Members of the Mursi tribe, an agro-pastoralist tribe in southwestern Ethiopia are seen on October 4, 2019 in the Lower Omo Valley. - AFP

LOWER OMO VALLEY:
For decades, herders in Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley have relied on guns to fend
off rivals as well as hyenas and lions roaming the forests and plains. But over
the past month, security forces have embarked on a campaign of forced
disarmament that pastoralist leaders say has been accompanied by shooting of
civilians, mass detentions and beatings.

Witness accounts
from the Lower Omo Valley bolster critics who contend that Prime Minister Abiy
Ahmed -- named the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize -- is presiding over
a deteriorating security situation, worsened by the actions of the military and
police. The violence is unfolding ahead of elections next year in one of the country's
most volatile and ethnically diverse areas: the Southern Nations,
Nationalities, and Peoples' Region.

Elders from the
Bodi community, the main group earmarked for disarmament in the Lower Omo
Valley, told AFP nearly 40 people had been killed as of mid-October but the
toll could be far higher.  Officials deny
this account and defend the disarmament campaign as crucial for peace in this
sensitive region. "They are killing without any reason," said
Shegedin, a Bodi elder who was detained for several days and asked that his
full name not be used because he feared reprisals. "They just go to the
villages, and if you run they start shooting."

Government and
security officials in Jinka, the administrative centre for the South Omo zone,
said the disarmament campaign was necessary to secure state development
projects including sugar plantations in the area. But as reports of abuses
multiply, human rights groups and researchers who work in the region are
calling for investigations.

"The
accounts I have seen are sufficiently shocking and come from sufficiently
reliable sources to make it imperative that they are investigated by an
internationally respected human rights organization," said David Turton,
an anthropologist at the University of Oxford who has worked in the region for
50 years.  Failure to investigate
"will only add to suspicions that the accounts we've heard are in fact
accurate", he said.

A major
escalation

Tensions between
the Bodi and the government are long-running, fuelled by Bodi anger at what
they describe as the loss of their land to Ethiopians resettled from other
regions and to development projects like the Gibe III dam and sugar
plantations. But the elders said the latest violence represents a major
escalation.

They said Bodi
men and women detained in the town of Hana had been deprived of food and forced
to stand for hours in the sun. They accused security forces of digging up the
buried remains of a Bodi spiritual leader and shooting them. And they said
security forces shaved off the hair of one man who had grown it long following
the death of his brother -- a traditional Bodi mourning custom -- and forced
him to eat it. "We've never seen anything like this," said Shegedin,
one of three Bodi elders who spoke with AFP.

Southern unrest

Federal security
forces assumed control of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples'
Region back in July. The move followed weeks of unrest resulting from a bid by
the Sidama ethnic group to form a new regional state. Ten other groups are
pursuing similar statehood bids, and it is unclear how the government plans to
respond to them.

Security in the
ethnic patchwork of the Lower Omo Valley is crucial to the government in light
of plans to install 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of sugar plantations there
along with processing factories. Troops and federal police are among those
participating in the disarmament operation, said Lore Kakuta, an adviser to the
chief administrator in Jinka. Seized weapons include AK-47s assault rifles
bought from traders shifting arms from conflict-ridden South Sudan.

Lore said
disarmament was the only option following unprovoked shootings by the Bodi
targeting sugar plant workers -- allegations that the Bodi elders denied. Lore
said he could not comment on reports of human rights abuses.  "We don't know what the security forces
are doing," he said. "Actually, that's not our job."  A senior police official in Jinka, who spoke
to AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss
disarmament, disputed claims that Bodi people had been killed. "The
allegations that dozens of Bodi have been killed is false," he said.

Other groups on
edge

As of early
October, the disarmament of the Bodi was "90-percent finished", Lore
said. He added that the operation could be expanded to include the Mursi,
another agro-pastoralist community based in the area. A Mursi leader, who spoke
on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said he was concerned that
tactics used against the Bodi would be repeated against his people.

"Now the
Mursi are all worried because maybe the police will come and kill us," he
said. Laetitia Bader of Human Rights Watch said the Ethiopian government had a
history of using violence and intimidation to force vulnerable communities from
their land. "The federal government should take measures to ensure that
any disarmament efforts are not perceived as a continuation of this
heavy-handed approach," she said. The authorities should also consult with
local communities and ensure that alleged abuses by its forces "are
immediately investigated," Bader said. - AFP