Ethnic conflict in Ethiopia

From Ethiopia, there are new reports of government troops forcing civilians out of their homes and burning and looting their property in the eastern Somali region, where the Ethiopian army is in active conflict with the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front. These reports are distressing evidence that Ethiopia’s innovative constitutional design, intended to prevent inter-ethnic strife, is not succeeding. With more than 80 ethnic groups and a history of inter-ethnic conflict, Ethiopia took the controversial step in its 1994 constitution of openly acknowledging ethnicity in its political structure. This openly ethnic model was defined by two elements: (1) “ethnic federalism,” the division of the country into regional states according to ethnicity, and (2) an inter-ethnic dispute resolution system centered in the upper house of the Ethiopian federal parliament, to which representatives are elected from each recognized ethnic group. The constitution also gave ethnic groups the rights to self-government, statehood, and even secession, through constitutionally defined processes. But a genuine trial of this experiment has yet to begin, for it can have no hope of succeeding without some modicum of good faith participation. Instead, the Ethiopian government has been criticized for oppression of ethnic groups that are inconveniently located near valuable resources or prone to political opposition, while the ONLF has relied on use of force in pursuit of its aspirations of independence.