Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding in Gambella Regional State, Ethiopia
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Date
2020-03
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The various levels of inter-communal violent conflicts in the Gambella regional state
of Ethiopia have their root in the process of state formation, state-society interaction,
sociopolitical, socioeconomic, sociocultural factors and state policies spanning over a
century. The conflicts have intensified over the past 28 years. This is attributed mainly
to the political transformation in Ethiopia in the early 1990 and the civil war in the
Sudan and the South Sudan. In response to these violent conflicts that have occurred in
the region, a number of attempts at peacebuilding were made at different times. This
study investigates the conflict transformation efforts, their marked features and the
processes and outcomes of the peacemaking activities as well as the challenges and
prospects surrounding the overall process of peacebuilding in post-1991 Gambella.
Following an interpretivist approach and using qualitative methods of inquiry, data
gathered from members of the local community, experts and officials at regional and
federal levels, were critically analyzed. The analysis is situated in the context of intra state and inter-communal conflict, conflict transformation and peacebuilding within
Ethiopia’s post-1991 sociopolitical conditions and current policy framing and
understanding of conflict and peace, taking the case of Gambella. The study shows that
the conflict transformation effort in Gambella is a reactive one, containing violence
after its occurrence, and often transient. The activities are focused on giving short-term
solutions, treating the symptoms rather than addressing the underlying problems. The
use of compensation as a conflict settlement procedure, intervention schemes coming
at variance along ethnic lines and levels of conflict in the region and apathy as well as
the tendency of complicating issues with politics have been noted as the defining
characteristics of the peacemaking schemes. The peacebuilding process in Gambella, it
is argued, is not effective both in terms of its response to the immediate peacebuilding
needs and in working on the broader, systemic issues that foster and enhance the
containment of violence sustainably. The process has not created a mutually beneficial
sense of interdependence among the communities and groups involved in conflict in
the region and embedded peacemaking activities into institutions that reinforce and
sustain them. No fair, coherent and systematic procedures implemented and/or used to
guide the process. Actions are governed by arbitrary rules and decisions are made based
on undue pressures or emotions, rather than on their merit. As such, the findings of this
study revealed that the conflict transformation efforts have been less successful, if not
a total failure. And a range of factors militated against the process of peacebuilding in
post-1991 Gambella, not least, the approach adopted in building peace; the nature
and/or manner of third-party interventions; the nature of the political opportunity
structure; the nature of the conflicts and the socioeconomic conditions in the region;
leadership problems; the spillovers from the neighboring South Sudan as well as weak
normative and institutional frameworks.