389413, p. 390. After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in , Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), Disaster and Development in the Horn of Africa, Africa Rivista Trimestrale Di Studi E Documentazione, East African Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, New Configurations of Ethiopian Ethnicity: The Challenge of the South, Ethnic-based federalism and ethnicity in Ethiopia: reassessing the experiment after 20 years, Ethnic-based federalism and ethnicity - after 20 years ( JEAS 2011), New Configurations ofEthiopian Ethnicity: The Challenge ofthe South To the memory ofJacques Bureau 1947-1998, Conflict Management in the Ethiopian Multi-national Federation: A Critical Examination, The Nexus Between Ethnic Politics and Ethnic Conflicts: The Case of Ethiopia, Hungarian Journal of African Studies [Afrika Tanulmnyok] Vol. It argues that ethnic politics is positively correlated with ethnic conflict through ethnic security dilemmas, amplifying grievances, and feeding on greed. This co-optation of customary institutions as a means of enhancing authority is a common government strategy, see Tobias Hagmann, Beyond clannishness and colonialism: Understanding political disorder in Ethiopias Somali region, 19912004, Journal of Modern African Studies 43, 4 (2005), pp. The local community told them [the Kembata] that they had come for treatment [at the hospital] not to take the land of the local people.68, The Kembata were living on Oromo land. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Webinsecurity, political economy, political ecology, and ethnic studies. These missionaries rehabilitated people treated for leprosy, in particular Kembata, by dividing two gasha between them.51 The area also attracted migrant labour during busy agricultural periods and some migrants have subsequently settled. Record 1e, Letter from the evicted farmers to Walta Information Centre, 14 October 2002; Record 1 f, Letter from the evicted farmers to the House of Peoples Representatives, 10 October 2002. Currently the government is in control so I do not think that this could happen.75. Furthermore, neo-customary tenure systems have retained some influence in many parts of the country. Qualitative data was collected using ethnographic tools such as Observations, Key This brought displacement in Ethiopia to a peak of 3.04 million IDPs in March 2019. (PDF) Ethnic federalism and conflict in Ethiopia - ResearchGate Indeed, according to the letters provided by the Kembata, no state agency has ever denied the legitimacy of their claim. The wereda administrationdespite knowledge of ongoing investigationsissued land certificates to all occupants of the disputed land. 188207. Conflict WebIntroduction Inter-ethnic conflicts have been on the rise in Ethiopia since 2018. Under federalism through the 1990s, political representation and territorial administration were reorganised in terms of ethnicity. Access to over 1 million titles for a fair monthly price. Web(PDF) Ethnic conflict in Ethiopia: Federalism as a cause and solution Ethnic conflict in Ethiopia: Federalism as a cause and solution DOI: 10.46652/rgn.v6i30.832 CC BY-NC-ND Respondents within the community were purposively selected to provide variation in ethnicity and gender, as well as to identify people who were old enough to have directly experienced the events. Interview, respondent TM26, a Kembata displaced to Shashemene. Although the Kembata constituted the majority of those evicted in 1991, other minorities were also threatened, but were armed and able to defend themselves.73 During the hotly contested 2005 national elections, in which the EPRDF suffered significant electoral losses, Tigrayan residents were concerned that victory for the Oromo National Congress (ONC)an Oromo opposition partywould have led to retribution from the local Oromo population against the Tigrayans who remain strongly associated with the TPLF/EPRDF.74 EPRDF victory ensured that this did not occur but they remain concerned about the future: The local people have a great sense of belonging to the land. Rather than land being a right of national citizenship, according to neo-customary ideals land access is limited to clan members, in effect implying a form of local citizenship. However, it Rapid population growth has meant diminishing landholdings, while critics argued that agricultural productivity was impeded by tenure insecurity.22 The governments response was to conduct land registration to enhance tenure security and investment incentives and prevent the sub-division of landholdings into unviable plots.23 In doing so, land policy has moved a step away from past universalistic principles; there are now very large numbers of landless people in rural areas who reached adulthood after the last land redistribution and have little hope of accessing land.24 Nonetheless, the idea of universal land access remains a key part of the debate. Thank you for submitting a comment on this article. Ethiopia National Displacement Report 9, Round Those who did not speak the local language were expected to return to their own homeland.70, This government came up with ethnic federalism based on language and the government here started to work in Afaan Oromo. This prolonged drought continued to impact agricultural and pastoralist communities across Ethiopia in 2019 by driving down crop yields of the main meher harvest, reduced pastures for livestock, and dried up water resources. The article proceeds as follows. Research has repeatedly highlighted the multiple and overlapping nature of land tenure in sub-Saharan Africa. The first proposal regarding forestland on the border of SNNPR and Oromiya involved land in Sidama zone, while the SNNPR resettlement programme focuses on Bench-Maji, faraway in the southwest of the region. WebSearch for documents Learning to Live With Conflicts Federalism as a Tool of Conflict Management in Ethiopia An Overview Published Popular Published on 17 July 2018 Modified on 23 July 2018 By Super User 595 downloads Download (pdf, 288 KB) The Kembata made their appeals to government agencies, they say, because the courts under federalism are biased in favour of the Oromo majority.78 In their letters, they repeatedly called upon the government to intervene on their behalf as citizens of Ethiopia, framing their appeals in the universalistic language of the land policy.79 This is in stark contrast to the Oromo justification of the eviction in terms of indigeneity, which finds support in the more extreme interpretation of ethnic federalism and the ideal form of neo-customary tenure. All the people were expected to go to their original land.71, When the government changed many people were expected to go back to their homeland. The fourth and final section summarizes the arguments and concludes with a discussion of the parallels with debates on land tenure in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. There is a common perception that Ethiopia is unusual in Africa in having a relatively uniform system of state land ownership. 77387. While this proposal failed to respect the displaced populations rights to their previous land, it was broadly in line with the principles of the land policy, namely that the Kembataan ethnic minority residing in Oromiyahad the right to replacement land in that region. Neo-customary tenure remains a major influence on land administration in areas where pastoralism and shifting cultivation are the dominant forms of production and where the territorial reach of the state continues to be much more limited than in the highlands, namely in Afar, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella, the south of Oromiya, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR), and Somali.37 However, even in areas of smallholder cultivation in Oromiya, including the part of Arssi covered by the case discussed below, and SNNPR, neo-customary tenure continues to be an influential alternative to state land administration.38, According to the ideals of Arssi Oromo neo-customary tenure, land is the property of the patrilineal descent group or clan, and a principal objective of neo-customary tenure is to retain land within the descent group.39 As such, womenwho are required to marry out of the clanlose rights to land in their birth clan upon marriage, while women who marry into a clan only have rights to land through their husband.40. Meanwhile, the state response to conflict has been highly ambiguous, failing to defend the land rights of non-indigenous minorities in line with state ownership, and instead presenting proposals that align, in part, with the principles of ethnic federalism. They divided the Kembata land amongst themselves. Indeed, as was the case in Turufe in the early 1990s, there is some evidence that in the temporary absence of state authority created by the protests, some Oromo protestors have attacked non-indigenous Amhara and Tigrayan residents in parts of Oromiya, seizing their land and other property in the process.97. The major conclusion drawn in this study is that politicization of ethnicity and/ ethnic mobilizations take its lion share for continued and unresolved inter-ethnic conflict between Alle and Konso ethnic groups. As such, Arssi Oromo neo-customary tenure is in direct tension with the universalist principles of state land ownership. Federalism implies, therefore, that each ethnic group has its own home region and, consequently, that ethnic outsiders have a weaker claim to land than indigenous inhabitants. Instead, ideas are likely to be adapted through processes of bricolagecombining one idea with othersor translationthe adaptation of an idea when taken from one context to another.15 As such, ideas that help shape land tenure institutions at one point in time may continue to have a life of their own within public and political debate, independent from the institutions that they helped to shape. Evidently, neo-customary tenure also has important gender implications see Lavers, Land registration and gender equality in Ethiopia. The structure of government administration (from highest to lowest level) is: federal, regional, zone, wereda, kebele. Simultaneously, a localized conflict in Benishangul Gumuz region and the East and West Wellega zones of Oromia region displaced an estimated 191,995 IDPs. The proposals to relocate the Kembata to SNNPR also serve to illustrate some of the inherent tensions within the federal project. On taking national power in 1991, the EPRDF established an ethnic federal system that, in Christopher Claphams words, constituted a wholesale takeover of Stalins theory of the national question as an approach to the problem of Ethiopias ethnic diversity.26 Ethiopias ethnic federalism is based on the primordialist idea that ethnic groupsor nations, nationalities and peoplesare objectively identifiable, independent of the views of their members.27 As such, the EPRDF primarily relied on an ethno-linguistic criterion to draw round ethnic groupsaiming to delineate regional boundaries that provided a perfect fit between ethno-linguistic groups and territorial borders.28 In Ethiopias new constitution these ethnic groups were given the unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession.29. As such, they argued that the entire Kembata clan was responsible for the execution.63 Furthermore, the Kembata reported the crop loss directly to the peasant association, bypassing customary dispute resolution since they believed that the elders were biased towards the Weyrera.64 Customary dispute resolution is a highly valued social institution in Oromiya, while the pursuit of justice through the courts is considered disrespectful of customary law. Mersha and Githinji, Untying the Gordian Knot, p. 8. As stated in the 1994 constitution: Ethiopian peasants have right to obtain land without payment.20 A similar sentiment is re-iterated in the 2005 federal land proclamation, Any citizen of the country who is 18 years of age or above and wants to engage in agriculture for a living shall have the right to use rural land.21. The last Derg land redistribution is accepted as final and any ethnic minorities that received land at that time have the same rights as indigenous Oromo.80 Since the Kembata were allocated land under the Derg, their land should be returned to them. This nationwide, government-led return operation has been ongoing since April 2019. While that first proposal is broadly in line with the land policy, the inclusion of the SNNPR administration in dispute resolution and the possibility of relocating the Kembata to SNNPR are not. On numerous occasions during fieldwork peoplemostly outside state structures, but occasionally within themargued for a more extreme interpretation of federalism: that it is necessary to differentiate between ethnic groups depending on whether they are in their home region or not, even justifying the removal of ethnic minorities to their home regions to preserve resources for the dominant ethnic groupeffectively ethnic cleansing.35 As such, there remains the possibility that these more extreme ideas on ethnic federalism could influence implementation, beyond the explicit provisions of land laws. The Derg undoubtedly had political motivations, namely the destruction of the landholding class that was the base of Imperial power.16 However, land reform was justified in egalitarian and social justice terms encapsulated in the rallying cry of land to the tiller. When the Derg left, the people were waiting for the opportunity to throw out the Kembata.69. Registration is organized by the wereda and the measurement of the plots is conducted by a land administration committee (LAC) elected from and by members of the kebele. Once again this decision is in line with the more extreme interpretation of ethnic federalism and in direct contradiction of the universalist principles of state ownership. As argued by Endrias Eshete, To confer the right to secession on national communities is to grant that a regional states collective property rights take priority over the property rights of outsidersnonmembers and federal governmentin the region. Adding to the high mobility landscape of Ethiopia is the number and rate of returns. THE IMPACT OF INTER-ETHNIC CONFLICT ON 13. There is a common perception in much of the literature that Ethiopias 1975 land reform eradicated previous diverse tenure systems, resulting in a relatively uniform and unambiguous system of state land ownership.
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