Kenya: Victory for Ogiek tribe in historic
court ruling
An Ogiek man prepares his bow
and arrows.
© Yoshi Shimizu In
a landmark decision, the African
Court has ruled that the government of Kenya
violated the rights of the Ogiek tribe by repeatedly
evicting them from their ancestral lands.
The
court found that the government had broken seven
articles of the African Charter and ordered it to take
“all appropriate measures” to remedy the violations.
The
Ogiek had sued the government for violations to their
right to life, natural resources, religion, culture,
property, development and non-discrimination.
The
case was brought by the Ogiek Peoples Development
Program (OPDP), the Center for
Minority Rights Development (CEMIRIDE) and Minority
Rights Group International, and was first lodged
eight years ago.
Daniel
Kobei, director of OPDP said:
“For the Ogiek, this is history in the making. The issue
of Ogiek land rights has finally been heard and the case
has empowered them to feel relevant… This is a chance
for the government to restore the Mau [Forest] and to
restore the dignity of the Ogiek people".
The
Ogiek
are a hunter-gatherer tribe who have lived in the
Mau Forest in Kenya’s Rift Valley since time
immemorial.
They
have suffered a long history of discrimination and
eviction from their land from colonial times to the
present.
This woman's home
was demolished during illegal evictions from Ogiek
ancestral land.
© Survival Much
of the Ogiek’s rich forest has been invaded and
destroyed by outsiders, and converted into logging
concessions. Some government officials even attempted to
justify the evictions in the name of conservation, by
falsely accusing the tribe of destroying the forest.
Evictions
are often violent and Ogiek people have been killed
and had their homes burned. They have never been
consulted about the evictions nor received any
compensation.
Last
month a UN
body expressed its concern over Kenya’s treatment of
hunter-gatherer tribes, and called on the government to:
“Ensure legal acknowledgement of the collective rights
of the Sengwer, the Endorois, the Ogiek and other
indigenous peoples to own, develop, control and use
their lands, resources and communal territories”.
It
is hoped the ruling will set an important precedent for
other indigenous land rights cases in Africa.
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11702
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