The Government of Ethiopia has decided to make public the results of an investigation into the allegations made by Human Rights Watch in a Report of June 2008 entitled “Collective Punishment: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia’s Somali Region.” This is just one of several reports that HRW has written about Ethiopia in recent years, using inflammatory language apparently intended to attract international attention but relying on hearsay and secondary sources to make extensive accusations. In this case, to increase the drama, HRW claimed the use of satellite imagery could demonstrate responsibility for burning villages.   

Despite the Government’s conviction that the allegations were unfounded and that Human Rights Watch’s methodology was seriously faulty, it decided to undertake a detailed investigation of its  claims on the ground. The Government is fully aware of its accountability to the people of Ethiopia. Allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity cannot be taken lightly; equally, the Government, as always, remains determined to take immediate corrective measures should they prove to have any factual basis. 

The investigation was carried out by an independent team which visited the Somali Regional State in August and September. The investigation team carried out dozens of interviews in towns and villages through the region, visiting virtually all of the areas and places mentioned by HRW. They interviewed residents and clan elders, local officials, NGO personnel, members of the security forces, the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, prison inmates, and former members of the Ogaden National Liberation Front 

They found villages untouched that HRW alleged were burnt by the ENDF; others, according to former residents, were burnt by the ONLF whose terrorist activities HRW hardly notices. Former ONLF members confirmed this was ONLF policy; HRW, however, opts to accuse the Ethiopian government instead. Supposedly relocated populations were found in their original homes. People, alleged seen tortured and killed, were found alive and well. Villagers and elders alike denied allegations of extra-judicial killings, rape or torture by the security forces. The investigation did find one case of torture: the officer responsible had immediately been court-martialed. No evidence could be found of forcible recruitment into the militia; no evidence of mass detentions could be seen in any prison throughout the region. There was no sign of any “economic war”. However, the Government had successfully limited the flow of illegal weaponry and contraband last year by designating specific border crossing points to control smuggling. 

In fact, the on-the-ground investigation found no trace of serious human rights violation let alone war crimes or crimes against humanity during the security measures taken against the ONLF following the slaughter of over seventy workers in April last year. It did, however, find a mass of evidence of further systematic abuses committed by the ONLF. 

The investigation demonstrated clearly that HRW, perhaps unwittingly, had allowed itself to be used as a propaganda tool by the ONLF, a terrorist organization which it has clearly romanticized. It found that HRW’s report was crammed with fabrication and misrepresentation, exaggeration and misinterpretation. The Government of Ethiopia believes all this could have been avoided if HRW had made any serious effort to understand the realities of the situation in the region, and if it had been prepared to work in good faith with the Government to ascertain the facts for itself rather than rely on claims by ONLF supporters outside the region. HRW completely failed to use first-hand, on-the-ground, evidence. Its conduct in the production and dissemination of this report amounts to a virtual betrayal of its own mandate and vision. 

The Government hopes the results of this investigation will encourage HRW to reconsider its methodology and re-commit itself to the necessity of basing its work on verifiable fact, not on hearsay. The Government of Ethiopia is reluctant to ascribe HRW’s failures to malevolence or malice despite its refusal in this and other reports to reflect the reality of human rights progress in Ethiopia. The Government is convinced it should be possible to have a meaningful relationship with HRW, even perhaps collaboration. It now believes HRW should aim for the sort of balanced and constructive engagement it has resolutely rejected in the past. 

The full text  of the investigation, including detailed testimony, are available on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website:

http://www.mfa.gov.et/Press_Section/Flawed_Methodology_Unsubstantiated_Allegations.pdf     

From the Office of the Spokesperson, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

November 26, 2008