Lessons learned in community spirit – a Moldovan visits Kenya

Victoria Apostol, of Promo-LEX Association from the Republic of Moldova, recently visited Kenya on a study exchange organized through MRG’s Global Advocacy Programme. Here she reports back on the minority communities she visited and the valuable lessons learned during her trip.

Learning from others could become a universally recognized solution for the problems faced by many minorities around the world. Exchanging thoughts, ideas, opinions, and even business cards, represents an important and necessary step in promoting and maintaining diversity in this modern world.

Not as simple as it sounds. But learning and exchanging are two processes which require attention, passion and good intentions. Over seven days, myself and four other friends from European organizations had the pleasure to be involved in such a process through a study visit to Kenya, organised by Minority Rights Group International.

Kenya is an amazing and interesting country from a social and cultural point of view; home to a rich diversity of minority communities, all trying to build a democratic country through involving themselves in promoting and protecting minority rights. Additionally, the new Kenyan constitution represents a myriad of new opportunities for the inclusion of the country’s citizens, and in particular for minorities.

Victoria visits Kenya

It all sounds good, however in practice to realise their rights provided for in the new Constitution minority communities need first of all to be involved in elections, not only as voters, but also as electoral candidates. In this sense, we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to observe and participate in preparatory meetings during our trip, which aimed to inform minority communities about their rights according to the new constitution, and how they should take part in the election process.

We visited three communities: Endorois, Ogiek and Maasai. Each of them is unique, but on the other hand, all of them are minorities and have common needs as such.

Endorois land was originally appropriated by the Kenyian government in the 1970s to create the Lake Bogoria National Reserve. The fact that they were evicted from their land affected their life-style and livelihood. Therefore, the main issue for this community is land rights. However, they try to improve their own situation through different socio-economic initiatives and are not waiting around for the state to help them. For example we visited an Endorois honey factory which has double importance for the community. On the one hand it is a source of employment, and on the other it provides an income for all 15 members of the community involved.

The Ogiek community, who live in the Mau forest, near to Nakuru, was the second place we visited. Ogiek are a traditional forest dwelling people, who were also driven from their homes by both the British colonial and Kenyan governments, in order to log the forests and make way for agricultural projects.

We visited two Ogiek schools, both of which are financially supported by parents who farm for a living, whilst most of the teachers work voluntarily. The school buildings are small and rudimentary, but this aspect doesn’t stop the children going to school. Education is of great importance for the Ogiek community, but still there are things which need to be improved. The schools do not have a proper libary, nor enough books, whilst space for school activities is limited.

Victoria with a Maasai woman

The Maasai from Magadi live in one of the hottest places in Kenya, meaning access to water is a real issue for them. This community is distant from any towns which also creates some difficulties in terms of access to health and other services. What struck me most about the visit to the Maasai was how the community endeavours to empower women through community-based activities. For example, women are organized as a distinct group, addressing issues concerning them directly. One of them was even appointed as a community leader, a major breakthrough in this male-dominated traditional culture, while the majority of women are no longer afraid to speak out about their problems.

All these things impressed me in a special way. I enjoyed discovering Kenya and learning from minorities what it means to work in a community; to share the spirit of collectivity; to find the power and strength to fight against cruel injustices; to be optimistic and to exercise democracy together by knowing our rights as minorities and claiming those rights.

The experience was incomparable for me. I realised how wrong it is to assume something about another culture before fully understanding it. Most of all the study visit brought to my attention the many things which we Europeans could learn from African communities, not least for instance how we should appreciate more the education we receive, despite the conditions under which we sometimes study.

I left Kenya wishing to be back as soon as possible to discover more about this country, and more importantly, it set my mind to thinking how I can do something concrete in support of its minority communities.

‘Don’t be vague, go to The Hague’

MRG’s Head of Programmes, Shobha Das, is in Nairobi helping to set up our new Somalia Gender Project. Along with what seems like the rest of the country’s electorate, she tuned into the first televised presidential debate ahead of Kenya’s hotly anticipated March 4 elections.

Kenya had its first televised presidential debate this evening and the whole country seemed to be watching; for over 3 hours…

An impromptu gathering of voters discusses the elections while shielding from the afternoon sun

It was an impressively organised event. All candidates got equal chances to speak, the moderators did a very competent job of maintaining the pace and flow, and they even managed a discussion about the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments (Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto will face trial in The Hague in April for planning and funding the 2008 post-election violence) without any outbursts.

Kenyatta insisted he wasn’t going to change his mind about running for office. He said he was confident that if he won, the case would not ‘interrupt the business of government’. Raila Odinga asked wittily that he didn’t understand exactly how a country could be run by Skype from The Hague. He added that there had been such chaotic discussions leading up to the indictment that finally someone had thrown their hands in the air and said, ‘Don’t be vague, go to The Hague.’

Ironically, just as Kenyatta was getting heat for being indicted, Odinga was also getting the heat for NOT being indicted. Many seem to believe that he too was responsible directly, in some measure, for the deaths that resulted in the post-election violence. Neither of them rose to the occasion brilliantly, but Odinga seems to have come off a little better, going by Facebook postings, media sound bites, and the reactions in the bar I was sitting in.

Many foreign diplomats in Kenya are saying that if Kenyatta wins, it will affect the country’s relationship with the international community. Britain has echoed Obama’s statement that it’s not about who wins, but the process. However, in a slightly self-contradictory manner, the British envoy to Kenya said that it is the policy of Britain and other European countries not to have contact with ICC indictees. Kenyan officials have formally written to the EU to seek clarification of what exactly this means.

Some Kenyan NGOs have expressed fears about Kenyatta and Ruto contesting the elections. They argue that the country will be leaderless if the two have to head off to The Hague in April to face trial. There is a fear that the president may then defy the ICC, which will bring a whole different set of consequences.

There were many references in the debate by all candidates to the new constitution and the importance of implementing it fully and immediately. They all spoke of the need to make Kenya a country for all its citizens. Though there was some time spent on discussing the question of ethnicity and politics, this seemed mostly about ethnic voting patterns. All candidates said citizens should not vote by ethnicity of candidates, but their campaigns appear to be highly ethnicised. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to in Nairobi has said they will vote according to ethnicity.

The loudspeakers on this campaign van blare political messages to the streets

The debate on ethnicity turned for a moment to the question of inequality. One candidate, Martha Karua, addressed this but not in a very positive way. Her position was that there were poor in every community and that there were no structural or systemic connections between ethnicity and marginalisation. Karua is the only woman candidate and while many women I spoke to said she would be good for the country, they said they’d nevertheless vote for someone from their own community; partly because they felt Karua has no chance of winning, but also because they said that was what was ‘expected’ of them.

The issue of corruption came up in the debate but apart from the predictable platitudes on how it should be rooted out, nothing substantive emerged. People on the street were, in conversation with me, comparing candidates for their levels of corruption to decide whom to vote for if they were undecided. One was 50% corrupt, but the other was only 25% corrupt. One had grabbed a lot of land to make his millions, the other had grabbed only a little land and made fewer millions. So the one with less corruption and land-grabbing would get their vote (usually if they were of the right ethnicity).

Sadly, very little direct reference was made to minorities or indigenous peoples in the debate. Resource-based conflicts were mentioned a few times, and one candidate seemed interested in giving pastoralists better access to water and grazing land – that was as close as it got to the issues MRG is working on in Kenya.

There will be a second debate in 2 weeks, perhaps minority issues and land rights will feature more in that. MRG will be following the situation closely. In the meantime why not check out our most recent publication on the upcoming elections: Taking diversity seriously: minorities and political participation in Kenya.

Alternative State of Nature: at the crossroads of economic growth and indigenous-sensitive development

In response to the publication of MRG’s State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, which in 2012 focused on natural resources and land rights, Elvira Nurieva, a recent intern with MRG’s Europe Office, reflects on how business is affecting vulnerable communities around the world.

In the ‘state of nature’, without a ‘common power’ or government, people are doomed to a life ‘solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short’, according to Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). In the absence of laws designed to restrain individual behavior, human beings are likely to regress to the ‘natural condition of mankind’ and attack each other.

With the creation of local, regional and international human rights institutions, has humankind significantly progressed from the ‘state of nature’? Indeed, is it possible to clearly identify a line between the ‘state of nature’ and societies with the ‘rule of law’?

One might point to some incremental progress: less arms, and more communication in conflict resolution, perhaps. Anything else? The development of international and domestic standards, recognizing the rights of marginalized and vulnerable communities? Surely! But experts point out that their proper implementation is still lacking.

Perhaps someone could simply dismiss this question by focusing on its philosophical dimension. However, the hard evidence of compelling case studies easily brings it back to reality. The examples given in this post, and also captured in a recent MRG report, State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012, reflect how short-term thinking and profit-obsession are taking over the longer-term benefits of empowerment through development.

A young girl in Papua New Guinea. Credit: Stephan Bachenheimer/World Ban SB-PNG02

Despite international treaties and UN declarations, indigenous and tribal peoples continue to not fully exercise their right to internal self-determination, nor participate in decision-making in the natural resource development that affects their livelihoods, culture and identity. With a few exceptions (for instance, in Canada, the Environmental Stewardship Unit of the Assembly of First Nation and in Russia the Sakhalin Energy company agreement), indigenous communities are often not consulted at all on development projects and their impacts.

Due to aggressive natural resource exploitation on traditional and ancestral lands, all too often justified in the name of ‘national interest’, indigenous and tribal peoples are subject to evictions and involuntary migrations that damage their spiritual, cultural and physical wellbeing (see Survival International’s report, Progress Can Kill).

In the article Natural Resource Development and the Rights of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, Dr. Corinne Lennox reiterates that such policies constitute grave violations of the human rights of minorities and indigenous peoples. To illustrate the ugly side of the current reality, let me present two geographically different, but similarly harrowing case studies from Kenya and India.

In Kenya, the Endorois, a semi-nomadic pastoralist community who have inhabited the shores of Lake Bogoria and the Monchongoi forest for centuries, were evicted from their land in 1973 to make way for a Game Reserve. And it is only with the case of the 2010 Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group International (on behalf of the Endorois Welfare Council) v. Kenya, that the violations of Kenya’s government were condemned and the property rights of the Endorois to their land were upheld.

Importantly, Kenya’s key argument at the hearing of the African Commission on Human People’s Rights (ACHPR) was formulated on the principles of a so-called participatory democracy, which gives supremacy to the benefit of the national interest rather than the demands of a single community. The Endorois community and their advocates won the case by contending that the right to development involves the community on an equal footing, which leads to the empowerment of its members by increasing their choices and improves their welfare. However, the Endorois people are still waiting for the implementation of the ACHPR decision.

Likewise in India, there have been numerous cases where tribal peoples, numerically and politically weak (constituting 8 per cent of the Indian population) were displaced from their lands due to dam construction, despite their persistent non-violent protests and meetings with local authorities.

A documentary film, A Narmada Diary, captures the years of such a struggle to prevent the drowning of 37,000 hectares of fertile land and forced eviction of over 200,000 Adivasis, the area’s indigenous peoples. The film shows the pain of each member of the community during days of hunger strikes, and the proactive attitude of steadfast female representatives of the community at the official meetings. Though sad, the documentary underlines the enduring spirit of this community, standing tall like their sacred tree on the flooded traditional land.

Lessons for international development

The lesson that government officials, policy makers and private sector representatives all over the world perhaps may learn from these stories is underscored in Richard Cronin’s and Amit Pandya’s assessment for Washington security think-tank, The Stimson Centre. ‘Fishermen are relocated to areas without fisheries, forest people must leave entirely or take insecure jobs as plantation workers, and farmers often have to learn to grow new crops on less fertile land.’

Facing such irreversible damage, it is hard to see how natural resource exploitation can claim its main objective to be generating more funds for anti-poverty programs. When such programmes subject rural inhabitants and politically marginalized groups to death - cultural or physical - then the toolkit for stable economic development should be reconsidered and disproved approaches to natural resource exploitation recast.

In today’s industrialized world, life can indeed mirror Hobbes’ ‘state of nature’ and show us as ‘poore’ (with finite resources), nasty (with myopic policy makers) and brutish (with an aggressive development agenda). The international laws and rights instruments designed to protect the most vulnerable lack the ‘common power’ to enforce the protection they might give. Hobbes lived in a time when very little was known in European societies about the ways of life practiced by indigenous communities; incredibly, the assumed superiority of national ‘development’ over the rights of minorities continues today, with indigenous and fringe groups facing violence and eviction over land and resources.

The good news is that there is a silver lining. With the recognition of alternative, indigenous-sensitive development policies, and development of proper environmental impact assessment, humankind can make a breakthrough from the bondage of the single development paradigm and short-term thinking.

A journey of firsts for Endorois women

Giulia di Mattia, MRG’s Programme Assistant, reports back from a trip to the African Commission in The Gambia with a group of indigenous women from Kenya.

In a landmark decision in February 2010, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights declared the expulsion of Endorois from their ancestral lands illegal and found that the Kenyan government had violated certain fundamental rights of the indigenous community, protected under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Since the adoption of the decision, representatives of the Endorois community have attended African Commission sessions to pressure for the implementation of the ruling. At the 50^th session in October 2011 five Endorois representatives, four women and one man, travelled to Banjul, The Gambia.

For the women it was a journey of firsts. The first time they had ever had a passport, boarded a plane, travelled outside of Kenya and left their families behind. Sarah, Elizabeth, Christine Chebii and Christine Kandie, in traditional Endorois costume and jewellery, were embarking on a brand new adventure.

Christine Kandie and Sarah

The women gave out an incredible energy. Excited to be outside of Kenya for the first time, they expressed how proud they were to represent their community and how thankful they were to have obtained passports. They were eager to take pictures to take back to the community and spoke about the need to provide the same kind of opportunities for other women in the community.

Interestingly they pushed MRG to search for funds for a gender project, about education, FGM and early marriage, which would allow them to become more independent. If the project is for the whole community, then men will always be prioritized, they said candidly. For example, one of the women was told that if women travel they are sexually assaulted, so men travel to protect women.

During the session, Fatuma Zullo, from the Kenya National Commission for Human Rights, addressed the African Commission specifically mentioning the need for implementing the Endorois decision. During the break, where the real advocacy work takes place, the women thanked Commissioner Zullo for her intervention on the Endorois case. Zullo, who has been working closely with the community, was happily surprised to see that the Endorois representatives were women.

Christina Kandie delivering the Endorois statement

On 25 October, Christine Kandie delivered the Endorois statement to the Commission. Kandie addressed the Commission about efforts made by the community to negotiate with the Government of Kenya on the implementation of the decision but stressed that the community did not want the case to be passed to the African Court, but wanted instead to give the Government more time. The Chair replied directly to Kandie (a rare sight in itself) that the Endorois case is a priority for the Commission and that they will work to see implementation.

This work was carried out under an MRG’s project funded by the Baring Foundation, which aims to build the capacity of the Endorois community and implement the decision of the African Commission.

Together in the same pot

Zulema Cadenas, MRG’s Street Theatre Project Officer, reports on a correlation between a popular Kenyan recipe and the rich ethnic diversity of the country.

There is a very popular nourishing dish throughout Kenya called githeri. The combination of beans and corn cooked together make it a simple but complete meal.

During my week in Mombasa working with SAFE Pwani (Sponsored Arts For Education) I will get to better understand the challenges faced by different ethnic groups in the coastal region of Kenya. Fifteen actors, who are part of this organization aiming to address social issues through street theatre, gathered for one week to research ethnic-related issues in the region and start putting together the play that will be part of MRG’s Street Theatre Project.

Zulema (front row second from left) and the cast

During the community research process prior to the performance SAFE found that racist attitudes and negative stereotyping between the Pwani (mainly Mijikenda people originally from the coast) and the Wabaara (people from inland who migrated to the coast) communities were common. Both groups are seen to be undermining each other and there is a palpable lack of trust, cohesion and integration between the communities. Suspicions and rumours about negative behaviours are common and have exploded into violence on previous occasions, especially during the post-election violence in 2007-2008. The two communities both express disillusionment that they blame on failed leadership, as well as a lack of mutual respect.

The performance

As in the githeri recipe, diversity is a key part of the richness of Kenyan society. Tribalism and corrupted politics, unfair distribution of resources and stereotypes are a big threat to this national treasure. The street performances that will take place at the beginning of next year in the coastal region will confront these issues in an effort to promote understanding and cooperation amongst the different communities.

“Maharague na mahindi, yapikwe chunsu kiimoja” (Beans and corn should be cooked in the same pot) recites Mwikali, one of the actors, at the end of our workshop on stereotypes and discrimination.

Nubians in Kenya have right to nationality. Time to implement the African Union decision

Mohamed Matovu, from MRG’s Africa Office in Kampala, Uganda, reflects on an historic decision to end statelessness for some of Kenya’s most vulnerable children.

The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child in an historic decision, has found the Kenya government in violation of the rights of Nubian children when it denied them citizenship.

This decision is ground-breaking on a number of fronts; it’s the very first decision by the Committee and it’s also a first in Kenya with regard to minority children’s’ rights.

The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) and Open Society Institute, who lodged the case on behalf of Nubian children in Kenya, should be applauded for this landmark achievement.

Even when the facts of this case seemed all too crystal clear to warrant any third-party intervention, the Kenya government was not willing to negotiate with the Nubian community.

Credit: UNHCR/Greg Constantine

Picture this. A community is forcibly relocated from their ancestral land, against their own volition, to a foreign land, and settles in the new land for decades to come. But when they want to make legal their stay in their new-found ‘home’ they are asked questions about their ‘origin’ or are referred to as ‘foreigners’. What can best describe such action if not utter discrimination?

The very first Nubians are said to have arrived in Kenya, from the Nuba Mountains in Sudan, in the 19^th Century after forced evictions by the British colonial administrators. In fact, some Nubians participated in the anti-colonial struggles that eventually saw Kenya attain independence.

Since then, subsequent Nubian generations have been born and bred in Kenya and know not of any other place as home. But the government, for reasons best known to them, has denied Nubians their right to nationality and has failed to protect them against statelessness.

As a result of this blatant government action, an estimated 13 per cent of Nubian adults are still stateless in Kenya, according to Open Society Institute, with average household income at a paltry US$4 per day and unemployment at about 70 per cent.

The world is not short of national, regional and international legal frameworks protecting the right to nationality, and yet we continue to see governments abusing or selectively applying it for political reasons.

From using the right to nationality to purge political opponents, as has often been the case in several southern African countries, including Zambia and Botswana, to disenfranchising communities, as is the case of Nubians in Kenya, over 12 million people around the world continue to have their movement restricted due to lack of identification, whilst others may suffer detention without trial.

The situation becomes worse for minority and indigenous groups who, on top of missing out on all the basic indicators of human development, like access to health and education, also suffer social exclusion and exploitation.

Minority Rights Group International, through its internationally acclaimed global ranking, Peoples Under Threat, has identified Nubians as amongst the minority groups facing a real threat of internal displacement. They are also likely to suffer discrimination based on religious lines as the majority of Nubians are Muslims – who constitute a religious minority in Kenya.

The decision may have been handed down but it is early days to celebrate as governments that perpetuate these rights violations are not always in any hurry to implement decisions from other legal entities, be they regional or international.

Over a year ago, the African Commission of Human and Peoples Rights found the Kenyan government in violation of the rights of Endorois community, a semi-nomadic indigenous group, when it evicted them from their ancestral land around Lake Bogoria, Rift Valley province. To date, the government is reluctant to implement the decision.

The African Union should devise mechanisms to ensure that states respect their decisions and fully implement them to the letter, otherwise it will be very difficult for it to shed the accusation that it’s a ‘toothless pet dog’.

Read the Committee’s decision: http://www.ihrda.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/002-09-Nubian-children-v-Kenya-Eng.pdf.

Read more about Nubian people in MRG’s report Kenya: Minorities, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Diversity.