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Citizens Fleeing Somalia War Sent to Secret Jails in Ethiopia |
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by Tina Simpson
Kenya, U.S., Ethiopia and The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia are accused by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York based, non-government agency dedicated to protecting human rights of people around the world, of cooperating in the illegal, secret detention of refugees fleeing recent conflict in Somalia.
Georgette Gagnon, deputy Africa director for HRW, states that, "Each of these governments has played a shameful role in mistreating people fleeing a war zone. Kenya has secretly expelled people, the Ethiopians have caused dozens to 'disappear,' and U.S. security agents have routinely interrogated people held incommunicado."
In a March 22 letter to the Kenya Ministry of Foreign Affairs, HRW detailed the arbitrary detention, expulsion and apparent enforced disappearance of dozens of individuals who fled the fighting between the Union of Islamic Courts and the joint forces of the Transitional Federal Government and Ethiopia between December 2006 and January 2007.
Recent research by HRW in Kenya reveals that at least 150 individuals with 19 different nationalities were arrested at border crossings between Somalia and Kenya, and then transferred to Nairobi, where they were held without charge or legal counsel. Eighty-five were then spirited off to Ethiopia on unscheduled, pre-dawn flights in planes chartered by the Kenyan government. U.S. and other national intelligence services have interrogated detainees at various locations in Africa, but say that they were granted access in cooperation with local governments in the war against terror. Human rights lawyers argue that secret deportation is in violation of international law.
Flight manifests from the detention flights have been obtained by HRW and the Associated Press in an investigation into missing persons. They show that among the group of deportees, 19 women and 15 children were on these flights to Ethiopia, accompanied by Kenyan police officers.
A woman, who was held for 2-1/2 months before being released in Addis Ababa, is the only prisoner who has spoken publicly about her ordeal. The 42-year-old Arabic-Swahili translator, who holds a passport from the United Arab Emirates, was arrested during a business trip to Kenya. She says she was beaten in Kenya, held for 10 days in Somalia with 22 other women and children, before being transferred to Ethiopia on a military plane. There she says, a month after being fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed by U.S. officials, she was set free. She was not allowed to contact her family, lawyer or her own government during her arrest and detention. She has never visited Somalia.
Reports say that there is at least one American citizen and "a few" Canadian citizens in the group that has disappeared into Ethiopia. Human rights groups, lawyers, government officials and Western diplomats are working to gain access to these prisoners and to secure their release from these secret jails.
"No such kind of secret prisons exist in Ethiopia," said Bereket Simon, special advisor to Prime Minister Meles Zanawi. He declined to make any further comments. Ethiopia has a long history of human rights abuses and no laws to contradict it.
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