The Dergue Government Land Reform Proclamation and its Impact on the Borana-Konso Communities’ Interactions

Abstract

The Dergue Government introduced different changes; among others, new political and socio-economic programs were some of them. The introduction of land reform proclamation and the formation of peasant association, and service cooperatives came into being (Mengistu, 2016:59). The people of Konso have maintained long-standing contacts with their neighboring Borana Oromo (Bender, 1971:165). On the other hand, the Rural Land Nationalization policy of the Dergue once affected the long-standing harmonious interactions that existed between the two communities, because many of the Borana pasture lands along the Sägän River and beyond the river were transferred to the Konso farmers (Shinohora, 1993: 62). This historical study focused on the 1975 Dergue’s land reformation policy and the dynamic nature of the social interactions between the Borana Oromo and the Konso communities. The land reform proclamation of 1975 was a major historical event for almost all ethnic groups in Ethiopia. The 1975 land reform proclamation was followed by the campaign of land redistribution, which opened the venue for landless tenants to get access to land. These changes had a direct impact in abolishing the feudal-tenant relationship and gave an opportunity to have access to agricultural land and even other renewable natural resources. There is much historical and other field researches which seek to reconstruct how the land reformation policy of the Dergue was carried out throughout the country. However, these researchers paid little attention to the Dergue land reformation policy and its outcome on inter- ethnic interactions between the two or more communities. Thus, the general objective of the study was to reconstruct the land reform proclamation of the Dergue Government and its consequences on the Borana-Konso communities’ interactions. As yet, we do not have a comprehensive historical study on the land reform, which was carried out by the Dergue Government and its impact on the inter-ethnic interactions in southern Ethiopia and particularly, between the Borana Oromo ethnic groups and the Konso communities. Hopefully, this study will serve as a source for further academic works on the subject for the future. The researcher attempted to consult a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Sources are critically collected, scrutinized, and analyzed. The validity of the sources was cross-checked against each other.