THREAD: #Abdi Iley appeared in court yesterday and pleaded not-guilty to the charges brought against him by federal prosecutors on 01/30/2019 - charges relate to the violence of August 4th 2018 alone, not the decade of abuses that preceded.
What does this signify for Somalis?
What does this signify for Somalis?
State charges against Abdi reveal what Somalis have always known: their second-class status in #Ethiopia & their lack of rights. Their lives were not deemed worthy when they were being systematically wiped out, & are still denied any worth as Abdi Is charged for August 4th alone
The state shaped and empowered Abdi Iley, he was specifically handpicked based upon his willingness to carry out the most brutal counter-insurgency campaign ever witnessed, both as head of regional security and President of the Somali Region (2010-2018).
The state provided him with the institutional, technical, political and diplomatic backing to carry out abuses that amount to war crimes, he was rewarded in accordance with the severity of his brutality. The mission was straightforward: to instill fear by any means necessary.
Some of the well-documented crimes Abdi Iley oversaw include: Extrajudicial Killings, forced evictions/displacement, confiscation of livestock, grazing-land, property and livelihoods, trade embargo, poisoning wells, mass surveillance, media blockade, mass rape, public executions
Mass imprisonment, torture( See Jail Ogaden for examples of common practices), denial of basic rights such as access to health & education, burning down entire villages, creation of a paramilitary whose sole purpose was to loot, murder, rape and terrorise the population...
Reprisals against anyone related to an outspoken critic of the regime etc.
Abdi Iley acted with the full backing of the state to execute a counter-insurgency campaign against the #ONLF where the underlying strategy was to hold the people of the Region collectively responsible..
Abdi Iley acted with the full backing of the state to execute a counter-insurgency campaign against the #ONLF where the underlying strategy was to hold the people of the Region collectively responsible..
As a result, hundreds of thousands have perished from the face of this earth, and even more have fled their homeland leaving everything behind. Simply put, violence committed against Somalis was state-sanctioned whereas violence on August 4th was not.
It is a perversion of justice that the state only humanises the victims of Abdi Iley the moment he defied the orders of the state. This is despite the fact that what he committed on his final days is a mere glimpse of what he was actually empowered to do for the past 10 years +
as long as you’re murdering, looting, raping and imprisoning with the full backing of the state- then your victims are just collateral damage in the name of ‘counter-insurgency.’ But the moment you do the very same thing without state sponsorship...
and against the wrong constituent of people, then expect to be held accountable as evidenced by the details of the charges brought against Abdi Iley by the state: addisstandard.com/news-ethiopia-…
The picture shows Ahmed Haji Hassan standing over the grave of his son Abdiqadir Ahmed Haji who was killed in the #Malqaqa massacres but was denied the right to bury his son. When he was informed that his son’s body had been brought forth by the rain... 
He took the opportunity to bury his son- something he was previously denied. During this he said ‘Aabo caawa ayaan hurdo seexan’ meaning ‘tonight I will be able to sleep’ since I have laid you to rest properly. This is just a glimpse of the atrocities committed under Abdi’s rule
Yet there have been no attempts by state institutions to investigate the crimes against humanity committed against the Somali people over the course of the past few decades, and no serious commitment to accountability.
What sort of message does this send?
#Ethiopia
What sort of message does this send?
#Ethiopia
