Site Name

Press Release : Ogaden National Liberation Front
 
Oil Exploration in the Ogaden
 
The Ogaden National Liberation Front has ascertained that certain multinational Oil corporations are intent on exploiting Ogaden fossil fuel resources in alliance with the current Ethiopian regime that is committing genocide and War Crimes in Ogaden. Currently certain companies are clearing of all vegetation an area equal to 1600 sq. Km. in Cagarweyne and Miir-Khalif near Wardheer, displacing thousands of the nomadic population and destroying the scarce vegetation in a vulnerable ecology. Besides destroying the livelihood of the rural population in the affected areas, these companies are filling the coffers of this regime and financing its criminal activities in occupied Ogaden. This in turn has encouraged the regime of Meles Zenawi to undertake a scorched earth policy in the Ogaden and commit genocide in the Ogaden. The sites these companies operate at are guarded by mechanised Ethiopian Army troops who make fortifications and forcefully evict the local population by killings, rape, detention and destruction of property. Thus these companies are accomplices to the Ethiopian regimes crimes and are directly involved in the on-going genocide in the Ogaden.
 
Fur thermore, in order to accommodate these immoral and gluttonous rushes for Oil in Ogaden, Ethiopia killed, raped and illegally detained thousands of Ogaden civilian and imposed economic and aid blockade at a time of when there was a full blown draught in the Ogaden.
 
Ethiopia is violating both International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Ogaden. These rights had been enshrined in the UN Charter and international laws since the end of World War II and have benefited many colonised and oppressed nations of the world; however, they have deliberately been deprived of the Ogaden people. Today Ethiopia is denying the Ogaden people their right to life and development while both the UN and the AU are turning a blind eye. Furthermore the current regime in Ethiopia is bent on further usurping their natural resources, and these multi-national companies are party to this heinous crime perpetrated against a colonised stateless people.
 
Since ONLF has persistently warned these unscrupulous multinational companies and their governments, it is very clear that they are not only manifestly disregarding the plight of the Ogaden people but are actively participating in the violation of the Human and Political rights of the Ogaden people, the Ogaden National Liberation Front has been left no alternative but to take all measures necessary to protect the inalienable righ ts of the Ogaden people.