Woyannes, who have accused Norway and Qatar of supporting terrorism, and Ethiopian Review and other media of genocide, is now going after Amnesty International, one of the most respected human rights organizations, for exposing the war crimes of Meles Zenawi’s occupation forces in Somalia. Reuters and other media are smearing Ethiopia’s name by associating Woyanne and its evil deeds with Ethiopia, or calling it Ethiopian government. Woyanne is not a government or a political party. It is a gang of murderers, thieves and rapists — it is a criminal enterprise acting as a government or ruling party.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia Woyanne accused Amnesty International of a smear campaign against it on Wednesday after the rights group said Ethiopia Woyanne troops in Somalia had killed civilians by slitting their throats.
Thousands of Ethiopia Woyanne soldiers are stationed in Somalia where they are helping the government fight Islamist-led insurgents.
In its second report on abuses in Somalia in two weeks, Amnesty said on Tuesday that all parties to the conflict had committed abuses.
However, it said it had received an increase in reports of violations of Somalis by Ethiopia Woyanne troops, with allegations of gang rape and civilians having their throats slit among the most common.
“This is an outright and deliberate lie, fed to Amnesty by groups affiliated to al Shabaab, groups that use the cover of human rights to promote their terrorist agenda,” Ethiopia’s Woyanne Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.
“It is deplorable that Amnesty International has lent itself to an obviously disgraceful smear campaign against the armed forces of Ethiopia Woyanne, using highly emotive, even racist language.”
The ministry accused Amnesty of ignoring widespread human rights abuses by the al Shabaab, including assassinations of political and religious leaders, desecration of dead bodies and the cutting of throats of Muslim clerics who oppose it.
Al Shabaab is the armed wing of a sharia courts movement that ruled most of southern Somalia for six months in 2006 before being ousted by allied Somali-Ethiopian Woyanne forces.
Ethiopia Woyanne said the timing of Amnesty report was designed to help al Shabaab “in the recruitment of terrorists by deliberately inciting hatred and animosity based on lies” and to derail talks due to start in Djibouti on Saturday.
The United Nations has brokered tentative peace talks due to begin on Saturday between 15 officials sent by Somalia’s interim government and a similar number of delegates from the Eritrea-based Somali opposition.
Amnesty urged Ethiopia to read its report and study the allegations against its troops, rather than issue accusations.
“In light of the devastating testimony we received from ordinary Somalis who have been the victims of brutal attacks by all parties to the conflict, we expect the Ethiopian Woyanne government to support a call for an international independent commission into the serious crimes being committed,” a spokesperson said.
Last month Amnesty said Ethiopian Woyanne troops killed 21 people in Mogadishu’s Al Hidaaya mosque, adding that seven of the victims had their throats slit. Ethiopia Woyanne rejected the report and said its forces had never been involved in such incidents.
(Additional reporting and writing by Katie Nguyen in Nairobi; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jon Boyle)