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Ogiek win first
round
by
Jennifer Wanjiru, Rights Features Service
(March 19,
2001) The Ogiek community registered their first victory after
the High Court in Nairobi on March 16 stopped Minister for Environment
Francis Nyenze from removing their Eastern Mau Forest from environmental
protection.
In a suit
filed by 22 members of the Ogiek, the community asked the High
Court to set aside the minister's gazette notice of February 16
that had among other things targeted the Ogiek land for alienation.
The Ogiek
victory followed an earlier order by another court in western
Kenya that barred the minister or his servants from excising any
of the gazetted forests.
The Ogiek
22 told Judge John Osiemo through their lawyer, Kathurima M'Inoti,
that the degazettement notices were a blatant violation of a court
order issued in 1997, stopping further allocation of the Eastern
Mau forestland.
The judge
agreed and the Ogiek were given until April 6 to file a substantive
application challenging the degazettement. The move is seen as
another blow to the government, which appears to be determined
to hive off forest land.
Despite the
court order, local papers have reported the presence of surveyors
in the Mt. Kenya region as the campaign to stop the excision gains
tempo here. Surveying on the Ogiek lands appear to have subsided,
with no surveyors sighted in the forest land.
However,
surveyors have been sighted in Hombe Forest of Mt. Kenya region,
where they are under the protection of armed police from Kiamariga
Police Station.
Meanwhile,
police over the weekend arrested the chairman of Sagana Wildlife
Protection Self-Help Group, Gerald Ngatia, for leading the local
community in uprooting beacons erected by surveyors. He today
recorded a statement at Kiganjo Police Station.
The arrest
follows an unrelenting campaign in central Kenya against the excision
of the forestlands.
The government
appears to be furious that activists have managed to stop the
exercise, with the minister for environment constantly blaming
the Green Belt Movement leader, Prof. Wangari Maathai, for "confusing"
people. The church and the Muslim communities have also joined
the environmental activists and are helping to collect signatures
and petitions countrywide.
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