“We are a dying people,” says Gorgis, a cattle herder from the Bodi tribe who lives in the bush near Hana town in South Ethiopia, home to the semi-nomadic Mursi and Bodi tribes.
By Luc van Kemenade, Addis Abeba
Like his fellow tribesmen Gorgis moves around with cattle in search of water and grasslands.
His family of two wives and eleven children grows crops along the banks of the Omo River that flows through Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley, a world heritage site and the territory of sixteen indigenous tribes.
Sugar
Just outside Hana, Ethiopia’s state-owned sugar corporation has seized 150,000 hectares to set up a sugar plantation, annually sucking up three billion cubic meters of water from the river and occupying its fertile banks.
The plantation is part of a development plan that will transform the uncultivated area into cash crop producing farmland, Ethiopia says. Upstream the country is building one of Africa’s largest hydropower dams.
The two billion-dollar dam called Gibe III will double Ethiopia’s power capacity, it says. The dam’s regulated outflow will be used to irrigate large plots of sugar farmland from a 150 kilometers-long reservoir.
Development
The push for development includes the resettlement of thousands of tribesmen into permanent settlements where Ethiopia says they will have access to health facilities and schools. The days of southern tribes, popular among tourists and academics, “walking around naked” and living a “backward” lifestyle are over, Ethiopia says.
“There are people who say they are concerned about pastoralists,” longtime leader Meles Zenawi said in a speech earlier this year. “But they want pastoralists to remain a tourist attraction forever. The pastoralists don’t want to live as a tourist attraction. They want a stable, improved life.”
Most of the Bodi around Hana say Ethiopian officials haven’t informed them. “The government is already building new villages and wants us to move there,” Gorgis says. “We haven’t been asked anything and our King says they are thieves.”
Criticism
Rights groups have criticised Ethiopia’s dam and the United Nations called for an immediate end to construction. The opponents say the dam will forever alter the lives of hundreds of thousands indigenous people depending on the Omo River. They fear widespread hunger and conflict over water.
Duri Bela, a Bodi pastoralist wearing a red chequered toga, says he never heard about the plans until bulldozers arrived in Hana to build the plantation. Now “they have taken our land, use our water, and are building on our fields”, he says. “We might grow hungry.”
Survival International, a rights group campaigning for tribal rights, reported a crackdown on locals in Hana opposing the dam, saying “over a 100” protestors had been arrested. People in the area wouldn’t confirm the report, but said they are afraid to speak out against the plans.
Revolt
An expert in the region who asked to remain anonymous said there is no doubt that the tribes will take up arms against the government: “A revolt is going to happen.”
Ethiopian officials say this is “false propaganda” from environmentalists trying to undermine their development agenda. It says locals will benefit from new jobs and will be compensated for resettlement.
But policemen in Hana detained Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s correspondent for five hours after visiting the sugar corporation’s local office, only to release him after a regional manager dashed into town in his four wheel drive, showing little confidence about journalists nosing around at the project site.
Duri Bela says he prefers living in the bush to a new life in a settlement. “I need my children to be pastoralists,” he says. “When I see the town, I see few people making money. They sleep on the streets and beg. We don’t want to become beggars in a town. Pastoralists don’t beg.”
Email this Article
Printer-friendly version
Elena and Tariku, you apparently have never been in the area nor have ever spoken to any of the people living in the Omo Valley. Please, first do some research and then critisize in a mature way.
These issues are not about faranji development issues versus Ethiopian national development polices.
It is simply a matter of international protocol within land accqusitions and forced displacements due to dams NOT being followed. Gross voilations of human rights are also happenign in the South of Ethiopia - not only for the opposition of the current government BUT by forcefully removign land from peopel who live from the land. This is not wasteland as labelled but officials.
Let Ethiopia ´develop´ Ethiopia as they find suitable - even it the policises and strategies implemented bears dreadful resemblence to apartheid South Africa. Stop pretending that the government and general public has the interest of the semi-nomadic agro pastoral people at their heart.
History has taught us that violent authoritatian interventions do not develop anything but further conflict.
Ethiopia is one of the most important countries in the African continent in terms of geopolotical positioning. Internatinal donars are turning a blind eye to the abusive rule of EHADIG in order to remain friends with them.
Time will show us the results of these gruelling actions - it is far much more complicated that looking at the case as a matter of '
faranji and Ethiopian approaches to what development is.
We do we learn to criticise others in a civilised manner. As we have a rigt to express freely we should not deny others rigts too. Yes, his research could be flawed, we may not agree with his analysis and conclusions but for God sake let us stick with the point instead of calling names. Civilisation is not all about building dams and roads.
this is another enviromental terrorist jornlst....
when we r poor and hit with famine...they r loud
when we r taking measures they r crying foul....
what eals...yea we heard that story before tooo...
not only ethopa but also east africa will rise up.....
please get a motherfkr life lol....
Can't believe I have been drawn in to wasting my time reading this badly researched drivel again! Luc van Kemenade dubious source of information... every entry should start with the words "I reckon..."
Give it up! Ethiopia is marching on to double power capacity by Gibe III alone...and more coming ..stay tuned so you can write onther wishwash opinnion to confuse and mislead ...WE WILL NEVER BE STOPPED DEVELOPING OUR COUNTRY!...give it up!!!
Who is this "Luc van Kemenade"? What a retard. You should not dare say you are a journalist. Now even improving backward life styles is wrong for Africa? I wounder why these Europeans and Americans always try to judge us according to them? Who made them the global standard? Why is it that they always try to make us fit into their arrogantly absurd imaginations and wrong assumptions? Probably why we never see the developed and developing parts and aspects of Africa, Africans and African lives. Only dirt roads, half naked kids, broken down hut, families starved to the skin & bones... What a shame?!
If you feel that Europeans and African are judging 'you' - you in facte accepting Western hegemonic thought by agreeing with the Ethioppian government colonialist and imperalist acts in Southern Ethiopia with their land allocation to foreign investor. This is pure breed neoliberal capitalism based on Westerne values.
The West and colonialism inposed ideas on development on Africa and African governmetns accepts these thourgh donor aid. When you say 'Why is it that they always try to make us fit into their arrogantly absurd imaginations and wrong assumptions' - are are infact accepting that Western hegemonic thought and development polices are the global standard as you assume that 'half naked kids, broken down hut, families starved to the skin & bones' are what the people in lower Omo is all about.. this is not so.
They deserve a place and a voice in Ethiopia but who will give this to them - who is Ethiopia is doing this? all we see is gross abuse of human rights and forced removals from their lands to make way for commercial farms (sugar, oils seed and cotton) benefitting everyone BUT the people who being displaced.
How interesting? You came up with another story, today. You must have been worried so much about losing the "naked African tribes" you got used to taking a picture of to grace the cover of your "environmental" and "nature" magazines, because of this dam. Get over it, folks. No matter what you said and no matter how much you shed your crocodile tears, we will never ever stop developing and using our resources. It seems you already have determined that modern education and modern lifestyle is only for your kind. Not for Africans, right? The good news is the day, when you used to force Africans to submit to your will through the barrel of your guns has long gone. What we need to do right now is to ignore your noise and noise makers and march forward.
Post new comment
Please be reminded all comments must be in English, short and to the point - guideline 250 words. Abusive and inappropriate comments will be removed.