Omorate

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Abandoned powerlines near Omorate - part of the abandoned North Korean cotton plantation scheme Omorate Power.jpg
Abandoned powerlines near Omorate - part of the abandoned North Korean cotton plantation scheme

Omorate (also known as Kelem) is a town in southern Ethiopia near the Kenyan border. [1] Located in the Debub Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region, this village has a latitude and longitude of 4°48′N35°58′E / 4.800°N 35.967°E / 4.800; 35.967 Coordinates: 4°48′N35°58′E / 4.800°N 35.967°E / 4.800; 35.967 with an elevation of 395 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Kuraz woreda.

Ethiopia country in East Africa

Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country in the northeastern part of Africa, popularly known as the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, and Somalia to the east, Sudan to the northwest, South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With over 102 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and the second-most populous nation on the African continent that covers a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres (420,000 sq mi). Its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa, which lies a few miles west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the Nubian Plate and the Somali Plate.

Kenya republic in East Africa

Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country in Africa with 47 semiautonomous counties governed by elected governors. At 580,367 square kilometres (224,081 sq mi), Kenya is the world's 48th largest country by total area. With a population of more than 52.2 million people, Kenya is the 27th most populous country. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi while its oldest city and first capital is the coastal city of Mombasa. Kisumu City is the third largest city and a critical inland port at Lake Victoria. Other important urban centres include Nakuru and Eldoret.

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

Contents

History

Although during the Italian occupation there was an official in residence at Kelem (as it was known then), who encouraged the local Daasanach to resist and repulse an advance of 3,000 men of the King's African Rifles in early 1941, until the 1970s Omorate was little more than one of a handful of scattered police stations in this part of Ethiopia. [2]

Italian East Africa Italian possession in East Africa between 1936 and 1941

Italian East Africa was an Italian colony in the Horn of Africa. It was formed in 1936 through the merger of Italian Somaliland, Italian Eritrea, and the newly occupied Ethiopian Empire which became Italian Ethiopia.

Daasanach people ethnic group

The Daasanach are an ethnic group inhabiting parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Sudan. Their main homeland is in the Debub Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region, adjacent to Lake Turkana. According to the 2007 national census, they number 48,067 people, of whom 1,481 are urban dwellers.

Kings African Rifles

The King's African Rifles (KAR) was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from Britain's various possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions within the colonial territory, and served outside these territories during the World Wars. The rank and file (askaris) were drawn from native inhabitants, while most of the officers were seconded from the British Army. When the KAR was first raised there were some Sudanese officers in the battalions raised in Uganda, and native officers were commissioned towards the end of British colonial rule.

In a more recent publication, although describing Omorate as an "archetypical tropical backwater", Philip Briggs notes that the village is "epitomised by the relics of the agricultural cotton scheme that was initiated with North Korean funds in the Mengistu era and faltered to a standstill more than a decade back. The retrenched victims of this aborted masterplan still haunt the bars of Omorate, willing to talk the ear off any stranger about their misfortune". [3]

Cotton production in Ethiopia

Cotton is grown throughout Ethiopia at elevations above 1000 meters and below 1400 meters. Because most of the lowlands lack adequate rainfall, cotton cultivation depends largely on irrigation.

Mengistu Haile Mariam former dictator of Ethiopia

Mengistu Haile Mariam is an Ethiopian soldier and politician who was the leader of Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991. He was the chairman of the Derg, the military junta that governed Ethiopia, from 1977 to 1987, and the President of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) from 1987 to 1991. The Derg took power in the Ethiopian Revolution following the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1974, marking the end of the Solomonic dynasty which had ruled Ethiopia since the 13th century. Mengistu purged rivals for power from the Derg and made himself Ethiopia's dictator, attempting to modernize Ethiopia's feudal economy through Marxist-Leninist-inspired policies such as nationalization and land redistribution. His bloody consolidation of power in 1977–1978 is known as the Ethiopian Red Terror, a brutal crackdown on opposition groups and civilians following a failed assassination attempt by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) in September 1976, after they had ignored the Derg's invitation to join the union of socialist parties.

Demographics

Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005, Omorate has an estimated total population of 3363, of whom 1842 were males and 1521 were females. [4] The 1994 national census reported this town had a total population of 1,857 of whom 1,020 were males and 837 were females.

Notes

  1. ↑ Geographical information based on "ETHIOPIA: Poor communication hampering flood response"(IRIN)
  2. ↑ "Local History in Ethiopia" Archived 2007-06-30 at the Wayback Machine . (pdf) The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 20 June 2008)
  3. ↑ Briggs, Philip (2002). Ethiopia: the Bradt travel guide, Bradt travel guides, 3rd ed., Chalfont St. Peter: Bradt, p. 468 ISBN   1-84162-035-1
  4. ↑ CSA 2005 National Statistics, Table B.4
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