Human Rights Watch’s Morally Repugnant Report

14 August 2007
Minstry of Foreign Affairs

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs regrets that it finds the latest report by Human Rights Watch on Somalia factually and morally unacceptable. It suffers from numerous errors, displays seriously partial attitudes, demonstrates dangerously flawed motives, conspicuously fails to understand recent events in Somalia and shows no understanding of the current progress towards a settlement.
Most extraordinarily, nowhere does this report address the issue of terrorism. It only refers to “the insurgency”, even though it notes that al-Shabaab is the key element in this so-called insurgency, and Al-Shabaab has been widely identified as a terrorist organization. Its leadership includes Sheikh Aweys. The report notes that Sheikh Aweys is on a US terrorist list, and identifies him as a leader of Al-Itihaad, but then fails to classify him as a terrorist. The report even goes so far as to refer to “allegations” of al-Itihaad activity despite the fact that al-Itihaad has admitted to such terrorist activities as the attempted assassination of an Ethiopian minister, and the bombings of a number of civilian targets including hotels in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa. Do terrorist operations only become such when they take place outside Africa? This kind of mentality infuses this report and makes it appear more of a geo-political document than a human rights report.
The report gives no indication that the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is the legitimate, and recognized, government of Somalia. Time and again it appears to equate the TFG and the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Its account of the Khartoum meetings in 2006 is simply wrong. At the first meeting, the two sides did not recognize each other as equal. The ICU recognized the legitimacy of the TFG and agreed to put its forces under TFG control. The TFG merely accepted the ICU as a recognized force. The result of this meeting was the hard line takeover of the ICU by the shura headed by Sheikh Aweys. There was no subsequent possibility of any serious negotiation as Sheikh Aweys himself made clear.
HRW suggests that the so-called insurgency supported Somali nationalist ideals. Whether deliberately or not, this effectively legitimizes the irredentist claims on Ethiopia and Kenya which took Somalia into two wars with Ethiopia in the 1960s and 1970s, and launched the concept of Greater Somalia. The report makes no mention of IGAD’s unanimous decision in March 2005 to support the creation of an IGASOM force, the precursor of AMISOM. HRW says nothing about how this was aborted even though the initiative had been endorsed by all IGAD countries, including Eritrea. The omission is not a simple matter because this failure more or less shaped subsequent events with respect to the ascendancy of the ICU and al-Shabaab. There is no mention that it was an offensive by the ICU, backed by a significant foreign component, including Eritrean troops, against the legitimate government of Somalia in Baidoa, which led to the TFG’s request for Ethiopian assistance. Eritrea gets no more than a passing mention despite the detailed evidence of UN Monitoring Group reports. The nonsensical suggestion that Ethiopia is trying to fight a proxy war with Eritrea in Somalia, the reverse of the reality, underlines the failure of HRW to understand the regional dimensions of the Somali situation, and its total refusal to even try to talk to any Ethiopian officials.
The HRW report is carefully constructed to misrepresent Ethiopia’s role and its activities. The “intentions” of Ethiopian military commanders are questioned though these can hardly be discerned in the absence of any contact with Ethiopian military officers or even civilian officials. No effort was made to reach anyone at any time. Ethiopian troops actually have an excellent reputation for discipline, as accounts of peace-keeping operations in Liberia and elsewhere have made clear. Ethiopia does not need to boast about this.
The report very carefully refuses to acknowledge that the actions of the so-called insurgency are war crimes. Its actions are merely classified as posing “grave risks to civilians”, or mere violations. Alleged Ethiopian actions are identified as war crimes, and, even more, HRW claims to know the intentions of Ethiopian commanders and troops. And this without making any effort whatever, at any time, to talk to any Ethiopian sources whether in Mogadishu or Addis Ababa. In fact, HRW does not normally comment on “intentions”, and it certainly hasn’t done so in reports on other areas of the world. Why now? And why Ethiopia? It is morally repugnant that HRW should put Ethiopian troops and terrorists on the same level, and that it should deliberately moderate its account of terrorists in Mogadishu while recklessly talking about alleged “intentions” of Ethiopian troops.
In its recommendations, HRW calls on Ethiopian troops to “cease” all attacks that target civilians; the so-called insurgency is merely asked to “avoid” these “to the extent possible”. Why the distinction? It makes no sense if HRW is being balanced as it claims to be. It is not of course. Why does HRW ask the European Union, the United Nations, the African Union, the Arab League and the United States to call on the Ethiopian government and the TFG to avoid any attacks on civilians. What has happened to the so-called insurgency which even the report admits earlier, if somewhat grudgingly, was guilty of such attacks.
It is clear from these and other comments that most, if not all, of HRW’s sources, most un-named, appear to be opponents of the TFG and critics of the presence of Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu. This was not an independent investigation. As HRW itself acknowledges, many of its sources come from al-Shabaab and its supporters, and, as it admits, they also leave many details about events, intent and actions, “murky”.
All this raises the question of why HRW has written such a report, which is not so much the independent investigation it claims as a carefully framed attack on Ethiopia. What are the motives? It is clear that this is not a question of human rights, otherwise some effort would have been made to raise the issue of terrorism, rather than ignore it. In the absence of other explanations, we have to speculate. One possibility is that HRW, a New York-based organization, needs to enhance its credibility in some regions, by attacking Ethiopia, if unjustifiably. It cannot succeed. There has been a strong tendency in the last few months in the US to downplay the dangers of terrorism, to de-emphasize the threat, with the pendulum swinging away from the post 9/11 situation. To use Ethiopia in this respect provides an easy option for HRW. It also perhaps makes sense in terms of geo-political considerations. Not is it the first such attack aimed recently at Ethiopia by HRW. HRW recently issued a report on the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia. Exactly the same techniques, of misrepresentation, of suppression, of the use of highly partial evidence, were apparent.
The Foreign Ministry would also make the point that the timing of this report is particularly disappointing as it comes when all the evidence points to genuine progress being made in Somalia. The National Reconciliation Congress is now in its fourth week, and has been making significant progress through its agenda of reconciliation. The levels of security have improved in Mogadishu as well as elsewhere in Somalia. The TFG has managed to oversee democratic elections for district and regional councils and for official posts including that of governor, in Bay and Bakool regions. If the international community would now provide the resources for the TFG, and for the support for AMISOM, there is every reason to believe that this window of opportunity will be successful, and therefore produce sustainable conditions for improved human rights in Somalia. No doubt, no one, least of all Somalis, should now expect HRW to contribute to this noble effort.
14.08.2007