German investors should not support land theft in Ethiopia

On Wednesday, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) and people from Ethiopia protested together against land theft and displacement of indigenous peoples and peasants in Ethiopia – in front of the first German-Ethiopian Economic Conference. With sarcastically altered advertisement-slogans such as "Ethiopia means profit!", "Ethiopia: one visit to get all you need", "Limited offer: 1 € per hectare" or "NRW – land theft is sexy", the human rights activists protested against the fact that the Ethiopian government is offering an area bigger than North Rhine-Westphalia to investors below value, so that the livelihood of tens of thousands of people is in danger. The STP also criticizes that the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation (BMZ) offers financial support for a conference that promotes investments in Ethiopian agriculture.

"We say YES to any support for small-scale farmers in Ethiopia, but NO to the promotion of land theft in Ethiopia", said the STP's Africa-consultant, Ulrich Delius, hinting on how favorable the company Acazis AG (based in Gilching near Munich) was presented at the conference in Cologne. Peasants from the population group of the Oromo are accusing the company of participating in the land theft. Its associated company Acazis Agro-Industry leased 56,000 hectares from the Ethiopian government and has started to cultivate castor-oil plants and peanuts.

"If Germany takes the guidelines of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to prevent land theft seriously, there should be no promotion for such controversial investments," said Delius. When the FAO guidelines – which are supposed to protect small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples especially – were adopted in May 2012, the federal government called them groundbreaking and historically significant. The STP regrets that these guidelines are only recommendations and have no binding character for states.

The land theft in Ethiopia also intensifies human rights violations because the farmers in resettlement areas are being seriously intimidated by security forces who arrest anyone who does not comply or who calls for resistance. Human rights violations are reported especially from the Gambella region located in the southwest of the country. The 60,000 indigenous people living there are going to be forcefully relocated to make the land available for foreign investors.