High-modernist intervention and the prolonged frontier conflict in Metekel, North-West Ethiopia: the case of the grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

ABSTRACTThis study explores the interface of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a high-modernist hydraulic scheme, with the protracted frontier conflict in Metekel Zone of Benishangul Gumuz Regional State. Without downplaying the national technocratic ambitions that it invokes, based on fieldwork conducted in 2022, the study witnessed as the dam’s presence in Metekel has escalated the perennial state-local skirmishes, rekindled inter-group hostilities, and ultimately trans-nationalized the frontier mayhem in the area. Such impacts of the dam were rooted in the state’s long-held frontier imagination and coercive relocation program through which hegemonic high-modernist narratives contested locals’ lived experiences. Differential local impacts of the dam, its role in mounting competing territorialities, and the concomitance of the trans-national feud with local discords were also equally influencing. However, the interface between the GERD and frontier struggles in Metekel was broadly shaped by the frontier’s history and national governance policies. In revealing so, the study provides insights that complement debates about frontier dynamics and struggles in Ethiopia and Africa, which tend to concentrate on tensions related to land transfer for private investors. Indeed, frontier struggles seem too complex: one must interrogate multiple actors, the complex history, and a broader range of issues with local, national, and regional dimensions.KEYWORDS: GERDfrontierfrontier conflicthigh-modernismMetekel Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Interview, eye witness, Mambuk, 16 May 2022.2. Scott, Seeing Like a State, 4.3. Bloom et al., ‘Introduction’.4. McCully, Silenced Rivers, 237; Nusser, ‘Political Ecology of’; Everard, Hydro politics of Dam5. Adams, Wasting the Rain, 14.6. Hoag, Developing the Rivers, 4.7. Scott, Seeing Like a State.8. Nusser; Scudder, The Future of Large Dams; Bromber et al., The Temporal Politics of Big Dams; See also Abbink, ‘Dam Controversies’; Asebe and Korf, ‘Post-imperial Statecraft’.9. Li, ‘What is Land’, 592; Geiger, Turner in The Tropics, 94; Rasmussen and Lund, ‘Reconfiguring Frontier’, 391.10. Hopkins, Ruling The Savage, 14; Makki and Geisler, ‘Development by Dispossession’, 6.11. See Geiger; Hvalok, ‘Colonization and Conflict’; Kopytoff, ‘Introduction’; Triphaty, ‘Frontier Legacy of America’; Prout and Howitt, ‘Frontier Imaginings’; Ramussen and Lund.12. Central Statistics of Ethiopia, Census.13. Tsega, Inter-ethnic interaction; Gonzalez-Ruibal, An Archeology of; Taddesse, ‘Nilo-Saharan Interaction’.14. BGRS, Regional Socio-Economic Profile; A brochure from zonal office of investment.15. See note 14 above.16. Woldesellassie, Gumuz and Highland Resettles. While majorities were Amharas, considerable number of resettlers were also from Tigray, Hadiya, and Kambata. Subsequently, around 18,000 Gumuz natives were forcefully dislocated.17. FDRE, Constitution; BGRS, Regional Constitution.18. Dagnachew, ‘Relative Deprivation’; the politics of indigeneity has brought shifts of power balance in which the Gumuz are empowered over the historically dominant Shuwa neighbors. Meanwhile, despite the unprecedented political empowerment, the socio-economic status of Gumuz has never been comparable with the latter.19. Whittington et al., ‘The Grand Renaissance Dam’.20. His inauguration speech at the official commencement of the project, Guba, 2 April 2011.21. FDRE, Growth and Transformation Plan, 13, 4922. Verhoeven, ‘The Grand Ethiopian’, 167.23. FDRE, the Power System Expansion Master Plan (2012–2037).24. World Bank, Ethiopia.25. See note 21 above.26. Interview, Addis Ababa, 4 March 2022.27. Official speech at launching 3rd round SMS fundraising, 4 March 202028. See note 8 above.29. Interview, 19 March 2022.30. Interview with Addis Fortune, 2013.31. Haile Mariam, the former PM of FDRE, official Speech at the 120th anniversary of the Adwa Victory, 01 March 2016.32. Hoag, Developing the Rivers33. Ethiopian News Agency, 25 August 2018.34. Directly televised speech at completion of GERD’s third filing operation, 12 November 2012.35. See Asiedu, ‘The Construction’, 1–2; Engelke and Passell, ‘From the Gulf’. While Ethiopia is the source for about 85% its water, the 1929 Britain’s colonial treaty provided Egypt with near monopoly over the Nile River. In 1959, Egypt again signed a deal with Sudan which ensured the two states access to 90% of the water. Having outright power over all upstream projects, thus, Egypt has long dominated the basin’s affairs and enforced its will with threats of retribution.36. Verhoeven, 162.37. Mendi of Assosa and Sirbabay of Khmashi are also partly affected.38. Veilleux, Is dam development, 191–196.39. Ibid.40. Interview, a dam-affected local, Mankush, 29 August 2022.41. BGRS, Villagization Program.42. Interview, Disaster and Risk Management Expert, who was also member of the resettlement committee in Guba, 3 May 2022.43. Informant accounts of the dam-affected locals, August/September 2022.44. Interview, officials, Gilgel-Beles, June 2022.45. Interview, Mankush, 6 September 2022.46. Interview, member of the Gumuz Nationality Council and the local resettlement committee, Gilgel-Beles, 28 June 2022.47. Interview, Mankush, 14 September 2022.48. Reports, Guba Communication Office, on 6 December 2018 and 13 March 2019.49. Vaughan and Mesfin, Resettlement, 16.50. See note 49 above.51. Scudder, T. The future of large dams52. International Rivers, Field Visit Report, 2012.53. Vaughan and Mesfin, Resettlement.54. Reported in a PowerPoint presentation by the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO), Salini Costruttori and SP Studio Pietrangelli consulting engineers, 16 November 2010 (See also International Rivers Citation2012, 16).55. Interview, Officials, 2020; Asebe and Korf, ‘Post-imperial Statecraft’.56. Interview, Mambuk, 13 June 2022.57. See note 59 above, 16–17.58. See note 45 above.59. Meron, The Mother, 36.60. Interview, Gilgel-Beles, 22 June 2022.61. ACHPR and IWGIA, Indigenous People, 10.62. See also Fana Television, 23 December 2020.63. Ibid, 6–7, 335.64. Abbink, ‘Dam controversies’.65. Turton, ‘Wilderness’, 165.66. Geiger, 87–88.67. Interview, state official, Gilgel-Beles, 18 June 2022.68. See note 47 above.69. Ibid.70. In 2010, the BGRS has launched the Commune Program to relocate and sedenterize Gumuz and other native inhabitants. ‘Modernizing’ this ‘backward’ frontier natives, and improving their livelihoods and access to services were among the stated official objectives. This has hardly attained, however. Meanwhile, the land relocatees abandoned was given to ‘alien’ investors and many of the Gumuz lost traditional tenure rights. The program is then taken as it was a state strategy to facilitate land commercialization than a genuine plan of improving local livings.71. Varied informant accounts, 2022.72. Scott, Domination, 147.73. See note 44 and 48 above.74. Report, Guba Communication Office, 2019.75. Interview, local police officer in Guba, June 2022.76. Informant accounts, 2022; Communication offices of Guba and Metekel, 2019.77. Scott, Domination; Scott, Weapons.78. Report, Guba Communication Office, June 2020.79. See note 44, 48, and 77 above.80. TIKVAH-ETHIOPIA, 2020.81. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, 2022.82. Ethiopian Red Cross Society, Field Report, December 2020.83. Ibid.84. See note 77 above.85. See Dagnachew, ‘Relative Deprivation’, 7–8; Nyssen, ‘Marginalised Gumuz’, 3.86. The Gumuz men were observed in Gilgel-Beles and Mambuk while offering parking services to vehicles transporting construction materials to the dam site.87. See note 45 above.88. Interview, project worker, 14 June 2022.89. Dagnachew, ‘Relative Deprivation’.90. See note 58 above.91. Meron, ‘Caught between’, 6.92. Sack, Human Territoriality, 19.93. Delaney, ‘Territory and Territoriality’.94. Geiger, 10; Von, A Post-frontier, 22; Rasmussen and Lund, 393–396.95. Interview, BGRS Prosperity Party leader, 2022.96. Deutsche Welle Amharic, 3 October 2020.97. Interview, Bahirdar, 25 April 2022.98. It is worth to note that the history of Metekel being part of the previous Gojjam province do not justify the existing claim to annex it with the ANRS. First, the state re-structuring and territorialization that gave birth to the ANRS in 1991 is totally ahistorical process. Second, Gojjam itself was not the exclusive territory of Amhara but inhabited by diverse groups, including Gumuz, Agaw, Oromo, Shinasha, and others.99. Gardner, ‘All Is Not Quiet’.100. Interview with OMN.101. Interview, Gilgel-Beles, 17 June 2022.102. See note 69 above.103. Amharas have asserted more following the coming of PM Abiy in 2018 and the creation of the Prosperity Party in late 2019, which marked the demise of TPLF’s political dominance that they perceive as anti-Amhara by its design and ideology.104. See Von; Rasmussen and Lund.105. Siko and Lund, ‘Access and Property’, 7.106. Informant accounts, 2022; Metekel Communication Office, April 2019.107. Informants accounts, 2022; Addis Standard, September/October 2020; Metekel Communication Office, November 2020; Ethiopian Insight, December 2020; AMM, January 2021; Ethiopian Peace Observatory, 2018–2022, January 2023.108. See also note 96 above.109. MoU, Metekel Zone and Agaw-Awi Nationality Zone, Article 5 (22)).110. Interview, Gilgel-Beles, 10 June 2022.111. Interview, Bullen, 2 August 2022.112. Dereje, ‘Power and Its Discontents’, 32.113. See Maasho, ‘Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan’; Hailemariam Dessalegn, former PM of the FDRE, claims, the dam would ‘fulfill vital electricity needs and enhance regional cooperation.114. Lerman, ‘The Keystone’.115. Booth. ‘The Temperature’; Asiedu, ‘The Construction’; Bayat, ‘Plebeians of’.116. Petrov, 53; Following the 2011 Arab Spring, Egypt’s hegemony has waned, while Ethiopia led regional affairs and gained international prestige. Such a power shift has enabled the latter to embark on and move forward with the GERD.117. Engelke and Passell, ‘From the Gulf’, 11; the 1929 Agreement, codified further in 1959, allocated 4 billion cubic meters of water (BCM) per year of the Nile’s flow to Sudan, 48 BCM per year to Egypt, and none to any of today’s other nine riparian states.118. Verhoeven, 173.119. Attia and Saleh, ‘The Political Deadlock’.120. A televised speech.121. Samuel, ‘Trump Suspends’.122. Al-Monitor, October 26, 2020.123. Booth, 8.124. Caslin and Rabie.125. Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, 12 August 2022.126. Interview, Gilgel-Beles, 30 May 2022.127. Addis Standard, 8 March 2021; The Reporter, 13 March 2021; Abdulahi Hamu, committee chairman, reported as they were able to learn that Sudan and Egypt have been funding, training, and arming the youth to keep Metekel unstable.128. Interview with Crisis Group, 25 January 2021.129. Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, 14 August 2021.130. Interview, Dibati, 29 July 2022.131. Ethiopia Insight, ‘Marginalization and Persecution’, August 2021.132. Informant accounts, 2022; Ethiopian Insight, 2021; TIKVAH-ETHIOPIA, 2022.133. EHRC, 13 March 2022.134. Abbink, ‘The Atlantic community mistake’.135. A telephone interview with ‘Hadith al-Qahira’ (Cairo Talk) on the ‘al-Qahira wal Nas’ (Cairo and the People) channel, March 2023.136. On April 7 2021, Sis also warned, ‘I am telling our brothers in Ethiopia: let’s not reach the point where you touch a drop of Egypt’s water, because all options are open’.137. On 30 May 2021, addressing the launching ceremony of Adama-Awash 60 Km expressway, PM Abiy announced the plan of building more than 100 small and medium irrigation dams in various regional states in the 2021/22 fiscal year. The dams will help the country to farm agricultural produces three times per year via irrigation thereby ensure food security, the PM stated (See Ethiopian News Agency, 30 May 2021).138. Translated and Twitted by Suleiman Abdela, 2 June 2021.139. Samir Ghattas, Egyptian Parliamentarian and Head of the Middle East Forum for Strategic Studies also confirmed, ‘given the difficulty to go into direct war out of fear of international reactions. Egypt’s support for the rebels is very probable (See Al-Monitor, May 2021).140. Abbink, ‘Dam controversies’.141. Scott, Seeing Like a State.142. See Lo, ‘High Modernism, Conflict’.143. See Asiedu, ‘The Construction’; Engelke and Passell, ‘From the Gulf’; Booth. ‘The Temperature’; Asiedu, ‘The Construction’; Bayat, ‘Plebeians of’. Samuel, ‘Trump Suspends’; Petrov, The Grand Ethiopian; Lerman, ‘The Keystone’.144. See Abbink, ‘Land to the foreigners’.Additional informationFundingThe corresponding author has received support from the Capacity Building Project of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) in Partnership with the African Research Universities' Alliance (ARUA).Notes on contributorsDagnachew Ayenew YeshiwasDagnachew Ayenew Yeshiwas is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Institute of Peace and Development Studies, Haramaya University, Ethiopia. He has also been a senior lecturer in Department of Peace and Development Studies at Wollo University, Ethiopia, and he wrote on ethnicity, ethnic relations, and conflict. Looking into the complex interface of Governance, Development, and Indigeneity, Dagnachew is currently examining the Political-Economy of Frontier Conflicts.Gutema Imana KenoGutema Imana Keno (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Haramaya University, Haramaya, Ethiopia. He received his Ph.D.in Sociology from the University of Klagenfurt in Austria, and he has been offering graduate classes for students of Sociology, and Peace and Development Studies at Haramaya University. Dr. Gutema's research interest lies on cross-cutting issues of development sociology, and he is the author and editor of numerous research works on that.Tsega Endale EtefaTsega Endale Etefa (Professor) is a Professor of History, and Africana and Latin American Studies at Colgate University in USA. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg in Germany. Professor Tsega has researched and authored several articles and books on wide-ranging topics, including, ethnicity, ethnic relations and conflict, indigenous mechanisms of conflict resolution and transformation, and integration and peace-building.Tompson MakahamadzeTompson Makahamadze (Ph.D.)is an Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution at George Mason University in USA, where from he received his Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. Dr. Tompson remains Ambassador's Distinguished Scholar to Ethiopia and he was a visiting professor at several universities in. He also wrote numerous research works on political violence, peace-building, and conflict transformation.