Economic and development analysis: Perspectives on economics, society, development, freedom & social justice. Leading issues in Oromo, Oromia, Africa & world affairs. Oromo News. African News. world News. Views. Formerly Oromia Quarterly
UNESCO believes in the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity for sustainable societies. It is within its mandate for peace that it works to preserve the differences in cultures and languages that foster tolerance and respect for others.
Linguistic diversity(link is external) is increasingly threatened as more and more languages disappear. Globally 40 per cent of the population does not have access to an education in a language they speak or understand. Nevertheless, progress is being made in mother tongue-based multilingual education with growing understanding of its importance, particularly in early schooling, and more commitment to its development in public life.
Multilingual and multicultural societies exist through their languages which transmit and preserve traditional knowledge and cultures in a sustainable way.
MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL
“Indigenous peoples have always expressed their desire for education in their own languages, as set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Since 2019 is the International Year of Indigenous Languages, the theme of this year’s International Mother Language Day will be indigenous languages as a factor in development, peace and reconciliation. Indigenous peoples number some 370 million and their languages account for the majority of the approximately 7,000 living languages on Earth. Many indigenous peoples continue to suffer from marginalization, discrimination and extreme poverty, and are the victims of human-rights violations (…). On this International Mother Language Day, I thus invite all UNESCO Member States, our partners and education stakeholders to recognize and enforce the rights of indigenous peoples.”
— Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of International Mother Language Day
The Sidma are one of the ancient and indigenous Kemetic (Kushitic) African people. They are the 3rd largest nation in Ethiopia. Fichee- Cambalaalaa is the UNESCO registered heritage festivity simbolizes the Sidama nation New Year and national event. The Sidama people celebrated the 2017 event colorfully on 21st and 22nd June in Hawasa (the Sidama people capital) and all over the Sidama Land.
Here is the report (video) from Oromia Media Network (OMN) in Afaan Oromoo:
Fichee-Chambalaalla is a New Year festival celebrated among the Sidama people. According to the oral tradition, Fichee commemorates a Sidama woman who visited her parents and relatives once a year after her marriage, bringing ”buurisame”, a meal prepared from false banana, milk and butter, which was shared with neighbours. Fichee has since become a unifying symbol of the Sidama people. Each year, astrologers determine the correct date for the festival, which is then announced to the clans. Communal events take place throughout the festival, including traditional songs and dances. Every member participates irrespective of age, gender and social status. On the first day, children go from house to house to greet their neighbours, who serve them ”buurisame”. During the festival, clan leaders advise the Sidama people to work hard, respect and support the elders, and abstain from cutting down indigenous trees, begging, indolence, false testimony and theft. The festival therefore enhances equity, good governance, social cohesion, peaceful co-existence and integration among Sidama clans and the diverse ethnic groups in Ethiopia. Parents transmit the tradition to their children orally and through participation in events during the celebration. Women in particular, transfer knowledge and skills associated with hairdressing and preparation of ”buurisame” to their daughters and other girls in their respective villages. Click here to read more.
Sidama: -TPLF is destroying Sidama to erase its national identity for the first time in its history
By Denboba Natie,June 2017
The unprecedented level of pain TPLF’s regime is inflicting on the Sidama nation is transcending sane imagination. TPLF’s actions against the Sidama nation defy belief simply because the nation – whose economy is potentially capable of enriching the entire South – is made beggar on its own soil. The degree of injustices to which the Sidama nation is subjected under this brutal regime is deeper, complex and multifaceted; only those who can see today’s Sidama situation beyond TPLF’s lies, deceits and rhetoric can understand. Unaddressed in time, the Sidama is at the verge of destruction. The society is left without representation at all levels: from the Sidama Zone to the pseudo-parliamentarians in Finfinne (also known as Addis Ababa). Sidama is the only nation, even in the Ethiopian standard, whose TPLF-picked cadres utter no word – from bottom to top – whilst working against their own people. For the last 4 or 5 years in particular, the Sidama intelligentsia, students, business community, peasants and the wider society at large have effectively been silenced by the unprecedented level of military presence in the Sidama land, and the 1-to-5 North Korean-style spying apparatuses and surveillance operating in Sidama. TPLF’s anti-Sidama mission is implemented through the nation’s worst enemy – Shiferaw Shigute (TPLF’s second-best advocate in the South of Ethiopia – following the current puppet Prime Minister Hailemairam Desalegn).
Therefore, as in Oromia, Ogadenia, Amhara, Konso, Gambella, Benshangul and the rest of Ethiopia (if not worst), an unprecedented level of anger and frustration is fermenting in the Sidama land although it is unclear when it is likely to explode to full scale. The fire of change is smoldering although it needs brave Sidama national leadership (within) – which can set it on, so that it won’t be extinguished by barbaric TPLF without totally burning it, for the seeds of freedom, liberty and democracy to be able to germinate and yield fruits.
Since its inception, TPLF’s criminally-stitched regime has been causing serious harm to the Sidama nation although this hasn’t been an exclusive practice. For example, TPLF has been causing such deliberately masterminded harms to the Oromo, Ogadenia, Gambella, Konso, Amhara and the rest of the peoples in the country. These nations and peoples of Ethiopia – including Sidama, have been continually brainwashed with lies and deceits, thus allowed themselves to be silently enslaved for the last 26 years, whilst bickering with one another on minor issues. Besides, the move of various nations since October 2015’s Oromo resistance is encouraging, although such resistances need commonality of purpose, unity, more focus, holistic and inclusive approach by accommodating differences, without agreeing until TPLF is removed from power.
In Sidama, in addition to the burden the entire nations and peoples of the country are sharing, the magnitude of harm TPLF has caused and is causing is multifaceted and different for various reasons. Despite Sidama being the fourth or at least fifth largest nation of the country with the population size of about 6 million, TPLF has denied Sidama of its constitutional rights to regional self-determination (although nominal) – a right which had been granted to 20,000 populated Harari. Tigray is not larger than Sidama in the size of its population and is much far less with economic contribution in 1991. Hundreds of Sidama civilians have been massacred, and tens of thousands have been unlawfully incarcerated for demanding the said rights. Equivalent to tens of billions of worth dollars budget have been withheld and denied to the Sidama nation as the nation is denied the said rights for the last 26 years. TPLF pockets all sums of money during these periods. Doing so makes the nation the most victimized nation in Ethiopia, given the size of its population and economic contribution. To the contrary, TPLF’s companies expropriating its resources in Sidama have become millionaires.
The continued denial of constitutionally guaranteed quest of the Sidama nation for regional self-determination has got significant ramifications. The nation can’t exist as a national entity without being in a position of formulating its own policies. Having regional autonomy – although nominal, enables Sidama to manage its own resources by setting its own priorities, economic, education, agricultural, more essentially cultural and local development policies, although these are all controlled by TPLF. For example, the Oromo nation has been equally brutalized by TPLF, besides, it has managed to develop its cultural aspects in the past 26 years which is a precursor of social consciousness. I’m proud of the Oromo nation in this aspect. This is the opposite in Sidama. The Sidama’s cultural heritages are rapidly eroding at an alarming rate. The symbol, even nominal, of regional autonomy, for the nation would mean huge as doing so helps the nation to continue as a national entity, albeit subjugation. Today, the Sidama nation is at the brink of losing itself in the utopian sea of TPLF masterminded confusion. If someone goes to Hawassa, the Sidama capital, people hardly see the signature of the nation. If one goes to Mekele, Gonder, Bahirdar or elsewhere in the contrary, it’s easy to see the signature of the host nation. In Sidama, however, only its displaced beggars symbolize its national demise.
The Sidama nation is denied these fundamental rights by successive rulers, although TPLF is the worst in facilitating the demise of the nation, faster than any person can imagine. Needless mentioning, to ascertain this argument, it’s worth looking at the fake Sidama history book facilitated by TPLF and written under the supervision of Sidama’s worst quisling, Shiferaw Shigute – and his likes. This is the sign of national disgrace.
I argue that TPLF’s denial of Sidama’s constitutionally guaranteed rights has got serious ramifications to the nation’s survival as a national entity; if it’s left unaddressed. I further argue that, I can justify that, since TPLF assumed power in 1991, it has threatened the survival of Sidama as a national entity for the first time since the creation of the Ethiopian state in today’s form in the late 1880s. This must be crystal clear to both friends and foes. Moreover, those who’re busying themselves to implement TPLF’s anti-Sidama policies in the Sidama land must unambiguously know the level of damage they are causing to the survival of the nation. This is a historical error; inexcusable and unforgettable mistake inevitably costs the culprits dearly when the right time comes, sooner or later.
TPLF uses various methods to dehumanize the nation whilst expropriating its resources. By this regime – more than all its predecessors, the Sidama is belittled, denigrated, massacred, continually silenced, displaced and made destitute. The nation is told and retold that it is incapable of managing its own affairs unless being dictated by the invading TPLF and its handpicked messengers, such as the aforementioned quisling. Sidama’s sons and daughters are kept at bay whilst their resources taken away in front of their eyes for the last 26 years. All Sidama environs surrounding Hawassa have been taken by TPLF’s business empire by leaving tens of thousands of Sidama peasants penniless and destitute. As indicated above, if the generation is silenced, subjugated, impoverished and kept at bay, the survival of Sidama – as a national entity – will not only be compromised, but also seriously at the risk of destruction. This is a wake-up call for the Sidama nation.
Moreover, TPLF’s denial of the Sidama nation of their constitutional rights to the nominal regional self-governance adversely affected not only Sidama, but also the wider 56 various southern nations and peoples of Ethiopia – which are amalgamated into a pressure-cooker known as the Southern Ethiopia Nations and Peoples Regional State (SNNPR) to be collectively enslaved. These diverse nations and peoples were previously five regions in which the Sidama was one of. This pressure-cooker has been created by the late TPLF’s PM Meles Zenawi in 1994/5, after totally merging the previously five distinct regions. Ever since, Sidama has been crippled in several ways without a single person from Sidama Zone at the federal level uttering a single word on behalf of the nation.
To make the situation worst, the injustice imposed on the Sidama nation has become severe since the May 24, 2002 Sidama massacre in Looqqe village (outskirt of the Sidama capital, Hawassa), where the regime’s army and security forces have summarily executed over 69 confirmed Sidama peaceful and unarmed civilian demonstrators – who were demanding TPLF to respect the Sidama nation’s rights to regional self-determination.
In its heyday after assuming power in 1991 by toppling its authoritarian predecessor, Derg’s regime, TPLF appeared to be serious about defending the rights of historically subjugated nations of the political South, including the Oromo. Besides, its subterfuge became clear when it systematically denied nations’ constitutionally guaranteed rights, few years after its grip on power. Unarmed civilians, in all parts of the country, have become the subjects of ongoing brutalities of unprecedented scales – including massacres, mass incarcerations, tortures and disappearances. Millions have been obliged to flee their country due to TPLF’s brutality and deliberately caused poverty.
In the actions only comparable with Europe’s Scramble for Africa, TPLF remains busying itself with the expropriation of the resources of the entire country with varying degrees. It has also gone beyond the expropriation of resources. For example, it has removed previously existing equipment from various hospitals, such as Tikur Anbassa Hospital, during its first year in power. From Tikur Anbassa – for instance, it has removed the Swiss-donated giant auto-sterilizer – which was used for an operation theater – and had taken it to a hospital in Mekele, Tigray. Various army facilities, construction and public transport sites – from where it has ransacked buses, lorries and automobiles and tens of thousands of military vehicles to take all to Tigray, in addition to exclusively monopolizing the entire economy, military and politics of the country ever since it came to power in 1991.
Not only brutalizing the dissents and expropriating the resources of the country, but also, time and again, it has shown its unpreparedness for a pluralist political system in a multi-ethnic and multi-national Ethiopia. TPLF has continually ignored this workable politico-economic system, totally disregarding its own paper-tiger ethnic-based federalism advocating constitution. TPLF dictates its lifeless constitution which theoretically grants universally recognized rights to the stakeholders without recognizing it.
Cognizant of its ramification as the older colonial rulers of the world, as indicated above, whilst expropriating their wealth, TPLF is working hard and is tirelessly working to erode the national identity of the Sidama nation. It mercilessly murders those Sidama civilians who dare demanding their rights as it has been the case during the Sidama Looqqe massacre of May 24, 2002. This is also the case in Oromia, Ogadenia, Konso, Amhara, Gambella, Benshangul … and elsewhere in the country.
Ironically, the Sidama traitors are blinded of the truth. They hardly see the world outside the lenses TPLF has given them. They worship TPLF as their personal god and believe that TPLF is omnipotent. They hardly breath a single word even under their own roof, with erroneous belief that, TPLF knows everything they do 24/7. Therefore, puppet PM Hailemariam Desalegn had once publicly venerated the late evil TPLF’s PM Meles Zenawi by praising him like God. They agree to the genocide the regime continually commits on the nations and peoples of Ethiopia with varying degrees. They agree to the displacements of the Sidama nation from their ancestral lands to vacate it for TPLF’s companies. The Sidama cadres are molded to believe that it is absolutely right for TPLF’s security and army forces to do whatever barbarism, incarceration and tortures of unarmed civilians to steal Sidama’s land in the name of ‘development’; they think nothing otherwise.
Furthermore, in the Sidama Zone, even the cadres are handled differently because the Sidama is an epicenter of the battle for TPLF’s survival in the South of Ethiopia, simply because TPLF has got no mass base in the entire country apart from the South through two historical failures, namely Hailemariam Desalegn and Shiferaw Shigute – in addition to Kassu Ilala and handful other South Ethiopia’s quislings. TPLF uses and throws when the surrogates fail to do their job – it replaces them with other quislings under their tacit belief that ‘this is not good enough to brainwash Sidama.’ The nation is heading towards its demise.
Finally, the Sidama nation – as the rest of the peoples of Ethiopia, including its cousin (Oromo) – has been subjected to ongoing tragedy. Traditionally gallant, the nation has been denied of its dignity and self-pride by TPLF. The nation is humiliated time and again, and is being groomed to lose its direction to become visionless. The nation is coerced by TPLF’s Sidama surrogates to think and believe that TPLF has got godly power, thus the nation must shut up and follow their orders without questioning it. Sidama quislings are stage-managing TPLF’s anti-Sidama policy in the Sidama land with all possible means, including intimidating, massacring, silencing and impoverishing their own people.
Sidama’s new generation is misguided, has become hopeless – thus it has been obliged to scavenge over the leftovers of TPLF – instead of fighting for its legitimate rights whilst its wealth enriches TPLF’s bandits. The families of Sidama youth – who have sent their children to universities by selling their precious assets – are obliged to helplessly see their returnee graduate children sitting idle without aspirations, hopes and dreams. Sidama’s development activities, which were supported by foreign aid – have been dismantled by the order of TPLF’s late PM and the remaining few serve political purposes of the regime and its cadres. The Sidama land has become a battleground which the TPLF rulers scramble over while its over 6-million legitimate owners are silently driven into nonexistence with deprivation. The Sidama land has become hell for its owners whilst TPLF entirely controls its abundant economy, political and related affairs.
For how long will the Sidama remain silent? For how long will the nation tolerate slavery? For how long will the nation put up with its worst quislings who are stage-managing its suffering? For how long will the nation remain belittled and deceived? For how long will, the historically gallant Sidama nation, remain subservient to the brutal TPLF’s rule? For how long will its wealth enrich TPLF whilst its sons and daughters are surviving on a single meal a day? For how long will the nation allow its lands to be freely confiscated by TPLF’s apparatuses leaving Sidama peasants beggars on their own soil? Uncustomary fear or silence Sidama nation?
Dying defending own rights and land is privilege and much more dignified than dying under slavery in silence whilst nation’s survival is at stake!
The Sidama Nation, Wake up!
* Denboba Natie can be reached at denbobanatie@yahoo.co.uk
The International Criminal Court (ICCt) announced on 15 September 2016 it will now hold corporate executives and governments legally responsible for environmental crimes. The court’s new focus on land grabbing and environmental destruction could help put a dent in corporate and governmentalimpunity. Politicians and corporate bosses who are chasing communities off their land and trashing the environment will find themselves standing trial in the Hague alongside war criminals and dictators. However, far‐sighted covers by USAmerican corporate investors through corporate fronts from e.g. India restrict the ICCt, since neither the USA nor India ‐ as other rogue states like Sudan or Israel ‐ are parties to the Rome Statute of the ICCt.
01. Dec. 2016:
Ethiopian forces from the command post of Ethiopia’s sweeping State Of Emergency command post detained leading Oromo ethnic group and government opposition figure Prof. Dr. Merera Gudina, chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), upon his arrival at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport after returning from Brussels, where he testified at the EU parliament on the current situation in Ethiopia alongside with Prof. Berhanu Nega of Patriotic Ginbot 7 (G7), an armed freedom fighter group, and Rio Olympics marathon silver medallist ‐ athlete Feyisa Lellisa. Also four relatives of Prof. Merera were detained.
23. Nov. 2016:
Oromo asylum seeker and UNHCR registered refugee Yaazoo Kabbabaa ‐ the prominent leader of ‘Qeerro‘ (The Oromo youth group who is leading the protests in Ethiopia) ‐ was attacked in Cairo during the evening while he was returning home from visiting friends, by people described as Ethiopian state agents following him. During the incident Mr. Kabbabaa was injected in the neck with a toxic substance. Luckily he was rescued and brought to a hospital, where he regained consciousness in the meantime. It is, however, not yet clear if he will remain paralyzed. His medical bills are being covered by a campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/yaazoo‐kabbabaas‐medical‐fund . Please chip in! Ethiopian dissidents who fled the country live in constant fear from agents sent by the Addis regime after them.
* 14. Nov. 2016:
Oromo Leadership Convention was held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, November 11 ‐ 13 Oromo United and Steadfast to Continue Revolution Against TPLF Regime
* 20. Oct. 2016:
As we predicted: The brutal regime felt empowered by Merkel’s visit and the promised millions of Euro for “police training” and “to try to quell the unrest”. In just the one week after her ill‐conceived visit almost 3,000 Oromo women and men were rounded up in different locations and thrown in jail. Reportedly Ethiopian agents were sent to neighbouring countries to hunt down dissidents. Ethiopian authorities admitted to Reuters on Thursday they had detained 1,645 people.
* 11. Oct. 2016: German Chancellor Angela Merkel travelled to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, where she was welcomed by the PM of the corrupt regime with military honours. Amid protests in Germany against the insensitive visit, Merkel offered millions of Euro in bilateral agreements, to train the police and mediation to try and quell the rising unrest in Ethiopia. Just two days prior to Merkel’s visit, the Ethiopian regime declared a six‐month state of emergency in order to undertake even more brutal measures to suppress popular protests.
* 02. Oct. 2016: At least 52 people directly killed by police action against protesters during Oromia religious festival of Irreechaa, the Oromo Thanksgiving, in Bishooftuu. Others died in the ensuing stampede. 175 dead bodies have been loaded and taken to Addis Ababa according to a police source. That’s in addition to over 120 at Bishoftu hospital. ECOTERRA Intl., Human Rights Watch and the UN called for an independent investigation.
* 01. Oct. 2016: ECOTERRA Intl. demands the immediate and unconditional release of illegally arrested Ethiopian scientist and blogger Seyoum Teshome. Police arrested the prominent writer and commentator Teshome today, who writes for http://www.Ethiothinkthank.com and lectures at Ambo University.
* 16. June 2016: Ethiopian security forces killed at least 500 people in the recent wave of anti‐government demonstrations, US‐based Human Rights Watch (HRW) says in its most comprehensive report into the Oromo protests. https://tinyurl.com/j7nanmr
Even government officials admitted that over 170 Oromo protesters were killed.
Meanwhile the atrocities against the Mursi and other aboriginal nations of Ethiopia continue unabated.
Foreign investments through the present Ethiopian governance are unethical and taxpayers all over the world must ensure that their governments, who are state‐sponsors or donors to the Ethiopian governance, stop immediately any support until these crimes against humanity end.
Land Grabbing is the purchase and lease of vast tracts of land from poor, developing countries by wealthier nations and international private investors. It has led to unprecedented misery especially in Africa, South‐America and India.African Food Security is in jeopardy and lands half the size of Europe have already been grabbed.
The Ethiopian government has forcibly displaced hundreds of thousands of indigenous people from their ancestral lands. It has rendered formerly sustainably living small‐scale farmers and pastoral communities dependent on food aid, which is paid for by the taxpayers and well‐wishers from donor countries, while the profits of these industrial agriculture‐, oil‐ and gas‐ventures go into the pockets of private investors and corrupt officials.
THIS MUST STOP
The recently enacted Kampala Convention ‐ an Africa‐wide treaty and the world’s first that protects people displaced within their own countries by violence, natural disasters or large‐scale development projects ‐ is violated blatantly and with impunity by Ethiopia.
PLEASE SIGN ON
URGE THE AFRICAN UNION AND THE ETHIOPIAN GOVERNANCE TO STOP THE ETHIOPIAN ATROCITIES AND GENOCIDE
The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa must be enforced!
Read more: Indian investors are forcing Ethiopians off their land
By John Vidal (TheGuardian)
Thousands of Ethiopians are being relocated or have already fled as their land is sold off to foreign investors without their consent
Ethiopia’s leasing of 600,000 hectares (1.5m acres) of prime farmland to Indian companies has led to intimidation, repression, detentions, rapes, beatings, environmental destruction, and the imprisonment of journalists and political objectors, according to a new report.
Research by the US‐based Oakland Institute suggests many thousands of Ethiopians are in the process of being relocated or have fled to neighbouring countries after their traditional land has been handed to foreign investors without their consent. The situation is likely to deteriorate further as companies start to gear up their operations and the government pursues plans to lease as much as 15% of the land in some regions, says Oakland.
In a flurry of new reports about global “land grabbing” this week, Oxfam said on Thursday that investors were deliberately targeting the weakest‐governed countries to buy cheap land. The 23 least‐developed countries of the world account for more than half the thousands of recorded deals completed between 2000 and 2011, it said. Deals involving approximately 200m ha of land are believed to have been negotiated, mostly to the advantage of speculators and often to the detriment of communities, in the past few years.
In what is thought to be one of the first “south‐south” demonstrations of concern over land deals, this week Ethiopian activists came to Delhi to urge Indian investors and corporations to stop buying land and to actively prevent human rights abuses being committed by the Ethiopian authorities.
“The Indian government and corporations cannot hide behind the Ethiopian government, which is clearly in violation of human rights laws,” said Anuradha Mittal, director of the Oakland Institute. “Foreign investors must conduct impact assessments to avoid the adverse impacts of their activities.”
Ethiopian activists based in UK and Canada warned Indian investors that their money was at risk. “Foreign investors cannot close their eyes. When people are pushed to the edge they will fight back. No group knows this better than the Indians”, said Obang Metho, head of grassroots social justice movement Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE), which claims 130,000 supporters in Ethiopia and elsewhere.
Speaking in Delhi, Metho said: “Working with African dictators who are stealing from the people is risky, unsustainable and wrong. We welcome Indian investment but not [this] daylight robbery. These companies should be accountable under Indian law.”
Nyikaw Ochalla, director of the London‐based Anywaa Survival Organisation, said: “People are being turned into day labourers doing backbreaking work while living in extreme poverty. The government’s plans … depend on tactics of displacement, increased food insecurity, destitution and destruction of the environment.”
Ochall, who said he was in daily direct contact with communities affected by “land grabbing” across Ethiopia, said the relocations would only add to hunger and conflict.
“Communities that have survived by fishing and moving to higher ground to grow maize are being relocated and say they are now becoming dependent on government for food aid. They are saying they will never leave and that the government will have to kill them. I call on the Indian authorities and the public to stop this pillage.”
Karuturi Global, the Indian farm conglomerate and one of the world’s largest rose growers, which has leased 350,000 ha in Gambella province to grow palm oil, cereals maize and biofuel crops for under $1.10 per hectare per year, declined to comment. A spokesman said: “This has nothing to do with us.”
Ethiopia has leased an area the size of France to foreign investors since 2008. Of this, 600,000 ha has been handed on 99‐year leases to 10 large Indian companies. Many smaller companies are believed to have also taken long leases. Indian companies are said to be investing about $5bn in Ethiopian farmland, but little is expected to benefit Ethiopia directly. According to Oakland, the companies have been handed generous tax breaks and incentives as well as some of the cheapest land in the world.
The Ethiopian government defended its policies. “Ethiopia needs to develop to fight poverty, increase food supplies and improve livelihoods and is doing so in a sustainable way,” said a spokeswoman for the government in London. She pointed out that 45% of Ethiopia’s 1.14m sq km of land is arable and only 15% is in use.
The phenomenon of Indian companies “grabbing” land in Africa is an extension of what has happened in the last 30 years in India itself, said Ashish Kothari, author of a new book on the growing reach of Indian businesses.
“In recent years the country has seen a massive transfer of land and natural resources from the rural poor to the wealthy. Around 60 million people have been displaced in India by large scale industrial developments. Around 40% of the people affected have been indigenous peoples,” he said.
These include dams, mines, tourist developments, ports, steel plants and massive irrigation schemes.
According to Oakland, the Ethiopian “land rush” is part of a global phenomenon that has seen around 200m ha of land leased or sold to foreign investors in the past three years.
The sales in Africa, Latin America and Asia have been led by farm conglomerates, but are backed by western hedge and pension funds, speculators and universities. Many Middle East governments have backed them with loans and guarantees.
Barbara Stocking, the chief executive of Oxfam, which is holding a day of action against land grabs on Thursday, called on the World Bank to temporarily freeze all land investments in large scale agriculture to ensure its policies did not encourage land grabs.
“Poor governance allows investors to secure land quickly and cheaply for profit. Investors seem to be cherry‐picking countries with weak rules and regulations because they are easy targets. This can spell disaster for communities if these deals result in their homes and livelihoods being grabbed.”
While DFID, GIZ etc. failed and fail to act on Human Rights violations ‐ see also: http://www.anywaasurvival.org
‐ and please note that many believe the Indian companies act simply as straw‐men for USAmerican land‐grabbing interests Incl. AGRA and Monsanto), who are competing now with similar Chinese interests in Africa.
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In the harsh Ogaden region of Eastern Ethiopia, impoverished ethnic people are being murdered and tortured, raped, persecuted and displaced by government paramilitary forces. Illegal actions carried out with the knowledge and tacit support of donor countries, seemingly content to turn a blind eye to war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by their brutal, repressive ally in the region; and a deaf ear to the pain and suffering of the Ogaden Somali people.
read: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/08/ethiopian‐annihilation‐of‐the‐ogaden‐people/
Meanwhile the Ethiopian GIBE III dam project is devastating the lives of remote southern Ethiopian ethnicities. Pastoralists living in the Omo valley are being forcibly relocated, imprisoned and killed due to the ongoing building of a massive dam that shall turn the region into a major centre for commercial farming ‐ mostly by foreign ventures. War is in the making.
see also: http://www.genocidewatch.org/ethiopia.html
Since mid‐November 2015, large‐scale protests have again swept through Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region, and the response from security forces has again been brutal. They have killed countless students and farmers, and arrested opposition politicians and countless others.
Since then Ethiopia has been shaken by a global wave of anti‐government protests over the controversial “Addis Ababa Integrated Development Master Plan” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oromia_Special_Zone_Surrounding_Finfinne , which is just another form of grabbing land from the Oromo people. The regime had insisted on escalating its violations of human rights through the implementation of this very dangerous policy of land grabbing in Oromia. While the Oromo people were peacefully protesting against the unfair land use policy at least over 180 innocent Oromo civilians were killed in the three months from mid November 2015 to mid January 2016.
After two months of global protests, the Ethiopian government finally announced the cancellation of this development plan https://www.oromiamedia.org/tag/finfinne‐master‐plan/ for Addis Ababa (Finfinne) http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IPeoples/WG/IGFM1‐oromo‐4b.doc and its expansion into neighbouring Oromia state. But the problem hasn’t gone away.
In violation of the EU resolution and despite international pressure, reports are confirming now that the regime’s loyal armed forces continue to attack the civilian population in many parts of Oromia. Though these violations of civil rights during the process of land grabbing have reached a new climax, the capacity of human rights organizations to access data of extra‐judicial killings and disappearances in the region is at an unprecedented low.
There is a war of ethnic cleansing officially declared against the Oromo people and implemented across Oromia. Though it has been difficult even to keep up with reports of the death toll some confirmed records are now showing that more than 400 civilians have been killed as of 19. February 2016.
On January 12, 2016 the Ethiopian government announced it was cancelling the master plan, but that hasn’t stopped the protests and the resultant crackdown. Although the protest was initially about the potential for displacement, it has become about so much more. Despite being the biggest ethnic group in Ethiopia, the Oromos have often felt marginalized by successive governments and feel unable to voice their concerns over injust government policy. Oromos who express dissent are often arrested and tortured or otherwise mistreated in detention, accused of belonging to the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a group that has long been mostly inactive and that the government designated a terrorist organization. The government is doing all it can to make sure that the news of these protests doesn’t circulate within the country or reach the rest of the world. Of recent the Ethiopian Government has even resorted to use their Cyber‐crime Act to treat bloggers as terrorists. Ethiopia’s allies, including governments in the region and the African Union, have largely stood by as Ethiopia has steadily strangled the ability of ordinary Ethiopians to access information and peacefully express their views, whether in print or in public demonstrations. But they should be worried about what is happening in Oromia right now, as Ethiopia — Africa’s second most‐populous country and a key security ally of the US — grapples with this escalating crisis.
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Sons and Daughters
By Maya Angelou
If my luck is bad And his aim is straight I will leave my life On the killing field You can see me die On the nightly news As you settle down To your evening meal. But you’ll turn your back As you often do Yet I am your sons And your daughters too. In the city streets Where the neon lights Turn my skin from black To electric blue My hope soaks red On the pavement’s gray And my dreams die hard For my life is through. But you’ll turn your back As you often do Yet I am your sons And your daughters too. In the little towns Of this mighty land Where you close your eyes To my crying need I strike out wild And my brother falls Turn on your news You can watch us bleed.
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ECOTERRA Intl. SURVIVAL & FREEDOM for PEOPLE & NATURE
join the phalanx directly: africanode[at]ecoterra.net fPcN ‐ interCultural (friends of Peoples close to Nature) e‐mail: collective[at]fpcn‐global.org
For over 10 years, the Northern Rangelands Trust, a Kenya-based conservation initiative, has been acquiring land in the arid north of the country. Today, it controls almost 10% of Kenya’s land mass. Environmental journalist John Mbaria investigates.
In its dying days, the Obama Administration pumped massive amounts of money into supporting a powerful NGO accused of using below-the-radar tactics to control a huge amount of Kenyan land, thereby using conservation as a subtle tool for dispossessing tens of thousands of pastoralists, who have unwittingly participated in their own dispossession.
Much of the land, whose control is enforced by local well-armed militias, has recently been granted UN-protected status. And with financial backing from powerful Western donors, the Northern Rangelands Trust’s (NRT) activities are largely insulated from public scrutiny.
Unless the new Trump administration discontinues the US government’s support to wildlife conservation in Africa, the NRT is set to continue having a say over vast, mineral-rich lands in the north and coastal areas of Kenya.
Most of these lands have been identified, in official documents, as areas of immense potential capable of becoming the very basis of the country’s future economic progress. These areas are also crucial to the maintenance of the extensive livestock husbandry practised by millions of pastoralists in northern Kenya.
Today, the NRT effectively controls 44,000 km2 (or 10.8m acres) of land – that’s roughly eight per cent of Kenya’s 581,309 km2 landmass. Interestingly, the organisation appears to have acquired a decisive say over these lands by co-opting the local leadership. Consequently, NRT’s control of the lands in Kenya’s Upper Rift, North and Coastal areas is facilitated by local political and community leaders, some of whom are co-opted as members of the organisation’s Board.
This has been done through community wildlife conservation, a model in which landowners assert the right to manage and profit from wildlife on their lands.
Conservancies have proliferated across pastoralist, wildlife-rich areas in northern and southern Kenya. They are also an extremely attractive funding prospect for Western donors in the conservation sector.
All the cash is handed over, not directly to the landowners, who have constituted themselves into 33 community conservancies, but to the NRT, which acts like a middleman and which has taken up not just conservation, but other roles (including security arrangements) that are ordinarily performed by national governments.
Among the biggest financial supporters of NRT, the former Obama administration consistently extended tens of millions of dollars to the organisation through the United States Agency for International Development (USAid). As if to underscore how important the NRT’s work was to the Obama Administration, the organisation’s Chief Programs Officer, Tom Lalampaa, and its founder, Ian Craig, were among the people given the privilege of making short presentations about their work when the former US president visited Kenya last July.
America’s latest support to the organisation was announced in a press statement released by the US Embassy in Nairobi in late November 2016. In the communiqué, the US Ambassador to Kenya, Robert F. Godec, said
the US’s new 5-year, $20m support was meant “to help expand” the NRT’s operations in Coastal
Kenya.
He hailed NRT’s partnership with the communities, terming it “a shared vision of protecting ecosystems and promoting peace for a better future”. He added that the cash would be used to support the work of community rangers, to conserve wildlife and fisheries, improve livelihoods, and advance women’s enterprises.
For its part, NRT, through Craig (who signed off as the organisation’s Director of Conservation), said the cash would be used to fund the opening up of new conservancies and create a conservation trust fund.
The former Obama administration consistently extended tens of millions of dollars to the NRT through USAid.
Though the US government believes that the NRT shares “the visions of protecting ecosystems” with the communities in Upper Rift, the North and on the Coast, recent developments in Kenya have proved otherwise. Indeed, the US support comes at a time when some well-armed herders, from some of the same communities the NRT has helped to form community conservancies, have invaded sprawling private ranches in Laikipia and elsewhere, leading to human fatalities, the killing of wild animals and forcing the deployment of specialised security units from the Kenya police.
The work of NRT and the West’s support to conservation in some of Kenya’s arid-and-semi-arid lands has altered the human/ wildlife dynamics in some areas. This has also invited curious concern from conservation experts, who believe that the US and other countries in the West have been supporting a controversial organisation that has been usurping the role of Kenya’s human and wildlife security organs, as well as destroying the age-old ability of tens of thousands of herders to live off their land.
As New African found out in extensive visits and interviews with different people in the affected areas, the NRT-inspired community-conservation model is simple and can be quite attractive for anyone ignorant of its implications, especially for the lives and livelihoods of local people.
After co-opting the local leadership, the NRT appears to have crafted MOUs with the communities owning the vast tracts of land. In most cases, the communities’ land-ownership claims are based on the most rudimentary rights – an ancestral claim to the land.
Community members are also reputed to retain significant respect for, and allow themselves to be guided by, local leadership which, in most cases, uses its standing in communities to advance, and persuade “lesser” members of communities to conform with the wishes of the NRT.
This is not so difficult as the organisation has come up with quite an attractive package for thecommunities, including securing for them investors interested in developing lodges and other tourism facilities, once they agree to set aside some of their lands for exclusive use by wildlife and the investors.
NRT also promises bursaries for school children, employment for community members, a ready market for the livestock and the setting up of a grazing plan to prevent livestock deaths through drought in the drylands of Kenya.
“NRT’s approach is quite attractive to communities who have been neglected by successive governments in Kenya since the country attained independence from the British,” says Daniel Letoiye, a Samburu County resident who previously worked as a programme officer with NRT.
However, hidden in the fine print are consequences that are considered grave for the pastoralist groups in Northern Kenya. “Even when droughts occur, many of the pastoralist groups [who have signed up to the agreements] cannot access part of their lands that are now set aside for wildlife conservation and which constitute community conservancies,” says Michael Lalampaa, an official with the Higher Education Loans Board who hails from Samburu County.
Samburu comunity elders discuss their perspectives with the author in Samburu County
Lalampaa complains that the NRT compels communities to set aside the best portions of their lands for the exclusive use of wildlife and the tourist investors. Lalampaa says that the organisation usually identifies leaders and elites within relevant communities who aid in persuading the pastoralists to set aside big parcels of land for conservation purposes. “Once the agreements are put in place, it becomes impossible for the herders to access some areas with pastures in the conservancies … they are confronted by armed scouts who evict them.” He adds that it is “sad that at times, livestock ends up dying simply because the owners cannot graze the animals in what used to be their own lands.”
This has proven problematic especially since vast sections of the relevant rangelands have been depleted year-in, year-out by overgrazing and are inhabited by people who have become increasingly vulnerable to the devastating effects of climate change.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of livestock end up competing over the remaining patches of grasslands and dwindling water sources such as the Ewaso Nyiro River.
This happens, as copious reports show, in an area largely ignored by the Kenya government, inhabited by morans, have taken up cattle- rustling as a traditional pastime.
Claims have also been made that NRT’s activities have far-reaching implications on the entire country and therefore need to be handled with more than casual attention by Kenya’s allies across the world, the government as well as the people of Kenya.
“The sheer geographical, financial, cultural, and political scale of this intervention calls for a lot more thought than has been given to it thus far,” said Dr Mordecai Ogada, a conservation consultant based in Laikipia County.
Dr Ogada believes that the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has “abdicated” from its responsibility to inspire the formation and sound management of conservation activities outside Kenya’s protected areas. But top officials at KWS – which has lately been experiencing financial difficulties – deny this, saying that they see no problem with the operations of the NRT.
However, KWS appears critical of recent moves by foreign governments to fund the NRT. “Conservation NGOs like NRT have recently benefited from funding from development partners, following the paradigm shift where development partners and other governments prefer to fund communities through NGOs rather than governments directly,” said Paul Gathitu, KWS spokesperson and head of corporate communications.
Attempts by New African to elicit comments from NRT met with no success. Nevertheless, on its website, the organisation – which calls itself a “movement” – announces that it has been raising funds to aid the formation and running of conservancies.
NRT also says that it supports the training of relevant communities and helps to “broker agreements between conservancies and investors”. It claims that it provides donors with “a degree of oversight” by participating directly in how community conservancies and incomes accrued are managed.This was evident as New African toured eight conservancies in Isiolo, Marsabit, Samburu and Laikipia, where NRT has appointed its own managers who are in charge of the day-to-day running of the conservancies.
Besides the managers, there are the members of the Board and grazing committees who are, on paper, supposed to be making decisions that suit the needs of the true owners of the land.
However, there is evidence that main decisions are made by NRT and that the organisation has maintained little or no engagement with the owners of the land and local public institutions.
Besides the US, NRT’s activities are funded by a host of other private companies and bodies in the West. Some of the principal donors to NRT include the Danish Development Agency (DANIDA); the Nature Conservancy (a US-based international NGO); and Agence Française de Développement (AFD) of France. NRT is also bankrolled by other donors who fund its long-term programmes – including Fauna & Flora International, Zoos South Australia, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ of Germany), US Fish and Wildlife Service, San Diego Zoo, International Elephant Foundation, Saint Louis Zoo, Running Wild and others. These latter donors have boosted what NRT terms a pooled conservation fund that has a lifespan of more than five years.
The Tullow Oil Company, that has been involved in oil prospecting in Turkana County, has funded NRT to the tune of $11.5m in a five-year project meant to aid the latter in establishing and operating new conservancies in Turkana and West Pokot counties.
Seventy per cent of the money was meant to go directly to community conservancies’ bank accounts for meeting operational costs (i.e. staff salaries, the purchase and running of vehicles, the acquisition of computers and other equipment), while 30% was to enable the formation and management of the conservancies.
The NRT has maintained little or no engagement with the owners of the land and local public institutions
But this did not go down well with the Turkana County government, which declared the relevant conservancies illegal, with the County Executive for Energy, Environment & Natural Resources ordering NRT to stop its operations there.
Later, the County Governor, Josphat Nanok, termed NRT’s move to establish conservancies in Turkana as “ill-advised with a hidden agenda”.
Dr Ogada believes that the millions of dollars in grants given by the US and other countries in the West have made NRT a “launch pad” for what he terms “a new conservation paradigm” in East Africa.
“NRT has championed this model of conservation very actively for the last decade [resulting] in a situation where challenges or mistakes aren’t spoken about by donors or implementers because of the sheer scale of professional and financial investment in an institution [which like all others] does have inherent weaknesses,” he added.
The NRT’s security function is considered one of the most controversial aspects of the community conservancy movement in Kenya. Usually, maintenance of security within countries is a preserve of governments. But on its website, the organisation says that it inspires community conservancies to “tackle insecurity holistically”.
This includes conducting anti-poaching operations, wildlife monitoring and providing what it terms “invaluable [support] to the Kenya Police in helping to tackle cattle rustling and road banditry”.
The organisation says that by 2014, it had facilitated the training of 645 rangers who operate in the conservancies while Dickson ole Kaelo, the chief executive of the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association, reported that over 2,300 community rangers have been trained so far.
Normally, the organisation selects community members and takes them for training by the KWS’s personnel at the wildlife agency’s Manyani Training School, close to Kenya’s biggest national park, Tsavo.
Here, the rangers are taught “bush craft skills, as well as how to effectively gather and share intelligence, monitor wildlife and manage combat situations”. The involvement of KWS in the training of the community rangers was confirmed, but downplayed, by Michael Kipkeu, KWS’s Senior Assistant Director in charge of the Community Wildlife Service. “The KWS law enforcement academy provides tailor-made community scouts’ training.”
After being trained by KWS, the rangers are given more advanced training than what is posted on the NRT’s website. For instance, according to the Save the Rhino NGO, the rangers are given Kenya Police Reserve accreditation and “sufficient weapons handling training”.
Such advanced training involves tactical movement with weapons, ambush and anti-ambush drills, handling and effective usage of night-vision and thermal-imaging equipment, and ground-to-air communications and coordination.
There are also suspicions that the bigger scheme is to ensure that Kenya unwittingly “forfeits” some of the lands under the NRT by getting them declared by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.
The scheme to have UNESCO declare some of the biggest private game ranches and wildlife conservancies in Laikipia, Samburu, and islands in the Coast as World Heritage Sites is now being pursued in earnest.
“Legally, the move may not amount to much but knowing how lobbying is done, if the government were to [seek to] change ownership, listings would be put up to demonstrate how special these ranches are and why they should remain with the present landowners,” said Njenga Kahiro, a former Programme Officer with Laikipia Wildlife Forum. The aim, Kahiro avers, is “to create a super-big protected area … all of it [covered by] the World Heritage Convention.” NA
OSA: STATEMENT ON THE ATTEMPT TO ALTER THE QUBEE (ALPHABET) OROMO WRITTEN ALPHABET
For Immediate Release
June 9, 2017
The Oromo Studies Association (OSA) believes the Ethiopian government’s decision to rearrange the order of the Qubee Afaan Oromoo which has been in official use for a quarter century is misguided.
On June 3, 2017, the state-owned TV Oromiyaa (TVO) reported that the Oromia regional state, apparently at the behest of the Federal Ministry of Education of Ethiopia, had decided to alter the order of the qubee (alphabet) used in written Afaan Oromoo (the Oromo language). According to the TVO report, the Oromia Education Bureau made the decision over a year ago and introduced a new primary school curriculum in which the order of Qubee Afaan Oromoo was altered. New textbooks were distributed and early grade teachers were trained to implement the curriculum. Surprisingly, this changes were implemented quietly without consultation or input from the public and experts in the field.
The news report also stated that the changes were prompted by a finding of a USAID-funded study, the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA). The study was conducted in 2010 in eight regions and six languages by an American consultancy firm, RTI International. The critical finding of the study that ostensibly occasioned the curricular change was: “by the end of the second grade, a third of students were unable to read at all and about half read at much lower level than the proficiency benchmarked for that grade.”
OSA scholars and experts have scrutinized the EGRA document and several other studies conducted with the support of the USAID-funded Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READ TA) Project. The EGRA researchers did inquire if the scripts and writing systems used in the various regional states had any differential impact on reading skills. The report found no direct link between the two variables and made no recommendation that altering the order of alphabets would improve early grade reading skills. In fact, the study posits that children learn to read faster in their mother-tongue. Accordingly, the USAID project mentioned above supported mother tongue instruction to improve early grade reading. In light of this, OSA maintains that the Oromia regional state’s attempt to leverage external support to implement its ill-advised scheme is a disgraceful act that should not be allowed to stand.
In addition to the EGRA study, officials of the Oromia Education Bureau and its associated experts offered an additional justification for the alteration of the qubee order. They claimed that a “word frequency test” they administered showed the Oromo language had more words whose first letter is the alphabet “L.” This was offered as the rationale for rearranging the qubee order. That means, early grade students will henceforth learn alphabets begin with L, A, G, M, rather than the customary A, B, C, D. If this were in the US, Big Bird and Barney will have to relearn their A, B, C, D, and their alphabet songs.
OSA members and other experts have run similar tests and found that by far the most frequent word in the Oromo language has “A” as the first letter. In fact, “L” is ranked as 13th in one of the tests, 19thwhen the letter is followed by the vowel “a” and 42nd when the upper case “L” is used in the test.
Viewed from the technical vantage point, there is no linguistic or pedagogical basis for altering the qubee order. In the absence of any study that shows the qubee alphabet as a drag on reading skills or word frequency test results that shows “L” to be the most frequent occurrence, nothing warrants the Oromia Education Bureau’s decision to change the order of the qubee alphabet and secretly implementing a structural curriculum change. OSA rejects the justifications given by the Oromia regional state officials and the experts as reasons for the ill-conceived scheme.
In fact, the OSA leadership believes that this scheme has a strategic objective. To implement curricular changes that are so radical and disruptive can have no constructive purpose. There is only a political goal to the unjustified changes. Given that the use of the qubee alphabet has gone on for a quarter century, the change to the order of qubee could only create resentment and frustration with the use of the qubee alphabet. OSA believes that tinkering with the Qubee Afaan Oromoo is a slippery slope that shouldn’t be embarked on. It must be opposed.
OSA reaffirms its unflinching support for the use of the Latin alphabet as the sole means of written Afaan Oromoo. The studies that the government has cited as the basis for its action identifies inadequacy of textbooks, reading materials, low student-teacher ratio, truancy and teacher absenteeism as factors for the low level of reading fluency throughout the country. The tried-and-true means for improving reading proficiency is more reading and reading more. The Oromia Education Bureau should focus on what works and turn away from the meaningless proposition to alter the sequence of the Latin alphabet which has almost nothing to do with improving reading fluency.
OSA believes that the decision to change the order of Qubee Afaan Oromoo constitutes violence against the long and bitter struggle Oromo struggle for written Oromo language. In the 1840s, Oromo slaves began to use Latin alphabets to write in the Oromo language. In the 1870s, Emperor Menelik’s conquest precipitated the adoption of the Ge’ez script for written Oromo literature. For the next century, the Oromo language languished under the clutches of the ill-fitting Geez script. The use of the Latin alphabet in Oromo transcription re-emerged later in the 20th century, exactly a century later. It was adopted as the official alphabet of written Afaan Oromoo on November 3, 1991 when over 1,000 Oromo intellectuals assembled in the Ethiopian parliament and made a historic and momentous decision to adopt the Latin alphabet in writing in Afaan Oromoo. In light of this history, the Oromia Education Bureau has a choice to make: either stand with the Oromo struggle for written Afaan Oromoo or take the side of those that seek to continue the violence against written Afaan Oromoo that commenced with Menelik’s conquest.
When qubee was adopted as the sole means of written Afaan Oromo, ABCD was the order of the alphabets. This order is synonymous with the Oromoo qubee. What was adopted in a solemn occasion cannot be undone surreptitiously and in such a nonchalant manner as Oromia officials have done. It is bewildering why the Oromia government officials even contemplated changing by an administrative fiat the sequencing of the Latin alphabet that evolved over several millennia. The order of the qubeealphabets is what unifies the Oromo nation with the rest of the world that uses Latin alphabets. There is no justification for changing this relationship.
Today qubee is the identity of a new generation of Oromo, it is a monument to the triumph of Oromo nationalism, and a symbol of the bitter sacrifice the Oromo have paid to be free from oppression, domination and marginalization. It is engrained in the minds of the new generation of Oromo and entwined with the Oromo struggle for self-determination. A violence against qubee amounts to a violence against the Oromo struggle for freedom and justice and freedom from violence. OSA asserts that the order of the alphabet used in written Afaan Oromoo is sacrosanct. It is inalterable.
Authorities in Oromia changed the order of the Roman alphabet used for the Afan Oromo language on the grounds that the old alphabet order is allegedly an obstacle to the reading skills of Oromo school children. According to Oromo intellectuals, however, this change is aiming at diminishing the cultural rights of the Oromo people who have been subject to a marginalisation process for years. This issue is occupying the center of Ethiopia’s political news cycle, even though this regulation had been silently carried out in 2016. Therefore, there are doubts as to whether the regime uses this debate to divert public attention from large-scale Oromo protests. In the past months, the Ethiopian government has been in the world’s spotlight due to massive human rights violations in the country.
Authorities in Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest state, have infuriated language experts and Oromo nationalists with their decision to re-arrange the order of the alphabet of the region’s language, Afan Oromo.
In multilingual and multiethnic Ethiopia, orthographic choices are complex linguistic and political decisions that have great socio-political consequences.
Among Ethiopia’s written languages, most write their language in either the Ge’ez or Ethiopic alphabet, known as “Fidel,” or the Roman alphabet. Afan Oromo officially adopted the Roman alphabet — in its usual order of ABCD and so on — after the current government come to power in 1991.
However, more than a quarter century later, the regional educational authorities of Oromia announced they were reshuffling the “Qubee Afan Oromo” (as the alphabet is called). The first seven letters are:
L A G I M Aa S
Justifying the change, authorities blamed the old alphabet order as the reason why reading skills among primary school children in Oromia remain poor. They even cited a research to back up their claim.
There is, however, a problem with their argument. It was based on a misrepresentation of the findings of the research. In fact, the research, which was funded by US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2010, revealed a broader problem of reading skills not only among Afan Oromo-speaking primary school students, but also students whose mother tongue was Amharic, Hararigna, Sidaamu Afoo, Somali and Tigrinya.
In the study, pedagogic and logistical difficulties were identified as factors for poor reading skills in Ethiopia’s six major regions. However, the order of alphabet was not cited as a factor for the dismal reality. In a post on the citizen journalism site OPride.com, one blogger agreed with the findings of the research but questioned the connection it had to the alphabet order, writing:
There is little disagreement on the core problem here: The education quality crisis in Ethiopia needs fixing. The disagreement here though is on the proposed solutions. This is underscored by a key question that everyone is asking: JUST HOW DOES REORDERING THE AFAAN OROMO ALPHABET IMPROVE READING AND LEARNING OUTCOMES?
‘Yet another fraud perpetrated on the Oromo people’
The change actually took effect in 2016 and school textbooks already reflect the reshuffling, but it was done so quietly. So much so that the news of the letter order change only made it into Ethiopia’s political news cycle after government affiliate Oromia Broadcasting Service reported about it. Over last two years, a series of political events with far-reaching repercussions such as protests and internet outages has dominated the country’s news cycle.
As soon as the change was reported, concerned Oromo intellectuals started raising questions.
For them, this is the latest attempt in a series of steps intended to diminish the cultural rights of the Oromo people, who have historically been marginalized in Ethiopia. On Facebook Awol Kassim Allo, wrote:
“The casual change/disfiguring of the Alphabet of a language spoken by more than 40 million people without any debate and discussion is appalling. The excuse given to justify it – improving the ability of children to read at early stages of instruction – is lame and cannot stuck up to scrutiny. …This is yet another fraud perpetrated on the Oromo people and it must be rejected.”
The circumstance of the change also stoked another fear: that the decision to alter the order of the letters might be a plot by people who were disgruntled when the Oromos opted to adopt the Roman alphabet over the Ge’ez alphabet in 1991.
Prior to 1991, Afan Oromo was written in different alphabets. The first Oromo Bible was printed in Ge’ez letters in the 19th century. During the reign of emperor Haile Selassie (1930-1974), Afan Oromo was not a written language.
When Ethiopia’s military regime came to power in 1974, it decreed that all Ethiopian languages must be written exclusively in Ge’ez alphabet— a draconian policy intended to promote unity among Ethiopia’s diverse ethnic groups.
Parallel to the Ge’ez letters, however, Oromo language experts and Oromo nationalists were also using the Roman alphabet. Paul Baxter, a social anthropologist, wrote that the Roman alphabet was used to transcribe the Afan Oromo language among Kenyan Oromos in the 1940s.
Proponents of the Ge’ez alphabet believe that Ge’ez signifies the rich liturgic and literary tradition of Ethiopia. For them, preserving Ge’ez in the age of the Roman alphabet’s domination is a sign of resistance to cultural globalization and a symbol of identity. Responding to Awol Kassim Allo’s post on Facebook, Abeba Teshale wrote:
“Simple, structured, logical, Ethiopian, African, Amharic/Tigregna alphabet is there for any one interested to adopt. 26 vs 338 syllables! There is an alphabet for each sound and for the ones that don’t have one, we could crate a symbole. Just a thought”
For many Oromos, though, adopting the Roman alphabet is a matter of selecting an alphabet that best fits the Afan Oromo sound system.
According to academic Teferi Degeneh Bijiga, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the topic of Afan Oromo writing system, complex historical, cultural and linguistic forces were at play when Oromo intellectuals decided to adopt the Roman alphabet in 1991.
Over the next few weeks, this issue will be front and center in Ethiopian politics, where the Ethiopian government is operating under a state of emergency because of the protests that began over land use as well as political and economic marginalization in Oromia in November 2015.
“Worrying that so little is done to protect the environment and the indigenous peoples,” says the report.
With detailed field studies from Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda and Namibia, a new report sheds light on the consequences of extractive industries on land rights and indigenous peoples in Africa. “Worrying that so little is done to protect the environment and the indigenous peoples,” says the report.
Environmental degradation, cultural ethnocide and gross human rights violations: For indigenous peoples these are some of the consequences of the current global race for natural resources and raw materials.
The skyrocketing global demand for natural resources is driven by the growth of both western and non-western economies and the liberalization of transnational investments and agreements.
Indigenous peoples in Africa are among the first to feel the consequences of the global increase in extractive industries, as they often live, where natural resources are found.
Terra nullius: No recognition of collective land rights
Indigenous peoples in many cases share collective land rights. But this ownership of the lands is not officially recognized by African states. Therefore indigenous peoples’ lands are often seen as fertile ground for natural resource exploitation.
“It is considered terra nullius, no one’s land, since there is no ‘visible’ use or occupation of the land,” says the new report, issued by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.
When mining and construction companies move in, indigenous peoples generally get evicted from their ancestral lands and territories without any free, prior and informed consultation, consent or compensation.
“We struggle with the misconception that extractive industries benefits society by bringing modernity. This illogic defies the very fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples,” says Dr. Melakou Tegegn, Expert Member of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities in Africa under the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Indigenous peoples host wanted natural reserves and resources
In 2020, 70 percent of all copper will be extracted from indigenous peoples’ territories, and in 2009, 70 percent of all uranium used in nuclear reactors was sourced from indigenous peoples’ territories.
And the tendency shows that the growth of extractive industries in Africa will continue.
“The pressure of the extractive industries leads to the question, if indigenous peoples will actually be able to stand up against this new and major direct threat to their environment, livelihoods and lives. If the international community and African states don’t prioritize the principle of free, prior and informed consent, the future survival of indigenous peoples and their unique cultures will be seriously threatened,” says Marianne Wiben Jensen, IWGIA’s Senior Advisor on Africa and land rights and Expert Member of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities in Africa.
The new report will be presented at the meeting of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in July 2017, where the conclusions and recommendations of the study will be discussed.
“I believe the impact of the study will be enormous. It can inform many in Africa, including governments, on the state and consequences of extractive industries on the rights of indigenous peoples. And it can serve as source for civic action for policy changes on the ground,” says Dr. Melakou Tegegn, Expert Member of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities in Africa.
The Working Group will organize national dialogues on the findings and recommendations of the study in the countries covered in the study.
Extractive Industries, Land Rights and the Indigenous Populations/Communities’ Rights: East, Central and Southern Africa Includes field studies in Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda and Namibia
Published by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) and IWGIA with financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark
Published online: May 29, 2017
About the African Commission’s Working Group on Indigenous Populations / Communities in Africa
In 2003, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights established the Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities in Africa with the responsibility to advise the Commission on matters relating to the rights of indigenous populations/communities on the continent. In this capacity, the Working Group found it appropriate to commission a study on extractive industries, land rights and indigenous populations/communities to inform and guide its activities and that of all other stakeholders. http://www.achpr.org/mechanisms/indigenous-populations/about/
About International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)
Since 2001, IWGIA, an international human rights organisation defending indigenous peoples’ rights, has been represented in the Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities in Africa with Marianne Wiben Jensen as an expert member. For almost 50 years, IWGIA has documented the fight for indigenous peoples’ rights. IWGIA works through a global network of indigenous peoples’ organisations and international mechanisms. IWGIA promotes the recognition, respect and implementation of indigenous people’s rights to land, cultural integrity and development on their own terms.
Those living in the Ogaden and Oromia regions are most vulnerable to the State-sponsored persecution. Protests in Oromia were violently repressed by the government since they started in April 2014, and continue to be. “Jail Ogaden” holds thousands of prisoners of conscience in overcrowding conditions and unhygienic facilities. Rape is systematically used as a weapon by the government and local polices such as the Liyu Police, combined with other forms of torture. And those are just a handful of examples. UNPO Report, Human Rights in Ethiopia
UNPO has released a report on human rights in Ethiopia, shedding light on the worrying situation of the Oromo and Ogadeni peoples. While international partners tend to hail Ethiopia as an African democratic role model and a beacon of stability and hope in an otherwise troubled region, the fundamental rights of the country’s unrepresented continue to be violated on a daily basis. With the support of major international donors such as the European Union, Addis Ababa increasingly prioritises strong economic growth, development and a high degree of enforced political stability at the expense of human rights and civil liberties.
Ethiopia’s economy has been growing steadily in recent years, boasting a small emerging middle class and receiving continuously-increasing foreign investment. The country is seen as a key ally by Western powers in the fight against terrorism and the regulation of international migration. Meanwhile, Ethiopia remains one of the world’s poorest countries, with a third of the population living in abject poverty and the country’s regime is also one of the African continent’s most authoritarian in character, cracking down mercilessly on those who voice dissent.
Those living in the Ogaden and Oromia regions are most vulnerable to the State-sponsored persecution. Protests in Oromia were violently repressed by the government since they started in April 2014, and continue to be. “Jail Ogaden” holds thousands of prisoners of conscience in overcrowding conditions and unhygienic facilities. Rape is systematically used as a weapon by the government and local polices such as the Liyu Police, combined with other forms of torture. And those are just a handful of examples.
As of March 2017, 300 people have died of hunger and cholera in the Ogaden region, because of the restrictions imposed by the Ethiopian government. Limitations on freedom of movement bars access to healthcare facilities and the trade embargo causes critical food shortages. UNPO calls on the international community to play its role in safeguarding human rights by putting an end to the financial flows fueling the Ethiopian State’s oppression and intimidation of the most vulnerable among its population.
Oromo-Somali Solidarity Forum Press Release
Date: 16th of March, 2017 Ref: OSSF/01/17
For immediate release
Since November 2016, i.e., for the last five months, the murderous Liyu Police forces, commanded by the President of the Somali Regional State, have been undertaking border raids and attacks against civilians in the Oromia region, in the process killing and displacing many people. The attack is launched on five Oromia zones and 14 districts bordering the Somali region. At least 200 civilians have been killed and many others injured in the attacks according to reports. These senseless attacks were ordered by the TPLF as part of its strategy to weaken the popular uprising underway in Oromia against the minority ruling clique. TPLF has been trying to portray the conflict it maneuvered between the brotherly Somali and Oromo peoples as a dispute between the two regions over the ownership of border towns and localities, a dispute that has been settled through public referenda in 2005/6. The two neighboring ethnic groups have co-existed peacefully for centuries and have a culture of resolving disputes through established traditional conflict resolution mechanisms. Without the sinister hands of the TPLF, this conflict would not have even started. TPLF is hiding in plain sight and should understand that such mischief will not absolve it from the crimes it continues to commit against both the Oromo and Somali people.
The atrocities committed by the Liyu Police did not start with defenseless Oromos. These merchants of death and destruction have been terrorizing their own Somali people for the last ten years at the behest of their TPLF masters. They have committed numerous grave human right violations inside the Somali region and even as far beyond as Somalia with gruesome executions, rape, and burning of villages being their distinctive trademarks.
We at the Oromo-Somali Solidarity Forum hereby condemn this TPLF-engineered reckless conflict which led to the bloodshed of our brotherly peoples. We urge the brotherly Somali and Oromo peoples to stand in solidarity and deny the TPLF the pleasure of achieving the division and animosity it aspires to sow between our people. The ongoing conflict is not a war between Oromos and Somalis. It is a proxy war orchestrated by the TPLF against Oromos through the Liyu Police which is an auxiliary instrument of repression by the desperate minority regime. United, we will overcome TPLF’s 26 years of oppression and mayhem.
Victory to the oppressed Oromo and Somali people!
With profound regards!
Oromo-Somali Solidarity Forum
Addressed to: All Ethiopians, Oromos, Somalis and the international press
Press Release For Immediate Release March 14, 2017
The Oromo Leadership Convention (OLC) held its second meeting in the City of Washington, District of Columbia, March 10 – 12, 2017. The Convention was opened with the blessing of representatives of the main religious groups in Oromo society and concluded after successfully deliberating on the current situation in Oromia and passing landmark resolutions that affirm the unity of all Oromo and underscore the need to strengthen institutions of democracy.
This Convention was attended by over 600 religious, civic and community leaders from across North America and other parts of the world, political organizations, professional and civil societies, artists, businessmen, scholars, veterans of the struggle and Oromo notables who have contributed to the advancement of the Oromo cause in their respective fields.
Considering the gravity of the deteriorating situation in Oromia and the tremendous suffering that the state of emergency has imposed on our people, the Convention focused on taking action.
1. Based on the proposal recommended by the Task Force on Humanitarian Assistance, the Convention established a non-governmental organization known as HIRPHA International (Humanitarian Initiative to Relieve the Plight in the Horn of Africa) to assist in the effort deliver coordinated and efficient aid to the victims of the Ethiopian government.
2. Accepting the proposal of the Task Force on Diplomacy and Advocacy, the Convention established a research and policy center that will assist the efforts to conduct diplomatic action in a strategic and coordinated manner with the view to assisting the struggle to end tyrannical rule in Ethiopia. This center will be named Organized Diplomacy and Advocacy Action in the Horn of Africa (ODAAHA).
3. Recognizing that the Task Force of Experts presented revised documents known as the Declaration of Oromo Unity and National Aspirations and Oromo Charter of Freedom, Justice, Dignity and Human Rights reflect the views of the delegates regarding the foundation of Oromo unity and a common ground for political action, the Convention adopted the revised documents as its official documents.
4. Recognizing that the need for further discussions to internalize the contents of these documents, the Convention recommended them to Oromo communities around the world for studying and discussions. The Task Force of Experts was named as a Commission of Experts to spearhead the effort.
Considering that the Oromo struggle needs robust, functioning and autonomous democratic and civil society institutions, the Convention discussed new agendas proposed by the OLC Executive Committee. The new agenda emphasized the need for enhancing women’s participation and youth engagement in the Oromo nation’s future and initiated an effort to create professional associations.
After thoroughly discussing two concept papers, the delegates recommended launching a community-wide conversation with a view of taking concrete steps to enhance women and youth participation in Oromo affairs within a reasonable period.
Recognizing the demand of the Oromo people, the Convention stressed the importance of the unity of purpose among Oromo political organizations for the success of our people’s struggle. The participants recommended to all political parties to continue to work together to find ways to mobilize our people for the bitter struggle ahead and redouble efforts to expand the arena of interparty collaboration, build democratic institutions, and fortify self-rule capabilities.
Recognizing the gravity of the time, Convention participants decided to increase their support for the Oromo struggle and to join hands in solidarity with all freedom loving peoples to fight against the repressive TPLF regime. In view of the continued suffering of our people, the Convention, once again, condemns in the strongest of terms the continued killings, mass incarcerations, enforced disappearances, and persecution of Oromo. The delegates also demanded an immediate end to the State of Emergency that has made life impossible for our compatriots.
Concerned with the continued impunity of the Ethiopian regime, the Convention, once again, calls upon the international community to live up to its commitment not to “never again” allow mass killings from occurring again by demanding the establishment of an independent and thorough investigation into the mass killings, especially at the Irreecha festival on October 2, 2016, and the other crimes perpetrated by Ethiopian security forces against innocent people.
Finally, the Oromo Leadership Convention extends its call to all peoples in Ethiopia to redouble their efforts to end totalitarian rule in the country.
Kaayoon isaa akka koree yaa’ii tana kopheessite keessaa Dr.Izqiheel Gabbisaa yuniversitii Kaateringi ka Mishigen jirtu keessaa dubbatetti ummata Oromoo biyya keessaa fi biyya alaatti rakkoo gugurdoo keessa jiru gargaarsa ilmaan namaatii fi gama siyaasaalleen gargaaraa tokkummaa Oromoo ijaaruu fi jabeessuu dhaaba dhaabuu.
Akkuma kanaan Yaa’iin tun dhaaba HIRPHA International (Humanitarian Initiative to Relieve the Plight in the Horn of Africa) jedhu ka nama mootummaan Itoophiyaatiin Afrikaa gama Gaafaa keessaa miidhame gargaarsa qindaahee kennuun qagaraafuu.
Tanaafuu Afrikaa gama Gaafaa keessatti damee Organized Diplomacy and Advocacy Action in the Horn of Africa (ODAAHA) yayyaban.
3.Tana maleellee galmee yaada Koree Qindeessituutin dhiyaatte jedhan Declaration of Oromo Unity and National Aspirations and Oromo Charter of Freedom,Justice, Dignity and Human Rights jedhuun tokkummaa Oromoo jabeesitu jedhan yayyaban.
A story told all too often, especially in Africa. Tear gas, rubber bullets, police charges: the State’s answer to public protest. Nor has the latest wave of murders come suddenly or unexpectedly; it is simply the latest in a catalogue of incidents stretching back to last November, when the Ethiopian government first made public its plans to expand the capital, Addis Ababa, into the surrounding countryside, displacing a significant number of farmers. While those plans appear to have been shelved temporarily, the danger is far from over.
On Sunday in Bishoftu, in the Oromia region, just 40km south-east of the capital, the protests grew out of the traditional Irrecha religious festival, where an estimated two million people were gathered. Community elders seen as being allied to the government were prevented from speaking, and the police responded violently, causing a stampede which saw dozens of protestors fall to their deaths from cliffs.
While in many media outlets, the focus is on ethnic tensions between the Oromo people (the single largest ethnicity in the country) and the Tigrayan minority, this doesn’t give us the full picture. The reality in Ethiopia is one of extreme food insecurity, which has been made worse this year by failed rains, with between 50 and 90 per cent of crops lost in some regions. The government itself estimated that 4.5 million people were in need of emergency food assistance in August, while UNICEF puts the total figure of people in need of humanitarian assistance in the country at over 10 million.
The importance of agriculture to the Ethiopian economy cannot be underestimated: over 80% of the workforce are directly employed in it, and it account for a similar amount of the country’s exports. The desire to increase the latter at the expense of the former threatens to make matters much worse. The government would particularly like to increase sugar production, and has announced its desire to be one of the top-ten sugar producers in the world by 2023. Such plans could mean more mass displacement of indigenous peoples, further exacerbate interethnic tensions and cause further migration out of the country.
One of the drivers in this new direction for the Ethiopian government is Chinese investment, which totals more than $20 billion since 2005. The Chinese-built railway linking the capital to the port of Dijibouti has been built for freight, not passengers: it’s for taking Ethiopian exports out of the country. Making a profit from industrial agriculture will require a large-scale shift in the economy (read: land grabbing), as 95% of agriculture in the country is still run by small-scale family farms, though this figure is being slowly eroded over time as the government seeks to sell off land to foreign investors. As part of its so-called development program, the government has earmarked more than 11 million hectares of land for foreign investment, talking of it as “potential land” as if it were not being currently used by pastoralists.
The government’s official line is that foreign investment will lift the population out of poverty, but the truth is that many will be denied access to their ancestral lands, and forced to work for the new owners in order to stay there. The Ethiopian government has the backing of the UK, the European Union and the World Bank in this endeavor, which the BBC reports will create “100,000 jobs” on two new industrial parks. But at what cost?
At the men’s marathon in the Olympic games in Brazil, the silver medallist Feyisa Lilesa crossed his arms above his head both as he crossed the finish line and again at the medal ceremony, in protest at the government’s actions. “The Ethiopian government are killing the Oromo people and taking their land and resources so the Oromo people are protesting and I support the protest as I am Oromo. My relatives are in prison and if they talk about democratic rights they are killed. I raised my hands to support with the Oromo protest.” After the games, Lilesa did not return to Ethiopia, and is seeking political asylum in the United States.
Slow Food believes that the land belongs to the people who work it with love and care. We will continue our work to support small-scale farmers in Ethiopia through our Presidia in the country and 129 gardens helping people to grow their own food, and speak out in support of people who are fighting for their right to live and work the land in peace.
On August 21st, in Brazil, Ethiopian runner Feyisa Lilesa was awarded the silver medal for the Men’s Marathon in the 2016 Rio Olympics. Although this was perhaps one of the greatest sporting achievements of his life, this day will forever be remembered for the political protest he made just before the finish line. While in the global spotlight, Lilesa raised his hands above his head in an ‘X’ formation to stand in solidarity with the Oromo people of Ethiopia, who have suffered a crackdown at the hands of the Ethiopian government.
Lilesa is one of the thousands fighting for the rights of the Oromo people. In August 2016, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad Al Hussein, called on Ethiopia to allow UN international observers to investigate the excessive use of force by the government’s security forces against peaceful protesters in the Oromo and Amhara regions of the country. There is a strong need for organized international pressure on the Ethiopian government. A credible and independent investigation into this country’s Human Rights offences is long overdue. This will be a huge and very welcome step for the people and the country as a whole.
Human rights abuses have been prevalent throughout Ethiopia’s history, but for the last nine months, protests have erupted in Oromiya, the homeland of Ethiopia’s largest but historically marginalized ethnic group, the Oromo, of which Feyisa Lilesa belongs. The protests are have now spread north, to a second region, the Amhara.
Although these protesters from Oromo and Amhara have different backgrounds, cultures, and complaints, they share a growing fear and frustration with the rule of a third, minority ethnic group — the Tigrayans. As NPR reported, the Tigrayan elite has a “cartel-like grip on the government, military and the fast-growing economy.” The Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) forcefully rose to power after the fall of the Soviet Union. Since then, there have been numerous human rights violations, with examples like the 2001 killing of forty Addis Ababa university students for simply demanding the academic freedom to publish a student newspaper, to the Killing of 200 Oromo in 2014, according to the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE).
Related: Learn more about the TPLF in Ethiopia here.
The right of peaceful assembly is protected in Ethiopian and International law. Ethiopia’s Constitution states “everyone shall have the freedom, in association with others, to peaceably assemble without arms, engage in public demonstration and the right to petition.” But, after Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 125 witnesses, victims, and government officials, a significant pattern of human rights violations during peaceful Oromo protests was revealed. Examples from late 2015 when the decision of authorities in Ginchi to clear a forest for an investment project triggered protests in at least 400 different locations across all the 17 zones in Oromia, until May 2016, and even into current times, prove there have been massive human rights violations. Numerous reports exposed that in many locations security forces have gone at night, arresting innocent and unsuspecting members of the community such as students and those accommodating students in their homes. Security forces also strategically target those seen as “influential members of the Oromo community, such as musicians, teachers, opposition members and others thought to have the ability to mobilize the community for further protests.” Even more shocking, is that many of those arrested and detained by the security forces were children of eighteen years and younger. Security forces have also been reported to open fire on, and kill peaceful protesters, as well as torture or beat many of the detained Oromo. Many of the females detained have reportedly been raped by security force personnel, while almost none of the detainees have had access to legal counsel, adequate food, or their family members.
An unnamed student said in an interview with HRW on January of 2016, said his friend “was shot in the stomach [at the protest], his intestines were coming out, he said, ‘Please brother, tie my [wound] with your clothes.’ I was scared, I froze and then tried to do that but I was grabbed and arrested by the federal police. Jamal died. They arrested me and took me to Bedeno police station.”
With ongoing events such as these, the people of Ethiopia have appeared to have reached their limit; the brutal force being used by the regime to deter an uprising is starting to backfire, creating new alliances between previously divided groups of Ethiopians such as the Oromo and the Amhara. The regime, struggling to find ways to retain domination, resorts to solutions like the exploitation of Ethiopian resources, land, and opportunities; but this too, is becoming a regime failure.
A press release from The Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE)notes, this is a regime, accustomed to using tools like manipulation to divide the people by ethnicity or other differences, furthering ethnic hatred, alienation and isolation, leaving a niche for the regime to squeeze into. It has allowed them to repeatedly commit fatal human rights atrocities against these groups with no fear of a united retaliation; but this is suddenly changing. These methods of turning selected ethnic groups against one another, is being scrutinized by Ethiopians; and previously rival groups are now unifying to challenge it. As SMNE said, “more killing, wounding and use of violence against unarmed civilians on the part of the regime’s security forces are strengthening, not weakening, the movement of the people,” but the movement is just beginning.
Ethiopia’s government has rejected the call for UN intervention and promised to launch its own investigation according to Al Jazeera. With the TPLF now facing a crack in the current power structure of the country, the government’s resistance to UN intervention was to be expected. The fearful reality is, however, that the TPLF, power hungry, and corrupt, will continue to use illegal force in an attempt to maintain control. But this lack of legal and transparent investigation of human rights violations in Ethiopia strongly implies that the Ethiopian government’s investigation of the ongoing human rights crisis will not be independent, impartial and transparent, and according to Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes. “It is time to step up efforts for an international and independent investigation in Ethiopia.”
For years the government has worked to project a “forward thinking, democratic, and economically progressive image” of Ethiopia to outsiders, while on the inside, achieving the total opposite. For example, laws such as the Charities and Societies Proclamation law (CSO) which is meant to appear as an advocacy network, actually has criminalized human rights and other kinds of advocacy work in Ethiopia, making an equal and civil society impossible to maintain in Ethiopia. This makes the presence of an independent organization like the UN crucial for the protection of the Oromo people, who are practically inhibited from seeking protection themselves.
According to the Press Release from SMNE, “meaningful democratic reforms, restorative justice, and reconciliation for all the people of Ethiopia, including the current ruling party,” are the essential measures which need to be enacted if Ethiopia is to find peace and avoid total disaster. History shows that the government will not cooperate without pressure from key donor nations such as the the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, Norway, Sweden etc., as well as from major international human rights organizations, to provide leverage critical in obtaining substantial changes for the rights of the Oromo people and governmental structure of Ethiopia as a whole.
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The current fascist Ethiopia’s regime also known as TPLF (Woyane), a criminal group from minority Tigray tribe, in northern Ethiopia is conducting genocidal mass killings against Konso people. TPLF has occupied Konso land, killing the people and burning the entire town and villages. The Konso are one of the very ancient people in East Africa and their historical villages are UNESCO World Heritage.
Agazi’s new tactic, burn homes to ground along inhabitants. This was done to Konso people in Aylota-Dokatu & Lulito towns yesterday September 13, 2016. Hundreds homes were destroyed and death is reported. All the Konso people are asking to be granted zonal status which their right enshrined within the constitution. The federation council accepted their appeal last week yet the federal army in burning their homes. Jawar Mohammed
SORRY BUT THE KONSO UNESCO REGISTERED WORLD HERITAGE SITE HAS BEEN BURNT TO ASHES
Xiixaa Buubaa Sardaa• with Darajjee M. Billii
Yesterday, we heard (Listen to VOA Amharic & Afaan Oromoo, transmitted on 9/15/2016 17:30-19:00 GMT), over the past 1 month, both the elected local Konso District leaders & leaders of the Regional State of Southern Ethiopian Peoples Nations & Nationalities (SEPNN) are counter-blaming one another for what they call “genocide on the Konso people”. The Konso People speak Afaan Oromo in its other southern Ethiopian Kushites accent/dialects and still retain the ancient Gada Socio-politico-theological System and Qaalluu Ancestral Spirituality. Moreover, they retain the eschatology of preserving in sarcophagus of the Spirits of the dead that we know in Ancient Kemet/Egyptian turned to a battle ground, the Konso District’s UNESCO registered world heritage site was burned into ash by government security forces of Ethiopia. Konso Cultural Landscape is a 55km2 arid property of stone walled terraces and fortified settlements in the Konso highlands of Ethiopia. It constitutes a spectacular example of a living cultural tradition stretching back 21 generations (more than 400 years) adapted to its dry hostile environment. The landscape demonstrates the shared values, social cohesion and engineering knowledge of its communities. Stone steles in the towns express a complex system of marking the passing of generations of leaders.
On April 2016, William Davidson wrote on the guardian as Protests sparked by the arrest of Konso leader Kala Gezahegn underlined growing tensions between Ethiopia’s central govelrnment and many ethnic populations. Now it has been over a period of 7 months since the Konso people has started protesting against the injustice and maladministration by the forcefully established Zone- Segen Area People’s Zone. The Konso people who were formerly administered under a Special District status in SNNPRS, had been unconstitutionally forced to form a zone with other neighboring ethnic groups, dropping from a ‘Special District’ status to a District in the newly formed zone. That sparked complaints from the people but no one gave an ear to the people that time. The zone government then grabbed three Kebeles from Konso to create a new city structure in Sagan town. This was also followed by the deduction of annual budget allocated to Konso District without being approved by the District council representing the people. This gave momentum to the silent and peaceful popular protests in every corner in Konso since then. Despite the loyalty of the people to the constitution of the country, the government in power at all levels has failed to give a constitutional answer to the people appeal for establishing a self-governed Zone as per the law of the country.
Now, the Konso people is under military siege some months ago. No freedom of movement, no education for children… all offices closed. Worst the innocent farmers are being shot to death by security forces. Konso cultural landscapes tell the incremental story of human progression—how regular people have taken the sum total of their knowledge and applied it to living in their natural surroundings. They are another way in which history comes alive through the built environment, and their importance is recognized by UNESCO. Beside their ten months long protests the indigenous people of Konso now lost both their life and heritage. After 400 years of conservation now Konso-world heritage site is destroyed with fire set by security forces of Ethiopian government, world community have to take part in identifying the cause and take measures on guilty body.
The Ethiopian government’s lack of a specific policy or programme to address indigenous peoples’ special needs and status has further aggravated their situation. Ethiopia, is a key political actor in Africa, and the second most populous country on the continent. It is a glaring omission that such a significant political actor has not attempted—in consultation with the country’s indigenous peoples and their representative institutions—to develop policies and programmes that are in accordance with guidelines from the UN and other relevant bodies and which would bridge the social and economic gaps that are currently causing such distress. The Ethiopian government is thus failing to address widely reported concerns regarding the human rights of indigenous people in Gambela, the lower Omo Valley, Benishangul Gumuz, Afar, Somali and Oromia regions—all areas that have been part of the government’s land lease policy and villagization programme. The Oromia region has been the site of significant protests since late 2015 when protests began over plans to expand the capital, Addis Ababa. In what was seen as an attempted “land grab”, Oromo farmers argued that expanding Addis Ababa would lead to their displacement and the loss of arable land. Although plans were subsequently dropped, protests continued, leading to what activists reported as the deaths of around 200 people so far, and heightened tensions in the area.
The indigenous peoples of Ethiopia make up a significant proportion of the country’s estimated 95 million population. Around 15 percent are pastoralists who live across Ethiopia, particularly in the Ethiopian lowlands, which constitute around 61 percent of the country’s total landmass. There are also a number of hunter-gathering communities, including the forestdwelling Majang (Majengir) who live in the Gambela region. Ethiopia has the largest livestock population in Africa, a significant amount of which is concentrated in pastoralist communities living on land that in recent years has become the subject of high demand from foreign investors. The political and economic situation of indigenous peoples in Ethiopia is a tenuous one. The Ethiopian government’s policy of villagization has seen many pastoralist communities moved off of their traditional grazing lands, and indigenous peoples’ access to healthcare provision and to primary and secondary education remains highly inadequate. There is no national legislation that protects them, and Ethiopia has neither ratified ILO Convention No. 169, nor was present during the voting on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Anti-terror law: a threat to indigenous peoples’ rights The situation for indigenous peoples in Ethiopia suffered a significant deterioration in 2015. There was no improvement in national legislation that could offer protection to indigenous peoples, and Ethiopia continues to fail in its obligations under the international human rights mechanisms it has ratified, e.g., the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which calls for special attention to be paid to indigenous peoples, a situation regarding which a number of human rights organizations—including the International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Minority Rights Group International (MRGI)—have expressed concern. Moreover, this lack of compliance must also be seen within the context of wider concerns regarding the Ethiopian government’s alleged use of anti-terror laws to curtail freedom of speech. Concerns about the latter intensified in April 2014 with the arrest of six members of the Zone 9 blogging group and three other journalists, while the situation with regard to indigenous peoples’ rights became even more acute in March 2015 with the arrest in Addis Ababa of seven activists heading to a workshop on food security in Nairobi. Although four of them were eventually released, on 7 September 2015, after six months in detention, the remaining three activists, Pastor Omot Agwa, Ashinie Astin, and Jamal Oumar Hojele, were charged under Ethiopia’s counter-terrorism laws, and now face the possibility of extended prison terms if found guilty (Omot faces a sentence of 20 years to life). This has caused widespread concern amongst human rights defenders inside and outside the country, as well as a number of leading human rights organizations.
Land grabbing and policy of villagization A key element in the deteriorating situation of indigenous peoples in Ethiopia is the ongoing policy of “land grabbing” where companies lease large tracts of land from the Ethiopian government in return for significant levels of foreign investment. Since 2008, when widespread concern about the possibility of a potentially global food crisis increased demand for agricultural land, the Ethiopian government has leased millions of hectares of land throughout the country to agricultural investors, both foreign and domestic. The Ethiopian government says that such investments are important for guaranteeing food security. The policy is also seen as an important element in Ethiopia’s development strategy because it means that land that is categorized as “under-utilized” can be used productively. However, much of this land is in reality not under-utilized but is used by pastoralists, whose customary rights to the land are being consistently violated. Moreover, the way in which the land is used under the new leasing arrangements arguably does little for food security as there is little food produced. Instead, land is chiefly being used for an array of non-food products such as flowers, or for growing food products destined for the export market. Interestingly, at the very end of 2015, the Ethiopian Agriculture Ministry’s land investment agency notified Karuturi Global Inc., one of the first and largest external investors, that its lease was being cancelled because of a lack of “development”. Karaturi had used only 1,200 ha of land out of the 100,000 originally allocated to it, and so the Agriculture Ministry has stated that the rest will return to a “land bank” for future investment. The Ethiopian government continues to highlight the employment opportunities of such investment for those living in lowland areas, but much of the employment in these areas has gone to “highlanders” from the central and northern areas of Ethiopia who have moved there to find work. The latter has also increased the possibilities of ethnic tensions, something that has been seen in the Gambela region and in the lower Omo Valley in particular. In the latter case, the building of the Gibe III Dam, which significantly impacts upon water security in the Omo Valley region, has meant a heightened threat to food security and in turn increased conflict over existing resources. For example, there have been reports that cattle herders have moved their animals into Mago National Park to find grass, and have been met with violence from government soldiers who are protecting the park and its wildlife. Reports from external sources have said that the lives of those indigenous peoples living in the region have been “fundamentally and irreversibly” changed by the building of the dam. It will make it very difficult for the half a million indigenous people whose lives and livelihoods depend upon the Omo River to continue living in the area and sustaining their traditional livelihoods. According to the Dam’s Public Consultation and Disclosure Plan, only 93 members of four indigenous communities were consulted and this happened only after construction of the dam had already begun. In addition, part of the Ethiopian government’s policy on land management includes the pursuit of a policy of villagization, which aims to resettle those who live in rural areas—often indigenous peoples—into communities with improved access to basic amenities, such as clean water, medical services and schools. In reality, however, such amenities have not been provided, and many of the communities have too little food for the population that now exists there. Many people find that when they try and return to the land that they have left in order to resume their previous way of life the land has been leased and they no longer have access to it.
Indigenous communities thus find themselves displaced and deprived of their traditional livelihoods and of access to their natural environment, including access to water, grazing and fishing grounds, arable lands and forest resources. The Ethiopian government’s lack of a specific policy or programme to address indigenous peoples’ special needs and status has further aggravated their situation. Ethiopia, is a key political actor in Africa, and the second most populous country on the continent. It is a glaring omission that such a significant political actor has not attempted—in consultation with the country’s indigenous peoples and their representative institutions—to develop policies and programmes that are in accordance with guidelines from the UN and other relevant bodies and which would bridge the social and economic gaps that are currently causing such distress. The Ethiopian government is thus failing to address widely reported concerns regarding the human rights of indigenous people in Gambela, the lower Omo Valley, Benishangul Gumuz, Afar, Somali and Oromia regions—all areas that have been part of the government’s land lease policy and villagization programme. The Oromia region has been the site of significant protests since late 2015 when protests began over plans to expand the capital, Addis Ababa. In what was seen as an attempted “land grab”, Oromo farmers argued that expanding Addis Ababa would lead to their displacement and the loss of arable land. Although plans were subsequently dropped, protests continued, leading to what activists reported as the deaths of around 200 people so far, and heightened tensions in the area.
Considering the future for indigenous peoples’ rights in Ethiopia, it therefore remains important that there be a country-wide, inclusive and participatory movement in the country that would be able to ensure that the concerns of pastoralists and agro-pastoral peoples are taken into account as part of key government policies and programmes. The country’s lack of formal mechanisms in which to consider such issues, as well as legal restrictions on freedom of association and speech, appear to preclude this. This is despite the fact that the Ethiopian constitution—though lacking in clear provisions directly related to indigenous peoples —does include a provision for dealing with the development needs of pastoralist communities. However, the overall outlook for a nationwide indigenous peoples’ movement is promising. Consensus is underway amongst various groups that— with the support of international organizations and a more positive government view—could enable the country’s marginalized communities to face a more positive future.
Oromia, the largest regional State in the Ethiopian Federation, has been rocked by series of protests in the past 100 days since mid-November 2015. The protests began with the aim of having the proposed Master Plan of the capital, Addis Ababa, officially referred as the ‘Addis Ababa–Finfinne[1] Integrated Development Plan’ (‘Master Plan’) scrapped. The Master Plan was designed by Addis Ababa City Administration in collaboration with the government of Oromia Regional State and introduced early in 2014. The protestors opposed the Master Plan, which covers 1.1 million hectare of land (approximately twenty fold the current size of Addis Ababa), saying that its implementation will result in the eviction of millions of farmers and families from their land. The first protests against the Master Plan were held mainly by students of Oromia regional State in April/May/June 2014 which resulted in deaths, injuries and imprisonment of many people all over the state. The protests erupted again in November 2015 and continued up until now.
The ‘second round protests’, as it is called by activists, took wider area and longer time than its antecedent. Police brutality have reached its climax and deaths, injuries, mass arrest, kidnapping have tragically been reported in the State. In only the first hundred days of these protests, hundreds of towns and villages have witnessed mass incidents. In addition, death tolls have reportedly reached more than four hundred, thousands of people were injured and tens of thousands people were briefly arrested. Even though the Master Plan has been officially been scrapped by OPDO, ruling party in the regional State, on 13 January, 2016, fifty four days after the second round of the protest erupted, the third round of the protests have continued with a new momentum; what has started as an opposition to the Master Plan seems to end up looking for answers of political questions that have grown in the past two decades.
The Ethiopia Human Rights Project (EHRP) has actively followed the first 100 days of the protests and summarized the issues, causes, and the human rights violations perpetrated by government security forces in response to the protests in Oromia region. Click the next line to read the full report:-
Oppressed and marginalized people have a shared experience: their oppressors invent a “mythical portrait” of the oppressed . Through this “mythical portrait”, the oppressed is depicted as uncivilized, savage, lacking self-control, irrational, unable to govern themselves, dangerous to themselves and to those in their midst, etc. On the other hand, the oppressor invents the opposite “mythical portrait” for itself.
This ugly portrait of the oppressed creates a mythical basis to keep the oppressed in perpetual misery. It creates a sense of fear that separates one oppressed group from another. This “mythical portraits” also helps garner support for the oppressive system from its base and outside the base as it makes the system as guarantor of the societiy’s well-being.
The successive Ethiopian government, particularly in the last 25 years, have created Oromo-phobia by inventing a mythical portrait of the Oromo. Consequently, the emancipation of the Oromo from their oppression is seen as destabilizing to Ethiopia and detrimental to the very existence of non-Oromo people in Ethiopia. Such a portrait has worked so well in the last 25 years that even those who are marginalized under the current government are unable to align their common interest with the Oromo people. The oppressive minority regime creates conflicts between oppressed groups and then portrays itself as the only rational and arbiter, thereby deserving to rule the “barbaric” others. This machination of the Ethiopian government, however, seems to be falling apart recently.
Since the eruption of the current Oromo revolution (#OromoProtests), the oppressive Ethiopian government left no stone unturned to further distort the “mythical portrait” of the Oromo people. The Communication Minister Getachew Reda called the peaceful #OromoProtests “devils” that must be dealt with , and the Prime Minister threatened to take “merciless action” labeling the unarmed and peaceful protesters “terrorists”. Once this “mythical portrait” is created, they not only justify their actions but leaves them with no choice but to intensify the repression. That is exactly what the regime has been doing since Novermber 12, 2015. What they did not manage to do this time around is to incite inter-ethnic and inter-religion conflict- despite their best effort.
Why is the Ethiopian oppressive minority regime failing to incite conflict between Oromo and others, and to incite inter-faith conflict in this time of revolt? A lot of credit should go to the tactics employed by the #OromoProtests movement, and their pre-emptive outreach to all Ethiopians and their transparent revolution.
True to the Oromo culture, the elders gathered the revolutionary youth to undertake an Oath taking ceremony during which they promulgated:
The minority groups living in Oromia should not be harmed/should be protected. They emphasized that no one but the regime is their enemy. They admonished the youth that if any one considers others as enemy because of their ethnicity, it will tarnish the good Oromo name and goes counter to the principle of Oromummaa (Oromoness)
No properties should be damaged
Any one who harms minorities and/or damage properties, is in violation of Oromo-norms and is considered enemy of the Oromo people and obstacle to the peaceful struggle against tyranny.
We have heard the same voice of reason during the early weeks of the protest in West Shewa. Obviously this expression of tolerance is not a culture that just emerged now; it’s centuries old culture that is simply captured on video at this historical time. I share this video with pride to other Ethiopians and I hope it gives them hope and understanding about the Oromo people.
The #OromoProtests movement is shattering the “mythical portrait” of the Oromo people and replacing it with a true portrait of the Oromo people that is loving, caring and welcoming. The time when the rest of Ethiopians and the Oromo people join hands in good faith is the beginning of the era for the true liberation of the multi-nation federation we call Ethiopia. There is hope and the #OromoProtests is the fountain of such hope.
International Indigenous Terra Madre-2015 (an international gathering of indigenous cultural communities organized by Indigenous Partnership) started in Shillong University, India. It brings over a 100 national groups and tribes from 58 countries across the world-already kicked off on 3rd November 2015 in Shillong, Meghalaya, India. The event will run till 7th of November 2015. Oromo representatives from Ethiopia and Kenya among the cultural crew showcasing their ingenious heritages on the international event.
600 International Delegates at Indigenous Terra Madre 2015, Including Ethiopian Tribes and Communities 23 Oct 15
Representatives of Ethiopian tribes and communities will contribute to the event by sharing their knowledge and experiences
A large delegation of representatives of indigenous communities from the Slow Food Terra Madre network and beyond will be participating in Indigenous Terra Madre (ITM 2015), which will take place from November 3 to 7, 2015 in Shillong (Meghalaya, India). The event is the result of a collaboration between Slow Food, the Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (Indigenous Partnership) and the North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society(NESFAS).
International representatives will be coming to the event from five continents, from 14 Africancountries, 17Asian countries, 8 European countries, 12 American countries and 7 Oceaniancountries.
Representatives from several Ethiopian communities will be attending:
– the Konso community (south-central Ethiopia). The origins of Konso culture are intertwined with the domestication of the moringa tree and its introduction in the highlands. Moringa leaves have joined the Slow Food Ark of Taste. The trees provide shade for coffee, the most valuable cash crop in the highlands. In fact the association of the two plants, moringa and coffee, exists only in the Konso area as it is a specific cultural expression of the deep link between the Konso and their ecosystem.
– the Hortribe (southwest Ethiopia, north of Lake Stephanie Basi). An agro-pastoral community with a population of 6,000, mainly pastoralists and fishers. They plant different type of sorghum and raise sheep, goats and cattle, acting as custodians of rare local varieties.
– the Guji-Oromo community (Guji zone in the Oromia region). They are among the indigenous Oromo tribes sharing borders with the Sidama, Gedeo and other ethnic groups in southeastern part of the country. The Guji people are pastoralists in lowland areas and farmers in the highlands. In the highlands they produce honey, coffee, cereals and other crops, whereas in lowland they raise camels, sheep, goat and cattle. They govern themselves using the Gada system.
– the Gedeo community (southern Ethiopia between the Sidama and Boran zone of the Oromia region). They are sedentary cultivators, focusing on a food crop, ensete (Ethiopian banana), and a cash crop, coffee. They are unique among the ensete-growing peoples, as they plant the ensete, elsewhere largely a homestead crop, in the fields. They are the only people to intercrop their ensete with coffee. The Gedeo are also renowned for their conservation of natural resources. Using ensete, the Gedeo are able to produce food, livestock feed and wood from the same plot.
– the Hadiya community. Mainly shifting cultivators.
– the Gamo community. They are agro-pastoralist people and grow cereals, root crops and livestock on a mountain landscape.
Representatives of several groups and organizations from Ethiopia will also attend the event, including the Woyera-Moringa Suppliers Association (a cooperative which unites mostly female members of the Konso community who work with moringa leaves); the Baaboo (a local NGO which focuses on ensete development—planting, processing, and marketing—and on Gedeo ensete cuisines; the Tena Agar Traditional Foods and Utensils Protection and Promotion Association (established in 2011, it studies, documents, promotes and supports the production, preparation, supply and distribution of traditional foods and drinks and their utensils); the Daanchee Gedeo Ensete Cuisines Baaboo Development & Relief Association (whose mission is to promote Gedeo ensete cuisines through food shows, cultural events and its mobile kitchen) and Addis Ababa University.
Indigenous Terra Madre 2015 gratefully acknowledges funding support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), The Christensen Fund and the Government of Meghalaya. Indigenous Terra Madre 2015 is also thankful for the contributions made by Tamalpais Trust, Swift Foundation,AgroEcology Fund, Bread for the World and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Terra Madre is a worldwide network, launched by Slow Food in 2004, which unites small-scale producers from 163 countries involved in the sustainable production of food. Among these, to date the Indigenous Terra Madre Network comprises 372 indigenous food communities, 41 indigenous Presidia projectsand308 indigenous Ark of Taste products. For more information:http://slowfood.com/international/149/indigenous-terra-madre-network
Slow Food involves over a million of people dedicated to and passionate about good, clean and fair food. This includes chefs, youth, activists, farmers, fishers, experts and academics in over 158 countries; a network of around 100,000 Slow Food members linked to 1,500 local chapters worldwide (known as convivia), contributing through their membership fee, as well as the events and campaigns they organize; and over 2,500 Terra Madre food communities who practice small-scale and sustainable production of quality food around the world.
“Indigenous representatives insist that the individualistic view of the world is totally alien to the indigenous ideas of the world, their traditions, their past and their present. An exclusive emphasis on individual rights has not and cannot give effective guarantees for indigenous peoples, who require the simultaneous protection as collectivities
in order to survive and flourish as distinct peoples and cultures. Collective rights emphasise the value of protecting indigenous cultures and existence per se and reject assimilation and integration as valid modes of relating to indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples have stated:
‘The concept of indigenous peoples’ collective rights is of paramount importance. It is the establishment of rights of peoples as groups, and not merely the recognition of individual rights, which is one of the most important purposes of this Declaration. Without this, the Declaration cannot adequately protect our most basic interests. This must not be compromised.’ (UN Sub-Commission, Indigenous Peoples Preparatory Meeting: Comments on the First Revised Text of the Draft Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, July 1989.) In contrast, some states use liberal theory in order to reject the notion of collective rights. ‘International instruments generally speak of individual not collective rights. … Making clear that the rights guaranteed are those of individuals prevents governments or groups of (sic) violating or interfering with them in the name of the greater good of a group or a state … In certain cases, it is entirely appropriate or necessary to refer to indigenous communities or groups, in order to reinforce their individual civil and political rights on the basis of full equality and non-discrimination. But characterising a right as belonging to a community, or collective, rather than an individual, can be and often is construed to
limit the exercise of that right (since only a group can invoke it), and thus may open the door to the denial of the right to the individual. This approach is consistent with the general view of the US, as developed by its domestic experience, that the rights of all people are best assured when the rights of each person are effectively protected.’
In their historical evolution, human rights have been perceived as the rights of individuals against state power.
Opponents of collective rights base their arguments on cosmopolitanism, a theory which advocates for autonomous
individuals who are free from their cultural tradition and can therefore make autonomous decisions, in contrast to the communitarian theory according to which the self has attachments to the culture he/she has grown up in. Liberals argue that the establishment of collective rights will reflect a totalitarian vision of the society and will raise tribalist or nationalistic attitudes. The extensive philosophising on the need for cultural membership and collective rights is generally perceived by international lawyers as very engaging and very relevant to legal debates on claims for collective rights; yet, sometimes it appears to be lagging behind new developments in international law. If
international law is defined as the system of rules and principles that govern international relations (Martin Dixon, Textbook on International Law, 3rd edn, London: Blackstone Press Ltd, 1996, 2), its normative direction on the issue cannot be ignored. The liberal emphasis on the dichotomy between the individual and the state ignores the existence of any intermediate groups. The rejection of collective rights derives from a notion of ‘monotheism of the state’, namely unlimited sovereignty of the state and the view that the state should be the only source of authority in each political system. However, this model appears to be inconsistent with the existing norms of international law as
well as the international political realities. In the post-national state, although sharing the state’s national identity, citizens have in most cases other loyalties as well. These loyalties may lie in groups smaller than the state, such as families, local communities, ethnic, religious and cultural groups, as well as groups bigger than the state, such as regional organisations (e.g. the European Union) or even the international society. All these groups represent a series of multiple loyalties that the individual has and consequently incorporate various cultures that influence
the individual. International law is in the process of recognising various sub-national groups other than the state. International norms are in the process of expanding the number of entities that enjoy legal personality if only for some purposes. Currently, non-state entities such as inter-governmental organisations, regional organisations, non-self-governing territories, liberation movements and insurgent communities, non-governmental organisations, corporations and autonomous local administrations can act to some extent as agents in the international arena (see Martin Dixon, op cit, 109 110, and lan Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law, 4th edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, 58-70). International law goes even further and recognises the importance of groups in the life of the individual. The 1989 UNESCO Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore protects the culture of sub-national groups. Also, the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that education must
develop respect for the child’s ‘own cultural identity, language and values’ as well as for ‘the national values of the country in which the child is living’. Although the human rights system gives the central role to the individual, protection is also given to the person as a member of groups, such as the family, ethnic, national, religious and linguistic groups and nations (peoples). Even though most of these provisions establish individual rights or individual rights in collective capacity, their spirit recognises the importance of groups for the individual and prescribes that these groups should be protected. By protecting the various sub-groups that surround the
individual, it appears that international law perceives these groups as forming concentric circles around the person. Apart from having his/her own attributes and choices as an independent agent, the person is also influenced by his/her immediate group (such as the family), peer group (such as the local group), ethnic, religious and cultural group, his/her nation” (peoples), state, continent/region and, finally, loosely by the main culture we all share as citizens of a common world. The closer the circle to the person, the more influence it has on him/her. In order to protect the individual, all the various ‘circles’ loyalties around him/her need to be protected. Thus, international law includes a different set of protection for the individual (by establishing individual rights), but also his/her family, ethnic, cultural or religious group, the society he/she lives in, and finally the culture of his/her continent and the culture of the world itself (by establishing collective rights) (see Ronald Caret, ‘Communality and Existence: The Rights of Groups’, 56 (1993) South California Law Review, 1001 1050). As Waldron argues (in Jeremy Waldron, ‘Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative’ 25 (1995) University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, 751–793, as reprinted in Will Kymlicka (ed), The Rights of Minority Cultures, Oxford University Press, 1995, 93-119, 103): ‘Just as the allegedly self-made individual needs to be brought to a proper awareness of[h\s/]her dependence on social, communal and cultural structures, so too in the modern world particular cultures and national communities have an obligation to recognise their dependence on the wider social, political, international and civilisational structures that sustain them.’ ”
– Alexandra Xanthaki, Collective Rights: The Case for Indigenous People, 2000.
‘The concept of collective rights emerged because individual human rights do not guarantee adequate protection forindigenous peoples and other minorities exhibiting collective characteristics. These groups face various threats to their livelihoods, to their environments, to their health and to their security, and their very survival may depend upon the recognition and protection of their collective rights. … Collective rights are intergenerational. Land rights must be understood from this perspective, as present generations have inherited the territory of previous ones, and are obliged to pass it on to future generations. For that reason, indigenous territory should not be classified as property but rather as inheritance or patrimony. In the cosmic vision of many indigenous peoples, territory is not only a physical space but also where productive systems like fishing, hunting, agriculture, extractive activities and so forth are carried out in a self-reliant manner.’
The ethnic communities living along Ethiopia’s Omo River and depend on annual flooding to practice flood retreat cultivation for their survival and livelihood. Credit: Ed McKenna/IPS
‘The government already has trouble managing hunger and poverty [among] its citizenry. By taking over land and water resources in the Omo Valley, it is creating a new class of ‘internal refugees’ who will no longer be self-sufficient.’
OMO VALLEY, Ethiopia, Nov 11 2013 (IPS) – As the construction of a major transmission line to export electricity generated from one of Ethiopia’s major hydropower projects gets underway, there are growing concerns that pastoralist communities living in the region are under threat.
The Gibe III dam, which will generate 1,800 megawatts (MW), is being built in southeast Ethiopia on the Omo River at a cost of 1.7 billion dollars. It is expected to earn the government over 400 million dollars annually from power exports. On completion in 2015 it will be the world’s fourth-largest dam.
“We are being told to stop moving with our cattle, to stop wearing our traditional dressand to sell our cattle. Cattle and movement is everything to the Mursi.” — Mursi elder
But the dam is expected to debilitate the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of indigenous communities in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley and those living around Kenya’s Lake Turkana who depend on the Omo River.
The Bodi, Daasanach, Kara, Mursi, Kwegu and Nyangatom ethnic communities who live along the Omo River depend on its annual flooding to practice flood-retreat cultivation for their survival and livelihoods.
But the semi-nomadic Mursi ethnic community are being resettled as part of the Ethiopian government’s villagisation programme to make room for a large sugar plantation, which will turn roaming pastoralists into sedentary farmers. The hundreds of kilometres of irrigation canals currently being dug to divert the Omo River’s waters to feed these large plantations will make it impossible for the indigenous communities to live as they have always done.
“We are being told that our land is private property. We are very worried about our survival as we are being forced to move where there is no water, grass or crops,” a Mursi community member told IPS.
The Omo Valley is set to become a powerhouse of large commercial farming irrigated by the Gibe III dam. To date 445,000 hectares have been allocated to Malaysian, Indian and other foreign companies to grow sugar, biofuels, cereals and other crops.
“The Gibe III will worsen poverty for the most vulnerable. The government already has trouble managing hunger and poverty [among] its citizenry. By taking over land and water resources in the Omo Valley, it is creating a new class of ‘internal refugees’ who will no longer be self-sufficient,” Lori Pottinger from environmental NGO International Rivers told IPS.
Top global financiers, including the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB), have committed 1.2 billion dollars to a 1,070 km high-voltage line that will run from Wolayta-Sodo in Ethiopia to Suswa, 100 km northwest of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. The transmission line, powered by Ethiopia’s Gibe III, will connect the country’s electrical grid with Kenya and will have a capacity to carry 2,000 MW between the two countries.
According to the AfDB, it will promote renewable power generation, regional cooperation, and will ensure access to reliable and affordable energy to around 870,000 households by 2018.
According to Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Ethiopia’s economy is set to maintain a growth rate of 11 percent in 2014. Fully exploiting its massive water resources to generate a hydropower potential of up to 45,000 MW in order to sell surplus electricity to its neighbours is central to Ethiopia’s Growth and Transformation plan, a five-year plan to develop the country’s economy.
The Horn of Africa nation currently generates 2,000 MW from six hydroelectric dams and invests more of its resources in hydropower than any other country in Africa – one third of its total GNP of about 77 billion dollars.
According to a World Bank report published in 2010, only 17 percent of Ethiopia’s 84.7 million people had access to electricity at the time of the report. By 2018, 100 percent of the population will have access to power, according to state power provider Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO).
“We are helping mitigate climate risk of fossil fuel consumption and also reduce rampant deforestation rates in Ethiopia. Hydropower will benefit our development,” Miheret Debebe, chief executive officer of EEPCO, told IPS.
The Ethiopian government insists that the welfare of pastoralist communities being resettled is a priority and that they will benefit from developments in the Omo Valley. “We are working hard to safeguard them and help them to adapt to the changing conditions,” government spokesperson Shimeles Kemal told IPS.
However, there are concerns that ethnic groups like the Mursi are not being consulted about their changing future. “If we resist resettlement we will be arrested,” a Mursi elder told IPS.
“We fear for the future. Our way of life is under threat. We are being told to stop moving with our cattle, to stop wearing our traditional dress and to sell our cattle. Cattle and movement is everything to the Mursi.”
The importance of ensuring that benefits from Ethiopia’s national development projects do not come at a price of endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands pastoralist tribes is critical said Ben Braga, president of the World Water Council. Braga decried governments that failed to compensate communities like the Mursi as displacement of surrounding communities is always an inevitable consequence of major dams that need plenty of advanced planning to avoid emergencies.
“How can we compensate these people so that the majority of the country can benefit from electricity? There is a need for better compensatory mechanisms to ensure that benefits are shared and that all stakeholders are included in consultations prior to construction,” he told IPS.
‘Foreign investors are taking as much as they can from an impoverished nation, including its crops, land and the hard work of an Ethiopian population, to serve their own interests above others. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 14.56 million hectares of Ethiopia’s 100 million hectare land mass is arable land, most of it cultivated by small hold, subsistence farmers. International investors have taken note and are rushing to this country, once synonymous with starvation, to take advantage of the government’s new push to improve its agricultural production capacity. But many fear the government’s sale of arable land to foreign nationals will create a modern form of agricultural colonialism. One such arrangement, launched in 2009 under Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah initiative and forming part of a $100-million investment scheme in Ethiopian agriculture, had farmers grow teff (a North African cereal grass), white wheat, maize and white sorghum, among other crops, before these were exported back to the Gulf region. The Economist referred to it as an instance of a “powerful but contentious trend sweeping the poor world”, further saying that countries which export capital but import food are outsourcing farm production to countries that need capital but which have land to spare. According to Human Rights Watch, in less than five years Ethiopia has approved more than 800 foreign-financed agricultural projects. The watchdog group further said that from 2008 to 2011, the Ethiopian government leased out no less than 3.8 million hectares to foreign investors, displacing local inhabitants and resulting in tens of thousands of internally displaced persons who are often forced to migrate to urban areas. The majority of land acquisitions occur in government-to-government deals. In the past, Saudi officials and closely tied sovereign wealth funds negotiated with former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, while presently, such discussions take place with the ruling coalition of his successor, Hailemariam Desalegn Boshe. Supporters argue that such deals increase production efficiency and improve economic outlooks but only if investors are willing to pay a fair price. In 2011, Oxfam reported that Middle Eastern and Far Eastern investors were purchasing plots in developing countries, including Ethiopia, for as little as $1 per hectare. That same year, Saudi Star Agricultural Development Plc leased 10,000 hectares for a bargain price of $9.42 per hectare annually for the next 60 years. (Saudi Star, a food company owned by Ethiopian and Saudi Arabian billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi, and which forms part of the Derba group, produces sugar, rice and edible oil. The company is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.) Advocacy groups from Spain and the US commented that the government sponsored deal had caused human rights violations as well as the forceful relocation of hundreds of thousands of residents, including the Nuek and Anuak indigenous groups. The government retorted by saying that the resettlement plan was acted out voluntarily on behalf of residents. Saudi Star claims that it acted in good faith and that the benefits of the land deal – including improvements to regional infrastructure – outweighed the consequences, despite scepticism. Fikru Desalegn, former State Minister of Capacity Building in the Ethiopian federal government and current CEO of Saudi Star, played down the negative connotations associated with the controversial foreign investment. He said there was “nobody in the 10,000 hectares” and that the company had “not paid any compensation” but that the possibility of employment opening up would “teach the public it is very useful for them”. In July 2012, the Derba Group announced plans for an additional 300,000-hectare development project in the fertile region of Gambela. While no figures have been released, industry experts suspect that the lease was contracted below cost, generating approximately $923 million per annum for the consortium. The company intends to export the majority of the crops harvested, with 45 percent destined for Jeddah.’ http://www.ventures-africa.com/2013/11/land-grabs-in-africa-a-double-edged-sword/?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer675be&utm_medium=twitter
‘From Senegal in West Africa to Ethiopia in the Horn, and down to Mozambique in the South, land considered idle and available has changed hands, with profound implications for local people and the environment. With estimates ranging from 56 to 227 million hectares globally (with 60-70% of this in Africa), what is clear is a rapid transformation of landholding and agricultural systems has taken place in the past five to 10 years. Underpinning these deals is the longstanding failure of many African states to recognise, in law and practice, the customary land rightsof existing farming households and communities, and the perpetuation of the colonial legal codes that centralise control over such lands in the hands of the state as trustee of all unregistered property. And it’s not just African land and water that are now so desirable for international investors, but also the growing African consumer market. In the face of growing urbanisation and consumer demand in Africa’s cities, the challenge is to scale up production and connect small farmers to markets, lest the benefits of rising food demand in Africa’s cities be netted by importers and foreign supermarkets. The land grab raises questions not only about land rights and transparency in investment, but also what constitutes inclusive agricultural development and how to bring it about.’ Read further @http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/jan/23/land-deals-africa-farming-investment?CMP=twt_gu
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