Opposing Genocide in the Ogaden Region of Ethiopia

MINNEAPOLIS, JANUARY 23 --

Outside the Radisson City Center hotel, hundreds of Somali people protested and drew attention to a visit by Abdi Mohamud Omar, president of the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. They demanded that human rights abuses under Omar's growing military end, while raising awareness of the US' unquestioning military aid to Ethiopia.

The Ogaden region is a place of decades-long conflict, home to nomadic Somali people and occupied by the Ethiopian military. Both the Ogaden National Liberation Front and the military are accused of human rights abuses against civilians in the region by Human Rights Watch(1) -- hangings, setting makeshift villages on fire, systemic rape as a tool of warfare, hording the food aid from the UN and NGO's in the middle of droughts, demanding that men become soldiers in order to access food and water.

The government shuts down basic aid operations as soon as they're suspected of providing material aid to the rebels.(2) Always the threat of invisible rebels lurks in the countryside patrolled by soldiers, who use any excuse to collectively punish civilians and refugees.

According to the Ogaden National Liberation Front, "In 1981 the Organisation of African Unity committee mediating between Somalia and Ethiopia regarding the conflict in the Ogaden declared that the Ogaden is part of Ethiopia. That decision was based on the 1964 resolution of the OAU promulgated in Cairo regarding the sanctity of the African borders left by colonialism. That unjust resolution in no way took into account the aspirations of the people of Ogaden and wrongly portrayed the Ogaden conflict as a border dispute between two States when it is infact a conflict borne from the desire of the Ogaden people for self-determination." (5)

The pattern of violence is very similar to that of the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. But if there is a genocidal crisis in Ogaden, why is it not the subject of US Presidential addresses, as Darfur was even in the Bush administration? Why is it not in the news? Where are the divestment campaigns for Ethiopia? Why does the Genocide Intervention Network not list Ogaden among its areas for concern?(3) Why do we learn of actions to take regarding Darfur, but not Ogaden, when we call the Genocide Intervention Network's youth-driven hotline, 1-800-GENOCIDE?

According to the 2007 Human Rights Watch testimony on Ethiopia and the state of democracy, "the crisis in Ogaden is linked to a US-supported military intervention by Ethiopia in Somalia that has been justified in terms of counter terrorism. Because the United States has until now supported Ethiopia so closely, there is a widespread and growing sentiment in the region that the United States also shares some of the blame for the Ethiopian military's abusive conduct."

Their testimony to the US' House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health called

Ethiopian security forces "among the most abusive on the continent." Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. Is this not enough magnitude of violence to merit our action?

The US government has investigated and listened to some of the protesters, here among the highest concentration of Somali people outside Somalia, in Minnesota. But our representatives seem unsure of what to actually do. One of the organizers, Sadiq, said that they're grateful for Senators Klobuchar & Franken & their attempts to keep President Omar out of the country and away from Minnesota. Regardless, Omar arrived at the hotel and kept his purposes from the press.

But his presence, and his regime's guilt, were all too evident amid the chanting crowds downtown on Sunday.

Is it time to divest from Ethiopia? Is this the year to reduce their military aid, this year that began with the surprising announcement that the Obama administration would cut the defense budget for the first time since the Cold War? (4)

1) http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2007/10/01/ethiopia-and-state-democracy-effects-human-rights-and-humanitarian-conditions-ogaden

2) http://www.ogadennet.com/news.php?readmore=1556

3)http://www.genocideintervention.net/educate/crisis

4)http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/06/AR2011010603628.html

5) http://www.onlf.org/news.php

UPDATE: War Powers addressed at University of St. Thomas Law

On October 7, students and community members gathered for the Journal of Law and Public Policy Forum on Presidential Powers at University of St. Thomas Law School.
A report from Tackling Torture at the Top and Colleen Rowley:

There was a protester presence the entire day, and two separate rallies during the day. In addition 10 or 11 T3 supporters went in to hear the symposium. Also inside were 30 Delahunty students apparently assigned to come, and around 30 students who looked in or stopped in passing, up in the balcony area.
The symposium was tightly controlled. At the door, attendees were told they couldn't even carry a single flyer in. All questions were handed in and only one question from T3 was selected (that only happened because of T3 insistence).
There were five speakers arguing that presidential powers override all other branches of government and one speaker opposed, but she was not given an opportunity to debate the other speakers. Three were solidly pro-presidential powers (Yoo, Delahunty, and Stokes-Paulsen), while one (Amar) claimed to be a proponent of “Unitary Executive” but only spoke on the President’s power to fire agency heads. He disagreed on some details with his former student, John Yoo. Amar was also one who admitted the war on terror is PERMANENT.
And then Kitrosser argued, in her separate half-hour, for some restraints on illegal actions of a President, while Schultz seemed to be against the extreme ramifications of the theory of presidential power. He confined his remarks to the political analysis of how Obama had not departed from Bush’s stances and therefore had not played to his own base of support which in Schultz’s view was not going to serve him well in the upcoming elections.
The issue of torture was not specifically mentioned in relation to executive branch power.

Complicit in Torture: University of St. Thomas defends its star Law Professor

Law students headed to class Monday morning at the University of St. Thomas School of Torture-- so called by anti-torture activists waiting outside.

At 10:30 am on August 30, Professor Robert Delahunty taught his first class of the school year at the School of Law, but not without facing the protesters on his way to work. An activist group called Tackling Torture at the Top was there to educate the public about Delahunty's role in the Bush administration, paving the way for CIA and military torture as a tool against terrorists.

See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_rwq6-Pc8Y

Delahunty, as a member of the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote legal memos supporting presidential war powers under the Constitution is a higher law than any treaty, intimating that the president can use his Constitutional war powers to override treaties.
"As the Nation's representative in foreign affairs, the President has a variety of constitutional powers with respect to treaties, including the powers to suspend them, withhold performance of them, contravene them or terminate them."

-Yoo and Delahunty, Application of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees.

His legal opinion denies that the Geneva Conventions apply to non-state actors or enemy combatants. His legal memos built upon other legal decisions and memos, and they in turn were expanded upon by the John Yoo/Jay Bybee legal memos. Those explicitly permitted torture and water-boarding by redefining torture as anything that pushes the body to organ failure or death.

For a physical act to constitute torture, "It must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure."
-Bybee, Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 USC SS 2340-2340A
After the Obama administration released the "torture memos" for the world to see in April 2009, anti-torture activists and law students alike read them in horror. Thousands of Americans pressed Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute the officials who allowed for torture, through petitions, calls and demonstrations. However, the Obama administration would not go forward with prosecutions, claiming that they had to "look forward" and not back.

As the T3 activists waved their flags outside the law school, they talked to several passers-by who expressed their familiarity with the torture memos.

The activists have brought their concerns to Delahunty as well as to the University of St. Thomas' Law School Dean Mengler and its Board of Governors.

Delahunty went by without comment, today as usual, but the Board of Governors did respond to the group's complaints and letters and protests of the past few years. Last week, the Chair of the University Law School's Board of Governors, Laurence Fl LeJeune, wrote to the group with full awareness of the controversy around Delahunty, and in full support of him as a law professor at this Catholic, ethics-centered University.

Mr. LeJeune noted that they have been very well advised by Dean Dr. Mengler and others of the facts about Delahunty and they are very satisfied with him as an employee. As has been noted by Dean Mengler, they feel that Delahunty has served "four presidential administrations, and other institutions with distinction. His impressive academic and professional record can be found on the School of Law website.” He noted too how "the graduating class of 2010 selected Professor Delahunty as its Professor of the Year - for his excellence as a teacher and scholar, and for the many ways in which he works with and supports our students."

Individuals on the Law School Board of Trustees have also been contacted. Neither the Board of Governors nor the Board of Trustees will meet with T3. These individuals influence not only the University but the larger community and economy as well: among the highest paid CEO's in Minnesota in 2008 were two UST Board of Trustees members. The Star Tribune then listed Stephen Hemsley of United Health Group as 5th highest paid, and George Buckley of 3M as 13th highest paid.