INTRODUCTION The Peace and Development Center [PDC] is a non-for-profit and non-governmental organization registered in Ethiopia, governed by its mission, values, goals and objectives to institute a civic leadership. This commitment is embodied in both collective and comprehensive policies that value the importance of peaceful dialogue, purposeful management, and resolutions using collective and inclusive participation of its leadership. This includes, but is not limited to, institutionalization of mediation steered by “elders” rooted in grassroots leadership deeply concerned about its role as concerned citizens of traditional and contemporary Ethiopia. These concepts are honored practices that represent Ethiopia, an independent sovereign nation. PDC is recognized as the first contemporary Ethiopian civic organization initiated by vested “elder groups” with roots in the body politics, cultural, social, economic, secular and faith-based ethos of Ethiopia. Today, PDC marks and celebrates a solemn occasion of its 25th Silver Jubilee since its inception in 1989 in Diaspora.

There are several traditional elder-based institutions and practices throughout Ethiopian history. Many of which can be described as sui generis, bringing the traditional Ethiopian ethos and spirit of reconciliation, community solidarity congenial for dialogue, harmony, tolerance and coexistence. PDC’s founders are concerned citizens and leaders who responded to the call for “Peace, Stability and Sustainable Development” in Ethiopia. In so doing, PDC has evolved from special experience and expertise in assembling and establishing civic coalitions and grassroots organizations made of multidisciplinary, multicultural and interfaith-based membership inside and outside Ethiopia. It has remained faithful to its indigenous and international contacts and strategy to enhance peaceful resolutions and mediation. Much of this faith is embodied in the remarkably short period of transformation from the devastating civil conflicts of two decades that led to the demise of the “Derg” military regime, to present day peaceful, civic and sustainable socio-economic role models in contemporary Ethiopia and in Africa as a whole.

The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) at the outset played a significant role in its quick penetration from regional based operations to control the country as far as Addis Ababa, the nation’s capital city, in May 1991. The coalition of armed forces necessitated the sudden flight of Mengistu Haile Mariam to Zimbabwe, thereby leaving the country in shambles ruled by some remnants of his former ruling party without authority and leadership to negotiate a peaceful transition to a viable government. Given the disarray of the “Derg” at that time, the various liberation forces cooperated to form a de facto coalition. With the exception of EPLF, which participated in the Conference for Peaceful and Democratic Transition in Ethiopia as observer, the remaining coalition groups assembled in Addis Ababa formed the first transitional government of Ethiopia in July 1-5, 1991 with PDC participating as an observer delegation.

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The coalition of PDC’s founding members has been comprised of elder leadership since its inception in 1989. Since then, it has tried to institutionalize forums for rational, viable and alternative means for conflict management, dialogue and resolution. Its methods of operation depended on the selection and participation of groups engaged in a wide range of issues about peace, civic societies, and nation building, governed by the rule of law and the Constitution of Ethiopia. PDC leadership’s focus has remained faithful to comprehensive strategies, driven by political, cultural, interfaith and secular forces to end conflicts and the consequences of one of the longest civil wars of the twentieth century in Ethiopia.

This document represents the story of the ongoing lessons learned throughout the past twenty-five years of accomplishments as nurtured by the ideas and ideals of the founders of PDC to enshrine a peace culture to be emulated by the succeeding generation of young leadership of Ethiopia.

In conclusion, PDC’s legacy has been to create an unlimited opportunity for creative and modern traditional elders. This has involved creating a wide range of peace culture and traditions that cultivate transparency and responsibility to address the roots of conflict and to alter the status quo of “no peace, no development” that disregards the quality of life, the will and spirit of unity-in-diversity and the legacy of tolerance, resilience and coexistence among all Ethiopians and her neighbors in Africa as a whole.

The following progress report constitutes the emerging consensus on the importance of the celebration of the historical and timely landmarks of the 25th Silver Jubilee as a legacy of the history of dialogue and effective new approach to conflict resolution in the “real world.” The goal is to ensure a place where the elders and young leadership can debate and ultimately agree to build democratic, civic societies and sustainable quality of life and human development in Ethiopia.

This special progress report highlights the mission and legacies of PDC. The approach acknowledges many previous attempts where parties have depended solely on selective interventions by ad-hoc international conflict resolution committees and peacekeeping observers without sustainable grassroots presence, in contrast to the case of PDC in Ethiopia. The lessons learned has been that those externally driven initiatives have limited and temporary outcomes. Yet the history of PDC reminds us of the need for ongoing progress embedded in rational dialogues, peace and sustainable development inside and outside Ethiopian civic societies. These virtues lie in the ability of the homegrown stakeholders of elders and young actors in the real world to believe and practice peace culture as a national legacy. This legacy evolved from the opportunity to create the essential space for all to share diversity as embodied in humanistic, spiritual, cultural and political traditions rooted in the ethos of tolerance-coexistence of the grassroots stakeholders.

2 CHAPTER ONE BACKGROUND AND FOUNDATION OF PDC 1.1. Historical Background The process that led to the establishment of PDC began during a critical period of Ethiopian history when the Military Regime (1974-1991), the Derg, was engaged in a vicious campaign to defeat the opposition forces in the protracted civil wars throughout the country. A high U.S. Government official compared it to the First World War in microcosm. The conflict resulted in close to a million dead, wounded, and disabled, and millions of displaced refugees. Economic Development was impeded. Worse still, farmers were displaced and crops could not be harvested; this resulted in the terrible mid-eighties crisis of a bleak famine. The toll on lives, mainly women and children, and the destruction the war inflicted on Ethiopia, was to say the least beyond imagination, unparalleled in the country’s history.

At the beginning of the civil war, the combatants were incapable of immediate victory but were unwilling to compromise. Many saw the only solution as a face-saving intervention that would end the tragedy sooner with a win-win situation. The only way this could be done seemed to be through acceptable third-party mediators or neutral elders capable of breaking the cycle of vengeance and violence.

The conflicting parties and the rest of the nation sought an indigenous mechanism for consolidating various peace initiatives and resolving the conflict. The mechanism they sought was to promote negotiation of peace and reconciliation.

Traumatized by the terrible news from home, prompted by a strong love of the suffering of their peoples, and sensing the critical need to find a speedy resolution of the conflicts, the ad hoc Peace Committee (AHPC) was formally founded in 1989. It was in the face of these seemingly insurmountable challenges that the banner for peace was taken up by this group, formed by a neutral group of elders and mediators who came from diverse Ethio-Eritrean ethnic and religious backgrounds. To serve as Elders, the members had to be neutral, peace-loving individuals, committed to the mission of the AHPC group to resolve once for all the raging conflicts through friendly and respectful dialogue and traditional method of reconciliation. They had to enjoy a broad-based constituency, able to exert moral influence to bring the warring factions to the table. The selection of the members, who came to be known as the founders, was established through direct but cross consultation with the leadership of the conflicting parties and factions. (Two of the founding elders were already engaged in organizing a series of important bi-lateral covert meetings among the conflicting parties).

3 The founders of thead hoc Peace Committee are Professor Ephraim Isaac (Chair), Dr. Tilahun Beyene, Dr. Haile Selassie Belay, Dr. Ahmed Moen, Ato Kassahun Besrat, Prof. Abaineh Workie, Ato Fisseha-Sion Tekie, Dr. Mulugeta Eteffa, Dr. Yacob Hailemariam, and Prof. Astair G. Mengesha. Our international partners were the Life and Peace Institute of Uppsala, Sweden, led by Rev. Sture Normark and Mrs. Susannah Lunden who also recruited the Norwegian Church and Government aid and two Mennonite Church partners, John Paul Lederach and Menno Wieb, as facilitators. AHPC had two main contact centers. One was in Princeton, NJ and the other in Uppsala, Sweden. Locally, contacts were made with elders in Ethiopia who remained close to developing conflicts.

The founding Elders first met as a group in 1989 at the Scanticon Conference Center (now Princeton Marriot), Princeton, New Jersey, united as a solemn peace body dedicated to finding mediation and reconciliation strategies among the conflicting parties. Among other principles, they agreed on certain major ground rules. First, although the members were all scholars and professionals, they agreed to serve as humble, traditional shimagele /jarsa elders, following the traditional Ethiopian way of sitting down and listening to the struggles and grievances of hostile and fighting parties in efforts to bring them closer and resolve all disputes and conflicts. They agreed to follow traditional eldership, characterized by humble, patient, sympathetic listening, respect for all opponents, patience, broadmindedness, impartiality and advocacy for serious dialogue. Second, they agreed to show full respect to all members of the conflicting parties so that they could act strictly as mediators for peace. Third, they would not speak to the media. Underlying all these and related principles, the Elders had to have a deep and unflinching commitment to Ethiopian peace.

To fulfill its mission, the Committee solicited technical assistance and financial support from the Life and Peace Institute (LPI), a Sweden-based humanitarian organization. The Committee also sought the technical assistance and organizational support from LPI’s partner organizations, namely, the Horn of Africa Project at Conrad Grebel College in Canada and the International Conciliation Service of the Eastern Mennonite Central Committee in Virginia, USA.

AHPC developed pertinent guidelines during the first two gatherings, in 1989 and 1990, the Committee immediately and directly established contact with the leaders of every political organization and conflicting parties-- initially the Derg, EPRDF, EPLF, OLF, EPRP, MEISON, EDU, EPDA, ALF, ONLF. In order to do so and successfully facilitate smooth negotiations with all the parties, the Committee designated a respective elder as an ambassador or contact person to the leadership of the respective conflicting party. The leaders of all the major conflicting parties immediately welcomed the initiative wholeheartedly. Their encouraging positive responses were beyond the expectations of the ad hoc Elders. The process culminated

4 in getting all the major political and conflicting parties to agreeing to meet in Caux, Switzerland in early June 1991. Although the Derg did not respond directly, it allowed three of its Ambassadors at the UN, Great Britain, and Sweden to assure the Elders that they welcomed the initiative.

Subsequently, it became evident that the Military regime led by Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam was losing ground to the opposition forces as well as national and international support. Upon the kind request of the leaders of EPRDF, therefore, the schedule of the meeting was moved forward to May 19, 1991, which date was accepted by all conflicting parties officially. The Derg did not respond officially, but the said three Ambassadors expressed their personal hope to the ad hoc Committee that the Derg would participate.

Through the good offices of the Life and Peace Institute, the Norwegian Government also agreed to subsidize the hotel expenses in Caux. The Government of Switzerland kindly agreed to facilitate issuing of visas for all ad hoc Committee invitees regardless of whether or not they were persona non-grata, as some governments considered some of the invited guests.

As the meeting was being vigorously organized, the U.S. jumped into the scene with a different motive. Sensing the primary motive of the American Government, the Derg tried to turn this to its own advantage to get U.S. assistance to form a transitional government that it could dominate. It, therefore, agreed to a conference with the opposition leaders on ending the conflict, held under the auspices of Washington in London.

AHPC planned a meeting consisting of representatives of each and every one of the conflicting parties, with none left behind. Contrary to this important plan wholeheartedly favored by all conflicting parties, the London meeting was limited to delegates of the Derg, EPLF, EPRDF, and OLF. Moreover, the U.S. National Security Council that was organizing the London meeting scheduled a date in conflict with the date of the ad hoc Peace Committee. When some of the opposition parties invited by the ad hoc Peace Committee responded about their prior commitment to the ad hoc Peace Committee, the Derg Ethiopian Ambassador in Germany called the office of the ad hoc Peace Committee with an appeal to withdraw their plan. In the name of peace, the ad hoc Peace Committee cancelled the hotel reservations at a loss. Then, when some of the major opposition groups finally but reluctantly agreed to the London meeting, they asked the AHPC to reschedule the conference for a later date. AHPC agreed to do so.

The London meeting took place on Monday, May 21, 1991. By then, the EPLF had already entered Asmara, that is, on Friday May 18, 1991. Moreover, the EPRDF had also already surrounded Addis Ababa expecting it to fall any time. Hence, contrary to the Derg’s expectation of a favorable result that the London conference would end in the formation of a transitional government dominated by the Derg, it instead ended with the

5 Derg delegation walking out of the meeting as it became clear that the expectations had failed and the U.S. conceded to the EPRDF army peacefully entering Addis Ababa.

So the task of forming a transitional government was left to the conflicting parties themselves. That took place in Addis Ababa in July 1991 under the banner of the Conference for Peaceful and Democratic Transition in Ethiopia, marking the end of the Thirty-year war.

AHPC advocated the participation of all former conflicting party alliances in the Conference as agreed upon before the London meeting. The leaders of EPRDF were considerate and supported the idea, provided that all those conflicting parties that wish to attend, including the EPRP, MEISON, EDU, EPDA, and the new coalition called COEDEF rejected the use of force to solve any political dispute and declared that the future of Ethiopia depends solely on a peaceful resolution of all conflicts. The ad hoc Peace Committee then sent an urgent letter on Thursday, June 27, 1991 in care of the office of EPRP, encouraging all parties and appealing to them to accept the condition and attend the Addis Ababa Conference. The appeal was followed by at least two amicable telephone conversations between Addis Ababa and Washington DC where the parties had their office. The said conflicting party leaders were overall agreeable to attend but regrettably some wording about the peace condition was unacceptable to them. Nonetheless, at least EDU and EPDA agreed to participate.

At the conclusion of the Conference on July 5, 1991, a Transitional Government of Ethiopia was formed, and a Transitional Council that later became the Parliament of Ethiopia.

The AHPC helped in covering the expenses of this significant Conference. Its members were also represented at the Conference participating as official observers, along with representatives of the international diplomatic community and religious leaders. At the conclusion of the political gathering and the formation of the Transitional Government, the Chair of the AHPC was asked to give one of the four concluding goodwill remarks and counsel given by the observers.

In their spiritually and morally rewarding history, AHPC elders facilitated several bilateral negotiations between the then conflicting parties at home and abroad. This created a forum of dialogue that contributed to a peaceful conclusion of the thirty-year violence and bloody conflict. PDC remains grateful to the peoples and leaders of Ethiopia who welcome and respect elders.

When and after peace had been achieved in Ethiopia, the AHPC planned to disband. However, it was felt among the new leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea, and their international supporters, that the work related to the peace process was not of a temporary nature. All sides encouraged the Committee that it should open

6 an office in Addis Ababa in order to continue with efforts to strengthen peace and promote reconciliation, as well as its earlier mediation and conflict resolution wherever it existed in the Horn of Africa.

The search for peace involves continued engagement; and it was felt that peace and development go hand- in-hand. Thus, the Peace and Development Committee of the Horn of Africa was established in Ethiopia in January 1992. Subsequently, it registered as Peace and Development Committee (PDC) in 1994. In 2011, the Board voted to officially change the name to Peace and Development Center by which name it is now officially known. Under its successive Executive Directors since its inception, the Peace and Development Center (PDC) has left an indelible constructive mark on modern Ethiopian history.

When we selected the location and established the PDC Office in Addis Ababa in 1992, thanks to the Government that rented us an office and also Cardinal Paulos of the Ethiopian Catholic Church which contributed one year’s salary for the Secretary, the Mekane Yesus Church that provided us with furniture and the LPI. We were most thankful to all of them.

Right from the beginning, the focus of our Elders was on three areas: peace, civic education, and tree planting. The Government and the people endorsed our work as it was based on Peace for Development and national reconciliation. Peace is the cessation of hostilities, reconciliation nurturing intimacy and friendship. Fortunately now, the two words, peace and development are the most popular in all government policy statements.

Thus, the following examples of activities were undertaken energetically at the initial stage under its first Executive Director and the subsequent PDC leaders.

First, PDC selected members and organized Peace Committees for youth, women and elders’ groups respectively in Addis Ababa.

Second, PDC commended the inclusion of civic education in school curricula that was kindly accepted by the Ministry of Education.

Third, PDC assisted in organizing the earliest training activities for the purpose of democratic elections as well as participating in the election observation in three regions.

Fourth, PDC, with other groups, discussed and respectfully suggested to the Prime Minister the establishment of the Board of Election Commission.

Fifth, PDC encouraged and conducted dialogues among different political groups on a regular basis.

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Mesqel Square and Red Cross Congress Sixth, PDC also conducted dialogues among the four main religious leaders

Religious leaders attending meeting of PDC

8 Seventh, one of the main religious groups was split into three. PDC along with the similar elders were able to resolve the divisive issues after a series of meetings over several weeks, which led to unification of their purpose, and they were finally able to elect their leaders by democratic means. This successful election cycle continues to date.

Eighth, PDC initiated the practice of street cleaning and tree planting in 1992 in Addis Ababa and the suburbs. PDC is grateful that this initiative has led to some popular tree planting initiatives and the current successful Government program of afforestation throughout Ethiopia starting with the Ethiopian Millennium in 2007.

Ninth, in 1992, when OLF withdrew from the Government, the international community was concerned and organized a meeting chaired by the Canadian Ambassador. Dr. Haile Selassie Belay, then Executive Director of PDC played a key role in the dialogue. Subsequently, other PDC leaders met with the OLF leaders in Washington DC and Philadelphia respectively to settle the disputes. To this day, PDC continues to encourage a final OLF peaceful resolution.

In short, PDC started early peace and development dialogues and actions, training programs for elections, constitutionalism, human rights, HIV, and related programs. It involved broad-based participants, including elders, laymen and women, local leaders, administrators in its counsel and activities. Early on, it fostered methods of peace and development through lectures, workshops, seminars, dialogues, conferences and the like.

Among some other of the earliest specific major achievement of PDC, here below are four examples: First, in 1992, our first Executive Director organized the first post-war national two-day dialogue symposium on the theme of National Reconciliation Symposium for Development at the Addis Ababa Red Cross Center. The Symposium brought together key government, civic, academic, business, religious and community leaders for a calm and friendly dialogue and bridge building. The Symposium culminated with a day of prayer on the Ethiopian New Year Day for peace and reconciliation in the Horn of Africa. The Archbishops of the Ethiopian Church, the Leaders of the Ethiopian Islamic community, the Mekana Yesus Church, and the Cardinal of the Ethiopian Catholic Church, and a Jewish leader conducted the prayers. Among international participants were the Swedish Life and Peace Institute and the Archbishop of the German Evangelical Church of Hanover. We were most grateful to the German Evangelical Church that contributed to the expenses of that symposium. The Ethiopian newspaper Addis Zemen in its editorial praised the symposium as exemplary for nurturing peace and understanding among all Ethiopians.

9 To paraphrase the Editorial:(August 1992) “…Since ancient times it is our elders who play important role in solving conflicts… It is, therefore, a national duty to give our moral support to the elders of the ad hoc Peace Committee [that this week organized a peace and development dialogue conference at the Addis Ababa Red Cross Center.]. …..The Committee is a non-political body, established to promote reconciliation throughout our country…. Made up of notable professionals and world-renowned scholars motivated to solve existing conflicts in every community and promote dialogue among allgroups everywhere, it is founded solely to promote the honorable tradition of eldership. It should get the unwavering support of all those who love the people….” (Editorial, Addis Zemen, Nahase23, 1984.)

Addis Zemen Editorial wrote about PDC in 1992

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Second, in 1992, a conflict arose among the Fathers, that is, the Archbishops of the Ethiopia Orthodox Tawahedo Church, regarding the administration of the Church Synod. PDC took the initiative to resolve the dispute peacefully through dialogues. The initiative took several weeks and a concerted effort of the elders both at home and abroad. During Passion Week, specifically on Monday Miyazia 12 (April 6) and Wednesday Miyazia 14 (April 8), PDC organized an international teleconference that took seven hours. Six leading Archbishops locally in Ethiopia, the Archbishop of Jerusalem, the Archbishop of North America, and several other Ethiopian church leaders and educators of North America took part in the teleconference. Dr. Haile Selassie Belay, Dr. Tilahun Beyene, and Professor Ephraim Isaac represented the Elders. PDC’s determination to resolve the disputes through a calm dialogue led to their accord.

One of the leading Archbishops His Grace Abuna Gabriel, who helped organize the teleconference, wrote to PDC saying: “I testify that your sincere determination to resolve our dispute through calm dialogue and your action to bring us together led to our accord that will never be forgotten. This holy deed of yours is recorded for posterity in the history of our Church and will be chronicled forever as living testimony to which I myself a witness….” (Letter of the Archbishop.)

It should be noted that PDC also participated in at least two negotiations in 2007 and 2012 for the resolution of conflicts among the leaders of the Islamic community of Ethiopia and dispute with the Government and in other related interfaith problems. Moreover, PDC has played a key role in organizing at least two interfaith symposiums.

Third, beginning in 1993, PDC begun to send yearly respectful Ethiopian New Year greeting to His Excellency the Late Prime Minister with an appeal to free OLF, EPRP, MEISON, AAPO, and other prisoners on the Ethiopian New Year Day. The PM responded to the greeting letters warmly and with empathy. Friendly communication with the office of the PM was augmented with personal discussion with the then His Excellency the Ethiopian Ambassador to the United States. The discussions about freeing prisoners during the New Year season culminated in 1997 with the kind and positive suggestion of the Prime Minister to pursue the matter through the Office of the Attorney General. That meeting took place in January 1998, just before the outbreak of the Ethiopian-Eritrean War.

Fourth, when the tragic war erupted between Ethiopia and Eritrea, PDC attempted to mediate peace between the two. PDC was most grateful to H.E. the Late Prime Minister and the President of Eritrea who forthrightly welcomed a proposed visit to the two countries respectively by coalition of Ethiopian-Eritrean Elders formed by the initiative of PDC. Other groups and nations attempted to do the same, but were not

11 accepted in the same warm manner by both sides. In fact, initially the Eritrean air space was totally closed except to our group.

During our first trip to Asmara, our chartered plane had a mechanical problem at Djibouti airport. Fortunately, through the efforts of the Chairman who contacted directly the Office of UN Secretary General H. E. Kofi Annan and the Undersecretary for Political Affairs a UN plane to come to our rescue. The UN plane was sent to Djibouti that transported to and from Djibouti the Coalition of Ethio-Eritrean Elders organized by PDC. Extensive friendly and frank discussions took place with the two leaders in Addis Ababa and Asmara respectively. Initially, in response, both government promised to prevent war and agreed to immediately stop negative propaganda and the deportation of people as well as keep on talking by various means among the two parties. PDC continued to shuttle to Addis Ababa and Asmara respectively to do its best to ease the tensions throughout the two years 1998-2000. Equally significantly, during the two-year war, several confidential important exchanges of letters and telephone conversations took place between the Elders and the two leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea respectively. PDC continues to pray for a final resolution for peace and full reconciliation between the two-brotherly/sisterly nations.

1.2 Governance and Structure of PDC Peace and Development Center (PDC) is a non-governmental and non-profit organization that was originally established in 1989 as “An Ad-Hoc Peace Committee” by Ethiopian multidisciplinary group of academicians, civil servants, and community leaders who resided in the U.S.A. Its mandate was to resolve long-drawn civil wars in Ethiopia. AHPC ‘s mission, values, goals and objectives evolved and adapted into ongoing comprehensive mission. The AHPC was first established as a Peace Committee. It then evolved into Peace and Development Committee of the Horn of Africa in 1994. In 2011, the Board approved a proposed name change of the organization into the Peace and Development Center (PDC.)

PDC General Assembly consists of Board of Directors and a Secretariat. The Board elects the Executive Board of Directors known as the Secretariat of PDC. The Executive Board meets during the interval period as delegated by the General Assembly. Both the General Assembly and the Secretariat as stated in the by- laws of the PDC are accountable and responsible to oversee the ongoing implementation of the mission, goals and objectives of PDC. The Executive Director of PDC is the administrator of the organization. He/ she is selected and appointed by the members of the Board of Directors by majority votes. He/she will be responsible to manage the day-to-day affairs of PDC and is accountable and responsible to the Executive Board of Directors, and ultimately to the General Assembly of PDC. The Board of Directors delegates his/her authority and responsibilities. The responsibilities include the preparation and submission of PDC’s annual strategic plan, activities, staffing, finance, accounting, auditing and evaluation and reports,

12 submitted to the Executive Board of Directors. The Executive Board of Directors is responsible to oversee the full implementation of the policies and compliance of the most recent PDC By-Laws.

The Board approves the Center’s annual budget and the hiring of qualified senior staff. The Executive Director is accountable to the Board of Director.

Other duties and responsibilities will be delegated from time to time as needed based on the articles and memorandum of associations approved by the General Assembly.

Organization Structure of PDC

General

Assembly

Executive Board of Internal Directors Audit

Executive Director Program Grant Manager

Manager

Monitoring & Administration & Evaluation Finance Manager Officer Peace Human Rights Project Education & Comm. Officers Officers

Peace Project Human Rights Personne Propert Accounts Coordinators Education & l Admin. y & Finance (Project Comm. Officer Admin. Officer i) Coordinators (Project Sites) Project Accountant

Cashier

13 Governance of PDC Professor Ephraim Isaac, Board Chairman B.A. degree in Philosophy, Chemistry and Music (Concordia College), M. Div. (Harvard Divinity School, '63); Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations (Harvard University, '69); D.H.L. (Honorary, John Jay/CUNY, '93); Litt. D. (Honorary, Addis Ababa University, 2004). He is a founder, and the first Professor of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University. Director of the Institute of Semitic Studies, a founder and the first professor of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University where in recognition of his outstanding teaching role “voted the best teacher each year by the students of the Department” a yearly “The Ephraim Isaac Prize for Excellency in African Languages” is given to a Harvard graduating senior. Called the Father of Peace by Ethiopians, he helped found the Horn of Africa Peace & Development Center (PDC), and through PDC the Coalition of Ethiopian-Eritrean Elders, Coalition of Ethiopian-Eritrean Women’s Peace Initiative; Coalition of Ogaden National Elders, Coalition of Oromo Peace Elders, and the Coalition of Ethiopian Elders. He has also received numerous national and international peace prizes.

Dr. Tilahun Beyene, Executive Board Member Ph.D. Educational Planning, Policy Making and Administration, University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author of several books and articles dealing with Retention and Graduation. He has received numerous awards; most recently the Gold Peace Medal from the Interfaith Peace-Building Initiative in September of 2007 and the Silver Medal from the University of Maryland College of Education in May of 2007.He is a Founder, Chair, and Executive Board member of several civic organizations in the US, including PDC. He had served as President of the Teacher’s Federation-Ethiopia/Eritrea (1970-1973.) He has also received Gold Medal for peace from the Society of Ethiopians Established in Diaspora (SEED) in 2008.

Ambassador Dr. Mulugeta Eteffa, Board Member Chairman, The Forum for the Study of Foreign Policy; Former Executive Director, PDC; Former Ambassador of Ethiopia to France, Spain, Portugal, the Vatican and UNESCO; former Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to the United Nations; Visiting Scholar, African Studies Center, Michigan State University; Visiting Professor, University of Leipzig, Germany; Assistant Professor of English and Theory of Communication, Addis Ababa University.

14 Dr. Haileselasie Belay, Board Member Haile Selassie Belay, BSc (Agri), MSc & PhDs, Cornell University; First Executive Director of PDC; Recipient of gold medals for peace from two different organizations; Ombudsman representative for Montgomery County, Maryland; Former director General of Agricultural Education and Extension, MOA; Former Dean of Alemaya Agriculture College; Former Economic Affairs Officer, UN/ECA; Vice Minister, MOA; Governor of Tigrai Region; Head of Ethiopian Delegation to 1972 FAO Regional Conference; Head of Ethiopian Delegation to 1973 UNESCO Minister's Conference; Senior Technical Advisor, FAO/UNDP; Associate Professor, Addis Ababa University.

Wro Rahel Mekuria, Board Member A granddaughter of Hakim Workineh, Rachel Makuria is a B.A. graduate of Cambridge University, Great Britain. As the Former Head, Educational Television Production Division of the Media Agency of the Ministry of Education, she pioneered Ethiopian Educational television. She is Former Board President, The Young Women's Christian Association; Gender Officer at the British Council, where she started the first women’s magazine in Ethiopia called “Women to Women” that raised issues of women’s rights and equality and served as the Chief Editor. She is a recipient of the 2014 Woman of Excellence Award (AWIB) that celebrates the accomplishments of women in their careers, businesses and communities.

Ato Tadesse Gurmu, Board Member Distinguished Lawyer; former Prosecutor and judge at the Ministry of Justice; former Legal advisor at Ethiopian Electric and Water authority. He has served as the lead lawyer for some of the most important Ethiopian Supreme court cases. He has earned the Gold Peace Medals for Peace from the Interfaith Peace-Building Initiative in 2007 and the Gold Medal for Peace from the Society of Ethiopians in Diaspora (SEED) in 2008.

15 Ambassador Bekele Endeshaw, Board Member Former Executive Director at Peace and Development Committee/PDC/; former Senior Interregional Advisor at directorate level (L-7) in The United Nations, New York; former Ambassador of Ethiopia to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and concurrently representing Ethiopia in the European Economic Community (EEC) in Brussels; former Vice Minister of Commerce and Industry, Ethiopia; former Executive Secretary of the former National Coffee Board of Ethiopia. He has earned the Gold Peace Medals for Peace from the Interfaith Peace-Building Initiative in 2007 and the Gold Medal for Peace from the Society of Ethiopians in Diaspora (SEED) in 2008.

Ahmed Moen, Board Member and PDC Health Advisor Bachelor of Political Science and Public Administration and Health Sciences, The American University of Beirut, Lebanon, MHA, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, MPH and Dr PH, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. National Director of Medical Services, Ministry of Public Health Ethiopia until 1972 and Chairman/Director and founder of Health Sciences and Management at Howard University USA. He is also a member of the People to People Organization for Health and Development in Ethiopia, as well as a Board Member of Plan USA/Plan International formerly known as Child reach founded in 1935 for the past 15 years. He served as international health and development consultant with USAID, Carter Center for Peace Initiatives in Ethiopia and World Bank Projects in Yemen, Indonesia, Uganda and Kuwait. He currently serves as a visiting professor with School of Pharmacy in Addis Ababa University and University of Gondar/Howard University Partnership. He has earned the Gold Peace Medals for Peace from the Interfaith Peace-Building Initiative in 2007 and the Medal for Peace from Society of Ethiopians in Diaspora (SEED) in 2008.

Ato Ayten Anemaw Birhanie, Executive Director PhD Candidate in Global and Area Studies with a special emphasis on Peace and Security in Africa (University of Leipzig and Institute for Peace and Security Studies of Addis Ababa University). Graduated with Master of Arts degree from United Nations mandated University for Peace/UPEACE/ in Peace and Conflict Studies; holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology and another Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Education from Addis Ababa University. Worked as a Lecturer at different Universities in Ethiopia; also worked as Project Manager and Peace Project Officer at different institutions and organizations.

16 1.3. Strategic Foundation of PDC PDC, to practically realize its ideals, needs to establish its destination. As a result, the PDC has developed its own strategic foundation. The strategic foundation consists of the mission, vision and value statements of PDC as indicated here forth.

Mission: PDC advocates a culture of Peace and Development through proactive grassroots participation by fostering customary and modern conflict resolution mechanisms in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

Vision: PDC envisions a Horn of Africa where justice and peace prevail so that the peoples of the region will thrive and prosper, focusing their energies on economic development, eradicating totally poverty, disease, and illiteracy.

Values: Neutrality: PDC doesn't endorse, promote or oppose political parties, political entities, candidates, and forums or platforms or/and religious ideologies. All are respected regardless of their status.

Human Dignity: PDC values human dignity, and believes the affirmation and upholding of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of human beings are the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. It respects and follows the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Empathy: PDC believes in the importance of fostering understanding and sharing of another person's feelings, needs, concerns and emotional state.

Model for Peace: PDC is committed to peace-building, mediation, conflict prevention and resolution, peace education, education for non-violence, acceptance of others even beyond tolerance, mutual respect, intercultural and interfaith dialogue and reconciliation.

Respect of Others’ Values: PDC respects and appreciate the values, beliefs, cultures and history of others. Honesty: PDC strives to be sincere, truthful, trustworthy, honorable, fair, genuine and loyal with integrity.

17 CHAPTER TWO MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS OF PDC In its journey of 25 years, PDC has been widely recognized by the peoples of Ethiopia as having attained a significant achievement in promoting peace and development in the Horn of Africa.

PDC’s vision is to see an informed, conscious and tolerant society in which the culture of peace and the respect of human rights are appreciated and where the interdependence of peace, stability and development is visible. To that end, PDC tried its best to mediate and stop the conflicts between the Derg regime and the main ethnic liberation fronts at the end of the 1980s, between and within religious factions in 1993, between Ethiopia and Eritrea prior to the Algiers peace agreement by setting up an Ethio-Eritrean elders’ mediation team in 1998, and more recently between the current government and then-jailed opposition politicians and journalists, 2006-7, as well as to mediate the subsequent release of Ms. Birtukan Mideksa after her second imprisonment, in October, 2010. It has also assisted with the release of two German hostages (March 2012) and the release of two Swedish prisoners (September 2012).

From the very beginning of PDC’s work, its approach to mediation has been informed by Ethiopian traditional eldership practices. Beyond these high-level interventions, PDC takes most pride in having trained over 3 million Ethiopians in peace building, democracy, human rights and democratization and development issues.

Detail of Some Major Achievements of PDC: 2. 1. Helping in Ending the Civil War in Ethiopia The ad hoc Peace Committee, the forerunner of Peace and Development Center, was established at a critical stage in Ethiopian history in 1989. The founders of the Committee—a dozen Ethiopian elders facilitated several bilateral negotiations between the then Government and all conflicting parties at home and abroad. This created a forum of dialogue for a peaceful resolution to the violence and bloody conflict. The Committee contributed to accelerate the end of the 30-year Horn of Africa civil war and resolution of conflicts in July 1991. It then helped raise funds to defray the cost of the Addis Ababa Conference for a Peaceful and Democratic Transition when the 30-year civil war and conflicts formally ended. A Transitional Government of Ethiopia was formed, and a Transitional Council that later became the Parliament of Ethiopia. The founders of the Peace and Development Center participated in the Conference as observers along with representatives of the international diplomatic community and religious leaders. The PDC representative and Chairman, Professor Ephraim Isaac, gave one of the three concluding goodwill addresses. In his concluding remarks the professor says:

18 "It is the beginning of the fulfillment of our hopes. Peace is not just a passive state of mind or existence, my dear friends. Indeed, if so, it will not be meaningful or lasting. Peace must be an active and dynamic human experience ... There is now hope for us, and for the future generation. Our country Ethiopia, a land of great history–a long history, a short history–can truly become an example for all of Africa and the world."

2. 2. Ethio-Eritrean Conflict and the Peace Process In 1998, a war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Board of Directors and founding members of PDC immediately met and decided to work together to mediate the conflict. In June 1998 the Chairman made a direct telephone call to the late Prime Minister H.E. Ato Melese Zenawi and wrote a letter to H. E. President Isaias Afwerki, expressing the readiness and offer of the Elders to mediate the conflict. President Isaias’s written telefax response came promptly within twenty-four hours. The ready acceptance of the two leaders to welcome the Elders was so encouraging and forthright, that a PDC Coalition of Ethio-Eritrean Elders Peace Delegation was immediately formed.

The two leaders agreed to welcome the Coalition Delegation at the earliest possible time, and preparations were made for a mid-June Departure. Members of the Ethio-Eritrean Elders Coalition consisted of Dr. Haile Selassie Belay, Dr. Tilahun Beyene, Dr. Haile Mezgaba, Prof. Asgada Hagos, Dr. Yonas Zegeye, and the Chair Professor Ephraim Isaac. H. E. Dejazmatch Zewde GebreSelassie also came along as advisor.

Before their departure for the Horn of Africa, the Ethio-Eritrean Elders Coalition Delegation made contact with the UN Secretary General and the UN Undersecretary for Political Affairs informing them of the objectives of the Coalition of Ethio-Eritrean Elders delegation. The UN warmly welcomed the idea and agreed to give any necessary additional assistance. Indeed, when the private plane of the PDC Coalition Delegation broke down in Djibouti, a UN FAO plane stationed in Hargeissa was sent to Djibouti by order of the UN Secretary General to bring the PDC Coalition Delegation to Asmara and return them after four days.

Upon their arrival in Addis Ababa, Government officials met the Coalition Delegation at the airport as VIP. Prime Minister H.E. Ato Meles received the Coalition Delegation warmly and conferred with them for over four hours. They discussed the modalities for the end of the war, the cessation of the deportation of Eritrean nationals, and the speedy re-establishment of Ethiopian-Eritrean relations. The Coalition Delegation met together and discussed their strategies several times before travelling to Asmara. They also had a chance to review the matter with the then Eritrean Ambassador to Ethiopia, H.E. Ato Girma Asmarom at the Sheraton Hotel.

19 The private plane the Coalition Delegation had hired to fly to Asmara from Addis Ababa failed when they arrived in Djibouti. After a two-day stay in Djibouti, the UN-FAO came to their rescue and brought them to Asmara. During their two-day stay in Djibouti waiting for the UN plane, they were fortunate to cross paths with the Eritrean Foreign Minister H.E. Ato Haile Woldense (Woldetensae) who was staying at the same hotel on his way to an African country. They were thus able to get additional perspective on the war from the Foreign Minister H. E. Ato Haile with whom they spent one whole evening.

Upon their arrival in Asmara, the Coalition Delegation was met as VIPs by Eritrean Government officials and received warmly. During their first day in Asmara, a meeting was arranged with the new refugees coming out of Ethiopia, and a moving and friendly exchange of ideas were conducted for almost half a day. That evening the Delegation met with H.E. President Isaias who received them warmly and spent over four hours discussing the issues and the needed solutions. Representative of the Coalition of the Ethio-Eritrean Delegation also subsequently met the President privately. In the following weeks, members of PDC travelled to Asmara and Addis Ababa respectively at least two more times to speak with the two leaders respectively. More importantly, the Elders kept in continual touch almost daily by telephone, telefax, e- mail, and letters with both leaders and officials trying their best to ameliorate the tensions between the two- brotherly/sisterly nations that unfortunately got stuck in the fighting. PDC is most grateful to the two leaders who showed great confidence in the Ethio-Eritrean Elders.

The Coalition of Ethio-Eritrean Elders Delegation was the only group from the region that was accepted by both parties. More importantly, the two leaders respectively made every effort to listen to the advice of the Elders with whom they felt close affinity. Indeed, it can be said that the Elders had come close to solving the problems, but then other foreign negotiators jumped. For diplomatic reasons, the two nations had to respect these intervener’s’ views and the informal peace process was derailed. Unfortunately, the fighting ended on the battlefield. Today, PDC hopes and prays for a speedy resolution of the present continuing sad stalemate between the two-brotherly/ sisterly nations.

2.3. Election-2005: Mediation Effort for the Release of CUD Prisoners As indicated earlier PDC Elders were always committed to see a peaceful, stable, socially and economically prosperous Ethiopia–an exemplary nation for all Africa and the world. In this regard, they believe that any and every obstacle that saps the energy of its leaders and its people should be removed to the extent possible. PDC Elders desire to see a country where the leaders and people can nurture peace and love so that they can wholly focus their time and energy on social and economic development. In this regard, PDC Elders listen to the concern of every Ethiopian who feels pain for one or another reason. They work hard to heal any wound that exists anywhere among the Ethiopian people.

20

In the early 1990’s, as noted above one concern among many Ethiopians was the detention and imprisonment of certain Opposition political leaders and members. In June 1992, the OLF withdrew from the government; in March 1993, members of the Southern Ethiopia Peoples’ Democratic Coalition left the government. The cries of members of the OLF, ONEG, EPRP, MEISON, and AAPO reached their ears. Hearing the calls,starting in1993 the PDC leaders respectfully addressed an appeal to the Government for the pardon and release of prisoners, noting that there was an ancient Ethiopian tradition of freeing prisoners during certain important national holidays. In the case of imprisoned officials, including imprisoned Derg members who were accused of criminal deeds, the Elders advocated speedy court proceedings and trial, so that any innocent individuals among them can be freed.

Dialogue with opposition political party leaders at PDC office

The PDC Elders were most grateful to the Late Prime Minister and the Government of Ethiopia that seriously considered their pleas and kept the door to the concept of pardoning and freeing prisoners open. Indeed, there were several cases where prisoners were allowed to leave, notably the famous Ethiopian physician, Dr. Asrat, for whom the Elders had then confidentially launched a plea for his release, who was allowed to go to the U.S. for medical care.

21 Unfortunately, while these prison discussions were proceeding, the Ethio-Eritrean war broke out and the focus of the PDC Elders shifted to the immediate need of the cessation of hostilities to save lives and renew the brotherly and sisterly relations of Ethiopia and Eritrea, as described here above.

Subsequently, the Ethiopian democratic space opened favorably for all, and Ethiopia held a general National Election May 7, 2005. The ruling party (EPRDF) and several oppositions parties--namely Kenjit or the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), United Ethiopia Democratic Forces (UEDF), Medhin Party, Rainbow Ethiopia: Movement for Democracy and Social Justice, the Oromo Federal Democratic Movement (OFDM) and some independent candidates—participated. The European mission described the early amiable and congenial atmosphere surrounding the Election in these words: “…. the campaign was calm, culminating in two massive, peaceful rallies in Addis Ababa, one by the EPRDF and one by the opposition.” U.S. observers and Government also praised the elections saying, "These elections stand out as a milestone in creating a new, more competitive multi-party political system in one of Africa’s largest and most important countries.”

Unfortunately, immediately after the Election, certain political problems developed. The problems arose largely over allegations of stolen ballots and voter irregularities involving as many as 299 seats out of a national assembly of 547 seats. The allegations were made by CUD. But the ruling party EPRDF also brought similar charges and accusations, ascribing irregularities on the part of the activities of CUD and other smaller parties.

The charges and counter charges went on for several weeks. The disputes captured the attention of the media especially the private newspapers, which debated the developing stories in their daily news columns and editorials. The incident also drew the attention of the people of Addis Ababa and indeed other cities. In a matter of weeks, the usually silent and docile public was showing intense interest and involvement in the political dispute. The public interest was pervasive, touching nearly all corners of the City and the nation.

Concerned with the political developments, PDC issued a press release in June 2005 calling all parties to exercise moderation and restraint and to negotiate their differences peacefully. However, the dispute continued to give rise to wide ranging tensions all over the country. This culminated, at least in part, in two mass rallies called by the Government and the Opposition groups and the gathering of a large number of people at the Meskel Square.

22 In a series of efforts to diffuse the tension, the European Union, United States, Finland and other members of the diplomatic community took several initiatives to bring the Government and the Opposition groups together with a view to helping them resolve their differences through discussion and dialogue. Discreet attempts, which did not catch the attention of the media, were also made by PDC especially by its Board Chairman who tirelessly contributed to the peace efforts in discussions with leaders of the Government and the Opposition groups.

PDC’s initiatives were taken in a coordinated way. First, the PDC Board Chairman, as mentioned above, held a series of consultations with the authorities and the then PDC Executive Director. Second, the Executive Director, Ambassador Bekele Endeshaw, teamed up with three other peace initiatives, conducted by a group known as “Concerned Citizens Group” chaired by Professor Bahru Zewdie, the Inter African Group chaired by Ato Tamrat Kebede, Alem Mediation and Peace Initiatives (AMPI), and an NGO operating under the leadership of Dejazmatch Zewdie G/Selassie with active participation of Ato Zewge Gedlu. The four groups were carrying on their activities separately but had occasional conversations on the progress each has made to bring about a dialogue among the contending parties.

The existence of these groups caught the attention of some members of the diplomatic community, namely the European Union, the United Kingdom, United States, and Finland who on their own were also engaged with the Government and the Opposition groups. As a result, PDC and the three Ethiopian groups were invited by the heads of the diplomatic community to exchange views on the situation at hand and to brief each other on the outcomes of their separate initiatives on the peace process. The meetings were held in the context of ACP/EEC Cotonu Convention in which civil society members are recognized as partners in peace and development initiatives.

Heads of missions of the above diplomatic group briefed the Ethiopian group on their peace initiatives and inquired on the role and activities of the civil society in Ethiopia in general. The Ethiopian group used the occasion to brief the heads of the diplomatic missions on their separate efforts to bring about a dialogue to resolve an imminent conflict. This was the period when the charges and counter charges over the alleged ballots frauds and voter irregularities had become acrimonious and acute.

Members of the diplomatic community underlined the need for a negotiated settlement among the parties involved. But after a round of discussion between the participants, PDC suggested the need to develop a framework on the basis of which the parties to the conflict could be invited to hold discussions. It was then agreed that the Ethiopian group should draft a framework on the basis of which attempts could be made to invite the parties to the conflict to hold discussions. The four Ethiopian groups agreed to meet at the PDC

23 office, and several meetings were held to develop a solution framework. Subsequently, the Ethiopia group and the Heads of the diplomatic missions along with the three leaders of the opposition groups (Dr. Beyene Petros, Dr. Berhanu Nega and Dr. Merara Gudina) met. PDC was invited to present the draft framework document along with its unofficial English translation. Discussions followed the presentation in which the leaders of the political parties mentioned above took part primarily with the Ethiopian group, with the diplomatic community represented as observers.

Extensive discussions followed the presentation in which leaders of the political parties took part. In the end, the reaction received from them was cautious and non-committal but they did not reject the draft framework document. The assessment by the Ethiopian group and the diplomatic missions was that the paper could be used as working document if positive reactions of the Government on the document could be obtained.

Accordingly, the Ethiopian group (Inter Africa Group not present) began discussion with the Government representatives to assess the potential of the document as a basis for discussion. To that end, the possibility of convening a joint meeting with the Government representatives was sought. The Executive Director of PDC for his part called several personalities to help bring about the said meeting. That, however, was not possible and PDC and the two other groups had to remain in the periphery at least for a while, in the search for peace and reconciliation.

Meanwhile, the European Union and a group of Ambassadors succeeded to bring about a dialogue, but PDC and the three Ethiopian groups were not invited to take part. Those discussions continued up until they broke down over the preparation of an eight-point agenda between the Government and the opposition. Thereafter, the leadership of Kenjit or CUD began to hold discussions with what they described as "well known personalities" (in which the Executive Director of PDC also took part) and members of the communities in the ten woreda associations in Addis Ababa. The intention of Kenjit was to deepen the consultations at regional levels.

Subsequently, Kenjit came out with the decision that its elected members would not take their seat in the Parliament for several reasons, including objection to the new rules of the parliamentary procedures, which were legislated more recently by the existing Parliament.

Subsequently, at the beginning of September 2005, the Chairman of PDC arrived from the U.S. and met with H.E. the Prime Minister. He was received warmly by the PM who sent a conciliatory message to the leaders of CUD. He communicated the message to two of the leaders of CUD in person at the Hilton Hotel

24 and encouraged them to take their seats in the Parliament, after which all their concerns will be taken up in the Parliament. They agreed to consult with their colleagues and decide.

After his return to the U.S., PDC Board Chair then received an important registered letter from H.E. the Prime Minister: in effect saying to please advise and encourage the Opposition leaders to take their seats in the Parliament, that EPRDF has won the national vote and will govern Ethiopia, that CUD has won Addis Ababa and can start to govern Addis Ababa, and that all issues are open for discussion in the Parliament. This message was immediately communicated by telephone to the said two Opposition leaders with an appeal to them to take their seats in the Parliament and start to administer Addis Ababa.

Meanwhile, rumors of initiation of public demonstrations and civil disobedience activities became rife and public participation in them appeared inevitable and imminent.

Subsequently, sometime in October, the PDC Board Chair received another important registered letter from H.E. the Prime Minister. The letter expressed grave concern about rumors of an impending mass demonstration but reiterated the former positive message. This message was also communicated to and discussed with the same two Opposition leaders. But this time he also telephoned another important Opposition party leader and appealed to him to continue peaceful dialogue and serve the people of Ethiopia as elected members of the Parliament and administrators of our Capital city. Concerned about the dangers that can result from a demonstration and desirous of a peaceful continuation of the dialogue with the Government himself, this Opposition leader promised to do his best to discuss with his colleagues the matter and the important message from the PM.

Regrettably, as anticipated, CUD leadership called for a week of riots and public demonstration began on October 31, 2005, with services of private transportation (taxies) suspended. People gathered around the main squares particularly in the Merkato area. The demonstrations culminated on November 6, 2005 when it was reported that security services had opened fire and according to media reports many people, including some security personnel, were killed and many others wounded. According to other reports, two buses were burned, windows of a number of buses were broken and properties destroyed. It was further reported that thousands of alleged demonstrators were arrested for several days running. It was announced that the leaders of CUD, Kenjit, their supporters, journalists and other bystanders were imprisoned. CUD leaders and officials, journalists and human rights defenders were placed on trial (several in their absence) for political offences punishable by death or life imprisonment.

Almost within ten days of the aftermath of the tragedy and arrest and imprisonment of several Opposition party leaders, PDC Board Chairman arrived in Addis Ababa for an academic tour. He took this opportunity

25 to meet H.E. the Prime Minister and to hold consultations with EPRDF officials and members of the Opposition who were not arrested. He was given permission for the first time to go and visit jailed opposition leaders, some of whom friends like Prof. Mesfin, an academic colleague, and Dr. Yacob, an early ad hoc Peace Committee member, at the Mehakelawi Prison near the Police Headquarters.

The following weeks, U.S. and European Union political officials and private individuals descended upon Addis Ababa to visit the prisoners and free them. The national Ethiopian response to all the foreign private and governmental emissaries was always that this was a national, not international, matter that they should not interfere with.

In early 2006, PDC Board Chair was invited by the U.S. cultural consul to give a lecture at Gondar University. He took this opportunity to see H.E. the PM and ask for permission to visit the prisoners. Being an Ethiopian national, he was allowed to visit the prisoners this time at Kaliti. During two visits and before his return to the U.S., he delivered a message from the PM to resolve the matter and brought their response to the PM.

Subsequently, PDC Board Chair, discussed with Ambassador Bekele, then Executive Director of PDC, to see what could be done by way of cooperating as a Coalition with all interested groups to reconcile and resolve the conflict and free the prisoners. Accordingly, PDC Executive Director gathered leaders of religious institutions, heads of institutions working on peace, and other distinguished personalities to meet at Hilton Hotel on November 14-15, 2005. They agreed to form a Coalition. Professor Ephraim Isaac, Ambassador Bekele, and Multiple Olympic Gold Medalist Athlete Haile Gebrselassie covered the cost of the two meetings held at the Hilton.

Prior to entering into a Coalition, traditional Elders first assured themselves that their mediation would be acceptable by both parties to the dispute and secondly seeking information on the nature and specifics of the issues that gave rise to the dispute from parties on conflict separately in a free and unrestricted manner. That was the way they ferreted out their information and solicited opinions and directions along which solution could be sought.

The Elders discussed all aspects of the conflict and decided to seek an audience with the late Prime Minister. PDC Chair, who had then returned to the U.S., telephoned the PM office to arrange a meeting for the Elders. The Elders then established a sub-committee to prepare initial talking points with the late Prime Minister that they did. They also met Opposition leaders not in jail and shared their plan in mediating and resolving

26 the conflict. Seven such meetings were held at the PDC office with members of the Opposition under the chairmanship of the PDC Executive Director, Ambassador Bekele.

In the course of the preparation of the talking points, members noted the complexity and sensitivities of the issues surrounding the conflict. While adequate preparations were made to discuss the issues exhaustively, the Elders decided to approach the matter with extreme caution adapting a procedure to seek the opinion and advice of the Prime Minister on the conflict and ways and means of bringing about reconciliation. In their meeting, the Elders designated incumbently known Ambassador Bekele Endeshaw as lead discussant, to be assisted by Olympic Gold Medalist Haile Gebreselassie and General Solomon Beyene (former Commander of the Ethiopian Air Force).

The Prime Minister received the Coalition of Elders in his office. The Elders asked for his advice and counsel for resolving the issues. In response, the Prime Minister presented the issues surrounding the conflict in great detail and informed the Elders that the matter was before the Court that would pronounce its verdict in the future. After one more meeting and discussion that ensued between the Prime Minister and the Elders, the matter was left in abeyance. However, in the course of the discussion the Prime Minster underlined the benefit of continuing such discussions with Elders and encouraged them to explore a broader agenda covering other matters that lend themselves to such mediation. Thereafter, PDC Executive Director Ambassador Bekele Endeshaw continued to hold a series of meetings with the Council of Elders1. They discussed the modalities for holding exploratory meetings between the Government on one hand and the detained CUD leaders on the other.

During the years 2006-2007, the Chairman of the Board of PDC returned to Ethiopia at least seven times to visit to the CUD prisoners in Kaliti with the explicit permission of the Government. After his third visit alone, he thought it important to include other Elders in the visits to Kaliti. He, therefore, respectfully requested H.E. the Prime Minister for Government permission to include and involve three Elders during the visits to Kaliti and kindly received the approval. After that, the visits to the prisoners by the PDC Board Chair included Ambassador Bekele Endeshaw, world-renowned athlete Haile Gebreselassie and Pastor Daniel Gebreselassie who participated in the discussions with the CUD prisoners. They in turn reported back the progress of their effort to the Coalition of Elders.

1 The Council of Elders included 25 of the most prominent members of Ethiopian society, including the famed runner, Haile Gebreselassie; Imama Tsion Andom, a woman imprisoned for seven years by the former ruling Derg; Ato Tamiri Wondimagagnehu, Chairman of the Ethiopian Lawyers Association; doctors; veteran journalists; former parliamentarians; and retired ambassadors.

27 In consideration of the sensitivity of the matter, the four Elders had several important meetings with jailed CUD leaders on how to peacefully end their detention. Then they prepared a proposal for the modalities for the release of the prisoners that was submitted to the Government. Unfortunately, certain disagreements remained on both sides.

The CUD prisoners were charged with genocide and treason. The Federal High Court ruled that 38 of the top leaders of CUD are guilty of the offences they were accused of and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The remaining 31 were sentenced to different jail terms depending on the gravity of their cases.

However, in their desire to heal a national wound, PDC and the Coalition partners, never gave up their pursuit to find ways to free the prisoners, even after they were sentenced to life imprisonment. Thus, a long and protracted mediation effort of the four Elders continued during the following several months. After mediation with the four said Elders stalled, three of the founding members of CUD–Dr. Haile Selassie Belay, Dr. Tilahun Beyene, and Dr. Ahmed Moen travelled from the U.S. to Ethiopia to join the former four Elders and continue negotiations with the prisoners. The Life & Peace Institute supported their trip.

This was an important event. It happens that the said Founders of PDC were either schoolmates or colleagues of several of the older jailed and sentenced CUD leaders. Indeed, their arrival in Kaliti was a matter of great pleasure and psychological relief for the prisoners and became an important icebreaker.

But an impasse still prevailed. After one final visit with the Founding Elders, the PDC Board Chair decided to meet with the Chair of CUD in private at the prison. That visit widened the door opened with the help of the Founders, and became the first important step to the final closure of the case. With the endorsement of the CUD Chairperson, the prisoners met and accepted a term for their release based on pardon terms the Government offered.

However, a technical legal issue arose, and PDC sought the advice of a distinguished lawyer Ato Tamiru Wondemagegnehu, Chair of the Ethiopian Lawyers Association and a person familiar first-hand with the case of the Opposition prisoners. The PDC Chair and Ato Tamiru finally succeeded to convince the prisoners to accept the terms of the pardon offered by the Government. However, they still wanted to have a special meeting with all their jailed leadership colleagues of CUD and vote on the acceptance of the offer of pardon by the Government by all Opposition leaders in jail. Initially, it appeared that such a “political” conference of prisoners would not be allowed in jail. However, the Government was generous to allow the meeting to take place for one hour that turned into an almost one-day private jail conference. After the final consent and acceptance of the Government offer, PDC Board Chair and Ato Tamiru were the last two persons to witness the signing of the agreed upon document by the CUD leaders. They surprised the two

28 with beautiful kind gifts of art pieces of Lalibela, Gondar, and Axum that they had made in prison. Their final release from jail on Saturday July 20, 2007 took place with great national jubilation.

Following their release, the American Government issued a statement saying "The United States appreciates the efforts of Ethiopian elders and civil society leaders that resulted in today’s pardon by the Ethiopian Government of 38 opposition leaders and journalists detained in the wake of political violence in 2005." The European Union, the Amnesty International followed with similar messages to the Elders.

In subsequent weeks and months, PDC Chair visited Kaliti several times to conclude and witness the release of hundreds of other jailed Opposition party members and colleagues all over the country. CUD leaders, especially Ms. Birtukan Mideksa, provided their names and lists.

During about a dozen trips from the U.S. to Ethiopia, the PDC Board Chair and Founding members incurred extensive expenses. Board Chair paid for two trips out of his own pocket. Athlete Haile Gebresellasie kindly paid for two of his trips. The rest were kind donations by the International community, especially the Embassies of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and France. PDC is most grateful to all our friends who supported us along.

29 CHAPTER THREE CURRENT PEACE BUILDING AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION INTERVENTIONS OF PDC

3.1. Peacebuilding in Ethiopian Public Universities (Sustained Dialogue) Project Introduction

Peace and Development Center/PDC/ in collaboration with Life and Peace Institute/LPI/ has implemented Sustained Dialogue Project in Ethiopian Universities since 2009. The project was first started in 2009 in Addis Ababa University and expanded to Haramaya and Jimma Universities in 2013 and 2014, respectively. With the support secured from USAID, the projected has been expanded to three more universities namely Ambo and Bahir Dar Universities as well as university of Gondar since 2017. Currently the project embraced Ambo, Bahir Dar, Jimma, and Haramaya Universities and University of Gondar.

The goal of the project is to enhance intergroup positive relationships by promoting a culture of trust and collaboration among diverse identity lines in University campuses through a year-long dialogue process. Since its inception, the project brought together thousands of university students from diverse identity lines and created them a safer space to dialogue on identity based issues that roughen intergroup relations on campuses. So, in addition to changing the dialogue participants’ attitudes and perceptions towards other identity lines, the project seeks to position key young men and women in the university campuses to have a catalytic multiplier effect on more people in and off campus. Best practices and success stories are expected to be evaluated, tailored and disseminated to the wider community.

PDC believing the different approaches to conflict is required and informed by several interventions and its effectiveness, experiences and research outputs of similar situations and based on the knowledge on the literatures published on peace building and development, both found the SD is the right and initial or first level of intervention that one need to be engaged in for the like of the country of people or society deeply divided with long history mired with violence and conflicts such as Ethiopia- a case that has been exhibiting the same or similar situations.

The different approach to conflict appealed to PDC and that formed the basis and aspect of their partnership demanded Sustained Dialogue. It is in that and because Sustained Dialogue - an interactive process designed to change conflictual relationships over time - is different from the usual public – policy discussions and from formal mediations and negotiations. First, it focuses on the dynamics of the underlying relationships that cause divisive problems, not just on the problems. Second, it focuses on changing those relationships,

30 not just on choosing a policy direction or on dividing material goods or power in dispute through formal mediation or negotiation. It is designed for groups, communities and organizations in deep-rooted human conflict or tension whatever the cause-ethnic, racial, religious, historic, material or personal.

Moreover, more than appealing; another elaborate definition, concept and processes, implementation, and the goal and outcomes that SD seeks to achieve are well aligned with the mission, purpose, goals and the level of interventions that both PDC and LPI can and wishes to achieve in Ethiopia and its violence and conflict contexts in that SD1 is more structured than a good conversation or study group discussion and less structured than a mediation or negotiation. It perseveres over time. It has purpose and destination and the possibility of generating power to accomplish goals. Its purpose is to provide an experience in changing relationships within the dialogue group. Its destination is to design a plan for changing relationships in the larger community. It can produce a shared sense of what kind of community or country current antagonists would like to build together to serve the interests of each.

The SD projects knowledgably, skillfully and professionally stick to the five-stages of SD processes outlined, with some rooms of flexibilities to project sites, contexts, settings that promote effective and efficient implementation of respective projects. The rooms of flexibilities also tried to accommodate progressive tasks, both practical and psychological, that each stage represents and the many faces of challenges that each stage may pose. Hence, the five-stages of the SD processes were carefully and flexibly applied with respective projects of different campuses that marked university community and diversity, scoping study and validation workshops to identify the causes of violence and conflicts and area of intervention, additional activities, different planning and implementation, different monitoring and evaluation design, tools, techniques and implementations and learning practices etc which in fact also different outcomes and effects. Performed Activities

1. Scoping Study and Validation Workshops in the Universities

As part of the respective annual plan for SD projects in five different universities in different regions of Ethiopian, scoping study and validation workshops had been conducted for the following purposes after the five universities had been selected because these universities have been experiencing much political and ethnic violence and conflicts and the SD inventions have been found to be appropriate. Thus, the scoping study and validation workshops conducted in these five universities served the following purposes: • Exploring the appropriate area, method and level of interventions with respect of each university which understands, identifies and acts on the pressing issues that have negative

31 impacts and SD processes that takes in to consideration the selection effects and process effects which make the project in each more efficient and effective. • To assess the quality and creditability of the scoping study by presenting the methodology used, data collected and their sources, the limitation and output of the scoping study to all respective audiences and participants that allow open space, discussion and consensus for validation so that comprehensive, relevant and appropriate intervention strategies are designed.

The major findings and outcomes of the scoping study and validation workshops in each university are:

• The ethnic, religious, linguistic, socio-cultural and socio-economic differences among the students led to the disharmonious relationships at Haramaya, Jimma Ambo universities. • Religious and ethnic tensions have been identified as the two major pressing issues which causes tensions and disharmonies inter-group interactions in the University of Gondar and Bahir Dar University. • The validation workshops at all universities have also offered an opportunity to enriching the research with important comments, recommendations and suggestions from the participants, and create a sense of ownership on the minds of the universities communities which is critical for the effectiveness of the project. • Motivational and peace promoting speeches and personal experiences by distinguished participants.

2. Campus Awareness Campaign in the Universities

Much effort had been put in place for the participation on Sustained Dialogue processes to have had much significant effects on the participants which in turn will have larger and wider effects on those parts of the communities and the society in the country. One of the initial ways to ensure the SD projects are effective and successful are to work meticulously on target areas, identification and assignment of well diversified and large number of participants to the treatment of SD projects so that the impact effect that SD projects intended to produce are not suffered from selection bias or selection effects (that a project attracts only certain type of people) and process effects (that projects have an effect on people). In our case, one of the initial steps to ensure successful SD projects is creating well organized campus awareness campaign programs using of diversified media platforms impactful enough to communicate audiences and to act on them.

Thus, the campus awareness campaign programs in five universities in general and in particular serve the following purposes:

32 • In general, to attract, select, and appoint people (the university community) of the same and different natural division, background and natural division, political position or ideology and orientation-emphasizing the right mix of participants for the purpose - particularly on the basis of ethnic, religion, sex, place of birth and batch which can play an important role in shaping and organizing the whole process of SD and the SD family effectiveness and performance. • Different campaigns at different times were conducted in all universities to make aware and attract participants to SD from the senior and first year students and to introduce SD to the whole university community.

Provided all much effort expended in five universities in the campuses awareness campaign, several thousands of people signed up or registered for the program in each universities.

3. Selection of Sustained Dialogue Participants

3.1. Selection of Sustained Dialogue Participants

Selection of SD participant was one of the major prior activities of the project. The selection process is the first step towards choosing the willing, diverse, competitive, committed and strong, respected and listened to, and those who have permission to engage in dialogue members for the project. The selection process involves a systematic procedure from sourcing the diverse nature of participants to arranging and placing those to different groups.

The selection process begins with by distributing and receiving several thousands of filled participants’ application forms. Several thousands of male and female students applied for participation with, in all, a significantly higher number of male students applied for participation than female students.

While selecting the participants, the Peace Project Officers, moderators and facilitators tried to diversify the pool of selected participants. The selected participants were placed into SD groups.

3.2. Selection of Sustained Dialogue Moderators and Facilitators

Moderators Selection is the process of picking students out of the pool of members of the SD project with requisite qualifications and competence. Moderators’ selection in the SD project is crucial for at least, one reason; The SD group performance depends on Moderators’. The best way to look performance of a group dialogue sessions is to select moderators who have the competence and the willingness to work with diversity intolerance. Arguing from the participants’ viewpoint, poor or inappropriate choice of moderators can de-motivate the rest of the group. Effective selection of Moderators, therefore, assumes greater

33 relevance to the achievement of groups.

Basing this important element of the project, the moderators’ selection roles had been given to the leaders of the Peace Forums, reputed moderators and facilitators promptly supported by the Peace Project Officer of the PDC. It was ensured that such roles of selections are carefully provided in which all must strictly work in lines with set of criterion defined and the principles, rules, regulations, outlined by PDC with minor provisions to the contexts. To identify more qualified potential candidates with unique abilities and characters for the job, interviews sessions were also held in which PDC Peace Project Officers and SD leaders took leading roles.

The selection processes also took diversity along with other factors stated above which considered the potential candidates’ background based on their religion, ethnicity, and departments via academic batches.

3.3. Selection of Sustained Dialogue Opinion Leaders

As one of the major agents of change in the campuses who also has a massive authority and followers in their own specific groupings, opinion leaders are considered as an important element of the SD process. As a result, even though the issue is highly sensitive and they are sometimes hard to reach, and bringing them in SD groups was one of the tasks of the implementing body - PDC. To that effect, a guideline on the selection criteria, the minimum number of opinion leaders to be selected at each university, and methods of selecting and bringing them on board has been developed by PDC and shared to partners. Thus, using the guideline as parameter, opinion leaders had been selected and joined the SD groups.

4. Trainings, Workshops and Support

4.1. Moderators Trainings

Every year around 100 SD moderators should be trained in each university. The trainees were comprised from different backgrounds of ethnic, religion, gender, region, department and batch of the University students. It always keeps equal percentage of female and male. The SD moderator’s role is to maintain the focus of the dialogue in line with the SD principle and goal. The moderator’s role is to guide and stimulate the discussion. He or she facilitates the discussion using a SD principle with all the questions and exercises to guide and ensure equal individual input as well as group discussion. The moderator should create an open and safe environment so people feel encouraged and free to speak up and be actively involved in the discussion. The moderator can be imagined as a father and a mother of the family the competent moderators should have to fulfill these roles and these roles couldn’t get unless the training has been given. Therefore, it is crucial to give them a serious training on how they will behave and live with the whole quality of a

34 good moderator.

During the whole process of SD, the moderators expected to understand what participants really think of a certain subject. Therefore, the information a moderator collects should be framed in the participants’ own language, culture, concepts and understanding of the world. It is important to minimize the influence of the moderators own views and understandings of the world. In the training, the moderators were trained to:

• View conflict as a normal, natural part of life. • Understand that conflict can be regarded as positive, because it offers opportunities for growth and development. • Encourage participants who are in diversity intolerance to voluntarily come for dialogue. • Provide an opportunity for each participant involved in a specific conflict to tell their side of the story or life experience. • Not offer their own suggestions for on how the intolerance should be solved, but instead to help participant to understand each other. • Give each participant a chance to tell his/her identity. • View group participants point of idea from both sides. • Understand the issue at hand and the SD • Keep the dialogue of the participant confidential.

Throughout the training and the practice, the moderators were capacitated to develop listening, understanding and respecting each other and problem solving skills. These skills would be very important to moderators not only while they are at facilitation of their group, but also in the campus and life time in general.

The following topics and concepts usually covered during the SD moderators training.

• How to identify the essential identity map to create a safe and mutual understanding of difference. • Making sense of conflict and some of the possible definition of conflict the cause Vs consequence of conflict and its nature with its approach has been discussed. • Conflict analysis methods: But way, Force field and conflict tree/ methods. • Response to conflict • Dialogue as a conflict management tools. The essence, definition and the difference with other means of communication like debate and discussion • The essential elements Sustained dialogue, the important assumption, the five important

35 stages: Who, What, Why, How and the Now of the SDD and the SD agenda with how it will be conducted has been discussed. • The roles of SD leaders, facilitators, moderators and participants at different stages of the SD

4.2. Leadership Training

The objective of leadership training was to enhance students’ leadership skills of SD project. Every academic year SD leaders take a three days training to enhance their leadership skill of the SD project.

5. Dialogue Kick-Offs in the Universities

PDC tailored approach for planning and implementing Sustained Dialogue projects includes one of the most important and major activity is a Kick-Offs – activity which is an events marked an official day of starting the yearlong dialogue sessions.

In that Kick-Off at each respective university campus set a ground for successful SD projects for the project year to come and beyond and as such, by setting a starting point in which the year-long dialogue sessions begin and the project years that followed, it is time, may be the first time, that moderators and SD participants get an opportunity introduce each other and themselves and plan for the SD processes, sessions and interactions. The kick-Offs are designed, planned and implemented primarily in ways that they created a lasting impressions and memories that promote active participation in the SD projects life span and its wider impacts in building a civic society.

Usually in the Kick-Off events there is an outside field trips, role plays and dramas, tree planting and other activities performed. During the trip to the destinations, SD members were set to an icebreaker activity named: “Know Your Neighbor” which helped each member to know the other member sat next to him/her so that each opening up for interaction. Observantly “Know Your Neighbor” set more relaxed tone and gesture among members during the trip also resulted in they celebrated their arrival to the destination and again the SD inauguration that each holding hand in hand making circle singing and dancing together continuing until a role play produced and performed by Theatrical Art students.

The role play produced and performed by Theatrical Art students informed of the starting concepts of SD from PDC, artfully highlighted the nature, goal and processes of SD and that each member can contribute and the level of participation and impact they could create – an otherwise concepts and messages harder and more difficult to transmit to and for new members to internalize in a given time period- by asking audiences strong questions and resorting the inescapability of differences, disagreements and conflicts

36 among people, even among family members, community, society and bodies of politic and the necessity of dialogues as a transformative means of dealing with conflicts. A well recorded and documented event that could have a wider impact beyond the scene.

SD Kick-off at Bahir Dar University

SD first session and refreshments and lunches in all universities usually ended with again different types of music and songs of different types accompanied by SD members singing and dancing until the return trip to respective university campus where SD members were engaged in the last activity of the kick-off event- tree planting in the campus perimeter in which each SD group usually made to plant a tree with at least one year of commitment to look after the planted tree and its growth- an activity which was visible and surprisingly caught the attentions of peer university students and community members which further set a stage for creating more awareness about the SD programs in the university as those who questioned in wonderment what were going on in the campus and who planted those trees.

6. Half-way Moderators’ Workshops at five Universities

Half way moderators training is important to stimulate the knowledge and skills of moderators so that they can conduct effective dialogue sessions for the rest of the dialogue sessions of the year. The ultimate goal of the workshops is to ensure that the moderators successfully manage the SD process independently, to discuss the challenges they faced during the dialogue sessions and suggest for solutions.

37 The following questions were used to control the group discussion.

• How was the overall SD process during the first semester? • How many sessions each group conducted during the first semester? • How many dropouts were there from each group and why? • What were the major successes recorded in each SD group? • What were the major challenges that the groups faced and how did they deal with them? • How the SD process impacted the participants and the larger university community?

One of the objectives of the half-way moderators’ workshop was to trace the impact of SD on the moderators as well as on the participants engaged in the SD process. To this effect, the moderators were asked to discuss and report how the SD is impacting them and the participants. The moderators usually indicate the SD is positively affecting not only their relationship with others outside of their identity lines, but also their communication skills and knowledge about others’ culture and cultural values. Female students started to feel that SD empowered them more and improved their participation in the dialogue session. In general, the moderators in half-way moderators training stated that SD helped them:

• develop better and practical understanding about the concept of diversity and tolerance within the group members; • positive relationships/friendships among diversified group members, some even outside of the SD groups. (some group members have started sharing academic materials, help each other in their campus life issues) • share experiences about the cultures and languages of the SD participants. (abled to exchange one another’s language and have shown efforts to use others’ languages) • freely express own feelings, opinions, and experiences about others outside of their identity lines (individual change- it shows that they have developed trust among each other). • improve self-confidence to better express themselves in diverse groups • improved their team work and leadership skills (by Moderators and Facilitators • apart from their bi-weekly SD sessions, organize outdoor sport events including football and other games in order to strengthen their relationships. • support each other in academic issues. • SD group members organize get-together programs and fundraising activities outside of SD sessions

The following issues are mentioned by the Moderators as major challenges.

• The general instability in the country in general and in their respective universities in

38 particular class interruptions in connection to this instability affected the SD schedules in general and the attendants of the dialogue sessions in particular. Most of the moderators could not conducted the expected number of the dialogue sessions due to this instability. • Language barriers among participants- some SD participants felt that they are not good at any other languages than their mother tongue. As a result, they were not willing to communicate in Amharic, which is the agreed up on medium of interaction among the SD members. • Lack of time management by the participants- some SD participants do not come to SD sessions on time. This frustrated those who come on time. • Dropouts and absentees- some SD participants dropped out of the SD process or are absent from the sessions. This was due to very tight academic schedule which made it difficult for them to attend the sessions regularly.

8. Sustained Dialogue Campus Wide Collaborative Actions

Sustained Dialogue process in general has five stages. At the fifth stage, all students who were engaged in the SD process for one year select relevant individual and collective actions to impact the wider university communities. The purpose of SD action in general is to impact the wider university community who did not participate in the SD project. Planning and executing SD action in the university campuses has multiple purposes. First, it is assumed that planning the on-campus action component allows SD participants to reinforce their changes after their SD participation and demonstrate to new students a counter narrative to division that permeates in the university campuses. Action components are also expected to contribute to a shift in campus culture across different groups in the universities. The shift in culture will in turn prepare future leaders to leave campus with more understanding and trust of other groups as well as enable university campuses to contribute to overall efforts within Ethiopia to promote dialogue. Sustained dialogue action also complements the dialogue process with additional strategies and mechanisms in order to amplify the effect of such individual changes to reach more people and incrementally add up to a cultural shift. This action is one of the major components of the SD process with the following theory of change.

39

Peace Action at Jimma University

If SD participants are supported and accompanied to collaborate for peace action on campus to share an alternative, positive narrative of collaborating with other groups, Then the collaborative efforts will further reinforce trust and understanding among SD participants And then the action will have a multiplier effect that spreads a culture of trust and understanding among more people on campus, Because first the process of planning and taking action together validates the relationship of trust and creates mutual ownership of the SD action And because the demonstration of collaborative action by diverse SD participants will bring new thinking/understanding about inter-group understanding in the wider campus community. Strategic objectives for SD action are:

• Relationship changes: SD participants have developed positive relationships across identity groups. • Spreading to more people: Collaborative actions by sustained dialogue participants spreads a culture of trust and understanding amongst diverse identity groups.

By organizing SD action, participants are expected to collaborate for peace action on campus to share an alternative, positive narrative of collaborating with other groups. Based on these theory of change, strategic objectives, and intermediate result, the SD cohort in the five universities) implements different collaborative campus actions up on the completion of the year-long dialogue process. To reach more people and bring more impact on other universities communities, the SD action in each University was planned for three

40 consecutive days.

8.1. Planning and Organization of the SD Action

Different identity groups who had been engaged in Sustained Dialogue process raised different causes that affect trust and positive relationships among different identity lines in the university campuses. At the first four stages of the SD process, SD participants in their small groups (10-12 students) try to understand the nature, purpose, and rules of the dialogue process; share their experiences about others, reshape their attitudes and perceptions towards out group members and build trust among one another; identify deep seated causes for the distorted information about and perception towards one another and analyze the root causes for the problems; and develop possible solutions for the problems and strategies to address them, which in turn determine the types and components of the action.

At each stage of the SD process, moderators analyzed issues generated from each SD session and synthesize them thematically. To the end of the SD process, an Action Committee was established at each University. The role of the committee was to collect possible action components from each SD group through their moderators. The Action Committee synthesized the proposed action components thematically and forwarded them to Peace and Development Center (PDC) Project Officers. In order to ensure the relevance of the activities to SD objectives and check the sensitivity of the activities, PDC staff further analyzed the proposed action components. Furthermore, PDC consulted relevant unites of each University (university top managements, campus security, SD focal persons, the Peace Forums) to propose their ideas on the relevance of the action components to the current campus situation.

As the bi-weekly reports of SD groups and Action Committee proposals indicated, the major factors that affect inter-group relationships among different identity lines in the university campuses include, but not limited to:

• Distorted information from families about other ethnic and religious groups; • Distorted information from senior university fellows about other ethnic and/or religious groups in the university campuses; • Due to distorted information about others, negative attitudes and stereotypes towards others who are out of own ethnic and/or religious groups; • Lack of information about others who are outside of own identity lines; • Lack of knowledge and understanding about others religious and ethnic values, partly due to the current Federal system; • Fear and frustration to genuinely interact with others outside of own linguistic, ethnic, and

41 religious groups as well as places of births; • Giving high concern for own ethnic and/or religious values and lack of spaces to listen and respect others’ core values; • Lack of interest to interact with others outside of own identity lines; • Lack of previous exposure to and interaction with other religious and/or ethnic groups due to their absence at the SD participants’ birth places; • Strong warning from the family not to interact with others outside of own religious and/or ethnic groups; • Lack of information about engaging in Sustained Dialogue in the university campuses and, as a result, associating the process with different political or religious affairs; etc.

Based on the abovementioned factors, SD groups proposes different SD Action components to address the factors to the universities communities. In consultation with managements of respective universities, campus security, SD coordinator, Peace Forum, and SD facilitators, the proposed SD Action components were grouped into five major categories and spread over three days. The major categories for the proposed SD activities were:

• Organizing coffee ceremony for the university community; • Organizing panel discussion for the university community; • Organizing different sport and game activities for the students; • Promoting tolerance and positive intergroup interaction through literary works; • Planting seedlings in the university campuses; and • Walking for peace in the university campuses

Given the security issues in each university, consulted organs of the universities meticulously evaluated the purpose and intended outcomes of the proposed SD Action components as well as their implications to peaceful teaching learning environment in each university. Finally, the proposed activities were spread over three days and successfully executed in a participatory manner. Below are the descriptions of each activity performed during the SD Action weeks.

9. Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning

Among other detail activities of the SD process, the annual plan incorporates the monthly MEL visit to be done in all five universities by the responsible Peace Project Officer. The major purpose of the regular monthly monitoring visit is to assess the overall progress of the SD process after the kick-offs by documenting success, addressing challenges, and capacitating the leaders

42 During these monthly monitoring visits, different discussions usually made with the university SD focal person of respective, the SD leaders, and the moderators of each University on the overall progress of the SD process and challenges encountered during the dialogue sessions. Moreover, sample SD sessions has to be visited and some SD participants were also interviewed to track the impact of SD on their life.

During the visits, efforts usually made to enhance the moderators’ awareness on how to manage participants’ feelings and emotions during the experience sharing by using the Issues Guide. The moderators remarked on the importance of such timely guiding tools and stated that it helps them adapt to the emerging dynamics.

The visit also be used to advise moderators to encourage all of the participants to share their experiences in connection to their trust to and relationship with others outside of their identity lines and how that affect their intergroup interactions before they started to engage in the SD process. Before the completion of the visit, usually bi-weekly reports of moderatos collected from the facilitators. Communication cost for the moderators and the facilitators will be paid and refreshment costs were reimbursed for the suppliers in each university.

The other major activity which usually performed during monitoring visit was supervising sample SD groups while they were conducting their SD sessions.

In addition to the observation, some randomly selected SD participants and moderators usually asked through one-on-one interview to express their views about the impact of the SD on their life and on others in the group. This interaction, according to the respondents, helped them understand other culture and cultural values. In line with this, one of the SD moderators stated that “I knew about a religion called Waqeffata for the first time from my SD participants and I started to know more about the values and rituals in the religion.” One SD participant also stated that:

“Before I joined SD, I used to think that Muslim men don’t like Christian women because they don’t shake hands with female students. But after I joined SD, one of the Muslim participants from my group explained to me why they don’t shake hands and its religious values. Now I changed my view to those who are Muslim by their religion. Now, we are good friends with Muslim students who are in my SD group. Besides, I also have learned the culture of different ethnic/religious groups during our story telling sessions.”

The other participant stated that:

43 “First I joined SD just to get certificate as many graduating students do. But after I engaged in the first few sessions, I fall in love with the experiences and stories others brought to the group. Now I totally changed my purpose to engage in the SD. Now I made very good friends from other identity groups which I used to see suspiciously.”

Similarly, other also stated that their engagement in the SD sessions developed their positive attitudes to others outside of their identity lines. Their interaction with other linguistic groups has also developed their confidence to use others language as a medium of interaction as well as their views and perspectives for others outside of their identity groups.

The overall objectives of the visits were to:

• Monitor and Evaluate the overall progress of SD processes at the five Universities; • • Provide the necessary information about Peace Action and Peace Incubation to all SD members; • Jointly plan for SD Action with University administration, Peace Forum, and SD facilitators, and the moderators; and • Settle all due costs related to SD program.

As the SD was approaching its last stage, a more explanatory additional orientation usually given to the moderators about the Peace Action ideas so that proposals can be prepared by involving their respective SD participants. During the visits, discussions made with the university administrations, SD Facilitators, SD Action Committees, and all the Moderators about the upcoming campus-wide SD Actions which are executed to bring more impact on the university community who were not involved in the SD process.

During the visits, all of the moderators and the facilitators also to be oriented about Peace Incubation and advised to develop implementable concept note that could show what to do and where to experiment SD.

Overall Results of the Evaluation

Students who were engaged in SD process has shown better understanding and positive attitude towards others who are outside of their religious and ethnic groups. Most of them stated that they knew only about their religions. Some explicitly stated that they came from families that strictly prohibit interaction with other religious groups. Eating with Muslims or going to places where there are Muslim religion, according to some students, is totally unacceptable practice that takes to the extent of rebaptism up on return. Students who came with such experience were at the start hesitant to sit with their Muslim fellow for dialogue sessions. But through time, as they noted, they started interacting with Muslim students freely. Now they

44 started sharing food, eating together, and values one another’s’ religious practices and holidays. Some even exchanged good wish cards for their religious holidays. Others wished their Muslim fellows a happy Ramadan and/or Arafa through telephone calls.

SD participants in a group developed respect, trust, and positive attitudes towards others who are from different identity groups. It was witnessed that SD participants see their moderators like mothers and fathers.

SD participants spread positive things about other identity lines to their groups. They started to talk positive things about other ethnic and religious groups to their dormitory members, their ethnic and religious groups.

Intimate relationships between PDC staff and SD members and continuous follow-up motivated the students continue engaging in SD process.

SD developed confidence to speak in front of people and listening skills of students who were engaged in the SD process. Some also believe that SD improved their problem-solving skills. They said that they first go for dialogue when they face disagreement with their classmates or doormats. Female student feel that SD developed their self-confidence and level of participation in SD process. Individual participants also feel that SD developed their time management skills. They also feel secured to share their experiences about others.

SD created an opportunity for the students know more people outside of their identity lines, which in turn narrowed the gaps among different linguistic groups in the universities. Some have expressed their interest to continue their interaction even after graduation.

Those who graduate stated that they will try to seek jobs in other regions through their friends they made through SD.

Participants started accommodating religious differences than debating to defeat one another’s religious values.

Students who did not understand the purpose and activities of SD project have changed their attitude towards the project and their interest to participate in the SD program is increasing from time to time.

Sustaining Dialogue (SD) Project emphasis on enhancing positive relationships among different identity lines in the universities. The project focuses on supporting universities to establish a sustained dialogue process with action components that seek to contribute to a shift in campus culture across selected universities. It was believed that the shift in culture both prepares future leaders to leave campus with more

45 understanding and trust of other groups as well as enable university campuses to contribute to overall efforts within Ethiopia to promote dialogue. The project tried to transform the university campuses from a place of hyper and sometimes violent inter-group competition, to a space for trust building, dialogue, and cooperation so as to address deeper relational issues. The overall goal is to increase trust and understanding across identity lines amongst young women and men on the university campuses. The program has been regularly monitored and evaluated in order to check its achievements. The monitoring and evaluation process, in addition to the monthly monitoring visits, uses base line and end line surveys, focus group discussions, and one-on-one interviews to measure achievements of the project.

At the end of the year-long dialogue process, the institutional and individual changes resulted from the intervention usually assessed. Evaluation of the year-long SD process in the five universities was made at the end of the SD Action using the indicators stipulated in the Project’s Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Guide. To this effect, a structured data collection tools were prepared and used to assess the cultural shift in norms interaction. The necessary data were collected from SD participants, the moderators, and the facilitators through end line survey, focus group discussion, and one-on-one interview. All students who went through the year-long SD process field out the end line survey. Selected SD participants, the moderators, and the facilitators were engaged through focus group discussions while the opinion leaders were interviewed.

The monitoring and evaluation process was intended to assess culture shift in norms of interaction, spread of a culture of trust and understanding among diverse identity groups in the universities, and the positive multiplier effect of the opinion leaders involved in the SD process. To assess these changes, respondents of the evaluation process were asked to focus on:

• SD participants’ and moderators’ interaction with people from other identity groups before they joined SD; • changes in their interaction with people from other identity groups after they joined SD; • what the respondents feel about other identity groups after they engage in dialogue process; • the impact of SD on the opinion leaders and their multiplier effect on their fellows; • what should be done differently to improve the impact of SD project.

Using these leading ideas, focus group discussion and key interview participants were asked to share their experiences before and after their engagement in SD process. Regarding students’ interaction with others outside of their identity groups, almost all of the respondents stated that their interactions were limited to their ethnic or religious groups.

46 Previous exposure to other ethnic and religious groups and the type of information the students obtain from their families and friends about other identity groups determine the person with who the students interact. Many of the respondents stated that before they joined SD, they did not consider other identity groups as equal as theirs. They believed that their ethnic and/or religious groups are much better than others. They fear other religious and/or ethnic groups because they heard negative things about others. As a result, students do not genuinely interact with other groups.

However, it has been witnessed that engaging in the SD process has created an opportunity for different linguistic, ethnic, and religious groups to sit together and share what one feels about the others. During the dialogue sessions, the students share the values and practices of their ethnic groups and religious groups. They also share what one knows and feels about the other groups. The information they get from other SD members helped the students transform their perception, attitude, and trust to other ethnic groups to the positive. The stories they heard from other SD members helped the students better understand the values of the larger community. This in turn increased their confidence to interact with other ethnic and religious groups in the universities. This in turn increased the level of trust and understanding one has for other identity groups.

Engaging in the SD process has also changed the intense intergroup competitions, mistrust, and misunderstanding to cooperation. Students from different ethnic and religious groups who were suspecting one another due to their ethnic or religious background started to facilitate or moderate dialogue sessions together. Students who have been engaged in the SD process started to differentiate individuals from ethnic or religious groups. These group of students have also started to intervene into interpersonal disputes so as to prevent it from escalating to intergroup violence. Some of the SD members have also been witnessed that they hide in their dormitories students outside of their ethnic groups during ethnic based tensions in the universities. This was observed at Bahir Dar and Haramaya Universities. SD moderators and the participants increased their confidence to approach other ethnic and religious groups and started to deal with their differences and concerns freely. Violent intergroup competitions over ethnic and/or religious values and practices among the students in their campus life have been transformed to a space for dialogues, genuine listening, developing shared values, and trust building. Students who went through the dialogue process have started to value and prioritize dialogue as an important tool to resolve interpersonal conflicts and find get lasting solutions for the problems that put them apart in the university campuses.

During the selection and placement of SD participants, students who have peer influence over others in their university communities (i.e., opinion leaders) who could have positive multiplier effect on their peers were also systematically selected and involved in the SD process. The opinion leaders are students who are

47 respected and recognized people in their groups (ethnic or religious), they are listened to and influence how student followers think about other identity groups and shape the type of intergroup interactions in the university campuses. These students were selected from ethnic and religious lines based on their level of engagement in ethnic or religious affairs in and outside of the university campuses. At the beginning of the SD year, from Ambo, Bahir Dar, and Gondar Universities 5 opinion leaders from each were invited to participate in the SD process. From Haramaya and Jimma Universities 10 opinion leaders from each were involved in the process. Except some drop outs, the majority of them took part through the dialogue process. Those who completed the SD process were also interviewed to see their positive multiplier effect on their peers.

The opinion leaders who were interviewed explained that their engagement in the SD process increased the level and scope of interactions with others outside of their ethnic or religious groups. the positive narratives they heard from others about their ethnic or religious values made them reframe their perceptions and attitudes for others outside of their groups. These opinion leaders who were known in the universities by influencing their peers to be with own ethnic or religious groups only have started to talk positive things about others and interaction with other ethnic or religious groups who they categorized before as threats to their values. They also have started to listen to others, value others’ claims, and respect the values and practices of other identity groups, especially religious groups. Some of the opinion leaders who perceived SD as a strategy to crack ethnic or religious solidarity have changed their attitude towards the process and started to encourage their peers to take part in the SD process. Some of them have shown their efforts to create positive impact on their peers in their identity group by promoting inter-group understanding as a means to peaceful coexistence.

The opinion leaders feel that the experience they got from SD process have helped them play positive roles to enhance trust among different ethnic groups in the university campuses. Some feel that they are contributing their part to improve the level of interaction among different ethnic lines in the university campuses; however, the trust and relationships among these groups, according to the opinion leaders, still need improvement. The opinion leaders also feel that SD empowered them to talk about positive things about other identity groups. In the future, they also have a plan to influence their peers to expand their relationship circles to outside of their identity lines.

10. Challenges and Opportunities

During the beginning of the academic year there happened a student ethnic conflict in different public universities because of the conflict between the Oromo and Ethiopia Somali. the PPO noticed that the peace forum and the SD club members did not reach the Somalis, and Tigray regions students in partial as

48 they were leaving the campus especially the Somalis were totally withdrawing from the University and this national problem has seriously impact the composition of our groupings. In addition to this most of the students who filled out the moderators registering form are from the graduate batch. However, the PPO tried to select students from different regions, batch and department/faculty and create a best combination based on the registered students.

The other challenge probably a hassle to SD is the unit structure of the project under Peace Forum both in HU and JU. During the student protest against the government action taken in East Harergie. Students considered peace forum as if it is a government organ, still in these SD universities there is a power politics or competition between the students’ union and the peace forum (either the SD club should function under the student union or the peace forum), hence the SD is running and mobilizing 600 students effectively the student union think that loosing this club out of control is a loos in power so they are straggling not to give up the groups.

Campus situation all over the country was tense since the beginning of the academic year due to the national and regional political tension. This situation to some extent had negatively affected campus stability in the five universities involved in the project. Due to the tense situation in Haramaya and Jimma Universities, classes were interrupted and some of the students were forced to leave their campuses. During this time, it was challenging for SD moderators and the participants to meet for their dialogue sessions because other students were associating the sessions with the current political situation. In Ambo University, the moderators repeatedly stated that other students outside of the SD groups associate their SD sessions with the current political situation. The moderators are trying their best to tell the truth and, as a result, some students have changed their perception towards SD program.

On the other hand, some of the SD moderators and the participants also left campuses due to the instability in their respective university. Since the causes of the problems were related to ethnic issues, some students in the SD project feared to come to the sessions during the unrest. After the classes were resumed, students became busy due to the revised academic calendar for compensating the missed classes. These problems have created challenges on some of the moderators to conduct as many SD sessions as expected during the first semester. It was also reported from Ambo and Bahir Dar Universities that some students lost trust to share their genuine experiences about other identity groups due to the current ethnic tension in the country. Besides, few SD participants were not willing to continue in the SD program after the ethnic tension in the universities, which in turn increased the number of drop outs from the program. On top of these all challenges, the SD leaders, the moderators, the SD coordinator of each university and the PPOs have remained intact and shown unreserved commitment to sustain the dialogue sessions.

49 The university campuses in Ethiopian context are highly influenced by national, regional and international dynamics. In the academic year, tensions had been raised in all over the country and this tensions in turn resulted in instability in many of the universities in the country. The five universities where the project has been implemented have also been affected by national and regional instabilities. These instabilities dictated declaration of the State of Emergency in the country. Due to tight campus security, some of the students feared to go to SD sessions. Second, due to recurrent instabilities, normal teaching-learning process were interrupted and the universities revised their academic calendars several times. To cover missed classes, instructors were arranging several makeup classes for the students. Consequently, it was challenging for SD moderators to get convenient time for all SD members their groups. On top of this, being under the State of Emergency created sense of insecurity among SD participants to meet for SD sessions. Change in the academic calendar affected moderators’ plan not only for SD sessions but also for campus wide Collective Action. The purpose of SD Action is to impact more people who did not engage in SD process; however, due to the revised academic calendar, SD participants could not bring the expected number of their peers to the events organized for SD Action because many students were engaged in other academic endeavors. However, efforts were made to minimize the impact of these challenges by having closer and regular discussions with the universities and other stakeholders who were responsible for security administration.

11. Success Stories

Despite the tensions in all over the country for the last four years, SD has continued in all of the Universities and the intervention is bringing the expected change on interactions among different identity lines. Some SD participants were desperate about the ethnic tension in their respective Universities; however, the moderators are able to retain these participants in the SD project by providing them the necessary advice to their peers. This is due to the fact that the student community understood that SD has created a safer space and equal opportunity for all groups to come together and talk about their common problems.

In its short lifespan, SD has also created an incredible impact on the peaceful interaction of different identity groups in the universities. Regarding this one of the moderator in Ambo University who is from Oromo ethnic group said the following:

“This year, we encountered an ugly conflict with students from Gambella Regional State. The dispute which happened between two students in a cafeteria quickly developed to intergroup violence. The cause was very minor, but the situation became off-hand due to some students’ provocative behaviors. During the violence, many students were attacked from both groups, one from Gambella was severely wounded. Despite these all, SD moderators and participants from both groups were so intact and friendly. Both the SD moderators and the Participants from Gambella region were coming to the SD sessions.

50 Especially, one of the participant in my group was amazingly open and genuine to share his experience and continued his positive relationships with all SD group members including the Oromos. His relationship with other remain strong even after the violence.”

Students from different religious groups have also started to respect one another’s religious practices and values. Regarding this, participants of one of the SD groups in Haramaya University stated during the monitoring visit that:

“SD brought us together from diverse backgrounds. There are Muslim, Orthodox, protestant and other religious groups in our SD family. When we first started to engage in this dialogue process, we used to make decisions based on our individual interest only. For example, when we use our refreshment, we used to order our individual preference without considering the religious values of other SD participants in the group. As a result, some of the participants in the group were not comfortable because their religious values may not allow them to share some food items especially during fasting day/season. But the more we stay together in the SD group, the greater the opportunity to learn from one another about other’s religious values and practices as well as why they refrain from some food items. During this Easter season, we all decided to respect the religious values of Christian students in general and orthodox students in particular. Since our Orthodox friends have been fasting, we all agreed not to order any food with animal product for our refreshment. Participants who are fasting started sharing food with us freely and comfortably. This increased our relationship”

Students of Ambo, Bahir Dar, and Gondar Universities have also acclimatized themselves with the SD goal and objectives in short period of time. Despite the ethnic-based tension in their campuses, most of them continued to engage in the SD process even under the declared State of Emergency. Some SD groups even organized a football match to more strengthen their relationships. To create a safer environment for the dialogue participants, the Peace Forum in collaboration with the SD focal person produced badges for SD moderators to wear during the SD session so that no security personnel interrupts their SD sessions. this helped the SD moderators and the participants carry out their SD sessions without any fear.

The goal of Sustain Dialogue is to increase understanding across different identity lines on university campuses. At this stage, the project achieved that:

• a large number of students from different identity lines met more than 10 times in every project year to make dialogues on issues related to ethnic and religious pluralism; • students who were engaged in the dialogue process developed better understanding about and tolerance for other identity groups; • students from different identity lines who were considering one another as rivals collaborated to plan and execute campus wide action; • students who have changed their understanding, attitude, and perception towards other ethnic and religious groups shared their changes and impacted others who did not participate in the dialogue process;

51 • students who went through the SD process started to talk many positive things about outgroup members about who they heard negative things before they joined SD; • the Universities mobilized their human and material resources to support SD process in their respective campuses; • managements of the universities have shown greater support for activities related to SD project. • Academic and administrative staff shown collaboration and contributed their part to execute planned activities; • the universities’ interest to buy-in and scale up the project to other campuses increased; • compared to the previous years, the number of students who want to engage in the SD process significantly increased (more than 20,000 students have filled out application forms to take part in the upcoming SD process); • students who went through the dialogue process have shown better understanding and empathy for other who do not belong to their ethnic or religious groups; • students who participated in the SD process played a positive role to deescalate campus tensions and support students who were targeted due to their ethnic background; • leaders of the Peace Forums increased their leadership skills and became more visible in the university campuses. By successfully and peacefully organizing the project, they got trust and confidence from the universities managements and other security apparatuses which were monitoring the situations during State of Emergency.

Some Success Stories

Story 1: From Hate to Protection

One of the moderators from Jimma University who was interviewed said:

“Before I joined Sustained Dialogue process, I knew my religious and ethnic values only. My perception to Muslim students was not good. I joined SD in 2017. When I first applied to participate, there was a strong pressure from my ethnic groups not to engage in such an affair. My friends though that what SD was doing is against our values. But I unnoticed my peers’ pressure and went to my dialogue group. To be honest, I first went to the group just know what is going on, to check whether or not what my ethnic fellows were saying about the dialogue program. After I joined the program, I found it completely different from what we thought about it. In the dialogue process, I saw when everybody from any identity line shares his/her experience about others and the values of his/her ethnic and religious values freely. This in turn made me revisit my perception and attitude towards others who are

52 outside of my ethnic and religious groups. My participation in the dialogue process totally changed my campus life and scope of interaction in the university campus. At the end of last year’s dialogue process, I decided to contribute more by being a moderator. Being a moderator created me an opportunity to learn more from my participants not only about others’ values but also how knowing these values help us make a peaceful interaction with others outside of our identity lines. My engagement in the dialogue process helped me know more about Muslims values. Now, my perception and trust to my Muslim fellows has been totally changed. I respect their religious values and practices and I advise my religious groups to do the same so that their religious values will be respected by others. For example, this year, there was regular dispute in my dormitory between one Muslim student and other Christian dorm mates. The Muslim student wanted to practice his religious obligations in his dormitories while others opposed him. Using the skills, I developed from the dialogue process, I played a mediatory role to resolve the problem in my dormitory. I encouraged my dorm mates to dialogue about their problems. Especially, I asked my Christian fellows to ask themselves “What they lose if their friend carries out his religious practices in his dormitory?”. After few days, all agreed to allow their dorm mate to perform his religious obligations in the dormitory. Our friend also started to perform his religious prayer in the dormitory. Now we resolved our differences and I started living together peacefully. Now I have been changed from hate to protector of Muslims values.”

Story 2: Sustained Dialogue gave me a counter positive narrative about others.

One of the Sustained Dialogue participant from Haramaya University sated as follow:

“I was born in Southern Region, Sidama Zone. My family told me many negative things about Muslims and the Oromos. What I heard from media regarding terrorism affected my attitude towards Muslims. Due to this information, Haramaya University was my last choice. I was placed in the University without my preference. Since there was no other option, I decided to join the University. The year I joined the University, campus situation was not good. The ethnic based tension in the university frustrated me like any other students and increased the level of fear I developed before. As a result, I consulted my family to facilitate my transfer to other university. I also developed medical case and got a person whose grade point was similar with mine. To be honest, I was not sick but I was insecured to pursue my study in the University. I collected clearance form from the University Registrar to leave the

53 University. Expect one; I got the signature of all concerned offices. But some of my friends. Before I leave the University, one instructor advised me to stay in the University and see what will happen. My friends also advised me the same, but I was not convinced. When I was in this state of dilemma, one student advised me to join the dialogue program and I did. In the dialogue process, I heard a different story from the Oromo and Muslim themselves. What they shared us in the dialogue group was totally different from what I heard from my parents about the two identity groups. The experience I shared from Oromo and Muslim students in the dialogue group made me question the previous information I obtained from my mother. I deliberately approached them asked them to share me more about their values, norms, and perceptions to others outside of their groups. When I approach them, I learned that they precious cultural values and practices. I learned that they love, respect, and humanize others who are outside of their identity groups. Through these students, I was able to see the wider Muslim and Oromo communities. Through the dialogue, I changed my perception to these two groups to the positive. I totally forgot my transfer to other university. Today, my closest friends are from these two groups. Through the dialogue program, I got 12 people from other religious and ethnic groups. I made friend with more than 20 students who do not belong to my identity lines. This time, if I go to Oromia Region, I have more than 10 closest friends who I love and trust much.

Story 3: I left Everything Behind

A fifth-year law student who completed the SD process at Haramaya University said as follow:

“I was grown up in a diverse community. In my community there were Tigre, Amhara, Agew, Muslim, Orthodox, and protestant. These communities though me love and respect for any group. When I came to the University, I thought I will develop these values in the university. With this understanding, I decided to learn Afan Oromo and Harari languages during my study in Haramaya University. To this effect, I made friends from Oromo students. My first university year was good in this respect. I learned some Afan Oromo words from this student. We were so close friends. But the next year, there was ethnic tension in the university. Oromo students started attacking those who cannot speak Afan Oromo. One evening, the Oromo students who I trust much came to me and showed unexpected behavior. He said me “dubadhu”, i.e. to say “speak’. Since He taught me Afan Oromo, I tried to say some words, though I could not escape his attack. He hurt me because I did not speak Afan Oromo. Being attacked by somebody whom I trust much destroyed all good things (respect, values, and trust) I developed for others. I I started to ask myself who I am. I stopped to trust others outside of my ethnic group. From 2014- 2016, I had no close friend at all. My interaction was only with Amhara students. During summer, I was advising preparatory students at my birth place not to go to any university in Oromia Regional State. But in 2017, I joined the

54 dialogue program. In the dialogue process, I shared more positive experiences from other identity groups including the Oromos. The genuine information we shared in the dialogue group helped me activate my past experience; regain my previous respect and values for others. In the dialogue group, I got lovely Oromo students who were totally different from the one I knew before. These students changed my attitude to Oromo ethnic group. Now I forgot everything. I chose to love everyone, trust them at all, and respect their valid claims. I also have forgiven the student who hurt me because of my linguistic background. The dialogue process helped me leave behind all sad experiences.”

Story 4: I became more tolerant than I was before

“When I first join university, I did not know anything about other religious groups so I did not respect them. I took more time to bring people to my religious groups. I felt that a was a prophet. I used to believe that any person who opposes my view will be punished by God. As much as possible I influence others to follow my religion. I was not interested to listen to those who were outside of my religious groups. I want others to respect my values, though I did not do so. When I was invited to engaged in the dialogue process, I took it as an advantage to convince more students. But when I started the dialogue process, I found the process different from my expectation. The moderators demonstrated as what to do and how in the dialogue process. They shared us their experiences and they asked us to do the same. They advised us to deeply listen one another and share genuine experience. In the dialogue process, I observed when different identity groups genuinely share and patiently and respectfully listen to one another. This has brought a paradigm shift in my life. There is a shift in my life from debating to convince to listening to be convinced. Now I genuinely listen others outside of my religious group. I learned that I have to listen to and value other identity groups. Now I learned from my dialogue group members that to be listened, we need to listen others, to be respected, we need to respect others ideas and values. This changed my attitude towards other religious groups. Now I respect the values of other religious groups as equally as mine. I tolerate religious differences than before. I advise my friends, but I don’t argue to impose my view on others. I genuinely listen others and respect their values. I freely interact with other religious groups. Besides, I confidently share the positive things about other religious groups to students who are from my religious line. I tolerate religious differences and advise my peers to do the same”.

3.2. Strengthening Institutions for Peace and Development (SIPED) II Project

1. System Strengthening Component

Project Background

Strengthening Institutions for Peace and Development (SIPED) II Project is a five -year USAID funded project in selected regions of Ethiopia. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Ministry

55 of Federal and Pastoralist Development (now Ministry of Peace) of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the United States Agency for International Development Mission to Ethiopia and the Pact, Inc. Office in Ethiopia on September 2,2015. Under this MoU, Pact directly implements at federal level while activities at the agreed regions are facilitated by Peace and Development Center (PDC). The project has two components- Component 1 and Component 2. Component 1 is system strengthening support to enhance the conflict prevention, early warning and response, management and resolution capacities, tools and practices of the Ministry and the Peace Architecture (PA). Component 2 is the Natural Resource Management (NRM) governance.

PDC implements Component 1 in 12 woredas selected from 5 regional states namely Afar, Gambella, Oromia, Somali and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNPR). The target woredas are: Mile, Amibara and Gewane from Afar; Yeki woreda from SNNPR; Mengishi & Godere woredas from Gambella; Liben, Meiso Oromia and Gursum Oromia woredas from Oromia region; and Gursum Somali, Dekasuftu and Meiso Somali woredas from Somali regional state. As institutional owner of the project, the Ministry of Federal and Pastoralist Development Affairs (MoFPDA), in consultation with the target regions, selected the target woredas for project intervention. PDC therefore works in partnership with Pact, MoFPDA and the aforementioned regions. Under SIPED II project, PDC has been implementing the following major project sub - components.

Updating and Contextualizing Conflict Prevention and Resolution Manual

Training Manual Development

MoFPDA had Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) resource pack, which was operational over 6 years, required updating and contextualizing. The revised Conflict Prevention & Resolution generic manual consists of four modules- Culture of Peace, Conflict Early Warning and Early Response, Conflict Management, and Sustainable Peace, Development and Good Governance all of which are translated into four major languages. Accordingly, the four modules were translated into Afan Oromo, Tigrigna, Afarigna and Somaligna. In other regions, Amharic language is used for training. PDC has been involved and contributed significantly in the development of the manual by assigning its staff.

Woreda Cascading Trainings

Before the manual was put in place for use, a feedback workshop was organized to further refine it. Trainees of Trainers (ToT) on the four modules were organized in three rounds for MoFPDA, regional experts and PDC peace project officers. The ToT trainees are currently conducting trainings in their respective woredas.

56 Target participants of woreda cascading training include practitioners representing from woreda Administrations, Administration and Security office, Women and Children Affairs, Youth and Sport Affairs Office, Justice Office, Youth Association, Women Associations and Justice Office. The cascading training involves 30 participants in each woreda. So far 9 out of 12 (75%) woredas received the training in which 270 trainees participated. Cognizant of the role of women in peace building, attention was paid for them to get adequate chance in the trainings.

Proposing System Upgrade to national Conflict Early Warning & Early Response (CEWER)

The objective of the system upgrade is to enable effective and efficient planning, implementation and management of linked conflict early warning and early response processes that:

 Use appropriate modern technologies  Build on the current Ethiopian CEWER system and regional planning  Maintain and integrate best practice and address gaps  Build in supervision, accountability and quality control mechanisms to ensure technical soundness and “Do NO Harm” principle

A bench marking study tour, which comprises a team from MoFPDA, Pact and PDC was sent to Uganda and Kenya. The purpose of the visits was to gather information from representative CEWER actors at each level who are involved with early warning data collection, transmission and analysis as well as planning, coordinating, implementing and monitoring of early response. PDC was represented in both study trips and the system design work.

Conflict Early Warning and Early Response Guideline Development

To implement the state-of the-art CEWER of the ministry’s new design, a draft guideline has been prepared to implement the proposed system design. PDC has actively engaged in the development of the guideline. The proposal development for system design is now under piloting phase. To that end, conflict prone woredas in Oromia, SNNPR and Gambella regional states were selected for piloting the new system.

2. People -to -People (P2P) in Gambella Regional State-Itang Special Woreda Component

The P2P is a pilot project funded by USAID from the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM) in Washington to support local level peace building efforts in Gambella Regional State over a two- year period through SIPED II Component 1. Under this project, trauma informed recovery and resiliency activities is implemented for the first time in the country. The project operates in Itang Special woreda, one

57 of the 12 woredas in the region affected by cycles of conflict mainly over competition for political power and resource competition. Thus, the project was designed to achieve specific objectives to bring together conflicting groups to interact in a safe place. While Pact plays support at the federal level, PDC supports the Peace Architecture (PA) at the regional state level to address local level peace building efforts to mitigate tensions and conflicts between communities.

The objectives of the P2P funded activities are to:

. Contribute to the creation of an enabling environment for a peaceful coexistence of communities in Itang woredas through participatory peacebuilding approaches and interventions. . Maximize positive impacts of these efforts on tensions in other areas of Gambella Regional State Major Activities of P2P Project

Pending consultations with relevant government representatives in Gambella, MoFPDA, PACT and PDC, the major P2P activities include strengthening and supporting the Peace Architecture to:

. Identify priority conflict system (s) to be the focus of program activities through consultation with relevant stakeholders at the federal and regional state levels. . Conduct conflict assessment of the local conflict system(s) (nature/intensity, stakeholders, drivers, levels and nature of trauma etc.). . Develop and finalize the program intervention strategy through a series of stakeholder and community discussions and validation meetings. . Enhance early warning and response system . Conduct capacity building activities focused on enhancing conflict management skills of the Peace Architecture (government officials, elders, religious, and community leaders, and peace committee members, women, youth including people with disability . Support revitalization and/or formation of kebele level peace committees . Support intra-community discussions to facilitate readiness to engage in inter-community dialogues. . Develop and implement appropriate trauma healing strategies and tools. . Support inter-community dialogues to agree strategies to restore normal inter-communal relations. . Support and facilitate agreed peace building activities that may include: . Joint efforts to address and manage drivers of conflict, possibly with small scale peace dividends. . Peace celebrations to include jointly planned and managed concerts, theater, sports event . Develop and implement a complete Monitoring and Evaluation Plan. The above project objectives will contribute to the following outcomes, which include:

58  A stronger more effective Peace Architecture.  Improved inter-community relations characterized by increased trust, confidence and harmony.

Activities Accomplishments

Launching workshop

The project was formally launched in Gambella where the top management of the Government of Gambella, MoFPDA, Pact and PDC attended. During the launching workshop, Itang Special Woreda was selected as a project site by Gambella Peoples’ Regional State and MoFPDA. The rationale for its selction was primarily due to its recurrent nature of conflict with spillover effect to other communities living in Gambella.

Trauma Informed Recovery and Resilience(TIRR) Training for leaders at Gambella Regional State

Leadership training on “Trauma Informed Recovery and Resilience” was organized to different top government officials from May 4-8, 2017 in Grand Hotel at Gambella town. The objective of the training, was to create awareness on the impact of trauma to peoples and create and hold space for trainees to speak about trauma experienced by a variety of people and groups, and share practical skills dealing with stress and trauma. The training brought together higher officials from pertinent regional government sectors and Itang Special woreda, MoFPDA, Pact and PDC. Twenty-two participants attended in this training. The training facilitators were three women- two from Kenya and one from Ethiopia.

Training participants with the trainers

59 Emphasis was given on the importance, relevance, and applicability of the training in Gambella context and the need to fully attend the training.

Following an opening remark by Mr. Okugn Okello, regional bureau Head for Administration and Security, Mrs. Halima and Mrs. Teckla, trainers briefly introduced how training on trauma informed resilience and recovery came into being in Kenya and Somalia and how it came to Ethiopia through Pact.

Right after the opening remarks, the trainees were engaged in pair work to set out their expectations from the training and name the term ‘TRAUMA” in their native language so as internalize the concept. Next, each pair presented their expectations and the equivalent term for “TRAUMA” in Amharic, Nuer, Anywaa, and Majang languages and this helped trainees internalize the concept.

The training also addressed what trauma is about, how one be trauma informed in his/her interventions, dialogue as an interactive tool to address trauma, the difference between dialogue and debate, and types of trauma and their nature. To help trainees internalize the issues, different examples were given from Kenya and Somalia experience. For each type of trauma, trainees were asked to bring cases from their own context. In order to make each issue closest to the trainees, translations of key issues were made and practical examples were given by Tigist-an Ethiopian co-facilitator who is a counselor.

During reflection sessions, most of the trainees stated that the issues, examples, and practical cases presented during the first day of the training helped them understand trauma in a better way than before. On the second day of the training, training participants were engaged in analyzing post traumatic disorders, negative impacts of stress and trauma, survival responses to trauma, triggers of trauma, coping strategies, and mind-body-spirit connection to overcome trauma. For each issue, practical examples were given and real cases were sought from the participants. In order to help the participants better understanding and internalize the issues, they were engaged in group works and each group presented its work to the plenary.

On the third day of the training, trainees dealt with emotional thermometer as a tool to monitor and control one’s emotion, security and types of security, justice and types of justice, relationships, and victim- aggressor cycle of trauma. For each case, trainees cited real examples from their community and showed how these types of problems affect the social and psychological wellbeing of their society. On this day, officials from USAID - Mr. Brian Gilchrest, former Conflict Prevention Advisor and Mrs. Zema Semunigus, the then Head of USAID in Ethiopia visited the training participants and the participants also made brief reflection on how the support is important and relevant to the problems at the grassroots level. In addition to the contents presented by the trainers, trainees also presented cases from their context. Participants narrated their own stories in connection to victims and aggressor cycle which in turn inspired

60 the participants and increased their level of participation. Each issue of the training was exemplified by cases from clinical experiences from Ethiopia. Like the previous days, the third day was also completed by inner circle reflection where both the trainees and the trainers share their learning experiences from the day.

The fourth day of the training was concerned with issues such as new down of forgiveness, brain as a processor of information, and resilience. The trainers engaged participants in different group and pair works so as to help them internalize the issues. For each issue, the trainers used stories and practical exercises. Participants were asked to map their own storylines in pair and describe each to other participants. Narration of participants’ storyline was followed by Joseph’s story and reflection on the purpose of the story and the characters in the story. Trainees were also asked to relate the story to the purpose of the training and their life.

On the fifth day of the training, trainees dealt with post-traumatic growth and healing and transformative process. The issues were concretized through stories and folktales and brought to real life situation through trainees’ own stories. After thorough discussion, trainees were asked to assess the relevance of the entire issues dealt with during the past four days to their life and similar problems in their context. Besides, participants were also asked to see how trauma informed framework can be applied in their work place and how it benefits their communities. Next, trainees were asked to evaluate the five-day training in general and the method, facilitation skills of the trainers, and the tools of the training in particular. In addition to their written evaluation, the trainees were asked to orally express their thought about the training and the trainers. As is was stated by the trainees during the evening and morning inner circle reflection, the training:

 Was totally different from the types of training they took so far. It was unique in its tools and approaches used and the approaches used by the trainers;  Helped them revisit their past experiences;  Showed them how trauma affects the victims’ social and psychological wellbeing;  The posters used throughout the training helped them visualize the issues in general and recall their own trauma history in particular;  Empowered them to manage trauma related issues both at their work place and in their life;  Brought different trauma experiences from Kenya and Somalia which are similar to the cases at Gambella regional Sate;  Was participatory and engaged them physically, mentally, and emotionally;  Opened a lot of possibilities to deal with trauma; and  Created them a good opportunity to learn from one another by sharing their deep-seated problems.

61 In general, the training was successfully conducted the way it was planned. The trainees were from top governmental offices that deal with so many urgent cases; however, the level of participation and their commitment to fully attend the training was more than the expected. The trainees were awarded certificates.

Conflict Assessment in Itang Special Woreda

One of the major accomplishments was a conflict context assessment conducted at Itang special woreda, Gambella Peoples’ National Regional State The assessment aimed at full-fledged understanding of historical origin, causes, features and effects of the conflict in the society. To this effect, the assessment aimed at exploring and analyzing data on the different aspects of the conflict. Accordingly, the objectives of the assessment include soliciting opinions and extracting data, among others, on a number of issues. These include nature and history, political and socio-economic and cultural dimensions of the conflict. In the same way, factors that caused community grievances and actors that involved themselves at different levels were to be explored and identified.

Furthermore, part of the objectives of the work included identification and consensus building regarding the possible interventions by federal and regional government institutions, civil society stakeholders including the P2P community level peace building programs.

Scope of the Study

The scope of the assessment covers different issues and thematic areas which are directly or indirectly related to the conflict at Itang Special Woreda of Gambella National Regional State. These include, among others, the context covering its historical, political, economic, social and cultural dimensions. Moreover, the context of the conflict has been addressed in a way that encompasses its local, regional and federal level interrelations. In addition, the constitutional and policy frameworks of the governance structure have been assessed with the intention to examine its viability and limits for the purpose of preventing conflicts within the woreda in particular and the Regional State in general. The scope of the study also covers the different dimensions of the recurrent conflict situations in the woreda. Thus, dynamics, trends, issues, causes, effects, actors and stakeholders of the conflict have been addressed with a view to drawing fairly comprehensive conclusions and forwarding implementable recommendations towards preventing recurrence of similar conflicts in the woreda.

In general, the thematic focus of the study was limited to interacting factors that directly or indirectly contribute to intercommunity conflicts at Itang special woreda. The study was also contextually limited to purposely selected Itang special woreda only. Due to resource constraint, the conflict dynamics and trends in other part of the regional state was not addressed in this particular study.

62 Rational for the Study

The field work for the study was conducted from July 13- August 09, 2017 both at regional and federal levels. The activity brought together expert and practitioners from different walks of life such as professional consultant, program advisor, Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting & Learning (MERL) officer and project officer. In addition, experts from MoFPDA, Gambella region Administration and Security Bureau, Itang woreda and administration and security experts were constituted in the research team. The field work was started first from Itang woreda and then to Gambella regional state and finally at federal level. During the study, an attempt was made to involve different parties from top government officials up to community representatives at the grassroots level. To this effect, the study involved top government officials at federal and regional levels, local administrators, elders, community representatives, youth and women representatives, peace committee members, and elders. SEPID II project officer and PDC’s MERL officer also participated in the study.

Conflict occurs due to several causes and in quiet different contexts. As a rule, interventions towards preventing or resolving any conflict necessarily requires adequate comprehension of its causes, nature and consequences. The conflict at Itang special woreda of Gambella has its own unique features and patterns. It seems obvious that such conflict needs to be scientifically assessed, with adequate focus on its different dimensions, and with a view to comprehending its nature and the possible routes to be followed in addressing its root causes.

This study was initiated with the intention to conduct independent assessment of the conflict by experts’ possessing the relevant professional skills and knowledge and generate reliable pre-intervention information to the program. An assessment process conducted by independent professionals usually provides dependable insights towards exploring the best possible forms of interventions for building sustainable peace. The report, which is discussed below, provides data obtained through widely applicable scientific methods and procedures and analyzed with comprehensive coverage of the different dimensions of the conflict at Itang Special woreda of Gambella regional state.

Joint Feedback Meeting

Led by MoFPDA former State Minister Mulugeta Wuletaw, the study team members, representatives from MoFPDA, PACT and PDC discussed on the findings of the conflict assessment report on 21 November 2017 at the Ministry’s meeting room. The main objective of the assessment was to identify the conflict context systems prior to the implementation of the CMM project. The lead Consultant, Dr. Mohammed Habib from Addis Ababa University, gave presentation. Accordingly, some corrections and comments were forwarded by participants. The State Minister felt that a feedback from the Ministry delayed because of

63 unforeseen circumstances and schedule overlaps. Mr. Mulugeta thanked the study team for addressing the major issues as per the Terms of Reference (ToR) and the participants for their invaluable inputs. Finally, the document was refined and submitted for decision makers at MoFPDA and regional government.

Joint Planning Workshop

A joint planning meeting was organized in Gambella Town to discuss on the findings and recommendations of conflict assessment conducted in Itang Specia woredas, and prepare work plan that will put the recommendations into implementation.

A total of 23 people (20 men and 3 women) attended in the meeting. Pertinent institutions from Gambella regional state and Itang Special Woreda, Peace and Development Center (PDC), Pact as well as representatives of elders participated in the day- long planning workshop.

Ato Beyene Feseha, Director of Conflict Management and Sustainable Solution, MoFPDA, made an introductory speech. He reiterated that conflict is an impediment to the development process and hence needs to be addressed. The result of the proposed interventions does not only benefit Itang special woreda, but also serve as a model to plan other conflict prone woredas.

The planning meeting was opened with the official opening remark of Ato Okugn Okello, Head of Admin and Security Burau of Gambella Regional State. He extended his gratitude to MoFPDA, Pact and PDC for organizing the planning workshop. He mentioned that Itang Special Woreda is one of the conflict- prone woredas in Gambella Regional State. In a bid to address the conflict in the special woreda, analysis was conducted by Addis Ababa University in collaboration with Pact and PDC. The analysis came out with details of the existing situation and recommendations as a way forward.

Key Findings of the assessment were presented by Ato Nigusie Angessa from PDC and study team member of the assessment. The major findings include that:

 The conflict in Itang special woreda is decades long and has a continuity nature. This being the case, it has become part of the socio-economic history and day-to-day social phenomenon of the community.  Change in demographic pattern changed the pattern of conflict at Itang special woreda.  Revenge killing is becoming a culture.  Conflict in Itang special woreda has been noted to be recurring and cyclical. ‐ Lack of proper resource management skill in a conflict prone woreda context

64 ‐ Misconception among the youth that it is possible to obtain what they need in a violent way.  Inter-ethnic conflict has caused damage to the social, cultural, political, and economic and institutional settings. It resulted to the “we and they” attitude.  Prevalence of fear and social insecurity resulting to demographic threat as well as stiff competition over resources, which is dangerous. This has resulted to decline of institutions including customary ones, which in turn adversely affected social harmony and the local capacities for peace.  The recurrent inter-ethnic conflict at Itang Special Woreda has adversely affected the life and livelihood of the community. ‐ Loss of life, large scale displacement, trauma, disruption of social services and economic activities, destruction of social and cultural institutions that used to ensure peace and harmony at the grassroots. The following key recommendations were also highlighted during the joint workshop.

 Capacity building ‐ The planning workshop is expected to identify which institutions need the capacity development interventions.  Formation/revitalization of peace structures ‐ The planning workshop is expected to identify which peace structures need to be strengthened and which areas need formation of peace structures.  Intra and inter community dialogues ‐ Creating a community that practice dialogue for sustainable solutions. To this end, the community should first discuss within themselves on the contemporary issues that cause conflict. Then this will be scaled up to encompasses inter community dialogues  Trauma Informed Recovery and Resiliency (TIRR) pilot program in selected kebeles. ‐ Trauma is common in Itang Special woredas. After a thorough discussion, agreement was reached for the selction of 4 kebeles for TIRR and 8 kebeles for Community Dialogues/ Discussions interventions for P2P project were selected.

A. Community Dialogues/ Discussions: B. Trauma Informed Recovery and Resiliency (TIRR

1. Puldeng (Nuer) 1. Pulkoat (Nuer) 2. Pulkod (Nuer) 2. Adima (Anywaa) 3. Lare (Nuer) 3. Behane Selam (Anywaa)

65 4. Berhan Selam (Anywaa) 4. Alah (Anywaa) 5. Adema (Anywaa) 6. Aju (Anywaa) 7. Achua (Anywaa) 8. Akura (Anywaa)

Project Launching Workshop in Itang Special Woreda The launching workshop was organized on May 2, 2018 at Itang Town. The objective of organizing the launching workshop was to familiarize the project to concerned bodies of the woreda so that they will contribute their share towards achieving the goals and objectives of the CMM-P2P project.

The workshop was officially addressed by the Bureau Head of Gambella Region Admin & Security, Ato Okugn Okello who was invited by Ato Owar Ochan, the Chief Administrator of Itang Special Woreda (SW). Ato Ayten Anemaw, the Executive Director of Peace and Development Center (PDC) introduced the project objectives and goals including the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders involved in the project. In his message, Ato Ayten underlined that the Administration & Security Bureau is the owner of the project and Itang SW has been selected as pilot project site by Gambella Regional State and MoFPDA. Ato Ayten also expressed that PDC opened its office in Itang Town and hired peace project officers who are Anywaa and Nuer native speakers. He added that the aim of assigning the officers from the two ethnic groups is to facilitate the project at grassroots levels so that communities will not face communication barriers.

The launching workshop was attended by 57 people. Officials from Regional Admin & Security Bureau, representative from the regional president office, woreda council’s speaker, woreda administration and security officials, administration and security heads of nine selected kebeles, elders, religious leaders from target kebeles, representatives from mass-based associations, officials from relevant offices (police and militia offices, Health Office and Women & Children Affairs Office) attended the launching workshop.

After the opening remarks and introduction of project activities, adequate time was given for plenary discussion. During the discussion, Achua Kebele chairman said, “peace is very important and everyone should stand for it and work together to bring about sustainable peace”. He underlined his concern from his past experience that sustainability of the project is of paramount importance and should not stop once it becomes operational. Another participant from Pulkot kebele expressed his happiness about the importance of P2P project ideas but also questioned why the absence of peace always prevail and the government fails to ensure peace.

66 An elder from Pulkot also said that he is also happy about the new project. He blamed government representatives in-charge of maintaining peace and stability but not carrying out their tasks properly despite elders’ advice and recommendations. He further reiterated that he used to move anywhere to browse his cattle before 20 years. He said, “Nowadays, I cannot do that because the Murle and other clans from South Sudan cross the border and attack us. We need protection from our government. This will be materialized if we work hard for peace. We are always in a state of confusion why we lack peace in our place. We need genuine collaboration and coordination in order to ensure peace and stability in our region”.

An Orthodox Church representative from Itang Town stated that he has been participating in many peace meetings before but he felt this project unique in its approach and contents. His comments included that Itang is endowed with rich resources where older people can even work and lead their lives let alone young people. He noted that parents should teach their children about the values of peace and love, and religious leaders should meet frequently and preach about peace. In his closing statement, he wished peace for Itang, Gambella and Ethiopia. Ato Mohammed representing Islamic religion and Pastor Keadow from Protestant religion gave similar comments.

A participant from Adema Kebele appreciated the project objectives and the way neighboring kebeles work together under the close supervision of federal and regional governments. Moreover, he emphasized that he was very glad to hear a phrase that the project owners are the communities. He believes that the Anywaa- Nuer conflict is instigated by few individuals from both ethnic groups as a result of which communities living in Itang suffer from a cycle of violence. The consequences of violent conflicts hamper education and agricultural activities to a great extent.

Other participants representing the selected kebeles, forwarded similar opinions and unanimously agreed about the importance of the new project hoping that it will impact their lives positively.

In their concluding remarks Ato Okugn Okello, Regional Admin & Security Bureau, Ato Owar Ochan, Itang SW Chief administrator and Ato Ayten Anemaw, PDC Executive manager jointly reminded participants that the project can be successful if all actors closely work together to bring about sustainable peace in Gambella in general and Itang in particular. In a closing remark, the Head of Admin and Security Bureau underlined about time in that the project should move forward as quickly as possible and keep the promises given during the launching workshop organized in Gambella Town in February, 2018. Ato John Yien, the Deputy Head of regional Admin and Security Bureau accentuated that all stakeholders should work closely within their scope of mandates with full responsibility and commitment in order to meet the goals and objectives of the project.

67 Dialogue and Mediation Training for Community Facilitators To implement the P2P project, 32 community facilitators for Community Dialogue and Trauma Informed Recovery and Resiliency (TIRR) were selected from Anywaa and Nuer communities. Besides, PDC opened an office in Itang town to coordinate and facilitate the P2P activities. Consequently, two Peace Project Officers, two Assistant Peace Project Officers and one Finance Officer were employed. Save the finance officer, recruitment of peace officers was made from both communities.

After the selection, a training on Dialogue and Mediation was organized from August 13th -15th, 2018 in Gambella town. The main objective of the training was to train 36 Community Facilitators drawn from 9 target kebeles and identify 16 Community Facilitators who will facilitate Community Discussions and TIRR in their respective kebeles. This was followed by group formation for TIRR and Community Dialogues, each having 16 facilitators.

A total of 36 participant’s attended the training. The training was organized for 9 pilot kebeles representatives selected for Community Dialogue and TIRR. The training was organized for three days. There was no drop out during the training. Men, women and youth from both sexes were represented during selection process and training period. Hence, among 36 participants, 18 (50%) were women and girls. The role of PDC peace project officers and community coordinators were instrumental from selection process to organizing the training apart from their crucial roles in translation of local languages throughout the training dates. Most of trainees needed translations in Anywaa and Nuer languages. At the end of the training, training participants were divided into two- Intra & Inter Community Dialogue Facilitators and TIRR community Facilitators.

Intra - Community Dialogues Based on the recommendations during regional and woredas level joint workshops, the intra dialogues had been carried out in 8 kebeles. The objective of the dialogues is to resolve a cycle of conflicts between the Anywaa and Nuer ethnic tribes in order to prevail a culture of peace, peaceful co-existence and harmonious relationships not only between the above groups but also other communities living in Itang Special Woreda in particular.

68

Intra community dialogues (partial view)

In the dialogues, 480 community representatives and 16 Community Facilitators (CFs) participated in the community discussions (in two rounds and in groups of 30 people). Participants were drawn from community leaders, pastors, priests, women group and youth group including business men. Women were well represented in all dialogue sessions conducted in 8 kebeles. The dialogues were perceived by most participants as very important and timely. From the dialogue participants 286 (59.6 %) and 194 (40.4%) are male and female partcipants. Interms of age, adult and youth participants constitute 305 (72.6) and 115 (27.4 %) repectively.

During the intra community dialogues conducted, most of the participant underlined that:

‐ massive conception of alcohol and khat, ‐ frequent involvement in grave criminal acts such as killing and revenge killings, ‐ lack of proper management of the resources ‐ claims and counter claims over resources, ‐ misinterpretation and misuse of the political representation, ‐ prevailing sense of fear and social insecurity resulting from demographic threat and use the conflict for political consumption have, among others, the major factors which lead to conflicts in Gambella

69 in general and Itang SW in particular. Because of these, the conflicts brought about “We” and “Them” social division and this highly destroyed social cohesion between Anywaa and Nuer in the woreda.

A story by a dialogue participant from Nuer community said,

“… The Anywaa are our brothers and sisters and we all live together peacefully in harmonious relationship for decades. Today, things are becoming destructive because we stop to know and recall the good relations between Anywaa and Nuer. At one time, when there was conflict between Anywaa and Nuer from Ler kebele, other members of Nuer from Pulkoat kebele members took side along with Ler Kebele and told us to fight against the Anywaa community in Okura kebele.

But we refuse to go and fight with Anywaa because they are our blood relatives. …The relationship between us as Ciengrieng in Pulkoat kebele and Anywaa in Okura and Adima kebels started during the time of my late father, Koang Diew. My father told me that this people (Anywaa) are your blood relative and they are the ones who allow me to stay in this land and give me the land at Baro River bank for cultivation. If you make them suffer, one day you will be in a problem; and if you make them happy, you will get the true joy in your life. My father said, “Don’t get any involvement in case if you, Nuer of Pulkoat, have a conflict with Okura kebele. Rather help each other and make peace with them”. I’m still remembering the words of my late father that he told me and that is why I told my community that I will never go and fight with Okura kebele because they are those who welcome my late father with good hospitality and relationship. My relative said, “if we can’t be in peace with Anywaa, they can’t allow us to farm at the bank of Baro River and all of us will be in a problem. My people and our Anywaa brothers can’t stay away from us. We want them to come back home and share respect so as to live in peace and harmony as usual”.

I do remember that during the time of conflict between Thiang tribe and Ciengrieng tribe in Pulkoat Kebele, the Anywaa saved many lives of our people who could have

70 been killed by Thiang Nuer tribe and saved their lives on that difficult time. The same should be true for us to do the same thing for Anywaa as well.

In the discussions, participants raised the following problems which include but not limited to the following that need to be addressed.

o Weak institutions o Failure to report perpetrators/criminals to justice by Anywaa and Nuer o Conflicts used as means of instrument to gain political interest o Failure to collaborate with the police to apprehend individuals involved in the killing of innocent individuals o Reluctance to report criminals to police because of ethnic biases. o Cultivating Anywaa land without permission (e.g in Alha, Adima and Birane Selam kebeles by Ler kebele) o Cattle raiding, etc. The recommendations suggested by the dialogue participants are summarised below.

 Every family should teach his /her family members to support any type of conflict along ethnic lines (between Anywaa and Nuer)  More Awareness raising required on Culture of Peace and respect for all Itang residents  More involvement and collaboration with churches and their institutions are needed to promote peace and love.  Collaborate with law enforcing bodies tin reporting perpetrators irrespective of ethnic background  Avoid unlawful land cultivation  Law enforcement bodies should be strengthened in order to carry out their task properly  Prevent and report illicit trafficking of arms and illegal appropriation of arms by individuals to concerned institutions and or local administrations.  Return internally displaced due to viiolence to their original place  Youth should talk about peace, brotherhood, harmony, unity and not tribalism  Stop cattle rustling  Stop cattle rustling or cattle raid  Return displacement people to their original place  Resource sharing

71 Currently, intra dialogue sessions completed. The primary objective of intra dialogue sessions was to deepen understanding of issues that divide societies especially between the Nuer and Anywaa ethnic tribes. The inter-community dilaogues sessions, which will start soon will bring together the two ethnic groups who have participated in intra dialogue sessions in a safe place to ensure social cohesion, peaceful- coexistence and harmonious relationships between both groups.

Trauma Informed Recovery and Resiliency (TIRR)

After in-depth discussions with stakeholders. the TIRR activity is named Yegarachin, an Ethiopian name which means “OURS”. As mentioned above, the pilot Kebeles for TIRR activities are: Alah, Adima, Pulkoat and Birhane Selam. TIRR are implemented in collaboration with Green String Network (GSN), a Consulting Firm for training and material development, and Pact Ethiopia. In this regard, the following activities have been accomplished.

 Anywaa and Nuer translators translated Yegarachin selected materials into local languages.  Printing of Yegarachin and TIR materials (English and Amharic version) finalized. Green String Network (the consulting Firm for training and material development)  Translation of English M&E materials (Yegarachin Interviewer manual, Yegarachin Baseline and Monitoring tools are translated  Training of Community Facilitators conducted  Cascading work on TIRR finalized.

Promising Practices for SIPED II project

Why the recent conflict in Gambella did not spread out to Gambella? In the past, Itang has been the epicenter of various conflict. In the past, conflicts created in Itang used to quickly break out in the rest of the region. But violent conflict which broke out in Gambella Town in September did not spill to Itang Woreda. Since dialogue sessions have started, target communities started understanding that conflicts can be resolved peacefully through dialogue. Itang Special woreda is home to Nuer, Anywaa and Opo indigenous groups. Significant number of highlanders ‘highlanders’ also live in the woredas. Thus, awareness raising on the Culture of Peace built trust between them which in turn have prevented the spread of destructive conflict that engulfed Gambella Town in September, 2018.

72 Implementation Approach

The P2P project intervention approach has been appreciated by all segments of societies in target kebeles. Community Facilitators (CFs) are selected from their respective communities. Although coordinated and facilitated by PDC Peace Project Officers, the CFs lead the process. Uunlike in the past, communities are empowered to freely discuss their own concerns, frustrations, hopes and opportunities in a safe space. That is, communities feel secured and empowered in the dialogue processes. It was observed that the intra community dialogues are impacting the communities positively while creating a peaceful environment for inter-community dialogues.

Challenges and Problems: SIPED II Activities

Political Instability: The political turmoil and violence in the country have prevented Somali and Oromia target woredas from conducting the cascading trainings as scheduled as SIPED II operational woredas too were affected by political instability. Concerned bodies were tied up with urgent task of managing political crises and violent conflicts in their respective regions which required rigorous involvement of Admin & Security Officials and experts. As a result, the two regional Admin & Security Bureaus have postponed the trainings more than two times. In particular, the change of leadership in Somali Administration & Security Bureau created institutional gaps. Due to riots and violence in the country in general and SIPED II project areas in particular, some activities were accomplished after repeated postponement.

Language Barrier: Community dialogue, cascading trainings and TIRR trainings were assisted by translators into local languages. Sometimes translators do not interpreter properly. Secondly, translations are time taking which affects the time management set for training sessions. The time spent for translation could have been used for more practical exercises.

3.3. Resolving Violent Conflicts and Restoring Peace in Southwest Shewa and West Arsi Zones project

Background

The new master plan to expand Addis Ababa City Administration plan posed political unrest and riots in Oromia region. As a result, there had been huge loss of lives, massive destruction of private and public properties and other infrastructure. Private investments (both foreign and domestic) also faced immense property damages by the conflicts. The issue of master plan had spilled over effect on Oromo students in higher level learning institutions.

73 PDC is looking for modern, diversified yet tolerant society with a great and real national pride where conflicts are resolved peacefully before they transform into violence through dialogue without which any efforts made to build a prosperous nation remain in vain.

Southwest Shewa zone is one of the zones in Oromia regional state most affected by conflicts. What makes it different from other zones in the region is that severe inter-ethnic violence was observed resulting in human and property losses especially in Amaya Woreda.

PDC signed project agreements with German Embassy in Addis Ababa to implement the Project-Resolving Violent Conflicts and Restoring Peace in Southwest Shewa and West Arsi Zones. The project had two phases – Phase I and Phase II. The implementation area for Phase I was Southwest Shewa Zone which lasted from October, 2017 through April, 2017. Phase II, which was also funded by the German Embassy following a proposal by PDC to further expand the project to West Arsi zone of Oromia regional state. This project started its operation in May 2017 up to December 31,2017. In addition, PDC has been given additional funding form the Embassy to provide trainings for 24 Peace Committee members established in both zones from September 1,2018 through December 31,2018.

As prime implementer of the projects, PDC in partnership with both zone administrations, carried out capacity building activities to build up the execution capacity of practitioners and officials of the target zones and woredas under Phase I and II.

In Southwest Shewa zone, PDC was supporting 12 conflict- prone woredas namely, Waliso, Amaya, Becho, Dawo, Elu, Goro, Kersana Malima, Seden Sodo, Sodo Dacha, Tole, and Wonchi woredas.

The project for Phase I included the following objectives

 Restoring peace in Oromia regional state, South West Showa Zone through organizing public forum, mediation and conflict resolution

 Bringing elders on board in addressing issues that divide the harmonious relationship between different ethnic communities in the region.

 Scaling up lesson from the implementation of the project in South West Showa Zone

PDC was the implementer of the project in partnership with the concerned zones. In both phases, agreements were signed with the Embassy of Germany, and MoUs with the zone administrations.

74 Phase II, which was also assisted by the German Embassy following a proposal by PDC by the request of target zones to expand the project to West Arsi zone of Oromia regional state. After signing an agreement, the project started its operation in May 2017. The project was aimed at enhancing capcity of traditional elders and local officials in conflict prevention and resolution. The trainings covered all woredas under the zone administration.

After the introduction of the project to concerned zone officials, the first training was conducted by a consultant hired by PDC. The training targeted local government officials and experts.

Brief Summary of Activities Accomplished during phase I and Phase II

After signing project agreements with German Embassy, PDC organized consultation meetings with project operational zones about the objectives of the projects submitted to the German Embassy with which it entered agreement. Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) between the two zones and PDC to implement Phase I and Phase II. Experienced consultants were recruited to deliver the trainings.

Train local government officials and experts: The training was organized from 17th -18th June, 2017 at Shashemene, capital town of West Arsi zone. PDC organized the first training workshop for pertinent government officials at woredas and zonal levels. The training focused on conflict early warning and early response mechanism, and approaches to be employed to address conflicts and protests that broke out in Southwest Shewa. Another training was conducted for 45 traditional elders drawn from all target woredas and towns of the zone. A nationwide elders’ conference was organized in Ghion Hotel, Addis Ababa in which PDC board members and prominent elders and religious leaders from other parts of the country took part.

Training workshop for West Arsi zone local government officials: The training workshop was conducted from 17-18, June, 2017 at Shashamane town. 45 participants from all woredas and concerned zonal departments attended the training. The themes of the training included early warning and early response, conflict prevention, management and resolution and human and democratic rights of citizens. During the plenary discussion, training participants underscored that effective Early Warning and Early Response system must be in place in order to proactively address potential conflicts.

The second session dealt with human rights and democratic rights of citizens. It was noted that violations of human rights stir public grievances which will finally evolve to political instability and protests. Training participants suggested that awareness creation and training for law enforcement bodies at grass root level will help respect human and democratic rights of citizens.

75 A topic on conflict was addressed during the third part of the training followed by intensive discussions with local officials. In this section, participants analyzed the Oromo protest.

Organizing public forum in 24 woredas of Southwest Shewa Zone: The training drew participants from different sections of the society. Elders, religious leaders, youth and women representatives from local structures at local level. After the training, public forum training participants then established Peace Committees. The peace committees were given orientation on conflict management and collection of early warning and early response information in their operational areas.

Organize consultative workshop: This workshop was conducted at Elily International Hotel in Addis Ababa. This Consultative workshop was organized for selected elders from different zones in Oromia region. The purpose of this workshop is to identify problems and public demands of the protests in Oromia region and present recommendations to high level officials of the country. The workshop was moderated by Professor Ephraim Isaac, PDC Board Chair, and Dr. Tilahun Beyene, PDC, board member.

Consultative Workshop at Ellily Hotel

Major demands and recommendations of the elders were:  Release of political prisoners arrested because of protest.  Start political dialogue with different political forces working in Ethiopia and outside the country.

76  Government should compensate those who lost they loved ones during the protest.  Government should commit itself with fighting wide spread corruption that has prevailed in this country in unprecedented way.  Unfair distribution of wealth in the country needs urgent solution.  Issue of land grabbing and management is the core problem for urban and rural society and government should be transparent for the public at different levels.  The law of the land should be respected and enforced by both the public and government.

Consultative workshop with zone and woreda administrators: This consultative workshop was conducted from November 3-5, 2016 at Woliso Belay Hotel in Woliso town. This workshop was opened by representative of the Southwest Shewa Zone Administration Admin & Security Department and PDC representative. Despite the volatile security situations in woredas of the zone, all chief administrators and heads of administrative & security offices including their attended the workshop.

During the workshop, basic concept of conflict prevention, management and resolution, human rights and conflict early warning and early response were discussed for participants. On the first day of the workshop, causes of conflicts, conflict analysis and approaches to violent conflict resolutions were discussed.

In this workshop, participants analyzed the conflict situation in Oromia region in general and their zone administration in particular.

Summary of the workshop discussions

Regarding conflict actors, the following issues were identified

 Unemployed youth who graduated from different Universities and colleges of Ethiopia.  Dissatisfied civil servants by Government salary scales which differ from one sector to another  Some religious institution like Waqefatta were among those mobilizing and organizing youth for protest  Opposition political parties who were aggravating situations by mobilizing youth.  Former party members who were removed from the ruling party (OPDO-EPRDF) were also involved in the protest. Regarding relationships among stakeholders, participants pointed out the following:  Dissemination of electronic and social media was fast that they easily reach protestors

77  University students and graduates who use social media on their phone played disseminating information to high school students and rural public at large.  Some are organized at religious gatherings- this was specifically mentioned for followers of Waqqefata religion.  Opposing Addis Ababa integrated master plan that will cause displacements of Oromo farmers from their ancestral land.  Unfair political power and economic resource distribution in the country –perceived grievance that t Oromia is not properly represented in the country’s politics.  Demand Afaan Oromo to be the official language of the country.

The workshop also discussed the Human rights issues. Participants discussed on issues of human and democratic rights – the government was handling citizens in the protest hit region. Participants emphasized that the Ethiopian Constitution has enshrined basic human and democratic rights of citizens. But these rights were mostly violated and not properly enforced due to various reasons. The following reasons were raised by participants.

 Lack of awareness and knowledge of these rights by security bodies and other governing bodies on one hand and lack of adequate awareness by citizens on the other hand.

 Addis Ababa Master plan and land grabbing of public property- Protestors demanded the cancelation of master plan because: i/ it will evict Oromo farmers from their farmers without proper compensation ii/bad experience during the past years faced by Oromo farmers who lost their land due to investments and displaced without adequate compensation. One of the participants expressed his opinion that the problems related to investments are not solely limited to Finfinnee Special Zone but also in other parts of the zone.  Lack of good governance: Government especially at local level is not responsive for the public. There is no free and fair election system in the country and the election board is not seen as independent by the public at large. There is no political space for opposition political parties when the ruling party fully dominate the political space. When the ruling party was challenged by opposition parties (e.g during 2005 election), the opposition parties were forced to flee the country and form rebel groups. Then the ruling party labeled them as terrorists and anti-peace elements.  Unemployment: Currently there is high unemployment rate in the zone. What makes more disappointing is that employment process is not merit- based. It is either based on nepotism or by political loyalty to the ruling party through which one can get employed. Most of the youth

78 university and college graduates in the country are jobless and see no hopes. So they are easily exposed and mobilized by anti-government propagandists based in Diaspora.  Promise vs practice: Development promise by the government and its implementation has huge difference. Plans remain on paper and false reports are presented by government cadres. What is aired and talked on the media doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground. Consequently, the public lacks confidence on the government.  Courts are viewed as center of corruption and partiality.

Regarding solutions for current problem in the zone participants pointed out the following points.  Ensure free and fair election which is open and acceptable by political parties in this country.  The law of the land and policies formulated by the government should be properly enforced and implemented.  Any development plan that affects the lives of citizens should involve public participation from planning to implementation and decision making processes. Government should also improve its responsiveness for public demands.  Media should be independent and serve the truth rather than just serve as an instrument of the government/ruling party.  Improve the quality of social services. There should be strong supervision in place on infrastructure development that are constructed by public money.  Government should have strong commitment to fight corruption that has prevailed in the country in unprecedented level since recent years.  Government should start discussion and dialogue with different political forces in this country.

One of the issues raised during this workshop regarding human rights was a question forwarded to participants how they handled individuals arrested during the protests in their specific woredas. In their response to this question most of them confess that there were violations at different levels due to the intensity of the situation. Iit was difficult to manage every activity carried out by federal and regional forces.

The last day of the workshop dealt with the early warning and early response mechanism. The intervention method had been largely characterized as ‘fire brigade approach’. Consequently, deadly conflicts have caused tremendous social and economic costs on the communities involved particularly in terms human suffering and deaths. It was recommended that an early warning and early response system should be in place for early detection of potential conflicts before they are transformed into violence. As a result, due

79 attention is required to build up the necessary skills of practitioners at all levels of administration (kebele, woreda, zone and region).

3.4. Strengthening Local Cross-border Conflict Management in Lake Turkana-South Omo Corridor Project

Introduction

This project is USAID funded regional program run by Pact Kenya in South Omo-Turkana corridor which aims to strengthen local cross border conflict management system and improve the responsiveness of regional & national institutions to cross-border conflicts. The main beneficiaries of the project are the people of North Horr, Lokituang, Lapur and Kalokol sub-counties of Turkana County from Kenya, and Dassanech and Nyangatom Woredas (districts) of South Omo Zone in Ethiopia. PDC implements this project in partnership with Pact Kenya and Saint Peter’s Community Network (SAPCONE).

PEACE III is a five-year USAID funded regional conflict transformation program awarded to Pact Kenya. PEACE III builds upon PEACE I and PEACE II, previous USAID funded conflict programs. Divided into five zones- along the Kenya/Somalia, Kenya/ Ethiopia, Kenya/South Sudan and Kenya/Uganda borders2. The program focuses on addressing the diverse and evolving drivers of conflict and insecurity.

PEACE III Project areas for South Omo Zone‐Turkana County

Source: PEACE III Annual Report,2017

2 PEACE III Annual Report, 2017

80 All of PEACE III’s work that supports local peace institutions, youth groups, women’s networks, and traditional leadership is in support of the program’s objective Community peace building capacities mobilized, and works in alignment with the Theory of Change that: IF networks of community peace leaders are strengthened to work collaboratively with each other and local government, THEN local cross border conflict management will be more effective and sustainable3. Peace and Development Center PDC) and Saint Peter’s Community Network (SAPCNE) jointly implement on the Turkana-South Omo corridor in zone 5. This part of the sub-region is conflict -prone. Dassanech and Nyangatom woredas are the intervention areas on the Ethiopian side. Turkana County is th operational area from Kenya side. The program seeks to contribute to stability in the Horn of Africa region, by strengthening horizontal and vertical linkages within and between local, national, and regional conflict management actors.

PEACE III has two overall objectives4:

• To strengthen local cross border conflict management systems (Primary objective).

• To improve the responsiveness of regional and national institutions to cross-border conflict (Secondary objective).

Activities Accomplished

Joint Cross-border Meeting of Local Governments

The Joint Cross-border meeting of local Government Officials of Southern Nations and Nationalities Peoples’ Regional State (SNNPR), South Omo Zone of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) and Turkana County [Republic of Kenya] was held on 6 October 2016 in the city of Arba-Minch in Ethiopia. The meeting drew together the regional & local administrations from SNNPR, County representatives from Turkana and national representatives of the adjacent border areas. From the Ethiopian side, it was attended by Mr. MamoTega, Deputy Bureau Head, Security and Administration and Mr. Alemayehu Bowudi, Chief Administrator of South Omo Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia. Mr. Stephen Ikua, County Commissioner, Turkana County; H.E. Peter Lokoyel, Deputy Governor of Turkana County and Peter Eripete- County Secretary among others attended from Kenya side. The meeting also brought together security officers, County administrators and national police commanders, Zone and Woreda administrators and regional police commanders.

3 Ibid 4 Ibid

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The meeting began with welcoming remarks by Mr. Ayten Anemaw, the Executive Director of Peace and Development Centre. He briefed participants about the objectives of the joint cross border meetings including the proposition of strategies for intervention.

The meeting was opened by Ato Birhane Fasil, Head of CEWERU-Ethiopia and Director for IGAD Directorate in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, FDRE. Mr. Birhane underscored the historic relationship between the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and Republic of Kenya. In his deliberation, he highlighted the mutual benefits of enhancing border peace and security for both states. He further noted that the Ethiopian Government was very keen to resolving border issues between three neighboring communities (Nyangatom, Dassanech and Turkana) and expressed that timely action is needed to reduce cattle raids, thefts, human killings and other criminal activities.

The CEWERU-Kenyan representative, Mrs. Selina Wanjiri also underlined the importance of peace in the region which will highly support economic development. She reiterated the government’s commitment in achieving peaceful co-existence at the border. She also appreciated the efforts and commitment of both the national and county government in resolving intra and inter-community conflicts along the border. And thanked the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the SNNPR in particular for organizing this special meeting.

Purpose of the Meeting

The meeting was specifically called and convened to discuss the current security challenges which include killing of innocent people, cattle theft, proliferation of small arms and light weapons at the border areas. In addition, the meeting was aimed at deliberating the way forward towards the realization of peace and tranquility that will foster development and continuous cordial relations.

Updates of the Cross-border Situations

Reports from representatives of Turkana County, and Dassanech and Nyangatom, South Omo Zone were presented. Ato Lore Kakuta and Ato Kebede Sahile, Chief Administrators of Nyangatom and Dassanech woredas respectively, briefed participants about the security situation of their respective woredas. Both administrators stressed that communities living along Ethio-Kenya corridor of the Karamoja cluster are unable to share resources peacefully because of frequent clashes. Ato Kebede underlined that despite

82 multiple agreements reached and relative peace maintained, they were all short-lived. He also mentioned that the situation has become rather worse which requires effective coordination and commitment to bring about lasting solutions in the cross border areas through, among others, bringing the two peoples together.

Mr. Stephen Ikua, expounded a security update from Kenya side. He highlighted the importance of constant consultations and hard work at all levels- from village to national. He emphasized on the importance of peace as a precondition for sustainable development of the two sisterly countries. He added that several peace meetings have been conducted along the corridor and yet most of them remained ineffective. And the two Governments have common agenda mentioning the Road from Isiolo to Moyale as an exemplary one. Mr. Stephen Ikua further reiterated that the access road from Addis-to Mombasa will create positive impact to minimize conflict and thereby enhance development and cooperation. The road to Omorate being asphalted from the Ethiopian side is very important. He observed that similar action will begin soon to construct the road from Kenya side. He underscored the need to strategies how to utilize and share resources so as not to become sources of conflicts and the importance of having timely information sharing and proactive measures. He expressed his sadness about the killing of an Ethiopian elder and promised that the Kenyan counterpart will bring the culprit/criminal to face justice and report back to Ethiopian counterparts during the next joint meeting.

Plenary Discussion After question and answer session, participants were divided into working groups who reported back recommendations and the ways forward to the plenary session. Following the group reports, the floor was open for discussion. Ato MamoTega, from SNNPR Bureau of Security and Administration (Ethiopia), underlined that the communities along common borders are the same but they always suffer from conflict primarily due to competition over natural resources. Moreover, limited capacity of law enforcing bodies to ensure rule of law remains a challenge. He therefore proposed that working awareness creation of communities and capacity building of law enforcing bodies as main pillars in order to address the problems along the common borders.

Ato Alemayehu Bwudi added three main problems along the corridor as: i) cattle raids ii) killings and iii) problems associated with fishing in Lake Turkana. He then noted on the importance of joint action to implement agreements with full responsibility, accountability and commitment.

Participants from Kenyan side emphasized the need to focus particularly on early warning and early response as well as proactive intervention before and after violence. In doing this, joint information sharing

83 and feedback exchange is of paramount importance. They strongly suggested on the establishment of Resource Use Committee. Instead of forming peace committee after peace Committee, they stressed that special focus must be given to bring people together to discuss their issues. Furthermore, they mentioned best lessons on conflict resolutions between Pokot and Turkana communities along Uganda and Kenya borders. Mr. Johnston Ekamais, in particular, informed that while cattle raiding/theft and human killings are still continuing along the Ethio-Kenya corridor, a structure –based peace process is working well along Uganda and Kenya corridor. He also pinpointed communication problem and ineffective peace building activities as the main factors why durable peace has not been achieved in this corridor. Mr. Johnston also underlined on the implementation of Turmi agreement proper resource sharing, timely communication and information sharing, communities’ engagement as well as leadership commitment. To realize these, participants were of the view that financial support from Governments and other stakeholders like PDC is highly needed to address cross border conflicts.

Recommendations and Way Forward The meeting concluded on the discussion of the following areas upon which agreement reached by Kenyan and Ethiopian delegates. 1. Compensation for the life of the old man killed at the Catholic mission festival in Todonyang on 30th July 2016 [arrest the criminal and any other person committing acts of criminality]. 2. Identify and dialogue with influential kraal leaders drawn representation from youth, women and elders [14th and 16th October 2016]. 3. Communication [need to enhance communication between the local administrations and cross- border]. 4. That; both sides agreed not to condone attacks, lootings and killing of innocent persons [Turkana, Dassanech and Nyangatom]. 5. Proposed joint - cross border peace meeting to be held between 11th and 13th October 2016 at Turmi-Ethiopia. 6. Agreed; to conduct an inter-local leaders’ peace meeting targeting elders, women, youth, chiefs/kebele leaders for each location to be conducted between 15th -16th 2016 at Turmi to be chaired by high level officials. 7. Conduct kraal feedback meetings at every kraal both Nyangatom and Turkana between 22nd and 24th October 2016. 8. Organize joint youth peace forum on 2nd November 2016, at Kibish. Drawing participants from Lokamarinyang, Koyasa, Napak, Rate, Seleyn, Totale, Sese, Kalem, Loruth, Uwam, Meyan, Kokuro, Kakuta, Lokorilam, and Lobere.

84 9. Conduct an inter-community dialogue engaging leaders, women elders, and youth in Kibish, Napeikar, Lebere, and Lokrilam. 10. Enhance Joint- Security Patrol at Kibish corridor on weekly or daily basis. 11. Local leaders to be held accountable. 12. Follow up on the implementation of the Turmi Agreement. In order to promote the implementation of the agreed recommendations above, the meeting unanimously agreed to implement the action plan and Turmi agreement annexed hereby. It has been agreed that the next Joint Border Meeting shall be held on 22nd December, 2016 in Lowdar Kenya.

Women Led Intra-community Healing Dialogue

The dialogue took place in Kangaten, Nyangatom woreda on the Ethiopian side from March 3-4, 2017. In this dialogue, 48 women participated. The Objective of this event is to strengthen women participation in community in the area of peace building and conflict resolution and to create awareness of participants the need for healing reconciliation so that they will mobilize the rest of their community for peace.

During this event there were three women namely Emari Lojko, Nalibas Erusiya and Akuru who were identified for their substantial role in peace building (see picture below). Two of them are participants of Kitale women forum who brought the regional women resolutions and aware community members about the right of women for participation. The third woman was community member and she is known for her strong participation in different community affairs and she guided women participants towards healing and understanding the need for peaceful interaction.

Women Led Intra-community Dialogue Participants

85 The participants made clear that issues of women participation in different community activities is very poor and this trend should be changed. Furthermore, they expressed when it comes to conflict women are mostly affected. Yet no body including government and NGOs were giving adequate attention for women engagement. On this event, issues of healing and reconciliation were discussed and urged PDC and local government representatives to facilitate a meeting with Turkana women in order to calm down a tense situation in the corridor.

During this event, participants of the Kitale, regional women forum participants, were attended and explained about the resolutions of that meeting. Women participants also recommended to hold regional dialogue among women of Dassanech, Nyangatom and Turkana, they recommended conflict management training for women.

It was observed that there is need to strengthen the existing of Women led intra-community healing dialogues. This will attribute to cross-border peace structures for enhanced dialogues and problem solving. Women are happy with activities being carried out by Peace III and they are willing to cooperate with and support civil societies in implementing those activities and other initiatives.

Operational lessons from this event: first engaging women and ensuring their strong participation will play significant role in any peace building activities and development activities, particularly women in Nyangatom are very known for peace promotion trough their cultural dancing and music throughout the Karamoja cluster. Second, whenever there are anger and sense of revenge between different communities, it will be fruitful when women are engaged to calm down the situation on the ground because women are easy for healing and reconciliation.

Women Intra Healing Dialogue

The event took place from 1st - 2nd March, 2017 in Omorate, Dassanech woreda in which 55 participants attended. During this event, it was discussed how to empower and engage women to play their role in conflict management and peace building activities in their respective community. They appreciated the event as a good beginning and suggested for PDC and local government bodies to continue engaging women in matters that affects their life. Women participants promised to commit themselves in playing their role of making peace with Turkana by convincing their children not to incite any kind of conflict with them. Participants agreed on the need of community healing and power of forgiveness will lead to reconciliation with Turkana community.

On this event, there was a woman who actively engaged in directing women participants to the healing and reconciliation from just talking about past incidents and injuries. During the event she managed to lead

86 them to come to reconciliation and initiating the need for peaceful interactions in the future for both communities.

Operational lessons from this event: first engaging women and ensuring their strong participation will play significant role in any peace building activities and development activities, particularly women in Dassanech can play significant role by prohibiting themselves from encouraging warriors and their children, through songs and other traditional activities. Second, whenever there are anger and sense revenge between different communities it will be fruitful for calming down the situation on the ground because women are easy for healing and reconciliation.

Joint Women Forum

A joint women forum was organized from 12-12, June 2017 in Lowaregnak, Turkana County, Kenya. A total of 60 participants- 30 women from Dassanech and 30 women from Turkana participated in the forum from Ethiopia and Kenyay.

The Objective of this event was to strengthen women participation in communities in the area of peace building and conflict resolutions and to create awareness of these participants the need for healing reconciliation so that they will mobilize the rest of their communities for peace and joint sharing natural resources.

During this event, participants openly and actively participated and discussed different issues. A woman from Turkana stated that conflicts between Dassanech and Turkana has persisted due to te absence of proper mechanism for resolving them. Participants have expressed their appreciation for organizing this for women and they expressed their complaint about lack of inclusiveness of women in the efforts of peace building and conflict management processes. They emphasized that women should be recognized as a major stakeholder in the process of conflict resolution. Moreover, women have natural and inherent peace building ability that need to be tapped. The other issue women emphasized during this discussion was about the burden of conflict on women. They said women are the part of community most affected by conflict. Due to conflict women become head of household which leave them more vulnerable for different problems. Due to these reasons, the women focused on their participation in different community activities. Another woman from Turkana stated that, “occurrence of women’s leadership and peace building initiatives has historically led to making a right decision.”

A woman from South Omo on her side said:

87 “women wish to participate in conflict resolution and decision making in matters that affect their lives and the well-being of their children … She emotionally insisted, “we are tired of burial of our sons and husbands… we suffer several times when giving births and killings.”

It was discussed that women bear a heavy burden in conflict and post conflict societies, both directly through violence perpetrated against themselves and their families and as survivors attempting to reconstruct destroyed communities. During this event, participants emphasized on their inclusiveness in peace building. They also suggested that integrating women in decision making and peace building approaches will alleviate South Omo and Turkana conflict.

Both PDC and SAPCONE observed the various attributes of women that lean towards peacemaking. Women are more affectionate in their relationship with others, more than the men. Women care more for other human beings, they show more empathy, and think more about human and social consequences of acts, more than the men. The issues they discussed divulged the need of frequency in Women forums in peace dialogues. Therefore, women should be given every necessary assistance and encouragement to bear on conflict areas so that South Omo and Turkana will move forward and have a better image between two nations.

Lessons Learned

Frequency of activity should be improved to make recognition of the women in the society in peace dialogues and peace buildings. Developing the mechanism allowing women participation in the peace process is crucial since women and girls are impacted differently during the war and the role of women in conflict resolution is still widely under recognized and underestimated.

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A woman giving her opinion on the role of women in peace building

Chiefs’ Led Inter-Community Dialogue

On this event, there was a woman who actively engaged in directing women participants to the healing and reconciliation from just talking about past incidents and injuries. During the event, she managed to lead them to come to resolutions and initiating the need for peaceful interactions in the future for both communities.

Chiefs’ Led Inter-community Dialogue

The chiefs’ forum was formed on 17 March, 2017 in Omorate, Dassanech woreda. The forum was a follow up for the implementation of the resolutions agreed on the Arba Minch resolution in 2016. The chiefs’ forum discussed the security situation across the corridor. It discussed the Arba Minch resolution as chiefs from both sides who were tasked during the meeting to inquire more about who were involved in the signing of the Arba Minch meeting and deliberate on possible avenues of improving levels of resource sharing.

Significant Issues Discussed

Ekeno Lojuko the chief and member of peace committee from Nyangatom stated: "…we are in need to keep peace with Dassanech alive. We would not allow anyone to break it. We agreed to share pasture in our common border”.

89 Yet, the old chief depicted his doubt about making peace with Turkana. He explained the participants as the border area around Kibish is highly insecure with various armed groups from Kenya roaming with their heavy weapons to use water and pasture with little regard and respect for the Nyangatom community. He also acknowledged the past attempts by PDC and SAPCONE by bringing semblance of peace in the area for sharing of natural resources have met with little success due to deep seated differences and culture of raiding cherished by the Turkana. He discussed the missing of Kibish chiefs from Kenya side as indication of poor coordination from SAPCONE in handling peace dialogues.

Yerkutan Losia, an elder from Dassanech reiterated the government should follow the criminal who killed an elder from Todonyang. The action would reveal the weakness of the government in solving cases among its citizens and conflicting communities. He insisted, “if the issue defeats the government then, we should be solving our problems instead of reporting to the government which has lost her sovereignty of protecting its citizens.”

Emuria Simon, an elder from Turkana, discussed that since the increment of educated youths in communities, there is escalation of fighting among the communities. He recalled the traditional way of solving problems as better than the current methods.

Chiefs from Nyangatom community insisted that the absence of Kibish chiefs from Kenya side evidenced the weakness of handling peace dialogues. They insisted that they needed to be called when chiefs from both conflicting communities are present. They reiterated that the chiefs’ forum was meant between Dassanech and Turkana only.

One elder from Turkana elaborated the killing of elder from Todonyang had lacked coordination and that is why an incident happened. He suggested of proper communication and coordination between border administrations before they conduct any activity. The forum condemned the previous killing of an elder and each side promised of not hearing the same in future.

One of the chiefs from Turkana discussed that the delay of activities implementation created gaps hence the small issues escalate…” we are depending on organizations, because of budget we could not frequently meet. These activities are meaningless if they are not conducted subsequently as planned and on time”. He reiterated that the activities should not wait until incidents happen.

Kiru Ekamais, an elder from Turkana noted that the traditional beliefs and praises from the communities is the cause of death…. He gave an example; the practice of circumcision of Dassanech boys is repeatedly account for the attacks they suffer.

90 The key outcome of this particular event was that Dassanech, Nyangatom and Turkana relationship is much needed to be harmonized. They identified and prioritized cross-border conflict issues and made agreements on how to resolve them; thus, collaboration with Turkana on cross border conflict resolution and peace building endeavor was strongly discussed by the forum. On this event, participants underlined on the enhancement of cross -border collaboration between the peace committees and enhanced joint natural resources sharing, use and environment conservation, increased collaboration and reconciliation between South Omo and Turkana cross-border

The Issues observed during the event that the chiefs’ forum felt about the impact of war. We have also observed that there is need to strengthen the existing relationship between Nyangatom and Dassanech and this will attribute to cross-border peace structures for enhanced dialogues and problem solving.

Lessons Learnt During the Event

Cattle-raiding and conflict are deeply rooted in the local culture leading to a cycle of violence, revenge and counter-revenge. Atrocities and human rights violations rooted in the past cause breeding ground for fear, hate and renewed conflict. Healing old wounds (traditionally) is part of our peace work. Ritual cleansing ceremonies and commemorations of historic peace agreements are important to build mutual trust among the border communities (Dassanech, Turkana and Nyangatom).

Celebration of Fishing Communities’ Peaceful Coexistence

The venue took place in Omorate, Ethiopia from 18-19 December,2017. The purpose of the event was to sensitize the two groups (Dassanech & Turkana) to strengthen their peaceful relationship and to facilitate a platform whereby they agree to share natural resources for instance fishing along lake delta area within in a peaceful manner. In addition, the event was meant to lobby the two communities to harmonized strategies for cross-border peace building initiatives and enable fishing committees to engage in peace promotion and conflict resolutions.

The major issue discussed in this venue was conflict related to the fishing ground, which now has interference by different businessmen in the fishing market. This fishing market escalate conflict among these communities in different ways, because of the high competition among businessmen they incite warriors by paying them to prevent communities from fishing and sending them to steal fishing nets. This poses conflict and increase mistrust among fishing communities. Participants have reached agreement to work together to fight against these businessmen and cross border fishing committee members were asked by participants to work hand in hand in order to deescalate the current conflict on the fishing ground.

91 Finally, participants have discussed on how to enhance communication and information exchange among cross border peace committees. They urged PDC, SAPCONE and local administrations to facilitate regular meetings among members. They requested technical support and capacity building trainings. Twenty mobile phones were distributed by PDC and SAPCONE to the fishing committees’ in order to enhance communications among cross border committee members and local administrations. They said that the more flow of information the more they can prevent incidents from happening; because of this strengthening communication channels will be an essential step towards efforts of creating peaceful interaction and conflict mitigation between these communities.

On this meeting representative of Kenyan marine unit has appreciated improvement of situation and mutual sharing of fishing by two communities. He discussed with Ethiopian local officials on how to maintain peace initiative along the lake delta area. They agreed also to identify any stolen nets from Turkana by Dassanech so that exchange of stolen nets will be done soon in coordination with security bodies of both sides.

On the conclusion of the meeting participants have noted the need for strong engagement of local institution in the process of designing mechanism of conflict resolution for them. They also made clear that any intervention in this area should be sensitive to the situation on the ground.

Outcomes of the Event

The key outcome of this particular event was that agreement on further intervention to minimize tension and maintain mutual sharing of natural resources between the border along Lake delta area between Turkana and Dassanech communities. SAPCONE and PDC was mandated to implement community- based activities on the ground.

In this event, it was observed the Fishing Committees’ commitment and determination to maintain peaceful co-existence. Furthermore, the local governments presence in discussion depicted their will to monitor the agreement met and support the local peace actors such as PDC and SAPCONE

Lessons Learnt During the Event

The Dassanech and Turkana communities should be educated on the position and meaning of state borders. The local government should support the clarification and awareness creation process in every way it can to combat rumors that are perilous sources of conflict.

92 Joint cross-border Chiefs’ Forum

The Joint cross-border Chiefs’ Forum was organized from 24th to 25th, September 2017 in Omorate, Ethiopia which aimed at creating enabling environment for chiefs so as to improve tension existing among the border communities (Dassanech, Turkana and Nyangatom), and agree on strategies for intervention that resume peaceful interaction along the border on sharing natural resources. On this forum, 26 participants from Ethiopia attended the forum. Representative of local government of both countries has participated and contributed for the forum. The forum was opened by welcoming Remarks of PDC and SAPCONE representatives and the opening speech was made by Dassanech Woreda Security Personnel, in his opening remark, the woredas representative, stressed on the negative impacts of cross border conflict on his communities along the border. He began his statement by noting that the both Dassanech, Nyangatom and Turkana are continuously affected by endemic violent cross border conflicts. These conflicts have continuously undermined the development and threatened livelihood of the pastoralists groups. He acknowledged that the Chiefs Forums meeting organized availed an opportunity to address various issues influencing inter-community conflicts along common border areas. In this regard, the representative, underscored that if development and increased quality of life of the pastoralist communities were to be realized, and then it is imperative for peace and security to be fostered. He stated that ‘this is a good opportunity that the three communities come together to share their ideas and opinions on sustaining their peaceful relationship. The issue of cattle rustling and theft was emphasized by the participants so far. Traditionally, cattle raiding is a way for young men to achieve the status of a hero. Cows and AK-47 continue to be a measuring device for status over generations. Traditional mechanisms of conflict management are used to change and break the cycle of violence. Furthermore, the Nyangatom raised that unlike the Turkana youth their youth have so many things to do. They are busy of development work. They allegedly discussed that the Turkana youths who have no jobs and dropped out of the school are the one in the frontline of all the violence between the two. Most of these communities involved in violent conflicts have been blamed for their lack of education, unemployment and the need for cultural conformity by a warrior, which guarantees upward social mobility in many of these communities. As to Epur Logerewoi the traditional leader and member of peace committee at Nakeriaman Kebele, “…the Ethiopian government is telling out youths to contribute to poverty reduction, peace and long-term sustainable ecological and economic development of our land in a context of climate change”.

During this forum different main issues discussed by participants which contributed to increased tension among communities of Dassanech, Turkana and Nyangatom. Intervention of the Kenyan government in the communal conflict and political situation in Kenya election campaigners provide arms for pastoralists in order to get vote. Pparticipants have expressed their concern over tensions that has been high from time to

93 time among these communities. They said reason for these tensions is lack of interaction among them. There was no chance of meeting each other for these communities for long time and this has increased suspicion towards each other. Furthermore, the incidents that have been happening around the border widened the gap. So, they appreciated the initiative of organizing the forum, which has created an opportunity for them to meet with their Turkana counterparts even though the number of Turkana participants were not satisfactory, they hoped the message of this will reach the rest of Turkana chief because chiefs from the Kibish did not participate. On this discussion, participants have emphasized on the issue of enhancing peaceful interaction among chiefs from both sides in order to calm down the current tension. Moreover, participants urged the government bodies to coordinate and facilitate dialogues with the support of PDC and SAPCONE.

Chief participants discussed issues of rumors that causes incidents in order to curb this practice. They agreed there is a need to strengthen information channel whereby community can exchange genuine information that stop creating tensions and confusion among these communities.

The other issue raised by Ethiopian side chiefs was that the previous election in Kenya has exacerbated the border conflict and they said some political campaigners provide arms for Kenyan pastoralists in order to get their vote on the coming election. On the other hand, a Kenya arm force also intervenes in communal conflicts in the area and they suggested Kenyan local officials to inform their security bodies. The final issue discussed was the effects of climate change on the grazing land in South Omo. South Omo pastoralists have faced serious shortage of grazing land last year and that was the other problem for the repeated incidents that was happening in the corridor.

Outcomes of the Event

The key outcome of this particular event was that Dassanech, Nyangatom and Turkana relationships are much needed to be harmonized. Both Dassanech, Nyangatom and Turkana identify and prioritize cross- border conflict issues and made agreements on how to resolve them. Collaboration with Turkana on cross border conflict resolution and peace building endeavor was strongly discussed by the forum. During this event, the participants enhanced cross border collaboration between the peace committees and enhanced joint natural resources sharing, use and environment conservation. Increased collaboration and reconciliation between South Omo and Turkana cross-border.

The issues observed in this event is that the chiefs’ forum felt about the impact of war and a need for strengthening existing relationships between Nyangatom, Dassanech and Turkana. This will attribute to cross-border peace structures for enhanced dialogues and problem solving.

94 Lessons Learnt During the Event

Cattle-raiding and conflict are deeply rooted in the local culture leading to a cycle of violence, revenge and counter-revenge. Atrocities and human rights violations rooted in the past cause breeding ground for fear, hate and renewed conflict. Healing old wounds (traditionally) is part of our peace work. Ritual cleansing ceremonies and commemorations of historic peace agreements are important to build mutual trust among the border communities (Dassanech, Turkana and Nyangatom).

Achievements of the Project

Significant changes in cross border community relationships

Over the past 12 months, the program has witnessed improvements in the relationships between cross- border communities. Where tensions were high this has resulted in open conflict being avoided. Where communities have achieved some level of peace, agreements and frameworks have consolidated this progress.

Dassanech-Turkana Relations

At the start of the year, relations between the Dassanech community of South Omo zone, in Ethiopia and the Turkana of Kenya had significantly deteriorated due to the killing of Dassanech elder before last year. Tension rose to near full-scale conflict, communication between the local governments was limited. A year later, the relations have significantly improved and tension has been contained to minimal levels. Communication between local governments has improved, communities along the border are crossing freely, women from both sides meet and dialogue, and the fishing communities just celebrated a year of peacefully sharing the waters of Lake Turkana. Recently, a Dassanech child was returned by the Turkana after getting lost. These actions indicate a shift in the willingness of the communities to reconcile.

These changes resulted from collaboration between PEACE III and the Conflict Early Warning and Early Response Units (CEWERU) of both countries. Indirect talks were held with the two local governments, culminating in a round table in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, where the Arba Minch Resolutions were developed.

These resolutions set a series of other interventions into motion. PEACE III focused its work with more neutral groups, such as women, to influence local governments to act. Additionally, the program used opportunities, such family reunions, to foster communication and build trust.

95 Challenges Faced During Activities Implementation

The main constrains to cross-border peacebuilding intervention in South Omo-Turkana corridor remain not as much of expected. The lack of stakeholders working in the area of peace building at the region and the less implementation of actions weakened the peace effort in the area. In addition, most local government institutions and traditional leaders lack the necessary capacities to deal with cross border violence. Disregard of traditional conflict mitigation institutions and lack of active community involvement further compound these problems. Most importantly, disarmament needs to be better coordinated across the border and the security of disarmed communities needs to be improved.

There were recurrent conflicts in the areas taking place. It was observed that these were because of financial benefits that some pastoralists were getting from the organizations during peace talks. They used these peace talks to gain financial benefits through per diems. Participants from conflict hotspot areas were not represented sometimes especially on Kibish side of Kenya. This weakened our joint cross-border peace forums with our partners. Disregard of traditional conflict mitigation institutions and lack of active community involvement further compound these problems.

Recommendation and Way Forward

Frequent cross border activities have to be carried out so as to sooth/calm down the current tension and violence along the border among Dassanech, Nyangatom and Turkana. The participants commended and appreciated the communal initiatives by PDC and SAPCONE and agreed to instruct the chief’s forum to work closely and support these initiatives to consolidate and sustain peace along the border.

The CEWERU structures both in Kenya and Ethiopia must engage in addressing communal cross border conflict aside from their primarily role of responding to conflicts. This include sensitizing the communities about international borders

The represented chief’s forum accepted to coordinate and work together to condemn any conflicting activities among the communities. The chiefs’ forum came up with an idea that PDC and SAPCONE should provide capacity building training and necessary communication materials such as Printed T-shirts and Radio calls for the Peace Committee and the youth groups because it was considered crucial to make the peace structures a well-functioning and effective early warning and response within the affected vicinities.

Agreement with the Dassanech, Nyangatom and Turkana communities during the upcoming meetings about joint use of natural resources along the borders by bringing together representatives of competing groups

96 and other key actors such as local governments is crucial. With joint facilitation of PDC and SAPCONE, issues of joint usage of natural resources and other conflict triggers can be discussed openly and solutions found.

3.5. East Karamoja Cross- border Conflict Mitigation Project

Introduction

The project areas include Dassanech and Nyangatom woredas from Ethiopia and Turkana County from Turkana all of which lie within the Eastern part of Karamoja Cluster. The Dassanech and Nyangatom are distinct ethnic groups with their own language, different cultures, and separate identities. The Nyangatom (also Gnangatom) live north of Dassanech and their territory stretches from the Omo River in the east to the Kibish River along the borders of South Sudan and Kenya.

The Nyangatom trace their origin to the Karamajong tribe in Uganda and speak the same language as their two neighbors from Kenya and South Sudan who claim the same descent. The Dassanech live south of the Nyangatom and occupy the northern lake shore of Turkana. Their territory extends up to the Kenyan border on both the eastern and western sides of the Omo River. The Dassanech speak a different language than their neighbors. The Dassanech and Nyangatom have historically experienced violent conflicts with each other as well as with surrounding ethnic groups, including cross- border conflicts with Turkana communities on the Kenyan side of the border. The conflicts tend to increase along borderlands between different ethnic groups where the communities come into close contact.

The Nyangatom and Dassanech woredas are amongst the 16 officially known ethnic groups in South Omo Zone, SNNPR, Southwestern Ethiopia. The Turkana people live in Turkana County, Northwestern Kenya. The Turkana, Dassanech and Nyangatom communities are predominantly pastoralists who move from place to place in search of water and pasture for their herds. Moreover, competition over fishing resources in Lake Turkana between Dassanech and Turkana people pose violent conflicts frequently. Recurrent drought and climate change coupled with degradation of resources increase the already existing conflicts resulting in loss of lives and cattle raids livestock along common borders.

To mitigate the conflicts, a project proposal was jointly designed by Peace and Development Center (PDC) and Saint Peter’s Community Network (SAPCONE) to implement a project entitled: “East Karamoja Cross- border Conflict Mitigation”. CEWARN/IGAD mobilized fund from Giz. Following this an MoU was signed between the Ethiopian and Kenya CEWERU, CEWARN, PDC and SAPCONE to implement the

97 cross-border project agreement and define ways of working together. The project implementation period was for six months and completed accordingly in two rounds.

This report illustrates the activities of the two partners organizations in collaboration with local administrations and grass level communities from March 1, 2017- September 30, 2017.

The overall objective of the project is to contribute towards the creation of enabling environment for cross border pastoralists (Nyangatom, Turkana, and Dassanech) along the borders of Turkana County, Kenya and South Omo Zone, Ethiopia, and pursue an interdependent effort to enhance peaceful relationship among the communities.

Major Activities Completed

PDC and SAPCONE have been implementing cross-border activities since June 2015 in South Omo- Turkana Corridor. These partners received a grant from CEWARN/IGAD in February 2017 to implement the East Karamoja cross-border conflict mitigation project along South-Omo-Turkana corridor of Karamoja cluster.

PDC and SAPCONE, starting from second week of March to July 2017, implemented seven activities (for which fund is received) of the above-mentioned project. During the implementation period greater engagement of women through women peace crusade and caravan, revitalization of cross-border peace committees and structure, greater engagement of youth through youth forum, form and train cross-border peace committees, regional youth conference, joint cross-border peace gathering/caravan and lower level government officials meeting activities were conducted. This report narrates the activities performed during the given period, its achievements, challenges faced during implementation and future recommendations.

Greater Engagement of Women through Women Peace Crusade and Caravan

This activity was the first of its kind for the project and it was conducted from 19-20, March 2017 at Omorate, a capital town of Dassanech woreda. A total of 97 women - 50 participants from Turkana County and 47 participants from South Omo Zone took part on this vent. Local government representatives of both countries have also participated.

98

Women Forum

Representatives of PDC and SAPCONE sent message to participants of the event. They urged participants to break silence and come out to the public light to purify the conflict on their side and give the way forward for peace. They also emphasized on the role of women in efforts of making peace happen and enhancing peaceful interaction among communities of Dassanech and Turkana.

During this event, participants were openly and actively participated and discussed different issues. A woman from Turkana stated that conflict between Dassanech and Turkana has persisted due to lack of proper mechanism for resolving them. Participants have expressed their appreciation for organizing this for women and they expressed their complaint about lack of inclusiveness of women in the efforts of peace building and conflict management processes. They emphasized women should be recognized as a major stakeholder in the process of conflict resolution. Moreover, women have natural and inherent peace building ability that need to be tapped.

The other issue women emphasized during this discussion was about the burden of conflict on women, they said women are the part of community most affected by conflict. Due to conflict, women become head of households which leave them vulnerable for different problems. Due to these reasons the women focused on their participation in different community activities. A woman from Turkana stated said, “occurrence of women’s leadership and peace building initiatives has historically led to making a right decision.” A woman from South Omo on her side said, “women wish to participate in conflict resolution and decision making

99 in matters that concern them and the well-being of their children……She emotionally insisted, “we are tired of burying our sons and husbands…. we suffer several times when giving births and killings!”

During this event, women from both communities have agreed to work together towards achieving peace for their community. They decided to use their culturally specific methods and their position as a mother to discourage their husband and sons from going to incite any conflict among their communities.

Revitalization of cross-border peace committees and peace structures

On 23-24, March 2017, PDC and SAPCONE conducted revitalization of cross-border peace committee and peace structures at Todonyang, in Kenya. On this event, more than 60 participants (cross-border fishing and pasture usage peace committee members) and local government officials of both sides participated.

On this meeting, major issues were raised and discussed. The first issue dealt with shortage of grazing land on Dassanech side which pose conflicts when they try to cross-border in search of grazing land in Turkana area; the second issue was related to fishing ground, theft of fishing nets and involvement of business people in the fishing activities and how to strengthen communications among cross-border peace committee members triggered for further discussion.

On this meeting, participants from Dassanech repeatedly raised about shortage of grazing land on their side as the main reason for cross-border conflict with Turkana community. The current drought has exacerbated the situation for their livestock and due to this reason, they sought a sort of understanding from Turkana counter parts. They also added that most of the time they were prohibited to use these pasturelands by the Kenyan army based in Todonyang.

The second issue discussed was conflict related to the fishing ground, which now has interference by different businessmen in the fishing market. This fishing market has escalated conflict among these communities in different ways, because of the high competition among businessmen they incite warriors by paying them to prevent communities from fishing and sending them to steal fishing nets which in turn causes conflict and increase mistrust among fishing communities. Participants has reached agreement to work together to fight against these businessmen and cross-border fishing committee members were asked by participants to work hand in hand in order to de-escalate the current conflict on the fishing ground.

Dassanech community members have raised about their elder who was killed in last year summer around Todonyang police station in Catholic mission camp. They expressed their concern that the culprit should be appeared to court to face trial for the crime and Turkana County government should bear the responsibility.

100 On this meeting a representative of Kenyan marine unit has revealed that nine fishing nets stolen from Dassanech by Turkana warriors were caught by marine forces and discussed with Ethiopian local officials on how to restore these fishing nets to Dassanech fisheries. Agreement was also reached to identify any stolen nets from Turkana by Dassanech so that exchange of stolen nets will be done soon in coordination with security bodies of both sides.

On the conclusion of the meeting participants has noted the need for strong engagement of local institution in the process of designing mechanism of conflict resolution for them. They also made clear that any intervention in this area should be sensitive to the situation on the ground.

Greater engagement of youth through youth fora

The forum was held at Kangaten, capital town of Nyangatom Woreda on 26 March 2017. On this event, more than 70 participants participated from Kibish, Kenya and Nyangatom woreda, Ethiopia including local officials from both countries. In this meeting, from Kenyan side, Peace Expert and Kibish District Administrator of the Turkana County Government (TCG), and Nyangatom woreda Chief Administrator and Head of Administration and Security Bureau on the Ethiopian side, attended the forum.

PDC representative welcomed and introduced participants the purpose of the event and the forum was opened by Kebede Sahile, Chief Administrator of Dassanech woreda. He welcomed them to woreda and made clear the destructive conflicts which happen between these brotherly communities who share common values, mode of life, culture and language. He stated that these violent conflicts have threatening livelihoods and undermining development in the area. He advised participants to use this opportunity to develop mechanism for strengthening peaceful relationship. Participants have expressed their concern over the tension that has been high from time to time among these communities.

101 A youth participant stated the following:

“Several attempts have been made in the past to end rivalry between us but failed…. They all involved the use of force. Our approach is different, our people listen to us and I am confident they will accept our messages”.

On this discussion, participants have emphasized on the issue of enhancing peaceful interaction among youth from both sides in order to calm down the current tension. They urged government bodies to coordinate and facilitate dialogues with the support of PDC and SAPCONE.

Youth participants discussed issues of rumors that triggered incidents and in order to curb this practice they agreed there is a need to strengthen information channel whereby community can exchange genuine information that stop creating tensions and confusion among these communities.

At the end of the forum, the effects of climate change on the grazing land of Nyangatom discussed. Nyangatom pastoralists have faced serious shortage of grazing land last year which caused repeated incidents in the corridor.

Form and Train Joint Cross-border Peace Committees

On 12-13, July 2017, PDC and SAPCONE have conducted a form and trained joint cross- border peace committee members at Todonyang Police station in Kenya. On this event, more than 30 participants were trained. The main objective of this activity was to build up the capacity of cross-border peace committee members so as to contribute towards the creation of enabling environment for pastoralists (Dassanech, Nyangatom and Turkana) along the borders of Ethiopia and Kenya to pursue interdependent and peaceful life.

The training was focusing on the local peace committees who were represented by customary leaders, influential community members, women, youth and local government structures who have been able to jointly engage in various peace building efforts among the conflicting communities.

The following are the relevant issues taught during the training

The joint cross-border peace committees were trained to be timely, accurate, validity of the information, reliability, verifiability and complete information among the communities in order to guide stakeholders on how to mitigate conflict by getting the right information within conflicting communities. Therefore, the training was focusing on the local peace committees who were represented by customary leaders, influential community members, women, youth and local government structures. The representatives of both groups

102 gave emphasis on the need to work together under one structure and thereby contribute for the significant improvement in regular communication and information sharing among the community members across the border. They also underlined the importance of mutual understanding, trust and culture of working together to be created among the joint cross-border peace committee members and the rest of the communities.

In addition to their immense contribution to the peaceful coexistence of pastoralist communities across the assessment area, the joint engagement of community representatives in the area under organized joint peace committee structure is also to improve the functioning capability of local community actors to deal with conflict and insecurity in a more coordinated and established manner. They help to easily mobilize their respective communities towards peaceful settlement of conflicts through dialogue and discussion and thereby enhance local participation and decision making for the community members represented in the peace committee structures.

Dassanech, Nyangatom and Turkana Joint Cross-border Peace Gathering /Caravan

This activity was conducted from 15-17, July 2017 at Omorate, Dassanech Woreda. A total of 150 participants from both sides were selected. 75 from Turkana County and 75 participants from South Omo Zone took part on this event. On this forum, local officials from both countries participated.

The objective of this event was to strengthen the participants in communities in the area of peace building and conflict resolutions and to create awareness of these participants the need for healing reconciliation so that they will mobilize the rest of their communities for peace and joint natural resource sharing.

The pastoralist communities of Dassanech, Nyangatom and Turkana reiterated that they have been coexisted with each other for long time under the customary negotiated system of shared management of natural resources and resolving of conflicts among them pursuing traditional conflict resolution mechanisms. The primary focus on these traditional institutions were reconciliation through tradition of forgiveness, respect and transfer of resources as compensation payments pulling conflicting parties back into the kind of good and cooperative behavior that leads to harmony and productivity. They had developed particularized customary organizations that serve the joint purpose of resource management, social security and conflict resolution. However, the declining and erosion of these effective local approaches left wide space for frequent clashes and conflicts among the communities in the corridor. The frequency and intensity of resource -based conflicts have risen over the past few years as water and pasture have grown scarce.

103 Organize Regional Youth Conference

The conference was held at Kangaten on 1st September 2017, where more than 60 participants including local officials from both countries participated; from Kenyan side Turkana County Government peace expert, SAPCONE executive director and Kibish District Administrator, Nyangatom woreda Chief Administrator and Head of Administration & Security on the Ethiopian side, attended the conference.

PDC representative welcomed and introduced participants the purpose of the event and Mr. Fikru Etuk Administration and Security Personnel, Nyangatom Woreda welcomed the participants. He stressed the importance of peace and advised the youth to foster friendship among the Dassanech, Turkana and Nyangatom, reminding them that if severe drought affected any of them, it would be easy to approach each other for grazing rights. During this conference, different issues were discussed by participants “We are for ekisil!”5 was the clear message from youth. The event brought youth from two nations together at Kangaten!” remarked Meri, a kraal leader. “We should take this opportunity to make a final agreement on peace that will be witnessed by all.

The youth conference discussed that frequent and prolonged drought in the pastoralist areas scuttles and seriously destabilizes the communities. Natural resource-based conflicts especially over water and pasture during the dry periods easily escalate and become violent. The limited available ‘development’ resources in the areas are redirected towards the management of the violent conflict in order to save lives. Insecurity also means that the available resources pasture and water located in hostile areas are not used while resources located in relatively secure areas are over-utilized. Therefore, the participants agreed to share natural resources in order to avoid over grazing.

In addition, most local government institutions and traditional leaders lack the necessary capacities to deal with cross border violence. Disregard of traditional conflict mitigation institutions and lack of active community involvement further compound these problems. Most importantly, disarmament needs to be better coordinated across the border and the security of disarmed communities needs to be improved.

Joint Cross-Border Lower Level Government Officials' Meeting

The joint cross-border meeting of local government officials of South Omo Zone of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) and Turkana County (Republic of Kenya) was held on 30th August, 2017 at Turmi in Ethiopia. In the meeting, Ethiopia and Kenya represented 20 and 12 participants respectively. The

5 Ekisil means peace (Selam in Amharic) in Karamoja language

104 meeting drew together the zonal & local administrations from Dassanech and Nyangatom woredas, and county representatives from Turkana and local representatives of the adjacent border areas.

After a brief introduction of the meeting, the security situation at local level was reported by woreda and zone administration from Ethiopian side. The same was done in Kenyan side. Issues related with livestock theft and killing was reported as the triggering factor for the conflict between Nyangatom and Dassanech. Likewise, the Nyangatom side indicated the issue of the Kenyan local government taking part in pastoralists conflict at Kibish as the cause of the heightened tension along the border.

The officials from Ethiopia applauded that security is very important and their government have formed the basis of security for their people. In Ethiopia, the government speaks of the cardinal principle, which is to protect property and lives of people. This very important meeting culminates so many efforts between the two countries and they want to take this opportunity to thank the two nations for the commendable job of reviving the sisterhoods. It is through the same spirit that our neighboring communities should come together and deliberate on issues that are very important to them. They have a lot in common and have also noted a few differences. The moment they set aside some time, they shall try to sort out these issues that are absolutely important and they believe that they can realize peace. They have demonstrated commitment, as leaders of the region. They have accelerated their efforts to actualize and realize peace in the region because poverty, frequent drought and famine leave the region with no choice.

The lower level government officials were encouraged by the various terms people use to describe the gun: the enemy, snake, killer, wizard. These names indicate that they now realize that the gun is destructive and pastoralist communities are lagging behind in development because they insist on following the barbaric tradition of cattle rustling.

The lower level government officials recognized the presence of PDC and SAPCONE and the role they play along the corridors. They insisted that the two organizations are important along the corridor and concerned on the issues of security. The officials reiterated that several peace meetings have been conducted along the corridor and yet most of them remained ineffective. They emphasized the need to strategize how to utilize and share resources so as not to become sources of conflicts.

105 3.6. Disseminating Human and Democratic Rights and Responsibilities Education in Ethiopia Project

Introduction

The Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) has come to full force and effect in 1995. It guarantees both human and democratic rights to the people of Ethiopia without discrimination. But this constitution is not fully enforced and it is common to see violation of human and democratic rights in the country. This is mainly because of lack of knowledge in the government and the public offices as well as the in the general public. Efforts to disseminate the values and concepts of human rights to the general public in Ethiopian will play a significant role in raising their general level of awareness in regard to their basic rights and obligations as citizens. There is no doubt that such an awareness will help them to be in much better positions to defend and fight any sort of overt and/or hidden acts of violations and degradations committed by individuals, groups of individuals and the state. For this, creating awareness on human and democratic rights through education and training is essential in Ethiopia in order to enforce the constitutional rights of the people.

Considering the above PDC, in collaboration with the National Endowment for Democracy/NED/ conducted workshops to educate human and democratic rights and responsibilities in Gambella, Oromia, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples, and Beneshangul Gumuz regional states for the last twenty years. The workshops targeted lower level government officials, religious institutions and other development and law enforcing organs.

Project Purpose and Context

The purpose of this project is to organize and conduct training workshop on human and democratic rights and responsibilities in order to improve human and democratic rights situation. The training workshops intends to raise awareness of the participants of the training in this regard and encourage them to transfer this awareness to other parts of society including the local administrators.

The Training Workshops

The training workshop usually conducted for four consecutive days. In one training session, fourth participants who usually represent lower level government officials, religious leaders, police departments officers, representative of elders’ councils, women and children affairs officers and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) representatives attended the workshop.

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Training participants in partial in Gambella

The main points usually covered in these trainings are:  What are the concepts of human and democratic rights, how they evolved?  What are the main human rights violations in your neighborhood (Vicinity)?  What is the difference between human rights violation and any other crime?  Who is responsible at times when human rights are violated?  What is your role as a member of the society in terms of maintaining human rights? The history and progress of human rights from the ancient to recent, both globally and in Ethiopian context, usually discussed in these trainings  From historical and legal perspectives, how do you see the status of human rights in Ethiopia since the era of chronicles?  Is the current level of human rights better/worse compared to the previous years? Discuss by raising evidences.  Does establishing constitutional system by itself sufficiently guarantees constitutionalism and respect for human rights? Discuss this with the current state of our country in mind.

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia/FDRE/ Constitution is also a topic of discussion always raised in such kinds of trainings by PDC trainers. The FDRE Constitution follows similar approach to those

107 of universal human rights declaration. Its implementation of human rights is also harmonious with those international conversions. However, Ethiopia follows its own direction, naming and classification of rights. Accordingly, Ethiopia classifies rights as:  Human rights and  Democratic rights The roles and responsibilities of government in relation to human rights usually explained by the trainers to participants in all trainings PDC conducted. The trainings described and in detail discussed the governments the three responsibilities. 1. Responsibility of protecting human rights 2. Responsibility of maintaining human rights 3. Responsibility of fulfilling human rights The other topic usually raised during the trainings is vulnerable groups. Children, women and the elderly as the most vulnerable groups and their rights always discussed.

3.7. Selam Ekisil (SEEK) Project6

Violent conflicts in the border areas between Kenya and Ethiopia are shaped by the realities that define subsistence rural livelihoods. For example, climate change has led to rising temperatures and higher frequency and intensity of droughts that have changed the vegetation in the rangelands, forcing pastoralists to move further to find food and water for cattle. In addition, conflicts over land rights and access occur between private businesses, local governments, and different ethnic groups. In all cases, violent conflict erodes the positive social capital that holds communities together and pushes vulnerable and already marginalized people to migrate to locations they believe can allow them to attain secure livelihoods and alternative options for a stable, prosperous life.

Funded by the European Union Trust Fund for Africa, the Selam Ekisil (SEEK) project adopts a conflict systems based approach to address the multiple causes of conflict in cross border areas and to promote peace building, conflict management, and conflict resolution capacity at the community and cross border levels. It is part of the EU’s program for Collaboration in the Cross Border areas of the Horn of Africa, providing over 60 million euros of investment to prevent and mitigate the impact of local conflict and to promote economic development and greater resilience in four different cross border regions. Ultimately,

6Adopted from Pact Kenya website: https://pactworld.us17.list‐ manage.com/track/click?u=c5079200e6e816d4a37a9ea85&id=9e0f0829b6&e=4160baec7b

108 the prevalence and severity of conflict are shaped by the effectiveness of informal and formal institutional structures and forces that manage differences between groups.

The three-year project, that started in January 2017, will address drivers of conflict, insecurity, and instability, while strengthening the systems and institutions that peacefully manage and resolve conflict on the border of Southwest Ethiopia and Northwest Kenya. The lead partner is Pact Kenya. PDC, SAPCONE and SND are the implementing partners in the ground.

Theory of Change of the Project

If there are strong peace systems and structures in the formal institutional domain, strong social capital, and cohesion between and across communities AND support from other influencing stakeholders, THEN conflict will be prevented, and its impact mitigated.

Main Focus

1. Strengthening Peace Structures

Government and non-government actors in Ethiopia and Kenya have invested considerable effort to develop formal and informal systems to address conflict and peace issues. SEEK will work with these existing structures to increase their ability to respond to current conflicts and prevent new hotspots from occurring. Specific activities will be guided by the communities, with emphasis on important local issues such as contested grazing lands, fishing areas and water resources. In addition, SEEK will work with local policy and security forces in ‘rights-based’ policing and improve their community approaches.

2. Increasing Social Capital and Cohesion

SEEK will work to increase channels of communications between different groups. The project will use an integrated approach for at-risk youth through mentorships, increasing involvement of youth in community decision-making discussions, and creating opportunities for youth from different tribes and areas to socially engage and promote peace ideals with one another. Additionally, SEEK will provide psycho-social support to female health workers and link women to existing early warning and early response systems to enhance their role as peace builders.

3. Providing Conflict Sensitivity Support to Investment and Development Actors

In some situations, actions from investment and development actors may inadvertently create conflict. To address this, SEEK will hold conflict sensitivity training for development actors and the private sector that have the political will to engage. The project will also create dialog with the private sector on initiatives or activities they can contribute to peace in the communities where they work.

109 CHAPTER FOUR RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS OF PDC

4: 1 Traditional Conflict Resolution Research Studies Sponsored and Published By PDC The first study is published by PDC as a book, the second published as a separate paper and the third in collaboration with LPI published in 2017.

4.1.2 Making Peace in Ethiopia: Five Cases of Traditional Mechanisms for Conflict Resolution

In 2007, PDC sponsored a research study about Eldership in a few selected Ethiopian regions. The study was published as a book with the generous support the Swedish Life & Peace Institute, edited by Dr. Tarekegn Adebo and Hannah Tsadik with an Introduction by Prof. Isaac. Here below is the gist of the study:

The five case studies with their respective researchers include the Walayta people in South Ethiopia by Mellese Madda, the Arsi Oromo in Dodolla district and surroundings by Dr. Mamo Hebo, the northern Wollo in Amhara Regional state by Uthman Hassen, the Sidama by Ambaye Ogato, and the Gurage in South West Ethiopia by Yirga Gebre. The final chapter of the book, by Hannah Tsadik, also discussed the linkage between the age-tested wisdom and scientific knowledge pertaining to TMCR. The case studies have identified the values, procedures, outcomes, and applicability/legitimacy of the traditional mechanisms in the study areas.

PDC organized and conducted a one-day research dissemination and validation workshop in Plaza Hotel on November 29, 2007 where the researchers presented their research findings and received feedbacks from the audience. The outcome of the research is summarized by as follows:

Traditions of ‘peaceable diversity’ Seeing the rampant civil wars and societal breakdowns of mid-1990s when state structures got pulverized in places like Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and later on in the DRC, with widespread signs of serious ailments in many other places, I wrote and spoke enthusiastically in support of an earlier theme of political discourse ‘bringing the state back in. It was a time when interest in dichotomy, particularity and violence had reached obsession proportions.

“With all the endless state-level turmoil, coupled with perennially depressed economy, I wondered how the African societies could persist and survive. The question took me to the grassroots, to the thick of our societies and their everyday life. It gives consolation to ponder on what Elise Boulding calls ‘a culture that

110 promotes peaceable diversity,’ as she examines some old traditions. The title of her book Cultures of Peace, a Hidden Side of History”7, is a tribute to UNESCO’s longstanding effort for peace and, it says it all.

“Such a culture,” she states, “includes life ways, patterns of belief, values, behavior, and accompanying institutional arrangements that promote mutual caring and well-being as well as an equality that includes appreciation of difference, stewardship, and equitable sharing of the earth’s resources among its members and all living beings. There is no need for violence”8. Particularly discussing communal peace practices, Boulder writes: “Just as each familial household develops its own problem solving behavior, so each social group has developed its own strategies of conflict resolution over time, uniquely rooted in local culture and passed on from generation to generation”9. This brings a challenge to the elite: “As society becomes more complex and elites become differentiated from ‘common people’, center-periphery problems based on mutual ignorance develop. Elites not only cease to share locally based knowledge but cease literally to share a common language with locals”10

The knowledge of a peace culture “is woven into religious teachings, into the music, poetry, and dancing of ceremonies, celebrations, and play. It is present in women’s culture, in the world of working traditional decision-making assemblies, in environmental lore, and in the memory of the past. These are the hidden peace building strengths of every society.”11

Experience and deep analyses show that states rooted in the community and the positive soil of cultural heritage can avoid implosions. Unfortunately, some arrogant anthropologists and political scientists, reflecting the arrogance of Western elites, have contributed to spurning and rejecting tradition and discouraging inquiry and research into local peace cultures.

Long before Boulding’s narrative, and as one of the pioneers of peace building in the era of intrastate wars from early 1990s, the Life & Peace Institute (LPI) discovered the value of respecting and empowering “internal capacitation” of each society for sustainable and internally driven peace building12. As part of its diverse topics of research and publication, LPI paid due attention to the study of traditional mechanisms of peaceful conflict resolution and reconciliation13. This book is also collaboration between LPI and

77Ibid.

10Ibid. p. 91 11Community‐based Bottom‐up Peacebuilding, Uppsala: Life & Peace Institute. See Heinrich, Wolfgang, 1997, Building the Peace, Uppsala: Life & Peace Institute; Thania Paffenholz, 2003, 13There are three books encompassing experiences of many countries from the Hornand Great Lakes Region of Africa.

111 PDC/Peace and Development Committee of attempting to dig out the gems hidden in Ethiopia’s rich traditional peace practices.

Dr. Isak Svensson, a conflict and peace researcher, pointed out that despite their widespread use, “traditional mechanisms have received surprisingly little attention in previous conflict resolution research” and acknowledged “one ecumenical actor that has sought to contribute to this field is the Life & Peace Institute (LPI) in Uppsala. The Institute has a long record of visualizing and supporting these grassroots peace actors”14

Meaning The present research is a continuation of PDC’s long commitment to improve communal capacities in conflict resolution and peace building. Here, with the term traditional mechanisms for conflict resolution (TMCR) we mean “long-persistent social practices, rooted in local cultural settings, aiming at resolving conflicts, reducing tension, and rebuilding social relationships.”15

As the case studies show, the actors we are discussing here are mainly the individuals and groups in conflict and the third parties–primarily the Elders. A reconciliation process itself could be seen from two angles: one as a process of adjudication where disputants have to face justice as stipulated in the particular customary law with penalty for offences, and secondly, as a process of mediation and reconciliation with a result of rebuilding severed relationships.

TMCR, also called customary law or informal justice system, is popularized in recent years in its role as ‘transitional justice’ in societies emerging from armed conflicts. There is no contradiction in using traditional mechanisms as facilitators of transitional justice. However, in this study we largely understand such mechanisms in their long continuity and pervasive use among people. Here we examine the topic from the perspective of ‘legal pluralism’ rather than as passing norms. This implies “the coexistence of state and non-state forms of adjudication”16

The Outcome of the Case Studies: Five TMCR case studies were done during the autumn of 2007 in Ethiopia. They have given us a glimpse into the knowledge of traditional peace- making and peace building, based in the depth of wisdom and

14Svensson, Isak, 1997, Traditional mechanisms for conflict resolution TMCR, Uppsala: LPI, p. 1. (Prepared as an LPI guide for the Ethiopia research in collaboration with Dr. TarekegnAdebo, Senior Research Advisor, LPI). 15Ibid. p. 2 16Huyse, Luc and Mark Salter, Eds. 2008, Traditional justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict, Stockholm: IDEA, p.

112 cultural values that had kept alive peaceable diversity and cooperative life since ancient times. With the help of a research guide, the fieldwork has been patterned to identify values, procedures, outcome or decisions and applicability /legitimacy of the mechanisms studied. This has facilitated systematic organization of the field material and comparison of the findings.

The following is a brief summary of the key findings of the five case studies: Values: Peace and peacemaking are values of paramount importance in all the studied rural traditions. As one of the researchers expressed, peace “is a centerpiece of every ritual, greetings and good wish” in everyday life. It is also established that traditional mechanisms not only adjudicate cases but they also seek to seal the settlement through reconciliation or mending severed relationships. Reconciliation (erq in Amharic and araara in Oromiffa and Sidama), with various solemn rituals, is a process that seals re- established relationships.

Key to the process of traditional justice and reconciliation are the principles of: a) truth–proving and/or acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Truth known as Hallale (Sidama), Ewnet (Amharic), Tumma (Walaita) and Dhuggaaargachu, ‘gaining truth’ among the Arsi (Oromiffa) opens up the door for reconciliation. Truth ‘is said to be more important than receiving economic compensation’; truth telling entails acknowledgement of the wrongdoing, and if genuine it can lead to asking for forgiveness; b) openness, participation, is said to be ‘the hallmark of the jarsummaa or eldership institution’. Cases are discussed and bargained freely under the facilitation of elders; not only stakeholders, even “a passer-by” can express his/her opinion; c) justice/accountability: every offence faces justice to restore the dignity of the victim. In Arsi Oromo, restitution or gumaa, meaning payment of blood money, compensation in cash and kind are made as provided by each customary law. However, the aim of punishment is mainly restoration of societal peace and to rule out revenge actions. Even in case of homicide, a crime largely adjudicated by formal justice nowadays, the offender can be treated as a near relative of the family of the deceased after token compensation, forgiveness and solemn rituals. In the Sidama practice, a killer could be rehabilitated to be called a HiliAyde ‘a close friend’ of the family of the deceased; d) legality or sera (a concept found both in the chapters on Sidama and Arsi Oromo) observance is strictly followed for the sake of peace for all, and e) forgiveness: this brings healing to the injured and inner peace and future assurance without possible revenge to the offender. Forgiveness vindicates the victim and frees the perpetrators at last both parties are rehabilitated. Truth, transparency/openness and justice without forgiveness will not make reconciliation complete. Institutions: In all the studied case areas there are known structures of justice and reconciliation. In some, these structures are more elaborate and clear with written customs and structural-functional descriptions (Guraghe Kitcha); in others, though clearly identifiable, they are orally transmitted, and still in others they

113 tend to be diffuse. Mediators and decision-makers in cases of dispute settlement are elders and community leaders who form elders’ councils. The Elders of the land, Jarsa biyyaa (Arsi Oromo), Ye’ager Shimagille (Amhara), Songo (Sidama), DeiraCimma (Walaita) adjudicate disputes and reconcile disputants.

Eldership characteristics: Elders must be distinguished persons for their high moral standard in the community. They must have knowledge of particular customs, skill and wisdom in handling disputes and an ability to analyze and advise disputants; be patient, impartial, incorruptible, and respectful of diversity. They must be of older age and respected also for their leadership capacity. Women and younger persons tend to be excluded from elders’ councils.

Procedure: In the dispute settlement process we have the two disputants (individuals, groups), the Elders, and witnesses. In the process, the parties have an ample opportunity to express their side of the case and to discuss the proposal for final decision. In some cases eloquent elders carefully argue for a certain line and manage to convince the parties to accept the proposed alternative or decision. The key method here is persuasion rather than threat or coercion. The Elders look for a win-win solution. In the final analysis their aim is repairing severed relations among the disputants. The outcome includes, as mentioned above, finding the truth, conviction/remorse, sanctions for breech of law/accountability (justice), forgiveness and final repair of relations.

What is observed in the Sidama practice can be a good example and reflects a good picture. The system has ‘a strong bent towards reconciliation, cooperation, truth and integration’; characterized by ‘high level of transparency and participation of all parties interested in the case’.

The duty of compliance: The Elders through witnesses and on the basis of various sources convince themselves and the participants of their sessions about the final verdict. They persuade the disputants to accept their decision. The party that fails to abide by the verdict faces a serious sanction or peer-pressure in the society. The most stringent measure for negligence is ostracism, which one researcher called ‘a kind of house arrest’. Ostracism affects not only the individual offender, but the whole family will also bear the brunt. On the other hand, it is clear, due to the familiarity of the customs and legitimacy of the elders, decisions are easily implemented.

Applicability/legitimacy: Research findings in all the studied regions show TMCR enjoy high acceptance and legitimacy among the people. Among the reasons are included: Cost effectiveness, Accessibility and proximity, Emphasis on reconciliation, Familiarity, Impartiality, Wide participation where all concerned reach decisions through arguments, negotiation, and discussions.

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Dedication PDC Book, "Making Peace in Ethiopia: Five Cases of Traditional Mechanisms for Conflict Resolution”

In Ethiopia, TMCR have always been accorded recognition by the State for their ubiquitous and useful role17. They act as shock absorbers, attacking in the bud myriads of societal tensions, thus relieving much of the burden of the formal institutions. The present Ethiopian Constitution accords recognition to traditional practices; government officials often call upon elders to intervene when intricate conflicts arise and courts also refer some cases to the elders’ councils.

Yet, modernity, at times pushed to extremist hubris, fails to appreciate fully the values of tradition.

Religion and TMCR The role of religion in the question of custom-based justice and reconciliation is complex. Christianity and Islam, the two main religions in Ethiopia, respect customary practices of justice and reconciliation. Leaders of different faiths usually take part in elders’ councils, as reconciliation and peacemaking are highly

17Article 34.5 of the Ethiopian constitution states: This Constitution shall not preclude the adjudication of disputes relating to personal and family laws in accordance with religious or customary laws, with the consent of the parties to the dispute. Art. 91.1 states: Government shall have the duty to support, on the basis of equality, the growth and enrichment of cultures and traditions that are compatible with fundamental rights, human dignity, democratic norms and ideals, and the provisions of the Constitution. SNNPS proc. 110/2007 “empowered Elders to resolve disputes over rural land holdings through negotiations and arbitration”.

115 regarded virtues in the teachings of both faiths. As one of the researchers states, TMCR “are not formally linked with religious structures … [but] being respected members of the community, religious leaders actively participate in TMCR operations”.

However, the religious elders are expected to respect and preserve the traditional character of the TMCR– their content, process and outcome. Even if the majority of the council may belong to one faith, eldership is expected to be neutral, not discriminatory of any person on religious grounds. However, with the present rising competition among religions, signs of impatience and zeal for ‘purification’ are observed in some areas. It is clear, TMCR are energized through both existential and spiritual strivings.

TMCR’s Relevance Conflicts occur among individuals, within families, between clans and communities across ethnic borders. The studies have shown TMCR to be also useful in cases of inter-ethnic conflicts, across languages and regions. The 2007 release of former Qinijit / CUD leaders, members and supporters, and other prisoners as a result of mediation by a Coalition of National Elders has shown the relevance of TMCR even in a serious Federal, national case. This shows the vitality and importance of valuable cultural practices of the past to solve present day problems.

Aware of the strength of traditional mediation, PDC Founders from the very beginning since 1991 have advocated the establishment of a National Network of Elders covering the whole region of the Horn of Africa. This is a viable idea that PDC still pursues and hopes to make it a reality with national and international support.

Weaknesses: The major weaknesses leveled against TMCR include: General bias against women and being an all-male institution (an exception is the ArsiSinqi Hanfala, an all women TMCR, which handles disputes among women); bias against younger people; tendency to be corrupted–not so serious since no exchange of money takes place. Weakness in human rights consciousness, entertaining inequality in terms of social status and gender–a false accusation since elders are expected to respect all regardless of their status. Being ad-hoc and largely depending on oral tradition is fine.

The Wider Perspective Traditional justice was significantly popularized with its effective use in the establishment and work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu who chaired the

116 proceedings demonstrated,18in order for the Commission to bring about the historic reconciliation of the divided society, it had to base its work on ‘the very essence of being human’, imbued with the African world view of ‘Ubuntu’ ways of being generous, hospitable, friendly, caring, and compassionate’. In this view, “a person is a person through other people … I am human because I belong. Harmony, friendliness, community are great goods. Social harmony is the summumbonum–the greatest good”.

In his conceptual work, John Paul Ledrach, an early collaborator and partner of the PDC Founders, has summarized reconciliation to be accompanied with truth, justice, forgiveness and peace19 The attributes of traditional and informal justice summarized by the Penal Reform International (PRI)20 from experiences in Africa largely agree with the findings of the Ethiopian cases. There are indications that practical interest for restorative justice based on African experience is growing globally.

My own journey of 1990s to the African grassroots gave me the following concluding picture: “many writers have tended to emphasize the aspect of differences, boundaries and conflict. While salient differences exist in the African reality, where diversity is more of a rule, people of varying linguistic and cultural backgrounds, settled contiguously, have tended to bridge over their differences, to compromise, cooperate and intermingle.”21 As we saw above, TMCR have a few weaknesses. However, the recognition and revitalization of traditional practices with the principles of democracy, human rights and human dignity can be a solid basis for lasting peace and development. That is the basis of PDC work since its inception.

18Tutu, Desmond, 1999, No Future without Forgiveness, London: Rider, pp. 34-36. 19Lederach, J P, 1997, Building Peace, Washington, D.C.: USIPP 20Huse & Salter, op. Cit. P. 14. 21TarekegnAdebo, “Ethnicity and Democratization: Problems of Diversity and Interconnectedness in African Societies”, in Bartolomei, M and Hydén, Eds. 1999, The Implementation of Human Rights in a Global World, Lund: Lund Studies in Sociology of Law No. 9., p. 77.

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Book cover of making Peace in Ethiopia

4.1.2. Traditional Mechanisms for Conflict Resolution in Ethiopia: Case Study from Tigray.

Dr. Assefa Fisseha, Associate Professor of Federalism and Public Law at Addis Ababa University conducted the second research study sponsored by PDC. The study dealt with the Tigray region.

The research explored the process of dispute-settlement and reconciliation mechanisms in Tigray region in a way that inform and inspire academics, researchers as well as the general interested public. The study investigated the practice of Erki, “reconciliation”, in several parts of the region. It describes the Baito, “Assembly,” Mahberawi Bet Firdi, “the social courts,” and the particular traditions of Wejerat and Raya Azebo (EsraEmba and the Aba Gereb). The overall assessment of the research is that the Traditional Mechanisms of Conflict Resolution (TMCR) are still active and relevant in Tigray region alongside the formal laws and institutions. The Shimageles,

118 “Elders,” and the Aba Gereb still have wide respect in the society as institutions for conflict resolution and reconciliation.

The Shimagles are actively involved in the broad range of issues including family affairs. The Aba Gereb has jurisdictions over more serious criminal cases. The Aba Gereb have also become leaders of key institutions for inter-regional peace making in the borders between Southern Tigray and Afar Regional State.

The Tigray region research also highlighted the attention that should be given to the current controversy surrounding the Social Courts, which combine elements of TMCR and modern mechanisms of dispute settlement. The debate is whether the judges in the social courts are qualified or not and of mature age to adjudicate family disputes. The research also indicated that women and the poor are marginalized from TMCR in the majority of cases.

A seminar was held at the Institute of Peace and Security Studies of Addis Ababa University on March 26, 2010 where the researcher officially presented the PDC study findings to 70 participants including AAU students, teachers, members of the elder’s council, and representatives of non-governmental organizations.

4.2 The Causal Link of Food Security Condition and Inter-Ethnic Relations: A Case Of Arsi Oromo And The Halaba 4.2.1. Introduction In addition to the above studies and publication, in 2007 and 2009, PDC conducted a separate and different research project entitled ‘Inter-ethnic Conflict Intensity during Food Insecure Periods – Escalation or De- escalation?’ PDC commissioned a local consultant, Dr. Zerihun Mohammed, to do the research.

Two concept papers were designed at the beginning to help shape the research framework. The Life and Peace Institute also funded it. It is a research project designed to establish how economic development, in this case food security, affects inter-ethnic communal conflict. The research was conducted in two neighboring communities, with a long history of conflicts i.e.: - Shala Woreda in Oromiya Region and Halaba Special woreda in Southern Region.

In conflict studies in Ethiopia, food security is often seen as a cause and basis of conflict. The role of food security situation in inciting/fuelling conflict is often seen peripherally. As a result, little has been known on whether food security has a direct role in instigating conflict.

119 This research was intended to initiate exploration of this often overlooked area of possible causal link of food security situation with communal conflict by taking the case of the Arsi Oromo and the Halaba in South-Central part of Ethiopia. The research posed questions such as, what is the impact of food security situation on communal conflict? Is there any causal relationship between food security situation and communal conflict/cooperation? If there is a link, when do people cooperate and resort to conflict based upon calculations of their food security situation? The research focused on the post-1991 period although attempts were made to construct the history of the relationship of the groups from historical perspective. The research findings were disseminated through media (Addis Neger, Walta Information Center and Sub- Saharan Informer) that were present at the policy-roundtable organized by PDC. The research summarized as follows:

4.2.2. Background of the Research There is an overall agreement on the strong linkage between food security and conflict in general. However, this linkage largely focused on the effects of conflict on food security situation (Messer and Cohen, 2006). A wide range of literatures and researches describe, analyze and theorize the impacts of conflict, in affecting people’s livelihoods in general and food security in particular through destruction of assets, social capital, infrastructures and prevailing physical insecurity both at micro and macro levels (Nthafziger et al, 2000; Geinits and Reinhard, 2000; Ohlsson, 2000; Markakis, 1998). However, it is possible to argue that the depth of knowledge and research on the causal impact of food security on conflict is limited.

Food security and social security are the two major concerns of Ethiopia at present. In terms of food security, Ethiopia has been chronically food insecure (at least throughout the 20th century), which is often related with the backwardness of the agricultural sector. Many factors are attributed for the failure of the sector to ensure food security at household and national levels. These factors range from the environmental reasons, such as environmental degradation, rain failure and soil erosion, to socio-political and technological factors such as tenure insecurity, backward farming system, and lack of incentive to ‘modernize’ the sector. There is a vicious circle in that much as food security can contribute to conflict, one of the most serious causes of food shortage in Ethiopia, even more than drought, is conflict itself. Hence, conflicts can contribute to food insecurity and food security can contribute to ending conflict.

Ethiopia has faced at least one major famine in every decade in its recent history, and sadly forced to seek food aid from outside to feed its people. The major cause of the last serous famine that the whole world came to know about was however the result of the 30-year civil war and the inability of the farmers to work under the dangerous conditions of fighting.

120 Ethiopia is the home of more than 80 different ethnic groups. Social relations among these groups fluctuate from one extreme of full cooperation (strengthened by inter-marriage alliances and trade relations) to the other extreme of violent conflict accompanied by prejudice and stereotyping. Some people claim that ethnic conflicts have seemingly increased in number and intensity after the change of the political system in 1991. Competition for scarce natural resources and political power, cultural domination, elite manipulation, lack of experience (and capacity) in the Federal political system and poor or absent effective conflict mitigation systems are some of the reasons given for the spread of conflicts. As alluded to above, conflict studies in Ethiopia show that food insecurity itself is often seen as a product of conflict. The role of food security situation in inciting/fueling conflict is often seen peripherally. As a result, little is known so far whether food security has a direct role in producing conflict.

This pilot research is intended to initiate exploration of this often overlooked area of possible causal link of food security situation with communal conflict by taking the case of the Arsi Oromo and the Halaba in South-Central part of Ethiopia.

Accordingly, the research asks a basic question about what is the impact of food security situation on communal conflicts? Is there any causal relationship between food security situation and on positive communal conflict, on the one hand or cooperation, on the other? If there is a link, under what conditions do people cooperate or when does food shortage contribute to conflict?

The major objectives of the research are: To investigate the possible causal link of food security situation on escalation or de-escalation of inter- ethnic relations and conflict and to look further at the dynamics of the interaction of the two elements of food security and conflict in shaping the lives of the people.

To investigate how the food security situation influences people’s motivation/decision to enter into ethnic conflict, and

To examine other environmental, political and social variables that contributes in the escalation or de- escalation of conflict as a result of the food security situation.

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Validation workshop on the research food security and conflict

4.2.3. Summary of Finding of the Research One way of investigating the possible causal link between food security and conflict is done by listing out the major years of food security and incidents of fighting between two conflicting groups to see if there is a pattern that indicates a possible interrelation. If a pattern is found between the two variables, then, we look for the possible cause-effect relationship using data and information collected using various methods. Accordingly, the sample respondents from both woreda were asked to identify the major years of food insecurity and conflict since 1988 to the present.

4.2.4. Link between Food Security Situation and Inter-Ethnic Relations There is no evidence that show food security condition as a direct cause of conflict. Investigation of the conflicts in the two peak years (1991/2 and 2007/8) indicates that the immediate causes of these conflicts are not directly connected with the food security situation of the people in the stated years. The change of government and the related political instability/confusion was the major factor for the 1991 conflict, while the border demarcation of some Halaba dominated peasant associations of Shala woreda to SNNNP region was the triggering factor for the 2008 conflict. Thus, it is possible to argue that the causes of the two worst incidents of armed violence between the two groups in the post-Derg period were political; and food security situations were not related as direct causes.

122 Moreover, there are some other indicators that refute the idea of food security condition as a cause of conflict between two groups. The year 2001 to 2006 (with the exception of 2003) is generally a period of difficulty for many households in terms of food security conditions in both Shala and Halaba peasant associations. However, except the slight feeling of uncertainties in 2001, the relationship between the two groups in those years is reported as normal. On the other hand, the good food security condition (problem) of the Arsi in 1991 did not prevent the severe conflict that developed following the fall of the Derg.

The correlation between food security and conflict is a result of the impact of conflicts on the food security situation of individual households in the area. This is observed in both in 1991 and 2008 when food insecurity was high among the Halaba. Besides the bad harvest due to rain shortage, the 2008 conflict has caused significant damage on the food security conditions of most of the Halaba living in the conflict area. Almost all of them were forced to leave the area, and their properties, including their grain in traditional stores (gotera) that were looted by the Arsi. As a result, they were forced to live on government emergency food aid. Likewise, following the 1991-conflict displacement, loss of assets and the inability to farm due to the social instability caused serious food shortage among the Halaba.

4.2.5. Conclusions of the Research on Food Insecurity and Conflict Food security and inter-ethnic conflicts are found to be apparent facts in the border area of the Shala woreda and Halaba Special worked. The food security problem of the two woredas is caused largely by natural, politico-economic and cultural factors. On the other hand, inter-ethnic relations between the Halaba and the Arsi were dynamic. The initial relationship was characterized by aloofness due to physical and social distances. The socio-political change particularly changes in land tenure systems that allowed the Halaba to have land and settle in border areas, created close contact between members of the two groups.

Inter-ethnic relation between the two groups in the second half of the 20th century was steadily improving strengthened by strong marriage alliance. The relationship was suddenly changed in 1991 following the introduction of new political system.

In terms of the relationship between food security situation and conflict, there is little evidence supporting the causal link relationship of the food security with conflict in the area. Food security problems in pre- 1991 did not necessarily lead to conflict problem as witnessed in 1984/85. On the other hand, 1991, a year of violent conflict between the two groups, was a good harvesting season particularly for the Arsi who allegedly initiated the attack against the Halaba. Thus, the recent history of the relationship of the groups does not indicate food security as a root cause of conflict between the groups.

123 In conclusion, both the qualitative and quantitative data and information do not support a causal effect of food security situation on ethnic conflict between the Arsi and the Halaba in the research area. If there is any link between the two variables (food security and social relations), it is seen in the prevalence of food security as a result of conflicts that arose.

4.3. Root Causes of Violent Conflict in Public University Settings in Ethiopia Another major research study that PDC undertook concerns the academic institutions. The major objective of this research is to map out the major causes of unrest in Ethiopian universities and the external factors that fuel the unrest.

The specific objectives this research aspires to achieve are:  To examine the factors that pull or draw violent conflicts and the expansion of a violent conflict that spread from one university to the other.  To understand the significant roles being played by university administration to manage conflicts in different universities in Ethiopia.  To reshape or restructure the Sustain Dialogue Project PDC is implementing in universities to achieve peace and stable environment in the universities  To design a new strategy in implementing the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network project in the universities by forming and supporting SD clubs.

4.3.1 Summary of the Findings of the Research The following are the major causes of conflict identified by the research: A) Structural cause of conflict: 1. Ethiopian History: One of the Major causes of conflict at Ethiopian Universities is the impact that the history of the nation has on students’ perspectives. Historical background of the nation and ethnically related superiority and inferiority complexes prevailing among university students seem to be major underlying causes of conflict.

For many people, the cornerstone of one’s personal identity evolves from his/her family and place of origin. It is clear from the research findings that students from different ethnic backgrounds and places of origin perceived the nation’s history differently. Some ethnicities celebrate certain aspects of the nation’s history as glorious, while others condemn these same historical events as oppressive. Students demonstrated that they are highly influenced by Ethiopia’s history and that their understanding of history has a major influence on their attitude towards ethnicity. Such highly varied perceptions about historical legacy and the negative

124 attitudes that flow from these perceptions were identified in this study as a structural cause for conflict on campus.

These varied perceptions of history among students of different ethnic backgrounds have also triggered unintended conflicts. They create a feeling of inferiority within some ethnic and religious groups, which seems to deprive some students of a sense of belonging in their own country. Surveyors perceived that anger and a sense of inferiority or superiority generated by students’ sense of history was accompanied by a general absence of a spirit of tolerance among students. Thus, students are easily aggravated by other groups’ actions or words.

2. Ethnic Federalism Poorly Understood: Poor understanding of the concept of ethnic-based federalism among students was identified as another major structural cause of conflict by the study. Some students felt that ethnic-based federalism was designed to divide the society in order for certain groups to gain political power. Others felt that the ideology was meant to free them and grant them recognition and empower them as an ethnic group. Even for those who perceived the rights brought about by ethnic federalism as ideal, the realities of those rights are perceived by them to still remain largely “on paper” in the Constitution. Within the Federal system, many felt that there was an unequal sharing of resources among regions. Students perceive that much more is needed to implement ethnic federalism effectively.

For some, ethnic federalism has motivated them to make a clear break in the link between their ethnic identity and their nationality. They have chosen to claim allegiance to their region, but not their nation. Ethnic-based federalism has made the concept of unity in diversity non-existent for some of these students. It has also resulted in groups of students who work against unity either explicitly or implicitly.

3. The Influence of Different Political Actors: The organizational set-up and structure of political parties is well-ordered and well-coordinated on university campuses. Political parties easily influence student actions and are not always neutral or constructive actors when it comes to conflict mitigation or management. When conflict erupts on the national scene among political parties, this is mirrored on student campuses.

B) Proximate causes have also allowed conflict to flourish. 1. The size of Universities: The dramatic and rapid growth of new universities in recent years, their unmanageable size and lack of adequate security, has created a fertile ground for increased tensions. There are simply more students. Organization by ethnicity and religion has been one of the methods used to create a sense of community within such a large university setting. But this organizational framework appears to contribute to a growing sense of separateness by ethnicity and religion.

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2. The existence of informal student groups: Informal groups, mostly coordinated by senior students, are eager to attract students of the same ethnic and religious background into their group. These informal groups organize special welcoming ceremonies for freshman students joining the campus. They also provide various support bases that range from assisting new students in acquiring dorm rooms, giving them informal orientation, helping them with their studies and promising them protection during conflicts and tough times.

3. Orientation Ceremonies: independent teams that are usually organized around religious and ethnic identity manage Informal student orientation ceremonies. It was clear during this survey that the negative aspects and impacts of these ceremonies highly outweigh the positive ones. The ceremonies have a huge negative impact on the attitude and way of thinking of the freshman students. They seem to create feelings of animosity among the different ethnic groups as well as inculcating a fear of being attacked. Student witnesses, indicating that the informal welcoming and orientation committees are far better and well organized than the university’s formal orientation administrators, frequently noted the power of the informal welcoming ceremonies.

4. Weak and lenient rules: Weak and ineffective official University regulations in place during the conflict periods were also identified as one of the major causes of conflict. Some felt that measures taken by the university were too lenient and left students with too much room to instigate conflicts. They perceived that rules and regulations were not enforced and were not appropriate.

5. Lack of extracurricular activities: The study schedules and assignments are light and do not contribute to engaging the students in challenging hard work. There are also not many extracurricular activities. It was noted by some observers that the light study assignments and lack of creative extracurricular activities leave the students idle and prone to getting involved in conflict during their free hours. Students who engage in conflicts were identified as those with relatively lighter schedules and less intensive courses.

In conclusion, the findings of the PDC research and study indicate that along with the main structural and proximate causes, there are also immediate triggers that generate conflict.

1. Violence at other Universities: Most of the fights on campus were triggered by ethnic and religious-based conflicts in the universities. News and stories of conflict in one university spread to other universities, and students of one university become informed about the conflicts in other universities, either through their personal connections, friends, relatives and others, or through the notices by the administration, advertisements and media.

126 2. The actions of students and police: Some student actions and behavior, including their way of dressing and use of confrontational language considered to be offensive to one or another ethnic or religious group also contribute to and trigger conflicts.

During incidents of conflicts, according to PDC's study, those found in the university compound will either be attacked or arrested by the police irrespective of their participation in the conflict. A number of students have been dismissed and suspended from classes for no reason at all. Respondents added that students who are neutral and who do not want to participate in the conflict are forced to leave the university compound in order to minimize the risk of getting affected by the conflict.

Female students are particularly affected by campus conflicts. During conflict incidents, female students who are forced by circumstances to leave campus and stay in hotel rooms are thought to be at increased risk of harassment and sexual abuse. According to some informants, these stories about female students also play a key role in escalating violent conflicts in the universities through rumors and heighten the tension in their informal gatherings.

Students who do not have relatives outside campus are more prone to be affected by the conflict as they have no other alternative but to stay on the campus or rent a room in a hotel and stay there until the conflict stops. According to the study, a women being raped is high if she decides to leave the campus and rent a room in a hotel. It is equally dangerous for women to stay in the campus during conflict times. This makes female students to suffer in emotional, psychological and economical challenges.

4.4. Strengthening Capacity for Conflict-Sensitive Land Administration in Eastern Hararge Zone of Oromia: A Participatory Action Research

Executive Summary of the Research and Its Findings This participatory action research was conducted in five selected woredas of east Hararghe zone. The purpose of the study was to understand the situation of land-related conflict issues in east Hararghe zone before the implementation of a project titled “Strengthening Capacity for Conflict Sensitive Land Administration”. During the study, an attempt was made to involve people from different walks of life and engage them in identifying, thermalizing, and prioritizing land-related conflict causes in five woredas selected for the implementation of the project. Key respondents were selected from the offices of rural land administration, the justice offices, security and administration offices as well as environmental protection and climate change mitigation office. After thorough discussions, the experts who were engaged in the focus group discussion selected five Kebeles from each woreda. Community representatives from each

127 Kebele were also engaged in the focus group discussions to illustrate land-related social conundrums in their localities.

The study generated both the qualitative and quantitative data important to understand the situation before the designed intervention. The qualitative data necessary for this study were generated from the participants through interview and focus group discussion while the quantitative data were generated through document analysis. The qualitative data depicted the nature, dynamics, causes, and consequences of land-related intragroup conflicts in the selected Kebeles of the five woredas. The data also showed us community’s perception towards land, land holding and transfer practices and how that perception has affected the interpretation of women’s constitutional rights to hold, lease or transfer rural land into action.

The community in the study sites can be categorized as a farming community. The common agricultural products include but not limited to cereal crops, cash crops like groundnut, Khat, and vegetables. Khat is the main source of income while sorghum and maize are used only for household conception. The community also generate income by fattening animals. In the woredas, coffee has been almost replaced by Khat. In the five woredas, land is reported as the scarcest resource which also serve as the main source of life and livelihood for the community. High population density due to large family size and polygamy is widely observed in the woredas and this in turn is contributing to the incompatibility between population size and cultivable land. In the woredas, children get land only from their families. The government has no land to distribute to those who newly start to engage in farming because there is no unoccupied cultivable in the zone. As a result, the stiff competition among siblings on family land is increasing from time to time. This competition has eroded trust and positive relationships among family members. Thus, siblings destruct each other and their families for a small plot of land. The incompatibility between cultivable land and population on the other hand has also intensified the stiff completion to occupy forest lands and areas reserved for social and religious practices in the past. Those who has been living near to these please do not allow others to come from other places and occupy these areas. This in turn has intensified intragroup violence in the zone.

Findings of this study strongly suggested that some of the destructive consequences of land-related disputes are the results of inaccurate information and the institutional decisions based on such inaccurate, biased, overlapping, and inconsistent information about rightful owners. The data suggested that poor and week land administration and ownership certification practices lead to severe injustices that in turn provoke violent reactions. In the context of east Hararghe zone, there are situations where lack of appropriate information and coordination among government institutions lead to issuing of concessions and rights to the same piece of land, most likely without consulting the people at the local level whose ancestral territory

128 and livelihoods might be affected by the decisions or resolutions. While acknowledging that there are issues with regard to the conflicting mandates of government departments. This type of situation occurred due to lack of integrated and mutually accountable administrative systems and practices. In general, in the selected woredas of east Hararghe zone:

 Land is a matter of life and death for the community. It is believed in the cultural context of the society that to have no land or to be landless is to be subhuman or socially unimportant and unnoticed;  Land is the scarcest natural resource for which brothers kill each other and their families;  Any male boy whose age is 18 and above and who wants to leave on forming gets land from his father through the customary system called Miraza (which is most commonly practiced at Fedis woreda as Kuti). In the context, there is no free cultivable land that can be provided by the government (local administration) to those who are interested to engage in the farming system;  In the context, females have no right to inherit, lease, or transfer land. They cannot also stay on their x-husbands’ land after divorce;  Due to the formal education and other awareness raising activities by the government organs, women’s awareness regarding their land inheritance and use right has increased but the perception of their male counterpart towards women’s land holding right has not yet changed. This in turn has intensified the conflict between male and female children;  Land has become a central point of contention among siblings and neighbors;  Land-related conflicts among siblings and neighbors has been increasing from time to time;  Incompatibility between agrarian population and cultivable land size coupled with greed and grievance have served as the major causes for land related conflicts;  Informal land transfer and lease practices are complicating land-related litigation processes at court;  The historical, economic, cultural, as well as symbolic values of land have served as causes for an increased intragroup land-related conflicts;  Land-related conflicts are managed by both the formal and informal institutions.  In the informal systems, decisions related to land are made by male. Women are not involved in the decision making process;  Rural land administration experts lack the necessary skills and sensitivity to prepare evidences for the court. While preparation and documentation of land use rights, the experts usually favour those who have strong economic power and other social networks.

129  Preparation of false documents and witness are reported as serious problems that negatively affect the quality of land-related decisions at court.  Land-related decisions at court are not made in conflict sensitive manner. Thus, these decisions usually turn to violence and comes back to the court as a criminal case.  There is no or weak collaborations among the formal institutions and between the formal and customary institutions of rural land administration and land-related conflict governance.  In most cases, land-related conflicts which are resolved by the customary institutions do not turn to violence. However, this practice does not guarantee women’s land use right.  Kebele administrations lack the capacity to resolve land-related issues amicably. They also refer cases to courts without properly scrutinize the cases. Thus cases at woreda courts has been increasing from time to time;  The customary institutions of conflict governance feel disempowered and marginalized in the decision making processes. The courts do not refer back land-related cases to elders for the resolution of the conflict amicably as they do family cases. But when decisions are passed, the Kebele administration involves elders to reinforce court decisions. This practice has created discontent on the elders because they feel that they are not involved/consulted in the decision making processes.  Judges make decisions based on their own interest. Those who cannot or are not interested to pay cannot win the case. Thus, bribing and/or producing false evidences and  Land-related decisions at court cannot be implemented because the losers in most cases prefer to die than hand over their land to other person, even to their daughters or wives; Though the customary systems of conflict governance fail to treat women equally with their male counterpart, most people still prefer their land-related cases to be handled by elders because it has no cost and problems are solved in very few days (1-2 day. To the maximum 3 days).

130 CHAPTER FIVE TRAINING AND CAPACITY BUILDING WORKS OF PDC AND ITS PIONEER ROLE

PDC is very happy and proud to say that since 1989 when it revived traditional Ethiopian Eldership culture among western educated professionals, as the local native Ethiopian NGO, it has also been the first or among the first to pioneer several important activities that contribute to peace, democracy, and development. PDC was the first to start peace dialogues not only among political leaders but also among religious leaders. It is the first to pioneer tree planting, training local elders, teachers, students, and journalists on the significance and process of mediation and reconciliation in creating a peaceful society. It is among the first to teach and promote election and democratic education and of language in promoting understanding among groups. At the first conference on the Constitution organized by Prof. Endrias Eshete and Ambassador Kifle Wodajo, PDC Chair was the one invited to give the speech on the Separation of Church and State. It is the first to organize workshops and courses on causes of conflict, and conflict resolution applications, to train the citizens concepts and principles of democracy and election rights. PDC was the fist to give seminars and training on basic women rights, the importance of family planning in promoting peace and the impacts of harmful traditional practices on the health of women and children, and to train high school teachers the concepts and principles of the role of women in promoting peace and democracy. In one of their first face-to-face dialogue with the Late H.E. Ato Meles Zenawi, then President of the Transitional Ethiopian Government, Dr. Tilahun Beyene, Dr. Haile Selassie Belay and Prof. Ephraim Isaac were among the first to advocate the importance of economic development to sustain peace. Subsequently, at a dinner in the USA with the then His Excellency the Foreign Minister Ato Seyoum Mesfin, all PDC founders focused their tête-à-tête conversation on the issue of Peace for Development, the title of our present 25th Jubilee Anniversary Symposium.

In its 25 years of journey PDC trained more than 3 million Ethiopians in different areas. PDC’s capacity building work started back in 1992 under its first Executive Director Dr. Haile Selassie Belay. It was subsequently successfully implemented by its successive Executive Directors, Dr. Yaqob Haile Mariam, Ambassador Dr. Mulugeta Eteffa, Ambassador Ato Bekele Endashaw, Ato Yusuf Hassan in the 1990s and 2000s and now under its present Executive Director Ato Ayten Anemaw.

PDC organized training workshops, seminar, and conferences that aimed at building the capacity of various civic, government, and community actors in peace building, democracy, and human rights. The main objectives of the training workshops include raising the level of awareness about rights and obligations as citizens so that they can advocate for their basic democratic and human rights as well as social justice, and to empower them and gradually increase their influence in decision making and governance in their local

131 governments. The heart of this objective was and is promoting peace, love, and reconciliation among all Ethiopians. In the following section, we discuss the major capacity building undertakings of PDC grouped by the year of implementation.

1992 - Conference at the Addis Ababa Red Cross When AHPC transformed its operation and created the Peace and Development Committee (PDC), it opened an office in Addis Ababa and became the first local NGO in Ethiopia. Its central concern and mission were to strengthen peace, nurture reconciliation, and promote development across all Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. It preached “No peace development, no development no peace”!

PDC opened it office in Addis Ababa and began operating full time in 1992. It successfully established itself right away under its first able Executive Director, Dr. Haile Selassie Belay. Besides establishing the office on the right footing at the very beginning, one of the first important PDC actions that Dr. Haile Selassie Belay took was to sponsor a major national symposium at the Addis Ababa Red Cross center. The objective of the symposium was an open dialogue to promote closeness and friendship among all sectors of the Ethiopian population–key leaders in Government, business, religion, education, health, and civil society and to address the national need for economic development built and based on full national reconciliation The two day successful symposium that PDC sponsored was funded by the German Evangelical Church with additional support by the Swedish Life and Peace Institute. Notable men and women leaders, Government officials, professors, doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religious leaders, and various representatives of the civil society came together with PDC Founders at the Addis Ababa Red Cross Center to talk openly for the first time in Ethiopian history about reconciliation among all Ethiopian political, ethnic, and religious groups. Traditional Elders from different Ethiopian regions were also brought to the Addis Ababa Conference to sit together for the first time with the founding elders, civil servants, religious leaders, business people, government officials, women leaders, the youth, and representatives of various organizations. The climax of the Symposium that was highly praised in the Ethiopian media was the Ethiopian New Year Day Interfaith Prayer held at the National Theatre. Foreign religious dignitaries, including the Archbishop of Hanover, German were also represented. This was one of the first open Ethiopian Interfaith prayer forum held in Ethiopia. Subsequently, Dr. Haile Selassie held regular interfaith meetings and prayers at the PDC office.

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Conference ant Addis Ababa Red Cross

1995 Under its second Executive Director, Dr. Yaqob, PDC organized a major conference on peaceful coexistence in plural society for 400 participants including local Elders, teachers, students, and journalists on the significance of mediation, and reconciliation in creating a peaceful society and the importance of language in promoting understanding among groups.

PDC also organized a workshop funded by the United States Embassy in Ethiopia on the processes of mediation, causes of conflict, and conflict resolution applications, which 100 participants attended.

1996 PDC organized essay contests for high school and college students on topics such as conflict in schools and colleges and their causes and remedies and how to strengthen the peace and democratization process in Ethiopia, with a generous financial support of Mr. Michael P. Porter, Esq. of Honolulu, Hawaii, a monetary Peace Prize and Certificate were given to the student who wrote the best essay on Peace and Reconciliation.

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Essay Contest among High School Students

PDC organized a training workshop in Dire Dawa for 41 elders, representatives of religious organizations, women and youth associations, teachers and civil servants on traditional conflict resolution mechanisms in the area. A similar workshop was held in Arbaminch for 75 participants on traditional conflict resolution mechanisms of the Gamo and Konta people.

PDC organized a training workshop in Harar for 30 participants on the use of traditional conflict resolution mechanisms of the Adere people, the need for population control, and the effects of harmful traditional practices on the health of women and children in Ethiopia.

PDC organized a seminar in Addis Ababa for 30 participants on the role of women in promoting peace and democracy, the need for population control, and the impacts of harmful traditional practices on the health of women and children in Ethiopia.

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Role of Women in Promoting Peace and Democracy Training

PDC organized a seminar on the Electoral processes in Ethiopia, held with the audience of 30 participants in partnership with the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia.

PDC organized Six Seminars and workshops with financial assistance from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy for a total of 320 participants in Addis Ababa, Somali and other regional states on Women’s rights, the role of women in peace and democracy, concepts and principles of democracy, the effects of traditional practices on the health of women and children, and how to develop the culture of peace.

1997 PDC organized courses to train the citizens concepts and principles of democracy, basic women rights, and the importance of family planning in promoting peace and development in Ethiopia for 257 participants coming from Ageremariam, Kibremengist, NegeleBorena and its neighboring woredas.

PDC trained 50 high school teachers from Addis Ababa on the concepts and principles of democracy PDC trained 51 local Elders, youth and women, teachers, civil servants and businessmen and women from surrounding localities in Yabello on the effects of culture on development and the concepts and principles of democracy.

135 PDC organized a training workshop for 50 participants in Addis Ababa on the concepts and principles of democracy and human rights in partnership with Abugida Ethiopian Congress for democracy.

PDC trained 202 civil servants, local elders, representatives of religious organizations, NGOs, policemen, judges, teachers, journalists and women and youth representatives in Harar, Dire Dawa and Jijiga on constitutional rights, the concepts and principles of democracy, and the role of the press in promoting peace and development in Ethiopia.

1998 PDC organized and conducted nine training workshops and trained a total of 467 participants from different sections of the society in Harar, Baher Dar, Debre Berhan, Assosa, Dire Dawa, Pawe, Dessie, Gondar, and Jijiga. The topics for the trainings consisted of historical developments and evolution of human rights; civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights incorporated in the Ethiopian constitution, the role of the press in the promotion of peace and development in Ethiopia, family planning and traditional conflict resolution mechanism with a financial assistance of the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED.)

1999 PDC organized 24 training workshops in which a total of 1,284 people participated in Harari, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples, Somali, Amhara, Benishangul Gumuz, Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa administrative regions. The topics covered in these workshops include Human Rights promotion under the Ethiopian law; discriminatory practices and violence against women’s basic rights; basic principles of conflict resolution; concepts, principles and practices of democracy and good governance; the role of media in the promotion of peace, democracy and development and concepts and practices of federalism

PDC was a member of a consortium of six local NGOs called ENCONEL 2000, established in September 1999 for the purpose of providing voter education in which PDC as a member of the Consortium provided training in 21 selected towns of Wello, Gojam, Gondar, and Assosa. A total of 126 educators were trained and deployed, in which 6 educators were selected from each town. The funds were obtained from CORDAID, the British Embassy, Fredrich Ebert Stiftung and the Embassy of Spain.

2000 PDC organized 51 workshops and trained 5,554 people on Gender Equality, Human and Democratic Rights, Democracy and governance, Conflict Resolution, Journalism, Family Planning, and HIV/AIDS prevention in Ethiopia. The workshops were conducted in six regions, i.e. Harari, Somali, Amhara, Southern Nations

136 Nationalities and Peoples, Dire Dawa, and Addis Ababa. The Embassy of Sweden, Finland, Pact Ethiopia, the British Embassy and the U.S. embassy financed these activities.

Good Governance Training in Gondar

2001 PDC organized 24 workshops on empowering women at the grassroots level to combat discriminatory practices and violence against women. The workshops were held in six regions namely: Afar, Benishangul- Gumuz, Somali, Harari, Gambella, Amhara and Diredawa in which 3010 participants benefited. The British Embassy, the Finish Embassy and CORDAID sponsored it.

137

Women Empowerment training PDC trained and deployed 102 voter educators who in turn educated 263,735 people (39 percent women) in 17 towns of Amhara regional state. The Embassy of Japan, Spain and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung financed the project.

PDC organized training on Basic Journalism in Addis Ababa, Debremarcos, Arbaminch and Dessie. A total of 519 people participated in the training.

PDC conducted a workshop in Dire Dawa on small arms and light weapons in Eastern and Northeastern regions of Ethiopia jointly with Bonn International Conversion Center. A total of 53 participants attended the workshop.

2002 PDC organized eight women empowerment workshops in four administrative regions funded by CORDAID. A total of 397 participants benefited from the training, 48 percent of which were women.

PDC organized six workshops on human right issues in the South region and Addis Ababa funded by the Japan Embassy. A total of 254 participants were in attendance, 29.5 percent of which were women.

PDC organized 17 training workshops on human rights and HIV/AIDS for farmers living around Harar funded by the British Embassy. A total of 957 farmers benefited from the training, 26.6 percent of the trainees being women.

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PDC in collaboration with Africa Peace Forum organized a one-day orientation workshop on small arms and light weapons in Sheraton Addis. A total of 23 participants attended the workshop.

PDC in collaboration with Bonn international Conversion Centre organized a book launch entitled “Gender perspectives on Small Arms and Light Weapons, Regional and International Concerns” at Ghion hotel.

2003 PDC played a major role in the establishment and strengthening of the informal network comprising of 17 local NGOs and Civic society organizations whose main objective was to disseminate voter education to an estimated 11.6 million potential voters for the May 2005 national election.

A one-day conference on peace building was organized for 50 youth who are members of youth associations in close collaboration with United Religions Initiative of Ambassador Muse.

2004 PDC implemented four training workshops on Human rights and Democracy, good governance and women’s rights in Debreberhan, Kombolcha and Diredawa with a grant obtained from U.S. NED. A total of 201 participants benefited from the training, 32.8% of which were women.

PDC implemented a voter education on democratic rights funded by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. A total of 38 voter educators were trained in Adeit and Kombolocha drawn from ten selected woredas of Amhara region. The educators in turn went back to their respective woredas and trained the public.

2005 PDC trained 56 trainers on democratic election in preparation for the May 2005 election. They were able to train 85,602 people in 11 selected woredas of Amhara Region as well as three woredas of Oromiya Region. PDC organized nine training workshops and trained 375 people on Democracy and Human Rights in Amhara Region and Dire Dawa Administrative Council.

139

Democratic Election training in Dire Dawa

2006 PDC organized training workshops in Amhara Regional State, Dire Dawa, and Debre Berhan on promotion of human and democratic rights in which 350people drawn from different sections of the society participated, with the financial assistance of U.S.NED and the World Bank.

PDC trained 403 participants in Addis Ababa drawn from women's associations, youth associations, judges, police officers, and Kebele administrations on human and democratic rights and harmful traditional practices with a financial support of U.S. NED.

140

Human Rights and Responsibilities training at Debre Berhan

2007 PDC trained 574 participants in eight different locations on Legal training and capacity building on human and democratic rights with a grant obtained from U.S. NED.

Legal Rights training in Harar

141 2007-2008 PDC mobilized and trained 70 high school graduates in civic and voter education (training of trainers) from 18 woredas of Amhara and Oromiya Regional States. They in turn trained three thousand five hundred people on civic and voter education.

PDC trained 574 participants in eight different places of the country on the topic: “Legal training and capacity-building on human and democratic rights." The training was made possible from a grant obtained from U.S. NED.

PDC in coordination with the Coalition of Elders chaired by PDC Board Chair, organized two major conferences supported by the US Embassy and the EU: a) a two-day dialogue symposium with the participation of the members of the Parliament and representatives of the Government and main Opposition political parties; b) a one-week course for the commanders of the National Policy Forces for training by four professors from the John Jay College of the City University of New York (CUNY.)

2009 PDC facilitators organized and conducted civic and voter education reaching 318,653 people (52 percent men and 48 percent women) in 16 selected woredas in Amhara and Oromiya Regional States with the financial and material support of Civic and Voter Education Association (CVEA).

2009-2012 In coordination with the Coalition of Ethiopian National Elders chaired by PDC Board Chair several delegations were sent to Germany, the Netherlands, and the USA for respective dialogues with OLF leaders, and the Ethiopian Diaspora activists and media leaders. Also, PDC organized a meeting with a U.S. Coalition of Somali Elders in Princeton, NJ, and another meeting with an ONLF leader in Dubai, and a conference in coordination with the Coalition of Ethiopian National Elders and the Ogaden National Elders in San Diego, CA. with U.S. Embassy support. PDC Board Chair and representatives of the Coalition of Ethiopian National Elders conducted a meeting with Ogadeni elders in Kebredar the Ogaden and a dialogue hosted by the President of the Somali National region in Jijiga.

PDC participated in an interfaith conference organized by the Federal Ministry in coordination with the Coalition of Ethiopian National Elders with leaders of all the religious parties, two of the main speakers being among the Founders of PDC.

142 2013-2014 PDC trained 131 people on human and democratic rights and responsibilities in Gambella and SNNPR regional states in November 2013 and May 2014, respectively, with the financial support of U.S. NED. The participants were drawn from different Government Offices, judiciary bodies, police and security offices and representatives of different civic society organizations women and youth representatives, representatives of disabled persons, and prominent Elders. The project is being implemented in cooperation of regional supreme courts of both regional states. PDC has signed MoU’s with both regions Supreme Court to cooperate in the areas of capacity building for formal and informal justice system in their respective regional states.

2015-2019 PDC trained more than 20,000 people on dialogue facilitation skills, human and democratic rights education, conflict management, culture of peace, conflict early warning and rapid response, sustainable development, conflict sensitive planning, etc. with a financial support from NED, LPI, Pact Ethiopia, Pact Kenya, German Embassy, IGAD/CEWARN, etc. These trainings were conducted in all regions of Ethiopia.

143 APPENDIX I PEACE IN AFRICA: THE TRADITIONALWAY A Synopsis of the Activities of the Founding Members of PDC The Horn of Africa Peace & Development Center (PDC) grew out of the 1989 ad hoc Peace Committee of distinguished Ethiopian Elders. *The ad hoc Peace Committee was founded at the height of the 30-year civil war in Ethiopia, compared by a former US Assistant Secretary for Africa to the First World War. The prophets of peace and various Ethiopian shimagle, jarsa, shango, etc. peace traditions inspired the Ethiopian Elders. The following is a short synopsis of the key activities of the Founding Members of PDC.

The Elders first met and got organized in late 1989 and subsequently wrote friendly and frank letters to all the respective leaders of the conflicting parties. They corresponded with them, calling upon them to stop the conflicts and come together. They received positive responses from all. The first immediate positive letter came from the Late H. E. PM Ato Meles Zenawi, then Chair of EPRDF. The Elders led several bi-lateral peace talks and established excellent relations with all the then conflicting parties.

Initial support for the work of the Elders came from the Swedish Life & Peace Institute and their Norwegian friends. Additional moral support came from the Mennonite Central Committee. Although the ad hoc Peace Committee purposely chose to work outside all publicity, their work came to be known by the Swedish, Norwegian, Swiss, and US Governments.

The ad hoc Peace Committee not only participated in July 1991 Addis Ababa Conference of Peace and Democratic Transition when the post-war Transitional Government was formed but also financially supported the meeting at the Africa Hall. The Chair of the ad ho Peace Committee gave one of the three concluding congratulatory addresses.

Immediately after the Addis Ababa Conference and the formation of the Transitional Government, the ad hoc Peace Committee was transformed into the Horn of Africa Peace & Development Center (PDC.) One of the Elders, Dr. Haile Selassie Belay became the first Executive Director. He put the office on a strong footing, establishing good relations with all, the Government, all political parties, and the general public.

Throughout its 25-five year existence, PDC has brought together and organized various Coalitions of Elders-- Eritrean, Oromo, Ogadeni, and other Ethiopian-- as different and relevant needs arise. PDC continues to work hard, helping peace building and reconciliation in Ethiopia, the second largest country in Africa.

PDC Board members have won various prizes, including this year the “King of Sweden Medal” and the “Morton Deutsch Award for Conflict Resolution” of the American Psychological Association. In all their achievements, PDC founders and colleagues have always been steadfast partners.

144

PDC has accomplished remarkable milestones and productive activities during the past 25years. These activities highlight major accomplishments most of which is described in various sections of the anniversary Journal.

Besides the exemplary peace and development work the PDC office in Addis Ababa has done, PDC founders have also continued in person to work for peace, reconciliation, and economic development over the past twenty-five years as shown in the following time table. Here below is a short summary of PDC deeds.

1989 PDC founded the ad hoc Peace Committee for peace and reconciliation among all Ethiopian conflicting parties at a critical stage in Ethiopian history. The Committee- a dozen of the then most respected and trusted Ethiopian elders** facilitated several bilateral negotiations between the then Government and all conflicting parties at home and abroad, created a successful forum of dialogue for a peaceful resolution to the violent and bloody conflicts then sweeping the country. Both directly and indirectly, the Committee contributed to accelerate the cessation of the 30-year Horn of Africa civil war (compared by a US Government official to First World War) and resolution of all conflicts, July 1991 (see above.)

July 1991 PDC with the assistance LPI helped to raise the funds to defray the cost of the Addis Ababa Conference for a Peaceful and Democratic Transition when the 30-year civil war and conflicts formally ended, the Transitional Government of Ethiopia was formed, and Transitional Council that became the Parliament of Ethiopia, was formed. He participated in the Conference as PDC representative observer along with distinguished international diplomatic, community, and religious leaders, and gave one of the three concluding goodwill addresses, vowing to work for the seed of peace to grow into a deeply rooted tree.

1992 PDC’s three Elders Dr. Haile Selassie Belay, Dr. Tilahun Beyene, and Professor Ephraim Isaac organized a whole night of international elders teleconference of religious reconciliation–with participation of eight conflicting Archbishops, and several religious leaders, that resulted in a historic resolution of the serious religious dispute and conflict that arose among the Archbishops of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tawãhedo Church regarding church administration and appointment of a Patriarch. As the then Secretary of the Church, Archbishop Gabriel, wrote to him: “I testify that your sincere firm resolve to end our dispute through calm dialogues and your action to bring us together led to our accord that will never ever be forgotten. This holy deed of yours is recorded for posterity in the history of our Church and will be chronicled forever as living testimony to which I am a witness…”

August 1993

145 PDC Elders began to appeal to the Government of Ethiopia respectfully, proposing for the release of prisoners on the occasion of the Ethiopian New Year. Freeing of prisoners at the start of the New Year has now become an important part of modern Ethiopian culture, based in part in response to the 1990’s letters addressed by PDC Elders to the Late H. E. Prime Minister of Ethiopia whose wisdom to revive this ancient Ethiopian tradition was praised PDC Chair in the Ethiopian media.

1993-1998 PDC founders propose the advance of a series of Ethiopian-Eritrean friendship retreats and dialogues among all sectors of the two peoples, because it saw the need for real reconciliation after such a long bitter war, but unfortunately receives little help for it from its supporting friends.

1993-2000 PDC Executive Director Dr. Yaqob Haile Mariam conducted several Elders dialogues democratic training and participated in international meetings.

1998-2000 PDC founders led an Ethio-Eritrean peace delegation to Ethiopia and Eritrea during the tragic bloody war between the two. This delegation was the only group from the region that both sides found acceptable or welcomed.

1993-2008 Dr. Mulugeta Eteffa became Executive Director followed by Ambassador Bekele Endashaw, and subsequently Acting Executive Director Ato Yusuf Hassan. Ato Yusuf expanded the activities of PDC and organized some of the important election education throughout the country.

2000-2007 In 2001, the founders of PDC started a campaign to celebrate the Ethiopian New Year Maskaram 1, 2000 (September 12, 2007) as heddaseEthiopia, Ethiopian Renaissance in line with the marking of the Gregorian 2000 that inspired the UN and the international community to call for a Millennium Development Goal. The Diaspora abroad and the Ethiopian youth groups at home enthusiastically promoted the idea.The Government wholeheartedly supported and implemented the heddase with a two-year national campaign. The Ethiopian year 2000 (2007-2008) was a time of great celebration throughout the country with tree planting and the promotion of other peace and development goals.

2007 PDC founders organized and led a Coalition of National Elders to help free 30 leading political prisoners, doctors, lawyers, business people, professors, elected members of the Parliament overcoming as the Christian Science

146 Monitor wrote: “a deadlock that no amount of outside [international US AND EU] pressure seemed able to loosen” and opening “a new chapter in Ethiopian politics…The PDC Chair led a group of Elders who helped resolve the political crisis using a strong dose of traditional Ethiopian peacemaking and problem-solving methods…”

2008 PDC promoted reconciliation and repatriation of several Ethiopian and Somali liberation front movement members in exile, including Ababiya Abba Jobir, on of the top leaders of the OLF, and a grandson of the King Abba Jofir of Jimma.

2008-2010 PDC helped organize with the assistance of its Coalition of Elders inter-political party dialogues and the Election Board, national police chiefs and justices seminars, in cooperation with the New York John Jay College of Criminal Justice and other experts, and an interfaith symposia in order to promote the value of democratic and human rights for ultimately strengthening overall peace and reconciliation. Dr. Ahmed Moen led important religious dialogue at one of the meetings.

2009-2010 PDC led a Coalition of Elders to hold a series of pre-election friendly discussions with the Government and the Opposition political parties to promote a peaceful general election of the House of Peoples Representatives and Regional State Councils, on May 23, 2010. The year-long preventive, behind the scenes discussions of the Elders with the Government and the Opposition and on the ground presence of the Elders on Election Day May 23, 2010, contributed to the peaceful and orderly conduct of the Election Day proceedings as well as to the resolution of certain conflicts that arose on and post-Election days.

2009-2011 Engineer Mao Saladin actively engaged PDC behind the scenes in an Ethiopian Government treaty with a major branch of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) led. It also organized several Ogaden peace dialogues in Princeton, NJ, with the collaboration of Ato Kassahun Besrat, San Diego, CA, and in Ogaden.

2010 PDC helped free from prison the leading political prisoner, Ms. Birtukan Midaksa, Chair of the main Ethiopian Andinat opposition political party. The Ambassadors of the U.S. and the EU, Amnesty International, and other Human Rights organizations praised her release.

July 2011

147 PDC helped with the Government returning the assets of the five top Ethiopian coffee exporters, confiscated in 2011 for certain improper activities. The day of the resolution, Ato Mustafa, the leaders of the group phoned the Chair with profound thanks.

July 2011 PDC helped with the release of Col. Barre Adan Hirale, the former Minister of Defense of the transitional Government of Somalia, detained by the Ethiopian security forces in the Ogaden for two months.

September 2011 PDC negotiated the release from jail of a prominent 80-year old senior citizen, father-in-law of a high Government official and father of a leading exiled opposition political leader. His relatives in the USA, including Prof. Ali of Houston Texas, held a teleconference thanking the PDC Chair.

March 2012 PDC Chair advised and assisted with the release of two German tourists kidnapped in the Erta Ale depression in the Afar region of the Horn of Africa. Her Excellency the German Ambassador wrote to the Chair: “I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude…for your efforts and assistance…Your contribution in helping to solve this case was highly appreciated…”

September 11, 2012 Hundreds of prisoners, including two Swedish journalists, were released from jail, an Ethiopian New Year tradition the late Prime Minister Meles established in a farsighted response to the early 1990s proposal. For this and other reasons, the King Carl Gustaf of Sweden knighted the Chairman as the Order of the Polar Star.

*The AHPC consisted of noted and respected politically unaffiliated Ethio-Eritrean leaders; Kassahun Besrat, former Secretary General of the Ethiopian Teachers Federation and a Director of an immigrant services organization in Texas; Dr. Tilahun Beyene, former Secretary General of the Eritrean Teachers Federation and a Dean at the University of Maryland; Ato Teke Fisseha Sion, former Secretary General of the Ethiopian Labor Federation and a representative of AFLCIO; Dr. Ahmed Moen, former Director of Ethiopian Ministry of Public Health and Professor at Howard University; Prof. Abayneh Worke, former Haile Sellasie University Dean and Professor of psychology at Norfolk State University; Dr. Haile Sellasie Belay, former provincial governor and President of the Ethiopian Agricultural College and a UN agricultural consultant; Prof. Aster Mengesha, Professor of Woman’s Studies at Arizona State University; Ambassador Mulugeta Eteffa, former professor of Ethiopian languages in a German university; Dr. Yaacob Haile Mariam, a Human Rights Lawyer. These elders were chosen thoughtfully as ethical individuals who valued their respective religious traditions: Ethiopian Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic Christians;

148 a devout Moslem; and a devout Jew. Our LPI partners, led by Rev. Sture Normark and Mrs. Susannah Lunden, also recruited Norwegian Church and Government aid and two Mennonite Church partners, John Paul Lederach and Menno Webb, as facilitators.

149 APPENDIX II A SYNOPSIS OF PDC STRATEGIC GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

PDC has the following strategic goals and objectives in its peace and development endeavors: Strategic Goals PDC has identified the following five strategic goals for the coming three years. The goals vary from capacitating the Center to creating an effective and efficient ways to provide best service to the beneficiaries. The strategic goals are:  Build strong and trusted relationships with partners  Establish sustainable funding base  Promote a Culture of peace, conflict prevention and resolution  Promotion of conflict sensitive development

Strategic Objectives The strategic goals are the grand directions set by considering the intention of top executives. Based on this grand strategy (i.e., Strategic goals), the following thirteen objectives are crafted. They are:

Strategic Goal 1: Build strong and trusted relationships with partners Strategic Objectives:  To increase the number of partnership engagements with stakeholders  To maintain transparency in all operational activities (Financial systems, reporting mechanism, regular stakeholders consultation) Strategic Goal 2: Establish sustainable funding base Strategic Objectives:  To increase the number of donors and partners  To increase the amounts of funds raised from local sources  To generate income from business engagements Strategic Goal 3: Promote a Culture of peace, conflict prevention and resolution Strategic Objectives:  To enhance the number of participants on culture of peace promotion through training at all level  To strengthen the conflict early warning system  To enhance the capacity of elders and peace committees  To raise awareness on culture of peace  To enhance action/practical research for the Centers project intervention

150 Strategic Goal 4: Promotion of conflict sensitive development Strategic Objectives:  To enhance the capacity of development actors in conflict sensitive development approaches

Descriptions of PDC Strategic Objectives The strategic objectives crafted for the coming three years will have the following scope and desired results.

1. To increase the number of partnership engagements with stakeholders This objective will focus on increasing the existing number of partners working with PDC. The number of donors, government agencies, and civil society organizations partnership will be increased. Desired Outcome: Expansion and smooth establishment partnership engagements

2. To maintain transparency in all operational activities (financial systems, reporting mechanism, regular stakeholders consultation). The existing financial, administration and procurement manuals will be revised. Reporting mechanisms will be developed and regular consultation in increasing transparency with the center's stakeholders will be held. Desired Outcome: Establishment of prudent and transparent system

3. To increase the number of donors and partners The aim is to increase the number of donors and partners and to increase projects PDC will undertake in the coming three years. Partners include donors, government agencies, trans-national civil society organizations, local non- governmental organizations, etc. Desired Outcome: Expanding the number of PDC project engagements

4. To increase the amounts of funds that will be raised from local sources The aim is to diversify the sources of funds and increase the reserve fund of PDC within the next three years. Conducting fund raising dinner, increasing the number of members of the Center and collecting monthly contributions, etc., will do this. Desired Outcome: Diversification of funding basis and fund amount

5. To generate income from business engagements In the long run PDC wants to generate income from business engagements. However, in the coming three years, the aim of PDC is to establish a base for means of income generating business. Desired Outcome: Clear roadmap in engaging local businesses

6. To enhance the number of participants on culture of peace promotion through training at all level

151 Through training and other interventions PDC wants to enhance the number of participants on culture of peace promotion training at grassroots, national and regional level Desired Outcome: Increasing awareness on culture of peace

7. To strengthen the conflict early warning system PDC wants to strengthen the conflict early warning system that the Ministry of Federal Affairs established by providing technological and human resource development assistance. Desired Outcome: Proactive engagement in early warning system

8. To enhance the capacity of elders and peace committees PDC will build the capacity of elders, peace committees and other peace actors throughout Ethiopia by forming elders' councils, giving training and other capacity developing activities. Desired Outcome: Enhanced Capacity of elders and peace committees.

9. To raise awareness on culture of peace PDC will raise awareness on the culture of peace through conducting workshops, seminars and through using community radio, electronic media and arts. Desired Outcome: Increased awareness on culture of peace

10. To enhance action/Practical research for the Center's project intervention To conduct action researches on traditional conflict resolution mechanisms, conflict mappings to identify the root causes, core problems and effects of different types of violent conflicts in Ethiopia and the horn. Making action researches on conflict sensitive development approaches for prevention and resolution of violent conflicts that may arise from different development programs. Desired Outcome: Increased action researches in conflict resolution and peace promotion works.

11. To enhance the capacity of development actors in conflict sensitive development approaches To give training to public sectors, private sectors and local community on planning, implementation of conflict sensitive developments and raise awareness on conflict sensitive development approaches Desired Outcome: uilding the capacity of development actors.

152