Ethnic disorders

A weak State power always uses division and violence to rule. In Gambella, the ethnicization of power relations increased the social tensions that turned to ethnic violences.

On the 13th of december 2003, a military pick-up arrived in the city loaded with cadavers of Highlanders civil servants attacked during a refugee camp inspection. Before the State authorities could declare anything, the Highlanders accused the Anuak of the murders. Militias took over the streets to punish the Anuak community. A vast manhunt had just started: 400 Anuak were killed in the day, hundreds tortured, raped, wounded; dozens of villages were burnt, thousands of people displaced, fleeing wherever they could to escape the massacres.

In the next days, Anuak militias decided to take vengeance on the Highlanders. After a period of inactivity, the federal forces interposed and shot and killed... but they had reestablished the 'order'. What kind of order could they established? After such a disorder, they only managed to establish a state of fear.[?]

(to be continued)