By Andrew Heavens
Sunday, April 29, 2007
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ADDIS ABABA, April 29 (Reuters) - Ethiopian rebels freed seven Chinese workers on Sunday who were seized in a deadly oilfield raid, the guerrillas and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.
Officials said gunmen killed 65 Ethiopians and nine other Chinese in Tuesday's pre-dawn assault on the exploration field in the barren eastern Ogaden region -- one of the worst attacks to date on Beijing's growing interests in Africa.
"We handed them over to the ICRC," Adurahmin Mohammed Mahdi, a London-based spokesman for the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels told Reuters by telephone. "They are all very healthy. They are uninjured and very happy."
An ICRC spokesman in Addis Ababa confirmed the news, and said the freed men were on their way to the regional capital.
"I can confirm that they have been released. They are on their way to Jijiga," the spokesman told reporters. "They are all civilians."
The ONLF have repeatedly warned investors they would not allow oil and gas exploration in Ogaden as long as local people were "denied their rights to self-determination".
The Chinese staff worked for Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, part of Sinopec, China's biggest refiner and petrochemicals producer.
Mahdi, the ONLF spokesman, said two Ethiopian men were also freed with the Chinese on Sunday after negotiations between the rebels' armed wing, ICRC officials and local Ogaden elders.
"It all went very smoothly," he said. "There was a ceasefire which we respected and the Ethiopians respected. The handover took place close to where the incident happened."
He said the freed workers had been reassured the ONLF, which has been fighting for independence from Ethiopia since 1984, had nothing against the Chinese people.
"We never meant to take them as hostages," Mahdi said. "We removed them from the scene for their own safety. We are fighting for our own rights. So we would never deprive other people of their liberty and freedom."
The ONLF has blamed the deaths of the Chinese workers killed in Tuesday's attack on explosions caused by munitions during a fierce battle with Ethiopian troops guarding the facility.
In a statement later on Sunday, the ONLF accused Ethiopian troops of carrying out retributions against ethnic Somalis in Jijiga, "causing widespread panic among residents". Government officials were not immediately available to comment.
Beijing had condemned Tuesday's raid, which analysts said 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 workers badly and flooding Africa with cheap, inferior goods.
Source: Reuters, April 29, 2007