SUMMARY
The Suri and the Tishana–Me’en live in the Maji region of south-western Ethiopia, a marginalized border area where the state has relatively little influence. The region is culturally heterogeneous, containing several ethnic groups with different livelihoods, speaking a dozen languages. While relations between many of the groups have traditionally been conflictual, the scale and nature of the fighting has changed since the early 1990s, turning more deadly and brutal.
Relations between the two groups, who live in neighboring areas, have traditionally been hostile. In the past, the Tishana–Me’en were generally viewed as talented fighters, and feared in the region. As the group’s power declined, they increasingly come to be the victims of Suri raids and today the Tishana–Me’en consider the Suri as “traditional enemies”, along with some other pastoralist groups. According to the Tishana–Me’en, the Suri are ‘dangerous and wild’ people, with whom peaceful relations can hardly be maintained.
The Suri, for their part, have been pushed north by population growth, competition over scarce resources, violent conflict, and a slowly changing balance of power between several agro-pastoral groups in the region. The Turkana and Dassanetch groups have pushed the Suris southern neighbor the Nyangatom to move north, entering and taking over the former groups' traditional home area around Mount Naita in the Ethiopia-Sudan border area. This resulted in the Suri having to migrate north, whereby they have come into more close contact with the Tishana–Me’en. As the Suri since the late 1980s have been the victims of Nyangatom raids, with the latter group being better armed and maintaining the upper hand, area specialists have described the Suri’s increased hostility towards the Tishana–Me'en as “a simple case of displaced aggression”. Since the group is no longer capable of retaliating against their southern Nyangatom neighbors, they seek a replacement to the north, raiding them for cattle, guns, and women.
Escalating this increased tension is the fact that many groups in the region have gained access to modern, semi-automatic weapons and the area is today awash with this type of weaponry. As these have by and large replaced customary arms like spears and sticks, the violent encounters have turned more deadly. Furthermore, the access to semi-automatic weapons has accelerated the breakdown of traditional authority structures among the Suri. Political authority among the Suri used to be vested in a senior age grade of elders and in a more ceremonial leader called the komoru, in charge of communicating with the spirit world. While this social structure is still in place it is no longer functioning the way it traditionally did. The authority of the elders is being challenged by the young men, with the latter making decisions on e.g. launching raiding parties on their own, without sanctioning them with the elders first. This growing power of the young herders is in part a result of them acquiring automatic weapons, but also due to their increasing economic independence, which stems from them making a profit in the gold trade. As traditional authority structures have broken down there is no longer any rules guiding how and when violence can be used. Furthermore, there is no stratum in society charged with attempting to reconcile the groups. This has resulted in a more instrumental use of violence and the young Suri men now view it as a new way of acquiring wealth and status. In addition, instead of reconciliation, revenge is sought, spurring new fighting in a vicious cycle.
The non-state conflict between the Suri and the Tishana–Me’en is first included in UCDP data in 2001. Sometime during that year, the Suri attacked the Tishana–Me’en in retaliation for a raid the latter group had carried out in 2000. The fighting resulted in more than 30 battle-related deaths.
