"They come every day … four or five cars usually – 20 to 60
soldiers. They say, 'We need this land for sugar, so you
shouldn't be here' … We say, 'We don't want [sugar]', but that
is not the right answer. They hit us or they take us to jail."
These are the words of a Mursi man, an indigenous pastoralist in
southern Ethiopia, describing to Human Rights Watch how he and
his community have been forced to move from the Lower Omo Valley
in southern Ethiopia to make way for sugar plantations. The
rights of these indigenous people to be consulted and give their
free, prior and informed consent before relocation were cast
aside. Instead, local government and security forces carried out
arbitrary arrests and detentions, used physical violence, and
seized or destroyed the property of indigenous communities. More
forced evictions in the Omo Valley are threatened in the near
future. In a speech in Jinka, the capital of the South Omo
region, in January 2011, Meles Zenawi, the prime minister, said:
"Even though this area [