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By Barry
Malone
OGADEN, Ethiopia, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Mariam
Qorana had worried about getting caught
between the Ethiopian army and separatist
rebels even before a bullet flew through the
wall of her hut and hit her below her right
breast 10 days ago.
"I was afraid," says the mother of 10,
struggling to speak to foreign journalists
who have arrived at her bedside in the
remote Gode Hospital in Ethiopia's Ogaden
region.
The 24-year-old low-level insurgency in the
vast, ethnically Somali area flared in
April, when Ogaden National Liberation Front
(ONLF) rebels killed 74 people at a
Chinese-run oil field and warned foreign
companies not to invest.
Ethiopia responded with a swift offensive,
and accused the ONLF of being "terrorists"
sponsored by arch-foe Eritrea. Both sides
accuse each other of human rights abuses,
which both deny.
Qorana has no idea which side shot at her
hut.
Taking journalists -- accompanied by
government minders -- on the first tour of
the region since the flare-up, the Ethiopian
government says the conflict is over,
development is on the rise and Ogaden is
tasting real peace.
"The situation is very calm now. We have
completely destroyed [the ONLF]," Regional
President Abdullahi Hassan told journalists
on the recent trip.
The ONLF denies that, and there is little
doubt armed conflict and suffering have not
gone away.
Zelalem Eshetu, the doctor treating Mariam
at Gode Hospital, said he has admitted 12
people with gunshot wounds in the last three
months, mostly civilians.
Aid groups have said the fighting is
blocking vital trade routes and creating
refugees and that as a result of conflict
and bouts of flooding and drought, some
953,000 people need aid.
Around the hospital, several women sit
cradling their severely malnourished
children. Reporters crowd around one
two-year-old whose emaciated face stirs
memories of the 1984 famine that briefly
brought Ethiopia world attention.
Under international pressure, the government
last year licensed 19 groups to work in the
region and let the United Nations open three
relief offices.
'I HATE THEM BOTH'
The government took journalists to
irrigation projects, dams, roads under
construction and nomad settlement projects.
Development officials are enthusiastic in
explaining their work.
But many locals say development has been
hampered by fighting and that the vital
trade in animals is still affected.
At the Gode animal market, nomadic herders,
the majority of the Ogaden's population,
arrive to trade goats, sheep and camels,
many having travelled long distances on
foot.
Those interviewed through official
interpreters say there are no problems,
prices haven't risen in the last year, trade
routes have not been blocked and they've
seen no fighting.
But one young man walks close to the group
and whispers that he speaks English.
"Business is very difficult for us," he told
Reuters. "Because there is fighting between
the government and the ONLF we can't move
our animals. We are stuck."
He starts to walk backwards, his eyes
darting around the watching faces in the
crowd.
"Government soldiers are here," he says.
"And people who talk are thrown in prison or
killed."
These fears are repeated right across the
sandswept region whenever people are
approached by foreigners or catch sight of
the ever-watchful government guides, one of
whom wears a hat bearing the slogan "Our
dreams, our future."
In Dega Habur town, men sit lazily chewing
narcotic khat leaves in the searing
afternoon sun, while soldiers armed with
AK-47s stroll around, some also chewing the
drug.
"My sister was raped by three government
soldiers," says an old woman who refuses to
give her name. "They burned her village and
she had to run far away."
The government is not the only source of
fear. Locals say the ONLF steals food and
forces people to fight by killing those who
refuse. Elders in the regional capital,
Jijiga, blame the ONLF for assassinations
and regular grenade attacks in town.
"They slaughter livestock, burn farmland and
make people miserable," says Salub Abdallah
Mohammed, a 50-year-old elder.
At Gode Hospital, a young man who has come
to visit his sister is in no doubt who is to
blame for the Ogaden's plight.
"I hate them both," he said, refusing to
give his name. "The government and the ONLF.
They should take their fighting far into the
desert and continue with it until they are
both gone. Then we can stop being
frightened."
© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved.
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