TNAG-1066-FCO40-1316-Human-rights-in-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 195

E/CN.4/1503

Annex II. page 12

34.

Although resistance has not been eliminated altogether, it has been sufficiently weakened for it to be restricted to the rural areas. The region has meanwhile been quite seriously affected by drought as a result of the failure of the 1980/81 winter rains. Malnutrition, already endemic in much of rural Eritrea as a result of centuries of ingrained poverty and the effects of the war, increasingly created

created conditions

conditions for the unchecked spread of disease. At the same time, under the martial law still in force, there is reported to be a continu- ing pattern of widespread arrests, torture and summary ex- ecution of those suspected of harbouring sympathies with the secessionist movements, and although the exodus from the region has dwindled since the height of

war, it has not yet stopped.

35. The Government has faced armed opposition from other quarters, notably in the provinces of Tigre, Begemder, Wollo, Hararghe, Bale and Sidamo, the last three encompassing the region known as the Ogaden. Conflict in the Ogaden arose from issues reaching far back into the history of

into the history of the Horn of Africa. Ecologically and economically an integral part of the grazing lands of the Somali peoples and their Oromo (Galla) cousins, its international borders delineated by colonial powers recognized by the Government of Somalia only on a de facto basis, it had already given birth in the

the era of Haile Selassie to

to the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF). WSLF, expressing aspirations centuries old such as the right to practise transhumance across a vast area now divided by an internationally-recognized national boundary and to foster common loyalties much older than those now imposed by circum- stances, engaged in an armed conflict into which Somalia entered in mid-1977. The eight-month war which ensued was as intense as any seen in that part of Africa. After it ended, the chief administrator of Hararghe, Commander Lemma Gutema, stated that 70 per cent of the region had been affected by the war and most of its smaller towns razed. He estimated the number of displaced persons at one million. radio reported heavy loss of life and put the war at 1 000 million Birr or $ 479 million.

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A massive exodus began in 1977 which has been going on ever since. The war conditions which impelled people to leave and

into Somalia and Kenya in 1977-78 have been super- seded by the consequences of unremitting resistance on the part of the WSLF and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) to central government authority. Particularly unsettling to the Oromo and Somali peoples of Hararghe, Bale and Sidamo would appear to be measures to suppress their distinct linguistic and cultural patterns, the drafting of men into the People's Militia and the government's relocation programme. Within this programme, now implemented with some international assistance, substantial

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