34th Year No 26
Addis Ababa, 29th April, 1975
CONTENT S
Proclamation No. 31 of 1975
Public Ownership of Rural Lands Proclamation
PROCLAMATION No. 31 OF 1975
A PROCLAMATION TO PROVIDE FOR THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF RURAL LANDS
Page 93
WHEREAS, in countries like Ethiopia where the economy is agricultural a person's right, honour, status and standard of living is determined by his relation to the land ;
people ;
WHEREAS, several thousand gashas of land have been grabbed from the masses by an insignificant number of feudal. lords and their families as a result of which the Ethiopian masses have been forced to live under conditions of serfdom ;
WHEREAS, it is essential to fundamentally alter the exist oppression, injustice, poverty, and disease, and in order to lay the basis upon which all Ethiopians may henceforth live in equa lity, freedom, and fraternity ,
WHEREAS, the development of Ethiopia of the future can be assured not by permitting the exploitation of the many by the few as is now the case, but only by instituting basic change in agrarian relations which would lay the basis upon which, through work by cooperation, the development of one becomes the deve lopment of all ;
WHEREAS, in order to increase agricultural production and to make the tiller the owner of the fruits of his labour, it is ne- / cessary to release the productive forces of the rural economy by liquidating the feudal system under which the nobility, aristocracy and a small number of other persons with adequate means of livelihood have prospered by the toil and sweat of the masses ;
WHEREAS, it is necessary to provide work for all rural