Ethiopia Drives Its Peasants

Identifier: 247
Title: Ethiopia Drives Its Peasants
Author: JANE PERLEZ See all items with this value
Date: 1989 See all items with this value
Type: Journals See all items with this value
Description: HARAR, Ethiopia - With rows of Marx and Lenin volumes in his bookcase and piles of tracts on his desk, Ali Youssef, the head of the ideology department here, explained the alacrity with which the process being called "villagization" had been accomplished in his region. In seven months, he said, half a million houses for more than two million people were built. "There is systemization; there is mobilization," he said, lifting some of the argot from his desktop literature. "They used to construct at midnight." It is precisely the speed and authoritarianism of the Government's villagization program - the relocation of peasants from their traditionally scattered homes in nearby areas to new villages established in gridlike patterns - that have caused many of its problems, Ethiopian and Western agricultural experts say. Villagization vyas heralded by President Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1984 as the answer to many of the difficulties of the impoverished, drought-stricken Ethiopian peasantry, who make up 90 percent of the country's population. By being grouped together, the argument went, peasants would be able to produce more and have easier access to such services as schools and health clinics.
Author Ethnicity: Non-Harari

Comments

No comment yet! Be the first to add one!

Name

Website

Comment

To prove you are not a robot, answer this question: How much is 3 plus 3?

I agree with terms of use and I accept to free my contribution under the licence CC BY-SA.

Not viewed