What’s yours is mine; what’s mine’s my own
By Graham Peebles
It is a colonial phenomenon — appropriate land for the needs of the
colonists and to hell with those living upon the land, indigenous and at
home. Might is right, military or economic. The power of the dollar
rules supreme in a world built upon the acquisition of the material, the
perpetuation of desire and the entrapment of the human spirit.
Africa has long been the object of western domination and usury under
the British, French, and Portuguese of old. Now the New rulers of the
World — large corporations from America, China, Japan, Middle Eastern
States, India, and Europe — are engaged in extensive land acquisitions
in developing countries. The vast majority of available land is in
Sub-Saharan Africa. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues report, “The Growing demand for Land, Risks and Opportunities for Smallholder Farmers,”
states “the amount of land that is potentially available for expanded
rain-fed crop production is estimated to be about 2 billion hectares, 80
per cent of which is located in sub-Saharan Africa (especially Western
and Central Africa) and in South America”.
Huge industrial agricultural centres are being created, off shore
farms, production of crops for the investors’ home market. Indigenous
people, subsistence farmers and pastoralists are forced off the land,
the natural environment is leveled, purging the land of wildlife and
destroying small rural communities that have lived, worked and cared for
the land for centuries.
The numbers of people potentially affected by the land grab and its
impact on the environment is staggering. The UN, in its report, notes
that “by 2020, an estimated 135 million people may be driven from their
land as a result of soil degradation, with 60 million in sub-Saharan
Africa alone.” This contemporary “land grab” has come about as a result of food
shortages, the financial meltdown in 2008, and in light of the United
Nations world population forecast of 9.2 billion people by 2050, three
main resulting pressures:
1. food insecure nations – particularly Middle Eastern and Asian countries, seeking to stabilise their food supply;
2. to meet the growing worldwide demand for agro-fuels; and,
3. by the rise in investment in land and soft commodities, such as coffee, cocoa, sugar, corn, wheat, soya and fruit.
Often investors are simply speculators seeking to make a fast or
indeed slow buck, by ‘land banking,’ sitting on the asset waiting and
watching for the price to inflate, then selling. The Oakland Institute
in its report, “The Great Land Grab,”
found that “along with hedge funds and speculators, some public
universities and pension funds are among those in on the land rush,
eyeing returns of 20 to as much as 40%.” Land not as home, but as a chip
to be thrown upon the international gambling table of
commercialisation.
Chopping trees, cutting costs
As well, we know everything and indeed everyone has its price. Even
the people and land of a country, sold into destitution by governments
motivated by distorted notions of development, where people, traditional
lifestyles and the environment come a distant second to roads,
industrialisation and the raping of the land. People too poor to hold on
to their dignity, too weak in a world built and run on power and might,
to protest and demand justice for themselves and their families and
rounded, responsible husbandry for the environment. And the price of
land? Well, as one would expect, bargain basement, with 99 year leases
the norm and various government incentive packages. In some cases the
land is literally being given away. As the Oakland Institute (OI) states
in “The Great Land Grab”:
In Mali one investment group was able to secure 1000,000 hectares (ha) of fertile land for a 50 year term for free. $2.00 a hectare (roughly equal to two Olympic size athletic grounds) is the going rate.
According to The Guardian (March 21, 2011):
The lowest prices are in Africa, where, says the World Bank, at least 35 million hectares of land has been bought or leased. Other groups, including, Friends of the Earth say the figure is higher.
Ethiopia for sale
The Ethiopian government, through the Agricultural Investment Support
Directorate, is at the forefront of this African Land Sale. Crops
familiar to the area are often grown, such as maize, sesame, sorghum, in
addition to wheat and rice, all, let us state clearly, for export to
Saudi Arabia, India, China, etc, to be sold within the home market,
benefiting the people of Ethiopia — not.
The Oakland Institute research shows “that at least 3,619,509ha of
land (an area just smaller than Belgium) have been transferred to
investors, although the actual number may be higher.” The government
claims that the land available for lease is unused and surplus. This is
disingenuous nonsense. Large areas of land are, in fact, already
cultivated by smallholders subsistence farmers and pastoralists using
land for grazing, all of which are unceremonially evicted. Villages are
destroyed and indigenous people expelled from their homeland and forced
into large scale villagization programmes. Human Rights Watch (HRW) in
its report, “Waiting Here For Death,” states:
The Ethiopian federal government’s current villagization program is occurring in four regions—Gambella, Benishangul-Gumuz, Somali, and Afar. This involves the resettlement of approximately 1.5 million people throughout the lowland areas of the country—500,000 in Somali region, 500,000 in Afar region, 225,000 in Benishangul-Gumuz and 225,000 in Gambella.
Imposed movement then, often applied with force, in order to provide
pristine land, free of any inconveniences to the corporate allies.
Level growing field
There are five areas of prime, fertile land up for grabs. Gambella is the largest where unbelievably a third
of the region (around 800,000 hectares) is available. Indian
corporations have already snapped up 352,000 hectares and around 900
foreign investors have so far taken advantage of this giveaway. Afar,
the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region, where 200,000
hectares has been leased or sold, Oromia, where three Indian companies
have leased a total of 138,000 hectares, and Amhara, make up the reduced
to clear rail.
With the land grab crucially goes water – and the appropriation of
this vital resource, both surface and ground water. Investors are
allowed to do what they will with the land they lease. This includes
diverting rivers, digging canals from existing water sources, building
dams and drilling bore holes. The Oakland Institute, in its “Land Investment in Ethiopia”
report quotes Saudi Star stating “that water will be their biggest
issue, and numerous plans are being established (including the
construction of 30 km of cement-lined canals and another dam on the
Alwero River).” There are no controls imposed on foreign corporations
whatsoever and no payment structure for ‘appropriating’ water is in
place. These politically favoured investors are being offered carte blanche.
Water supplies in Ethiopia are poor, even in the capital, where
irregular mains flow is common in many neighbourhoods. There is water
galore. Ninety percent of the Nile flows through Ethiopia.
Distribution, though, is inconsistent.
In Gambella the government in 2011 offered huge areas of land to
Bangalore-based food company Karuturi Global for the equivalent of $1.16
per hectare, to lease more than 2,500 sq. km (1,000 sq. miles) of
virgin, fertile land for more than 50 years. This cost compared to an
average rate of $340 per hectare in the Punjab district of India. No
wonder, then, that the CEO of Karuturi described “the incentives
available to the floriculture industry in Ethiopia as ‘mouthwatering,’
including low air freights on the state-owned Ethiopian airlines, tax
holidays, hassle-free entry into the industry at very low lease rates,
tax holidays, and lack of duties,” (Oakland Institute Report). Up to
60,000 workers will be employed by Karuturi, who are paying local people
less than $1 a day, which is well below the level of extreme poverty
set by the World Bank.
According to the Guardian (March 21, 2011) the company will
cultivate “20,000 hectares of oil palm, 15,000 hectares of sugar cane
and 40,000 hectares of rice, edible oils and maize and cotton… ‘We could
feed a nation here,’” says Karmjeet Sekhon, Karuturi project manager.
Land and people for a few rupees, cushioned by a cocktail of sweeteners
offered by the Ethiopian government, allowing the decimation of the
environment and the destruction of lifestyles – generations old. And in a
hurry. The Guardian found:
The [land] concessions are being worked [by Karuturi] at a breakneck pace, with giant tractors and heavy machinery clearing trees, draining swamps and ploughing the land in time to catch the next growing season. Forests across hundreds of square km are being clear-felled and burned to the dismay of locals and environmentalists concerned about the fate of the region’s rich wildlife.
Unstable supply of staples
Around five million people in Ethiopia rely on food aid and live with
constant food insecurity that will only increase under the land grab
bonanza. According to the Oakland Institute’s report, “commercial
investment will increase rates of food insecurity in the vicinity of the
land investments” and Open Democracy reports an interview with Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, for the Financial Times
(August 7, 2008), in which he predicted that “large-scale farming could
bring some employment, but not much. It would not solve the problem of
food insecurity.”
Intensifying food insecurity is the transfer of vast areas of land
used for the cultivation of traditional staples such as Teff and other
crops. This is largely responsible for costs of Teff (used to make
injera – the daily bread) quadrupling in the last four years. The Guardian
(April 23, 2012) reports Friends of the Earth International: ”The
result (of land sell offs) has often been … people forced off land they
have traditionally farmed for generations, more rural poverty and
greater risk of food shortages.” Food security will be realised when
local smallholders are encouraged to farm their land, given financial
support, machinery and the needed technology. As Oxfam in its report, “Land Power Rights,” points
out, “Small-scale producers, particularly women, can indeed play a
crucial role in poverty reduction and food security. But to do so, they
need investment in infrastructure, markets, processing, storage,
extension, and research.” Keep development small, for, of, and close to the people in need, and see them flourish.
Land rights, human cost, environmental damage
The land rights of the Indigenous people of Ethiopia are, as one
would expect, somewhat ambiguous. As a legacy of the socialist
dictatorship of the 1960s and ’70s, the government technically owns all
land. However, there is protection in law for indigenous people. The Ethiopian constitution
Article 40, 3 states:
Land is a common property of the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia and shall not be subject to sale or to other means of exchange.
And 4:
Ethiopian peasants have right to obtain land without payment and the protection against eviction from their possession.
With respect to pastoralists affected by the land sell off, paragraph 5:
Ethiopian pastoralists have the right to free land for grazing and cultivation as well as the right not to be displaced from their own lands.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which
Ethiopia signed in 2007, making it a legally binding document, states in
Article 26/1:
Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources, which they have traditionally owned, occupied or other- wise used or acquired.
And paragraph 2:
Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired.
The declaration also outlines compensation measures for landowners, Article 28/1:
Indigenous peoples have the right to redress, by means that can include restitution or, when this is not possible, just, fair and equitable compensation, for the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used, and which have been confiscated, taken, occupied, used or damaged without their free, prior and informed consent.
And Paragraph 2:
Unless otherwise freely agreed upon by the peoples concerned, compensation shall take the form of lands, territories and resources 10equal in quality, size and legal status or of monetary compensation or other appropriate redress.
The law, it would appear, is clear. Implementation and respect for
its content is required, and should be demanded of the ruling EPRDF by
the donor countries to Ethiopia.
Land and People
People are not being consulted or democratically included in the
decisions to transform their homeland. This contravenes the Ethiopian
constitution, that states in Article 92/3:
People have the right to full consultation and to the expression of views in the planning and implementations of environmental policies and projects that affect them directly.
Hollow words to those being evicted from their land, like Omot
Ochan a villager from the Anuak tribe whose family has lived in the
forest near the Baro river in Gambella for ten generations. Speaking to The Observer
(20 May 2012), he “insisted Saudi Star had no right to be in his
forest. The company had not even told the villagers that it was going to
dig a canal across their land. Nobody came to tell us what was
happening.” He goes on to say, “This land belonged to our father. All
round here is ours. For two days’ walk.”
Well, that was the case until the Government in their infallible
wisdom leased some 10,000 hectares to their friend, the Ethiopian born
Saudi Arabian oil multi millionaire, Sheik Al Moudi, (In 2011, Fortune
magazine put his wealth at more than $12bn) to grow rice for his Saudi
Star Company. Omot continued, “Two years ago, the company began chopping
down the forest and the bees went away. The bees need thick forest. We
used to sell honey. We used to hunt with dogs too. But after the farm
came, the animals here disappeared. Now we only have fish to sell.” And
with the company draining the wetlands, the fish will probably be gone
soon too. Sheik Al Moudi plans to export over a million tonnes of rice a
year to Saudi Arabia. To ease relations with the Meles regime and as The Observer
states, “to smooth the wheels of commerce, Amoudi has recruited one of
Zenawi’s former ministers, Haile Assegdie, as chief executive of Saudi
Star.”
Traditional land rights for people who have lived on the land in
Gamabella and elsewhere for centuries are being ignored and in a country
where all manner of human rights are routinely violated, legally
binding compensations are not being paid. Government drafted lease agreements with investors state the Meles
regime will hand over the land free of any ‘encumbrances’ – people and
property; anyone living or using the land to graze their livestock or
pastoralists moving through.
The Independent (January 18, 2012)
reports: “Ethiopia is forcing tens of thousands of people off their
land so it can lease it to foreign investors, leaving former landowners
destitute and in some cases starving.” The Government says any movement
is voluntary and not enforced, a clear distortion of the facts. HRW
confirms the government’s criminality: “… mass displacement to make way
for commercial agriculture in the absence of a proper legal process
contravenes Ethiopia’s constitution and violates the rights of
indigenous peoples under international law.”
A price worth paying, it would seem, to the Ethiopian government and
those multi-nationals appropriating the land, seeing a market and
capitalizing on the country’s need for dollars. Desperate in a world
propelled by growth to maximize the value of every so called asset, even
if it means prostituting the land, sacrificing the native people and
destroying the natural environment.
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