Ethiopia hunts for seized Chinese oil workers

Africa Reuters ^ | 5 Apr 2007 | Andrew Heavens and Tsegaye Tadesse

[3AngelaD]

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian troops searched on Wednesday for seven Chinese and Ethiopian workers kidnapped in a rebel attack on an oilfield that killed 74 people in a remote and barren southeastern region.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), ethnic Somalis fighting for independence since 1984, claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn raid on the Chinese-run field that was one of the worst attacks to date on Beijing's growing interests in Africa. The rebels have repeatedly warned energy companies they will not allow oil and gas exploration in the area as long as the Ogaden people are "denied their rights to self-determination".

"The Ethiopian government will hunt down the perpetrators and bring them to justice," Bereket Simon, special adviser to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, told Reuters.

Ethiopian officials said gunmen killed 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese as they slept at the oilfield about 100 km (60 miles) south of the regional capital Jijiga. But on its Web site, the ONLF blamed the deaths of a "handful" of Chinese on blasts caused by munitions during a battle they said killed or wounded some 400 Ethiopian soldiers.

It denied abducting Chinese oil workers. "They have been removed from the battlefield for their own safety and are being treated well," the ONLF said in an overnight statement on its highest-profile operation since formation in the mid-1980s...

Beijing "strongly condemned" the attack, which exposed the risks of its drive to use Africa's under-developed energy resources to feed a rapidly growing economy.

African governments have generally welcomed the Chinese push, which comes free of the political conditions often imposed by Western nations. But there is concern in some quarters Beijing may be gaining too much control, treating local labour forces badly and flooding Africa with cheap goods.

[3AngelaD]

Africa continues to search for ways to make itself poorer.

[kinoxi]

China has no rules to play by.

[Ken522]

I wonder if the Ogaden National Liberation Front is itself a front for islam in Somalia?

[cripplecreek]

African governments have generally welcomed the Chinese push, which comes free of the political conditions often imposed by Western nations. But there is concern in some quarters Beijing may be gaining too much control, treating local labour forces badly and flooding Africa with cheap goods.

There's so much ironically and tragically funny about that comment I don't know where to begin.