Addis Ababa, May 6, 2008-
The Government of Ethiopia categorically rejects the allegations of
Amnesty International that Ethiopian troops in Somalia have killed
people by slitting their throats “like goats”, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (MoFA) said.
"This is an outright, and deliberate,
lie, fed to Amnesty by groups affiliated to Al-Shabaab, groups that use
the cover of human rights to promote their terrorist agenda," the
Ministry said in a press statement it sent to ENA on Tuesday.
We
must deplore that one of the world’s most prominent human rights
organizations should descend to the level of publicizing deliberately
invented stories about the activities of Ethiopian troops, it added.
We
deeply regret that Amnesty International has lent itself to an
obviously transparent and disgraceful smear campaign against the armed
forces of Ethiopia, using highly emotive, even racist, language,
language that it would not and has not used outside of Africa.
Amnesty
International’s latest report deliberately avoids any mention of
terrorist groups, the statement said, and added, indeed, it appears to
have escaped Amnesty’s attention that Al-Shabaab has been declared a
terrorist organization.
“Amnesty devotes most of the report to fabricated allegations against Ethiopia and its armed forces. “
It
[Amnesty International] purposefully ignores the widespread violations
of human rights committed by Al-Shabaab whose signature activities
include a widespread campaign of murder and targeted assassination of
political and religious leaders, a deliberate and admitted disregard
for civilian life in its operations, the desecration of dead bodies and
the cutting of throats of Muslim clerics who oppose it, as at the Al
Hidaya mosque only two weeks ago.
In this situation Amnesty International deliberately ignores all mention of these atrocities, the statement said.
This
report has been published at a time when Al-Shabaab is finally on the
run in Mogadishu and elsewhere in Somalia, the statement said ,adding,
yet it is at this juncture that Amnesty appears to be engaged in
efforts to assist in the recruitment of Al-Shabaab terrorists by
deliberately inciting hatred and animosity based on lies and fabricated
stories from Al-Shabaab affiliated sources.
All serious
observers of Somalia accept that there is a real “window of
opportunity” for the Somali peace process, a process substantially
brought about by Ethiopia’s successful military backing for the TFG.
This
will be demonstrated in two weeks time when the representatives of the
TFG and of the opposition hold preliminary talks in Djibouti, it said.
The
peace process does, of course, have enemies, notably among terrorist
groups. These enemies now apparently include Amnesty International, the
statement added.
The Government of Ethiopia rejects
absolutely the allegations of Amnesty International, an organization
which has a long record of refusing to respond to our criticisms of its
reports, and of its uncritical use of sources which have their own, all
too obvious, agenda.
Ethiopian troops are
well-disciplined. They are educated in, and committed to, the
principles of human rights, to the protection of civilians in conflict
areas and the implementation of international humanitarian law the
statement underlined.
They have proved this time and
again in a wide variety of situations in Somalia and in UN peacekeeping
operations around the world, it said.
Source:ENA