Oromo rebels deny "annihilation" by government troops

The rebel Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) on Friday denied claims by the Ethiopian army that it had "completely annihilated" separatist forces in the west of the country.

"This is not the first time the Ethiopians have claimed total victory against our forces," OLF spokesman Lencho Bati told IRIN. "Our forces are intact."

He admitted that OLF troops had sustained casualties in the fighting which has been raging in the Gambela region for the past two months when the OLF launched an offensive in the area.

"Their blood will water the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom," Lencho added. "Our struggle will continue."

On Thursday, Ethiopia's Major General Bacha Debele who commands troops in the west, said the fighting was now over. He claimed that the army had not been fighting the OLF as such but "groups of terrorists" which, he alleged, had been trained and equipped by Eritrea to "infiltrate" Ethiopia via Sudan.

"The joint action by the army and the [local] people was aimed at eliminating the terrorists and not a fight with the OLF," Bacha said, according to Ethiopian radio.

He claimed the "OLF mission" was sent by the Eritrean authorities "to bring the Ethiopian government to its knees".

Eritrea on Friday strongly denied any involvement in the fighting.

"The state of Eritrea has nothing to do with internal war and civil strife in Ethiopia," said Teweldemedhin Tesfamariam, Eritrea's deputy ambassador to Kenya.

"The general should look for the problem with his countrymen within his country, rather than trying to have it logged onto Eritrea," he told IRIN.

"This is a deliberate attempt on the part of the Ethiopian government to have the debacle of its request for a correction of the boundary ruling clouded by something sensational about imaginary Eritrean activities against it."

"I'm sure the world is too wise to be duped by this," Teweldemedhin added.

Last week, the independent Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) in The Hague rejected a request by Ethiopia for "interpretation, correction and consultation" of the decision on border delimitation between the two countries following their two-year border war.

OLF spokesman Lencho Bati, for his part, would not be drawn on whether his group was receiving help from Eritrea.

"The OLF had a political relationship with the EPLF [Eritrean People's Liberation Front] long before it became a government," he told IRIN. "Our relations go back a long way. We are committed to bringing peace and stability to the Horn region."