ANCHORING HUMAN RIGHTS TO CURB VIOLENCE AND STRENGTHEN ETHIOPIA’S UNITY

Abstract

Ensuring Ethiopia’s stability and national unity has now reached a crossroad. Especially, the coming into power of the government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the introduction of the Ethiopian Nation, Nationalities and Peoples’ right to self-determination up to secession in its current Federal Constitution, has been a cause of concern by many whether Ethiopia will continue as a united State by upholding the diversity of its people. This is mainly supported in the various claims raised by dissatisfied groups, victims and individuals of human rights abuses in the country. These claims exist, ranging from lack of political representation of the people in the governance dynamics to the existence of violent eviction of people from their possession or ownership of property. Using the existing literature and analyzing relevant laws in the field, this short communication posits that Ethiopian unity appears problematic. It also provides a brief account of selected causes of these problems that could potentially break the country’s unity in diversity and offers a proposal of anchoring and implementing certain human rights norms as a necessary, but not the only, strategy to respond to the challenges of violence and Ethiopian solidarity. Keywords: Ethiopia, human rights, national unity, stability, unity, violence