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Ogiek given one
month to leave forest
by John Kamau, Rights Features Service
(July 9,
2001) All communities residing in state forests in the Rift Valley
province in Kenya — among them the Ogiek indigenous community
— have been given one month to vacate the forestland or face
eviction.
The new government
order was issued on July 6 by the new Rift Valley provincial commissioner,
Peter Raburu, backed by Chief Conservator of Government Forests,
Joseph Mutie, and Rift Valley Provincial forest officer, Josephat
Bundotich.
"We are going
to flush out everybody residing and cultivating in the forests
irrespective of who allowed them in," said Raburu at a press conference.
Although
the administrator did not mention the Ogiek community by name,
it was clear that the main target was this forest-inhabiting community
that has taken the government to court over the future of the
expansive Mau forestland in the Rift Valley which the Ogiek claim
ancestral ownership.
The Ogiek
Welfare Council has threatened to go to court to stop any impending
eviction.
"We will
certainly go to court. The administration will be in contempt
of court if they dare try to evict us," said Ogiek spokesman Joseph
Towett.
The forest
officers say that the communities inhabiting the forests "had
abused and violated" the regulations set to protect young forest
trees.
But the Ogiek
Welfare Council say that it is the invaders who were brought into
their land by politicians who have been destroying the habitat
and logging the forests.
On a positive
note the government re-stated that it had banned logging in its
forests and asked police manning roadblocks in the province to
arrest any trader ferrying timber from the forests.
It is not
clear whether the three companies that had earlier been excepted
by the ban will continue to log the Ogiek forest lands in central
Rift Valley. The three companies that had been excepted are Pan
African Paper Mills, Raiply Timber, and its sister company Timsales
Ltd.
The new threat
comes at a time when local environmentalists have taken the government
to court over its intention to degazette some 10 percent of the
forestland to ostensibly settle the landless.
The Ogiek
have also filed a separate case to stop the degazettement of their
Mau Forest land before a constitutional case they filed way back
in 1997 is heard and determined.
The Ogiek
have a court order that stops the government from interfering
with the Mau Forest land until the case is determined but this
has never stopped the government from issuing orders and ultimatums.
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