five people had been killed by a booby-trap in a separate incident.

 

"I have no information on the exact location of the booby-trap in which five people were killed. But I confirm that they were killed," he said, without giving details.

 

A sporadic but long-running conflict is under way in the country’s Somali region between government forces and the ONLF, which wants more autonomy for the remote and under-developed area bordering Somalia.

 

Ethiopia says its neighbour and arch-foe, Eritrea, is training and arming the ONLF. Asmara denies that.

 

Tension mounted sharply in April when ONLF fighters killed 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese oil workers in the raid close to Abole, a small town 120 km (75 miles) south of Jijiga.

 

Aid agency sources say government troops recently stepped up operations in three districts covering about half the region.

 

The sources, who asked not to be named, said aid workers now had to apply for permission to enter the affected region, delaying vital development work.

 

A three-person New York Times reporting team was detained in the region, interrogated at gunpoint and held for five days before being freed last week without charge, the newspaper said.

 

Ethiopia - Blaming the Victim for Propaganda

 

Right off the bat, the ****** Editorial Board, OEB, condemns the bombings in Jig Jiga where ****** civilians, forced to attend a political ceremony, which has no meaning to these poor citizens, have lost their lives.

******

Without proper investigation and lacking a single shred of evidence, the misinformation ambassador and advisor to the head of the autocracy, Mr. Bereket Simon claimed that ONLF is the 'culprit supported by Eritrea'.

 

It is incredulous how this prevaricator and purveyor of Ethiopian propaganda had quickly come up with a scapegoat for what local sources have attributed to a competition, which escalated to a physical confrontation, between two camps within the so-called local administration.

 

In the past month and half, it has been an open knowledge in Jig Jiga that a rift has developed between the head of the so-called local administration Mr. Abdullahi Hassan Lugbur and his security bureau head Mr. Abdi Ileeye. The source of the conflict is said to the head of the Ethiopian military based in Jig Jiga.

 

Because of the indiscriminate detention campaigns carried out by Mr. Ileeye and his security minions against the ****** citizenry, the head of the Ethiopian military in Jig Jiga sees Mr. Ileeye as a more 'capable' individual who can deal with the ****** citizenry as per the Ethiopian military's machinations. Mr. Lugbur on the other hand has his friends in the head of the Ethiopian autocracy office in Addis Ababa.

 

Reports from credible sources within the Ethiopian military in Jig Jiga attribute today's bombings in Jig Jiga as an attempt on the life of Mr. Lugbur so that the Ethiopian military can nominate Mr. Ileeye as the 'interim' successor to Mr.Lugbur.

 

Instead of carrying out proper investigation to find out the source of this bombing which turns out to be within the so-called local administration and the Ethiopian military personnel in Jig Jiga, the misinformation minister without portfolio Mr. Bereket has conveniently blamed the victim in this incident i.e. the ****** citizenry represented by ONLF.

 

Mr. Bereket's propaganda also blamed Eritrea which fits nicely with the recent Ethiopian campaign to deflect people's attention from Ethiopian failures both in ****** and Somalia by pointing the finger at an out side source, Eritrea in this case.

 

Ethiopian gamesmanship aside, the world community should not allow the Ethiopian Autocracy to force ****** civilians to gather for political ceremonies yet carryout indiscriminate bombing of civilians housed in a stadium with one exit.

 

What happened in Jig Jiga today is an organized, extra judicially carried out killings by the Ethiopian government and its associated militias for political gains. The world community should condemn this bombing and should prosecute the Ethiopian military and its political masters for massacring ****** civilians for their own political gains.

 

 

[rudy-Diiriye]

job well done! all amxaaro house niggas should be blown up.