By J Siegfried Pausewang. South Africa Journal of International Affairs, April 2009.
The EPRDF has increasingly relied on land practices to maintain its authority in the Ethiopian countryside, home to 80 percent of the population. Siegfried discusses how local government leaders are abusing Article 40 in the constitution that gives the state ultimate power on land issues. They punish peasants not loyal to the regime by denying or reallocating their plots to party loyalists. Peasants have also been forced into buying fertilizer from state-run firms against their will. Such actions often result in default, arrest and sometimes detention. The author argues similar treatment created serious security problems for the previous government and unless they are managed carefully portends great danger ahead.
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