Land Law Responses towards Arbitrary Eviction on “Non-Indigenous” Rural Peasants in Benishangul-Gumuz Region

Abstract

 The FDRE Constitution established ethnic federalism supposedly to accommodate and protect various rights of NNPs of Ethiopia. Among others, the land resource becomes the common property of NNPs of the Ethiopian ethnic groups. Following the adoption of ethnic based structure Benishangul-Gumuz Regional States (BGRS) revised Constitution has classified peoples, based on ethnicity, as "indigenous” Vs “non-indigenous”(“owner” Vs. “non-owner”) to the region, and land resource found in region belongs to "indigenous nationalities." However, Ethiopian rural peasants have Constitutional rights to access arable land without fees and are guaranteed from arbitrary eviction without indigenous-non-indigenous dichotomy. So this study aims to investigate legal responses towards the protection against arbitrary eviction to non-indigenous peasants from their land rights. To achieve this objective, study employed qualitative research approach. The findings showed there is arbitrary eviction of "non-indigenous" peasants in the region. The land rights of non-indigenous peasants are restricted and face decentralized despotism. The root cause for arbitrary evictions of the non-indigenous rural peasants is the false indigenous/non-indigenous people dichotomization on the one hand, and ambiguous nature of land policy and pitfalls of ethnic federalism on the other hand. Neither FDRE Constitution nor BGRS Constitution provide for legal mechanism to avert arbitrary eviction of non-indigenous peasants from their land rights. Therefore, the FDRE Constitution and BGRS revised Constitution must be revisited in order to avoid indigenous/non-indigenous false dichotomy so that the land rights of non-indigenous peoples shall be protected.