Displacement-Induced Resettlement In Jawi; Beles Valley Area of North Western Ethiopia
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Date
2005-01
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AAU
Abstract
This thesis has focused on a special type of the resettlement and
rehabilitation process implemented in response to the group or category of
people displaced by conflicts. The violent ethnic conflict between th~
spontaneous migrant Amhara settlers and the local Oromo population resulted in
the displacement of about 13, 000 spontaneous migrant settlers. The migrant cum-displacees or Internally Displaced People (lOPs) were made to stay at
emergency relief camp near Bure town, one of the towns in west Gojam
administrative zone. As part of the current resettlement program designed and
excuted by the Regional States, the lOPs have been resettled and/or
rehabilitated by the Amhara regional state. The region has undertaken almost all
decisions, measures and activities in the course of rehabilitating the lOPs both at
the displacement camp and in th~ new resettlement site. A series of overlapping
measures and activities have been carried out by the region ever since their
displacement in December 2000 and subsequent resettlement in the new
resettlement site. This thesis, therefore attempts to present the livelihoods and
social impacts of the displacement-induced resettlement and rehabilitation
process in Jaw resettlement site, located in the Beles-Valley areas of
northwestern lowlands.
During the research period, Jawi resettlement site has been inhabited by
four categories of people including: the local Agaws; Muslim immigrant settlers,
who are referred to by the lC?cal people as Islam; Christian immigrants settlers
who are also referred to by the local people as zellan (Nomad) and the resettled
displacees. Heterogeneous groups of people have been persuaded to live
together in close proximity to one another in a very small resettlement site putting
great pressure on local resources. In order to understand, explain and analyze
the livelihood and social impacts of the resettlement and rehabilitation, the kinds
of interactions and relationships as well as the internal dynamics of change which
occurred in connection with the resettlement and rehabilitation process,
informants have been inteNiewed from among all categories of people inhabiting
this new resettlement site.
II
The research findings demonstrated that it was not only the resettled
displacees that have been exposed to incredible challenges, hardships and
stresses in Jawi resettlement site but also the local communities. The challenges
and stressful situations have emanated from the hasty and ad hoc manner in
which the lOPs were made to resettle in the area. There have been different
manifestations of the challenges, difficulties and stresses both the resettled
displacees and the local communities have experienced since the influx of lOPs
into the area. Among others, the resettled displacees have been vulnerable to
the problems of landlessness, homelessness, loss of their livestock and an
increased morbidity and mortality in the new homes. The local communities in
the study area have also been exposed to the resettlement and rehabilitation
induced land appropriation processes which were grossly overlooked by the
regionai authorities.
In response to the above-stated challenges, difficulties and stresses, the
resettled displacees as well as the local communities envisaged different survival
and adaptive mechanisms. In the study area, the dynamics of survival and
adaptive strategies have been manifested through the socio -economic
interactions and relationships . with the different categories of the local
communities as well as among themselves.