The migration, environment and conflict nexus in Ethiopia: A case study of Amhara migrant-settlers in East Wollega zone (review)

The book includes Tables, Figures, a Glossary of Local Terms, a list of Acronyms, Oral Sources, an Annex with the key informant interview guides and the structured questionnaire.

In this well-written and well-organised work, Tesfaye Tafesse traces Amhara migrants from various zones of the Amhara National Regional State as they go through "..the process of migration, settlement, conflict, displacement, and resettlement" (p. xi). The location of the study is East Wollega Zone in west-central Ethiopia. It is based on primary data collected in field research in 2003 and 2004 using survey research methods as well as focus group discussions and key informant interviews. The author is a Research Fellow and Associate Professor in the Institute of Development Research (IDR) at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the study detailing the objectives, research questions, data sources and methodology. Chapter 2 describes the study area. Chapter 3 is a review of relevant literature from various disciplines under the topics of vulnerability/migration, conflicts, forced displacements, and resettlement. The author's perspective is multi-causal and not based on one dominant approach. Chapter 4 identifies multiple causes for migration, including social, economic, political and ecological factors. The author cautiously uses a push/pull dichotomy to organise the various migration factors, taking into account the fact that this might oversimplify the analysis. The time period under consideration is from the Imperial Era since the 1940s to the 1960s and early 1970s until 2000/2001. Chapter 5 is an account of the settlement, adaptation and relations between the Amhara migrants and the local Oromo communities. Many migrants established social bonds with local Oromo communities. Chapter 6 describes the ethnic and resource-based conflicts that developed between the Amhara migrants and the local Oromo communities which resulted in thousands of migrants being forced out of the area. Chapter 7 describes the conflicts with key informant accounts, where more than 12,000 Amhara settlers were displaced. Their relocation and the problems which they encountered are discussed in Chapter 8. The final part, Chapter 9 summarises major findings of the study and ends with policy recommendations for future relocations.

Various push/pull factors are identified as causes of migration. Major push factors identified include recurrent drought, rainfall scarcity, land scarcity, land and soil degradation, food scarcity and decline in soil fertility. Major pull factors include peer and kin pressure, availability of uninhabited and vacant land, quest for a better life, presence of fertile land, suitability of climatic conditions, and opening of the Bure-Nekemt road.

In spite of many social bonds having been created between the Amhara settlers and the Oromo communities such as inter-marriage, God parenthood and other religious/social ties (both groups are primarily Orthodox Christians), serious conflicts developed. Major reasons for the conflicts were environmental, political, socio-cultural, legal and economic. There include, "the indiscriminate cutting of trees to clear land for farming, agitation by the local elites against the presence of settlers in the area, the political processes set in motion by national policies related to the ethnically defined regions of Ethiopia (i.e. ethnic federalism), exclusion of settlers from peasant administration leadership, 'christening' of place names, chauvinistic attitude of settlers towards the local population, the breaching of contractual agreements over land by both communities, and the ever increasing land scarcity in the area" (p.xiii,xiv). Although the combined effects of all the sources of conflict are identified as the basis for the uprising against the migrants, a heavy influx of migrants into the area after 1996 is described as one of the major events that precipitated the uprising.

Conflicts took place between March/April and November/December 2000 in which hundreds of people died and more than 12,000 settlers from more than 4200 households were forced to flee the area. The displaced...