Trajectories of Poverty, the Environment and Peasant Revolts

in Africa: A Case study of Ethiopia1

Zenebe Nega Bashaw

Introduction

The end of the Cold War was taken as liberator of minds and

imaginations in which problems of poverty, conflicts and the state of the

environment were thought to be on their way out. However, this does not

herald substantial and fundamental changes with respect to the big problems

that the world has faced. Specifically the extent of poverty, the state of the

environment and the conditions of peasants proved to be far more acute, far

more deteriorated, and far more precarious than a couple of decades ago. As

a consequence, the trajectories of acute poverty, degraded environment and

alienated peasantry have today become the greatest threat to the stability

and security of the modern world. Such a phenomenon particularly has

marked an unprecedented proliferation of cases where acute poverty and

degraded environment matched peasant armed resistance in Africa.

Environmental degradation and scarcity constitutes an important

issue as a threat to security and cause for acute conflict. Late 1960s and early

1970s laid the foundation for harnessing an ecological dimension of stability

and ‘sustainable’ development. The presence of critical and radical socio-

political and economic groups pressed for the development of an ecological 1 This paper is an excerpt a broader research project.

consciousness. The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 and

Population Bomb by Paul Erilich in 1968 provided further insights into

environmental problems. The Closing Circle, The Tragedy of the Commons,

Limits to Growth, the Global 2000 Report added intensified calls for proper

recognition and policy formulation of environmental aspects.2 The

international conference on the environment in Stockholm in 1972 opened the

way for many researchers and writers to forward ecological thinking. The

1973-74 oil crisis underlined the role of resources in international relations

and politics.

Developments in the 1980s laid the foundation for publicizing the

impacts and roles of environmental problems in multidimensional areas from

the perspectives of different disciplines. Such developments as the

proliferation of environmental non-governmental organizations and epistemic

communities coupled by the interest of strong and wealthy foundations to

back up environmental causes with finance produced a resistant and radical

environmental position. Subsequent international environmental conferences

and agreements like the Vienna Convention in 1985, the Montreal Protocol in

1987 and the Kyoto Conference in 1997 created more opportunities for closer

communications among activists, and attempts to address the environment as

a major issue in international and domestic politics. The dramatic changes in

the 1990s served as basis for more resilient efforts to magnify the role of

2 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, Boston, 1962; Donella H. Meadows, et al, The Limits To Growth: A Report For The Club Of Rome's Project On The Predicament Of Mankind, Second ed., New York: Universe, 1979.

environmental degradation and scarcity as a threat to security and cause for

acute conflicts.

The long history of the role of resources in conflicts emphasizes two

underlying aspects. First, the discussion has been dominated by the

contribution of geographical positions and resource endowment to troops

maneuvering, strategic warfare and logistical supply. This was described, as

the period of human’s dominance over nature, which underlined the

separation between the physical and human elements. Second, subsequent

strenuous wars and conflicts in history were analyzed to assess their impacts

on the environment. The debate transformed the emphasis from these

fundamental historical contentions to first, the need to look into the

relationships between nature and humans. The dominance of humans on

nature, it is contended, is being challenged since the carrying capacity of

planet earth is dwindling with time as a result of population explosion and

increased human activities. This thinking stressed the point that the

separation between nature and humans is artificial, and is no longer ‘feasible’.

Second, it is contended that there is a transformation of the debate from

examining the impact of wars and conflicts on the environment to the role of

the environment in wars and conflicts. The proponents concede that resources

have been aiding in waging wars and conflicts, but assert this process has

reached its limits that the impacts are being witnessed in resource

contribution to the causes of conflicts and wars.

The major debate in examining the role of environmental

degradation and scarcity in conflicts seeks to examine the role of nature

either as an endogenous or exogenous variable. An endogenous analysis does

not recognize the existence of environmental aspects out of the broader,

‘traditional’ politico-economic and social aspects. This is contrasted to the

analysis of environmental variables as exogenous, fundamentally influencing

politico-economic and social variables directly or through feedback loops.

This study focuses on the crisis and failure of the modern/post-

colonial nation state in poverty alleviation and environmental protection, and

the corresponding causality of protracted conflicts in Africa by taking the case

of Ethiopia. It examines the failure of the state in its ability to effectively and

legitimately institutionalizes the authoritative allocation of resources and

proper poverty alleviation strategies. The study is based on findings of

intensive research projects by the Netherlands Israeli Research Program

(NIRP) and the Peasant Production and Development in Ethiopia (PPDE).

This study uses case study. Among others, three major types of case

studies may be identified: correlational analysis, controlled-case comparison

and process tracing.3 Specifically for the environment-security thinking,

correlational analysis relates to conducting “large amounts of quantitative

data on the relative frequencies of environmental scarcity and conflict across

many societies and over time.” In controlled-case comparison, “cases are

selected that vary on the independent variable, [say] environmental scarcity,

3 Stephan Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997, pp. 50-88.

but that are essentially the same for all other variables that might affect the

incidence of conflict.” Basically, cases are selected “that control for all

variables except environmental scarcity so that scarcity's effect”, for example,

on bringing down states’ structures and governing regimes, can be examined.

Finally, in process tracing, cases with a prima facie assumption of conflicts

and states’ collapse as a result of environmental degradation and scarcity are

selected for further analysis and examination.4

In this study, the case selected is more related to the process tracing

methodology of case study. In process tracing, an examiner “explores the

chain of events or the decision-making process by which initial case conditions

are translated into case outcomes. The cause-effect link that connects

independent variable and outcome is unwrapped and divided into smaller

steps; then the investigator looks for observable evidence of each step.”5

Hunger And Conflict In Ethiopia

Ethiopian - a ‘burnt face’ from Greek- aithiopia, from the two words

aitho, ‘I burn’, and ops, ‘face’6 – has undergone a ‘burnt history’ that

4 Thomas Homer-Dixon, Environment, Scarcity and Violence, Princeton, New Jersey:

Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 171-176; Thomas Homer-Dixon, “Strategies for Studying Causation in Complex Ecological Political Systems,” Occasional Paper Project on Environment, Population and Security, Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science and the University of Toronto June 1995, http://utl2.library.utoronto.ca/www/pcs/eps/method/methods1.htm, March 2000.5 Stephan Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science, op cit., p. 64.6 However, a different origin is claimed for the name by many modern writers, some of whom say that the Greeks borrowed the word from the Egyptians, and that as early as the Twelfth Dynasty the Egyptians knew the land under the name Ksh, or Kshi. One form of this

destroyed the potential of the country to support its people and envision any

development endeavor. War, famine and pestilence are the major horsemen

of Ethiopia’s particular apocalypse.7 Almost twice the size of Texas and with a

population of 59,882,000 in 1994,8 the ancient population settlement and

warfare greatly reduced the potential of the country to provide basic

necessities. However, some historian travelers to the country had a totally

different view. For example, the Portuguese Jesuit Francisco Alvares in 1520s

wrote, “[i]t seems to me in all the world there is not so populous a country,

and so abundant in corn, and herds of innumerable cattle”. Another traveler,

Jesuit Jerome Lobo in 1626 stated, “[t]he climate is so temperate, that at the

same time I saw in some places ploughing and sowing, and in others the

wheat already sprouting, while in others it was full-grown and mature, in

others reaping, threshing, gathering, and again sowing, the land never tiring

of continual production of its fruits or failing in this readiness to produce

them.”9 Moreover, the potential of the country has been elevated to higher

expectations that adages such as “the bread basket of Africa” and “the

granary of the Middle East” were common with monotonous regularity.10 Such

word, with the aleph prefix, Ekoshi (the Coptic eshoosh, eshôsh, ethosh) would thus be the real root-word. Others maintain that it is derived from the Arabic word atyab, the plural form of tib, which means "spices", "perfumes". Catholic Encyclopedia Online, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05566a.htm, March 2000. 7 David Korn, “Introduction,” in Ethiopia: The Politics of Famine, Focus Issues no. 1, USA: Freedom House, 1990, p. 1. 8 Central Statistical Authority, 1994 Population Census, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.9 Francisco Alvares, The Prester John of the Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of the Prester John, Being a Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520, trans. C. W. Beckinghma and G. W. B Huntington, 2 vols., Hakluyt Scociety, vols. 114-115, Cambridge, 1961, vol. 1, p. 131; Donald Lockhart, trans., The Itineratio of Jeronimo Lobo, London, 1984, p. 245. Both cited in James C. McCann, People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia, 1800-1900, USA: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1995, p. 3.10 Richard Greenfield, Ethiopia: A New Political History, London: Pall Mall Press, 1965, p. 321.

observations by their nature, according to James McCann, were ‘egocenteric’

and ‘impressionistic’.11

The tireless land as described by Jerome Lobo does not currently

bear the same fruition as it might have been doing in the past. In the eyes of

John Markakis, the Ethiopian “homeland suffers from an age-old process of

physical degradation, the work of natural forces abetted by human and animal

action…. Continuous cultivation and grazing stripped the earth of its natural

cover, leaving it unprotected against the torrential rains that beat on the

inclined surfaces of the highlands.”12 Gebru Tareke, going back to the

eighteenth century and adding other dimensions to environmental aspect,

puts it as:

[t]he Ethiopian farmer…constantly struggled against the vagaries of

nature and the excessive social demands of his fellow men. Floods,

locusts, epidemics, drought, and crop failures were frequent

occurrences. Famine was cyclical. Time and again he witnessed his

crops being wiped out by a hailstorm or eaten by a swarm of locusts

or marauding local militia, and frequently by both.13

The country has a complex topography. Mountain ranges more than 4,000

meters produce cool zone (dega) with a temperature between near freezing 11 James McCann, People of the Plow, op cit., p. 12. 12 John Markakis, National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 8.13 Gebru Tareke, Ethiopia: Power and Protest, Peasant revolt in the Twentieth Century, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 12.

and 16 degree centigrade. The temperate zone (woynadega) has average

temperatures from 16 degree centigrade to 30 degree centigrade, while the

hot zone (kola) is characterized by desert with a highest temperature of 50

degree centigrade. Agriculture is the backbone of the country, dating back to

7, 000 or more years.14 It supports more than 40 percent of Ethiopia’s gross

domestic product, a higher proportion of the population – up to four-fifth – and

it supplies 90 percent by value of all exports.15 Consequently, agriculture in

the country, like politics, has been a measure of civilization as much as an

economic and environmental process.16

The causes of land degradation in Ethiopia are multiple, constituting

population pressure, farming system, overexploitation, government policies,

land tenure and its associated problem of security for conservation, soil

erosion, culture and knowledge of environmental conservation/protection and

the like. Alemneh Dejene argues that in the Ethiopian case, environmental

degradation is synonymous with land degradation, of which exact threats to

the agricultural practice of the country is debated. The extent of soil erosion,

soil fertility, soil depth, the level of stoniness, rainfall availability, and water

and fuel availability cause this degradation.17

The arduous warfare and conflict in the long history of the country, in

which the peasantry has been the ‘executing machine’, presented an 14 This perhaps might be perplexing provided that the history of the country is set as 3000! Nonetheless, historical dating and archeological findings have been fiercely debated. Christopher Ehret, “On the antiquity of agriculture in Ethiopia,” Journal of African History, 20, 1979, p. 177.15 James Picket, Economic Development in Ethiopia: Agriculture, the Market and the State, France: OECD, 1991, p. 30. 16 James McCann, People of the Plow, op cit., p. 12. 17 Alemneh Djene, Environment, Politics and Famine in Ethiopia, op cit., p. 49.

overwhelming image of a warring peasant community. This, however, should

bear what Barrington Moore argues as “… the peasant in the modern era has

been much an agent of revolution as the machine, that he has come into his

own as an effective historical actor along the conquest of the machine.”18 In

the words of Greenfield, “not only have the warring armies repeatedly

ravaged the countryside, but the barons who maintained them have

demonstrated nothing deeper than an acquisitive interest in agricultural

production surplus to the immediate need of the peasants.”19 Greenfield, thus,

portrayed the peasantry, the center of the revolt in the downfall of the regime,

as comparable to what Marx described as ‘the idiocy of rural life’. Within this,

the peasantry was conceived as “unconscious of historical change,” which

perhaps might have explained, “why few rural Ethiopian are recorded as

having asked why their agricultural industry is as moribund as it is.”20 Marx’s

denouncement of the peasantry was after the failure of peasants to support

the French revolution. His analysis of the peasant class as progressive was on

condition that the class allies itself with the proletariat in the struggle against

capitalism.21

Despite the contribution of environmental factors in stalling the

opportunity for progressive agricultural practices that possibly extricate it

from what Greenfield calls a moribund status, the totality of the feudal system

18 Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, Boston: Beacon Press, 1967, p. 453.19 Richard Greenfield, Ethiopia: A New Political History, op cit., p. 321. 20 Ibid., p. 322. 21 S. Avineri, ed., Karl Marx on Colonialism and Modernization, New York, 1969, p. 90, cited in D.N. Dhanagare, Peasant movements in India, 1920-1950, 1983, pp. 1-2.

and its policies shouldered the radical prowess for subjecting the state

institutions to pressures and eventual downfall. John M. Mbaku argues:

[p]re-occupation with crises management and political survival at all

cost, have made it difficult for many Third World governments to

place appropriate emphasis on economic and human development,

the elimination of mass poverty and deprivation, protection of the

environment and society's environmental resources, and the

improvement of the quality of life of historically marginalized groups

and communities, especially … rural peasants.22

The scarcity of resources, mainly land, during the zenith of the Haile

Selassie I regime played roles in instigating the peasantry for revolts. A similar

comparison can be made with peasant revolts and unrest in the Awadh

countryside of India during the interwar period. Harold Gould showed that the

values of land rose as a result of rapid population increase. The land

monopolizing class, taluqdari, benefited from the situation by increasing rents.

These “…in effect shattered what trust the peasantry retained in the pattern

of feudal relations that had contributed to a modicum of stability in the

countryside (such as the pattern of religiously sanctified jajmani relationships)

and provoked a grass-roots political upheaval.”23

22 John Mukum Mbaku, “Preparing the Third World for the New Millennium,” Journal of Third World Studies, vol. 16, issue 2, fall 1999, pp. 13-28.23 Harold A. Gould, “'Baba' and Non-Cooperator: Congress' Co-Optation of Agrarian Unrest in North India in the 1920s and 1930s,” Peasant Symposium, Center for South Asian Studies University of Virginia, Draft copy, submitted 13 May 1997,

In John Markasis’ extended anthropocentric conception in Ethiopia,

the people perceived nature as untamed and challenging, which gave

adaptability skills for them for sustenance. He argues “they tilled the land

where it was possible to do so and herded livestock where it was not, often

managing to a bit of both.”24 According to Markakis, the distribution of land

therefore was not only a factor for production, but also a significant social

indicator. He argues, “on it hinged the functioning of Abyssinian [Ethiopian]

society, whose hierarchically stratified structure comprised three classes

representing the classic trinity of peasants, warrior-ruler and priests. Property

relations were expressed basically in categories of rights superimposed on the

land….”25 For Rahmato the environmentalism of Ethiopian peasant “considers

the landscape as a resource to be managed through sustainable utilization”.26

Markakis and Rahmato’s analysis is comparable to the contentions of

both deep and social ecologists. First, humans perceive nature as an entity

that should be placed under their control and use, which according to them

lies at the center of environmental problems. In terms of social ecology, the

environmental problems are a result of Ethiopia’s hierarchical social relations,

which are extended to the domination of nature. They then prescribe the

demolition of social hierarchy for proper environmental management.

The denial of environmental degradation and scarcity as a

contributing factor to the peasant revolts makes any analysis of the downfall

http://www.virginia.edu/~soasia/symsem/kisan/papers/baba.html, March 2000. 24 John Markakis, National and Class conflict, op cit., p. 5. 25 Ibid., pp. 13-14. 26 Desalegn Rahmato, “Environmental Change and Ecological Conflict in Ethiopia,” op cit.

of the Haile Selassie regime incomplete. As such, what June Rock purports in

the country, as “there is nothing inevitable and predetermined about

population increase leading to environmental stress, decline, and social and

possibly political conflict” is one case in point in the deficiencies of the

analysis.27 Albeit its calls for a multi-causal analysis, neither is it to be

imprudent to argue, as the former CIA director, John Duetsch, contends “[i]t

would be foolish, for example, to attribute conflicts in Somalia, Ethiopia or

Haiti to environmental causes alone….”28 Leif Rosenberger also believe that

Ethiopia’s problems, as an African country, “are largely the result of self-

inflicted wounds rather than the world approaching some natural limit to food

production, a distinction that Malthus did not make.”29

The failure of the regime to respond to and instead hide the famine

in Wollo and Tigray contributed to the recklessness of state institutions. On

the contrary, “… government officials were frantically trying to convince their

own people and the outside world that the tragedy was in fact a figment of the

27 June Rock, “Relief and rehabilitation in Eritrea: Lessons and Issues,” Third World Quarterly, vol. 20, issue 1, Feb 1999, pp. 129-142. Recently, however, Rebbeca Hansen of UN World Food Program supports Rock’s thinking. Replying to a question on a BBC Quiz concerning the link between the current (2000) famine in Ethiopia and population growth, Hansen replies I think it would be a little bit too simple to say that because you have a larger population you're seeing a worse effect of a famine situation. There are so many factors at play, the question of agricultural activity, the question of marketing strategies - there are simply too many other factors. Ironically, some of the families who are best able to cope with the situation today are in fact families who do have more family members, people who are able to migrate for labour opportunities. So I really wouldn't put the two things together.” BBC Africa, Forum, “Quiz Peter Biles in Ethiopia,” Friday, 7 April, 2000, 16:23 GMT 17:23 UK, http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/forum/newsid_702000/702428.stm. 28 John Duetch, “The Environment on the Intelligence Agenda,” Remarks to the World

Affairs Council, op cit., pp. 113-115. 29 Leif Rosenberger, “The strategic Importance of the World Food Supply,” Parameters: Journal of the US Army War College, vol. 27, issue 1, Spring 1997, p.90.

imagination of Ethiopia’s ill-wishers, and that all was well in Wollo and

Tigray.”30 This does not, however, translate to the contention of Stephen

Devereux, who argues, “the causes of modern famines always include

elements which are either directly political – a deliberate act of political will -

or indirectly political - a failure to intervene to prevent famine, or famine as an

unintended by-product of government policy.”31

With the collapse of the monarchical regime of Haile Selassie,

sweeping changes engulfed the country. Under Ityopya Tikdem (Ethiopia First)

the Derg introduced the principles and policies of the country. On March 4,

1975 the military government issued the following proclamation –

Proclamation No 31 of 1975 – ‘Public Ownership of Rural Lands Proclamation’:

the abolishment of tenancy system; the abolishment of hired farm labor; the

abolishment of private ownership of land, placing a limit of 10 hectares as a

maximum amount of land that a given farm may cultivate; and the provisions

for the establishment of a peasant association.32

Wosen Yefru argues that the 1975 reform package did not bring

social justice. For him, "the government forcefully moved the peasants for the

purpose of creating producer cooperatives and state farms, causing the

deaths of at least 250,000 people."33 The ‘radical changes’ in the country were

received with great euphoria and clamor. The public and the peasantry at 30 Desalegn Rahmato, Agrarian Reform in Ethiopia, 1984, op cit., p. 32.31 Stephen Devereux, Theories of Famine, Oxford: University of Oxford, 1994, p. 129. 32 Wosen Yefru, “The African Challenge to Philosophical Paradigm: The Need for a Paradigm Shift in the Social, Economic, and Political Development of Africa,” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 30, issue 3, Jan 2000, p. 362.33 Ibid., pp. 362-363.

large did not augur what the future held for them. Gradual developments

signaled that the state of the peasantry could take what R. H. Tawney wrote

four decades ago: “… the conditions of the rural population is that of a man

standing permanently up to the neck in water, so that even a ripple is

sufficient to drawn him.”34

The redistribution of land from feudal owners to the general peasant,

although undertaken with the participation of the latter, could not bring

satisfaction among all peasants. There was an underlying awareness of land

as a scare resource and a lifeline of the rural producer.35 The increase in the

population of the rural poor and the absence of other sectors where adult

children could be engaged in worsened the fragmentation of land holdings. In

1975 the population was 33 million. During the famine of 1984-85, it went up

to 43.3 million. This showed an increase by 31.2 percent.36 The average land

ownership of the peasant during the time was around 3 ha. Peasants cannot

sell or lease their land. The land reform just gave them the right to use or

usufructuary possession. Most of the peasants value the land in terms of its

location (slope, field) and fertility (fertile, virgin, infertile, and stony). A

fundamental transition of land degradation and scarcity in and after the 1984-

85 famine thus was what Charles Gore termed ‘the turning-point thesis’ of

access to agricultural land. It explains the problem of getting land with

population explosion, fragmentation of land, scarcity of arable land, alarming

34 R. H. Tawney, Land and Labor in China. Boston: beacon Press, 1966, p. 77. 35 Ibid., p. 48.36 Calculated from Calculated from World Bank, World Development Report, 1989.

rate of ecological degradation and limitation in methods of land

exploitations.37

Though accompanying problems in the redistribution of land, a large

number of peasants were satisfied with the changes brought by the reform.

Nonetheless, the greatest dissatisfaction among the peasants was the

continuation of state tenancy in terms of strong control and regulation. The

land proclamation also gave the order to establish peasant associations (PAs),

which executed policies to the discontentment of the peasantry. Peasants

above the age of 18 were members of the PAs. PAs were established on 800

ha area. The establishment of PAs, according to Rahmato, drastically

restructured the rural society.38 To Huntington, peasant organization is a

political action.39 One of the inherent problems of this politicized

collectivization was the discrimination against peasants operating on an

individual private basis. This was aggravated by the restrictions of prices

through the Agricultural Marketing Corporation (AMC), which gave higher

prices for state farms and cooperative producers – cooperative producers 10-

20 percent and state farms another 20 percent higher prices.40 According to

Blench Roger, these tractorised farms were established to produce food to pay

for arms imports.41

37 Charles Gore, Social Exclusion and Africa South of the Sahara: A Review of the Literature, Discussion Paper. Switzerland: International Institute for Labor Studies, 1994, p. 20.38 D. Rahmato, Agrarian Reform in Ethiopia, 1984, op cit., p. 39.39 S. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, op cit., p. 396.40 Gote Hnasson, Social Exclusion and Africa South of the Sahara op cit., pp. 31-32.41Roger Blench, “Aspects Of Resource Conflict In Semi-Arid Africa,” http://www.oneworld.org/odi/nrp/16.html, February 2000.

The study of John Young and the data for this study found the

fundamental support for and direct participation of peasants in the armed

struggle as catalyzed by land degradation - causing famine and resource

scarcity. But peasants and the leaders of the armed struggle believed that it

was dissatisfaction with the authoritarianism of the government, which they

stated was an extension of the Amhara class domination that could to the

most part explain the genesis of the struggle. Indeed, resource scarcity had

their part in influencing the policies of the government. In his analysis of Why

Men Rebel, Ted Gurr contends that individual expectation is shaped by

scarcity, which in turn inhibits established governments from distributing

fairly. Consequently, the more the scarcity, the higher the tendency for

deprivation and authoritarianism will be.42 Nonetheless, in the 1980s, the

Ethiopian government spent an annual average of $275 million on waging war

in Eritrea and Tigray. "An annual expenditure of $50 million a year on tree

planting and soil conservation would have reversed desertification in the

country and thereby helped to prevent the million plus deaths in the 1985

famine."43 At one time, the government spent 20.1 percent of the GNP,

making the country one of the top fifteen in military expenditure.44 Meles

Zenawi, the leader of the TPLF and current Prime Minister of Ethiopia, stated

42 Ted R. Gurr, Why Men Rebel, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970, pp. 71-73.43 Island Press, The Environmental Publisher, The Environmental Impacts of War, http://www.islandpress.com/eco-compass/war/war.html, March 2000.44 K. J. Holsti, International Politics, A Framework for Analysis, Seventh edition, Englewood Cliffs: New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1995, p. 217.

that the policy of the government in trying to control movements of peasants

contributed to the support of the armed struggle.45

It is perhaps difficult to explain the peasant armed struggle solely

based on policy analysis where authoritarianism induces peasants to rebel.

James Scott argues that if exploitation and its impact on the peasant were the

only cause for peasant rebellion, “most of the Third World (not only the Third

World) would be in flames”.46 Bernhard Helander states that there is a strong

relation between local struggles for control of resources and political

instability. There is not, however, continues Helander, as Tvedt and others

have shown in the volume Conflicts in the Horn: Human and Ecological

Consequences of Warfare, an indisputable direction in which this relation

flows. He argues, “… most African civil wars leave a trail of displaced and

dispossessed people behind. At the root of such crises are complex

disturbances in local land tenure systems that, combined with e.g. rapid

population movements, may threaten to escalate and become articulated

along, e.g., ethnic lines.”47 Even if peasants were basically fed up with the

atrocities of the military government, their willingness to join the TPLF was

also based on the premise that the front would tackle their underlying

problems. During the process of the struggle, “instead of being dependents, 45 Paul Henze Interview with Meles Zenawi, Washington, 1991, cited in Young, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia, op cit., p. 93.46 James Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant, Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia, New Heaven and London: Yale University Press, 1976, p. 4.47

Bernhard Helander, “Some Problems in African Conflict Resolution: Reflections on Alternative Reconciliation Work and Research,” Uppsala University, Department of Anthropology, http://www.antro.uu.se/staff/bernhela//nomadnet/heland1.html, April 2000.

guerrillas have become providers”.48 The boosted enthusiasm towards TPLF,

according to Young, was based on the front's growing numbers of experienced

cadres who "developed the capacity to move from political appeals and

displays of commitment to peasants' welfare, to responding to the peasants'

needs for land reforms and democratic institutions."49 This in turn shows that

broader politico-economic factors had important roles in accounting for the

fundamental causes of peasant armed struggle for seventeen years.

Environmental degradation and scarcity has a role in the conflicts in

Ethiopia. This role of environmental degradation and scarcity in accounting for

conflicts in the country has not been a ‘gross exaggeration’ as Dawit Welde

Giorgis claims.50 Notwithstanding the country was given an image of

resourcefulness, which is assumed to be able to feed and develop the country

without wars and conflicts, any assessment should take into consideration

similar facts to what Clare Short, the International Development Secretary of

US, recently said. Short stated, “[s]adly, starvation and drought are a reality

of life here. There will never be enough food on the land.”51 Land degradation

and scarcity does have strong explanation for precipitating conflicts and

putting the lives of millions of Ethiopians at risk and starvation.

48 Gebru Tareke, “Continuity and Discontinuity in Peasant Mobilization: The Cases of Bale and Tigray,” op cit., p. 152.49 John Young, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia, op cit., p. 124. 50 Dawit Welde Giorgis, “Causes of Famine,” in Ethiopia: The Politics of Famine, op cit., p. 57. 51 “Guns before grain as Ethiopia starves.” Electronic Telegraph online, Sunday 16 April 2000, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=001787628409486&rtmo=gl7jkSnu&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/4/16/weth15.html, April 2000.

Concluding Remarks

The challenge to the definition of security from the military point of

view brings a comprehensive definition of security after the Cold War. This

view of security constitutes both broadening and deepening of security

studies. By broadening, it refers to adding new threats – economic, societal,

and environmental problems to the military threat. The inclusion of ‘referent

objects’ –units receiving threats such as individuals, ecological system,

communities, and so on constitutes deepening security studies. Environmental

degradation and scarcity encompasses one aspect of the issues that is being

pressed and debated to its inclusion as a direct threat to security and cause

for acute conflicts.

The world is now faced with severe problems in terms of critical

poverty, drought and famine, the alarming spread of AIDS and its impacts on

the working population, global warming, weapons proliferation, drug

trafficking, population explosion, natural resource depletion and inter and

intrastate conflicts. However, such non-military factors compete for attention

and policy prioritization with environmental degradation and scarcity.

Internally within the environment-security thinking, there is no consensus on

what types of concerns have to be prioritized as threats to security, and what

issues require immediate, extraordinary investments to turn the tides. This

again has complicated the environment-security thinking. Moreover, the

appreciation and understanding of environmental problems and issues faces

challenges in two general dimensions: inadequacy of knowledge and time

dimension or lag. Basically, however, environmental problems are not a one-

time event. Proponents of environmental degradation as a direct threat to

security argues that human beings are facing increased risks from

environmental aspects, which were thought as unimportant some years ago.

The case study in Ethiopia showed that environmental degradation

and scarcity, however, has an important contribution for causes of conflicts.

The ancient settlement, agricultural practice, population increase and warfare

greatly reduced the potential of the country to provide basic necessities. Its

predicted effects are exhibited in inducing and exacerbating communal and

peasant violence and complicating human displacement. Nonetheless, there is

no consensus on the magnitude of the impacts that environmental

degradation and scarcity brings. In terms of causal reversal, not all security

threats in bringing down or weakening states’ institutions and structures are

causes of environmental degradation and scarcity. A thought about the

existence of conflicts brings more a multicausal attribution than

environmental problems.

Ethiopia has been a country of famine, starvation and protracted

conflicts and wars. These images are better understood than other positive

features of the country by anyone with no knowledge of the location of the

country, even on a map. In the history of the country, the incidence of famine

has been every 3-5 and 6-8 years in northern Ethiopia and every 8-10 years

for the whole country.52 Richard Pankhrust, a renowned historian of Ethiopia,

traced the incidence of one famine on average every decade between the

52 T. Haile, “Causes and Characters of Drought in Ethiopia,” Ethiopian Journal of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 10, no. 1-2, 1988 p. 90.

fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.53 There have been forty major famines and

food shortages in total, among which fourteen occurred, in northern Ethiopia,

particularly in Tigray and Wello.54 For years, the country has not produced

sufficient food to feed its people. Importation of cereal food aid, for example,

ranged from 0.3 to over 1.1 million tons over the past decade.55 Per capita

cereal production growth was nil between 1970 and 1987 and averaged only

0.9 percent over the period 1979-1990.56 The World Food Program indicates

that with an estimated annual per capita income of 117 dollars in 1994,

Ethiopia needs relief food for at least 3.3 million persons even in exceptionally

good agricultural seasons. The mortality rate for children under five is 200 per

1,000. About 12.6 million people are chronically poor and some 3.8 million

households do not attain the minimum daily 1,680 kilocalories per capita in

terms of food availability. Absolute poverty affects over four million urban

dwellers who live below the poverty line.57

53 Richard Pankhurst, The History of Famine and Epidemics in Ethiopia Prior to the Twentieth Century, Addis Ababa: Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, 1985, p. 26. 54 P. Webb and V. Braun, Famine and Food Security in Ethiopia: A Lesson for Africa, The Red Press, Inc. 1994, p. 20-21.55 Wolday Amha, et al., “Meeting Food Aid And Price Stabilization Objectives Through Local Grain Purchase: A Review Of The 1996 Experience,” Grain Market Research Project, Working Paper 7, Grain Market Research Project Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation, Addis Ababa May 1997, p. 6. 56 World Food Program, Country Programs – Ethiopia, 1998-2003, Agenda Item 5, Wfp/Eb.2/98/5/4 23, April 1998, Second Regular Session of The Executive Board Rome, 12 - 15 May 1998, Http://Www.Wfp.Org/Eb_Public/Eb.2_98_English/Eitem5_4.Html, September 1999. 57 Ibid.

Agricultural practice in the country fails to meet food production that

can feed a population with an annual growth rate of 3 percent. A mix of

factors that range from population pressure to unfavorable land tenure

system, over-ploughing, over-grazing of farm lands, mismanagement of land

resource, deforestation, soil erosion and inappropriate land use systems have

been responsible for the ever deterioration of the productivity of land in

Ethiopia. Major crops such as teff (indigenous grass), wheat, maize, barely and

sorghum have barely been produced to the extent of sustaining the

population for over a year.

During the Haile Selassie I period, arable land degradation and

scarcity with an increasing population contributed to three peasant revolts.

The denial of environmental degradation and scarcity as a contributing factor

to the peasant revolts makes any analysis of the downfall of the Haile Selassie

regime incomplete. Nonetheless, the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia was not a

peasant revolution per se, but the peasant played critical role in making the

land question a burning issue.

This study found the fundamental support for the direct participation

of peasants in the post-1974 armed struggle had elements of the problem of

land degradation and resource scarcity. The conflict in the north was a

continuation of the peasants’ revolt in Tigray between 1943-1944. It is

perhaps difficult to explain the peasant armed struggle solely based on policy

analysis where authoritarianism was merely assumed to induce peasants to

rebel. The role of environmental degradation and scarcity in accounting for

conflicts in the country is not a gross exaggeration as some would claim, nor

is it a ‘simplistic commentary’ similar to the efforts to link the Rwandan

genocide with environmental degradation and scarcity.58 Land degradation

and scarcity does have the potential for precipitating conflicts and putting the

lives of millions of Ethiopians at risk and starvation.

The contribution of environmental degradation and scarcity as an

important factor for conflict and tension in the country has continued where

Ethiopia is now faced with millions of returnees, demobilized soldiers and

increasing numbers of unemployed citizens. The leadership of the TPLF, as the

dominant group within the ruling EPRDF, brought a temporary stability in

1991. Light at the end of the tunnel for positive changes prompted many to

foresee a new era in the country's history of famine, war and ecocide.

Aggravating the already fragile ecosystem of the country has been what

Rahmato called ‘ecoviolence’ – a reaction of peasants to intentionally destroy

environmental protection measures, infrastructure and projects such as

forestation programs and micro-dam constructions.59

.

58 Valerie Perciva and Thomas Homer-Dixon, “Environmental Scarcity and Violent Conflict: The Case of Rwanda,” Occasional Paper Project on Environment, Population and Security, Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science and the University of Toronto June 1995, http://utl2.library.utoronto.ca/www/pcs/eps/rwanda/rwanda1.htm, April 2000. 59 Thousands of ha of forestland was destroyed by peasants in many parts of the country as a protect to the symbolic representation of projects of the precious regime. According to D. Rahmato, “[t]he attack on the environment was not organized by anyone; it was rather spontaneous and anarchic. Peasants and others demolished bunds and terraces, set fire to forests and national parks, ‘illegally harvested’ trees from government plantations, uprooted young saplings in freshly afforested or enclosed areas, wrecked stores and buildings belonging to co-operatives, and destroyed property associated with state conservation and Derg authority. Overall, perhaps as much as 60 percent of the conservation assets created during the military dictatorship may have been destroyed during these two years.” Desalegn Rahmato, “Environmental Change and Ecological Conflict in Ethiopia,” op cit.