Ethiopia forcing thousands off land to make room for Saudi and Indian
investors
Ethiopia is forcing tens of thousands of its poorest people off fertile land
earmarked for Saudi Arabian and Indian investors and into villages lacking
schools, clinics or clean water, a new report has claimed.
<
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/mike-pflanz/>
By <
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/mike-pflanz/> Mike Pflanz,
Nairobi
8:21PM GMT 07 Feb 2012
<
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/ethiopia/902
0828/Ethiopia-forcing-thousands-off-land-to-make-room-for-Saudi-and-Indian-i
nvestors.html#disqus_thread> 11 Comments
Already, 20,000 families have moved from areas they have roamed for
centuries in a "villagisation" programme that researchers claim
international donors including Britain have inadvertently helped fund.
At the same time, <
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india>
Indian, <
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia>
Saudi and
<
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/ethiopia/>
Ethiopian companies have moved in to take over more than one million acres
of land to grow cash crops in the affected region, Gambella.
A further six million acres of Ethiopia – an area close to the size of
Belgium – have already been leased to foreign firms and there are plans to
expand this by another five million acres.
Ethiopia's government says that no one has been forced to move and that the
villagisation scheme – which will eventually reach 1.5 million Ethiopians –
is designed to give people previously scattered across vast areas better
access to "social and economic services".
But in interviews with more than 100 people from Gambella, in Ethiopia's
west, Human Rights Watch was repeatedly told that they were moved under
duress.
"Our research found the process to be far from voluntary," the rights group
said in a report published on Tuesday.
"[It] has been accompanied by widespread human rights violations, including
forced displacement, arbitrary arrest and detention, beatings, rape, and
other sexual violence.
"Residents [said] that any refusal or inquiries were met with beatings,
arrests, or intimidation from the army."
The programme bears echoes of the Soviet-inspired mass resettlements of
Ethiopia's rural people into work camps under the Marxist Derg government of
Mengistu Haile Mariam in the 1970s and 1980s.
Tribes that traditionally moved with their animals have been settled and
ordered to plant crops, the report says.
Others that roamed wide areas shifting their cultivation from season to
season have been given tiny new plots to raise harvests to feed their
families.
One elder told researchers: "We want you to be clear that the government
brought us 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."
In several cases, Human Rights Watch said, people had been moved to existing
villages where services including health care, education, food aid and clean
water was funded through programmes paid for by international aid.
"Through their ongoing budgetary support to regional and local governments,
[Ethiopia's foreign donors] are, in part, paying for the construction of
schools, health clinics, roads, and water facilities in the new villages,"
Human Rights Watch said.
"They are also funding agricultural programs directed towards resettled
populations and the salaries of the local government officials who are
implementing the policy.
"It is almost impossible for donor funds not to be contributing to basic
services in new villages."
Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary, said last night
that he would be "taking a close look" at the report's findings and would
raise concerns "at the highest level".
Ethiopia is given more bilateral British aid than any other country, and is
scheduled to receive £1.3 billion between 2010 and 2015.
"The British Government's development assistance in Ethiopia does not
encourage or support 'villagisation' and we share HRW's concerns that
promises made to communities are not being fulfilled," Mr Mitchell said.
Ethiopia is among a clutch of African countries aggressively marketing their
fertile land to overseas investors, mostly from the Gulf, South Asia and the
Far East, to grow their own crops for export back to domestic markets.
Bereket Simon, Ethiopia's director of government communications, said that
Gambella, and other areas marked for commercial leasing, were
"underutilised" or "uninhabited".
"Ethiopia is a country endowed with natural resources and abundant land
which is not inhabited by any people," he said.
"We are inviting investors to come to Ethiopia, but we make absolutely sure
that they invest for the development of the country."
He dismissed the Human Rights Watch report as a "deliberate and blatant
smear campaign" against his country by the New York-based organisation.
"I can assure you that 20,000 families have been relocated voluntarily in
the last two years, it was not forced at all, and all the infrastructures
are in place for them," he said.
"In fact, we planned to move 15,000 families, but another 5,000 came of
their own accord because of the better infrastructure."
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Received on Thu Feb 07 2013 - 21:09:15 EST
