If the Republican administration wants to mark a few points in Africa, whereby the US presence has traditionally been very limited due to the Anglo-French colonial grip, the Horn of Africa is an ideal region due to the existing problems. Yet, one should be cautious to avoid colonial traps and ambushes. Colonially made – and most loathed by all Africans – borderlines should not be respect or serious taken into consideration. English nationals’ interests do not by definition matter for the US. Certainly, Mugabe is not an exemplary ruler, but the damages triggered by his unwise policies are mostly a concern for Zimbabwe itself first and Britain second.

Principles are what matters most for Americans – if we have to stick to the American Constitution and to the Ideals of the Founding Fathers – and based on principles, Americans and Africans can come to a partnership agreement that will rid Africa of the colonial grip and the rising Chinese nightmare that helps preserve and expand immoral totalitarianisms.

Principles not monies matter.

If Mugabe ‘stole’ the property of Zimbabwe’s White minority, the successive monarchical, communist and bogus federal / republican regimes of the lewd, analphabetic, and inhuman tribal (Amhara and Tigray) Monophysitic Abyssinian chieftains brought tyranny, murder, cultural and national disfigurement, pestilence, underdevelopment, permanent stagnation and poverty to non Abyssinian, Kushitic Ethiopian masses of different peoples (Oromos, Ogadenis, Sidamas, Afars, and others) to whom the Amhara and Tigray Semitic immigrant tribes are alien.

The same regimes brought oppression and dearth to the Amhara and Tigray Muslim populations that equal at least up to 45 – 50% of the Abyssinian tribes’ total population.

In brief, an abysmally inhuman fraction that does not represent more than 15% of the entire country’s population rules all the rest, depriving them of the basic notions of Human Integrity and Respect.

You cannot say that Mugabe is worse than Meles Zenawi, because you then show to all the Africans that all that matters for you is White racism, discrimination, and supremacy.

You cannot publish in your genuinely misinforming newspapers more articles against Mugabe than denunciations and calls for immediate international isolation of the bogus-‘Ethiopian’ murderous dictator Zenawi; if you do so, Africans understand that all that matters for you is not Principles but your filthy monies.

It is shameful and inhuman to compare the few Britons who lost part of their property with the entire nation of the Oromos, the entire nation of the Ogadenis, the entire nation of the Sidamas, the entire nation of the Afars and so many other African Kushitic and Nilo-Saharan nations that lost everything.

To better illuminate the immoral character of trashing Mugabe and keeping silence as regards to Meles Zenawi, we publish here another part of the Report issued by the Ogaden Human Rights Committee.

The white landowners of Zimbabwe did not face a governmental starve out policy targeting them in the same way Meles Zenawi’s murderous and inhuman practices target the totality of the occupied Ogaden’s populations.

Admit it!

Stop trashing Mugabe before taking Meles Zenawi to a Court of Justice and hanging him and his thugs who are far worse than Saddam Hussein!

Ethiopian Government’s starve out policy in the Ogaden

Since it came to power in 1991, the current Ethiopian government has taken many steps and measures in order to starve out the civilian population to submission.

Article 54 -Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population -of the protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 states that "Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motives."

However, in 1995, Ethiopian armed forces closed the border between the Ogaden and Somalia, confiscated lorries and foodstuffs and indiscriminately mined areas which civilians frequent, particularly around water wells and caravan routes, which lead to neighbouring countries, in order to stop trade movements and starve out the civilian population.

In 1996, in the fertile valley of the Shabeelle River in the Godey area, the Ethiopian government has prevented the people from cultivating their farms unless they pay 500 Ethiopian Birr for each farm, which is too much for them to pay. The peasants were threatened with eviction from their lands if they do not pay the new tax. Four years later, in 2000, Godey was one of the worst drought-stricken areas, a situation to whose creation government policies and practices of its army contributed significantly.

In 1996, Ogaden camels were dying in thousands for an unknown fatal disease, which gripped the whole territory. The number of dead camels was estimated at the time about 60,000 head. The Ethiopian government has not intervened to save the lives of the animals, which are the main source of the livelihood for millions of the Ogaden people.

In the year 1997, the rainy seasons failed or there was not enough rainfall in the Ogaden. Water was scarce and dear. Whenever there is scarcity of water, the pastoralists move with their animals in search for pasture and water beside water holes, ponds and reservoirs. Many water reservoirs and tankers owned by individuals were confiscated by the Ethiopian armed forces. The owners of these reservoirs and tankers were denied the use of their water and property for their families and thirsty animals. As a result many animals have died of thirst.

In 2000, the Ogaden region was hit by the worst drought in a decade. The prolonged drought caused a mass starvation and breakout of epidemics related to malnutrition and bad sanitation. In the worst drought-stricken areas, thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of animals starved to death. The Ethiopian government, which was in war with Eritrea, did nothing to save the lives of the drought victims and their animals, which are the main source of the livelihood for millions of the Ogaden people. (See Press Release: Ogaden: Dozens of People and Thousands of Animals Starve to Death on a Daily Basis amid International Lack of Attention ref: OHRC/05/00).

The international donor community has helped the victims of the drought generously. But as is usual with Ethiopian government, the aid donated by the international community to the victims of the drought through the Ethiopian Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (ERRC), renamed as the Disaster Prevention and preparedness Commission (DPPC), which is in effect run by the Tigray Relief Society (TRS), never reached its intended beneficiaries in the Ogaden, because the Ethiopian government has misused it by diverting it to the army.

In October 2002, The Ethiopian government closed the border between the Ogaden and Somalia. The Ethiopian government confiscated many lorries and goods. The lorries were distributed to the Ethiopian troops in the Ogaden.

Once again the Somali people in the Ogaden are on the brink of starvation. According to international NGOs reports and eyewitness accounts the Somali people in the Ogaden are facing severe food shortages as a result of Ethiopian government’s economic blockade and military campaign.

In the regions which are under Ethiopian military siege the people are running out of food and their animals are getting weaker by the day as well. The outbreak of cholera and other epidemics related to malnutrition and bad sanitation were also reported.

Somalis in the Ogaden are rich in livestock and natural resources. Never have they experienced; in the history of the Ogaden such inhuman treatment whereby thousands of children die of starvation as a result of the intentional denial of the right of the people to exploit their natural resources.

Therefore, the Ogaden Human Rights Committee is warning the looming human tragedy in the Ogaden and urges the international community to act immediately in order to prevent it. It appeals also to the international community to help the Ogaden people directly through international NGOs in order to assure the reach of the food aid to the victims of the famine; otherwise the relief will end up in military barracks as usual.

More information: www.ogadenrights.org

Note

Scarce water resources in Ogaden should be the focus of Western journalists; after living in Ogaden for a month, would they be still interested in focusing on Mugabe - and not on the most monstrous and inhuman criminal on earth, tyrant Meles Zenawi?