Minorities Under Siege: Pygmies today in Africa - IRIN

IRIN
I n - D e p t h
32
For instance in Kenya, the government has been trying to come up with a policy for arid and semi-arid regions
[in the northern parts of the country]. In the western regions, fisheries contribute heavily to gross domestic
product. But the fishing communities are among the poorest. The province of Nyanza, for instance, experiences
above 60 percent of poverty levels. Those communities cannot even benefit from their natural resource, as it is
taken away and sold for export to bidders with whom the communities cannot compete. This cycle of poverty
perpetuates underdevelopment.
Q: What strategy did CERIMIDE follow to obtain recognition of indigenous minorities’ rights?
A: From around 2001, we realised that there already was an indigenous movement in Africa. But then what
became increasingly clear is that the indigenous movement focused on international organisations: the UN,
the European Union, etc. Very little was done at the grassroots level to try and mobilise [African] governments
to recognise indigenous peoples’ rights.
There was a lot of resistance on the part of governments. A lot of the advocacy focused largely on land rights
and natural resources. When you look at constitutions across Africa, many state that natural resources belong
to the government. As in Kenya today: The people have no right of exploitation, no right of benefiting from
their natural resources. At the end of the day, achieving development will not necessarily mean owning these
natural resources and using them exclusively for the benefit of the government.
Q: How did CERIMIDE proceed, in practice?
A: We targeted the media. We placed editorials. We held stakeholders reunions and invited the media. Because
the reality is that very few Kenyans have any knowledge of human rights. There is this understanding that
human rights are an individual’s privilege. That’s one thing we want to change. So we invited a number of journalists
to workshops, seminars and training to push them to look at such things differently.
After that, we targeted politicians. We had a hard time raising the issue with politicians. We tried to get them to
attend training and to lobby for indigenous rights, but given the kind of centralised political structure we have
in Kenya, this has proven hard to achieve.
On a third level, we directly engaged development organisations, governments and policymakers. We tried
getting our national politicians to attend summits held by international organisations, where they could learn
a lot on indigenous peoples’ rights. We tried placing the issue within the larger context of development initiatives.
A number of high-ranking government officials have attended meetings and workshops this way.
Q: Any specific examples?
A: An example is the workshop to discuss the Ogiek hunter-gatherer community in Kenya, organised with the
UN Environmental Programme during the agency’s 2003 governing council [annual meeting], in Nairobi. We
got the [Kenyan] lands minister to attend. For the first time, we got him on record agreeing that the huntergatherers
are a specific group of people that needed special treatment. This has given way to consultations
and discussions between the community and the government. [Note: Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki issued
land-ownership titles to members of the Ogiek community in October 2005.]
Q: Has legislation been passed?
A: At the moment, there is still no legislation. All these efforts culminated in our participation to the constitutional
review process [from 2002 to 2005 in Kenya]. We felt that these issues needed to be enshrined in the new
constitution. The problem is that the entire resulting document was obliterated in the subsequent parliamentary
process.
What we need is to strengthen the capacity of indigenous people to engage the government. We need to
enforce affirmative action and recognise that some minorities have been marginalised. We must help them
reach the level of development of other communities.
Minorities Under Siege: Pygmies today in Africa IRIN In-Depth, April 2006 - Page 32