Policy-driven Inter-ethnic Conflicts in Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Persistent inter-ethnic conflicts in southern Ethiopia have created a crisis in security of customary land tenure in the grazing lands. This article explores the links between government administrative policies and inter-ethnic conflicts on grazing resource borders by discussing the historical relationships between contesting pastoral groups, their perceptions of resource borders and how the groups used government policies of ethnic-based decentralisation and referendum to claim ownership rights to grazing lands. The article contextualises the discussions within the politics of land use. Inter-ethnic conflicts have interfered with customary resource allocations by undermining customary institutions for resource sharing. There is a need for urgent dialogue between the government and different pastoral communities for negotiating access to key resources supported by conflict resolution in the southern rangelands of Ethiopia.

Analysis of dynamics of politicized collective identity in post-Dergue Ethiopia: A sociological and social-psychological analysis

“…They make cognitive, discursive, emotional and moral decisions based on their discontents, disillusionments and sense of fear, anger, compassion, powerlessness and frustration among other things (see Adugna, 2011;Tache and Oba, 2009). They also use their language and consciousness to express a sense of contention, contradiction and ambiguity on the basis of their day today observations.…”

“…(Adugna, 2011: 783) In addition, inter-group rivalries have involved the politics of boundaries, borders, geographical imaginations and visibility (e.g. Adugna, 2011;Tache and Oba, 2009). For instance, in Gambella where the Nuer and the Anuak compete, these dynamics of identity-based conflict have gained expression through local discourses of territoriality (Feyissa, 2010).…”

Dynamics of institutionalized competition in the geography of inter-ethnic rivalry: The case of the Jarso and the Girhi in Eastern Ethiopia

“…the regional states]' to the House of Federation (CFDRE, 1995). In the Jarso-Girhi territory, as elsewhere along Oromo-Somali frontier areas, where the House of Federation votes were cast by the populace to settle identity-induced disputes over resources (see Adugna, 2011;Bassi, 2010;Fiseha, 2012;Markakis, 2011;Tache and Oba, 2009), the process made ethnicity and territoriality the fundamental features of local politics and evoked conflicting attitudes towards the referendum. The referendum was an event that allowed institutionalized competition between identity groups that disputed over territorial and administrative issues in the geography of inter-ethnic rivalry.…”

“…The referendum was an event that allowed institutionalized competition between identity groups that disputed over territorial and administrative issues in the geography of inter-ethnic rivalry. It was seen both as an import that would pose a threat to indigenous entitlement to territories, and as an opportunity that would consolidate or extend control over the contested territories (Adugna, 2011;Tache and Oba, 2009). …”

“…It is the same underlying tensions that have become more politicized and have ethnicized contestation today. As elsewhere, where similar problems prevail, competition over scarce resources creates uncertainty about future economic and social conditions making territories contentious and the territory a breeding ground for motivation to engage in collective action (Adugna, 2011;Feyissa, 2010;Tache and Oba, 2009). Inter-regional boundary making in the Oromo-Somali frontier areas is an aspect of accomplishing institutionalized politics of conflict governance and societal control.…”