Abstract:
This thesis attempts to reconstruct an administration and security history of Čǝ̣ lǝga Awǝraja from
1941 to 1991. Čǝ̣ lǝga Awǝraǧa was located in the present day northwestern Ethiopia. To
reconstruct the administrative and security history of the Awǝraǧa, the study used data accrued
from primary archival records, oral informants and secondary sources. The study hence has
found that the study area had experienced dynamic administrative and security history during
the period under discussion. To this effect, to show the element of dymanisminherent in
administration and security history of the Awǝraǧa, the study has brought the impact of Italian
occupation into limelight. The study argues that Čǝ̣ lǝga Awǝraǧa’s administrative and security
history had been influenced between 1941-1974 by Hailesellassie’s centralization policy both in
economy and politics, as the Awǝraja was located along the main Ethio-Sudanese outlet. Derg’s
policy of ensuring the territorial integrity of the country further brought the Awǝraja’s into the
center of the country’s attention and had injected further dynamism to the administrative and
security history of the area. In unearthing the administrative and security of this Awǝraǧa, this
study has also found that it had been center of movements for political forces that in particular
opposed the Darg regime. Such movement of opposing political groups coupled with the dynamic
local politics of the area had resulted during the study period developments that had greatly
shaped the administrative and security history of Čǝ̣ lǝga Awǝraǧa. This history still resonates to
todays’s development along the Ethio-Sudanese border
