Medeshi 24 Aug, 2008Hargeisa, Somaliland - Moktar Cadre has a large scar across the right side of his face and neck from burns that he sustained after Ethiopian police came looking for his father and set fire to his house while he was still inside. Four months later, the 37-year-old farmer fled his native Oromia province to Somaliland, a de facto independent republic that is unrecognized internationally.
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In Somaliland, Cadre, whose father had been a supporter of a militant separatist group, expected a respite from a three-decade civil conflict between Oromo rebels and the Ethiopian military. Instead, he and an estimated 3,000 other displaced Oromos deemed rebel sympathizers by Ethiopian authorities have encountered a new set of daunting challenges.
Each month, some 200 Oromos arrive in Somaliland, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), creating increasing tension in a clan-based state suffering from a 70 percent unemployment rate.
Along the dusty streets of the capital city of Hargeisa, Oromo children beg for food and spare change, while their parents toil at such menial jobs as hauling trash, cleaning toilets and working as domestics. Many Oromos worry about being kidnapped by Ethiopia's Secret Service, which has been reported to be active in Somaliland and paying off corrupt police to avoid deportation.
As a result, many are virtual prisoners in a sprawling camp where they live with destitute locals and displaced Somalis, who have fled their own conflict between Islamists, clan militias and a weak transitional government.
"If my future was in Hargeisa, I'd kill myself," Cadre said. "People here always insult us, call us bad names and tell us to go back. I have no freedom."
On most days, Cadre and other Oromos have little to do other than sit under a hot desert sun, boil rice over a charcoal fire and swat swarms of flies. At night, they cram into squalid tents comprised of old blankets, tarps and pieces of cardboard.
"We had such a better life over there (Ethiopia)," said Ashrata, 23, whose farmer husband now hauls garbage to provide food for their of family of three. "
Images View Larger Images
In Somaliland, Cadre, whose father had been a supporter of a militant separatist group, expected a respite from a three-decade civil conflict between Oromo rebels and the Ethiopian military. Instead, he and an estimated 3,000 other displaced Oromos deemed rebel sympathizers by Ethiopian authorities have encountered a new set of daunting challenges.
Each month, some 200 Oromos arrive in Somaliland, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), creating increasing tension in a clan-based state suffering from a 70 percent unemployment rate.
Along the dusty streets of the capital city of Hargeisa, Oromo children beg for food and spare change, while their parents toil at such menial jobs as hauling trash, cleaning toilets and working as domestics. Many Oromos worry about being kidnapped by Ethiopia's Secret Service, which has been reported to be active in Somaliland and paying off corrupt police to avoid deportation.
As a result, many are virtual prisoners in a sprawling camp where they live with destitute locals and displaced Somalis, who have fled their own conflict between Islamists, clan militias and a weak transitional government.
"If my future was in Hargeisa, I'd kill myself," Cadre said. "People here always insult us, call us bad names and tell us to go back. I have no freedom."
On most days, Cadre and other Oromos have little to do other than sit under a hot desert sun, boil rice over a charcoal fire and swat swarms of flies. At night, they cram into squalid tents comprised of old blankets, tarps and pieces of cardboard.
"We had such a better life over there (Ethiopia)," said Ashrata, 23, whose farmer husband now hauls garbage to provide food for their of family of three. "
We had property. It was our native land," she said.The conflict in the province of Oromia, perhaps the most obscure of Ethiopia's internal and regional rebellions, is rife with accounts by human rights groups of arbitrary detention, political repression and rebellion. The struggle shows no sign of ending since Prime Minister Meles Zenawi assumed power 17 years ago.
After unilaterally declaring independence from Somalia in 1991, Somaliland has become the favorite destination for Oromos escaping the turmoil. In recent years, however, Somaliland officials have begun to show a thinning patience for the refugees, who they say come for economic reasons.
"Most of Ethiopia is at peace, so they always make up reasons to get asylum so that they can have better lives in different places," said Somaliland President Rayale Kahin. "It's a burden on us because our people have no jobs, but we are tolerant."
But securing asylum while living in an unrecognized country is no easy task. With the exception of Canada, no other nation has been willing to give the Oromos asylum. Recently, Moktar and 55 other Oromos were given permission to resettle in Canada by the end of the year.
"Canada works closely with the UNHCR to determine where to place our humanitarian efforts ... where resettlement spots are most urgently needed," said Karen Shadd, a spokeswoman for Canada's Citizenship and Immigration department in a recent e-mail.
In the U.S. Congress, some lawmakers are working to pressure the Ethiopian government to curb its human rights abuses against the Oromos and others. Last year, the House passed the "Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act sponsored by Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J. If it passes the Senate and is signed by the president, the law would withhold U.S. aid from Ethiopia until it implements human rights reforms.
Abdi, a 22-year-old farmer, says he was only 14 when first arrested on suspicion of paying students at his school to support the Oromo Liberation Front, an outlawed separatist organization. Abdi says he was incarcerated for nine months without warrant or trial.
"The first month was the worst," he said, as he lifted his shirt to reveal a series of scars on his back that were made by beatings with tree branches. "They told me, 'You're going to die here.' "
Abdi was eventually released, but after narrowly escaping a second arrest four years later, he said goodbye to his wife, mother and children and left for Somaliland.
In its defense, the Ethiopian government insists international rights organizations are spreading politically motivated lies.
"People must be out of their minds to accuse this government," said Bereket Simeon, special adviser to Prime Minister Meles. "This is a constitutionally led country where human rights based on international conventions are respected."
In the meantime, Abdi recently returned to Ethiopia to see his children.
"I love to see him, but he can't stay. It's too dangerous for him," said his mother, a soft-spoken woman named Fatuma, as her grandchildren climbed on their father's shoulders in a dusty mud house in the hills. "I wish he could."
THE OROMOS
The Oromos are the single largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, whose 25 million people comprise about 32 percent of the nation's 75 million inhabitants. They are indigenous to the nation's west and southwestern regions and speak Afaan Oromoo, which is also called Oromiffa. They are mostly Muslims and Christians.
Since being forcibly incorporated into the Amhara-dominated Ethiopian empire at the end of the 19th century, the Omoros have had an antagonistic relationship with country rulers, who have made repeated attempts to suppress their culture.
The Oromo Liberation Front, the embodiment of Oromo resistance, was formed in 1973 and has continued, although in a weakened state, ever since. In 2008, U.S. immigration and counterterrorism agencies described them as an "undesignated terrorist organization."
But Demeksa Bulcha, a member of the Ethiopian Parliament and chairman of Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, one of three official political parties that represent Oromo interests, says the Ethiopian government uses the Oromo Liberation Front as an excuse to tighten its political grip.
"All the government has to do is say you're a supporter of the OLF and you can be imprisoned," Bulcha said.
Critics say the United States has remained mostly silent on the issue of human rights abuses in Ethiopia. Instead, the Bush administration has embraced Prime Minister Meles Zenawi as its best option to oppose the spread of militant Islam in Africa's volatile Horn of Africa. Relations between the United States and Ethiopia strengthened after the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia at the end of 2006 to counter the Council of Islamic Courts, a Somali political party with suspected ties to al Qaeda.
- Matthew Stein
SOMALILAND
Somaliland has been a self-declared independent republic since the Somali Nationalist Movement liberated the region from then-Somali strongman, Mohamed Siad Barre, in 1991.
Somaliland is bordered by Ethiopia in the south and west, Djibouti in the northwest, the Gulf of Aden in the north, and two other de facto independent Somali territories in the east - Maakhir and Northland.
Since declaring independence, Somaliland has drafted a secular Constitution, held three democratic elections and secured stable borders with its neighbors. Its government has been described as a power-sharing coalition of Somaliland's main clans.
The fear that international recognition of Somaliland's government could embolden other secessionist movements in the Horn of Africa has impeded foreign investment and multilateral assistance. As a result, Somaliland suffers from a 70 percent unemployment rate and a lack of many social services.
Matthew Stein
