By Daniel Wallis
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Western donors have failed to condemnwar crimes by Ethiopian forces during a year-old campaignagainst separatist fighters in the country's eastern Ogadenregion, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.
"The Ethiopian army's answer to the rebels has been toviciously attack civilians in the Ogaden," said GeorgetteGagnon, Africa director of the U.S.-based group.
"These widespread and systematic atrocities amount tocrimes against humanity. Yet Ethiopia's major donors,Washington, London and Brussels, seem to be maintaining aconspiracy of silence around the crimes."
Ethiopian government officials in Addis Ababa routinelyreject such allegations against their counter-insurgencyoperations in the rocky, arid region, which borders Somalia.
They also accuse the rebels of abusing locals.
But officials had no immediate comment on the new report.
Ethiopia, a key regional ally of the United States,launched its latest offensive after the Ogaden NationalLiberation Front (ONLF) attacked a Chinese-run oil field in theregion in April 2007, killing more than 70 people.
Human Rights Watch said its 130-page report was based oninterviews by its researchers with more than 100 victims andeyewitnesses of abuses by soldiers.
Ridwan Sahid told how an Ethiopian soldier pushed him intoa ditch and tried to kill him by taking a metal rod used toclean his gun and ramming it down his throat.
When Ridwan fought him off by twisting his fingers, moretroops rushed over and tried to strangle him with a rope.Ridwan passed out and woke up later under the cold body of afriend.
BEATINGS, TORTURE
One 31-year-old Ogaden shopkeeper told HRW he was arrestedand beaten by troops who demanded he admit being an ONLFmember.
"They tied both my legs and lifted me upside down to theceiling with a rope, and kept beating me more, saying I had toconfess," he was quoted as saying.
"For two months, we underwent this same ordeal, being takenfrom our rooms at night and being beaten and tortured."
The report also includes accounts of villages being burnedby the military, which HRW said it had confirmed usingsatellite imagery. Witnesses said at least 150 civilians wereexecuted.
HRW said the government was limiting all access to theregion, that the violence was ongoing, and that staff believedtheir findings represented only a fraction of the actualabuses.
Gagnon said the army's tactics were fuelling a loominghumanitarian crisis and threatening the survival of thousandsof ethnic Somali nomads who cross the area with theirlivestock.
Western nations give Ethiopia more than $2 billion (1billion pounds) a year in aid, she said, but must speak out nowto halt the bloodshed.
"The government's attacks on civilians, its trade blockade,and restrictions on aid amount to the illegal collectivepunishment of tens of thousands of people," Gagnon said.
"Unless humanitarian agencies get immediate access toindependently assess the needs and monitor food distribution,more lives will be lost."
Also accused of abuses by its military in Somalia, PrimeMinister Meles Zenawi has said in the past human rights groupsare selectively and falsely attacking him after falling forpropaganda by Ethiopia's enemies.
(Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Matthew Tostevin)
