After the fall of the Mengistu regime in 1991 the extreme south of Ethiopia first went through a period of relative peace in spite, or because of, the total absence of state institutions. The structures of local societies, among them the gada or generation set system, and the local forms of food production appeared to be sufficient for the needs of the local population. Then a variety of parties and liberation fronts started to compete for the control of state institutions which were expected to reappear. This led to a local war in which group identities were redrawn to fit the patterns of ‘ethnic’ movements or ‘micro nationalisms’. This chapter examines primarily the examples of ‘Oromo’ and ‘Somali’ identities in this context.

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH: NEW FRONTLINES SINCE 1991

In May 1991 Mengistu's soldiers fled through Boranland south into Kenya. After their departure there was a period of statelessness in the area. Disputes were solved locally by councils of elders and nobody seemed to miss the state very much. This anarchic idyll was over in November 1991 when the state entered the area again, not so much as a political agent but as a bone of contention. Various ethnically based political movements which anticipated that statehood might be re-established sooner or later, started to fight about a share in it.