CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA \Y some other associations cities were also to implement (“neighbourhoods”), matters—including land given their reform, own and administrations. similar associations The in urban initially to collect rent and taxes, and with powers the registration of houses, residents, births, Derg established areas known peasants’ as kebeles later extended to include other deaths, and marriages.%6 In 1987, following the adoption of a new constitution, a further reorganisation created 25 administrative regions and five autonomous regions (Eritrea, Aseb, Tigray, Dire Dawa, and Ogaden). Despite this limited autonomy for some regions, the administrative system remained centralised.%” The Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia 1995, adopted after the overthrow of the Derg, created a radical shift. The constitution gives significant powers to the regional states of the federation, as well as the right of self-government to each of “the nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia’.*® Ethiopia has more than 80 ethnic groups, but only nine regional states were created in 1995: five were named after the dominant ethnic group in that region (Amhara, Oromo, Tigray, Afar and Somali) but also have substantial minorities; the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP) Region alone comprises almost 60 different “nations, nationalities and peoples”; two are divided mainly between two groups (Benishangul-Gomuz and Gambella); and the state of Harrar is named for the Harrar ethnic group, although they form less than ten percent of the population, which is mainly Oromo and Amhara.*? There are also two city administrations (Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa). 1995 constitution grants unconditional rights of self-determination to the “nations, Article 39 of the nationalities, and peoples” 4°, from whatever level of administrative unit, up to and including secession from Ethiopia.*' Following a 2001 the SNNP campaign referendum, a separate administrative zone was created on this basis for the Siltie in regional state.*2 In 2020, the new regional state of Sidama was established, after a long by the Sidama ethnic group, following a November 2019 referendum supporting separation 36 Proclamation No. 31 of 1975 on Public Ownership of Rural Lands, Chapter 3; Proclamation No. 47 of 1975 on Government Ownership of Urban Lands and Extra Houses, Chapter V. 37 Thomas P. Ofcansky and LaVerle Berry (editors). Ethiopia: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1991. http://countrystudies.us/ethiopia/. 38 There is an extensive literature on Ethiopia’s federal constitution. See, for example, Christophe Van der Beken, ‘Ethiopia: Constitutional Protection of Ethnic Minorities at the Regional Level’, Afrika Focus 20, no. 1 (2007): 105-51; Assefa Fiseha, ‘Ethiopia’s Experiment in Accommodating Diversity: 20 Years’ Balance Sheet’, Regional & Federal Studies 22, no. 4 (2012): 435-73; Yonatan Tesfaye Fessha and Christophe Van der Beken, ‘Ethnic Federalism and Internal Minorities: The Legal Protection of Internal Minorities in Ethiopia’, African Journal of International and Comparative Law 21, no. 1 (1 February 2013): 32-49, https://doi.org/10.3366/ajicl.2013.0051; Yonatan Tesfaye Fessha, ‘The Original Sin of Ethiopian Federalism’, Ethnopolitics 16, no. 3 (2017): 232-45, https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2016.1254410; Berihun Adugna Gebeye, ‘Citizenship and Human Rights in the Ethiopian Federal Republic’, Ethiopian Constitutional and Public Law Series, 2019, 9-94; Solomon M. Gofie, ‘The State and the “Peoples”: Citizenship and the Future of Political Community in Ethiopia’, in Citizenship, Belonging, and Political Community in Africa: Dialogues between Past and Present, ed. Emma Hunter (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2016), 240-55. 39 Fiseha, “Ethiopia’s Experiment in Accommodating Diversity”. 40 Article 39(5) defines a “Nation, Nationality or People”, without distinction among the terms, as “a group of people who have or share a large measure of a common culture or similar customs, mutual intelligibility of language, belief ina common or related identities, a common psychological make-up, and who inhabit an identifiable predominantly contiguous territory.” #1 In 2001, this power was used to create a separate administrative zone for the Siltie in the Southern Nations and Nationalities Region. Lahra Smith, ‘Voting for an Ethnic Identity: Procedural and Institutional Responses to Ethnic Conflict in Ethiopia’, Journal of Modern African Studies 45, no. 04 (2007): 565-94, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X07002881. #2 Lahra Smith, “Voting for an ethnic identity: procedural and institutional responses to ethnic conflict in Ethiopia”, Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 45, No.4, 2007, pp.565-594. See also Lahra Smith, Making Citizens in Africa: Ethnicity, Gender, and National Identity in Ethiopia, Cambridge University Press, 2013. UNHCR — December 2021 15