The Dynamism of Contemporary Pastoral Conflict along the Border of South Eastern Oromia Region: The Case of Some Selected Woredas of Bale Zone

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to assess the dynamism of contemporary pastoral conflict in the border areas between Bale Oromo and Somali ethnic communities of Ethiopia, with particular emphasis on the causes and critical actors of conflict, and the way-out as well. In order to achieve this objective, the design of this study was based on descriptive qualitative research method employing personal inter-views and group discussions. To discern relevant and credible informants, the re-searchers used the purposive-sampling technique with some elements of snowball sampling approach. Relevant literatures and documents on conflict in the regions were also utilized. The finding of the study disclosed that the causes of contempo-rary conflicts along the border of these ethnic communities arise from various his-torical, economic and more importantly, political factors – politicization of ethnic-ity and the border. Both direct and indirect actors participated on exacerbating this inter-communal conflict. Although government, in companion with different Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and other stakeholders, has carried out different activities to solve the problem, some basic contributing factors and prob-lems remained unabated: the process of border demarcation is lagging, returning Internal Displaced People (IDP) to their original place is only partially succeeded and those IDPs in the camps are facing different critical challenges.