Planting The Seeds of Friction: A Critique of PFDJ's Land Reform Proclamation
As with the constitutional process, the land reform process was formalized via a commission. It had its own Commission Chair (Mr. Alemseged Tesfay, now author of a number of historical books, including Aynefelale, and From Matienzo to Tedla Bairu…). And just like the constitution, the land reform proclamation (#58/1994) was left up to the Office of the President to do what it wishes with it. For the Eritrean regime, laws are like seasonal clothes in a closet—acquired with great fanfare, some to disappear and some to be dusted off and re-appear mysteriously. You’d be hard pressed to find a single article, a single sentence about the Proclamation between 1994 and 2006. Now, in July 2007, Shabait has decided to make vague references to it, which gives us the opportunity to remind people how disastrous this policy has been to Eritrea.
The Land Proclamation claims that all laws that preceded it are “obsolete” because they are incompatible with development policies; promote societal friction; and are destructive to the environment. Is this true? If so, is the PFDJ Land Proclamation a remedy?
The “Obsolete” Traditions & Laws
The first problem with the land proclamation is its pre-supposition: that the traditions and laws that had been in effect in Eritrea for as long as there has been an Eritrea are obsolete. Did the people of Eritrea (particularly the largely mute intelligentsia) debate the merits and demerits of the traditions and laws before they were rendered obsolete? Did the village elders participate in formulating the land proclamation? The answer is: absolutely not. Thus, to the extent the laws are obsolete, it is only because they were rejected by the PFDJ—and not by the people and their elected representatives. What are these traditions and laws regarding land? What were their strengths and weaknesses?
For decades, the laws and traditions governing land use and land ownership were as varied as the people who lived in the land. In farming-oriented societies, particularly the highlands, the traditions and laws were diverse: communal ownership of land (Diesa or, among Saho-speakers, shahina), familial land ownership (risti) and individual ownership of land (meriet werki.) In pastoral societies, in the lowlands, where bigger lands are required for grazing, the local system was replaced in the Italian-era by dominale (state owned system.) Still, the Kunama whose homeland is the Gash basin have a totally different land system that they use in cycles of fixed years.
The traditions and laws of land ownership had their strengths and weaknesses. The strength was that the system was thoroughly institutionalized and implemented via a hierarchy of authorities: Chiqa, Misliene, Kentebai, Nabtab, etc. This ensured that when conflicts arose they were confined to a specific delimited area. Its weaknesses were many: it created a tiered society of aristocrats and commoners; ristena and maekelai aliyet; men and women.
But the Land Proclamation Policy is a remedy deadlier than the disease. Agrarian values supersede pastoralist values; inter-regional conflicts replace intra-regional conflicts; super-centralization further removes accountability and meaningful venues for redressing grievances. Most ominously, the President's Office is now firmly planted between the land and the people--it is the sole arbiter, mediator, favor-bestower and favor-denier.
Planting The Seeds of Future Conflict
One of the justifications for the declaration of the land proclamation was to eliminate “land disputes and frictions that arose from time to time.” And, indeed, if a government decrees that all land belongs to the State, and that all previous laws are hereby “repealed and replaced by this proclamation,” then two villagers arguing over ownership of a land no longer have a basis to stand on. Thus, at least at the local level, there is no longer a basis for generational conflict over land.
The problem is in the treatment of pastoral land and agricultural land. Although the land proclamation defines “agricultural activities or farming” as “agricultural activities, including farming and pastoralism”, it is clear from even the briefest reading of the proclamation that its priority is farming. The PFDJ thinks in the mindset of sedentary farmers (Highlands) and has no clue about pastoral lifestyles or the role of pastoralism in national development. To the PFDJ, and to the value system of its authors, pastoralism is a fading lifestyle which does not figure anywhere in the development policy of the country.
The result is that Eritrean lowlanders feel that they are losing their land to settlers, farmers, and miners and that their concerns are not being heard. Here are just two examples from advocates of the residents of the Gash-Barka area. The following is a translation of an Arabic press release issued by Islah, by one of Eritrea's opposition groups:
Following the prevention of the exiled Eritrean Muslims from voluntarily returning to their homes with flimsy reasons and pretexts, and after exercising the policy of Tigrignization of the society; and after it arrested the preachers and teachers of the Islamic Institutes; and after denying Muslims the right to a dignified living through the known strategy with anticipated result, [the PFDJ] has embarked for some time with policies of demographic changes in Eritrea: through the laws it enacted regarding land or through the settlements and giving the land to [people] other than its [original] residents, under the pretext of development, and investment.
In order [to prevent] the deterioration of the situation, and to avoid what might ensue, and so that every citizen feels safe in his community and home, the Movement [ISLAH] announces its total rejection of the policies of demographic changes that the regime is currently planning for with vigor, and warns of the perils of such mindless actions, and calls on all Eritrean popular forces, and the Eritreans residing inside Eritrea, to stand against these irresponsible actions. It is sufficient to mention, in this respect, what is going on in the region of Shel’at, which lies north of Augaro town in the Southern Gash region, where around five-thousand families were settled; and what is being planned in Kerkebet, Rebdah, and Wedi Legesse project in Fanko region; and what is happening in the southern region of Hazemo, and the pressures that are being exerted on the residents of Afaabet and its environs by cultivating their agricultural lands.
And here’s another one from Baden-Kunama, a website that advocates on behalf of the Eritrean Kunama, a people whose claim of ethnic persecution was considered credible enough by no less an authority than the UNHCR, which just this month began the process of resettling 700 of them in the United States:
Curiously enough though, all those “agricultural and infrastructural developments”, projects and programs have been and are being made and conducted for the benefits of the regime itself and of those of its loyal supporters, but to the greater detriment of the Gash-Barka native populations, particularly of the Kunama people. Today and in their long history, the two regions and their populations are seeing, in their home-lands, one of the most massive and oppressive settlements of the populations of the Eritrean highland. It is not therefore, either casual or only duty-bound “inspections” that “President Isaias is conducting those tours in Gash-Barka region”, but really intending to “examining carefully; visiting officially to see that rules are obeyed, that work is done properly”, by the many regime’s people, organisations and by the “constructions companies”, affiliated with and employed by the regime itself.
Thus, whereas the “obsolete” land laws were sometimes incapable of solving intra-regional disputes, the PFDJ land proclamation is sowing the seeds of inter-regional and inter-societal conflicts that are exponentially more dangerous and likely to haunt future generation of Eritreans. This is the sort of concern that should be raised by the "Eritrean intellectual" who is, once again, absent without leave from the great moral questions facing Eritreans.
EXTREME CENTRALIZATION
States are justified in reforming their land laws if the existing ones fail to address the needs of the society. As we noted above, the traditional land laws did encourage the creation of a tiered society, a superclass and an underclass, and the static nature of land ownership (of land parcelled out in smaller and smaller increments to more and more people) does pose a problem. In the case of Eritrea, this is exacerbated by the fact that the land-to-people distribution is uneven: Highland Eritrea is densely populated by an agrarian society; Lowland Eritrea is sparsely populated by a pastoralist society. The problem with the PFDJ’s solution is that it is authoritarian: heavy-handed, paternalistic, undemocratic, top-down, leaving no room for popular participation in the drafting and implementation of the law.
For all its flaws, the “obsolete” land policy did have a mechanism for solving problems: the local government. In the name of national development, the land proclamation completely centralizes the process and creates bureaucracies to execute the policy. These bureaucracies, like all of Eritrea’s bureaucracies, are either non-existent or entirely beholden to the Office of the President.
The Commission envisions having a “Land Commission” and a “Land Administrative Body” to execute the land proclamation policy. “The Land Administrative Body shall be headed by a representative of the Land Commission, and shall be constituted of members from the village assembly and various governmental bodies of the locality,” claims article 10 of the proclamation. Does any reader know who Eritrea’s Land Commissioner is? Who is in the Land Administrative Body? That’s right: they do not exist, because they are not independent. They are named by the President's Office:thus, the non-existent bureaucracy is really an autocracy.
So who do our Eritrean compatriots, the Tigre, the Kunama and, for that matter, all Eritreans address their grievances to when the State expropriates their land? Article 51.4 of the land proclamation gives this answer:
“Where the parties disagree on the compensation, a petition or suit may be brought to the attention of the High Court in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Transitional Civil Code of Eritrea.”
If you want to demonstrate the absurdity of this assertion, consider this: here we are being asked to believe that a non-existent entity (there are no independent "land commissioners" or "land administrative bodies" in Eritrea), referring to a law that may or may not exist ("The Transitional Civil Code of Eritrea") is going to bring a suit against the President’s Office (the same office that arrests people for assembling in a group larger than 2 individuals; the same office that they owe their jobs to.) And it is going to bring this suit to the same High Court that is beholden to a "justice minister" who is entirely beholden to the "Office of the President"!
CONCLUSION
As in many multi-cultural societies, land politics in Eritrea has far reaching consequences. The PFDJ land proclamation is a regression from the traditional land law that it rendered obsolete. Whereas the old law created an underclass that had no title to land, the new proclamation makes all landless; whereas the old law largely respected the autonomy of pastoral societies, the new proclamation favors the values of agrarian societies; whereas the old law had an imperfect grievance resolution system, the new policy has none; whereas the old law permitted free enterprise, the new system promotes state-favored monopolies.
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The "President of the State of Eritrea" already had given himself the sole authority to grant land (mining, leasing, owning) rights to “individuals who do not have Eritrean citizenship or entities which are not incorporated in Eritrea” (Article 8). When John Clarke, Nevsun's CEO, was dancing around the question of the "political situation in Eritrea" in an interview, he was just being a typical amoral businessman who doesn't care whose land is being stolen as long as the thief has a "quite a nice country to do business" in. Vladimir Lenin was thinking of people like John Clarke when he coined the term "useful idiot." Like all businesses and bosses PFDJ has befriended, Mr. Clarke will soon find that he will be discarded at the opportune time either by the PFDJ or by Nevsun's shareholders. What is more worrisome is that now, with more super-centralization, the President has the same power over Eritrean citizens that he has over John Clarke.
Those who are temporarily benefiting from this injustice are only postponing the conflict--if not them, it will be their children, grandchildren or shareholders who will bear the brunt of those who are victimized by PFDJ's unjust laws.
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