Governments are forcing "archaic" minorities off their land to lease it or extract resources, says rights group
NAIROBI (AlertNet) - East African governments that regard minorities as “archaic” are forcing them off their land and deeper into poverty in the name of development, a rights group said on Thursday.
In its flagship annual report, State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012, Minority Rights Group (MRG) said intensified competition for dwindling natural resources is threatening the existence of vulnerable minorities and indigenous communities in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Many of these groups practise traditional lifestyles, like livestock herding, which their governments regard as backwards.
“The issue of natural resource extraction has exacerbated an already festering wound,” said Mohamed Matovu, MRG’s Africa spokesperson.
“Already the sentiments from East African governments are that they don’t seem to recognise pastoralism as a livelihood system… They want to modernise pastoralists because they don’t believe in their way of life,” he added.
Development projects supported by governments, including national parks, agribusiness and mineral extraction, exclude the majority of local people, Matovu said.
“Poverty levels at household level are worsening by the day. Unemployment [is] worsening by the day,” he said.
In every case of forcible displacement MRG came across, there was inadequate compensation in the form of cash or alternative land, according to Matovu.
“When you destroy a livelihood, then you are condemning these groups to poverty,” he said.
CLASHES AND CORRUPTION
In western Uganda, for example, the Basongora pastoralists have suffered multiple displacements by successive governments.
Between 1900 and 1955, 90 percent of the Basongoras’ land was taken by British colonialists to create the Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda’s second largest wildlife park.
In the 1990s, thousands of Basongora moved with their cattle to the Virunga National Park in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, but they were evicted in 2006.
They tried to return to the Queen Elizabeth National Park but were forced out again.
“People’s homes were razed. People’s cows were hacked to death,” Amos Isimbwa, founder of the Basongora Group for Justice and Human Rights, told AlertNet.
A 2007 resettlement programme was dogged by ethnic tensions, clashes and allegations of corruption.
“A lot of land which was given out to this [Basongora] group has actually been given to well-connected generals and Ugandans,” said Matovu. “We have army men who are also interested in land for farming.”
In 2010, Basongora activists were arrested for pulling down a fence belonging to people they claimed had grabbed land.
Matovu compared the plight of the Basongora to that of the Batwa, Ugandan hunter-gatherers who were evicted from the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest when it was declared a national park in the 1990s.
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) says the Batwa are close to being wiped out due to the drastic change in their lifestyle, along with their small number and low social status.
The MRG report highlights similar problems in other East African countries:
- In Kenya, thousands of hunter-gatherer Ogiek people were evicted from the Mau Forest in 2009 without adequate consultation. MRG dismisses government claims that this move was necessary to conserve the environment. The Ogiek now live in camps around the forest. Their case is pending before the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights. In 2011, Ogiek activists were attacked for trying to defend their land.
- In South Sudan, the government has leased large tracts of land to foreign governments and companies. In 2008, Al Ain Wildlife, a United Arab Emirates company, signed a lease for 1.68 million hectares of the Boma National Park in Jonglei State for 30 years to set up a tourist safari project. In 2011, South Sudan’s president promised to review land lease agreements but this has yet to happen.
- In Ethiopia, the government has forcibly relocated 70,000 people in the Gambella region to free up their land to rent to commercial agriculture companies. Those who have resisted have been beaten and tortured by the military. Pastoralists are being forced to abandon their livelihoods as they are made to settle in new villages without enough farmland, and hunger is increasing, MRG says.
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