In famine-stricken Ethiopia, a Saudi company leases land to grow...

Ethiopia: Forced Relocations Bring Hunger,
Hardship

17 January, 2012 | Human Rights Watch
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Donor Funds Should Not Facilitate Abuse of Indigenous
Groups

(London) – The Ethiopian

government under its

“villagization” program is

forcibly relocating

approximately 70,000

indigenous people from the

western Gambella region to

new villages that lack

adequate food, farmland,

healthcare, and educational facilities, Human Rights Watch said in a
report released today. State security forces have repeatedly
threatened, assaulted, and arbitrarily arrested villagers who resist the
transfers.

The report, “‘Waiting Here for Death’: Forced Displacement and
‘Villagization’ in Ethiopia’s Gambella Region,” examines the first
year of Gambella’s villagization program. It details the involuntary
nature of the transfers, the loss of livelihoods, the deteriorating food
situation, and ongoing abuses by the armed forces against the
affected people. Many of the areas from which people are being
moved are slated for leasing by the government for commercial
agricultural development.

“The Ethiopian government’s villagization program is not improving
access to services for Gambella’s indigenous people, but is instead
undermining their livelihoods and food security,” said Jan Egeland,
Europe director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should
suspend the program until it can ensure that the necessary
infrastructure is in place and that people have been properly
consulted and compensated for the loss of their land.”

The government says the “villagization” program is designed to
provide “access to basic socioeconomic infrastructures” to the
people it relocates and to bring “socioeconomic & cultural
transformation of the people.” But despite pledges to provide
suitable compensation, the government has provided insufficient
resources to sustain people in the new villages, Human Rights
Watch said.

The residents of Gambella, mainly indigenous Anuak and Nuer,
have never had formal title to the land they have lived on and used.
The government often claims that the areas are “uninhabited” or
“under-utilized.” That claim enables the government to bypass
constitutional provisions and laws that would protect these
populations from being relocated.

The report is based on more than 100 interviews in Ethiopia in May
and June 2011, and at the Ifo refugee camp in Dadaab and Nairobi,
Kenya, where many Gambellans have fled.

“My father was beaten for refusing to go along [to the new village]
with some other elders,” a former villager told Human Rights
Watch. “He said, ‘I was born here – my children were born here –
I am too old to move so I will stay.’ He was beaten by the army
with sticks and the butt of a gun. He had to be taken to hospital. He
died because of the beating – he just became weaker and weaker.”

The Villagization Program

The Ethiopian government is planning to resettle 1.5 million people
by 2013 in four regions: Gambella, Afar, Somali, and Benishangul-
Gumuz. Relocations started in 2010 in Gambella, and approximately
70,000 people there were scheduled to be moved by the end of
2011. Under the Gambella Peoples’ National Regional State
Government Plan, 45,000 households are to be moved during the
three-year program. The plan pledges to provide infrastructure for
the new villages and assistance to ensure alternative livelihoods. The
plan also states that the movements are to be voluntary.

Instead of improved access to government services, however, new
villages often go without them altogether. The first round of forced
relocations occurred at the worst possible time of year – the
beginning of the harvest – and many of the areas to which people
were moved are dry with poor-quality soil. The nearby land needs
to be cleared, and agricultural assistance – seeds and fertilizers –
has not been provided. The government failure to provide food
assistance for relocated people has caused endemic hunger and
cases of starvation.

Human Rights Watch’s research showed that the forced relocation
policy is disrupting a delicate balance of survival for many in the
region. Livelihoods and food security in Gambella are precarious.
Pastoralists are being forced to abandon their cattle-based
livelihoods in favor of settled cultivation. Shifting cultivators –
farmers who move from one location to another over the years –
are being required to grow crops in a single location, which risks
depleting their soil of vital nutrients. In the absence of meaningful
infrastructural support and regular supplies of food aid, the changes
for both populations may have life-threatening consequences,
Human Rights Watch said.

The resident of one new village told Human Rights Watch: “We
expect major starvation next year because they did not clear in time.
If they [the government] cleared [the land] we would have food next
year but now we have no means for food.”

Commercial Land Investment

The villagization program is taking place in areas where significant
land investment is planned or occurring. The Ethiopian government
has consistently denied that the resettlement of people in Gambella
is connected to the leasing of large areas of land for commercial
agriculture, but villagers have been told by government officials that
this is an underlying reason for their displacement. Former local
government officials confirmed these allegations to Human Rights
Watch.

One farmer told Human Rights Watch that during the government’s
initial meeting with his village, government officials told them: “We
will invite investors who will grow cash crops. You do not use the
land well. It is lying idle.”

“We want you to be clear that the government brought us here… to
die... right here,” one elder told Human Rights Watch. “We want
the world to hear that government brought the Anuak people here
to die. They brought us no food, they gave away our land to the
foreigners so we can’t even move back. On all sides the land is
given away, so we will die here in one place.”

Mass displacement to make way for commercial agriculture in the
absence of a proper legal process contravenes Ethiopia’s
constitution and violates the rights of indigenous peoples under
international law.

From 2008 through January 2011, Ethiopia leased out at least 3.6
million hectares of land, an area the size of the Netherlands. An
additional 2.1 million hectares of land is available through the federal
government’s land bank for agricultural investment. In Gambella, 42
percent of the total land area is either being marketed for lease to
investors or has already been awarded to investors, according to
government figures. Many of the areas that have been moved for
villagization are within areas slated for commercial agricultural
investment.

“The villagization program is being undertaken in the exact same
areas of Ethiopia that the government is leasing to foreign investors
for large-scale commercial agricultural operations,” Egeland said.
“This raises suspicions about the underlying motives of the
villagization program.”

Role of Foreign Donors

Foreign donors to Ethiopia, including the United Kingdom, United
States, World Bank, and European Union, assert that they have no
direct involvement in the villagization programs. However, the multi-
donor Protection of Basic Services (PBS) program subsidizes basic
services – health, education, agriculture, roads, and water – and
local government salaries in all districts in the country, including
areas where new villages are being constructed and where the main
activity of local governments is moving people.

As a result of their potential responsibilities and liabilities, donors
have undertaken assessments of the villagization program in
Gambella and in Benishangul-Gumuz and determined that the
relocations were voluntary. Human Rights Watch’s field-based
research and interviews with residents, however, indicates that the
moves have been coerced.

International donors should ensure that they are not providing
support for forced displacement or facilitating rights violations in the
name of development, Human Rights Watch said. They should
press Ethiopia to live up to its responsibilities under Ethiopian and
international law, namely to provide communities with genuine
consultation on the villagization process, ensure that the relocation of
indigenous people is voluntary, compensate them appropriately,
prevent human rights violations during and after any relocation, and
prosecute those implicated in abuses. Donors should also seek to
ensure that the government meets its obligations to respect, protect,
and fulfill the economic and social rights of the people in new
villages.

“It seems that the donor money is being used, at least indirectly, to
fund the villagization program,” Egeland said. “Donors have a
responsibility to ensure that their assistance does not facilitate forced
displacement and associated violations.”

Selected Accounts from “Waiting Here for Death”

“We were told, ‘If somebody refuses, the government will take
action’ – so the people went to the new village – by force.”
–Villager in Abobo woreda (district), May 2011

“Farmers in our woreda did not want to go. The woreda
reported to the region that farmers are refusing to accept. The
governor asked the woreda chairman to investigate. He did –
‘Yes, they are resisting. What shall we do?’ he asked the
governor. The governor told him that five development agents
should be suspended from their job, and that he would bring in
the soldiers. So that is what happened.”
–Former woreda civil servant, June 2011

“The government is killing our people through starvation and
hunger. It is better to attack us in one place than just waiting
here together to die. If you attack us, some of us could run, and
some could survive. But this, we are dying here with our
children. Government workers get this salary, but we are just
waiting here for death.”
–Elder in recently relocated village, Abobo woreda, May 2011

“There is a psychological impact on children. No learning is
happening. There was a school in the old village, here there is
none. No one is going to school now, as they are afraid. Who
will protect them going to the old village? Even the children
themselves are refusing to go.”
–Anuak woman from new village discussing the lack of
promised school in Abobo woreda, May 2011

Courtesy