News > January 19, 2004

Ethiopian Genocide

Military massacres Anuak

By Doug McGill

On Saturday, December 13, in a single bloody burst of targeted mass murder, Ethiopia became the world’s latest sovereignty to attempt genocide as a way to solve its problems with a troublesome minority.

The United States, which gave Ethiopia $32 million in foreign aid last year, is investigating the massacre, in which eyewitnesses say uniformed Ethiopian soldiers were aided in the murder of more than 400 members of the Anuak tribe.

The charge is being made by dozens of refugees who live in the United States who spoke by telephone to surviving relatives. During the last decade more than 2,000 Anuak have settled in the United States after fleeing ethnic cleansing—said to be carried out by rival tribes backed by the Ethiopian government.

December’s massacre, by far the worst single-day killing of Anuak, was the first time Ethiopian soldiers were widely witnessed leading such an attack. It took place in Gambella, the capital of the state of Gambella in remote western Ethiopia, which shares a long border with Sudan.

According to eyewitnesses, the soldiers were joined by dozens of members of the Amara, Oromo and Tigray tribes who were seen chopping and stabbing Anuak with machetes.

Omod, an Anuak survivor, described what happened in a telephone interview: “About 300 uniformed soldiers marched into the town. They knocked on doors or pushed them down and pulled out all the men and the boys. Then they beat them on the street and told them to run. When they ran, they shot them. They killed my boy. He was a driver and they shot him in his car. I hid in the bush and I saw them beating people, shooting people and burning houses. We collected 403 bodies. They are in a mass grave.”

The Anuak have lived for centuries in a verdant western region of Ethiopia. There are active gold pits and oil reserves on the Anuak’s ancestral land, resources the Ethiopian government covets. Over the past decade the Anuak have pressed the factional government in Addis Ababa for a share in the projected development of these resources and have been answered in political subjugation, physical beatings and now the government-led pogrom.

It is a small genocide compared to those of the Turks, Jews, Cambodians, Tutsis and Bosnian Muslims, but it has all the markings of a state-sponsored attempt to extinguish an entire race.

Over the past decade some 20,000 Anuak have fled into refugee camps in northern Kenya (primarily the Ifo camp), and into southern Sudan. Until December 13, most of the killings of Anuak were by their ancient tribal enemies, the Nuer, many of whom have resettled on Anuak land as civil war refugees from Sudan. The United Nations runs three refugee camps in western Ethiopia for these refugees, most of whom are Nuer.

Anthropologists and missionaries say the Anuak and the Nuer in previous decades evolved ritualistic peaceful ways to solve grazing rights disputes that arose between their tribes. The displacement of more than 100,000 Sudanese civil war refugees onto Anuak land upset those traditional ways.

The Anuak for years have claimed that the Ethiopian government was using the Anuak-Nuer rivalry as its main tool for Anuak extermination, arming Nuers and de-arming Anuak and then standing by when the inevitable occurred.

According to witnesses and United Nations accounts, the massacre began when a van containing eight U.N. and Ethiopian government refugee camp officials was ambushed on a road connecting the towns of Itang and Gambella. All eight occupants of the van were killed.

At 1 p.m. that afternoon, Ethiopian soldiers brought the van and the corpses to Gambella, attracting crowds of angry onlookers. Here are three Anuak eyewitness accounts:

Obang: “The crowd of highlanders was angry about the killings [of the people in the van]. They asked ‘Who killed these people? Who killed these highlanders?’ All these people followed the van to the hospital. They are all angry. One soldier fired his gun in the air, and all the highlanders scattered and ran home. In a few minutes they came back carrying anything they could get from their homes – knives, guns, machetes, spears.”

Romeago: “They burned down my mom’s house and my sister’s house. My mom said about 400 Anuak were killed and they are still finding bodies in the bush and in the river. My other sister ran with her family into the bush; we haven’t heard from her. We don’t know if she and her kids are alive.”

Okun: “The soldiers knew who they were looking for. They went only to the houses of the Anuak, and then mainly for the educated ones, the students, the leaders. I talked to a cousin on my mom’s side. He hid under his bed to survive. He saw a soldier kill a boy in the street. They told the boy to run and then they shot him. He saw another boy who was shot in the leg but wasn’t killed; he was just lying in the street, calling for help. No one could go to him. The soldiers burned down houses and stole TVs, refrigerators and cash. All the houses with grass roofs, they burned.”

A spokesman with the Ethiopian embassy in Washington said eyewitness accounts of uniformed Ethiopian soldiers killing Anuak were “completely false and unfounded. The defense forces are doing their level best to look for those people who were involved in this sad event.”

When asked why 2,000 Anuak had fled Ethiopia as refugees, the spokesman said they had not fled ethnic cleansing. Rather, “they are enjoying the right of movement to live anywhere they like and to enjoy their own pursuit of life.”

A spokesman for the U.S. State Department, which has advised Americans not to travel to Gambella, said it had confirmed 113 dead and has sent a security team to the area to investigate the massacre.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, the Anuak tribe’s leadership in exile meets Saturday afternoons at an Ethiopian restaurant to plan relief efforts and a lobbying campaign to catch the attention of U.S. Sens. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) and Norm Coleman (R-Minn.).

The Anuak held a rally December 20 on the steps of the state capital. More than 100 Anuak men and women marched in a circle carrying signs asking “Mr. Bush, Terrorism? Now Genocide?” and “Where is the International Body?”

An Anuak leader in St. Paul sent a New Year’s e-mail to a dozen Anuak friends in the United States, Australia and Canada. The e-mail had photographs of smiling Anuak boys and girls, and the message read:

“No one is going to stand up for us, so we must stand up for ourselves. We all need to come together and tell the whole world, and our enemies too, that the Anuak people have a right to live in this, God’s world. It is our birth place, just like the rest of the human species.”

• subscribe to print magazine

  First Name Last Name Home Address City State Zip Code Email

  2-year, 24-issues, $44.95 1-year, 12-issue, $24.95

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments

  01-19-04
  Dear, McGill
  Thankyou for your thought to make this story spread around the globe. The Ethiopian government is trying heard to bury this story because they don’t want to lose US aid. But we encourage you to go more beyond this. Anyuak and freedom loving nations such as US and western world would appreciate your hard working capability. My people, Anyuak and I will call you not only champion but also hero for putting this massacre in the air and writing.
  Thankyou very much!
  Obang Okumu
  From MPLS, MN

  Posted by Obang on Jan 19, 2004 at 2:09 PM

  It does not make sense this kind of overstating and stretching the truth.
  Please let us be honest.
  anan.

  Posted by Nua on Jan 19, 2004 at 4:28 PM

  I think the statement that Oromos were involved in the killings of the Anuak people is inaccurate. Oromo civilians were not involved because they have no reason to do so. Nor do they live in the area. Oromo civilians are themselves the victims of the genocide perpetuated by the same government. Even on this particular day, there are reports that several young Oromo boys were found hanged. Just like the Anuak people, the Oromo people have been targeted simply for speaking for their basic human rights. So, please reconsider the source of that statement. If any particular group was involved, it would the Nuer along which the government has fought against the Anuak-the Oromos have no interest in this.
  Thank you

  Posted by Anwar Roba on Jan 19, 2004 at 4:48 PM

  I am a native of Ethiopia and very familiar with that part of the country. The Anuak people are very peaceful people. I know because I lived among them. When the rest of the country was in turmoil, these people lived in relative peace for decades. Now thanks to the current regime, who are known for their war making skills, they are exporting their arrogant policy to the innocent people of Gambela. The government should have investigated and brought the few perpetrators of the ambush to justice instead of collectively punishing the group. This is sheer arrogance. I am very saddened by the whole event. Thank you for bringing the story to the forefront!

  Posted by Y. Mulugeta on Jan 19, 2004 at 4:57 PM

  Hi Doug,
  Thank you very much for your hard work. This the first in history to see someone like you writing in-depth about Anuak people, history, and the genocide whichever withness in East Africa. Don’t worry about those “highlanders” comments. Certainly, there were Oromo who hid Anuaks, from the preperators , also there was one Oromo male vicitm simply because he had married to an Anuak. However, the majority of people who were teachers, merchants, and local residents were involved the killing . Those teachers have taught me in high in Gambella city. Now they are the ring leaders during the atrocity.
  Comment from people like “Anan” is baseless and nonsense. Anan overstating is, when Ethiopian government put Humanskeletal on the national TV in order to recieve forein food aid that is overstating.
  Other comment from Oromo who said that non Oromo were involve, he should re-think his statement it.
  Doug, don’t worry about such comments from crook higlanders.
  We Anuak we deal with them, in human way, not in their inhumanly act!

  God Bless Anuaks in their land!!!
  Okony
  

  Posted by okony cham on Jan 19, 2004 at 6:16 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 44 posts.

Member Login

Username

Password

Forgot password?