Minneapolis, MN – Horn Institute of Peace & Social Justice is concerned that the Somali Regional President of Ethiopia, Mr. Abdi Mohamud Omar is expected to depart from Ethiopia on January 18, 2011 and arrive in Minnesota. We are vehemently protesting the decision to allow Mr. Omar to enter the United States. Mr. Omar and two accompanying members of his delegation, Mr. Abdifitah Sheik Abdullahi and Abdirahman Sheikh Mohamed are known human rights violators who have earned a despicable record in their part for the suffering of the Ogaden Somali civilians in Ethiopia. Mr. Omar, who leads the delegation, is the man who has established and single handedly maintained the brutal paramilitary force called Liyuu Police whose mission is copied from the Janjaweed of Sudan who caused the Darfur genocide.Mr. Omar had created the Liyuu Police for the sole purpose of terrorizing the population to submit to him and the Ethiopian government. The Liyuu Police are unleashed on the population to commit crimes against humanity. The magnitude of their oppression is indescribable and had gone unabated for far too long. They are committing daily atrocities which are documented in the Human Rights Watch’s reports and confirmed by U.S Department of State –Bureau of Human Rights. Mr. Omar’s forces perpetuate arbitrary arrests, open executions, torture, imprisonment without fair trail, and rape as a weapon to suppress women who are defenseless against armed men. Mr. Omar has forcefully recruited underage men from the Ogaden cities, and goes after those in refugee camps located in neighboring country of Kenya who fled from him to join Liyuu Police in order to carry out Ethiopian government’s hidden atrocities against the Ogaden Somali civilians. Mr. Omar was the former Chief of security who led the Liyuu Police before becoming the President of the Somali region of Ethiopia.
