Intra-Unit Minorities in the Context of Ethno-National Federation in Ethiopia (original) (raw)
Related papers
Federalism and Ethnic Minorities in Ethiopia: Ideology, Territoriality, Human Rights, Policy
In 1994 Ethiopia has adopted a new constitution, considered one of the most advanced in terms of provisions for human rights. The progressive ratification of several international treaties on minority rights had already begun in 1991, immediately after the fall of the Derg regime. This progress has brought Ethiopia into the UN monitoring system, but the review of the official UN documents reveals the mismatch between the mentioned constitutional and international steps and the on-ground situation. This article considers two possible causes of this gap. The first is the particular form of ethnic federalism, first introduced with the Charter of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia and later developed in the new constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE). The second is the contradiction between the constitutional theory based on the fundamental political freedoms, and the political practice of the ruling party, grounded in revolutionary democracy, a post-Marxist ideology based on the Leninist democratic centralism and on some of the principles of the developmental state. In this article the problems identified by a UN independent expert on minority issues have been reconsidered with reference to the Ethiopian pastoral minorities. Special attention is paid to the controversy on the construction of the Gibe 3 dam along the course of the Omo River. This article claims that minority and indigenous rights are compatible with ethnic federalism as defined in the FDRE constitution, but are in conflict with the praxis inspired by the working ideology of the ruling party.
ETHIOPIA: CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION OF ETHNIC MINORITIES AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL
It is argued that in order to evaluate the capacity of the Ethiopian federal structure to accommodate ethnic diversity and to regulate ethnic conflicts, the research cannot be limited to an analysis of the constitutional mechanisms at the federal level. One of the crucial features of the Ethiopian federal structure is that it provides its nine regions with the power to enact their internal constitutions. This implies that each and every region has the power to develop its own internal state structure, within a minimum federal framework. From here it follows that the federal structure to have the potential to lay the foundations for a viable Ethiopian state, it is essential that not only the federal but also the regional constitutional mechanisms have the capacity to realize unity in diversity. As is explained in this article, not a single Ethiopian region is ethnically homogeneous. The ethnic 105 diversity which characterizes the federal level is therefore also present at the regional level. Therefore, when evaluating the capacity of the Ethiopian state structure to accomplish unity in diversity one also has to include an analysis of the regional mechanisms. The latter analysis is the core objective of this article.
Challenges of Constitutional Protection of Ethnic Groups of the Southern Regional State of Ethiopia
Abstract This study explored the ethnic quest for self-governance in the Ethiopian federal system focusing on experience from the Southern Regional State. The FDRE Constitution has created a positive interrelationship between practicing the right to self-governance and ethnic identity thereby recognizing it to ethnically defined groups. Therefore, it is justifiable and legitimate for all ethnically defined groups to claim the right to self-governance. The main objective of this study was to examine the ethnic claims for self-governance in multi-ethnic Southern Regional State within the context of Ethiopian ethnic federal system. This study was based on qualitative method approach and the study employed a number of data collection methods such as data from primary and archival sources and secondary literature.The findings of the study revealed that by merging very diverse ethno-linguistic groups into one federated unit, the Southern Nation Nationalities and Peoples Regional State, the existing political system has created minority-within-minority. As a result, those ethnic groups, who have been given their own sub-regional administrative units, have acquired political majority over the subsumed ethnic groups. This has created a feeling of being dominated and marginalized by the subsumed ethnic groups such as Oyda, Goffa, Danta, Tembaro and so on. This is the basic cause for continuing dynamics of ethnic claims for self-governance at Regional, Zonal and Woreda status in this Regional State.The study recommended two policy options: one is to restructure the Southern Regional State and, the other, easiest remedy, is to organize additional Sub-Regional Units for some of the subsumed ethnically defined groups.
Ethnicity and restructuring of the state in Ethiopia
2008
Ethnicity has been a key criterion in restructuring the Ethiopian state in federal lines. The cases of dissolved ethno-federal arrangements such as that of the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia resonated pessimism about the feasibility of federalism based on ethno linguistic lines. In contrast, some relatively successful ethno-linguistic federal arrangements like those of India and Switzerland have shown the feasibility of ethnic federalism in divided societies. Both, critiques and advocates of ethnic federalism have their justifications. ...
Constitutional and Institutional Protection of Minorities in Ethiopia
Addis Ababa University , 2020
This article investigates minority rights protection under the Ethiopian federal state structure envisaged in its legal instruments and institutional setups. Ethiopia is a land of diverse society in terms of religion, ethnicity, culture, language, and socio-economic activities. The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) Constitution gives the right to each nation, nationality and people, among other, to preserve its identity, administer its own affairs, and get fair representation. However, the Ethiopian federal system, structured based on ethnolinguistic criteria, apportion the country into ten (including Sidama) regional states, subsuming the rest within them. The interests of minorities, who are lumped with relatively dominant ethnic groups, are not addressed and have not been given self-determination, nor are they recognized as a distinct ethnic group of the country. Recognition of minority groups is not only determined by the Constitution and other legal frameworks but also based on political expediency, which can be unconstitutional. The possible solutions include adopting proportional representation system, enforcement of basic human rights of citizens and consideration of mechanisms of non-territorial autonomy.
The Ethnic Minority Right Protection and Its Political Representation in Ethiopia
Annals of the University of Craiova for Journalism, Communication and Management, 2019
Scholarly interest in Ethiopia's ethnic federalism and political representation of minorities has frequently been on ethno-territorial organization, constitutional design, power-sharing arrangements, but the rights of minority under majority and their decision making power are often left out from analyses. In the current politics of Ethiopia Minorities are not supported well, but they are also sometimes bothered and ignored. These unequal policies have resulted in discrimination of different rights in society. The Constitution of Ethiopia off course provided equality before the law for all citizens regardless of their religion, race, language or gender. At the same time, it declared the value of cultural diversity. However minorities did not have a chance to win in an election since the system of election in Ethiopia is a simple majority, when there is no one particular group which holds numerical dominance, simple majoritarianism can work against the rights of minorities unless...
The practice of federalism in Ethiopia, which is exclusively dependent on the idea of granting territorial autonomy to select ethnolinguistic groups, has now prevailed a little over two decades. As has been witnessed over the years, this approach to devolving autonomy risks excluding minorities in the country's subnational units from adequate representation and from having the decision-making powers required to promote their particular needs. Despite the clear advantages of granting territorial autonomy to territorially concentrated and homogenous groups found within a certain geographical unit, in countries like Ethio-pia-where subnational heterogeneity surpasses homogeneity-such an approach should not be relied on as the only method for fostering ethnolinguistic diversity. This article argues that non-territorial arrangements, like cultural autonomy and "consocia-tionalism," should be utilized in addition to other legal, institutional and cultural processes for sharing power in Ethiopian sub-national units.
Minority Rights, Culture, and Ethiopia's "Third Way" to Governance
Following a successful armed resistance against a dictatorial state regime, a new government of former rebels took control of the national state in Ethiopia in 1991. Prompted partly by unfolding sea changes in global politics in the early 1990s, the new Ethiopian government pledged to undertake radical governance reform. More than twenty years after the new government took office, contested assessments of its record vis-à-vis its human and minority rights pledge, among other issues, have generated waves of debate, criticism, controversy, and global protests. Based on observations from southern Ethiopia, this article takes an ethnographic look at both the process and the outcome of Ethiopia's experiment wth ethnic self-government, with a special focus on understanding the value of minority rights as an ideological construct Conceptually, the paper attempts to explain a disjuncture between the globally prescribed ideal of human/minority group rights and the realities of governance on the ground. Résumé: À la suite d'une résistance armée victorieuse contre un régime d'état dictatorial, un nouveau gouvernement formé par des anciens rebelles a pris le contrôle de l'état en Ethiopie en 1991. Motivé en partie par des changements importants en cours dans la politique mondiale au début des années 90, le nouveau gouvernement éthiopien promit de mettre en place des réformes radicales. Ces réformes, souvent classifiées d'expérimentations risquées à cause de l'importance grandissante et sans précédent donnée au principe d'ethnicité comme fondation d'une autorité légitime, sont en cours depuis vingt-et-un ans. En se fondant sur des observations faites en Ethiopie du Sud, cet article fait une étude ethnographique sur le processus et les résultats de l'expérimentation éthiopienne avec la gouvernance ethnique autoproclamée, en se concentrant particulièrement sur la logique de la valeur placée sur les droits des minorités comme construction idéologique. Conceptuellement,