Ethiopia Monday called on member states of the African Union (AU) and the international community to renew their efforts towards providing an all-inclusive support and cooperation to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia in view of the improving security situation in the country.
Ethiopia's war on its own
By Ronan Farrow, Los Angeles Times February 25, 2008
DADAAB, KENYA -- When Ethiopian government forces swept through his town in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, burning huts and killing civilians. "The young girls were the first to die. The soldiers shot them and gathered the bodies and burned them," he said. "When they came to my home, they strangled my father with a wire and hung his body in a tree. Then they shot me and left me for dead." In October, Human Rights Watch warned that events in Ogaden were following a "frighteningly familiar pattern" to those in Sudan's Darfur region, noting "ethnic overtones" to attacks and accusing Ethiopia of "displac[ing] large populations" and "deliberately attack[ing] civilians." Government forces have been implicated in escalating looting, burnings and atrocities. Recently, soldiers have begun a brutal campaign of forced conscription, often torturing or killing those who refuse to join.
For more information, see Los Angeles Times. GerrieLijam