Abdi Mo­hamed Omar drew a large Min­neapo­lis crowd, but op­po­nents de­nounced him.

By AN­THONY LONE­TREE
Mon­day, March 23, 2015

Spir­ited voices of protest rang out in down­town Min­neapo­lis Sun­day as an Ethiopian gov­ern­ment leader pre­pared to ad­dress thou­sands of lo­cal sup­port­ers about the eco­nomic trans­for­ma­tion of his coun­try’s So­mali re­gion.

At­ten­dees mak­ing their way into Min­neapo­lis Mar­riott City Cen­ter to lis­ten to Abdi Mo­hamed Omar were greeted with bois­ter­ous shouts of “Shame on you” from about 150 peo­ple who stood across S. 7th Street tot­ing signs al­leg­ing rape and ­geno­cide in their na­tive coun­try.

Po­lice stood guard out­side the ho­tel. At­ten­dees were re­quired to have tick­ets to en­ter.

In­side, Ab­dul­lahi Nur, 34, of Min­neapo­lis, who helped or­ga­nize the speech, said of the pro­test­ers’ claims of rape and mur­der: “It is not there.” But, he added, “the gov­ern­ment will pro­tect them­selves against rebels.”

Sev­eral pro­test­ers waved the flag of the Ogaden Na­tional Lib­er­a­tion Front, which is fight­ing for in­de­pen­dence in the So­mali re­gion of Ethiopia — known as the Ogaden.
The di­vide within the coun­try is long-stand­ing.

In a 2008 re­port, Pe­ter Hein­lein, then a jour­nal­ist with Voice of Amer­ica, wrote of vis­it­ing jour­nal­ists ­find­ing “a trau­ma­tized pop­u­la­tion caught be­tween rebels stag­ing hit-and-run at­tacks and gov­ern­ment troops con­duct­ing a bru­tal coun­terin­sur­gency cam­paign.”

Both sides ac­cused each of other of se­ri­ous hu­man rights abuses, he wrote. Omar, at the time, was se­cu­rity chief of Ethiopi­a’s So­mali re­gion, ac­cord­ing to the Voice of Amer­ica ac­count. He now serves as the re­gion’s pres­i­dent.

Sun­day’s protest was or­ga­nized by the Ogaden Amer­i­can Com­mu­nity As­so­ci­a­tion of USA, based in St. An­thony.

Hi­baq Dualeh, 27, of Min­neapo­lis, the group’s po­lit­i­cal or­ga­nizer, es­ti­mated that half of the pro­test­ers were vic­tim­ized by Omar and his poli­cies. By speak­ing out against him in the United States, she added, they risked hav­ing fam­ily mem­bers in Ethiopia jailed.

“The peo­ple es­caped geno­cide,” Dualeh said, and through Omar’s pres­ence in Min­nesota, “he is vic­tim­iz­ing them all over again.”

Ahmed Mo­hamed, 53, of Min­neapo­lis, a board mem­ber with the group, said: “He came here to ter­ror­ize peo­ple here. To in­tim­i­date. Ha­rass.”

Across the street, stand­ing out­side the ho­tel, Is­mail Buri, 35, of Min­neapo­lis, an or­ga­nizer of the event, de­scribed the al­le­ga­tions as “he say, she say” pro­pa­ganda. He cred­its Omar for de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion. Schools have been built, Buri said, and an air­port, too.

The bot­tom line for Omar sup­port­ers, Buri said, “is we took peace. We don’t want to fight no more.”

As Buri spoke, the protest was in its fourth hour, and the voices from across S. 7th Street still were loud and an­gry.

an­thony.lone­tree@star­tri­bune.com