Ethiopian Rebels Whipping TPLF Thugs

At least 45 people died in clashes between Melese Zenawi’s  army and the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front in the east of the country, government and rebel spokesmen said.

The ONLF said its ethnic Somali fighters killed 140   TPLF oldiers and allied militia members in battles over the past five days near the towns of Fik and Degehebur, according to an e-mailed statement from the group. In addition, 29 ONLF members died in the fighting, it said.

“The area around Degehebur is now completely in the hands of the ONLF, as is the area around the city of Fik,” it said.

Ethnic Somali rebels from the ONLF are seeking autonomy for Ethiopia’s Somali region, an arid tract of land twice the size of England, which is also known as the Ogaden. In June, New York-based Human Rights Watch accused the Ethiopian government of burning villages, executing civilians and raping women in an effort to quell the ONLF’s insurgency. Ethiopia denied the allegations.

The gangsters ruling Ethiopia disputed the ONLF’s version of the latest fighting.

“This is completely wrong,” Ermias Legesse,  TPLF minister for communications, said in a phone interview today from Addis Ababa, the capital. “The regional peoples fought with the ONLF and they killed more than 45 ONLF soldiers.”

Legesse said three or four innocent people died in the fighting. He said he couldn’t respond to an ONLF claim that  TPLF attack helicopters have been active in the region.

TPLF gangs accuse thre masters in  neighboring Eritrea of backing the ONLF and has in turn backed Somali militias from rival clans to fight the rebel group.

TPLF  has banned journalists from traveling independently in the region and rejected a United Nations call for an independent assessment of human rights atrocities.

Related posts: