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OGIEK EVICTION STOPPED
Kenya Court of Appeal grants
stay of execution of a High Court Degree.
Nairobi, 05.05.2000 - In the
"Ogiek of Tinet Forest" case against their eviction from
their ancestral lands by the Government of Kenya, allowed for by a
landmark ruling (High Court Judges Richard Kuloba and Samuel Oguk)
of the Kenya High Court on 23rd of March 2000, appellate judges
Lady Justice Effie Owuor and Judges A.B. Shah and P.K.Tunoi were
now appointed for the Court of Appeal to hear the grievances of
these indigenous peoples, known as the honey-hunters of Kenya.
Today, the Kenya Court of Appeal,
presided by the above named judges, listened to the plaintiffs,
representing the 5,016 members of the Ogiek community of Tinet,
through their lawyer Joseph Seregon, assisted by lawyer Mirugi
Kariuki, who represents the Nakuru Catholic Diocese and who was
allowed into this case due to the "substantial investments"
(i.e. churches, schools, marketplaces) in the area. Tinet Forest,
suffering already from serious destruction by other communities,
which were allowed into the traditional homeland of the Ogiek, is
located about 160 km (100 miles) NW of Nairobi, the capital of
Kenya.
In today's ruling, citing Rule 5
(2), the Court of Appeal ordered a stay of execution of the High
Court Degree of 23. March 2000, and thereby the Government of
Kenya, represented by Principal Litigation Counsel, Mrs. Judy
Madahana appearing for the Attorney General Amos Wako, was
restrained from evicting the Ogiek people, pending determination
of an intended appeal.
The Attorney General, the Rift
Valley Provincial Commissioner, the area Provincial Forest Officer
and the Nakuru District Officer, who had joined efforts to evict
the Ogiek people, will have to halt their plans now, which were
determined by a confidential letter of the Forest Department
Headquarters to international protesters as: "...they are
being relocated to the edges of the forest, since they have been
scattered all over the forest." Similar arguments were
earlier used in Tanzania to concentrate indigenous people in newly
created and better controllable locations under the argument to
offer better school and health facilities. This move was later
seen by its implementer Julius Nyerere, the former President of
Tanzania, as the biggest mistake of his time of ruling.
Also in Kenya the Court of Appeal's
decision to grant the Ogiek a stay of the eviction was reached
because it was found that an eviction would have far-reaching
effects on their livelihoods and in order to avoid a major
upheaval. It was also clearly shown, that the Provincial Forest
Officer, a Mr. Ezekiel Korir, had lied by denying that the Ogiek
had lived in the forest, while a copy of the 1936 population
census was produced from the Kenya National Archives, showing
clearly the recording of the Ogiek people in their Tinet Forest
homeland.
But the halt of the eviction is now
pending the determination of the intended appeal. And the
community, who insists that they have lived in and from that
forest since times immemorial, has still to present the appeal
until the 23rd of May.
On 02nd May 2000 this struggle of
the Ogiek had already been presented by ECOTERRA Intl. to the
Forest Caucus of the 8th Convention of the Commission for
Sustainable Development of the United Nations in New York,
declaring it as one of the outstanding cases, where
pseudo-ecological arguments likewatershed protection were used to
oppress indigenous peoples, who had lived for hundreds of years in
harmony with their natural environment.
ECOTERRA - Survival for People and
Nature
FIRST PEOPLES & NATURE FIRST
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