Ethnicity and constitutionalism in contemporary Ethiopia

Journal of African Law

Volumn 41, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 159-174

  Abbink, Jon ^a  

^a LEIDEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0000778710     PISSN: 00218553     EISSN: 14643731     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021855300009372     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Cf. Claude Ake, “What is the problem of ethnicity in Africa?”, (1993) 22 Transition 1–14.
2. This Constitution was ratified by the Constituent Assembly in December 1994 and became official in August 1996. It was the fourth Ethiopian constitution promulgated for the last 65 years. Another was drafted in 1974 in the early stages of the revolution, but it was ignored and shelved by the Derg military council which took over power later that year. I have used the following text: The Draft Constitution of Ethiopia. A Draft Approved by the Council of Representatives (an unofficial draft translation from the Amharic), Addis Ababa: Constitutional Commission of Ethiopia. 1994.
3. Cf. Marcus Banks, Ethnicity: Anthropobgical Constructions, London, 1996, 10.
4. Nevertheless, the concept of “ethnic rights” is legally speaking still very unclear and not very useful (cf. Adeno Addis, “Individualism, communitarianism, and the rights of ethnic minorities”, (1993) 67 Notre Dame Law Review 619.
5. Cf. Jon Elster, “Introduction”, in J. Elster and R. Slagstad (eds.), Constitutionalism and Democracy, Cambridge, 1988, 2.
6. Constitutionalism and Democracy, Cambridge, 3.
7. Cf. Marco Bassi, “Power's ambiguity or the political significance of Gada”, in P.T.W. Baxter, J. Hultin and A. Triulzi (eds.), Being and Becoming and Oromo. Historical and Anthropological Inquiries, Uppsala, 1995, 177f.
8. Also Paul Baxter, “The creation and constitution of Oromo nationality”, in K. Fukui and J. Markakis (eds.), Ethnicity and Conflict in the Horn of Africa, London, 1994, 167–186. Other relevant examples would be the Sidama (luwa) age-grade system, the traditional “sacred” or “divine” kingships in southern Omotic-speaking regions of Ethiopia (Maale, Wolayta or Gofa), the system of clan-elders and religious leaders among the Somali, or the Dizi councils of chiefs and elders. They all contains core elements of an indigenous “rule of law” system, whereby people have basic individual rights, next to community rights.
9. See Bassi, Ethnicity and Conflict in the Horn of Africa
10. Cf. Herbert L. Lewis, “Democracy and Oromo political culture”, (1995) 7 Life and Peace Review 26.
11. Baxter, Life and Peace Review, 183.
12. Cf. Adeno, Life and Peace Review, 621.
13. During most of its history Ethiopia was de facto a kind of federal country, where the power of the monarch was often superficial and remote, and regional autonomy substantial. See Christopher Clapham, “Constitutions and governance in Ethiopian political history”, paper for the Symposium “The Making of the New Ethiopian Constitution”, May 1993. Addis Ababa: Inter-Africa Group.
14. Cf Baxter, paper for the Symposium “The Making of the New Ethiopian Constitution”, 183.
15. See Abbas Haji, L'Etat et les Crises d'Intégration Rationale en Ethiopie Contemporaine, Talence/Bordeaux, 1993.
16. As expounded in a famous 1969 article by Walleligne Mekonnen in a student opposition paper (Challenge) in the Haile Selassie years, cf. Kiflu Tadesse, The Generation. The History of the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Party. Part I: From the Early Beginnings to 1975, Silver Spring 1993, 53–54.
17. E. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes. The Short Twentieth Century 1914–1991, London, 1995, 567.
18. Allen E. Buchanan, “The right to self-determination: analytical and moral foundations”, (1991) 8 Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law 41–50.
19. With good reason, see Buchanan, Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, 45.
20. See the short but very perceptive paper by Flora Goudappel and Maarten Oosterhagen, “Ethnicity, federalism and development: constitutional solutions for Ethiopia?” Rotterdam, Erasmus University, Center of Constitutional Law, 1996, 2
21. “Ethnicity, federalism and development: constitutional solutions for Ethiopia?”
22. “Ethnicity, federalism and development: constitutional solutions for Ethiopia?”, 6.
23. “Ethnicity, federalism and development: constitutional solutions for Ethiopia?”, 5.
24. “Ethnicity, federalism and development: constitutional solutions for Ethiopia?”, 3.
25. See Aberra Jembere, “The functions and development of parliament in Ethiopia”, in CM. Zoethout et al. (eds.), Constitutionalism in Africa. The Quest for Autonomous Principles, Deventer, 1996, 82.
26. Constitutionalism in Africa. The Quest for Autonomous Principles, 3–4.
27. Cf. John M. Cohen, “‘Ethnic federalism’ in Ethiopia”, (1995) 2 (N.S.) Northeast African Studies 172–174.
28. See Eshetu Chole, “Opening Pandora's box: preliminary notes on fiscal decentralisation in contemporary Ethiopia”, (1994) 1 (N.S.) Northeast African Studies 7–30.
29. See Paul H. Brietzke, “Ethiopia's ‘leap in the dark’: federalism and self-determination in the new Constitution”, [1995] 39 J.A.L. 32.
30. Aberra Jembere, J.A.L., 88.
31. Paul B. Henze, “Comments on the Ethiopian Draft Constitution of 1994”, Washington, D.C., unpublished paper.
32. Aberra, unpublished paper.
33. Cf. the state newspaper Ethiopian Herald, 9 December, 1996, 1.
34. Henze, the state newspaper Ethiopian Herald, 3.
35. Cf. Adeno, the state newspaper Ethiopian Herald, 619, 622.
36. This problem was already implicit in the ethnic map of the Derg regime, drawn up in 1984 by the (Government) Institute for die Study of Ethiopian Nationalities, and discussed by J. Bureau, “A propos de l'inventaire des nationalities ethiopiennes”, in C. Lepage et al. (eds.), Etudes Ethiopiennes, Actes de la Xe Conference Internationale des Etudes Ethiopiennes, Paris, 24–28 août 1988, Paris, 1994, Vol.1, 501–511. In fact, a lot of work of delineating “nationalities” by the Derg was without much change taken over by the EPRDF regime after 1991, showing an underlying common point of view derived from Marxist views on the “national question”.
37. See Clapham, Etudes Ethiopiennes, Actes de la Xe Conference Internationale des Etudes Ethiopiennes, 5.
38. Brietzke, Etudes Ethiopiennes, Actes de la Xe Conference Internationale des Etudes Ethiopiennes, 34–35
39. or Henze, Etudes Ethiopiennes, Actes de la Xe Conference Internationale des Etudes Ethiopiennes, 4–5.
40. Henze, Etudes Ethiopiennes, Actes de la Xe Conference Internationale des Etudes Ethiopiennes, 4.
41. The Constitution drafters have taken the extreme interpretation of “self-determination”, i.e. they followed the “Nationalist Principle” (cf. Buchanan, Etudes Ethiopiennes, Actes de la Xe Conference Internationale des Etudes Ethiopiennes, 46), without having sufficiendy studied and weighed the various other options in this field: autonomous community structure (as in Spain), cultural autonomy, regional autonomy, self-government, etc.