Administrative and Security Hisotry of čǝ̣lǝga Awǝraǧa, 1941-1991

Abstract

This thesis attempts to reconstruct an administration and security history of Čǝ̣ lǝga Awǝraja from 1941 to 1991. Čǝ̣ lǝga Awǝraǧa was located in the present day northwestern Ethiopia. To reconstruct the administrative and security history of the Awǝraǧa, the study used data accrued from primary archival records, oral informants and secondary sources. The study hence has found that the study area had experienced dynamic administrative and security history during the period under discussion. To this effect, to show the element of dymanisminherent in administration and security history of the Awǝraǧa, the study has brought the impact of Italian occupation into limelight. The study argues that Čǝ̣ lǝga Awǝraǧa’s administrative and security history had been influenced between 1941-1974 by Hailesellassie’s centralization policy both in economy and politics, as the Awǝraja was located along the main Ethio-Sudanese outlet. Derg’s policy of ensuring the territorial integrity of the country further brought the Awǝraja’s into the center of the country’s attention and had injected further dynamism to the administrative and security history of the area. In unearthing the administrative and security of this Awǝraǧa, this study has also found that it had been center of movements for political forces that in particular opposed the Darg regime. Such movement of opposing political groups coupled with the dynamic local politics of the area had resulted during the study period developments that had greatly shaped the administrative and security history of Čǝ̣ lǝga Awǝraǧa. This history still resonates to todays’s development along the Ethio-Sudanese border