HENOK MERHATSIDK 1.pdf - Addis Ababa University

The year 2006 witnessed the intervention of Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia in the pretext of
the UIC waged Jihad on Ethiopia and the TFG(Transnational Federal Government of
Somalia) invited Ethiopian forces to intervene, Ethiopian armed opposition groups ONLF
and OLF used Somalia as their springboard for their military incursions. Ethiopian soldiers
took little time to control Mogadishu. However, international terrorist groups came to
Somalia to assist the UIC. The TFG was not strengthened despite the help of the Ethiopian
government, terrorist groups engaged in guerrilla fighting and caused massive cost on the
side of Ethiopian soldiers. In turn, Ethiopian soldiers killed civilians, even women’s; this led
the human right institutions to condemn the act of the Ethiopian government (Ploch, 2010).
The ever hostile Somali attitude towards Ethiopian harvested various militant groups. The
international community including USA wanted the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces. Ethiopia
is one of the poorest countries in the world and was not able to carryout such a protracted war
in political and economic terms; Ethiopian forces withdrew from Somalia in 2009. For those
who calculated the cost/benefit analysis of Ethiopian intervention in Somalia it was too
costly, the operation stops neither terrorist forces in Somalia nor in the Ogden region of the
Ethiopian state. Hence, Ethiopia is still preoccupied with the issue of terrorism (Ploch,
2010:8-15).
Recently, Al –Shabaab, a militant terrorist group in Somalia, committed terrorist attack in the
Capital of Uganda on civilians who were assembled to see the final world cup game inside a
restaurant owned by an Ethiopian. This event suggested that Ethiopian is at clear and present
danger from terrorist groups which reside in Somalia and assisted by the Eritrean
government. The Ethiopian government commitment in ‘fighting terrorism’ has not been
fruitful, the capacity of Al-Shabaab increased from time to time even, to the extent that
planning, organizing and committing its destructive activities out- side Somalia territory.
It was after Ethiopian intervention in Somalia that ONLF killed Chinese and Ethiopian who
were doing their business in Ogaden. Later on the Ethiopian government waged campaign to
uproot the ONLF, series of human right violations by the Ethiopian soldiers including killing
civilians, burning houses and rape. These situations produced fertile ground for recruitment
of many Ogadeny youth to the ONLF. Besides, the human right institutions condemned the
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