Genocide Watch
The International Campaign to End Genocide
Letter to Justice Navanathem Pillay, U.N. High
Commissioner for Human Rights
March 3, 2010
“Let us kill them all! From today forward there will be
no Anuak! There will be no more Anuak land! No one will
arrest us! Erase the trouble makers!”
(Slogans shouted by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary
Defense Front Forces [EPRDF] and Highlander militias
during the killing of Anuak in Gambella, Ethiopia,
December 13-16, 2003 from eye-witness testimonies of
survivors)
Petitions Team
Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights UNOG-OHCHR
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Dear Madam High Commissioner,
No one has ever been brought to justice in Ethiopia for
the massacre of 424 Anuak in Gambella, Ethiopia on
December 13-16, 2003, and genocidal massacres that
killed one thousand more Anuak in 2004. Investigations
by Genocide Watch in early 2004 revealed the Ethiopian
government’s planning, execution and cover-up of these
massacres. Please see the following link for the Anuak
Genocide Evidence.
Anauak Genocide Evidence
. Since then, the Ethiopian government, under Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi, has continued to commit more
crimes against humanity throughout Ethiopia and in
Somalia. The killings in the Ogaden are genocidal. A
culture of impunity exists. Investigation by the High
Commissioner for Human Rights is critical.
This letter is a follow up to Genocide Watch’s March
2009 letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, asking for a full investigation into the
Ethiopian government’s complicity in widespread crimes
against humanity. We have never received a reply to that
letter.
We are particularly concerned with the use of starvation
and the blocking of food and other humanitarian aid to
the Ogaden region of Ethiopia that is now inaccessible
to anyone but the Ethiopian Defense Forces. Human rights
investigators and journalists indicate that the
Ethiopian government is using indiscriminate terror
against civilians in response to an insurgency movement
in the Ogaden.
We believe these past violations and ongoing concerns
provide justification for swift investigation by the
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. No
legal investigations are being pursued within Ethiopia.
Exacerbating the risk of widespread abuses is the
passage of new repressive laws in Ethiopia that
criminalize the work of human rights defenders.
We recommend specific investigation of persons named as
planners of the Gambella massacres in a secret 16-page
memo in Amharic obtained in the week following the 2003
massacre from the office of Omot Obang Olom, current
Governor of Gambella Province:
“…meeting on September 24, 2003 in Addis Ababa in the
office of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The
Prime Minister was there, along with the Vice
Prime Ministe; Addisu Legesse, Sebhat Nega,senior TPLF
official, Information Mminister, Bereket Simon, Chief
of Gambella Security, Omot Obang Olom, Head of Federal
Security; Alemayheu or Almeu Almeru, Minister of Federal
Affairs; Abay Tsehaye, Chief of Staff of the Ethiopian
Armed Forces, Samora (Mohamed)Yunis, Chief of Military
Intelligence, Brigadier General, Yohannes Gebre Meskel
and Minister of Defense, Abadula Gemeda.
They met to discuss security issues in Gambella…. It was
at this meeting that plans began for the massacre
of December 13, 2003… It was in the third week of
November that a list was compiled by Omot Obang Olom
of those Anuak to be targeted. The first list contained
five hundred and twelve Anuak names, which probably was
longer by December 13th. Some of the Anuak in
prison in Addis and some of those in prison in Gambella
were on the list.”
According to testimony obtained in Genocide Watch’s two
human rights investigations in 2004, the targeting of
the Anuak was ordered by the High Commander in Chief
of the Ethiopian army in Gambella, Tsegaye Beyene,
with the direct authorization of Dr. Gebre-ab
Barnabas, an official of the Ethiopian government’s
Ministry of Federal Affairs. The Chief of Police,
Tadesse Haile Selassie, was also involved in
carrying out the orders. Please see appendix I: for
list of names of Alleged Police Perpetrators Identified
by Federal government of Ethiopia Evaluation on 2 August
2004.
At the time of the 2003 Anuak massacres, the obvious
motivation for displacement of the Anuak was exploration
for oil by Chinese petroleum companies. There is now
evidence that the Ethiopian government’s plan for
expropriation of Anuak and other groups’ land is much
larger.
Since the 1974 takeover of Ethiopia by the
Marxist-Leninist Mengistu regime, all land has been the
property of the state. Land ownership has never been
returned to the people who have farmed it for many
generations.
In the past month, contracts have been signed granting
99 -year leases to huge tracts of Anuak land to Chinese,
Indian, and Japanese companies for agricultural
production. The leases are being granted for as little
as one dollar per hectare, with all the money going
directly to officials of the Meles Zenawi government.
Signing ceremonies for these leases have included no
Anuak. Meles Zenawi has become one of the richest
dictators in the world.
Gambella province, the Anuak peoples’ homeland, has very
fertile soil and abundant rainfall. The Anuak are being
moved off their land. Similar “land-grabs” are also
being executed in many other areas of the Ethiopia.
Deportation or forcible transfer of a population and
persecution of any group on political, racial, ethnic,
cultural, or religious grounds are crimes against
humanity outlawed by Article 7 of the Rome Statute of
the International Criminal Court. We call on the Office
of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to take action
to protect Ethiopians from a government which has not
only violated its responsibility to protect, but is
terrorizing its own people.
As one Anuak woman concluded in her testimony regarding
the brutal murder of her husband by Ethiopian defense
forces: “Why are the other human beings in this world
not doing anything to stop these people and bring
them to justice?
Will the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights investigate Ethiopian officials for crimes
against humanity? Will the leasing of vast swaths of
Ethiopian land to foreign corporations and forced
displacement of Ethiopia’s farmers be stopped? Above
all, will Ethiopia's most powerful politicians ever be
brought to justice for their crimes?
We look forward to your response.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Gregory Stanton
President of Genocide Watch
P.O. Box 809
Washington, D.C. 20044 USA
E-mail:
genocidewatch@aol.com
Web:
www.genocidewatch.org
Appendix I:
An evaluation of police personnel undertaken by the
Federal government of Ethiopia in a special meeting in
Gambella town on 2 August 2004 identified the following
policemen and individuals as being involved in the
massacres of the Anuak in Gambella town from December
13-16, 2003. These individuals were neither suspended
nor arrested.
NAME
RANK JOB
AREA / BUREAU
1. Abesse Miressa Assistant
Inspector administration/finance of
commission
2. Akililu Sekata
“ detective
department head
3. Teshome Kaba
“ detective
officer
4. Negatu Ingida
Sergeant protocol
office of commissioner
5. Abebe Thasow
“ protocol
department head
6. Athegu Girmay
“ radio operator
7. Geremu Werji
“ intelligence
8. Mammed Kassa
Inspector planner
9. Demisse Balcha team
leader development section clerk
10. Shibiru Regaga
policeman detective
11. Mulata Tholossa
“
“
12. Getachew Demisse “
“
13. Abara Bekele
“ “
14. Ashenaffi Tadessa “
Jikaw District
inspection head
15. Befikadu Assefa team
leader statistician
16. Kedir Ali
policeman Dima District
detective office
17. Kabede Indale “
Gambella town
police detective
18. Tadesse Haile Selassie “
police commander
19. Kabede Tekissa “
traffic police
20. Tadele Ayele “
accountant of
police commissioner
21. Girma Ligdi “
intelligence
22. Girma Terefe
“
intelligence
23. Dubale Tesama
“ traffic
police
24. Adino Legessa
“ store keeper
25. Gebayu Ahdissa team
leader cashier
26. Ayle Tadessa
policeman narcotics expert
27. Wandimu Feissa team
leader intelligence
28. Indale Jeleta
policeman administrator
29. Kenessa Chawaka
“ traffic police
30. Meskale Dicha “
detective
31. Shibiru Shreta
“ detective
32. Kaunda _____
Sergeant health aid of
police
33. Makonen _____
policeman
intelligence
