This conclusion of the Carter
Land Commission6 (1932-8) gives a picture of what the Ogiek have
undergone over the years. The Commission recommended that the
Ogiek be allocated land near communities with whom they had
affinity, to enable assimilation. However, the Ogiek wanted
development on their own terms. According to Kaliasoi Chesimet,
an Ogiek elder in Tinet: 'The newcomers came and
cut down
the forest for tea and flower farms
the Ogiek should be
allowed to elect their own leaders and choose their own way of
life on their land.'
From colonial times onwards,
Ogiek groups have been displaced from their ancestral lands
without consultation, consent or compensation. They have been
excluded from development plans and pushed onto land that is not
suitable for their way of life. Joseph Towett sums it up: 'We
are not only being dispossessed of our ancestral lands, our
livelihoods are being killed. They say
that we must develop:
but tell me, where or what is this development?'7 Human rights
scholars have warned that development can be a catalyst for
ethnocide.8
Culture is the fabric that holds
the Ogiek together. According to Mrs Rael Kibilo from Tinet
forest: 'Before our forests were cut down, we had our culture
and traditions
anyone who is destroying our forest is
destroying our culture.' Displacement from the forests that are
their cultural and spiritual temples erodes Ogiek culture and
violates international human rights standards, some of which
Kenya is party to (e.g. Article 15 of the International Covenant
on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, which Kenya has ratified).9
The Kenyan government controls
Ogiek ancestral lands through three Acts of Parliament: the
Government Lands Act (1970, revised 1986), the Forests Act
(1957, revised 1964) and the Wildlife (Conservation and
Management) Act (1977, revised 1985). Ogiek ancestral lands are
gazetted as government forests or national game parks/reserves.
The government is not required to consult the Ogiek with regard
to development plans.
Logging has been a major cause of
the destruction of the forests in Ogiek-inhabited areas,
especially from the 1990s onwards.10 Three giant logging
companies - Pan African Paper Mills, Raiply Timber and its
sister firm, Timsales Limited - are exempted from the general
government ban on the grounds that Raiply and Timsales 'employ
over 30,000 Kenyans', while the government itself has shares in
Pan African Paper Mills.11
Ogiek land has also been lost
through government excision. Such land has sometimes been
allocated to politically influential individuals under the
pretext of resettling squatters or environmental conservation.12
Excisions have been ongoing since 1932 with 48,000 ha of
forestland converted to settlements under the Forests Act
between 1963 and 1971.
Development projects have also
contributed to the loss of Ogiek lands, for example the
establishment of Mt Elgon Game Reserve in western Kenya in the
1980s - which became Mt Elgon National Park in 1992.
Ogiek ancestral land has also
been taken by private individuals under the existing land laws
for cultivation of export crops such as tea, pyrethrum (a plant
used to make insecticides) and flower farming. Pyrethrum
cultivation is bad for the traditional Ogiek activity of honey
production - also a viable foreign exchange earner - because the
poisonous pyrethrin kills bees.
The UN Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights stated that poverty arises when
people have no access to resources because of who they are, what
they believe or where they live.13 This is clearly relevant to
the Ogiek and explains why more than 95 per cent of the Ogiek
are poor
