I lately read Mr. Daniel Kifle’s article entitled “Spreading in Gambella Investment, Criticism, Opportunity” and found it quite interesting. However, as somebody from the Gambella region, I have also come across some misleading statements in his article that do not correspond to the obvious facts on the ground and I see some discrepancies between his analysis and his conclusions. Therefore, despite the time that has gone, I decided to respond to Mr. Daniel as follow.

Dear Mr. Daniel,

One of these conclusions is when you state that, “It seems that while many outside the area debate the land grab issue, the real concern on the ground for the most part are about wages.” I was surprised to see this conclusion toward the end after looking at the kind of people you have selected to interview for your article. Whether you did it deliberately or not, I think anybody could observe the critical methodological error evident in your analysis. I cannot tell the original intention of your article, if it is about to find out whether land is being grabbed from the indigenous people or not, or if it is about employment conditions on the farms or any other. I do not have any problem with whatever your original intention was. However, from your very article, all your interviewees are employees/labourers on various farms. Moreover, all of them except one are non-indigenous people of Gambella who have migrated to the region precisely for employment opportunities. As a matter of simple logic then I thought that your article is about employment and related wage issues on those farms. However, I was shocked when you jumped to conclude that wages is the most pressing concern for people on the ground and not land grabbing. Please don’t get me wrong, here I am not saying that wages is not a problem, it could be as you have investigated it. What I utterly dispute is when you stepped into something that you have not investigated at all. How do you make a comparative conclusion that “wages” is the most pressing concern for the local people than “land grabbing” when your entire article talks about migrant employees who have nothing to do with land grabbing? Those migrants you have interviewed are only in the region to earn some money. They are not affected by any kind of land grabbing. They are not displaced from anywhere in the region and they might not even be aware of any kind of displacement in the region since none of their family, friends or people they know are affected by the huge displacement of the indigenous people of Gambella from their traditional lands. I think for them it is not their business whether the farm they are working on is being grabbed from the indigenous people or not as far they get what they migrated for into the region. If I am one of those migrants and you ask me about land grabbing, I think my sincere response would simply be “I do not know” or “It is not my business”. I think you know that if you wanted to know whether land is being grabbed from the people or not, then you should have talked to indigenous people who are displaced from their homes. You should have talked to farmers who were forced to leave their farms. All rural Gambella today is full of displaced people living under plastic sheet camps as refugees in their own land. I think if you wanted to know the facts about land grabbing you should have known so by talking to the right people (displaced indigenous people of Gambella). However, it is known today that the government is working hard through its mass media, agents, including through its artificial independent media to mislead the outside world of its human rights violations in Gambella under the name of development. I don’t judge if you are one of them, or you just didn’t want to know about land grabbing, or if you simply genuinely missed the plain truth of land grabbing.

Secondly, you have mentioned “There are 306,916 people living in the region many of whom are not involved in agriculture at all.” Although there is some truth in this statement, when it comes to land investment, most of the investors are located in the Anywa zone who are almost 100% farmers. Particularly the Saudi star farm, the Ruchi farm, including big part of the Karuturi farm which you have talked about, are all located in Anywa zones who fully practice agriculture. The government keep saying that they are reallocating pastoralists to make social services viable. This is not true. Four out of five ethnic groups in Gambella namely the Anywa, Majangir, Opo and Kumo who occupy over 80% of fertile land in Gambella practice agriculture. Even the Nuers who are mainly pastoralists also combine pastoralism with semi-farming. The displacement has nothing to do with pastoralism or social services; it is about making more land available to investors and that is why it is called ‘land grabbing’ by genuine independent observers.

Finally, you have repeatedly stated the number of employment that various farms have created for the local people. I think we need to distinguish between indigenous people of Gambella and ‘highlanders’ (migrant Ethiopians from various parts of the country). It is to be appreciated that those land investments are creating job opportunities. However, I think it is also fair to state that indigenous people of Gambella are actually not the beneficiaries of those job opportunities. From your own report it is easy to guess the extent into which indigenous people are excluded from those opportunities. Out of five of the interviewees you have mentioned in your article four of them are highlanders and only one is an indigenous person from Gambella. Therefore, indigenous people are not only losing their lands but also excluded from any kinds of benefits associated with all these investments.

Thank you for reading my comments and I hope next time you report on Gambella you will look in to these issues.

For comment you can reach me at ojulu34@yahoo.com