GeeskaAfrika: Misleading the Masses through a Bogus Media
Ogaden Online Editorial
Dec 23, 2024
In a civilized and a democratic society the freedom of expression is a sacrosanct commodity valued dearly by all those who aspire to the ideals of democracy. Individuals are allowed in these societies to express their views on issues they may hold dearly or seem interested in. The expectancy is that one will uphold the rule of law during his or her freedom of expression exercises. It is one thing to express one�s opinion on a matter however it is an all different matter to concoct stories and ascribe these stories to others in order to lend credibility to one�s bogus and imaginative stories. �Even worse is the fact that one would spread these self-invented stories through a media such as a publicly accessible website. Ogaden Online staff came across a very disturbing and an illegal website, GeeskaAfrika, whose very existence it seems is the modification of publicly available reports and newspaper stories in order to convey a message other than the original message. The owners and authors of this website, although they live in Canada, a democratic and law abiding society, seem not realize the gravity and illegality of the activities they are engaged in. They seem oblivious to the legal ramifications of forging other�s work in order to incite their clan into believing that the world is listening to their �plight�.
Recently GeeskaAfrika printed a letter supposedly written to Ethiopia�s dictator Mr Melez. In this letter, a fictitious group, Raaso Human Rights Group, a group which only exists in the minds of the authors of this hullabaloo as we could not trace any registered organization with that name in Canada, USA, Australia and Europe, implore to get the world�s attention to �alleged killings� in Raaso. To do so, the author attempted to exploit the terrorism theme by linking two divergent organizations, one outlawed � Al Itihad- and the other a world recognized indigenous freedom fighting movement, ONLF, in order to impart the message that the so-called �plight� of their people is caused by these two organizations. To the contrary and we are prepared to divulge hard facts, it is people like this author and the owner of the website in question who encouraged the mass movement of an illiterate mass of people away from the places and the people they have cohabited with peacefully for centuries. Since the objective of this writing is not to refute or put counter claims to the content of this letter, we will leave this matter to another writing which we will be publishing soon.� Back to the content of the letter, in order to give credibility to the gripes mentioned in the letter, the author quotes a �report� supposedly written by the credible International Crisis Group (ICG). In it he writes:
�In February 3, 2025 Mr. Mark Buchanan of Belgium, Brussels (ICG) reported that " Since February 1998, in the context of a gorilla insurgency campaign against Raaso area and Sheikhash tribe in Ethiopia by the Ogaden/Al-Itihad Movement (OAM), ONLF-Ogaden Militia forces and hand picked member of parliament in Jigjiga Regional State government are backing ethnic Ogaden militias (Underground Group) known as " Ogadenia forces " have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and " ethnic cleansing " in the Raaso Area of Southern Ethiopia. Noting " ONLF/Al-Itihad forces and militias have systematically targeted civilian communities that share the same ethnicity of Sheikhash groups, killing, looting, raping, forcibly displacing and destroying hundreds of villages. " Mr. Buchanan also stated that " The ONLF/ Al-itihad with the support of Ogaden Member of Parliament in Both Federal Ethiopian Government, Like Abdurashid Dulane Rafle,� Sarhaye, Khadar Mo�allin and other Ogaden� members of both Federal and provincial parliaments joined to commit war crimes..
Although the quote violates the lexicology rules of quotations in the English grammar as it is hard for one to separate the content of the cited report from the author�s own insertions, we investigated the veracity of the content of the letter. As a starting point we researched to find the cited ICG report. After a lengthy research of the publicly available archives of the ICG, we could not locate any report about Ogadenia or Ethiopia in this matter written in the given date or any date from 1994 to December 17th, 2005. Thinking that the report might be found within the internal databases of the ICG, we contacted the media offices of ICG. ICG media assistant Juliette Le Dor�reported back to us that such as a report do not exist. ICG attested that they have not written the alleged report in the letter. Although at this point our suspicions of fabrication were growing by the minute, we decided to give the letter author the benefit of the doubt and asked ICG who Mark Buchanan is or was. Remember Mark Buchanan is the alleged author of the report quoted by the letter author. ICG media officer reported back to us that there is no employee or researcher by the name Mark Buchanan at their Brussels office as claimed by the letter author. We publish below the communication we have had with ICG media offices during our lengthy research to this matter.
Response to our original inquiry into the alleged report:�
-----Original Message-----
From: Juliette Le Dore [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2024 04:23 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: request
Dear Mister Hassan,
Thank you for your interest in Crisis Group. Unfortunately, I cannot find anything dealing with Ogadenia (Ethiopia) for the period you indicated. Maybe if you give me more details (name of the analyst, the angle of the material), I can continue to search for it.
Best regards,
Juliette Le Dor�
Media Assistant
International Crisis Group
149 Avenue Louise - Level 24
B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
ICG�s response on the fictitious Mark Buchanan attributed as the report author:
-----Original Message-----
From: Juliette Le Dore [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2024 09:07 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: FW: request (Followup)
Dear Mister Hassan,
I have not been able to locate this report, and no Mister Buchanan worked for Crisis Group on Ethiopia.
Good luck in your search,
Juliette Le Dor�
Media Assistant
International Crisis Group
149 Avenue Louise - Level 24
B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
For some, this kind of forgery may appear to be new for this website however we have noted the modifications of news stories from this site in order to convey a message of incitement and hatred towards the oppressed citizenry of Ogadenia for some time now. Forgery and copyright infringements were the reasons cited as to why Angelfire, a free web hosting company, withdrew their free hosting service to this propaganda laden website a while back. The forgery tactics employed by the site in the past used to be the insertion of Al Itihad and ONLF into news reports in order to discredit a legitimate, indigenous freedom fighting movement such as ONLF. What is a new trend lately though is the targeting of organizational reports from organizations such as ICG and Human Rights Watch to further appeal to the human conscience of the civilized world. Even high ranking US justice department officials, both present and past, seem to be a fair game for the website. How else can one explain their sham reports about the movements, associations, and intentions of the alleged Ohio mall bomber! While all available news transcripts about this individual noted his �connections� to Al-Qaeda in no way was there EVER a mention that the very same individual was or has been an ONLF trained fighter. The original undoctored report mentioned only that ��the defendant well knew, he planned to travel to Ogaden, Ethiopia, for the purpose of obtaining military-style training in preparation for violent Jihad,� Only in the hallucinating minds of these website authors and owner did Ogadenia become synonymous with Al-Qaeda and Al-Itihad. We challenge both the authors and any individual concerned to produce a single SHRED of evidence to the contrary.
What is crystal clear from our in depth research is that the objective of this website is to fabricate stories and to attribute these stories to credible organizations. What is also clear is that the website�s sole existence is based on the propagation of non-existent information in order to mislead their clan masses living in the Diaspora. Deceiving one�s clan masses with manufactured information is one thing, however we can only speculate how these bushmen, living in publicly subsidized, air conditioned and well heated apartments among civilized societies in Canada, USA, and Australia, expect their clan members to ask the help of their senators and Member of Parliament in taking up their �cause� with forged information. What the author or the website owners may not realize or may be they are unmindful is that any educated individual can check the veracity of their writing. It is evident from the reports in this website that the authors either may not know the consequences of modifying others� work in order to convey one�s own manufactured messages, or that they have calculated that the short term gain of misleading the masses through their media out ways� the legal ramifications of their forgery.
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[email protected]
Source: Ogaden Online Editorial
Dec 23, 2024
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