THE OGADEN HAS REACHED CRISIS LEVEL; GOE IMPEDING

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 06 ADDIS ABABA 003200

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR ASSISTANT SECRETARIES FRAZER (AF),LOWENKRON
(DRL),AND SAUERBREY (PRM);
DEPARTMENT ALSO FOR P: JCASSIDY AND D: GDELGADO;
USAID FOR ADMINISTRATOR-DESIGNATE FORE;
USAID/W FOR ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATORS ALMQUIST (AFR) AND
HESS (DCHA)
AFR FOR WWARREN, JBORNS, KNELSON, BDUNFORD, CTHOMPSON;
DCHA/OFDA FOR GGOTTLIEB, KLUU, ACONVERY, PMORRIS;
DCHA/FFP JDWORKEN, SANTHONY, PBERTOLIN;
CJTF-HOA AND USCENTCOM FOR POLADS;
ROME FOR AMBASSADOR, OHA;
BRUSSELS FOR USEU PBROWN;
GENEVA FOR NKYLOH, RMA;
ROME FOR HSPANOS;
USUN FOR TMALY;
NSC FOR BJPITTMAN, CHUDSON, AND JMELINE; AND
LONDON, PARIS, ROME FOR AFRICA WATCHER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/30/2017
TAGS: PHUM PGOV ASEC PREL ET SO
SUBJECT: THE OGADEN HAS REACHED CRISIS LEVEL; GOE IMPEDING
RELIEF

REF: A. ADDIS 2805

B. ADDIS 3005

Classified By: AMBASSADOR DONALD YAMAMOTO FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D)

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (U) This is an Action Request; please see paragraph three.


2. (S/NF) The Embassy believes that the five Ogaden zones of
Ethiopia are now considered to be a humanitarian crisis.
Famine-like conditions are currently present and the risk of
widespread disease and mortality is severe. This assessment
reflects the consensus among the UN, NGOs, international
organizations, and donors and a recent USAID assessment team
to the Ogaden. The Embassy will host a meeting of all donors
and relief agencies this week to gauge the extent of the
crisis. The USG has been moderately successful in raising
the humanitarian concerns with the Ethiopian Government
(GoE),and the GoE has taken some actions, though inadequate
to open corridors for humanitarian relief. While the GoE's
claims of the threats of the insurgency, logistical problems,
landmines, and inadequate military support are legitimate,
the GoE has been the impediment to commercial trade,
humanitarian deliveries, international assessments, and
relief efforts.


2. (S/NF) The Embassy concludes that continued restrictions
placed by the Ethiopian military (ENDF) blocking commercial
food shipments from Somalia and humanitarian food deliveries
as well as inadequate response by GoE relief services are the
main stumbling blocks to relief in the Ogaden. All major
donors and relief agencies concur with this assessment.
Embassy Addis finds that 1) while we have little information
on the extent or scope of humanitarian and/or human rights
conditions in the areas of active military activity in the
Ogaden region 2) it is clear the main cause for the current
situation in the Ogaden, which has always been a vulnerable
region to famine-like conditions, has been the GoE's
counterinsurgency operations in response to ONLF operations;
3) the GoE is the major impediment to facilitating
international efforts to assess and robustly respond to the
humanitarian needs of the vulnerable population in the
Ogaden; and 4) there is famine-like conditions in the five
Ogaden zones of Somali region affecting over 600,000 of the
1.5 million people in the Ogaden zones. If immediate action
is not quickly taken to mitigate the current situation, the
region will face a high mortality rate.


3. (S/NF) The United States has taken the lead in urging the
GoE to respond expeditiously to conditions on the ground and
the United Nations has been engaged in protracted
negotiations with the GoE to significantly bolster assistance
delivery and monitoring capabilities on the ground. UN teams
are currently in the region to assess potential monitoring
sites. In light of the GoE's inadequate response to
necessary action in a sustained manner despite pressure by
Post and AF A/S Frazer over the past five months, Post
outlines the following course of action for DoS principals to
press the GOE immediately to enable a robust response to the
current crisis. 1) The Ambassador will call on Prime

ADDIS ABAB 00003200 002 OF 006


Minister Meles and Foreign Minister Seyoum to raise the
Ogaden crisis. 2) Africa Bureau Assistant Secretary, and
separately USAID Assistant Administrator for Africa, raise
the issue with Ambassador Samuel Assefa. 3) The U.S. Embassy
will coordinate immediately with the UN agencies,
international groups and donors to make a joint approach to
the GoE. 4) The State Department and USAID Africa Bureaus
will contact senior GoE interlocutors regularly over the
coming weeks to underscore the common position of the USG and
solicit feedback on the GoE's efforts. 5) Should further
action be necessary, we will seek engagement of other senior
USG officials. Proposed talking points are provided in
paragraph 6 below.

THE KNOWN UNKNOWNS ABOUT THE OGADEN
--------------


4. (C) The UN reported in early September (Ref A) that
"pockets of crisis" exist within the Ogaden, with the
potential for conditions to slip into a full, regional crisis
within two to three months. Despite GoE claims since the
UN's assessment that it had begun opening avenues for
commercial trade, would facilitate humanitarian relief
deliveries, and that Ethiopian military (ENDF) troops had
begun returning to their barracks (Ref B),GoE security
agencies have actively prevented subsequent security, health,
food security assessments -- including by the GoE's own Human
Rights Commission -- and has detained commercial and
humanitarian food deliveries into the conflict-impacted
region. As a result of these impediments, we do not know
specific details about the nature, extent, or scope of the
following issues:

--Commercial food availability;
--Humanitarian food needs;
--Extent or dynamics of humanitarian food
distribution;
--Food prices;
--Extent or rates of malnutrition;
--Availability of medical supplies or care;
--Extent or incidence of disease (particularly
measles or cholera);
--Extent, nature, or impact of insurgent activities;
--Extent, nature, or impact of ENDF
counter-insurgent activities;
--Extent of human rights abuses inflicted upon the
civilian population;
--Extent or cause of reported burning of villages;
--The extent or condition of refugees from Somalia
currently in the region;
--Extent or perpetrating entity laying landmines; or
--The impact of the above on American citizens
(including the 27 American citizens registered
throughout southeastern Ethiopia).

THE KNOWN KNOWNS
--------------


5. (C) Despite not knowing the details about the issues laid
out above, Post does have significant specific information
about the GoE's impediments to further assessing or
addressing the humanitarian and human rights needs of the

ADDIS ABAB 00003200 003 OF 006


affected population. We also have some limited additional
information on conditions in specific pockets of the Ogaden
since the UN team's visit. Vague details regarding some of
the issues below reflect the extent to which information is
available in light of existing restrictions.

--Establishing a Local Presence: The GoE has identified the
federal Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency (DPPA) as
the UN's focal point of contact with the GoE and has decided
to establish a DPPA office in Dire Dawa to facilitate
efforts. The GoE has requested the UN to establish a joint
presence at this site as well as in Degehabur and Kebri
Dehar. The UN will begin a site security assessment for
establishing these offices during the week of October 29.

--Malnutrition Rates: Save the Children UK conducted a
nutrition survey with the GoE's permission in safe areas of
Fik zone in the Ogaden. The survey found average levels of
General Acute Malnutrition (GAM) of 20 percent. Rates of 10
percent generally are considered an emergency in Ethiopia and
15 percent generally triggers intensive therapeutic feeding
programs in the Somali region. (Note: As this survey was
conducted in areas significantly less impacted than most
others in the conflict-affected region, Post and others
assess similar or higher GAM rates throughout the Ogaden
region. End note.) UNICEF reports that the level of
malnutrition of children in the affected areas is now
sufficiently high to allow measles and other diseases to
sweep through the population, if they emerge as is expected,
possibly killing tens of thousands of children as happened
with measles in 1999-2000.

--Commercial Food Deliveries: Despite having temporarily
opened four commercial trade routes into the Ogaden areas,
the GoE has since effectively closed the two routes leading
to Somalia (the major traditional source of commercial food
to the region) and have detained at least 50 trucks
delivering commercial food. The two routes linking the
region to other parts of Ethiopia nominally remain open, but
NGOs operating in various parts of the affected areas report
having seen no commercial traffic.

--Human Rights Assessments: Although the GoE has been silent
on the UN's Human Rights report submitted privately to the
GoE following the early-September assessment mission, it has
sent the government's Human Rights Commission (HRC) for a
three week assessment to the region. HRC head Ato Kassa told
UNHCHR officials on October 25 that the GoE have prevented
the HRC mission from leaving Jijiga, the Somali regional
capital which is situated outside of the Ogaden zones. GoE
officials further limited HRC team meetings to the Jijiga
jail. Despite the restrictions, the HRC team was able to
determine that over 700 people had been unlawfully detained
in Jijiga. HRC was unable to confirm reports that over two
dozen child soldiers had been imprisoned in Jijiga, but did
note that following their visit over 100 individuals had been
released from prison. As a result of restrictions, HRC could
not assess questions of extrajudicial killings, rapes, burned
villages, or the like.

--Humanitarian Food Deliveries: The GoE has decided that it
will restrict humanitarian food distributions for the

ADDIS ABAB 00003200 004 OF 006


estimated 1.5 million people living in affected areas to 45
distribution centers located in woreda (effectively counties)
headquarters. Until now, WFP has worked to maintain food
deliveries to over 230 distribution sites in the affected
areas. WFP assesses that this reduction in distribution
sites will effectively prevent a significant percentage of
the population from accessing food -- particularly in light
of GoE restrictions on the mobility of communities -- and
risks facilitating the rapid spread of disease among
vulnerable populations forced to congregate. As of
late-October, only 81 percent of the June 2007 food aid
allocation to the Ogaden areas (6,000 MT) has been delivered.
The single largest trucker of humanitarian food aid in the
Somali region, Oogsadi Transport, has decided to cease food
aid deliveries because checkpoint delays and waiting for
military escorts have caused the normal 7-10 day Dire
Dawa-to-Gode round trip to take 28 days.

--Health Centers: The GoE has allowed UNICEF to provide
supplies to eight of ten medical centers in the region and
has approved the deployment of several mobile health
facilities to reach more remote communities.

--A Tight Grip on Implementers: The GoE has insisted that the
UN provide a list of "suitable" NGOs to work on relief
efforts in the conflict-affected areas. On October 19, the
UN provided an exhaustive list of all 37 NGOs currently
working in these areas or which have expressed a willingness
to do so. The GoE has yet to respond to the list. The GoE
has similarly insisted on a list of all UN staff members who
will be working in the region along with their home
addresses. In light of GoE officials' harassment of family
members of UN security staff and similar reports from other
aid partners, the UN is reluctant to provide more than staff
members' names. The UN has rejected the GoE's request that
it submit a list of names 50 percent longer than the number
of staff members needed from which the GoE would select
"acceptable" staff members.

--A Shift From Troops to Militias: The UN Security Chief and
reliable contacts within the Somali regional government
report that while the ENDF has returned a large portion of
its troops to their barracks, the Somali regional government
has ordered civil servants throughout the region to mobilize
their clans and communities to form and support militias to
counter the ONLF insurgents.

--Security Assessments: The GoE has rejected all UN requests
for regular security assessments in the region, limiting the
UN's regional security officer in theater to the town of
Jijiga. Local officials have harassed the UN security
officer in the Somali region, with the officer returning home
to find security officials interrogating his children. While
the GoE has appointed Deputy Chief of the National
Intelligence and Security Service (NISS),Ato Shimelis, as
the point of contact for the UN on security in the region,
all military commanders in the region who previously provided
security information to the UN have been gagged, now
referring the UN to the Foreign Ministry.

--Livestock Trade: The GoE has informed FAO that livestock
trade conditions are not problematic and has rejected FAO

ADDIS ABAB 00003200 005 OF 006


requests to support livestock destocking and trade
facilitation efforts. While the GoE has agreed in principle
to allow FAO to conduct an assessment of livestock trade
conditions, livestock markets have collapsed stripping
pastoralists of the ability to earn cash to buy grain and
forcing pastoralists to eat much of their breeding stocks.

--Somali Refugees: The GoE has informed UNHCR that it does
not consider the estimated 12,000 Somalis in the Ogaden area
who have fled insecurity in Somalia to be refugees because
the GoE has determined that the current situation in Somalia
does not warrant such status. As such, the GoE has refused
to engage UNHCR on these individuals.

TALKING POINTS
--------------


6. (C) In light of the above, it has become clear to Post
that, despite diplomatic interventions to date, the GoE has
not responded in a quick, adequate, and sustained manner to
the humanitarian crisis in the Ogaden. As conditions on the
ground are now considered to be a "humanitarian crisis", post
believes that strong and direct pressure from the United
States Government in concert with other donors is necessary.
Post proposes the following talking points for Washington
principals, dialogue with senior Ethiopian officials:

--The United States is deeply concerned about the
humanitarian crisis that has emerged in the Ogaden area of
Ethiopia. The USG strongly requests that Ethiopia take all
possible action to facilitate the immediate and sustained
response to prevent this crisis from spreading or
intensifying.

--The United States understands and appreciates that Ethiopia
is facing an active insurgency in this region which it must
respond to, but we call on the Ethiopian Government to make
every effort to mitigate the humanitarian impact that the
conflict is having.

-- The United States has committed $18.7 million in
humanitarian relief and is committed to helping with food and
medicine for the region and throughout Ethiopia. We will
also work with other countries to provide support.


--Existing commercial food routes have proven inadequate,
checkpoints and escort delays are slowing the delivery of
critically needed food aid, and malnutrition rates risk
allowing diseases to sweep through the local population if
they take hold.

--The solutions include:
- Immediately open additional commercial trade
routes internally and to Somalia,

- Streamline checkpoint procedures,

- Expedite escorts for food delivery convoys,

- Authorize the maximum number of food aid
distribution sites,

ADDIS ABAB 00003200 006 OF 006



- Authorize and facilitate assessment and
monitoring teams to gauge conditions and
progress, and

- Urgently facilitate the immediate deployment of
UN agencies and NGOs to provide medical and
humanitarian support.

--Working together we can avoid a humanitarian crisis.

End Talking Points.

COMMENT
--------------


7. (S/NF) Resolution to mitigate adequately the spread and
intensity of this humanitarian crisis demands immediate
action, otherwise Ethiopia will see another widespread famine
on our watch. Furthermore, international press, diaspora
criticism, and increased concern from the international
community will only become more vocal. The Senate could
rapidly pass HR 2003 if mortality rates increase
dramatically. Post is convening a meeting of UN agencies,
NGOs, and donor partners on October 31 to coordinate action
in raising the humanitarian crisis in the Ogaden directly and
quietly but forcefully with the GoE. Post is now finalizing
a plan for a USG assessment mission to the conflict-affected
areas to be presented to the GoE in the coming days as well.
While post is taking these necessary actions Department and
USAID support at senior levels is crucial now. End Comment.
YAMAMOTO