Darfur vs. ******, Mugabe vs. Meles

[Fabregas]

http://www.oromoindex.com/News/1182.html

[Tahliil]

In an anti-guerilla war conducted in the country's ****** region, "Ethiopian troops are burning villages, raping women and killing civilians as part of a systematic campaign to drive them from their homes." Refugees say dozens of villages have been destroyed and have "accused the Ethiopian government of forcibly starving its own people by preventing food convoys reaching villages and destroying crops and livestock."*

 

"A former Ethiopian soldier who defected from the army said how he had been ordered to burn villages and kill all their inhabitants. He said the Ethiopian air force would bomb a village before a unit of ground troops followed, firing indiscriminately at civilians. 'Men, women, children - we killed them all,' he said."

 

The little-known conflict in ****** parallels the more widely known war in Darfur. The conflict began when rebels killed scores of Ethiopian guards and Chinese employees at a Chinese-run oil field. The government replied with a harsh crackdown.

 

"Human rights investigators are gathering evidence of widespread use of rape, with women reporting gang-rapes by up to a dozen soldiers. In some villages, men have been abducted at night, their bodies dumped in the village the next morning.

 

"While in Darfur, aid agencies have been able to establish camps and provide humanitarian support, they have been blocked from setting up operations in the ******. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been thrown out and Medicins Sans Frontieres has also been prevented from working. Journalists trying to enter have also been banned - those that have tried have been promptly arrested."

 

But while neutral leftists have worked themselves into a state of high moral dudgeon over Sudan's counter-insurgency in Darfur, which "has been described by the US as 'genocide' and by the UN as 'crimes against humanity'", they have been virtually silent on Ethiopia, a recipient of US and British military and humanitarian aid.

 

"America's top official on African affairs, assistant secretary of state, Jendayi Frazer, visited one town in the ****** last month.

 

"On her return to Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, she criticized the rebels and said the reports of military abuses were merely allegations. 'We urge any and every government to respect human rights and to try to avoid civilian casualties but that's difficult in dealing with an insurgency,' she said."

 

The West's official enemies are never allowed the same latitude in dealing with their own (often US and British financed and instigated) insurgencies - a double standard backed by neutral leftists through their voluble condemnations of the anti-insurgency efforts of official enemies and comparative silence on those of Western client states.

 

"The US provides some $283m (£140m) in military and humanitarian aid to Ethiopia and has trained its military - one of the largest and strongest in Africa."