ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Reuters) – Ethiopian rebels who warned oil explorers against working in their region are issuing empty threats that will not deter the government from developing their homeland, a senior Ethiopian Woyanne official said on Friday.
This week the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) told Malaysia’s Petronas it would not allow any activities in the country’s remote east, and said working there would make the firm an accomplice in war crimes by the Ethiopian Woyanne military.
The government rejects accusations of abuses during its counter-insurgency operations in Ogaden, which borders Somalia.
“Such empty threats by the terrorist ONLF group will not deter the government from continuing development activities in the region,” Bereket Simon, special adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi, told Reuters.
“Such threats, being aired by ONLF supporters in London, are just another example of their reckless behaviour.”
Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned company, is one of more than a dozen international explorers hunting for oil and gas deposits in different parts of the huge Horn of Africa country.
The rebels have long objected to Addis Ababa inviting foreign energy firms to work in their arid homeland.
In April 2007, ONLF fighters killed 74 people in a raid on an Ogaden oil exploration field run by a subsidiary of Sinopec, China’s biggest refiner and petrochemicals producer.
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woyane terrorist calls others terrorists? That was how woyane, along shabia fought the dergue! The latter referred to them as terrorists, and now they are using the same term to other freedom fighters. I am not somali, but the term is not right. Or is the meaning of terrorism meant to be liberators?
January 9th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
No sweety, a terrorist means a terrorist. Nothing less nothing more. ONLF is a terrorist organization. Yes Sinidu, TPLF, Shabia, OLF, etc. are terrorist groups because they have used innocent blood, terrorized innocent people, destroyed infrastructure, brain washed innocent minds. Don’t get confused it is clear. If you threaten, kill, brainwashed, or use scare tactics on civilians you are a terrorist. I have no mercy in labeling an organization as long as its activities maim or kill women and children.
January 10th, 2009 at 4:58 am
SHAME on BEREKET SIMON !!! are you still talking while Meles stands behind the gate? one thing you should know Mr. Simon is “that you are on-top of the list of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ogaden with your colleagues like Gabre-wahid, Tewolde, Abay Zehay, and ur big Brother Zenawi”.
no more hard currency for the sale of BID documents for Ogaden basins until self-determination rights are secured.
January 11th, 2009 at 7:17 am