Federalism and Conflicts in Ethiopia

By: Mehari Taddele Maru an article with predictive analysis written more than a decade ago

Ethno-Linguistic Federalism

One of the institutional means of recognizing and protecting the right to cultural identity is establishment of ethno-linguistic federalism. The failure of unitary systems to accommodate the claims, and address the concerns, of ethnolinguistics communities compelled many states to change from a unitary to a federal system. The trend is that countries change from a federal system to a unitary system not the other way round. Ethno-linguistic federalism establishes and legitimizes the territorial autonomous self-government of ethno-cultural communities. From this perspective, ethno-linguistic federalism could be seen as an institutional mechanism for accommodating ethno-cultural diversity. Moreover, many experts agree that ethno-linguistic federalism may also serve as a conflict-management device. It is also recommended especially in countries where ethnocultural communities are ‘arbitrarily joined or divided’ by colonial powers. It has been also implemented in countries where secessionist ethnic mobilizations are strong. By ensuring power sharing between the centre and the units, ethno-linguistic federalism can ‘hold’ a country united if it is threatened by disintegrative forces. Such federalism is referred to as ‘holding-together federalism’. There are more than federal states worldwide constituting 40 percent of the total global population. Ethiopia, Switzerland, India, Spain, Nigeria, and Belgium use ethno-linguistic federalism to ensure their respective territorial unity. Self-governments in Quebec (Canada) and in Scotland (United Kingdom) have also been established on the basis of ethno-linguistic arrangement as a way to prevent secession and conflict. Now the trend to adopt federalism that promotes the rights of ethno-cultural communities is increasingly seen as one of the ‘good practices of a number of states’.

Epigrammatic Introduction to Federalism in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is the third most populous African country with population over 77 million. Since 991, Ethiopia has been implementing an ethno-linguistic federal politico-legal arrangement. As per article 1 and article 47 the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (hereafter referred as ‘the Federal Constitution’), Ethiopia is a federation made up of nine ethno-linguistically divided regional states. The regional states can be classified into three groups based on their population: (1) the population number, as minority or majority in the federation, (2) ethno-linguistic diversity, as multi-ethnic or homogeneous, (3) way of life, as settled or pastoralist. Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali regional states (taking the name of their majority inhabitants) are more or less ethnically homogeneous with a dominant majority ethno-linguistic community at regional level. In Tigray (94.98%), Afar (91.8%), Amhara (91.2%), Oromia (85%), Somali (95.6%) of the population are from their respective dominant ethno-linguistic communities. The remaining four regional states (SNNP, Gambella, Benshangul/Gumuz and Harari) are multiethnic without a de jure dominant ethnolinguistic community. This does not however mean there is no ethno-cultural community defacto majority in power even if the same community is minority in number. Such situation is a result of economic majority or political power domination.

Ethiopian Federalism: Its Successes, Inherent Problems and Implementation Constraints

 In Ethiopia, ethnic federalism has proved instrumental in advancing rights principally indigenous and minority ethnic communities. It has strengthened and concretized group rights, including all rights related to self-determination, promotion of cultural activities, religious commitments and permits education in the native language. In this regard, Henkin has correctly stated that ‘[i]n many countries, the autonomy granted to local units are designed to assure self-determination and the rights of minorities and their members against abuse by national majorities’. By granting statehood for ethnic groups, the federal constitution recognizes their rights to promote and protect specific political and economic interests that are crucial for meaningful existence according to their belief. Some of the regional states and ethnic groups have already benefited from the existing constitutional arrangement and felt that this is the best they can aspire to. Many ethnic groups, both minority and majority, looked to ethnic federalism as the way to prosperity and the realization and respect of their unique self-identity and empowerment. Education reform has enabled communities to have their children taught in their mother tongue. Administrative, judicial and other public services are provided in their local and native language. Close to 90 per cent of the pastoralist communities are provided with some form of mobile services in education and health. Education, culture, and economic projects are to be implemented by regional states. Aggressive and extensive devolution of power has been carried out as a matter of principle to the local units of administration – i.e. Woreda (district), albeit serious capacity and political limitations. Local officials are elected from and by the local community.

It is also hoped that federalism, by granting all ethnic communities a right to self-determination up to secession, will make sure that the central government is free from tyrannical inclination and discriminatory treatment of ethnic communities. Any attempt of discrimination among the ethnic communities by the central government or domination of one ethnic community by another or the unconstitutional seizure of political power at the centre will only be possible at the risk of the unity of the country, as the ethnic community may make use of their right to secession. In this way, ethnic federalism helped in managing conflict. It was assumed to serve as a tool to contain disintegrative forces and to create a balance between forces of unity and diversity. No matter how long the ethnic based Ethiopian federation will last, it is predictable that there will be strong resistance to any hasty attempt at changing the existing arrangement.

Ethno-Linguistic Federalism and Localization of Conflicts

Another perhaps inherent problem of ethno-linguistic federalism could be its tendency to localize or create new conflicts. Even if the danger Ethiopian ethno-linguistic federalism is currently facing is excessive centralism and an expanding space for a democratic rule by a strong ruling party, there are also excessive exclusionist behaviour of the regional state party and officials to members of other ethno-linguistic groups. As I have argued elsewhere, this might be why ethno-linguistic federalism may have localized conflicts. One example of how and why ethno-linguistic federalism may have localized conflict in Ethiopia is the case of Gambella.

First, Gambella is one of the ethnically heterogeneous regional states without a dominant ethno-cultural community. In Ethiopia, regional states with a dominant ethno-cultural community (such as Amhara, Tigray, Oromia, Somali, and Afar and with the exception of border related conflicts) seem less prone to inter-ethnic conflict, than those without a dominant ethno-linguistic community. Second, Gambella exhibits the phenomena of spontaneous and pastoralist migration (of the Nuer). The national identity of the inhabitants of bordering areas is very fluid and hence, cross-border migration (of the pastoral Nuer, Anywaa refugees fleeing the conflict in Gambella to the Sudan, and Sudanese refugees fleeing to Ethiopia due to the civil war in Sudan) changes the ethno-linguistic population balance. For this reason it has a dynamic demographic composition. In ethno-linguistic federalism, demographic changes have huge effects on the region the power and resource sharing system among the ethno-linguistic. Politics of number have a significant role in power sharing.

Politics of number have created arguments and disagreement about the outcome of the 1994 population census because of the implications of the census results for power sharing between ethno-linguistic communities. In Ethiopia, regional states with a pastoralist population seem more prone to conflict than those with sedentary populations. Thirdly, Gambella has many pockets of 1980s resettlement villages and many old and newly constructed refugee camps run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). These settlement villages and refugee camps were at the centre of the conflict, and were attacked repeatedly. The effect of large-scale migration (about 110 000 forced migrants) on a regional state such as Gambella with a population of about 160 000 is huge in ethno-linguistic based federal system.

Hence, one may argue at local level, Ethiopian ethno-linguistic federalism has caused similar problems to those it intended to address at national such as ethno-linguistic domination and ethno-linguistic conflict. Ethno-linguistic based federalism may cause a new kind of conflict because ethnicity becomes the main factor legitimizing those governments. Ethno-linguistic federalism perse doesn’t create illiberalism and nor is it a cause of ethnic conflict. Switzerland, Belgium and the United Kingdom are good examples of this.

Conclusions and Implications

In comparison to previous regimes in Ethiopia, it is right that the federal system has empowered ethno-cultural communities in many areas of cultural, linguistic, social and political life and has to some degree offset the past historical legacy of ethno-linguistic domination that prevailed for long time in Ethiopia. It has also concretized the rights of minority and indigenous communities. However, even if the de jure equality of ethno-linguistic communities has been constitutionally ensured much remains to be done to ensure defacto equality in many areas where marginalized ethno-cultural communities have limited capacity to make use of these constitutional rights. What is particular to Ethiopian federalism is that the right to self-determination up to secession may prevent the central government from tyrannical inclination and discriminatory treatment of ethno-cultural communities. A reversal of the constitutional rights of ethno-linguistic communities by either the central or state government would be politically costly. Any attempt of discrimination among the ethno-cultural communities or domination of one ethno-linguistic community by another or unconstitutional seizure of political power at centre may put the unity of the country at risk: for ethno-linguistic communities may attempt to exercise their constitutional right to secession.

 An inherent constraint of federalism similar to the Ethiopian seems the human rights of people who reside in areas inhabited as the ‘homeland’ of ethno-cultural communities different from theirs. Such people feel insecure, out of place and uncertain about their right. Policy changes obviously have made knowledge of the official regional state language necessary so they can remain in work or work as a public servant. In some cases settlers feel threatened by the ethno-linguistic federalist state structure and are disadvantaged by the language and education policies that provide for the provision of public service and primary education in the native language. Equal opportunities have to be given to those culturally and linguistically capable of serving the regional state. Public offices must be divided equally between them and those affiliated to the inhabitant ethno-linguistic group by blood. The absence of such rational equality of opportunities for equally capable persons has no legal or moral rationale. It is discriminatory and a violation of Art 25 of the Federal Constitution. Chapter three of the Federal Constitution provides a proviso on the advancement of self-governance essentially of ethno-cultural communities: the regional state administration has to respect all human and democratic rights to all people under their jurisdiction. This proviso furnishes a constitutional limitation over constitutional power of all ethno-cultural communities and their regional states. In such cases the regional states must fully respect the rights of these migrants as minority within the regional state and represent them in the regional state, and allow participation in the highest public office as far as they can speak the language and respect the laws and culture of the regional state.

The rest of the constraints discussed above are attributable to the immaturity of the federal system. The major problem can be best described as problems of implementation, interpretation, and legal lacuna and shortcomings. Institutional overhauling of the nature and the democratizing of the culture of all parties mainly the ruling party EPRDF is vital if the federal arrangement is to function well. Other implementation problems – such as problems of violations of human rights of internal migrants are encountered as a result of the lack of understanding or of the lack of political will of regional state officials to strictly implement the Federal Constitution. Therefore, one important way of tackling the leading difficulties in federalism and relationship between the centre and regions is to increase accountability of officials and conduct training on the relevant laws to increase their knowledge of the concerned organs of the federal and regional state. This will help in building human rights and move towards protective federalism. Moreover, since the danger of secession in linguistic or ethno-linguistic based federalism mainly comes from the regions, reaching the regional officials and academics may help in building a common conception of federalism. Striking the balance between the forces of unity and diversity, between regional state power and federal power needs the educating and the training of the officials, academics and public servants at the centre but also more importantly at the regional states.

The most important recommendation in this regard is the need for the promotion of a democratic pan-Ethiopian national unity based on equality, rule of law, human rights and commonly shared values such as historical legacy, economic development and political commitments. In this regard, the championing of historic legacies such as the victory of Adwa, Ethiopia’s tolerance and acceptance of the major religions for a long time, strong democratized nationalism around the flag which symbolize unity could serve to strike the balance between centripetal and centrifugal forces. While addressing historical grievances due to previous exclusionist regimes and rejecting new political tendencies to bring the old regimes of discrimination and exclusion entirely, but still a lot has to be done in championing commonly appreciated and accepted legacies.

Historic legacy of Axsum in culture, religion and language, the meaning of the victory of Adwa for the black race and freedom-loving people, as well as the role of iconic Ethiopia leaders like Ras Alula are not necessarily incompatible with democratization and the new constitutional federal experiment. On the one hand, the idea of national unity through the promotion of historical legacy of an inclusive nature as discussed by Donald Levine in this recent article ‘Aksum as a Seedbed Society’ is an important area of improvement,101 the introduction of civic education, democratic patriotism, the celebration of the Day of the Flag and recent increasing acknowledgement of iconic leaders and emperors of Ethiopia would contribute a lot to a unifying project. As noted earlier, Ethiopian ethno-linguistic federalism is a complex institutional response to very complex and vexing problems of Ethiopia. Addressing the causes of ethnic conflicts such as ethnic domination and ensuring the equality of all ethno-linguistic communities is a difficult task. The preservation and promotion of ethno-cultural identity and language as well as teaching and working in the native language that have been opposed by an oppressive official policy of a state are daunting work. It requires precision and sensitivity to many factors. In ethno-linguistic based federal system institutions have to adjust according to the demographic changes and be ethnically representative. A political system sensitive to demographic changes would have to reject any majority power by a minority in number at federal and regional level. Such a system also requires an effective implementation of preferential policies in education, and employment. It needs ensuring striking the delicate balance between the above mentioned group rights (of ethno-cultural communities) and individual human and democratic rights (such as freedom of mobility, residence, political participation, education and employment).

These all requires effective institutions such as courts that are independent enough from ethnic biases. Sophisticated judges and lawyers that understand the delicate nature of ethno-linguistic based federalism are necessary. Ethno-linguistic federalism requires well-staffed public service institutions and well-educated public servants who understand the Federal Constitution very well. Above all it requires political forces that are sensitive to the concerns and equality of all ethno-linguistic communities, and a leadership with a political will and commitment to implement both the group and individual rights. This makes ethno-linguistic federalism very expensive to maintain. In countries like Ethiopia, maintaining institutions of democracy such as courts, parliament and election is very expensive. Protecting and promoting group rights (such as introduction of native language in school and public offices, preservation of culture) and even maintaining institutions of ethno-linguistic federalism are too expensive. Hence, economic development is as vital as the political progress for Ethiopian federalism to be successful.

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