A Historical Analysis of Minority Rights in Ethiopia: The Case of Negede Weyto Community

Abstract

The Negede Weyto community lives by the shores of Lake Tana in
the Amhara regional state of Ethiopia. It is one of the autonomous
minority groups in Ethiopia known for its valuable handcraft skills
since the foundation of Gondar as the political and administrative
capital of the Christian Highland Kingdom (1636). Regardless, the
community has lost its autonomous status and became subject to
different forms of marginalization and social exclusion in the last
decade of the 19th century. This article examines the various factors,
actors, and circumstances that accounted for the social exclusion and
marginalization of the Negede Weyto group. Based on a critical analysis
of relevant primary and secondary sources of data, this article argues
that the social and economic life of the Negede Weyto community is
influenced by the social exclusion that continued even in the context of
a minority-friendly constitution of post-1991 Ethiopia.