Ogaden NGO slams Ethiopian govt over U.N. visit

NAIROBI, Sept 19, 2007 - A local human rights group accused Ethiopia's government on Wednesday of manipulating a visit by U.N. aid officials and human rights investigators to the country's remote and violent eastern Ogaden region.

Hours before the United Nations was expected to publish its report in New York detailing the mission, the local group said Ethiopian authorities had detained critics for its duration and coached officials to pose as clan elders in U.N. interviews.

The Ogaden Human Rights Committee, which calls itself independent, said in a statement it had long called for a visit by U.N. investigators to the arid region bordering Somalia, but "deplores its inability to visit real crime scenes where gross human rights violations took place".

There was no immediate reaction from Ethiopian officials, who have previously denied manipulating the trip.

Addis Ababa has been waging an unprecedented military crackdown on Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) guerrillas after they killed 74 people in a raid on a Chinese-run oil exploration field earlier this year.

The separatist rebels have accused Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government of committing "war crimes" in the area, and said the U.N. officials only visited sites sanctioned by the authorities.

Both sides have reported hundreds of deaths and accused the other of terrorising the population. But there has been no independent verification of the claims and counterclaims because the area is effectively off-limits to media and aid workers.

On Wednesday, the Ogaden Human Rights Committee said a number of restrictions had been imposed on the U.N. mission.

Critics were rounded up or threatened in advance of its arrival, the Committee said, while inmates at some crowded jails and police stations were moved to secret detention centres. "(The) government has coached its officials, members of security forces and collaborators and presented them to the U.N. mission as clan elders and victims of ONLF alleged wrongdoing," the Committee said in a statement.

The ONLF rebels are demanding greater autonomy for the ethnically Somali region. Meles denounces them as "terrorists" supported by arch-rival and neighbour Eritrea.

Source: Reuters