Press Release: Fingerprints of International Aid on Forced Relocation,
Repression, and Human Rights Abuse in Ethiopia
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Embargoed through July 17, 2013, 8:00 AM PST
Contacts: Anuradha Mittal (510) 469-5228;
<mailto:amittal_at_oaklandinstitute.org> amittal_at_oaklandinstitute.org
Frederic Mousseau (510) 512-5458; <mailto:fmousseau_at_oaklandinstitute.org>
fmousseau_at_oaklandinstitute.org
OAKLAND, CA-Two new reports from the Oakland Institute,
<
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/development-aid-ethiopia> Development Aid
to Ethiopia: Overlooking Violence, Marginalization, and Political Repression
and <
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/ignoring-abuse-ethiopia> Ignoring
Abuse in Ethiopia: DFID and USAID in the Lower Omo Valley, show how Western
development assistance is supporting forced evictions and massive violations
of human rights in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian government's controversial "villagization" resettlement
program to clear vast areas for large-scale land investments is funded
largely by international development organizations. The first report,
<
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/development-aid-ethiopia> Development Aid
to Ethiopia, establishes direct links between development aid--an average
$3.5 billion a year, equivalent to 50 to 60% of Ethiopia's national
budget--and industrial projects that violate the human rights of people in
the way of their implementation.
The report also shows how indirect support in the form of funding for
infrastructure, such as dams for irrigation and electricity for planned
plantations, plays a role in repressing local communities by making the
projects viable.
Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of US development aid in Africa,
receiving an average of $800 million annually--even though the US State
Department is well aware of widespread repression and civil rights
violations. A strategically located military partner seen as a leader in the
"African Renaissance," Ethiopia is gently described as having a "democratic
deficit" by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Yet this phrase does not begin to describe or justify the kind of routine
violence and coercion taking place on the ground and documented in the
Oakland Institute's new report,
<
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/ignoring-abuse-ethiopia> Ignoring Abuse in
Ethiopia: DFID and USAID in the Lower Omo Valley.
The massive resettlement of 260,000 people of many different ethnic groups
in the Lower Omo Valley has been fraught with controversy and has set off an
alarm among international human rights groups. Information around forced
evictions, beatings, killings, rapes, imprisonment, intimidation and
political coercion, has been shared, and these tactics have been documented
as tools used in the resettlement process.
In response to allegations, DFID and USAID launched a joint investigation in
January of 2012. After completing their visit, they came to the puzzling
conclusion that allegations of human rights abuses were "unsubstantiated."
The contents of this new report, which include first-person accounts via
transcripts of interviews that took place during the aid investigations last
year, overwhelmingly contradict that finding and question the integrity of
the inquiry.
The interviews paint a very different story from what DFID and USAID
reportedly saw and witnessed, and for the first time are made available to
the public here.
"[The soldiers] went all over the place, and they took the wives of the Bodi
and raped them, raped them, raped them, raped them. Then they came and they
raped our wives, here," said one Mursi man interviewed during the
investigation. Another man added: "the Ethiopian government is saying they
are going to collect us all and put us in a resettlement site in the forest.
We are going to have to stay there. What are the cattle going to eat there?
They are our cattle, which we live from. They are our ancestor's cattle,
which we live from. If we stay out there in the forest, what are they going
to eat?"
It is worrisome that aid agencies rubber stamp development projects that are
violating human rights. Worse, they have chosen to ignore the results of
their own investigations.
"Bottom line, our research shows unequivocally that current violent and
controversial forced resettlement programs of mostly minority groups in
Ethiopia have US and UK aid fingerprints all over them," said Anuradha
Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute. "It's up to the
officials involved to swiftly reexamine their role and determine how to
better monitor funding if they are indeed not in favor of violence and
repression as suitable relocation techniques for the development industry,"
she continued.
***
The Oakland Institute is an independent policy think tank working to
increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social,
economic, and environmental issues. Starting 2011, the Institute has
unveiled land investment deals in Africa that reveal a disturbing pattern of
a lack of transparency, fairness, and accountability. The dynamic
relationship between research, advocacy, and international media coverage
has resulted in a string of successes and organizing in the US and abroad.
Received on Thu Jul 18 2013 - 12:40:36 EDT