Genocide Watch and Survivors’ Rights International
A Genocide Watch and Survivors’ Rights International Field
Report
“The
Ethiopian Government knew that something wrong had happened… the truth was all
known. And yet they refused it…. They should have said ‘Look, we are not in the
picture, but we will go investigate. But to say that it was all baseless, when
people have died…!”
“I think that somebody somewhere conceived an idea, that the best
thing is—finish with the Anuaks. How they do it, is what I can’t understand.
How they really came to this conclusion, at a time when we have had the
experience of
“I hope that we, all of us, the international community, can help
in nipping this violence in the bud. Otherwise we will have fire in our hands.”
-- Former Sudanese
Ambassador to the
I. SUMMARY…………………………………………………………………………3
·
Executions
·
Mutilations
·
Mass Rape of Women &
Girls
·
Burning, Looting and
Destruction of Property
·
Arbitrary Arrest, Illegal
Detention and Torture
·
Mass
·
Disappearing &
Confiscation of Bodies
·
Destruction of Evidence
II. BACKGROUND……………………………………………….…………………...7
A. The
Geopolitical History of
B. Anuaks and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A)
C. Natural
Resources and Multinational Corporations in
D. The
III. THE DECEMBER 2003 & JANUARY 2004 MASSACRES…………………..…11
IV. ESCALATING VIOLENCE, RESISTANCE & IMPUNITY…………..…………14
V. INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STANDARDS……………………………………...18
A. Crimes Against Humanity
B. Genocide
C. Arbitrary Arrest, Illegal
Detention and Torture
VI. CONCLUSIONS…………………………………………………………………...20
VII. RECOMMENDATIONS…………………………………………………….….…23
VIII. APPENDIX I: List of Names
of Alleged Perpetrators…………………………….26
Two months after
Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Defense Front (EPRDF) forces and highland
Ethiopian settlers initiated a campaign of massacres, repression and mass rape
deliberately targeting the indigenous Anuak minority
of southwestern Ethiopia, the continued repression and the impunity afforded
the perpetrators has led to a severe escalation of violence with the potential
to provoke a full-scale international military confrontation if not immediately
checked.
This report
calls on the Ethiopian Government of Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi, the United Nations Security Council, and the
African Union to intervene to immediately halt escalating violence and defuse
tensions provoked by recent military attacks and ongoing atrocities. The report
is based on field investigations conducted for Genocide Watch and Survivors’
Rights International in
The report
focuses on five of six Anuak districts engulfed in
escalating violence since
This report
provides substantial evidence that serious human right abuses and violations of
international humanitarian law have been committed against Anuak
civilians by EPRDF soldiers and “Highlander” (in Amharic “cefarioch”) militias in
southwestern
Conflict in Anuak districts of
As
noted by an elected member of the Gambella Regional
Council and a founder of the Gambella People’s
Democratic Congress party:
“The place where U.N. people were killed is not a place where only
Anuak are living. There are Nuers,
Anuaks, Opon and Komo… and they are living together… The duty of government
is clear for everybody, and it is stated also in the constitution, and that is
to make [an] investigation to know who killed the U.N. people, because the
incident took place away from the [Gambella] town.
But the government did not make an investigation.” [1]
Soldiers
using automatic weapons and hand grenades targeted Anuaks,
summarily executing civilians, burning dwellings (sometimes with people
inside), and looting property. Major massacres
occurred
As of
Reminiscent of
the Interahamwe
civilian militia involved in the attacks against Tutsis in
According to the testimony of an Anuak who survived the genocidal attacks, Ethiopian soldiers said to him, “Let us kill them all. No one will find us accountable or arrest us.”[4]
According to the testimony of nine survivors, during the
killings, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Defense Front forces and
Highlander militias shouted, “From today forward there will be no Anuak;” “There will be no Anuak land;”and “Let today be the first and last time.” Other
similar incitements to commit genocide were also made. The Ethiopian
Highlanders shouted “Erase the trouble makers!” “Let’s kill them all!”[5]
Witness #7
watched a gang of some 15 to 30 Highlanders armed with crude weapons attack and
kill three Anuaks, including a student named Omot (grade 9), while repeatedly chanting:
“Today is the day of killing Anuaks.” [6]
According to the testimony of one survivor of an incident,
“a mob of Ethiopian settlers or peasants fell upon them with clubs, hammers,
axes, scythes, spades, and saws. Such instruments not only caused more
agonizing deaths than by guns and pistols, but they were more economical, since
they did not involve the waste of powder and shells... In this way they
exterminated almost the whole local Anuak male
population, including men of wealth and breeding, and their bodies, horribly
mutilated, were left on the ground, where they were devoured by dogs and wild
beasts.”[7]
Numerous
assailants have been identified, including government officials, soldiers and
civilians. There are accusations that lists of
targeted individuals were drawn up with the assistance of Omot
Obang Olom, an Anuak government official cited by several interviewees for
his involvement. (Mr. Olom reportedly fled to
Following
early trends, mass rape continues in the region, perpetrated by EPRDF soldiers
and Highlanders, often at gunpoint. Anuak schools were reportedly emptied of
schoolgirls who were gang-raped in nearby huts or in the bush. [8]
In one case,
eyewitnesses heard assailants express their intent to forcibly impregnate an Anuak girl to produce non-Anuak
children. In the absence of Anuak males (killed or
displaced), the vulnerability of women and girls has been grossly exploited.
Reports from non-Anuak officials in Gambella indicate an average of up to seven rapes per day. [9]
Confronted with
the daily specter of arbitrary arrest, torture, summary executions, and an open
climate of impunity, members of the Anuak community
have taken both defensive and offensive military actions. According to one
interviewee, Anuak men who resisted attacks by
soldiers in Pinyudo town on December 13 or 14 were
able to overcome their attackers and capture automatic weapons. However, such
resistance was mostly absent.
Recent reports
indicate that pitched battles occurred in Dimma
District when Anuak men retaliated for the unprovoked
but brutal torture and killing of a member of the Anuak
community by EPRDF soldiers who openly taunted Anuaks
about the murder. Retaliatory attacks
and counter attacks from January 28 to February 3 reportedly claimed the lives
of scores of EPRDF soldiers in Dimma. After January 30, EPRDF reinforcements reportedly arrived in Dimma with troops, artillery and tanks, and massacred
non-combatant Dinka and Nuer
refugees from the nearby Sudanese refugee camp; with many Sudanese refugees
reportedly wounded. The massacre of noncombatant Sudanese refugees by the EPRDF
not only violates international law
protecting the rights of refugees, but further adds to the potential threats to
international peace and security.
First
person reports from Gambella region describe Anuak prisoners subjected to forced labor under armed guard
by EPRDF captors. Significant numbers of Anuaks
remain unaccounted for; “disappearances” of Anuak
leaders have become frequent.
GW/SRI has
received unverified reports that the federal government of
GW/SRI
has also received eyewitness accounts of eleven uniformed EPRDF soldiers
working under cover of night on
On
This
disarmament of Anuak police is an ominous sign,
because a similar disarmament of Anuak police in Gambella also preceded the genocidal massacres of
Colonel
Mengistu Haile Mariam headed the junta that in 1974 overthrew the government
of Emperor Haile Selassie
in a bloody coup. Known as the "Derg" or
"Dergue," or the "Committee,” the Derg proclaimed a revolutionary agenda for the
country. What followed is widely
described as a campaign of terror. The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary
Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of regional and ethnic rebel groups,
overthrew the Derg in 1991. In the EPRDF force, the (Anuak) Gambella People’s
Liberation Movement (GPLM) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fought
side-by-side.
The TPLF eventually assumed control of the central government, which
is dominated by Tigrayan Ethiopians, in 1991.
According to eyewitness testimony by an Anuak
survivor, in the course of the ‘liberation’ of Gambella,
non-Anuak TPLF forces devastated the Gambella region. The witness described the intentional TPLF
bombing of the school he was attending at the time in Gambella,
and the subsequent death of some 2,400 students who were locked inside.
Although the TPLF claim at the time was that the Derg
bombed the school, according to the witness, the incident has never been
investigated. [10]
From
1998-2000,
The
agriculturalist Anuak minority (also known as Anywaa or Anywak) number over
100,000 people in
There have been
numerous reports of discrimination and violence against Anuaks
by regional and central (highlander) authorities since 1980. While other groups were allowed to retain weapons after the
overthrow of the Derg regime in 1991, Anuaks were disarmed by the EPRDF. Even Anuak police
were disarmed.
“The Anuak police were disarmed when [Anuak] people were being disarmed. There has been a very
prolonged strategy to disarm the Anuaks because they
knew that if they [Anuaks] were not disarmed then
[EPRDF] scheming would not come true.” [14]
Anuak territory was divided during the colonial delineation of the
international border between
Numerous
sources report that there have been regular massacres of Anuak
since 1980. Cultural Survival has reported on discrimination against the Anuaks in six reports published in the Cultural Survival
Quarterly beginning in 1981 (see e.g.: Issue 5.3, 1981; Issue 8.2, 1984;
Issue 10.3, 1986; Issue 11.4, 1987; Issue 12.4, 1988; and “Oil Development In
Ethiopia: A Threat to the Anuak of Gambella,” Issue 25.3, 2001).
Interviews with Anuaks consistently reveal that Anuak have been treated like third class citizens, denied basic educational opportunities afforded to other ethnicities, and have been increasingly excluded and displaced from positions in government and civil society over the past decade. As one witness testified: “There is an unwritten law of discrimination against Anuaks.” [15]
The Gambella People’s Democratic Congress party was organized
in 1999 in opposition to the ruling EPRDF, primarily to challenge consistent
violations of the human rights of Anuaks. The GPDC
immediately won a majority of seats in the government of
Arrests of Anuak men became
increasingly prevalent over a year ago, and some 44 Anuak
leaders have been held in jail in
Witness #16 from Gambella reported
that more than 50 Anuaks were killed in a massacre in
Itang District on
Answering
inquiries about the violence in the Gambella region,
the Ethiopian Government on
"The conflict in Gambella town last
weekend was triggered by members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) supported
by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) and al Itihad
al Islamiya," Minister of State for Federal
Affairs Gebrehab Barnabas said in a statement. [18]
The OLF has denied any involvement in the
attacks and has asserted its support for the Anuak
people in keeping with their mutual history of increasing repression and human
rights violations by the EPRDF government.
The relationship between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the Anuak minority is complicated by geographic, ethnic and
political factors, leading many Anuaks to question
the security of Anuak refugees and the position of
the SPLM/A with respect to the Ethiopian government’s persecution of Anuaks.
The
SPLM/A is partially comprised of Anuaks.
Additionally, some 85,000 Sudanese refugees, mainly Nuer
and Dinka, remain in the Gambella
region, where they have fled from the war in
While
a ‘peace process’ has been underway between the
Numerous
Anuak refugees expressed concern for the security of
refugees in SPLM/A territory, given the complicated relationships between the
SPLM/A and the EPRDF government, and the potential for the SPLM/A to support
EPRDF government interests in resolving the Anuak
problem through, for example, forced repatriation. [20]
C. Natural Resources
and Multinational Corporations in
Multinational corporations have set their
sights on the natural resources of the Gambella
region. Central Ethiopian authorities thus
have powerful economic incentives to seek control of these resources. Petroleum
(oil & gas), water, tungsten, platinum and gold are the principal resources
in the Gambella region that are of interest to
international financial and extraction corporations.
The Anuak
situation has grown markedly worse since oil was discovered under Anuak lands by the Gambella
Petroleum Corp, a subsidiary of Pinewood Resources Ltd. of
On
Petronas and the China National Petroleum Corporation are currently
operating in
D.
The
In
January 2004, special operations soldiers from the 3rd U.S. Infantry
Regiment replaced the 10th Mountain Division forces at a new base
established in Hurso, in rural
From
1995-2000, the
In August 2003, the
In 2003, USAID, working with Africare
and Catholic Relief Services, was providing disaster relief to “combat famine
in the drought-stricken Gambella region of
The U.S. State Department was informed about
unfolding violence in the Gambella region as early as
As of
“Interethnic clashes are prevalent in the
western-most tip of the Gambella Region in west
III. THE DECEMBER 2003 MASSACRES
The most recent
massacres began after the murders of eight U.N. and
Ethiopian government refugee camp officials whose van had been ambushed
on
Eyewitness
#3, from Gambella, described how soldiers abducted a
19 year-old Anuak security guard and driver for a Gambella church, with his vehicle, and took him to the jail
where they tried (but failed) to forcibly extract a (false) “confession” about
how the church vehicle he drove was involved in the massacre of the U.N.
personnel. [28]
Eyewitnesses
recount an immediate mobilization of EPRDF troops on December 13, within an hour
of the UN van killings. Reportedly working
with lists of names of Anuak people, EPRDF soldiers
and Highlander militias proceeded to murder Anuaks,
mostly targeting students and the educated class.
Between
“Almost an hour after what happened in Gambella,
[EPRDF soldiers] started shooting people in Pinyudo...
The local people responded, and quite a number of troops were killed… People
were really angry, because this thing has been going on for a number of years.
Guns are taken from them, and so on and so on, and it never improves. So this
time they said, ‘this is too much. We are going to respond now.’ ” [29]
However, Anuak resistance was apparently confined to small groups in
Pinyudo town.
The EPRDF
/ Highlander violence
spread through the four predominantly Anuak districts
of Gambella (including Gambella
town), Abobo, Itang and Gok (including Pinyudo town).
There were street killings reported on December 24 in the Anuak
Numerous
eyewitnesses gave accounts of Anuak civilians being
shot in the back while running away. [31]
Witness #1, from
Gambella, reported that violence occurred in villages
of Gambella, Pinyudo, Ilya and Akadin almost
simultaneously. He also showed a scar on his arm caused by his being beaten by
EPRDF soldiers, and he reported knowledge of a list of some 91 people to be
targeted. The witness’s daughter identified two Highlander assailants. His
family was also beaten. The witness was taken to the military barracks where he
found 200 Anuaks under detention, many covered with
blood and some hacked with knives. When soldiers first appeared at his house
they were shooting. The witness described language by the EPRDF suggesting that
they knew he was an Anuak and had specifically
targeted his house accordingly. “They obviously knew that my house was an Anuak house; my neighbors were highlanders.”[32]
Several
witnesses exposed scars on their bodies. Survivors reported that soldiers,
followed by armed groups of Highlanders, systematically attacked Anuak homes. One witness who saw three people killed early
on December 13 stated:
“It was
a military tactic: the military would shoot Anuaks,
then have the Highlanders come and butcher these people. Two were still alive;
one was dead when the Highlanders attacked.” [33]
Fleeing Anuaks were sometimes harbored by non-Anuaks.
Hundreds of houses and huts were burned, whether occupied or empty; Gambella and Pinyudo towns saw
widespread arson. Another witness
stated, “They burned the entire village.”
Hand grenades
were thrown inside or near structures clearly occupied by women and children. [34]
Policeman Ojulu Omot (~35) and Pastor Okwer Olatho (~45), both Anuaks, were summarily executed at close range after they
jumped out of a window of a burning hut that had been torched by soldiers. The
soldiers occupied strategic posts and executed occupants as they fled.
Insisting that he be the first of his family to flee a burning house surrounded
by soldiers, Pastor Okwer Olatho
was shot by soldiers after jumping from a window, and then he was hacked to
death by Highlanders.
Witness #2 gave
the names of five people killed, including his son and Pastor Okwer Olatho, and he described in
detail how the killings occurred on December 13 in Gambella
town. [35]
Witness #4
described numerous killings in detail, in Gambella
town, including the killing of his father, who was bludgeoned on the head with
a rock and then mutilated by Highlanders. The witness alleges seeing a
Highlander, Ketem Alemuyu,
set fire to his house. He reported: a “gang of Highlanders with Temesgan Tadese was tricking
people into coming out of hiding and then killing them.” [36]
Some witnesses
describe being taken to military barracks where hundreds of other Anuaks were being held. Surviving physical assaults,
witnesses reported seeing wounded Anuaks taken from
these barracks, allegedly to hospital. Detainees were apparently released
within one or two days, instructed to go home, and sometimes escorted by
soldiers. Witnesses offered detailed accounts of abuse and intimidation by
soldiers. Survivors generally described a coordinated effort by authorities to
deceive and confuse Anuaks into believing the
military and police were acting to protect civilians. “They arrested and released
us and then killed us,” one witness testified.
Soldiers were
consistently described as EPRDF personnel in clearly marked uniforms with
standard equipment. Assailants were identified by name in numerous cases.
However, evidence suggests that soldiers and police were not universally
involved in committing atrocities, and that some (non-Anuak)
soldiers and police worked to stop or mitigate the violence and defend victims.
[37]
Several
witnesses testified to seeing trucks driving over corpses on the street. [38]
On
The
On
One witness
testified to counting over 30 bodies as he fled. Scores of injured Anuaks were seen by people arriving at hospital for
treatment, or by those inquiring about missing persons. Several eyewitnesses
recount seeing trucks loaded with dead bodies arrive or depart from the
hospital. One witness described “hundreds of bodies” laid out and numbered. [39]
Many corpses
were picked up or confiscated by authorities and were never seen again.
Soldiers drove off, and sometimes shot, relatives who sought to retrieve or
bury the dead. Survivors also buried the dead in makeshift graves when possible.
[40]
Beginning on the
15th of December, and perhaps earlier, authorities began urging
people to return to their destroyed homes. Witnesses claim that soldiers
prevented people from gaining sanctuary at churches, and that officials ordered
the churches emptied. [41]
Most of the 3,000 to 5,000 people who sough