Editorials | Save The Ogaden

I CARE CAMPAIGN – GENOCIDE PREVENTION

Posted by SaveOgaden.Org On May - 5 - 2011 ADD COMMENTS

Congratulations to Ogaden Youth & Students Union and their friends and families for being very serious about the month of April’s – Genocide Prevention Month.

Congratulations to Ogaden Youth & Students Union and their friends and families for being very serious about the month of April’s – Genocide Prevention Month. They have worked extremely hard organizing several walks to raise awareness and to educate the public about the genocide, ethnic cleansing, gang rape, child soldiers, torture, and starvations happening in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. Boston Public School administrator, super star, professional track and field athlete, Said Ahmed, one the organizers of the three-mile walks, is currently very active on this cause.

This was the first year that this event took place full-grown and caught attention around the world. The event, created by a resolution passed by Massachusetts State Legislature, will soon to be passed by several other states including California, Ohio, Washington, Maine and Minnesota.

Genocide, ethnic cleansing, gang rape, child soldiers, torture, and starvation are the most horrific crimes against humanity. It is an unfortunate tiresome theme in human history. However as much as they strike us with horror, these events inspire us to take action against the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi and his supporters. “Increasing education, spreading awareness and supporting a free and independent press can only prevent these atrocities”, said Mr. Ahmed. “We must encourage people to contact their Governors, Legislators, Senators and the President to sustain our efforts.”

The truth is there are many survivors of genocide, children of survivors, ethnic cleansing, gang rap that are now American Citizens. They are speaking out for those who are voiceless in Ogadenia. We want to draw attention to the serious issues that are happening in Ogadenia and educate the rest of the world about the situation. Many citizens took a step forward and shared their experiences during in Meles’s regime. If you do not know something is happening in Ogadenia then mostly likely, you will not care about it.

Students from Charlestown High School (Boston Public Schools), who participated in the Walks through their club, Students Against Genocide, agree with Mr. Ahmed that raising awareness is the most important way to get involved.

Members of Ogaden Youth & Student Union also kicked off their campaign “I Care about Ogadenia” which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Sunday, May 1. They took were part in the May parade day which had over 3000 participators. Despite the very cold weather conditions, OYSU got approximately a thousand signatures on their petition proposing to bring Meles Zenawi and his followers to international criminal court and to justice. They need 10,000 signatures before the United Nations and the United States will review its cause.

This is a perfect opportunity to join the I CARE Campaign and help raise awareness of the Hidden Genocide in the Ogadenia by purchasing a commemorative T-shirt. All of the shirts come in the color Black that represents the death of those innocent people who died in this Hidden Genocide with a Red Bloody hand print representing the bloodshed and killings that are still going on in the Ogadenia. On the back of this t-shirt it says “STOP the Genocide, STOP the Ethnic Cleansing, STOP the Gang Rape, STOP the Torture, STOP the Starvation, STOP the Abductions, STOP the Child Soldiers, and FREE OGADEN!” These were the words and sentiments of people from all over the Minneapolis Area who participated the parade on Sunday.

Dr. Laura Hughes, a high school teacher, said that these students hoped their actions would help stop future genocide. “I know that young people have an impact on this world especially when people see that they have an interest.” “It will raise more awareness.” “ “We should add that education in school through classroom teachings and club events would help increase knowledge about the genocide happening places like Ogadenia.”

Freshmen Amy Logan said that young people especially needed to be involved in the movement against genocide, gang rape, torture and starvation.

The three keynote speakers, of The I CARE Campaign, Franklin Kennedy, Mohamed Barrow and Barbara Johnson all stressed the need for people to be involved in stopping genocide, gang rape, and more particularly by speaking to their state representatives.

We need to encourage friends to reach out to their congress people see that their constituents care about this, they will take it seriously when genocide prevention legislature is proposed or ethnic cleansing.

More information please go to:

www.saveogaden.org or

Contact: Barbara Smith

Saveogaden1@gmail.com

1-202 – 721 -2012

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Said Hassan Ahmed
SaveOgaden.Org

Said Ahmed, Track & Field Athlete, Entrepreneur, Counselor, Community Leader

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If there is NO struggles, there is NO progress

Posted by SaveOgaden.Org On October - 4 - 2010 1 COMMENT

This is one of the most profound speeches ever given in the name of struggle and liberation. This speech given by the great slavery abolitionist Frederick Douglass on West India Emancipation in 1857 correlates with many of the struggles going on today, especially of the one in the Ogaden region today. I believe we all as a people Somali or Non-Somali, Ogaden or Non-Ogaden need to rally around each other to fight injustice anywhere and everywhere. Whether in our backyard or across the globe, we need to speak out. We need to sacrifice and we need to struggle to liberate our hearts and minds in order to really be free.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.” – Frederick Douglass

I want you all to soak in those words and imagine the dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of people that need basic necessities such as food or medicine in order to survive, but are caught in between government forces and ogaden freedom fighters. I want you to imagine those families that have had their daughters raped, their wives raped, their men hanged, their boys murdered, their elders killed, their villages burned.

I want you to just think for a moment about all of the news going around about American soldiers being put on trial for raping women and killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now imagine a country like Ethiopia, and a region like the Ogaden where there is no media and all of the non-governmental agencies and organizations are kicked out and there are no reporters or journalists allowed. Imagine if American soldiers who are under a huge scrutiny are able to commit those atrocities under that kind of microscope from the media, what do you think Ethiopian government soldiers will do in such a place where there is no media.

Media is power, and that is why this website, SaveOgaden.org was created; to spread awareness and truth. Yes Africa has been corrupted with elected dictators, but there is hope and there is chance for us all to live together in harmony and peace – but only if we work for it and not against it. Before we can think about having peace with our neighbors, we must have peace within each other. The Somali region in Ethiopia will never succeed if everybody is not on the same page to stand up for injustice. The more we condemn these acts of injustices, the more people will be willing to join the movement. Psychologically and socially people do not join causes that quickly and are somewhat hesitant, but I believe this is a noble cause, and if you believe it as well, do not hesitate to tell a friend about the horrors going on in the Ogaden.

Thank You All,

SAVEOGADEN.ORG EDITOR

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SaveOgaden.Org: Who are they anyway?

Posted by SaveOgaden.Org On October - 1 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Unfortunately many people assume one must always have a political reason to advocate for a particular issue or cause. However, what we fail to comprehend is that injustice is always injustice and that one does not even need to agree with the oppressed to know that they are being oppressed. Often times people think that the staff writers and Face Book moderators for SaveOgaden are from the Ogaden region or support the ONLF for having created this awareness platform for the Ogaden people, but that is inaccurate. SaveOgaden was created by Somali young people from the United States who then contacted people he knew cared and oppose the Meles Regime for oppressing groups of people in Ethiopia. One doesn’t even need to know much about the Ethiopian government to realize how oppressive and cruel this regime is to its own citizens let alone outsiders. It hurts me to see comments on the page by people who think we are from Ogaden, thus we care about this issue. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t hurt me that people think I am from Ogaden but rather people thinking that I must be from Ogaden to feel how I feel about this issue. Since when have we become so narrow-minded that the pain of X is not our problem because X is not from our “group?” I urge people, regardless of their faith and race, to raise awareness about the atrocious crimes carried out against the Ogaden people.
SaveOgaden.org merely aims to prepare a platform to educate and inform people about the agony of the Ogaden people. We are group of youth who cares about the world and are privileged and conscious enough to speak their mind about this injustice. I hope people will stop being narrow-minded and only oppose injustice when it afflicts their people, as Martin Luther King beautifully said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Let us be ambassadors for the oppressed and voiceless people of the Ogaden region.

I hope this shines light on what SaveOgaden is really about and emphasize that one does NOT have to be from the Ogaden region to fathom the atrocious of the Meles Regime on the Ogaden people.
I will leave you with the words of Starchild, one of the SaveOgaden.org advocates, “People generally hate hearing the truth, because once it’s given, it bestows responsibility upon the person receiving it… and extra responsibilities are seldom what we desire.” I think this is largely why a lot of people try to ignore human right crisis because they do not what to burden their souls, however there mere act of telling someone about these sort of crimes help tremendously.
Join, invite and spread the word about this group.
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Halima Ali Ahmed
SaveOgaden Staff writer.

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Shocking Sexual Violence Against Women in Ogaden

Posted by SaveOgaden.Org On February - 6 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

As it is known Ogaden is cut off from the rest of the world and unfortunately gross human rights violations that are ongoing in Ogaden committed by the Ethiopian regime is totally contrary to the human rights principles. What is even worse, this crime is being carried out with complete impunity.

As researcher Georgette Gagnon, head of Human Rights Watch in Africa told reporters the Ethiopia’s army has committed widespread atrocities, using tactics aimed at not only to defeat the rebel group (ONLF), but to collectively punish communities. As well U.S based Human Rights Watch stated that it has collected extensive evidence that confirms allegations the government in Ethiopia is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in its military campaign to crush the rebel movement in the restive Ogaden region.

The most devastating crisis among the widespread atrocities is the dismal state of womens’s rights and the women and girls in Ogaden have endured over decades of devastating grave human rights violations.

In Ogaden, there is no protection from rape and sexual assault of women and girls. The cruelty with which the sexual violence is committed by Ethiopian army in Ogaden defies all description and that goes far beyond rape according to the testimonies recently collected from the Ogaden refugees in Kenya.

The widespread use of rape in Ogaden has been a horrific reality and the victims of crimes of rape and sexual violence are stripped of every shred of their humanity. In some cases the Ethiopian army and security forces have gang raped women in public, often in front of their husbands, relatives or the wider community. In numerous cases, male relatatives are forced at gun point to rape their own mothers, sisters or daughters and it doesn’t stop there, after these traumatic events, the women and girls are either executed or kept as sex slaves.

Pregnant women, even those in the late stages of pregnancy, and breast feeding mothers are also raped. Many women have reported miscarriages as a result of gang rape.

Some cases after raping the innocent women and girls, they killed them by shooting into their genitals or putting some objects into their genitals. Those who survived the crime still suffer profound trauma as a result of this aggression, and the communities themselves are deeply offended by this practice.

The rape of women during detention with a gun bayonet aimed at destroying one of the most intimate and vulnerable aspects of the individual’s dignity and torture with breasts cut off after being raped by the Ethiopian army and security forces is a common practice in Ogaden.

The number of HIV/AIDS virus infected women and young girls due to rape by Ethiopian soldiers are countless. There are many women and girls who became pregnant due to rape and could not live within the society as this is stigma that remains in rest of their life.

In addition the rape victims are taken against their will from their homes and villages, and forced to carry supplies or munitions for the Ethiopian troops, often for many weeks and they are used as a sexual slaves. In the night they sleep without shelter from the rain or cold.

The psychological terror is extreme and those who return home, often as rape victims, struggle to reintegrate into village life and those survivors of rape and sexual violence get no access to adequate health and psycho-social support. For many there is not even a village to return to just the ashes of burned hamlets.

The Ethiopian regime uses rape as a weapon of war. These women and girls are being attacked not only to dehumanize them, but also to humiliate, punish, control, inflict fear upon, displace and persecute the innocent civilians in Ogaden. The Ethiopian security forces are using systematic rape of Ogaden women and girls as young as eight to subjugate the Ogaden population and many relatives of political opponents were raped by the Ethiopian security forces as a form of revenge.

As some international humanitarian organizations and local human rights groups consistently reported that the number of unreported rapes is much more greater than those reported by the international organizations and many women hide the fact of being raped in the prison or outside prison due to fear of reprisals of Ethiopian soldiers and the cultural taboo connected to the act of rape, which prevented many women from openly discussing these violations.

Despite the extensive reports and systematic cruelty of evidence of rape and sexual violence and other serious human rights violations indicating crimes against humanity committed by the Ethiopian regime with complete impunity, the United Nations has undertaken no investigations to bring the perpetrators to justice and the donors of Ethiopia seem to maintain a conspiracy of silence about those crimes against huminty in Ogaden as head of Human Rights Watch in Africa, Georgette Gagnon said.

There is absolutely no execuse for lack of evidence to take an action and protect defenseless innocent civilians from indisriminate rape and sexual violence. However, the international community spotlight has seemingly overlooked the plight of the Ogaden people and lacks political will to response to the overwhelming evidence about the alleged human rights violations in Ogaden particulary the sexual voilence against women and in general the widespread atrocities.

We, Ogaden nationals around the world are deeply worry about the systematic human rigts abuses carried out with impunity in Ogaden and we believe it is the moral and legal obligations of the international community to promptly and vigorously act on those grave allegations and put pressure on the Ethiopian regime to respect fundamental human rights norms.

We welcome ambassador Donald Booth’s recent comments and we understand that the United States has a valuable interest in the Horn of Africa, however it is fundamental importance to ensure that the United States demonstrates a commitment to human rights and justice in the Horn of Africa. As well the United States, UN and EU should put effective pressure on the Ethiopian regime to rein in the Ethiopian troops and to halt the human rights abuses in Ogaden.

In the meantime, international community should undertake a political negotiations aimed at ending the crisis in Ogaden as a factor of lasting peace, security and stability in the Horn of Africa.

By Ahmed Ali
February 04, 2010
ahjack72@yahoo.com

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Ahmed Ali is a contributor to SaveOgaden.org

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