The Kenyan government has come under condemnation internationally following the eviction of the indigenous Ogiek Community living inside the Mau Forest.
In an interview on DW on Saturday, East Africa Director of Human Rights Watch Otsieno Namwaya, while referring to previous court rulings, stated that the government has continuously ignored court orders against such evictions.
“The government hasn’t even responded in any meaningful way and has not stopped evictions from going on or showed any signs that they are planning to compensate the evictees,” Otsieno stated.
The eviction took effect following President William Ruto’s directive that all individuals residing within the forest must leave.
“Those still in the forest should vacate as soon as possible because we will put up a fence, and that is not a request,” the president had stated in November.
Ruto's directive came against the backdrop of a decision by the African Court on Human and People’s Rights to award reparations to the Ogiek community for harm suffered from injustices and discrimination.
In a ruling that the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples Francisco Cali Tzay lauded in July, the Court ordered the Government of Kenya to pay compensation of Ksh 57,850,000 for material prejudice for loss of property and natural resources, and Ksh100 million for moral prejudice suffered the community due to violations of the right to non-discrimination, religion, culture, and development.
Members of the Ogiek Community have lamented the mistreatment during the evictions with allegations of destruction of property by rangers from the Kenya Forest Service.
“All my kin are buried here. There is nowhere else that I know of where my grandmother and my great-grandmother were buried. Where else will I go? I grew up being told this is my home,” Ngusilo, a member of the Ogiek Community, lamented.
Human rights lawyer and Director of the International Lawyers Project Lucy Claridge, speaking on the same platform, suggested that the eviction move would connect with international carbon markets set up during climate change summits.
“We also know that there is a lot of interest from those who are engaging in carbon trading in Kenya, that is Kenya’s forests and other assets,” she stated.
In a joint statement, Amnesty International, Survival International, and Minority Rights Group International expressed their concerns over the evictions and called for an immediate suspension.
“The signatory organisations call on the government of Kenya to immediately cease all evictions in the Mau Forest, as they violate Kenyan law, as well as the judgments of the African Court on Human and People's Rights in the Ogiek case,” the statement read in part.
Further, the organizations discredited the concern of the Kenyan government, which highlighted human encroachment as a reason to justify the evictions. According to the statement, the Ogiek would be the best guardians of the forests.
“We note, however, that repeated studies have shown that Indigenous Peoples are the best guardians of their lands. The ground-breaking African Court judgment in the Ogiek case confirmed that there is no evidence that the government can conserve biodiversity in the Mau Forest better than the Ogiek are already doing and that conservation cannot be used as an excuse for eviction of Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral lands,” the statement read.
