RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS IN THE TOWN OF HALABA QULITO: A HISTORICAL SURVEY

ABSTRACT To attain peace many institutions have been used. Religion and religious institutions are among the most important one which have been widely used in this regard. Peace building process in a country cannot realized without the involvement of religion and religious institutions. Starting from recent years in Halaba Qulito town there were the out-break of a violent religious conflict and a repeated sign of growing tensions among religious groups. A hostile relationship resulted a human right violations and destruction of properties in the town. Factors that encountered the prevalence of such conflicts and tensions in case study was lack of enforcement of law by some local government officials. Sometimes religious difference would have a source of conflict and it added a fuel and finally it paved the way the prevalence of violent conflicts in 2004 and 2011 in case study area. Churches and Mosques leaders had been involved in facilitating and platforms for discussions and making negotiations among conflating groups in the case study area. In this regard, the religious institutions leaders had significant role to cool down the situation by using their religious efforts and facilitated the grounds to held discussions for solutions and to prevent further destructions. Due to this, relative peace has been reinstated and more destructive measures were mitigated in case study area. As partner of government, they played a role in a socio-economic aspects of societies. The Churches and Mosques had involved in socio-economic area of the communities effectively in different social works in the case study area. To meet objectives the study employed qualitative research approach. Data was collected from primary and secondary sources. In order to draw the research participants purposive sampling was employed. In conducting this thesis paper, it was not easy to get secondary data as expected and related previous research works. Accordingly, the researcher obliged limit on key informants interview data and had also tried to supplement the literature review task by taking international experiences. The participants of the study were religious leaders and fathers, Pastors, Imams, government administrators, religious believers, and community elders. A total of 32 participants were included.