No Human Rights = No Development September 26, 2013 Oakland Institute and the Housing and Land Rights Network Submit Human Rights Report on Ethiopia to the United Nations Stakeholder submission to the Universal Periodic Review of the Republic of Ethiopia Right to Livelihood, Right to Culture For much of Ethiopia’s population, access to land and natural resources is a requisite of their sustenance and survival. The primary issues of land administration in Ethiopia are grounded in government control, and represent inconsistencies between what is adopted in the legal framework and constitution, and what the implementation and reality on the ground, as well as a lack of respect for the rights of land access and customary tenure of indigenous communities. Moreover, the criteria for secure land tenure, in practice, appear to be different from region to region, leading to disproportionate dispossession of land-dependent peoples in Afar, BeniShangul-Gumuz, Gambella, Oromiya, SNNP and Somali regions. The legal framework regulating land rests in two documents: the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Constitution,1 which addresses land issues and other related rights, and Proclamation no. 456/2005, which addresses the administration of rural land. It is important to note that most of the land-related policies regulate rural land, and very little provisions exists for the governance of urban land. Each region is able to form its own regional land administration and policies; however, actual land registration can only be found in five of the nine regions in the country. 2 The Constitution of Ethiopia provides for protection of rights related to nondiscrimination and self-determination (articles 25 and 39), as well as the right to property and the protection of natural resources, specifically land, as the “inalienable common property of the nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia” (article 40). Rural Land Administration and Land Use Proclamation (no. 456/2005)3 theoretically set out many protections for rural farmers and pastoralist communities. Any citizen engaged in agriculture for their livelihood will be given land free of charge. Provision 7(3) also protects persons who are evicted from their lands, stating “Holder of rural land who is evicted for purpose of public use shall be given compensation proportional to the development he has made on the land and the property acquired, or shall be given substitute land thereon.” Protection from eviction is also found in the Constitution, which states in article 40(4), that “the right of Ethiopian peasants to free allotment of land and not to be evicted therefrom is guaranteed.” Despite some protections for the people, severe deficits prevail. The Constitution and legal system do not recognize or mention specifically the land rights of indigenous communities, and address rural communities only as farmers, peasants, pastoralists, and semipastoralists. Many indigenous communities in Ethiopia engage in grazing activities, for which they lack secure rights to land access. A core issue, however, is that all land is considered government owned and, although, according to law, all citizens can gain access to the land, it is a usufruct right that prevents persons who have historically or traditionally worked/utilized the land to sell, mortgage or otherwise dispose of it. This usufruct right gives rural people’s little tenure security or protection against evictions. In fact, the federal government and the regional authority retain absolute power to confiscate land for public interest and development programs.4 In proclamation no. 465/2005 the government is listed as the owner of rural land, and thus “communal rural holdings can be changed to private holdings as necessary” (5(3)). No clear criteria apply to define what constitutes a “development program.” However, as the past several years have shown, this complete central ownership has allowed the government to lease land use rights with generous conditions favoring foreign companies and investors, primarily for agricultural export ventures. While many of the positive provisions listed above have been replicated in the various regional land systems, but also embody the same potential for abuse. A worrying provision adopted in all regional rural land laws is that found in the rural land law 456/2005, article 5(4)(a), which states “Private investors that engage in agricultural development activities shall have the right to use rural land in accordance with the investment policies and laws at federal and regional levels.” Specific mention of privatization, combined with the government’s ability to privatize land at will and the investment reality on the ground causes grave concern over issues of corruption and lack of transparency and clarity regarding land laws and their application. The World Bank report on corruption in Ethiopia indicates that the land sector in Ethiopia is “particularly susceptible to corruption and rent seeking.”5 That report reviews the primary land-related issues that affect both the rural and urban sectors by way of the lack of clarity or consistency between land rights and restrictions. In rural areas, as mentioned above, the idea of “public land” has been stretched to infer “government land,” giving the government at the federal and regional levels ultimate control over all land decisions, rather than allowing for the adjudication of competing tenure claims. As mentioned above, the land system has many provisions that protect government control over land, and create a space for abuse of power via vague criteria and enable dispossession. Land corruption, according to the Bank’s report, is “influenced strongly by the way policy and legislation are formulated and enforced.”6 The two primary problem areas related to corruption identified by this report include: the ability of land capture by a “weak policy and legal framework and poor systems to implement existing policies and laws,” and corruption in the implementation of land policy and laws, specifically the institutionalization of informal feeds, fraudulent actions of officials to allocate land to themselves, willingness of officials to respond to bribes and nepotism, and the issuance of forged land documents.7 Human Rights Violations and Forced Evictions In 2010 the Ethiopian Government reauthorized the National Food Security Program (NFSP), a nationwide initiative that includes the “Voluntary Resettlement Program” (VRP). On-the-ground reports make clear that resettlement, particularly in the Gambella and Lower Omo regions, have been far from voluntary and have entailed prolonged and systemic human rights violations. While official statements defend the ambitious relocation program as a precondition to socioeconomic development and the realization of basic human rights, research suggests that forced displacement is exacerbating human insecurity, while violating international human rights law.8 The government’s 2010 Growth and Transformation Plan called for the relocation of an estimated 1.5 million people in the country’s Gambella, Afar, Somali, Lower Omo, and Benishangul-Gumuz regions.9 Those targeted for resettlement are mostly lowland pastoral communities, who are dependent on access to land to meet their basic needs and livelihoods. The stated purpose of these “voluntary” resettlements is the provision of “socioeconomic infrastructure” and as former Minister of Federal Affairs Shiferaw Teklemariam explained in 2011, “to tackle poverty and ignorance.”10 On-the-ground research by the Oakland Institute corroborates widespread reports of forced and increasingly violent evictions under the villagization program.11 Violations of Ethiopians’ right to self-determination and adequate standards of living—as guaranteed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) articles 1 and 11—provoked by the government’s forcedresettlement scheme have involved both political and physical coercion. At government-hosted meetings, communities were “notified,” rather than consulted, of their impending resettlement. As Human Rights Watch found, “if communities were not cooperative, or indicated their refusal to move, the next meeting, usually several weeks later, involved visits from the Ethiopian army, regional police, local militias, and government officials.”12 Mursi community representatives explained to investigators from DfID that “the government doesn’t discuss their plans with the Mursi…they are making all their decisions in their own places, and they are just coming and going ahead with their plans.”13 Investigation conducted by the Oakland Institute in Lower Omo found that no person interviewed believed their relocation to have been voluntary, corroborating the conclusion of another investigation in Gambella.14
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 00:11:38 +0000
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