Identity Based Displacement: Born
out of the constitution or a political
crisis beyond the Constitution

Reports indicate that since 2016, conflictinduced displacements largely related to ethnic and border-based disputes are becoming an increasing trend in Ethiopia. According to the report of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), there were nearly 3.9 million people living in displacement as a result of conflict and violence across Ethiopia at the end of the year 2022- the third highest figure in Africa. Arguably, intercommunal violence, regional political instability, ethnic tensions and localized conflicts are said to have played the primary role in currently displacing people in different parts of the country.

In 1995, Ethiopia adopted a new Constitution that brought a fundamental transformation in the
political philosophy of the country. A new political regime (EPRDF) instituted, as its ideological
bedrock, ethnic-based federal system around Marxist-Leninist principle of ethnic right to selfdetermination up to secession (see Art.39/1 of the Constitution). Rooted in the ethno-nationalist
liberationist rhetoric that advanced the politico-ideological agenda since the 1960s, ethnic-based
federal system formalized politics of ethnicity in Ethiopia as a remedy to past historical trajectories
that had national context.

In line with the ethnic-based framework of administration, the Constitution demarcated borders of
regional states on the basis of ‘settlement patterns, identity, language and consent of the people
concerned’ (Art. 46/2). However, this process of matching ethnic identity and politico
administrative boundary ignores a history of strong unitary systems. In practice, what unfolded
was overlapping of regional and sub-regional administrative boundaries with ethnic identity as not
every ethnic group in Ethiopia is found inhabiting a territorially concentrated or defined geographic
area (Assefa 2007).

Consequently, some writers argue that conflicts in Ethiopia were born at “the foot heel of the
federal dispensation both as a response to ‘old’ ethno-nationalist armed struggle and a cause of
current ethnic-identity based conflicts” (Tsegay 2010).