August 08, 2007

Summary

Ethiopia will respond in its usual manner to a warning issued Aug. 8 by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) to oil companies operating in Ethiopia's Ogaden region -- namely, with a heavy hand and deadly force. The ONLF will melt away rather than confront expected counterinsurgency operations head-on, while villagers whom the government believes back ONLF fighters will bear the brunt of the coming offensive. These reprisals are a given due to Ethiopian President[SIC] Meles Zenawi's concerns over regime survival and territorial integrity, though the Ethiopian government will try to deflect the accompanying negative media attention the ONLF will ensure that Addis Ababa receives.

Analysis

The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) warned oil companies Aug. 8 against operating in Ethiopia's Ogaden region, saying any government guarantees to protect them from the ONLF are false.

Addis Ababa will deal harshly to defeat this credible threat. Civilians in the Ogaden region will bear the brunt of this response disproportionately, while the ONLF will retreat in the face of the government response.

The Ethiopian government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi faces in the ONLF a long-running insurgent group intent on achieving greater autonomy -- if not outright independence -- for the region's inhabitants, who are largely ethnic Somalians. Skirmishes between government forces and the ONLF, which formed in 1984, were tolerated by the Zenawi regime until 2006, when Somalia's Supreme Islamic Courts Council (SICC) fought successfully for control of southern and central Somalia. Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 to eject the SICC, which was led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. The Somalian militants' threats of creating a "Greater Somalia" that would include territory in Ethiopia were deemed credible due to Aweys' past collaboration with the ONLF. Aweys headed the militant branch of the charity al-Ittihad al-Islami, which was accused of carrying out attacks against Ethiopian government installations in the Ogaden going back to 1996.

The April 24 attack by the ONLF against the facilities of the Chinese company Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau near Jijiga forced Addis Ababa to ramp up its counterinsurgency campaign in the Ogaden. The Zenawi regime was expected to carry out indiscriminate brutality in the Ogaden and against Mogadishu with an eye toward defeating the ONLF and the SICC, which was believed to be supportive of the ONLF because of the two groups' mutual anti-Addis Ababa goals.

"Despite the unwanted negative media publicity surge, Addis Ababa has no choice but to campaign brutally in the Ogaden."

While the ONLF, which operates in scattered groups ranging from 50 to the 200 deployed in the April 24 attack, can be expected to retreat into Ogaden's inhospitable terrain or into the relative safety of neighboring Eritrea rather than face the Ethiopian army's practice of indiscriminate shelling, Addis Ababa cannot allow the provocation to pass. As a result of the imminent offensive, Ogaden villagers unable to flee will bear the brunt of Addis Ababa reprisals.

The ONLF will certainly manipulate the villagers' losses to its advantage. The insurgent group has been emboldened by the attention it has received from international media and organizations like the Red Cross, which has publicized Ethiopian government tactics, such as blocking humanitarian food and aid shipments -- moves the ONLF describes as creating conditions for a man-made famine. Addis Ababa subsequently ordered the Red Cross to leave the Ogaden region July 25, an expulsion expected to be extended to media outlets trying to access the remote region. Closer to home, the ONLF will further exploit the coming offensive by exploiting the deep hostility Ogaden inhabitants feel toward the Zenawi regime. Addis Ababa will hope the United States will defuse some of this bad international publicity as payment for being the U.S. proxy in Somalia.

Despite the unwanted negative media publicity surge, Addis Ababa has no choice but to campaign brutally in the Ogaden. The Ethiopian government said Aug. 8 that its forces have killed more than 500 rebels over the past two months. Similarly, Zenawi's regime is forced to continue its occupation in Somalia. He faces several insurgent groups, in addition to the ONLF, that would love to carve up Ethiopia, as well as to get rid of Zenawi himself, whom they believe is as dictatorial as his predecessor, Haile Mengistu. In Somalia, Ethiopian soldiers ensure the security of a secular government led by President Abdillahi Yusuf. Yusuf would otherwise be unable to survive the daily attacks by the SICC and other Islamist fighters, who dispersed rather than face a battlefield defeat following Ethiopia's December invasion.

Zenawi's need to secure energy exploration in the Ogaden region for outside powers, led by China, and to face down multiple insurgencies threatening his regime's survival and his country's territorial integrity mean he sees defeating the ONLF threat as a black-and-white issue. But the ONLF will not be the one to pay the price for Zenawi's determination.

Source: STRATFOR