A Vindictive Story 

By Tesfaw Belete  December 27, 2007

The article titled “In rebel region, Ethiopia turns to civilian patrols” by Geoffrey Gettleman which appeared in the New York Times on December 14, 2007 is another vindictive article by the amateur journalist to stain the image of a proud nation on a democratic path. Perhaps, this is an article instigated by such  terrorist camps as the Eritrean Peoples' Liberation Front (EPLF) and their surrogates the Islamic Courts Union who did not succeed to emerge winners in Mogadishu about a year ago and are now campaigning to create discord and to tarnish the democratic process  going on in Ethiopia.

They have now found a disgruntled journalist in the name of Gettleman who tried to champion the cause of the Islamic Courts about one year ago but ended up in the hands of the Ethiopian Forces along with the prisoners of the Union before being released after three days of captivity.

The truth of the matter is that the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a splinter group, has been in existence for over two decades with different names.  Its fortune has been ebbing and waning with the forces of the terrorists in that part of Eastern Ethiopia. It carried out clandestine operations in collaboration with Al Ithad Al Islamic about a decade ago. Its forces were weakened and did not emerge until the Islamic Courts Union surged into power about one and half years back. When the Union forces were dissipated in Somalia, it emerged again as a proxy for the Eriterean terrorists as has been confirmed time and again by the United Nations. Now they have succeeded by some freak of destiny to find a spokesman by the name of Geoffrey Gettleman.

That the ONLF has been rejected by the elders and people of the Somali Region of Ethiopia has been confirmed time and again. That is why it has not grown to be a force (except a terrorist force) since its existence. Unlike what Gettleman tries to tell the world and distorts the prevailing situation, this part of the country is a region under the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. It is undergoing rapid transformation and will very soon be at the same level of social and economic development like the rest of the country. Doomsday is for the terrorist organizations and not for the Ethiopian Somalis. The Ethiopian Somalis are striving to extricate  their people out of poverty and develop the immense untouched resources there. No force whatsoever can divide them from their Ethiopian brothers and will exploit their riches in unison.

It is not new that the intervention of foreign forces creates problems to a nation as has been amply demonstrated in Darfur. The rebels in Darfur were the creation of the Eriterean rogue  government to destabilize the Sudan. In the same token, the EPLF has been saying repeatedly that the Horn will be in turmoil and thus found the ONLF to do its dirty task of destabilizing. Gettleman is the one blowing the trumpet.

The whole purpose of the article is to mislead world opinion that a crisis is looming in the eastern part of Ethiopia and that the ONLF is a genuine group instead of a terrorist one. Africans are accustomed to this kind of ploy where a certain group are categorized as genuine  to divide and to simply represent the interests of foreign parties. Gettleman is the spokesman of this divisive and ignoble group. There is an Ethiopian saying which says, “Mr. Hyena,find excuses, don't eat me without excuses.”

Ethiopia has adequate forces to destroy internal terrorists and need not revert to mobilizing civilians. Let alone in its own soil, it has been able to deploy its forces in other African countries to bring about peace and stability. Gettleman is better advised to get the facts and figures from the continental organization, African Union, instead of writing gibberish stories in an esteemed paper as the New York Times.