Fwd: [KENYA] OGIEK JUU
Elisabeth Janaina
>
> OGIEK JUU
> ("Ogiek up!" in KiSwahili)
>
> Landmark Victory for the Ogiek and Justice delivered by the African Court
>
> By Venatrix Fulmen
>
> The African Court on Human and Peoples Rights, at its 45th session on 26 May 2017 in Arusha/Tanzania, delivered a long-awaited and unanimous judgement against the Kenya government in a case brought before it by the Ogiek indigenous people.
>
> The African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights had filed the case as the applicant and did proof the consistent violations and the denial of the human and land rights of the Ogiek by the respondent - the Republic of Kenya as state and governance.
>
> Already in November 2009, when the Kenyan Forest Service (KFS) had delivered a potentially fatal blow against the Ogiek with the gazettment of an eviction order in October 2009 against the Ogiek and anyone else to vacate the ancestral homeland of the Ogiek - the Mau Forest Complex - within 30 days, the African Court had issued an order to suspend the implementation of the eviction notice.
>
> In March 2013, the African Court issued an additional provisional measures order requiring the Kenyan Government to stop any land transactions in the Mau Forest and refrain from taking any action which would harm the case, until it had reached a decision. This order, however, has never been respected by the Kenyan state organs.
>
> After dismissing the numerous objections of the government of Kenya, the African Court delivered today in Arusha a comprehensive judgement and the very clear ruling, read out over almost 2 hours by Hon. Justice Agustino Ramadani - the former President of the African Court.
>
> The court found that the government of the Republic of Kenya illegally evicted members of the Ogiek community from the Mau Forest and has continuously violated the rights of the Ogiek - as it has been documented over many years - under Articles 1, 2, 8, 14, 17 (2/3), 21 and 22 of the African Charter on Peoples and Human Rights.
>
> The Republic of Kenya has been given 6 months to implement the required remedies.
>
> The court also ruled that concerning the now applicable demand for reparations as well as compensations and costs the Ogiek have 90 days to file an application and the Kenya state has adequately 90 days to respond to the demands. After this period the African Court will rule on the reparations to be awarded to the Ogiek community and its victims of abusive state power.
>
> The Ogiek, a people of hunter-gatherer culture, who as forest dwellers lived in their aboriginal homeland - the Mau Forest Complex - since times immemorial, as well as ECOTERRA Intl., who stood by the Ogiek since 1986 in their struggle even during the post-election violence 2008/9 when several Ogiek were killed, as well as other important supporters like Friends of Peoples close to Nature (fPcN-interCultural), MRG and CEMIRIDE, welcomed the ruling as a fair and just land-mark ruling with significant implications also for other First Nations in Africa.
>
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