The Last Piece of Berlin Wall: The Ogaden
The Last Piece of Berlin
Wall: The Ogaden
Jan 10, 2010
By: Dr. M. Ugas
“There are only two ways to look at life: One as though nothing is a miracle, the other as though everything is…” – Albert Einstein
This was a paper originally presented to a conference held at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis on the thème of “Looking Back Looking Forward: The Ogaden Region in the 21st Century” under the panel: Ethiopia’s Contested Politics) fron June 18th to June 20th, 2010.
The Westerners call the Berlin
Wall as the “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart”, Easterners call it the
“Iron Curtain”. But, many Africans believe that it was the fruits of what
Germany had to harvest when Berlin partitioned Africa in 1884-1885 as a
process of invasion, occupation colonization and annexation by
European powers during the new imperialism period between 1881 and World War I
in 1914. Now, the partition of Africa is over and the partition of Germany is
over. The Berlin wall collapsed on October 3, 1991. But, there is still one
piece of the wall remained that must collapse now – that is the Ogaden.
As Albert Einstein said “There are only two ways to look at life: One as though nothing is a miracle, the other as though everything is…”, whether you see the freedom of Ogaden as a miracle or not, it is going to occur before long. But, for some Somalis who are preoccupied with the fear of the name of the Ogaden as a new disease that we must take it to the lab for scientific refinement, this will be a bit of a dark horse to them, and I am telling them that the darkest hour is just before the down, “Fa-inna macal cusri yusran, inna macal cusri yusraa”. And if you doubt, read this book:
I. ABSTRACT
Presenter: Dr.Mahamud Ugas Muhumed,
First Regional Minister of Planning and
Economic Development in the Ogaden, Former Assistant Lecturer; Senior Field
Officer to UNDP and Now a Certified Manager and an International Organizational
Development Consultant.
In this article, I will attempt to develop cross-cutting issues in food shortages in Ethiopia and particularly the situation of the Somali region (the Ogaden) that would challenge many readers to think through this number of issues while fostering an understanding of the underlying root causes of what I would content to be manmade food shortages.
In my twenty years of research in the
economic system of the Somali territory in Ethiopia, probably the most
insightful observations I made about the food shortages is that it is not
complex to deal with but it is multifaceted . Hence, the paper will provide
and describe some policy option that will make the transition of the Ethiopia
democracy less volatile in terms of tasks related to the economic system of the
Somali region of the Ogaden, which is substantially more complex, but not
impossible, compared to the other regions in Ethiopia.
Food shortage is not only an economic issue
as believed by many Ethiopian politicians. It is also political issue and
philosophical issues. We have people with economic needs and wants and we have
available economic resources. This paper will provide an overview of how
intentionally the current Ethiopian regime destroyed the social structures, the
flourishing and fundamental economic inputs and bases, and the planned
anticipation of exploiting the abundant natural resources in the
region.
Are Somalis in the Ogaden being denied their
rights to exploit their natural resources, or do they lack the human capacity
and competencies to appropriately utilize the natural resources in their
region? Using key informant interviews data, the paper will
shed light on the whole Ethiopian government approach and policies targeted at
the Ogaden; it will include some anecdotal data individual opinions as well.
Given that I have not had access to this region for a number of years, most of
the analysis contained in this paper will come from secondary data rather than
field work which can speak to the reality on the ground. Governments have
fiduciary responsibility to govern appropriately and protect the overall
interest of all its citizens, one has to wonder about the intentions behind
certain policies. For instance, if a there is a government policy would allow
the deliberate destruction of ten major projects and shuts industries in the
one region? In all aspects of philosophy, technical economic analysis and value
judgments, there is no proper answer to that other than labeling the regime as
genocidal towards that region.
II. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND.
The human tragedy in the Ogaden started after European leaders agreed to partition the African continent into neatly bordered spheres of influence, which became a temptation to Abyssinians to think of colonizing the Ogaden. In April 10th 1891, Ethiopia’s Emperor Menelik II said in his circular letter addressed to Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia: “If Powers at a distance come forward to partition Africa between them, I do not intend to be an indifferent spectator.”
During the Second World War, after the expulsion of the Italians from the Horn of Africa, in 1941, the Ogaden came under British rule, and it remained subject to British military administration until 1948.
In 1946, the British foreign secretary, Mr. Ernest Bevin proposed the Somali nation including the Ogaden as a trust territory. The Bevin Plan met with unanimous opposition from the other Powers. The petitions of Ogadeni elders to the conference also became dead letter.
On September 23rd 1948, the British government decided to cede a great part of the Ogaden to Ethiopia without the knowledge and consent of the Ogaden people. Peaceful demonstrations against this act were brutally suppressed and scores of people were killed, in Jigjiga and elsewhere in the Ogaden. Haud and Reserved areas were the last part of the Ogaden, which were handed over to Ethiopia by the British Authorities, on February 28th 1955.
During Haile Selassie’s rule, the Ethiopian Imperial Army committed unspeakable crimes against the defenceless civilians in the Ogaden. In 1961, the towns of Dhagaxbuur, Qalaafo and Ayshaca, were razed to the ground by the Ethiopian occupation forces.
In 1974, when the military overthrew emperor Haile Selassie’s theocratic rule, they put in place a communist military dictatorship led by the Red Negus colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam. The Dergue military junta, in Addis Ababa, enforced more oppressive policies in the Ogaden. Summary executions, arbitrary detentions without charges or trial, dispossessing the people of their properties, emergency laws and dusk to dawn curfew were commonplace. In its Amharisation policy, the communist regime of Mengistu has transferred thousands of Ethiopian settlers into the Ogaden in an Attempt to change the demographic nature of the region, eliminate the Ogadeni-Somali national identity and to transform the Ogaden into a region of Ethiopia, in which indigenous Ogadenis will be an insignificant minority.
In 1991, after Mengitu’s downfall, Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) formed a new party called Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), composed of TPLF and converted prisoners of war from Oromo and Amhara nationalities in order to cover the Tigre domination in the new party.
After the installation of the TPLF dominated government in Ethiopia, EPRDF presented a new charter as a guiding principle in its rule during the so-called transitional period of two years. According to that charter, among other things all democratic principles, human rights, and right to self-determination of all nations should have been recognized and fully respected. Also, the resources of the country and international donations would be shared equitably.
The new Charter was welcomed by Ogaden people, who suffered from a century of repression and exploitation under the Imperial and Military regimes, which ruled the empire-state of Ethiopia respectively.
Article 1 of the Transitional Charter stated that: "Based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights individual human rights shall be respected fully, and without any limitations whatsoever."
Nevertheless, the aforementioned
international human rights treaties were not translated into action by the
Ethiopian government, which has no respect whatsoever for its international
obligations and commitments. A new era of darkness begun in the Ogaden where by
the worst and unprecedented incidents were seen throughout the 52 districts of
the region since 1991.
The international legal definition of the
crime of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 United Nations
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide stating that
Genocide
means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or
in part, a national ethnical, racial or religious groups, as such (1) killing
members of the group; (2)causing serious bodily harm to members of the group;
(3)deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (4)imposing measures
intended to prevent births within the group; (5)forcibly transferring children
of the group to another group .
According to Fowsia Abdulkadir’s
analysis in her article on “Genocide Policies and Poor
Human Rights Record in the Ogaden” presented at the Fifth
International Biennial Conference of The International Association of Genocide
Scholars on June 7th to 10th, 2003 in Galway, Ireland, “the genocide
that has taken place, and often still does in The Ogaden would easily fit in
the first three categories”. This paper shows many incidents that supports
this analysis. Also many evidences are shown in many reports of OHRC and
other previous studies.
III. THE PARADIGM OF HATRED
For quite a long time, the Ethiopian communities saw lack of national political will to apply laws written in the papers and redressal mechanisms to ensure justice for victims. As a German diplomat said in 1999 “It seems that there is no independent justice system in Ethiopia. Judges and Public Prosecutors are being discharged if their judgment is not according to EPRDF political convenience .” This is further compounded by the fact of continuous violence in the state, the economic deterioration, regular famine and malnutrition and uncontrolled HIV/AIDS prevalence in the country.
Despite the fact that Ethiopia was not colonized,
there is no doubt that the peasants and nomads faced the worst colony and
abuses in the history of mankind resulting from abuse of power of the
very few people in power and autocratic ruling of the ethnic group dominating
the country.
History tells that Emperor Menelik II
(1889 - 1913) founded Addis Ababa previously known as Finfine in Oromo
language and initiated building the railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa with
the help of France. It was just after that time, when the first modern school
and hospital were constructed, and the first bank was introduced. It was also
that time the name Ethiopia was introduced. Before Menelik’s conquest, there
was Abyssinia and other independent states such as the Ogaden. Oromo, Sidama,
Kafa, Harar and so on. When Emperor Menelik was expanding his power to the
South and East as the foundation of the Ethiopian State, the idea of the
civilized communities and uncivilized communities came into being.
By overlooking the rich culture of the Oromo
and the contribution of Oromo peasants to the economy, Menelik II started calling
Oromo as wild people who contributed nothing to the Ethiopian civilization.
Similarly, he termed Somalis in the Ogaden as nomadic opportunists who are led
by their herds and immigrants in search of grazing and wet areas and contribute
nothing at all. Sidama, Gurage, Waleyta and many other nationalities in
Ethiopia were made to accept that they are underprivileged and lower in
dignity. These created increasing antagonistic development between the dominant
nationalities and others, because they were powerless to address their
problems in ways that enhance their existence and freedom. It was the European
colonialist who were supporting Menelik in oppressing these innocent people.
The problem here is that, this equates the
Abyssinian history, culture, and political tradition with that of the
entire country. As Lewis (1992) stated
As with other aspects of behavior and
culture, the standard view of Ethiopia is very often formed by the nature of 
society in the north and is viewed from
northern perspective.
society in the north and is viewed from
northern perspective.
The hatred among the Ethiopian communities
emanated from the political subjugation and economic exploitation of the
northerners and the extension of their traditional autocratic style of
government over the peoples they defeated and made them obey their dictations
and dominance. The whole country was ruled by a handful of nobles and priests
while the rest starved in poverty and oppression.
One unique behavior one can see in Ethiopia
is the extreme introversion, which is normal behavior of most of the people in
Ethiopia, and abnormal in other cultures in the world. You will see a mother
telling her son every morning not to tell the time to anyone, lest he may be
arrested by the government. Nobody expects and tells the truth and that is also
very normal in the Ethiopian standard. It is a norm not to be a witness. These
are all the consequences of the oppressions of past and present regimes of
Ethiopia.
IV. THE NATURAL RESOURCE IN THE OGADEN
A. Natural Irrigation Schemes in the
Ogaden
There is nearly 1.4 million hectors of
cultivable land which is some of the main resources that Somalis in the Ogaden
use to rely on (see the Figure-1 below). The local people use to sell
their produce throughout the markets of every district in Somalia before 1991.
This is fertile land that does not absolutely need any fertilizer. Good example
is the yield of sesame seed oil per hectare in the Ogaden with only two
irrigation is 1.5 ton compared to 0.2 ton in the other part of Ethiopia with
fertilizer and three irrigations and 0.5 ton in the other part of Africa.
In many occasions, the World Bank
Representative in Ethiopia – Mr. Isac Diwan gave hints to the Ethiopian
government to get advantage of this fertile land. He said in his proposals:
In 2050 there will be 150 million Ethiopians
of which 50 or 60 million will be in the cities. You do not want to have the
remaining population of a 100 million or so, in the highlands. The situation in
the highlands is already unsustainable, and parts of the area are in a
Malthusian trap with poor farmers eating up the land, with soil degradation and
soil losses due to deforestation. So you have 30 or 40 million that have to be
somewhere else. There is a lot of land in the country that is not used. There
is a limit to how many livelihoods can be sustained on the highlands. Take
advantage of the rivers in the fertile plains in the lowlands. There are three
to four million hectares that could be irrigated. [1] IRIN. 22 Aug. 2003.
This is clearly the enhancement of the
highlanders and a deprivation of the local Somalis in the very expense of
their own lands.
B. Livestock
More than 75% of the total livestock in
Ethiopia and nearly 15% of the total livestock in Sub-Saharan Africa live in
the Ogaden (see the Figure-2 below). Imagine only 7 million people own this
resource and if you use simple arithmetic, you will find that every individual
will get a share of nearly 4 heads of livestock, which is even enough not to be
termed as poor in the economic class.
C. Natural Gas
According to Ethiopian Ministry of Mines and Energy, the Ogaden Basin covers 350,000 sq km and is the largest proven hydrocarbon bearing sedimentary basin in Sub-Saharan Africa. There are three large gas discoveries in the basin which contain estimated reserves of approximately 3Tcf (Jehdin, Hillale and Hargelle) and Obale in early stage
of exploration. In addition
to that there are proven signs in Warder and Kelafo area.
The Ogaden Basin was subjected to an
exclusive Basin-wide joint study by more than 22 international giant oil
companies since 1930. For Instance, the following companies intervened since
that time:
FROM 1930 – 1970, AJIP, SHELL, MOBIL,
WHITESTONE E-WERATH, VOYAGER and SINCLAIR landed in the Ogaden in search of gas
and oil.
FROM 1970 – 1990, CAL-TECK, TENNECO,
NOREX, METHANOL, AND STORY conducted exploration.
FROM 1990- 2009 HUNT OIL, SICOR,
TENNECO, SPEE, GAIL, MIDROC, PETRONAS, LUNDIN, SIL, ZPEB, AND CNOOC, had some
kind of oil operations in the Ogaden.
D. Rangeland
In the Ogaden there is huge and expansive,
mostly unimproved lands on which a significant proportion of the natural
vegetation is native grasses, grass-like plants, forbs, shrubs, and trees where
more one thousand different species of trees are available. More than 80% of
natural vegetations in Ethiopia are found in the Ogaden and yet, many call the
region as a dessert. There is no single square kilo meter that
could be scientifically called a dessert in the Ogaden, because, the annual
rain is from 500 mm to 1500 mm and 75% of the region is full of green
vegetations during the two rainy seasons. Of course, there are two hot and dry
seasons, most of the vegetations shed leaves and revive the next two rainy
seasons as usual everywhere in the world.
There are more than 12 species of tree that
produce frankincense, which is an aromatic gum resin obtained from wild trees
in Ogaden and used chiefly as incense and in perfumes.
V. THE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS THAT THE
GOVERNMENT HUMPURED
From 1963 up to 1999, the following ten
development projects were initiated in the Ogaden. Many of them were
multimillion projects funded by the United Nations, World bank, African
Development Bank, foreign investors, the federal government and the regional
government. The projects covered from one district to almost all the 52
districts in the Ogaden. The total number of beneficiaries varied from 30,000
to 5 million.
1. Regional Chamber of
Commerce (RCC)
2. West Godey River Diversion
Project (WGRDP)
3. Livestock Marketing Company
(LMC)
4. South East Rangeland
Project (SERP)
5. El-Bahay Irrigation Dam
(EID)
6. Foreign Investment Bureau
(FIB)
7. Calub Gas Project -
Community Development Component (CGP-CDC)
8. Ethiopian Social
Rehabilitation and Development fund (ESRDF)
9. Wabishabele Agro-Industrial
Project (WAIP)
10. God-usbo Natural Salt
Extraction Company (GNSEC)
These projects were meant to improve the
region’s economic and social conditions by getting advantage of its natural
resources. Most of the projects were initiated by the local community with the
support of the United Nations agencies, but after certain period, the Ethiopian
government stopped them before the fruits of each project were used. Over
63 million USD were planned annually to develop these projects. But,
unfortunately, the EPRDF government started killing these projects
one at a time from 1992 up to 2000 (see the Figure-4 below). Since the year
2000, there has not been any single development project in the Ogaden.
If we take SERP as an example, the
South-East Rangelands Development Project was established as a part of the
Third National Livestock Development Project (TLDP) in 1984 during the Dergue
regime. SERP has been 80% financed by a loan from the African Development
Bank with 20% counterpart funds from the Government of Ethiopia with the annual
capital budget of 12 million US$. The primary goals of the project were to
develop programs for delivery of animal health, rangeland management and
livestock water resources to the region.
The project has made considerable progress
toward the projected goals. Overall 50% of the target goals have been reached
within a period of 14 years. Twenty five development centers have been
constructed and staffed in 8 of the 9 zones. Covering an area of 245,000 square
kilometers, the project delivered veterinary drugs and services, constructed
roads and ponds, established women’s groups and explored improvements in
rangeland resources. The EPRDF government first confiscated all the
machineries, and vehicles, then used the veterinary centers as military
garrisons, and finally closed the project for no reason.
SERP was to establish a healthy environment
for the livestock in the whole region, in terms of grazing, pasture, veterinary
services and potable water. It was to empower the livestock herders with the
means and mechanisms to cope up with the recurrent droughts. It was intended to
create mobile veterinary clinics and hand them over to trained professionals in
a privatized way, so that the veterinary system would be sustainable in the hands
of the rural community and would be accessible to all. During the course of
action, the regional government was to open the Regional Chamber of Commerce
and register all willing trades and merchants exporting livestock. The
Chamber of Commerce was to subsidize the traders in order to enable them stand
on their own. The Federal Government was also to look for a foreign market for
the livestock as it was in the past. None of these happened. The project was
deviated from its course and served as transportation to the EPRDF army.
Finally the funding agencies, including African Development Bank withdrew its
budget and the project was dissolved in the year 2000. All the other projects
had similar advantage for the community and ended up in the same way in the
hand of the Ethiopian government
VI. THE RESULT OF THE DEPREVIATION
VI. THE RESULT OF THE DEPREVIATION
Governments have fiduciary responsibility to
govern appropriately and protect the overall interest of all its citizens; one
has to wonder about the intentions behind certain policies. For instance, if a
there is a government policy would allow the deliberate destruction of ten
major projects and shuts industries in the region as we have seen in the
preceding section? In all aspects of philosophy, technical economic analysis
and value judgments, there is no proper answer to that other than labeling the
regime as genocidal towards that region. David Marcus (2003) discusses in
his article on Famine Crime in International Law that
International criminal law assigns individual
responsibility to those who deliberately or recklessly create, prolong, or
inflict faminogenic conditions. After demonstrating with three case
studies how famines often arise out of gross human rights violations, the
author defines two degrees of famine crimes corresponding to mental states of
knowledge and recklessness and locates in existing international criminal law
the elements of the two definitions.
This paper makes the necessary analysis to
get enough justification to support David’s argument in the context of the
Ogaden poverty and famine. The only reason that those ten projects could be
destroyed is as David Marcus said a deliberate one that those who are responsible
of this faminogenic conditions where thousands of innocent civilians died must
be brought in front of the international criminal law.
The most commonly used way to measure poverty is based on incomes or consumption levels. A person is considered poor if his or her consumption or income level falls below some minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. According to the World Bank definition, this minimum level is usually called the poverty line. What is necessary to satisfy basic needs varies across time and societies. Therefore, poverty lines vary in time and place, and each country uses lines which are appropriate to its level of development, societal norms and values. What the Somalis in the Ogaden had was livestock and agriculture and both industries were destroyed. Therefore, people had no other means of survival.
However, not many studies were conducted in the pastoral community in the Ogaden, in the good years most of the pastoral communities used to be above the poverty line taking their income and consumption into consideration, based on their normal staple food, which was milk and meat, and they got enough of that in the Ogaden context. Their nutritional status was always above normal in the good years, and declining down a little, when there was no rain and pasture. Similarly, the nomads had a good coping mechanism during the bad years. They used to sell some of their livestock and switch from milk and meat into a new staple food, such as grain etc. A new research conducted in Ethiopia by Save the Children Fund – UK and Institute of Development Studies in 2003 found that
In
the past, wealthier community members provided a support structure for the poor
but now deepening poverty is eroding this traditional coping mechanism and the
number of wealthier families has fallen from 32 per cent to 2 per cent in the
last 20 years.
They had traditional early warning system of
predicting their future. Based on the change of pasture, water wells, and
increase in the new immigrants in search of wet areas, they used to predict
whether the next rainy season will be on time or not and then decide on what to
do if the next rainy season misses. They always divide their livestock into
three, (1) the lactating animals, (2) the non-lactating animals and (3) those
which are marketable. They used to sell the marketable animals before things
get worse and buy grain and goats, which are more drought resistance and could
be slaughtered when the worst comes. The young men and bigger children were on
the move with the non-lactating animals into a long distance in search of wet
areas and pasture, while children, women and older people moves with the
lactating animals near to the source of water where they had previously
reserved the grass and pasture. The clan elders were free to exercise their
culture and life and used to guide their families accordingly. They had very
strong social structure, which has recently been destroyed by the present EPRDF
regime; Declan Conway Lecturer in Natural Resources; University of East Anglia
said in 2003.
Drought
and famine have been a feature of life in Ethiopia throughout history, from the
major droughts in 1888 and 1913 and in more recent times 1972/3 and 1984/5
stands out. Now there are warnings that this year may have disastrous
consequences perhaps even greater than those of 1984/5. This raises the
questions why is it that Ethiopia has been and remains subject to drought and
why is drought associated with such tragic consequences for the people of
Ethiopia?.
The very word Ethiopia conjures up an image
of hunger, malnutrition, failed crops, failed rains, untimely floods and
heart-breaking television pictures of the famine. Many Ethiopians still do not
eat enough daily calories to maintain good health and an estimated
millions of poor people need food aid every year. There is no disagreement that
the world communities associate the name Ethiopia with famine and malnutrition.
The Ogaden region was not included in this scenario before 1991 when the new
EPRDF regime came into being.
Hence, no need of wasting time to discuss how far this goes on. But, as Dr. Declan said, “Why is it that Ethiopia has been and remains subject to drought and why is drought associated with such tragic consequences for the people of Ethiopia?”, This paper carefully analyzes the root causes of this tragedy. Except in the Ogaden region, many of the reasons for this misfortune falls under lack of fertile land, concentration and high population density (75 person per sq km) as well as lack of proper management. But, the case of Ogaden is totally different. The region is full of natural resources. The population density is very small (5 person per sq km), and these droughts and famine were mainly experienced right after the new Ethiopian regime.
Let’s take the case of the Ogaden where
75% of the people are known to be nomadic in life and the remaining are
town dwellers and agro-pastoralists. The number of sedentary farmers are very
small and live along the sides of the lower Wabi-Shabelle basin, some area of Web,
Ganale, and Dawa Rivers. This people are in total marginalization in terms of
economic development and social services. The infrastructure is very poor.
There is no permanent electricity in anyone of the 52 districts of the Ogaden.
People mainly rely on livestock rearing and export through the ports of Berebra
and Bosaso of Somalia. FAO estimated the value of livestock moving through the
ports of Berbera and Bosasso alone to be US $120 million in 1984. More than 80%
of this livestock was coming from the Ogaden . In addition to that, the
livestock export through the ports of Asseb and Mezawa of Eritrea coming from
the Ogaden was very strong and significant in those very same days.
Somalis living in the Ogaden suffered a lot
as a result of the livestock markets, which stopped when the new Ethiopian
regime come into power in 1991. The international community has been funding Ethiopia
in many multi-faceted projects and the highly valued programs of the poverty
reduction strategies of the World Bank and IMF since 1991. When Ethiopia
introduced the Agricultural Development-Led Industrialization (ADLI), all those
projects supposed to be implemented in the Ogaden have stopped without success
and without the knowledge of the target beneficiaries. In Somalia, there is
still high demand of the livestock from the Ogaden in the ports of Berbera and
Bosaso. But, the Ethiopian officers labeled the route to Somalia as contraband,
and any herd suspected to be through that route is subject to be confiscated by
the EPRDF army. Nevertheless, all the resources of the previous Ethiopian
Livestock Export Company were transferred to Tigrai region, and there has not
been any export of livestock through the ports of Asseb and Mezewa at all since
1991.
It is the Ethiopian military officers who
intentionally hampered the development and made all on-going projects stop in
The Ogaden. The new Ethiopian government restricted the movements of the herds
in search of wet areas. The government also divided the rangeland into new clan
based zones with new traditional chiefs of their own supporters by arresting or
killing the respected clan elders and chiefs in the old clan based social
structures. Ethiopia created hatred among the sub-clans and ruined the three
old methods of coping mechanisms by the pastoralists.
What the media tabloids fail to disclose is that - despite the drought and failures of rain, in the context of the regional development in the Ogaden, many on-going developments (as shown in Figure-4 above) have stopped, and many others in the initial stage were diverted as we have discussed in the preceding section.
Almost all the people living in the Ogaden would have been either direct or indirect beneficiaries for every one of those projects. Their annual capital budget was more than ten times the annual development budget allocated for the region as a whole. The federal government refused to hand over these projects to the nominal regional government and finally stopped them for good.
Many countries in the tropical zone are disaster prone areas. But, the disaster at this point, which is the combination of droughts as hazards and the vulnerability of the people, happens in every ten years once. When this disaster occurs, the affected people have to pass through different stages, such as emergency response stage, recovery, rehabilitation, development and preparedness stages.
Many scholars draw an analogy between the
role of decision makers and the root causes of disasters, and agree that
disasters are political both before and after the event. This analogy is
supported by Lasswell’s classic 1936 “who gets what, when, and
how,” Easton’s 1965 “authoritative allocation of values,” and the 1992 Dye,
Zeigler, and Lichter “who says what to whom in which channel and to what
effect,” Most so-called disasters result from value-allocating decisions and
non-decisions in years to decades before impact that are deeply political and
not simply the outcome of unalterable social or economic conditions and trends.
The Ethiopian government has also destroyed
the traditional social structures and introduced its new clan elders who have
to be sympathetic to their policies, but were stigmatized by their own family
members. The EPRDF political system became an ultimatum to interfere the daily
life of the poor nomads in the Ogaden, up to an extent that elders and chiefs
could not manage their families and clans. The EPRDF army has unjustly labeled
all the respected chiefs and clan elders as supporters of The Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF), and hence no body could ensure the coherence of the nomads for
fear of being persecuted. In the simplest argument between two young camel-men,
the situation changes into clash and fighting starts where tens of innocent
people die on the spot. The politicians also inspire the local people during
the election campaigns and assigns new land to the sub-clan that is
supposed to be the supporters of EPRDF policies. All these resulted
the death of many civilians and loss of properties. According to study
conducted by the Ogaden Welfare Society and funded by the USA-Embassy Addis
Ababa and TROCAIRE, 3,000 people died in the inter-clan fighting from 1991 to
2,000. This is not recorded anywhere in the world and incidents like these
remain unaddressed.
The new EPRDF regime might have been afraid of empowering others so that, Somalis in the Ogaden could easily elect their own people with high integrity and ask for referendum. That is the fear of the Tigrai people. Therefore, their response is to starve the people to death, so that Tigrai can still govern the other Ethiopian people against their will. The Ethiopian governments intentionally and irresponsibly created, prolong, and inflicted faminogenic conditions for the sake of the Tigrai people to be in the power.
The extent to which understanding of these as a disaster caused by a pure politics is reflected in a major 2002 report on U.S. foreign assistance named as “Natsios Report ”, where it is noted (p. 24) that
The vast majority of those killed in natural
disasters occur in countries with low incomes and low levels of human
development, reflecting the correlation between poverty and vulnerability.That
is government reports (usually cautiously worded on this point) now accept that
politics are strongly evidenced in the creation or allowance of disaster
pre-conditions. After a disaster strikes, political decisions and
non-decisions largely determine how quickly and effectively the right
intervention is to be made at the right time in the right place, so that
response, recovery, and rehabilitation programs would be fruitful and timely.
VII. HALUCINATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL
COMMUNITY IN THE ETHIO-DEMOCRACY
According to a report produced by United
Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in the year 2003
Over
the past two decades, African countries as a whole have made substantial
progress in human development. During this period, per capita income in many
countries grew; life expectancy has increased; infant mortality rates have been
reduced and adult literacy rates have increased”. Nevertheless, World
Bank report of 2003 says that “the Ethiopian Gross National Income
has dropped from 8.7 billion in 1990 down to 6.4 billion in 2002 and the Per
Capita Income has dropped from $170 in 1990 down to $100 in the year 2002.
Similarly, the infant mortality rate has increased and the Life Expectancy has
decreased from 45 years in 1990 down to 42 years in 2002.
This is a catastrophe that many of the
international community does not value the reality in the grass root as such,
when they are simply pumping money into the present regime without
conditionality and without the knowledge and participation of the target
beneficiaries. The words of the representative of the National Dutch
Foreign Policy Institute in 1998 are true. The representative said:
The unconditional aid that the Netherlands
now gives to Ethiopian government supports a policy of divide and rule and
bears in it the dangers of what we have seen in ex-Yugoslavia”.
George Monbiot discusses in his article
on the Age of Lunacy the conception of what foreign aid is for and says
Aid
has always been an instrument of foreign policy. During the Cold War, it was
used to buy the loyalties of states which might otherwise have crossed to the
other side. Even today, the countries which receive the most money tend to be
those which are of greatest strategic use to the donor nation, which is why the
US gives more to Israel than it does to sub-Saharan Africa.
The international community must have means
of maintaining the human rights and in the meantime keeping their strategic
uses. If I take the words of George Monbiot for granted, and if I suppose that
the unity and the existence of the Ethiopian government is one of the main
strategic objectives of the donor countries, then there is a better way of
keeping the unity of Ethiopian than empowering a regime or even a few people in
power. Where is the Central Committee of the Tigrai People’s Libration Front
(TPLF) now? It was dismantled and is now in the hand of only one dictator.
Surprisingly enough, as George witnesses, a
hospital in Gondor does not have the basic textbooks on tropical diseases it
needs, but US had spent $2m on medical textbooks that American publishers
hadn't been able to sell at home, called them aid and dumped them in Ethiopia.
Now what one can see in the hospital is 21 copies of an 800-page volume
called Aesthetic Facial Surgery and 24 volumes of a book called Ophthalmic
Pathology and mind you there is no ophthalmic pathologist in training in Ethiopia.
This happens everywhere in the country, because the right people are not
consulted and are not asked of their priority needs.
Seven million people in the Ogaden with all
the abundant natural resources and the millions of livestock would not have
been starved to death, if the international community makes the right
intervention with the full participation of direct beneficiaries. And if there
is will there is way.
The situation in the Ogaden is out of control. There is no law and order. The military commits a number of extra-judicial killings, including alleged political killings as retaliation to the activities of the Ogaden National Liberation Front. As a result of all these pressure, people migrate from their dwellings and lead hard lives in the rural areas. According to the definition of IDPs many people in the Ogaden are real IDPs, but unfortunately, the international community does not know what is going on in the Ogaden. It is a region that is not completely in the record of the world books. For example, the international community funded the Norwegian Refugee Council to conduct a global survey on the Internally Displaced People in 1998. This survey did not enumerate the tens of thousands of IDPs in the Ogaden. The survey says in page 81 that “the IDPs in the pastoral areas are due to cross border cattle raids from Kenya, Somalia and Sudan .” The objective of this survey was to produce single report, which will provide an invaluable reference towards understanding the plight of displaced people and encouraging solutions for them. This means that, Somalis in the Ogaden had even missed this simple opportunity.
So long as there is voting and elections,
many believe that Ethiopia is democratic country, which deserves to be
supported. When Professor Jeffrey Sachs who is a special adviser to the UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan, heading the Millennium Project Ethiopia; was
saying in an interview he gave to the United Nations Integrated Regional
Information Network on 28th July, 2003 that “Ethiopia is a well-governed
country that struggles at US $100 per capita.” What did the professor mean by
well-governed country with US$100 per capita! An old man was greeting a family
living in an isolated rural area in the Ogaden and asked them how they were.
The head of the family replied “Ri’na way noo irmaantahay, iimaankana waan iska
qabnaa” meaning “we have a lactating goat, and we have the faith of God”. The
other man said “daniba illaahay iimaanka wuu idiinka qaadi” meaning “ if you
have only one lactating goat, that God himself will make you loss his faith.”
There is no doubt that, if Ethiopia is governing people with US$100 per capita,
sooner or later Ethiopia will not govern anyone. This and many other
similar type of people with simple pre-occupations are misleading the world
attitude towards Ethiopia and taking Ethiopia as a model for democracy.
Ethiopia has violated all tenets of human
rights and does not deserve to be considered as a model for the African
democracy, which in reality is rather a hallucination when one realizes the
tactics of the government in hampering the development as a retaliation for the
activities of the political groups and the armed fighting going on in many
parts of the country. Professor Jeffrey again says
Ethiopia
only sells two goods primarily to world markets right now: coffee and leather.
Those will not be enough for long term growth so Ethiopia has to compete in new
areas – maybe new agricultural products, maybe textiles, maybe more tourism.
He doesn’t want to talk about the abundant
livestock and natural gas in the Ogaden. Who else is going to remember the
plight of the Somali people in the Ogaden? The international community
has set a number of targets in Ethiopia in the Millennium Development Goals of
2015. However, committed the international community may be at this point, it
is very hard to believe that Somalis in the Ogaden were included. Because, the
number of all those important projects would not have been hampered for the
last 19 years and the status of the human rights would have been improving
rather than deteriorating. MacCornmack – the President of US charity Save the
Children said in a news conference in Addis Ababa on July 28th, 2003 “The US
has poured in around US $500 million, but only a fraction has been spent on
combating the causes of the crisis”. He also labeled the America’s aid policy
to famine-stricken Ethiopia as “flawed”. The international community
is either in hallucination or absolutely ill-disposed towards their aid to the
poor people in Ethiopia in general and to the Ogaden in particular.
VIII. CONCLUSION AND RECCOMMENDATION
Abdulahi Mo’alim Dhodaan who is one of the
respected Somali poets said in one of his poems
Tab uu laasahaaga u dhurtiyo tuugo nin u
jeeda, hurduu kugu tallaaliye ileyn toos ku odhan mayo.This literally means
“One whose intention is stealing and fetching water from your wells would
rather induce you to sleep than wake you up.
This is purely a human rights concern.
Although prestigious human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch/Africa and Ogaden Human Rights Committee have issued several
reports about well-documented human rights violations in the Ogaden by
Ethiopia, the international community has remained tight lipped about those
violations for the last nineteen years. Therefore, the first thing this paper
emphasizes is the necessity of the international community's help to
force Ethiopia to honor its commitments to internationally accepted human
rights principles.
Ethiopia, especially the Ogaden is already
sinking into the marshes of poverty, destitution and vulnerability. Already a
great deal of money has gone into keeping people alive and in comparison with
the resources invested in meeting the aspirations for progress of the people
and lifting them out of the cycle of poverty has been worthless. Before
the international community takes any action towards supporting Ethiopia, the
root causes of these vulnerability and hazards are to be thoroughly researched
and solved.
To tackle the underlying problems of Ethiopia
in general and that of the Ogaden in particular, the following major policy
changes are to be made:
·
Sustainable
investment is to be made in extensive studies in the natural resources and the
livestock in the Ogaden and exploited with the full and free participation of
the local community without necessarily any mutual agreement with Ethiopia.
Because it doesn’t make any difference from the previous mutual agreements in
the development in the Ogaden, which became fruitless.
·
The
whereabouts of the aforementioned ten projects are to be found: South
East Rangeland Project, Elbahay Water Dam, Wabi-Shabelle River Diversion,
Regional Chamber of Commerce, Regional Investment Bureau, Ethiopian
Social Rehabilitation and Development Project, Livestock Export
Corporation, God-usbo Salt Production, Wabi-Shabele Agro-Industrial Project and
Calub Gas Project – Community Development Component.
·
The
international community should closely monitor and observe the elections in the
Ogaden and the regional parliament should be given the freedom to set
their own agendas without pressure and dictation from the Prime-Minister’s
Office.
·
Somalis
in the Ogaden should understand the real meaning of Dhodan’s statement
“Tab uu laasahaga u dhurtiyo tuugo nin u jeeda, hurduu kugu talaaliye ileyn
toos ku odhan mayo” This literally means “One whose intention is stealing and
fetching water from your wells would rather induce you to sleep than wake you
up
·
Somalis
should remember the words of Ishac Diwan - the head of the World Bank in
Ethiopia speaking on behalf of the international communities, giving hint to
Ethiopia for the highlanders and forgetting and denying the rights of the
Somalis. This makes clear to everyone that Ethiopia is only for the
highlanders and not for the pastoralist. The World Bank doesn’t propose
anything for the Ogaden but, is worried about the long future of those who live
in the highland. Compare this proposal with the statement of Dhodaan ““Xornimo
aad saleelle u heshaan idinka oo seexday waa tii saancad laga qaado oo lagu
sunaabaaye” meaning “getting freedom leisurely by sleeping is not at all
possible.” It is the sole responsibility of the Somalis in the Ogaden to think
of their development and freedom. All other people including the Ethiopians in
power are all outsiders.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Pankhurst, Sylvia. British
policy in Eastern Ethiopia. Essex, England: Richard Mayne’s Press. 1946
2. THE OGADEN: Downtrodden and
Disenfranchised People. OHRC. Feb. 2004
3. M. Ugas and Ahmed Abdulahi.
Research paper on: Ethiopian Atrocities on the Ogaden Community. 2001.
4. Thomas Packenham. The
Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to
1912. Avon Books,
December 1992
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