June 6, 2003

RESETTLEMENT: GROSS VIOLATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE

In 1984-85, when the former government of colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam.launched a big resettlement campaign during the deadly famine , the present power holders in Addis Abeba were one of the many loud critics of the campaign. If the resettlement attempt at that time was arbitrary, brutal and forced, so is the ongoing resettlement undertaken by the ruling EPRDF.

Thousands of people have been taken out of their villages and literally dumped in other areas. While a proper resettlement plan aimedat moving people from drought affected areas to fertile and hospitable regions needs to be well planned and voluntary, the ongoing resettlement, which will end after three million people have been moved, is neither well planned nor voluntary. Some 40,000 people have been moved to areas deisgnated as Amhara.Oromiya, etc kilils and, if the conditions of those taken to Bale in Southern Ethiopia is an example to take, there is ample proof that the settlers have been dumped and left to their own means. Considering that the ethnic politics of the EPRDF has also heightened divisions along ethnic lines, the resettlement campaign is bound to heighten conflicts. The EPRDF has admitted that mistakes have been made in the on going campaign but is vowing to continue no matter what. it was such an attitude on the part of the former regime that led to the deaths of so many people.

SOCEPP calls on the international community to call for an end to the ongoing resettlement campaign that is proving detrimental to the welfare of the people that it is officially said to "want to help". Adequate studies and preparations have not been made and the campaign does not involve the voluntary choice of the settlers. It is arbitrary, unstudied, without the logistical and overall preparations and, once again, a political maneuver to justify claims that "something is being done" to help people exposed to famine due to the wrong policies of the rulers themselves. The resettlement campaign launched by the EPRDF violates the rights of the people and should be stopped.

SOCEPP