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http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-01-17-hrw-ethiopian-villagisation-outlandish-contrived-wrong
HRW: Ethiopian ‘villagisation’ – outlandish, contrived, wrong
By KHADIJA PATEL.
A new report by Human Rights Watch investigates Ethiopia’s “villagisation” programme, hailed by the government as a successful voluntary relocation project, but which HRW claims is seeing farmers moved to accommodate foreign land investors.
The language of Human Rights Watch reports is designed to impress the failures of humanity without betraying the calm of emotional detachment. At the heart of these reports lie voices cloaked in the anonymity of “a village elder” in Ethiopia. Angry, desperate and resigned to his powerlessness in the face of repression, he says, “The government is killing our people through starvation and hunger. It is better to attack us in one place than just waiting here together to die. If you attack us, some of us could run and some could survive. But this, we are dying here with our children. Government workers get this salary, but we are just waiting here for death.”
His story is part of a report released on Tuesday, “Waiting Here for Death: Forced Displacement and ‘Villagization’ in Ethiopia’s Gambella Region”, based on data gleaned “from more than 100 interviews” last year in the Gambella region, the Ifo refugee camp in Dadaab and Nairobi, Kenya.
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