Sites in East Africa were home to the oldest known skeletal remains anatomically modern humans. Omo, Ethiopia was the first site to discover human remains dating back almost 200,000 years.
The unique lives of people that today live in the Lower Omo Valley, mankind’s cradle, are the focus of Last Days in Naked Valley: The Struggle for Humanity’s Homeland, which draws on the author’s account of his time there as a senior advisor for democracy and governance with the United States Agency for International Development.
However, you would be wrong to expect a dry, academic ethnographic study. Edward DeMarco, an ex-ethnographer, is the one to be grateful for. Washington PostJournalist, creates a lively narrative that illustrates many of the current development issues that confront the indigenous peoples in this region of south Ethiopia. These issues also include vital questions about national sovereignty and environment protection.
Pastoralist lifestyle
The Lower Omo Valley people are different from the highlander Ethiopians, who have possessed economic and political power in modern Ethiopia. A pastoralist lifestyle is at the heart of their culture, which some government officials see as a barrier for large-scale, modern food production methods. This includes the development a huge sugar industry. This has led to a programme of “villagisation”.
“The various tribes of South Omo have distinct and ancient cultures, usually based on an agro-pastoralist and mobile lifestyle. The Government of Ethiopia’s development plans for the region are based upon sedentarised and irrigated agriculture which it believes will greatly alleviate recurrent food security problems; a new departure for cultures whose livelihoods have remained unchanged for centuries,” writes DeMarco.
It is a dilemma familiar across Africa – how to ensure that development can take place in areas with unique, centuries old-traditions.
De Marco worked with a team under the auspices of the multi-government Development Assistance Group, an influential forum for all of Ethiopia’s international funders, including the US.
“The task set for us: size up how well the villagisation push was going and look for signs of hostile intent – or outright hostilities – from the federal democratic republic… together we would venture through the Omo Kuraz plantation in the far west to see whether sugarcane and villagisation really were taking hold…
“As the international activists claimed, were the pastoralists truly being rounded up, or worse, and forced off their ancient grazing lands? What pressure were they subject to from the sugar juggernaut, and what kind of pressure did they feel? Could the Indigenous peoples somehow adapt and hang on, clinging to their body art, bracelets, and bare skin?”
Tensions in the Valley
The Lower Omo Valley is a remote area of Ethiopia, but plans for the Omo Kuraz Sugar Plantation, which covers 370,000 acres, put it on the map. In order to pave the way for the development, policymakers planned the construction of the monstrous Gilgel Gibe III dam, “a project so bold and sprawling that the Italian occupiers of Ethiopia in the 1930s, who dreamed of building an African farming colony, would have recoiled con stupefazione,” writes DeMarco.
Into this picture came the figure of Molloka Wubneh Toricha, a representative of the northern-dominated, all-powerful Addis Ababa administration described as a “Zonal Czar”. But his plans to represent the central government were quickly rebuffed by international activist organizations who accused him of forcing people from their land in order for the developments.
Oakland Institute, a California-based institute, was one of the most vocal critics of the Ethiopian plans. They reported that 170,000 Omo peoples from ten different ethnic groups lived in peril near or along the Omo River.
Molloka reflected the views of his superiors in Addis Ababa – foreign organisations were viewed as meddlers “standing in the way of progress, more interested in preserving backward ways than basking in sugarcane-filled glory days” writes DeMarco. Late Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi complained of “people who want to block our freedom to use our rivers, and to save our people from poverty”.
“They are creating huge propaganda, and they don’t stop there,” he said. “They are blocking us from getting financial loans from abroad to finish the project. There are also some people who are the best friends of backwardness and poverty but claim to be concerned about environmental conservation.’’
Meles said that he wouldn’t allow the people of the valley “to be a case study of ancient living for scientists and researchers”.
Violence erupts
It was obvious that trouble was on the horizon. In January 2015, serious violence broke out at Dumeka (a Hamar village), when militants attacked a government security force detachment that was sent to the scene. Four policemen and a female teacher were shot to death in a gunfight.
Three days after the fighting, a mediator arrived who managed to secure the return of the dead policemen’s bodies. Four months later, the Ethiopian army had arrested the rebel leader. Supporters surrounded the police station where the arrest was made and demanded his release. The army moved in, and there was much fighting before the calm returned.
The tragic transition from violence to debate is a powerful example of the many complications of development in areas at the forefront of change.
While such conflicts may have been temporarily marginalised by the enormous civil war focused on the Tigray region, DeMarco’s fascinating account shows that Ethiopia’s future will continue to be defined by the tension between development and tradition.
Source: african.business
