Ethiopia's ethnic Afar rebels -- ARDUF < German news | Expatica Germany

23/01/2012Ethiopia's ethnic Afar rebels -- ARDUF

Ethiopia's Afar rebels -- who captured German tourists last week -- are a small organisation which claims to have been fighting marginalisation by Addis Ababa for three decades.

In a statement seen by AFP Monday, Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF) blamed the Ethiopian government for an incident during which five other Europeans trekking on the slopes of the Erta Ale volcano were also killed.

Addis Ababa had swiftly blamed the violence on gunmen trained by Eritrea but ARDUF said the loss of life was the result of an attack by Ethiopian soldiers on one of its patrols.

The group numbers very few fighters but claims to represent the aspirations of the ethnic Afar, a community that straddles the volatile and remote regions between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.

"They have 200 men at most. But the general feeling of the Afar people ... is very hostile towards the government," a Horn of Africa expert told AFP, asking not to be named.

The group describes itself as an "Ethiopian Afar organisation", which has been "fighting to liberate our people from political marginalisation, economic deprivation, social exclusion, illiteracy and poverty for the last 29 years."

It first drew international attention in 2007 when it kidnapped a group of five Europeans linked to the British embassy. The five were released unharmed a few days later.

The Horn of Africa expert said ARDUF's members today feel "betrayed" because they voted for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in the disputed 2005 elections, but have obtained nothing in exchange.

"The Afar populations have been particularly marginalised," the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a 2010 report.

"Their demands call for a fairer distribution of resources and administrative posts in the Djiboutian and Ethiopian States, as well as the reunification of Afar lands on the Red Sea with those in the Ethiopian Afar heartland," the report said.

"ARDUF's dream would be an autonomous entity grouping together the Afar, including those from Djibouti, and attached to Eritrea. They detest the Eritreans even more than the Ethiopians, but have chosen to join forces with them against Meles," he said.

Ethiopia says ARDUF are a proxy force for their arch-rivals in Eritrea, but ARDUF and Asmara have both dismissed the accusations as lies.

Between Eritrea and Ethiopia, he said, the Afar are "stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. Their links to Eritrea are proven and their rear bases are on the Eritrean side of the border," he told AFP.

The area occupied by the Afar is among the most hostile on earth. It is also home to two spectacular volcanoes: Erta Ale, where the shooting and kidnappings took place, and Dallol.

Also known as the Danakil depression, the area came to prominence through the writings of the explorer Wilfred Thesiger who wrote about two trips in the region in the 1930s in "Danakil Diary."