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Government degazettes
Mau Forest, Ogiek move to court
by
John Kamau, Rights Features Service
(February
17, 2001) The Kenyan government has issued a 28-day notice in
its bid to degazette 147,000 acres of Mau Forest, the home of
the Ogiek indigenous community.
The notice
was published on February 16 in the official Kenya Gazette
and expires on March 14.
And in a
swift turn, the Ogiek community today condemned the intended excision
and prepared to move to court.
"We are definitely
going to challenge that gazette notice," said Joseph Towett of
the Ogiek Welfare Council.
Failure to
challenge the notice or raise an objection within the 28-day period
would legally mean that the 147,000 acres would no longer be protected
as forest and the government would have a leeway to settle other
people.
"We are a
vulnerable community and settlement of other people in our midst
would mean that the Ogiek culture would cease. We will be wiped
out," says Towett.
Mau Forest
has been at the center of an international campaign to save it
from encroachment by outsiders who not only want to destroy this
unique rainforest but also to evict the Ogiek indigenous community
who rely on the forest for honey and hunting. The Ogiek regard
Mau Forest as their ancestral land.
The hurry
to degazette the land was to forestall the implications of a waited
debate on Forest Bill 2000 that gives communities living in the
forest rights to control the natural heritage.
Of late the
government had allowed three logging companies into Mau Forest
and has cleared thousands of acres of the forestland to ostensibly
settle landless "squatters."
The Ogiek
fear that the degazettement will open up the land to allocation
and that they will finally lose their ancestral land to outsiders,
leaving the small forest community vulnerable to assimilation.
"The degazettement
is politically motivated and is being done in bad faith," said
Towett.
The Mau Forest
had been protected under Kenya's Forest Act and the environment
minister's move is seen as the final push against the vulnerable
Ogiek community that has adamantly refused to give up the struggle
to have the Mau Forest recognized as their ancestral land.
"The notice
was issued despite a court order that prohibits continued subdivision
and allocation of the Mau Forest land," says Ogiek Welfare Council.
"We want
to quash the degazettement," said Towett. "They want the Ogiek
to accept a smaller portion of that land and give the other away
to their cronies. We will fight to have all this land recognized
as Ogiek land."
The leader
of the official opposition in Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, has condemned
the excision and accused the government of engaging in "scotch
earth policy."
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