Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | Ethiopia has witnessed a spate of terrorist attacks in recent months, but the attack on the oil facility is by far the deadliest yet. |
Implications | The separatist rebel group—the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)—has claimed responsibility for the attack, describing it as a military operation against the Addis Ababa government. |
Outlook | As is often the case, the government was quick to implicate neighbouring Eritrea, with whom it is still technically at war, in the attack, accusing it of backing “anti-peace elements”–a euphemism it uses to categorise all anti-government and insurgent groups in the country. |
At least 74 people (nine Chinese and 65 local Ethiopians) have been confirmed as having been killed during an attack by armed men on an oilfield in Ethiopia's eastern Somali province.
Seven Chinese men and unknown number of Ethiopians were also abducted during the same incident. According to reports, the men were killed during a raid on the oil facility in the Abule area of Degehabur zone in Somali state where China's national oil company (NOC) Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau (ZPEB), a unit of Sinopec, was exploring for oil.
The separatist rebel group—the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)—has admitted responsibility for the attack, which it claimed was a military operation targeting three units of the TPLF (Tigrean People Liberation Front—the dominant party in the governing Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front) regime that were guarding an oil exploration field. In a statement issued on its website, ONLF defended its action by citing the forceful displacement of local ethnic Somalis from their homes as well as the closing-off of large grazing areas to establish a security perimeter in order to allow the exploration for oil to proceed.
The statement, however, suggests that the killing of the Chinese nationals was accidental, caused by munitions explosions during the battle with government soldiers. It also admitted to holding six Chinese workers (as opposed to the seven reported missing by ZPEB) and an unknown number of Ethiopians, but claimed that they are being held for their own safety and are being treated well.
Low-Level Insurgency
The group, which claims to be fighting for the rights and self-determination of the “citizens” of the disputed Ogaden region against the “colonial Ethiopian Empire state”, has been involved in a low-level insurgency war with the Ethiopian government for the past two decades, with its activities restricted to occasional hit-and-run attacks against government troops in the vast sparsely populated Ogaden region which is located in the Somali region.
The group issued a reminder of its continued presence a year ago when it issued a warning to two Indian oil firms—the Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) and the Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. Ltd (GSPC)—against their plans to develop onshore gas fields in the south-eastern Ogaden region bordering Somalia a year ago, warning that it would not tolerate developing gas fields "in what is essentially a combat zone" (see Ethiopia: 25 April 2006: Insurgent Groups Warn against Oil Exploration in Ethiopia's Ogaden Region). However, keen to develop the region’s as yet untapped natural riches, the government in the capital, Addis Adaba, downplayed the threats by claiming that the situation in the area is peaceful, dismissing the ONLF's threat as ”hollow” and ”nothing new” (see Ethiopia: 26 April 2006: Insurgent Threat to Oil Explorers Downplayed in Ethiopia).
The Ethiopian authorities have also blamed the “self-styled” ONLF as being responsible for the attack, accusing it of being “part of the terrorist wing which is part of the front of destruction led by the Eritrean government”.
Outlook and Implications
There have been a number of localised terrorist incidents throughout Ethiopia over the past decade, serving as a continuing reminder that the problem of terrorism is never far away. The attacks seem to have increased in their frequency, indiscriminate nature, and deadliness since the disputed May 2005 general elections. The government has, as in the case of the latest incident, often blamed the attacks on "anti-peace elements”—a euphemism it uses to categorise its domestic political opponents and the various insurgent movements that continue to operate in the country. The government has linked the terrorist attacks with Eritrea—with whom it is still technically at war as a result of the still unsettled border conflict—almost without any exception, accusing the government in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, of being the real mastermind behind all the atrocities.
ZPEB is no stranger to the country, having drilled an exploration well in the Gambella region in western Ethiopia in May 2006 after it was contracted by Malaysian oil and gas company Petronas. After the news of the Chinese deaths, a Sinopec spokesman told Dow Jones "Since the central government has asked our company to go overseas to secure more oil assets, we won't retreat from Africa on the attack”.
China's NOCs have been buying up acreage throughout sub-Saharan Africa in order to secure energy supplies for the East Asian giant’s rapidly expanding economy. China has invested heavily in OPEC members Angola and Nigeria in recent years; however, it has also started prospecting for oil in African countries in that do not have a history of producing oil. For example, China has built up Sudan's oil sector from the ground and was willing to invest in the country when international oil companies, on the basis of Sudan's gross neglect of human rights and more recently the crisis in Darfur, decided against doing so. China's oil companies are searching for the next big play and are believed to be near to reaching an agreement with Chad to prospect for oil there.
However, Chinese workers face a difficult working environment in many countries when prospecting for oil in Africa because of local conflicts or militant activity. Most notably, there have been several incidents over the past year in which Chinese nationals have been kidnapped while working in Nigeria's oil producing region, the Niger Delta.
Following the attack on the Abule oilfield, the Chinese government issued a strong condemnation, calling on the Ethiopian authorities to take concrete and effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese workers in the country. China has a low tolerance level when its workers are put in danger and its reaction to the Ethiopian attack is consistent with previous its denunciations of violence towards its workers elsewhere in Africa. It remains to be seen whether or not China will continue to risk lives in volatile areas such as the Ogaden region, with the ONLF insisting that it is not a safe environment for any oil exploration to occur.