SIGN PETITION: US Aid to Ethiopia Supports Forced Relocations for Land Grabs
The ACAS Task Force on Land Grabs urges you to sign a petition to President Obama and USAID administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah to stop your tax money financing land grabs, forced removals of pastoralist peoples, and “cultural transformation” in Ethiopia.
Go to the petition (click on “Petition” tab to see text).
This initiative is from the Oakland Institute and Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE).
The government of Ethiopia is facilitating land grabs by foreign corporations by forcibly moving pastoralist communities into villages. The villagization program is defended as giving cattle herders “access to basic socioeconomic infrastructures … and to bring socioeconomic and cultural transformation of the people.” Since pastoralists must move their herds seasonally between rangelands and wetlands, what the government benignly calls “cultural transformation” would in fact force pastoralists to give up their livelihoods. The new villages are seen by the people as places where they can only “wait to die” (see the Human Rights Watch report cited below).
The government plans to forcibly relocate 1.5 million people in four regions: Gambella, Afar, Somali and Benishangul-Gumuz. The process is most advanced in Gambella, with 70,000 people moved by the end of 2011 and over 42% of its area slated for the Ethiopian land bank, a kind of holding operation until the land is allocated to outside investors.
The U.S. government has given over $1 billion to Ethiopia since 2007 and is involved in providing funds for villagization services, officially designated as “Protection of Basic Services”. Further, Ethiopia benefits from AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act), which gives the U.S. preferential treatment to Ethiopian exports (even if the producer is a Saudi corporation growing cash crops).
Here are two excellent reports:
Human Rights Watch. 2012. Waiting Here for Death. Forced Displacement and “Villagization” in Ethiopia’s Gambella Region
Press release, where you can also download full report.
Understanding Land Investment Deals – Ethiopia, Oakland Institute. 2011.
Keywords: Ethiopia • land grab
