The Dasanech of the Lowermost Omo Basin: From Adaptation to Development Debacle

Abstract

The decline of Dasanech pastoral economy in recent decades, due to increasing marginalization by powerful external political and economic forces, has forced the majority of Dasanech to move to areas along the Omo River and its active delta or around the northeastern shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana. Radical reduction of river flow volume, lake retreat and elimination of the river’s annual flood brought about by the Gibe III dam, together with dam enabled irrigation agricultural enterprises, would destroy the key components of Dasanech livelihood. Most flood recession agriculture would be eliminated, along with ‘last resort’ livestock grazing lands, forest resources and fish reproductive habitats in the lowermost Omo and Lake Turkana northern shoreline. Even if the highly unlikely and in any case inadequate artificial flood program promised by the Ethiopian government were implemented, Dasanech survival systems would have already been decimated. The looming crisis of region-wide hunger and mortality is intensified by the Ethiopian government’s eviction and expropriation of thousands of Dasanech villagers for large-scale irrigated commercial agriculture. Political repression and a culture of fear prevail. As the crisis unfolds, Dasanech communities, faced with vanishing means of survival, would inevitably contribute to rapid escalation of cross-border, interethnic armed conflict.