Military

DATE=04/14/2004

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=ETHIOPIA / GENOCIDE (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-315032

BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN

DATELINE=GENEVA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The World Organization Against Torture says crimes against humanity and acts of genocide are being perpetrated by the Ethiopian Armed Forces and "highlander" militias against the Anuak ethnic group that lives in a remote part of northern Ethiopia. Lisa Schlein reports from Geneva.

TEXT: Program Manager Michael Anthony says the organization has received information from reliable sources that, last December, 424 Anuak were killed by Ethiopian government troops in uniform, along with local people from the Highland areas in the Gambella region.

/// ANTHONY ACT ///

The bodies were mutilated, dismembered, and the people were shouting slogans, such as, "From today forward, there will be no Anuak. There will be no Anuak land. Today is the day of killing Anuaks." This was very similar to what was seen in Rwanda, in fact, which more than ethnic cleansing is, in fact, the hallmark of genocide.

/// END ACT ///

Since then, Mr. Anthony says, more than 11-hundred other people have been killed. He says there have been numerous reports of massacres of civilians, forced disappearances, torture, illegal arrests and detentions. He says women and girls have been systematically raped.

He says between five-thousand and nine-thousand people have taken refuge in the Pochalla camp in southern Sudan. He says the camp is facing grave shortages of food and water. Diseases, including cholera, reportedly have broken out.

Mr. Anthony says the World Organization Against Torture receives many reports of terrible situations around the world. But this one, he says, is particularly horrifying.

/// ANTHONY ACT ///

There are only 100-thousand of them (Anuak), and we are hoping that some of them will remain, and we certainly need the international community to help, and assist them, and intervene with all possible speed, because they are spread out now. Their farms have been destroyed. With the rainy season coming, and with no crops and with no food left in the granaries, they will not be able to get through that rainy season.

/// END ACT ///

He says it is too late to bring a resolution before the U-N Human Rights Commission, which ends its annual session next week. But, that does not mean that effective action cannot be taken. He says humanitarian assistance to the Anuak is urgently needed, and sending a U-N team to the area to monitor the situation also would be helpful. (SIGNED)

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