Engagement of the Ethiopian Army in Civil Disturbances to Restore Law and Order: Implications for Human Security
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Date
2022-12
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This thesis examines whether the military is protecting Human Security during intervention to
calm down civil disturbances or not. While permitting the military to be deployed during a civil
disturbance, the FDRE constitution (1995) and the FDRE foreign affairs and security policy and
strategy (2002) are primarily focused on state security; nonetheless, such a deployment should
also focus on human security, as the military is one organ in the realization of Human Security.
By disregarding Human Security, which is a fundamental issue that requires a solution,
Ethiopian law, policy, and practice regarding military deployment during a civil disturbance
demonstrate their preoccupation for state security. Based on this problem, the thesis explores
how Human Security considerations guide military intervention during civil disturbances and the
corresponding reasons for the failures of the Ethiopian Army in discharging its Human Security
protection obligations stated under the constitution, with identification of the roles of the Army
and the legal, policy and practical problems of the same. After identifying the problem and
setting the objective, qualitative research methodology with mainly exploratory design is
employed to investigate and give in-depth analysis of the problem. The study is significant in
showing the gap both in the literature and empirical aspects, where as a pioneer study, it can
inspire researchers to do further study on problems related but uncovered in this study and
awaken political and military decision makers on the problems attached with Human Security
and military intervention during civil disturbances. The findings of the study corroborated that
the military is not protecting Human Security during civil disturbance intervention operations
and mostly focus on state security. The study concludes; the complementarity of state security
and Human Security is underlined. But, Self-contradicting constitutional rules, other pertinent
legal documents and the country‟s State Security policy focus along with the military‟s
unawareness on Human Security issues and Economic, social, and institutional challenges
dragging the military from protecting Human Security are the core problems.
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Keywords
Human Security, State Security, Military intervention, Civil Disturbance.