"Business" at It's Worst: War Crimes in Somalia

Human Rights Watch has recently published "So Much to Fear", a report on war crimes and abuses of power in Somalia by Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Ethiopian invasion on Somalia. Some of the things I've read in a summary of this report are just horrific--slaughter, gang rape, torture. The United States and the European Union (as well as the European Commission) have been indicated as well for supporting the Ethiopian military. The report summary said the following about the United States' and EU's involvement specifically.

United States policy towards Somalia largely revolves around fears of international terrorist networks using the country as a base. The United States directly backed Ethiopia's intervention in Somalia and has provided strong political backing to the TFG. But US officials have refused to meaningfully confront or even publicly acknowledge the extent of Ethiopian military and TFG abuses in the country. The US approach is not only failing to address the rights and suffering of millions of Somalis but is counterproductive in its own terms, breeding the very extremism that it is supposed to defeat.

The European Union and key European governments have also failed to address the human rights dimensions of the crisis, with many officials hoping that somehow unfettered support to abusive TFG forces will improve stability.

The HRW report is available on-line (just click the link above). Somalian refugee stories that have been shared with the Human Rights Watch can be read here. I have also posted an article below found on Yahoo! News on the subject. I'll be looking more into this matter, so more to come later.

US turned blind eye to Somalia abuses: rights group

Sun Feb 1, 11:12 am ET

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The United States has turned a blind eye to abuses by its allies in Somalia and worsened the situation there by reducing a complex conflict to a front in its "war on terror," a leading human rights group said.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in a letter to African Union Commission chairman Jean Ping that the policies of many governments had been destructive in Somalia.

"U.S. policy on Somalia has been particularly unhelpful, treating Somalia's complex realities as a theater in the 'war on terror' while turning a blind eye to rampant abuses by the Ethiopian and transitional government forces," HRW said in the letter that was handed to reporters at an AU summit on Sunday.

The letter was sent to Ping late last month.

U.S. ally Ethiopia sent its army into Somalia to topple an Islamist administration in Mogadishu and rescue the Western-backed transitional government at the end of 2006.

At least 10,000 civilians were killed in an ensuing Iraq-style insurgency that also created more than a million refugees and fomented piracy in shipping lanes off the coast.

The Ethiopians withdrew last month and Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist who led the sharia courts government overthrown by them, was elected on Saturday as Somali president, raising hopes that a way can be found out of the conflict that has torn Somalia for 18 years.

Ahmed has made positive noises toward the new U.S. administration of President Barack Obama, saying Washington's policy toward Somalia was positive and honest.

"America has become a force which supports peace," he told an Egyptian newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Human Rights Watch said all sides in the conflict over the last two years had committed war crimes and human rights abuses.

It accused Europe of sending aid to Somali police without insisting on accountability for serious crimes and said Eritrea had provided arms to fighters in Somalia as part of a proxy war against Ethiopia.

HRW called on the AU, whose leaders are meeting until Tuesday in the Ethiopian capital, to ask the U.N. Security Council to establish a commission of inquiry into rights abuses in Somalia.

(editing by Elizabeth Piper)