Right to shelter violation by the Ethiopian government - by Miriam
Cheru
Recent victims of the forced removals have been residents of the
Lideta area, Kazanchis etc. Others living around Mexico, Senga Tera,
Teklehaimanot etc. are awaiting their fate. These places have been
declared suitable for business and thus close to 100, 000 families have
to be removed from these areas. Some state these areas were particularly
targeted because the residents of the area notoriously voted for the
opposition during the 2005 elections. These lands are developers dream
since they are located in the center of Addis Abeba and thus would fetch
millions to the “land owners” which in this case happens to be the
government. This is done in the name of slum clearance but does not
prevent the government to demolish even houses and neighborhoods that do
not fall in the category of slums.
The current land law conveniently gives total ownership of all land
in Ethiopia to the government giving property owners only the right to
ownership of the building standing on the land. This is in total
disregard to the fact that many owners that acquired their lands during
the regime of Emperor Haile-Selassie had paid a substantial amount of
money for the land on which they had built their property. A repeated
violation of land and property rights by subsequent regimes has
effectively rendered most of them homeless with no legal title to land.
The government sells the land to the highest bidder amongst the land
grabbers with no return to the poor man in the street and no questions
asked by citizens. Government is selling land through corrupt auction
system and the proceeds are used to cover its recurrent city
administration costs. A square meter land around Bole area was
reportedly auctioned for 6000 Birr. The so called investors have
obviously an unfair advantage over the poor residents of the area
because not only they can afford to pay for the land but also they can
build according to the requirements imposed by the government as well
having access to substantial sums through bank loans. The government in
power has created oligopolies with very few individuals controlling the
wealth of the country which is similar to Apartheid type policy in South
Africa. It is to be recalled that South Africa went into turmoil of
forced displacement of non-whites residents in Sophiatown in 1955, and
the famous District 6 in the 1970s. The areas were identified as
suitable for White settlement. Residents were thus forced out of their
home and forced to board trucks with their belongings. They were damped
far from the city on empty fields or relocated to the notorious Cape
Flats township complex. Their houses were demolished by bulldozers. Only
places of worship remained standing. The rest as one might conclude is
history…
Unlike the colonial cities of Africa, Addis Abeba was built by
Ethiopians: Italians had very little contribution to its creation and
growth. Though TPLF scholars refer to it as a garrison town of Menelik,
the poor and the rich lived together. Life in Addis Abeba is entirely
driven by a strong local community life through “Eders”: community
funeral associations; “Equbs” rotating credit unions where members
contribute a fixed amount of money to a central fund on a monthly basis;
“Mahbers”: mostly religious based associations, “Arata Abedari”: the
local loan sharks etc. This is because successive governments in
Ethiopia have never provided any such support to the public. It is
rather a belief that tax money is collected for purely the benefit of
the ones in power since public servants’ salary is largely financed by
aid money. Instead, citizens have always and particularly at present
made ends meet by constantly self-sustaining themselves by providing
food, shelter, education, healthcare etc. and overcoming the growing
greed of the government. The eradication of these neighborhoods has a
negative impact on the community at large, effectively destroying these
established community services and self-help centers and the poor
overtly and covertly being moved.
In South Africa, international pressure did not allow development of
some of the lands that were forcefully grabbed from original owners. We
must repeat history in Ethiopia by opposing the forced removal of the
destitute, old and helpless individuals in Ethiopia by bringing these
actions to the attention of the international community and human rights
groups. We must mobilize the community to halt investment and
redevelopment in the Lideta and surrounding areas. TPLF is selling land
that it never owned to begin with. City dwellers must ideally use the
voting opportunity to evict TPLF from power.
Newly built blocks of flats planned to house victims of forced removals
The housing census of 2004 showed a shortfall of houses in Addis
Ababa and yet the intention of the government does not seem to address
the shortage. On the contrary this recent development has increased the
number of the homeless in the city and contributed largely to serious
overcrowding. The later are mostly recent victims of the forced removals
as well as migrant job seekers who moved to Addis Abeba hoping to
benefit from the construction boom.
Addis Abeba city officials obviously believe that their program
around these removals is justified and planned very well. The
construction of hundreds low cost 4-story flats (condominiums) in the
periphery of the city is underway. These housing units are built in the
name of the poor but actually sold to TPLF supporters through
corruption. Indeed first preference for the “distribution” of these
houses was supposedly given to those affected by the removal, it appears
in fact that most of the housing units were sold for cash to property
brokers, housing rental agencies or those seeking additional housing
units. This is due to several reasons the most obvious one being
corruption and the other simply being that these housing units are
unaffordable by those affected by the forced removals. The reason is
because house owners in the affected areas were only compensated an
amount equivalent to the cost of the material used to build the houses.
This amounts to peanuts since houses in these areas are traditionally
built with low cost material (mud, wood and corrugated iron). The
tragedy for most of these residents is not only the loss of ownership to
their land and home but also the loss of their means of survival as
they derive their income from either running a small business from their
premises or by renting out some part of their dwellings. Those renting
government houses get no compensation at all.
These are usually poor families surviving owing to the charity of
their community. Thus let alone having the money to pay for these new
housing units they are uncertain about their next meal. They
consequently make up the growing number of the homeless. Also this
process has worsened over-crowding, those forcefully removed moving in
with their relatives, making the existing small living area even
smaller. These newly build blocks of flats are slums in the making as
the buildings are in a bad state, with very little space that is
unsuitable as may be for large and extended families, poor building
material, not enough water etc. This in our opinion defeats the whole
purpose of the government program.
The development of Addis Abeba has mostly been informal with no
proper city planning for over a century. The government current program
for the renewal of the city sounds like eating an elephant in one go
rather than attacking it in bits and pieces as common wisdom would
suggest. Other developing countries were faced with similar problems
e.g. Vietnam, Brazil, Nigeria, Angola, etc. However these countries took
the plight of the poor slum dwellers very seriously and did not attempt
to resettle them at all. They instead opted for creating totally new
city centers and new settlements in order to phase out the transition
without causing too much instability and conflicts. Why can’t the
Ethiopian administration learn from these wise leaders? This of course
makes one reflect of why should the inhabitants of Addis Abeba and
indeed all cities dwellers must NOT vote for EPDRF. The people must
actually protest by voting for Medrek!!!
Newly built blocks of flats planned to house victims of
forced removals
Source: abugida
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