Author Archives: advocacy4oromia
Oromo protests set to continue in Oromia
In an interview with DW, a spokesman of the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum accused the government of abusing the country’s constitution with its plans to expand the capital Addis Ababa.
Violence and chaos gripped Ethiopia this week as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in protest against government plans to expand the capital Addis Ababa. Human Rights Watch said at least 75 people were killed in a bloody crackdown by heavily armed security forces. The demonstrations have spread to several towns since November, when students spoke out against plans to expand the capital into Oromia territory, a move the Oromo people consider a land grab. DW spoke to Merara Gundina, chairman of the opposition Oromo Federal Congress, in Addis Ababa.
DW: What exactly are you demonstrating against?
Merara Gundina: The Addis Ababa Master Plan is part of a larger land grab by the Ethiopian government around Addis Ababa, which has displaced not less than 200,000 people. Secondly, under federalism all the boundaries are being eroded by the ruling party which is bent on taking the land. People are very angry with the government and people who wanted to see change are frustrated.
Under the Ethiopian constitution all land belongs to the state, with people living there legally considered tenants. Doesn’t this allow the government to carry out any developments that may serve the interests of all Ethiopians?
No, no, the government is misusing it. The constitution says the land belongs to the public so it doesn’t allow the government simply to tell the people “go away” and it takes the land. No, it says there are bonds of state in the name of the people and there are individuals owning the land. It is the ruling party that is misusing the constitution. In fact, the state itself is privatising the country.
We understand you have vowed to continue the demonstrations despite the killings and Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn declared on television that the government would act without mercy. Is it not better to solve these issues through talks?
We continue to support the cause of our people. We continue our peaceful struggle. We cannot be intimidated as the government has done. We have popular support, we have millions of people behind us. The government cannot silence us easily. We are following the constitution but we are against the arbitrary misuse of the constitution by the ruling party. Our people will continue.
Is it true that your organization is getting support from outsiders?
The diaspora is far away. It’s school kids, high schools and universities and the government is simply accusing the left and the right. Probably the diaspora is very active in the media because the local media are totally controlled by the government. We have no access to the media and the diaspora have some media outlets and they report what is happening in the country. But a diaspora of a few thousand cannot move millions of people.
Source:http://www.dw.com/en/oromo-protests-set-to-continue-in-ethiopia/a-18937401
Blood and terror in Ethiopia as protests sweep the streets
Wolenkomi, (Oromia) (AFP) – Two lifeless bodies lay on the ground as the terrified crowd, armed only with sticks against gun-toting Ethiopian security forces, fled the fierce crackdown on protesters.
Blood and terror on the streets as protests grip Ethiopia
Blood seeped through a sheet covering one of the bodies on the road outside Wolenkomi, a town just 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa.
“That was my only son,” a woman sobbed. “They have killed me.”
Back at the family home of 20-year-old Kumsa Tafa, his younger sister Ababetch shook as she spoke. “He was a student. No one was violent. I do not understand why he is dead,” she said.
Human Rights Watch says at least 75 people have been killed in a bloody crackdown on protests by the Oromo people, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group.
Bekele Gerba, deputy president of the Oromo Federal Congress, puts the toll at more than 80 while the government says only five have been killed.
The demonstrations have spread to several towns since November, when students spoke out against plans to expand the capital into Oromia territory — a move the Oromo consider a land grab.
The sight of the protesters on the streets of towns like Wolenkomi — shouting “Stop the killings! This isn’t democracy!” — is rare in a country with little tolerance for expressions of discontent with the government.
Tree trunks and stones are strewn on the asphalt on the road west from Addis to Shewa zone, in Oromia territory, barricading the route for several kilometres.
Chaos broke out on a bus on the road when it emerged that the police were again clashing with demonstrators in Wolenkomi.
“My husband just called me,” said a woman clutching her phone, as others screamed and children burst into tears.
“He’s taking refuge in a church. Police shot at the protesters,” she said.
The man next to her cried in despair: “They’re taking our land, killing our children. Why don’t they just kill everyone now?”
The army raided Wolenkomi again the next day, the rattle of gunfire lasting for more than an hour.
“They grabbed me by the face and they told me, ‘Go home! If you come back here, we’ll kill you’,” said Kafani, a shopkeeper.
Rights groups have repeatedly criticised Ethiopia’s use of anti-terrorism legislation to stifle peaceful dissent, with the US expressing concern over the recent crackdown and urging the government to employ restraint.
But Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn declared on television that the government would act “without mercy in the fight against forces which are trying to destabilise the region.”
– ‘Land is everything’ –
Oromo leaders have vowed to keep up their resistance against proposals to extend Addis, and Human Rights Watch has warned of “a rapidly rising risk of greater bloodshed”.
“The government can continue to send security forces and act with violence — we will never give up,” said Gerba.
Land is at the heart of the problem. Under Ethiopia’s constitution, all land belongs to the state, with owners legally considered tenants — raising fears amongst the Oromo that a wave of dispossession is on its way.
“For farmers in Oromia and elsewhere in the country, their land is everything,” said Felix Horne, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“It’s critical for their food supply, for their identity, for their culture,” he said.
“You cannot displace someone from their land with no consultation and then inadequately compensate them and not expect there to be any response,” Horne warned.
Some Oromo have already seen their lands confiscated.
Further west, in the town of Ambo, a woman named Turu was expropriated of her two hectares, receiving only 40,000 birr ($1,900, 1,700 euros) in compensation.
“We had a good life before,” she said.
Today she struggles to support her four children and her disabled husband with the 30 birr a day ($1.40, 1.30 euros) she earns working in a factory.
With their own language distinct from Ethiopia’s official Amharic tongue, the 27 million Oromo make up nearly 30 percent of the country’s population.
“The Oromos are seen as more of a threat by the government in part because they are by far the largest ethnic group,” said Horne.
The proposed expansion of Addis is part of a 25-year development plan to boost the city’s infrastructure and attract new investors.
It sparked demonstrations last year, but on a smaller scale.
I Stand With #OromoProtests
A few days ago Melbournians Oromo Youth put a call out to Oromo youth in Melbourne to gather in light of the recent protests in Ethiopia.
This is their message.
Oromo youth across the world are responding to the call for solidarity in multiple ways, follow the #OromoProtests hashtag on twitter, facebook and instagram for regular updates and news.
The #OromoProtests movement is a truly remarkable act of resistance against the Ethiopian government and its plans to further erase and evict the Oromo people from their land, livelihood and future. It is a movement rejecting imperialist ideals of development and oppressive forms of government. The civilians and students protesting; those reporting and co-ordinating on the ground; those in the diaspora working around the clock to give this movement the attention it 100% deserves are all a testament to how completely done the Oromo people are with Ethiopia’s supremacist governance. The crimes against humanity being committed by the Ethiopian government against these protests is a testament to the long standing truth that those in power are incapable of leading the people of Ethiopia justly. We are bearing witness to a true revolution.
Melbourne, we are planning to hold a solidarity rally on the 3rd of January. Save the date. Event page to be shared soon, more cities to add the list of rallies.
U.S. Calls for Dialogue to Address Legitimate Oromo Grievances Following Violent Protests
The United States has called for dialogue in Ethiopia’s Oromia region after student protests against a government expansion plan turned fatal.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), at least 75 protesters have been killed in clashes with Ethiopian security forces.
The new wave of protests against a plan to extend the capital city Addis Ababa into Oromia began in November.
Hundreds, including university, high school and even primary students, were reportedly involved in the violent protests.
The U.S. State Department has expressed concern about the violence and urged the Ethiopian government to permit peaceful protests.
In a statement published on Saturday, U.S officials admonished protesters from using violence while calling for dialogue to address their legitimate demands.
“We urge the government of Ethiopia to permit peaceful protest and commit to a constructive dialogue to address legitimate grievances,” deputy State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said. “We also urge those protesting to refrain from violence and to be open to dialogue.”
“The government of Ethiopia has stated publicly that the disputed development plans will not be implemented without further public consultation. We support the government of Ethiopia’s stated commitment to those consultations and urge it to convene stakeholders to engage in dialogue as soon as possible,” he added.
The protests originally began in 2014 when the Master Plan or the Addis Ababa and the Surrounding Oromia Special Zone Integrated Development Plan was first proposed. The students, who are predominately from Oromia, say the plan equates to land grab, which they claim would have devastating effects on the inhabitants of the region and their culture.
However, the government has said the plan, which will see the rapidly developing capital Addis Ababa expanded into Oromia state, will benefit the inhabitants.
Ethiopia’s Communication Minster Getachew Reda has said the ‘Master Plan’ will not intrude on the administrative boundaries of the Oromia region.
Officials say the demonstrations, which began peacefully, have since been high-jacked by people who want to destabilize Ethiopia.
“We know destructive forces are masterminding the violence from the forefront and from behind and they have burnt down a number of government and people’s property,” Ethiopia’s Prime Minster Hailemariam Desalegn said. “We have also seen that armed forces have killed and injured security forces and members of the public. This thing cannot continue like this. I would like to pass a message that we, in conjunction with the public, will take merciless legitimate action against any force bent on destabilizing the area.”
What Is Behind the Oromo Rebellion in Ethiopia?
The Ethiopian government is now faced with unprecedented rebellion from the Oromo ethnic group, consisting 35% of the Ethiopia’s population, which it disingenuously claims is inspired by terrorism. The immediate pretext is the Addis Ababa Master Plan encroaching and displacing Oromo farmers, but this masks a deeper grievance which has been brewing for at least two decades under this regime, and for over a century under successive highland Ethiopian rulers. In the following, I will try to provide some context and offer some analysis of the danger Ethiopia and the region are facing.
Background
The late Ethiopian Prime Minster, Meles Zenawi, achieved power in 1991 as “the first among equals” in a ruling coalition. After the 1998-2000 “border war” with Eritrea, he moved to consolidate his power by rewarding loyalists and weakening or imprisoning his rivals. Meles institutionalized one-party rule of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and his Tigrayan inner circle, with the participation of other co-opted ethnic elites who were brought into the ruling alliance under the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
The EPRDF consists of four groups: the Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization (OPDO), the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), the South Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Front (SEPDF) and the Tigrayan Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF). The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) decided to withdraw from the EPRDF coalition in 1992 and was pushed out after unsuccessfully trying to assert its independence from the TPLF within the coalition. The role of OPDO, ANDM and SEPDF is simply to rubber stamp TPLF’s agenda. In North American parlance, one can describe the members of OPDO, ANDM and SEPDF as the uncle Toms of Ethiopian society.
Zenawi’s violent crackdown on the 2005 demonstrations protesting the widely believed rigged election was a clear indication of his determination to hang on to power. In the 2010 elections, the EPRDF won 499 out of 547 parliamentary seats — with all but two others going to EPRDF-allied parties — and all but one of 1,904 council seats in regional elections. Despite the semblance of parliamentary rule, those elected were irrelevant to the governance of the country, since the TPLF and PM Zenawi maintained near absolute control over the country’s politics.
If there was any doubt in 2005, in the 2010 and 2015 elections, it became clear that this was a one-party rule with a vengeance, ensuring the triumph of repression, the squashing of dissenting voices and the shutting down of independent media. Elections in Ethiopia are shenanigans to show complete EPRDF control rather than engagement in democracy. There is a clampdown on internet access, and the arrest and sentencing of political opponents and journalists. Even two Swedish journalistsreporting in the Ogaden were imprisoned on terrorism charges.
Succession Not Transition
There was a speculation that Meles’s passing in august 2012
could touch off an internal power struggle expected to take place within the ranks of his loyalists. But the succession of a new prime minister turned out to be an uneventful affair and at least outwardly peaceful. The number of Tigrayans in the cabinet decreased, but key posts remain in the hands of aging Tigrayan loyalists. The talk of “generational change” over the past few years was simply a charade.
Among the exceptions is the current PM Hailemariam Desalegn, the relatively unknown ex-Deputy Prime Minister. Desalegn’s ethnicity gives a superficial semblance of balance and cover for the Tigrayan oligarchy. Desalegn is a Wolayta, a somewhat marginalized ethnicity in the periphery of Ethiopian society, and a born-again Christian in a country where the dominant church is Ethiopian Orthodox. He never participated in the armed struggle that brought the various factions of the EPRDF to power. His status as an outsider was perceived by many to be an asset that gave him broader legitimacy, insulated him from criticism, and allowed him to present himself as an underdog protected from the historical baggage of the Amhara and Tigrayans.
Yet, in his three years in power, Desalegn has announced few new policies. Some suggest that he is a mere figurehead and that real power is still within a core TPLF group shadowing him. In any case, party leaders seem lost without Zenawi. They govern on autopilot, following the vision and templates he left behind. In effect, Zenawi is ruling from the grave. Yet developments like the Oromo uprising expose the limits of ruling from the grave. Regime officials seem confused. Different officials say different things and contradict each other. They look like deer caught in the headlights. As is often the case, oppressors are blind to what they perpetrate on their victims and surprised when the oppressed rise up defiantly.
Resistance to EPRDF Rule
While opposition and discontent have been growing in Ethiopia, the security apparatus is ever vigilant against them . Rioting Muslims were effectively contained. The TPLF marginalized both the legal and the extra-legal opposition, leaving little option but to protest as in the current Oromo uprising. The few co-opted Oromo elites within the EPRDF have little credibility, and protesters scoff at statements coming from Oromo leaders serving the regime.
Other ethnic groups deeply dissatisfied are the Ogadenis, Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz. The Ogaden national liberation Front (ONLF) in Ogaden is waging an insurgency exacerbated by forcible relocations to allow oil and gas exploration. Similar insurgency rages in Oromia led by the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). Oromia was incorporated into the Ethiopian empire in the 1880s by emperor Menelik IIduring the time the European scramble for Africa was underway.
Resentment to TPLF rule extends even among parts of Tigray, where a part of the population feel left out by the TPLF elites interested only in making money and investing it in the capital or abroad. The EPRDF has unsuccessfully lobbied the U.S. government to label the ONLF and the OLF as terrorist organizations. Nevertheless, the controversial use and abuse of the Anti-Terrorism Law is applied with impunity. The government attributes the ongoing Muslim and Oromo protest to infiltration from Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and the opposition Ginbot 7 movement.
Despite a dishonest attempt to externalize the issue, Ethiopian Muslims, who number anywhere from 40% to 50% of the population, and the Oromo have historically been marginalized, and the protest is very much homegrown and rooted in a long list of grievances.
Ethiopia, the U.S. and its Western Allies
Ethiopia is a key strategic ally for the War on Terror, which insulates it from any UScondemnation. Ethiopia receives the largest aid in Africa — an average $3.3 billionper year. The government abuses aid money to the extent that even government-provided seeds and fertilizer is denied to farmers who are not party members. Regarding the current uprising, the United States has issued a statement of concern. However, the regime itself is noticably unconcerned because it knows these statements by the U.S. are accompanied by little or no action. Even the African Union, with its headquarter in Addis Ababa, while rightly concerned about a potential genocide inBurundi, is conspicuously silent on the massacre taking place against the Oromo right on its doorstep.
The late Zenawi had the wit to position himself as an indispensable ally of the West in the fight against “terrorism.” Ethiopia is seen as a bulwark against extremism and the chaos of Somalia. From the U.S. point of view, Ethiopia is a military bridgehead to contain Al Qaida infiltration in Somalia and even across the Red Sea in Yemen.
International aid subsidizes about 50 % of Ethiopia’s national budget. United Kingdom funding of $4.9billion for a brutal resettlement scheme was only withdrawn this year. Germany continues to aid Ethiopia for “strategic” reasons despite voicing concern about human rights violations. The regime has deepened its economic relationship with China (which is tight-lipped on human rights issues) by utilizing its comparative advantage: capitalizing on the availability of plentiful cheap labor and Chinese subsidies for projects encroaching in Oromia.
The Economy
Zenawi engineered Ethiopia’s success in securing aid from the European Union and the U.S.; he was adept at maneuvering and securing money from Western financial institutions that even his detractors acknowledge. He counted among his admirers big names such as Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard as well as Professor Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics. The country’s rulers have perfected the culture of begging and dependency and are now appealing for a $1.4 billion to feed the 10.2 million drought victims even though they engage in the business of leasing fertile land to foreign investors who export everything they grow. Drought does not have to lead to hunger and famine, if a government plans for it. Poor governments can store grain when there is good harvest in preparation for such emergencies.
Consistent with the notion of state-directed developmentalism espoused by the EPRDF, it aspired to oversee the development of roads, rail, electricity and telecommunications, boasting double-digit growth although the IMF disputes those figures and puts the growth rate at 7.5 per cent . It did succeed in Addis Ababa getting sub-Saharan Africa’s first light-rail network. However, the government’s claim that its socio-economic policies have helped the poor is disputed by critics, who point out that the primary beneficiaries are the political elite and that the gap between the elites and the poor is ever wider. The Oromo uprising is partially resentment over displacement and over environmental damage in the name of development.Corruption is rampant in the country. Theft from state enterprises and participation in the black market, including widespread graft is all too common.
Federalism
Ethiopia under the EPRDF was officially declared a federal state. In states with true federalism, regions enjoy political primacy, as it is they who consciously decide to form the state, unlike centralized states where the constituting units come into being in line with EPRDF administrative requirements from the center. The strong center in Ethiopia never allowed for the true spirit of federalism to emerge. The country could never rid itself of the lingering grievance of the regions, of not getting their share, commensurate with their resources. There is a whole list of such claims, such as, misuse of river waters and cheaply leasing of indigenous land to foreign capitalists, urbanization (as in Addis Ababa’s Master Plan), and increasing Deforestation.
The TPLF military and the future
The Ethiopian military as an institution has acquired unprecedented power. Under any conceivable scenario, the military will continue to be a key and decisive player. Yet, it is not a truly national army; at the officer corps level, it is heavily dominated by Tigreans. Historically, the rank and file soldiers come mostly from the Oromo nation and have been the cannon fodder in the country’s numerous wars under Haile Sellassie, Mengistu Hailemariam, and now under the TPLF dictatorship. There is deep grievance within the army resulting in high profile desertions from the Air Force and other branches.
Control of key economic sectors by the military under the EPRDF have made it difficult to limit its role to a strictly military one. The military’s role has other consequences of spiraling ethnic conflicts which have reached a boiling point in the current uprising. EPRDF rule has engendered profound hatred and resentments among different groups with Ethiopian society and among the former ruling classes of the Amhara ethnic group.
The Ogadenis have a longstanding group grievance that is part and parcel of their indomitable desire for self-determination, which has never been addressed. The current uprising is a culmination of systematic injustice perpetrated against the Oromo. Resistance in Ethiopia in the absence of political space for cross-ethnic alliances is being channeled along ethnic and religious lines, potentially setting the stage for the balkanization of the country. In the 20th century, highland monarchist absolutism, Stalinist dictatorships and today’s make-believe “democratic federalism” may contribute more to fragmentation and dismemberment than nation-building. The legacy of dictatorship, from Menelik II, Haile Selassie, Mengistu Hailemariam to Meles Zenawi has endangered the country.
Ethiopia’s future is, therefore, clouded with uncertainties.
Introducing a lasting solution
#OromoProtests-In the interest of introducing a lasting solution, it is time to dare to think of relocating the federal government to another site. Options are many.
The first set of options include:
a) Setting up a Federal Capital Territory/Federal District (e.g. Washington DC, ACT/Canberra, Abuja);
b) Locating it in a City State different or separate from the constituent units (e.g. Berlin);
c) Locating it in a City within a State which is the seat of the Federal Government but ‘owned’ and administered by the State within which it exists (e.g. Berne).
Alternatively, a second set would include:
a) a roving capital city that moves around every ten (or five) years;
b) different seats for the various organs of the Federal Government and assign each to different member States of the Federation. One could be the political capital (where the Legislature sits); another could be an administrative capital (where the Executive–the Government, the military, the and the civil bureaucracy–operates from); and another could be the ‘Legal capital’ (where the judiciary and other tribunals, commissions, etc) do adjudication, grievance hearing, and fact-finding, inquiry, etc from.
In addition, as a large country with a potentially huge market (God knows I hate to use this word!), there could be several business capitals that compete among each other.
For those of us who have long been saying this, it comes as a rather mundane list of recommendation. But to those who, like the TPLF ruling and business class, are intoxicated with boundless arrogance and to those who are otherwise blinded by prejudice, this will come as a shock.
And yet…for anyone who considers these ideas in good faith, one or more of these options is/are the only way out of the quagmire we find ourselves in.
Time for us to think. And think hard.
Advocates of non-violent direct action and land rights need to seriously step up
Amy Elliott Van Steenwyk
Advocates of non-violent direct action and land rights need to seriously step up their public support of #OromoProtests starting now. The scope and creativity of the actions keeps being described as unprecedented. Their commitment to these principled protests despite arrests, kidnappings, intimidation of families, expulsions, beatings, and more is incredibly inspiring.
I hope you will add your voice to those who are calling for an end to the state-sanctioned violence against the Oromo population in Ethiopia as these protests continue. (Some suggestions below)
GAMBELLA PEOPLE’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT (GPLM)
PRESS RELEASE
It is with great sadness that we have to witness the killing and massacre of unarmed civilians by the EPRDF forces once again in Ethiopia. The GPLM strongly condemns this heinous atrocity committed by the Ethiopian/EPRDF government forces against peaceful Oromo students who are protesting within their constitutional rights against the land grabbing policy.
Not long ago, when the people of Gambella faced daylight genocide of more than 450 unarmed Anuaks by the Ethiopians armed forces- exactly this month of December, 2003. Every since, we have seen many atrocity being committed all over the country with out impunity by the EPRDF government. The GPLM urged the government to stop this bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters and systematic genocide of non-Tigreans nationality and the people of Ethiopia to occupy their land, which is driven by lust for money and luxuries, while millions of Ethiopians are dying due to lack of food in the country.
The current demonstration of Oromos students is ostensibly a protest because of expansion of Addis Ababa boundary to Oromia, which has nothing to do with economic development nor municipality expansion, but a plan to displace and evict the Oromo farmers from their land.
Like other oppressed nations and nationality, the Oromo people has been politically marginalized, while being the majority in the country. The current demonstration and protest which engulf all over Oromia region, is a deep-rooted historical struggle over injustice, identity, resistance to exploitation of the Oromo’s resources, and the rights to protect their ancestral land.
Thus, the GPLM calls for all Ethiopians who are in the “Woyane”/EPRDF armed and security forces not to fire their bullets against peaceful Oromos students. We also calls on Ethiopian people from north to south and from east to west to joint the Oromos students protest and their quest for justice and democracy in our country. Finally we calls on the EPRDF/”Woyane” government to immediately:
1. Stop the killing of unarmed Oromos students;
2. To unconditionally release all Oromos students who are held captive and illegally put to prison for exercising their constitutional right; and
3. Lastly, we call for independent inquires to investigate the death of Oromos students.
GAMBELLA PEOPLE’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT (GPLM) EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Informed by History, Fear of Dispossession Fuels Unrest
Residents were going about their businesses; trucks were speeding by in a hurry to get their loads in or out of Addis Abeba. The only thing appeared to have been out of place in the city of Burayu on that sunny Wednesday morning of December 9, 2015, was a dozen or so uniformed police escorting two young men under custody. There were three police vehicles on the road from Addis to Burayu; residents confirmed that there was unrest the previous day.
Some schools were closed as students were boycotting their midterm tests.
“The students are protesting because they think the lands of their families will be taken and given to investors,” said a resident, citing the urban plan as the cause of conflict around the country, since it had surfaced in 2008. “If that happens, the students fear they will have nothing to inherit.”
It is not unprecedented for students, mostly in high schools and universities across the Oromia Regional State, to protest against what they believe is a coercive way of implementing the Master Plan of the capital. Many of the inhabitants of Oromia Region, the most populous region with over 27 million people, according to the 2007 national census, are defiantly waging protests because of an urban design scheme proposed for Addis Abeba, which is designed to incorporate farmlands in the surrounding towns. Unlike the first round of protests two years ago, however, the protests over the past three weeks have been recurring and cover wider areas.
The protests have not been without casualities. Although not confirmed by officials of either the regional administration or the federal government, no less than 20 people have been killed and more wounded as a result of standoffs between the region’s law enforcement and protestors. With varying intensity, the standoffs continued in different parts of Oromia Region at this paper’s press time on Saturday night.
Unanimously, protestors are demanding that the government call off its intention to implement a Master Plan for Addis Abeba, to be revised for the 10th round, but perceived to let the capital encroach on to the five zones surrounding it.
Addis Abeba’s Master Plan is revised every decade. Ever since the first proposed plan under the Italian occupation in 1936, the capital’s expansion has been made at the expense of its inhabitants who are often evicted. Close to 4,000 residents have been dispossessed of their properties in the four years after 1936, and Italian landmarks such as Merkato, Piazza, and Kazanchis remain alive today.
In the decade following the end of the Italian occupation, Emperor Haile Sellasie’s government had commissioned the design of a Master Plan to Patrick Abercombie in 1956. Abercombie unsuccessfully attempted to emulate the Master Plan of the city of London. However, it was three years later that the first Master Plan designed by Botton Hennessy, was delivered with a plan to form satellite towns surrounding it. It was left to serve the capital for three decades.
The most recent Master Plan expired two years ago, and studies were commissioned to design what is now the most controversial and contentious blueprint for urban planning and development. Aspiring to get help from the French city of Lyon, Addis Abeba’s sister city, urban planners at the Project Office thought it would be useful to consider the surrounding region when upgrading the Master Plan.
“Design must always consider its context,” said a professional designer who worked on the Draft Master Plan. “But the matter was politicized before the team had the time to explain the design. It was just a proposal, both Parliament and the people were going to be consulted before any form of implementation.”
The Integrated Regional Development Plan is a programme launched by the federal government in the middle of April 2014. It is an area structure plan designed to integrate economic and social activities in Addis Abeba with those of the surrounding Oromia Special Zones, in a 40Km to 100Km radius. It is designed to integrate infrastructure, environment, law enforcement, as well as special rights of the Oromia Regional State over the capital as espoused in the Constitution, according to a senior official at the federal government.
Thus, the plan incorporates 36 kebeles in 17 weredas covering 1.1 million hectares of land.
The site of resistance to the plan, Sululta, which has a population of 129,000, was included under a special zone earmarked for the development of hotel and tourism in 2008. Other towns included were Burayu, earmarked for mixed development of agrobased industry; Galan, manufacturing and storage; Legetafo, manufacturing, storage and real estate; Holeta, diary farming and tourism; and Sebeta, for manufacturing and agroprocessing.
Perceptions of the programme by many of their residents, however, differ from the intentions designers and authorities claim to have.
One such resident is Lemma Megersa, 56, a priest working in his field with his sons and two labourers, in Betti village, 300 metres from Gelan which is 25Km south of Addis Abeba. He lost 25kerets, and was compensated nine Birr per square metre. He claimed the government later leased it for 5,000 Br to 6,000 Br per square metre to prospective homeowners; a row of single storey private villas align on a border of his farm.
This is a new phenomenon dominating the outskirts of Addis Abeba. A rising middle class, pushed from the centre of Addis Abeba due to prohibitive land lease prices, is finding it affordable to locate plots in these areas to build residential houses. This development is also encouraged by the road links of these areas with the capital. A survey taken by the Central Statistics Agency in 2008 and 2009 showed that the population size in the Special Zone had increased by 51,373 residents, and 428 million square metre plots were incorporated into the Zone.
These plots were once the productive assets of farmers such as Lemma. He recalled harvesting between 300-400ql of teff and wheat prior to his dispossession. Now he cannot even get a 100ql from a plot he is left with. Although he had bought a motorized mill from the money he was paid as compensation, it does little in a way of returning the value of the land.
“The only thing we’re left with is our residence,” he told Fortune last week, munching shimbera(chickpeas) during his break.
He is convinced that the government is back with more appetite for land, in the guise of a master plan.
“We don’t want it because it takes our land and makes our destination unknown,” said Lemma. “We fear losing our land. We’re ready to show our disappointment with the programme; we’re ready to die in this rather than die of hunger.”
Lemma is not alone in his sense of disenfranchisement. Actually, long before he gets to experience loss of land, farmers in todays Gerji, Lebu, Bole Bulbula, Meri and Ayat were part of the 23 peasant associations in farming communities, whose members were affected by the expansion of Addis Abeba in the 1990s. Farmers in Yeka Tafo, with a population of 1,149, were part of the 6,000 households affected when the Ayat Real Estate project gave way to what is now an affluent middle and upper middle class residential complex.
Of the 231 households then, 98 were left with homes while losing their farmlands in return for modest compensation, while 27 were reported to have lost both their farmlands and homes. They were victims of the land lease policy of the government, which does not consider the interests of rural households and poor farmers surrounding the capital, said Feleke Tadele, who studied the impact of urban development on poor farmers, for his post graduate dissertation.
“Private investors are being invited to expropriate rural land occupied by peasants such as those in Yeka Tafo at the expense of dispossessed households without appropriate policy frameworks,” Feleke had warned as early as 1999. “The insecurity of land use rights has been the main causes of conflict in the area.”
Given this trend in the name of development, Feleke is only one among subsequent numbers of scholars who developed interest in studying the impact of Addis Abeba’s horizontal expansion, threatening the separate existence of its neighbouring areas. They all warned of inevitable widespread conflict as a result of farmers’ disenfranchisement.
For a resident of Burayu in his late 20s, whose name was withheld given the sensitivity of the issue, the Master Plan is nothing but an instrument for land grabbing and a threat to the preservation of his identity as an Oromo. He also questions integration aspect, perceiving it as only about integrating the surrounding towns in terms of economy.
“Why do we need the Master Plan in first place?” he asked. “It must be about integrating the surroundings of the administrative aspect, which will put us under the federal structure. If this is the case, our language will vanish because education will be given in Amharic, the federal working language.”
The professional designer with his hand in the development of the Draft Master Plan, thought it was not about administrative inclusion, but simply development. Addis has developed much further than other cities, noted the designer. Other areas should not be bystanders to that growth when they could benefit from it instead.
“Growth is happening regardless,” he told Fortune. “We’re only going to legalize what was already happening via the Integrated Regional Development Plan.”
Landholders do not agree.
For a farmer and a father of eight who lived his entire life in Legdadi, in the north-eastern outskirts of Addis, having the Master Plan implemented will pose a threat on his and his family’s very survival. He is no exception in requesting that his name be withheld, as a result of a pervasive suspicion and insecurity felt by many farmers in these areas.
He is, however, a well-to-do farmer, with a house guarded with stone fences, a warehouse and the other shelter for his cattle. He owns 18 cattle and two donkeys, a scrap of land preserved for vegetables.
“If this Master Plan was implemented, we are going to lose our land,” he said.
His views are informed by earlier evictions carried out on 135 households, with a staggering 108 of them objecting to their evictions but forced to move nonetheless. A survey conducted between July and September 2012 revealed that more than 90pc of 405 households evicted in Galan, Legetafo-Legedadi and Burayu areas “felt sad and disappointed . . . and worried much about future livelihoods.” Close to 82pc of these households had resisted evictions, according to the study.
“Responses of the households reveal that in one way or another [they] made resistance to land expropriation practices of the government,” said the study. “The remaining 18pc have either not resisted or are not interested to reflect their actions.”
Farming is the only skill these farmers have, and land the only thing they have got from their forefathers. The farmer in Legetafo believes he would have nowhere to go if evicted, and no other way to sustain or leave an inheritance for his family. The promised development, in his perception, will not help him or his neighbours – a notion reflected by Abera and his two friends, who all have tilled the land for years.
Although there are factories nearby, including a Turkish textile company, MNS, the elderly man claims that the factories do not hire permanent staff from the surrounding areas. A recent study conducted revealed that a 9.9 million square metre plot was allotted to 837 investment projects in three of the six zones of Galan-Legetafo-Legedadi and Burayu – of which 46pc is for manufacturing and industries.
In fact, of the 405 dispossessed farmers in these three areas and surveyed in 2012, 84pc said they were not able to get a job with these industries and businesses, which moved into their areas, despite their interest. And nearly 47pc identified lack of skill and poor education as major barriers to their employment. The same survey found out that 52pc of the respondents is illiterate, while only five per cent have college education.
In Sebeta only, close to 710ha of land was taken away from nearly 550 farmers in the four years beginning in 2006. Half this number were evicted in 2008/09 according to an undergraduate study in 2011. A total of close to 40 million Br was paid to these farmers as a form of compensation averaging close to 73,00 Br per household. This displaced farmers in Sebeta, another zone with large numbers of manufacturing plants present, are also unable to find employment in them.
“Although high numbers of industries located and operated in the area, they did not absorb local communities by creating employment opportunities,” another survey by Dejene Negussie reported.
In 2011, Dejene completed his postgraduate dissertation on “Rapid Urban Expansion and its Implications on Livelihood of Farming Communities in Peri-Urban Areaa,” for the Addis Abeba University’s College of Development Studies.
“Local people lack the skill and education required by these industries,” Dejene discovered. “Most industries operated in the area [Sebeta] employed human resource from other areas and most of them come from Addis Abeba.”
But not everyone in these areas is against the Master Plan and its desire to integrate them. Although many in this category are landless and mainly engaged in trading, one of Lemma’s sons, Tefera, who has completed Grade 12, wants to see the programme implemented. Unemployed, he is hopeful that the Plan comes with better infrastructural development and an improved administrative system.
Others residents who do not depend on farming expressed similar views. A trader in the town of Legetafo, who requested anonymity, believes the Master Plan has its own merit. He sees a solution for what he said is the highly developed corruption and maladministration.
“To get any service, we have to pay [bribes],” he told Fortune.
The dissatisfaction equally shared both by those who support and oppose the Master Plan is occurring in a context where frustrations due to unemployment, maladministration, corruption, as well as inadequate infrastructure are being experienced.
“Compared to other regional states such as Amhara and Tigray, maladministration is the worst in Oromia,” claimed an Ethics & Civics Education Teacher working at a high school. But he sees pressing anxiety due to fear of loss of land.
Others expressed similar views.
“I’ have customers who are mostly young unemployed university graduates,” an owner of a pool parlor told Fortune. “Finding themselves in such a life cycle is a frustration for them. In the midst of all this, the Master Plan came and threatened their only hope of inheriting land from their parents.”
For a man who owns a small and micro enterprise near Gefersa, “it is these students who are reflecting the concerns, so far.”
“We’ve not yet raised ours,” he told Fortune.
He has recently acquired a 100sqm plot, nearby Lake Gefersa, from a farmer for 100,000 Br. It has become a common practice for people to migrate from the capital in search of lower prices for plots, to build their residences and business outlets. The push from the capital and the demand for plots has created an army of brokers who go around the farming communities with sales pitches that it is a matter of time before the farmers are evicted forcefully in the process of the integration programme, for compensation which averages 15 Br a square metre. Farmers would rather transfer land on their free will to an individual for higher prices, brokers say.
Way before the words Master Plan surfaced in these communities, 200sqm of farmland with no physical assets on it would have gone for a price of 70,000 Br; this has now plummeted to 40,000 Br, according to a broker who has been in the business of deals with plots in Burayu, with his three partners.
The brokers saw some of the farmers spend the money they get from transfers of land user rights in buying tricycle motors a.k.a. Bajajes, while others paid for the construction of houses for their children. There are also those who spend a significant portion of the proceeds on consumption goods and end up working as security personnel in factories around Tatek, an area in Burayu, 15Km west of Addis Abeba, with 150,000 residents.
An army training ground during the military regime, Tatek is a lush field now, dedicated to the Burayu Special Industry Zone, a.k.a. Desta Sefer. It is mainly occupied by solar panel factories and transformer assembly plants owned by Metal Engineering Corporation (MetEC), and some private ones.
Many of his and partners’ customers come from Merkato, such as one who had paid 135,000 Br for a 160sqm plot located in Kela, a small rural kebele in Gefersa area. The broker and his partners have each earned 4,000 Br from this deal.
“It’s enough to meet our basic needs,” he told Fortune. “But, it’s those who work in the land administration offices or bureaus who get more.”
Source: http://addisfortune.net/columns/informed-by-history-fear-of-dispossession-fuels-unrest/
Advocacy for Oromia 