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.

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.

Part 1: How to Skin a Porcupine

Daniel Openshaw, MRG’s Publications Intern, reports back from the Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Cultures. In the first of two blogs he discusses the importance of cultural rights and their inseparability from rights to self determination and land.

I have no idea how to skin a porcupine, but then I do not speak Innu-aimun, the language of Canada’s indigenous Innu. Innu-aimun has specific terms describing how to kill and prepare porcupine, for which there is no equivalent in other languages. Those who don’t speak Innu-aimun will be able to guess, they might hack away at the rodent, trying to avoid being pricked by one of its sharp spines until it resembles a steak, over time even cultivating methods resembling those that Innu have been using for centuries. However, there will be no efficient way of explaining these processes to others if Innu-aimun ceases to exist. This cultural wealth and ancestral knowledge will be lost…at best assigned to the history books with the useful words assimilated (‘borrowed’) into more dominant languages, at worst, forgotten.

This example highlights a recurring theme that emerged at the Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Cultures, organised by Dr Alexandra Xanthaki from Brunel Law School in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which I attended in March. Majority cultures have a longstanding history of dismissing and assimilating indigenous cultures and languages that are often differ radically from the mainstream.

A panel of expert speakers and OCHCR representatives gather during the Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Cultures

Academics and indigenous representatives from around the globe attended in order to aid the development of a study by the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the behest of the UN Human Rights Council under resolution 18/8 of September last year. The aim of the study is to investigate the role of languages and culture in the promotion of the rights and identity of indigenous peoples.

The seminar emphasized the importance of preserving and promoting cultural rights and also important issues standing in the way of this. Professor Elsa Stamatopoulou, former Chief of the UN Permanent Forum on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, summed up the conundrum: human rights are seen as the weak part of international law and within these rights cultural rights are seen as the weakest, as illustrated by the make-up of the ICESCR which covers Economic rights (E) and Social rights (S) from articles 1 through to 14 and then tags on Cultural rights (C) as a vague afterthought in article 15. Things are improving with the introduction of UNDRIP, which although legally non-binding has achieved almost universal recognition and indicates a step forward to recognizing what Professor Stamatopoulou referred to as ‘the essentiality of cultural rights’, not simply as a luxury secondary to a person’s right to food and water.

Maasai child in front of traditional hut. Credit: Kibuyu

‘If you don’t have a traditional culture or speak a traditional language then you are a slave’ – a Swahili proverb that emphasizes that the right to maintain one’s culture is fundamental to one’s right to self-determination. Lucy Mulenkei, head of the Indigenous Information Network, further illustrated this through the displacement of Maasai in Kenya.

When they are displaced, for whatever reason, it is almost certainly a non-indigenous person who has decided they must be displaced and they might be moved to areas where traditional materials are unavailable to build traditional huts in traditional ways. Perhaps without malice but definitely with indifference, decision-makers have not taken into account the cultural rights of indigenous peoples and in doing so have denied the Maasai part of their identity.

Cautious optimism did prevail at the seminar, especially because of recent developments in the recognition of cultural rights, often in conjunction with land claims. Dr Jeremie Gilbert of Middlesex University highlighted the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ (IACHR) 2001 landmark ruling in favour of the Mayagna community of Awas Tingni, Nicaragua. Logging permits had been granted on indigenous land by the state without obtaining the free prior and informed consent of local communities. The IACHR recognized Awas Tingni land as property of the Mayagna peoples on the basis of traditional use and occupancy, equal to the social integrity of the community.

Traditional Maasai huts. Credit: J. Czliao

Dr Kristin Hauser of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law also highlighted how the Supreme Court of British Columbia had allowed traditional culture to be heard on a equal footing to anthropological and scientific evidence in the case of a land dispute involving the Tsilhqot’in first nations peoples of Canada. Given the evidence, the judge stated that 50% of disputed land should have been awarded to the indigenous community but as this was an ‘all or nothing’ claim, no land could actually be awarded. Nevertheless, the recognition has been heralded as a victory.

Furthermore, MRG has been involved in the case of the Endorois in Kenya, semi-nomadic pastoralists who were evicted from their ancestral land in the 1970s to make way for a national park. Here the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) took the rights to religion, culture and access to natural resources, together to be equal to the right to cultural integrity and used this to award the Endorois land rights and posthumous compensation; a positive step but one that two years on is yet to be implemented.

These cases illustrate the inseparable nature of cultural rights and land rights, further emphasizing the essentiality of cultural rights. This will be explored in MRG’s ‘State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples’ to be launched on June 28^th, which this year focuses on natural resources and extractive industries.

However, what is striking is the lack of acknowledgment of linguistic rights in the ACHPR definition of cultural integrity. This is a cause for concern as Dr Mark Harris of Adelaide University pointed out; Aboriginal land claims in Australia are often imbedded in language, a discussion that will be continued in my next blog…

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.

We are enemies of ourselves

MRG’s Head of Law, Lucy Claridge, is in Kenya to gather evidence for two crucial international land rights cases

Don’t tell my family, but I’m coming to think of Kenya as my second home.  This isn’t just because it’s already my second trip this year (as the immigration official helpfully points out whilst flicking through my passport “You come here a lot!  You’re wearing the same coat as last time!”), but because it’s very hard not to feel welcome and inspired by all the people I meet and work with during my visits.  And this is in spite of the challenging situation which many of them face on a daily basis.

As MRG’s Head of Law, I’m visiting Kenya to work on two international land rights cases before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the first for the Ogiek, an indigenous hunter-gather community who live in the Mau Forest and around Mount Elgon, and the second for the Endorois, a pastoralist community who last year successfully challenged their eviction from ancestral land around Lake Bogoria. My trip coincides with the first appearance of the “Ocampo Six” at the International Criminal Court in the Hague: six key Kenyan figures face an international criminal trial for their involvement in the ethnic violence following the December 2007 elections , which resulted in the death of over 1,000 Kenyans and thousands more displaced.  Unsurprisingly, it’s hot news; it features on the front page of every paper throughout my visit, and televisions blast out live reports in each restaurant that I enter.  It makes a stark contrast to my last visit to Nakuru, when the only thing showing was the World Cup!

I spend my first day with the Ogiek of Mount Elgon, who come from Western Kenya and, in common with many Ogiek of the Mau Forest, face eviction from their ancestral homes.  I’m gathering evidence and information for the upcoming session of the African Commission, during which their case will hopefully be considered.  We discuss the challenges they have faced over the past 60 years, and the progress of their case.  During our discussion, I ask them what they feel about the ICC process – and they respond positively, saying that they feel it will send a message to the Government that there must be accountability for its actions, and that human rights and the rule of law must be respected.  I admire their optimism.  And given the thousands of people that flock to Uhuru stadium in Nairobi to welcome back the Ocampo Six a few days later – which feels like impunity – I can only hope that they’re right.

My remaining days in Nakuru are spent at a workshop focusing on women’s rights.  Nearly 30 women from throughout the Mau and Mount Elgon attend the two day workshop, during which they learn the basics of minority and indigenous peoples’ rights, how the new Kenyan constitution protects women’s rights, the aim of the case before the African Commission, and what we hope it will achieve for them.  The lack of Ogiek land rights has had a particularly striking effect on women, which becomes ever clearer to me as the training progresses.

“There is no respect if we don’t have land…. once we have lost our land, we have lost our identity”, they explain.  One woman, Sarah (who speaks excellent English and very kindly translates from Swahili for me at points), has her arm in a sling following a violent attack several weeks before as a direct result of her activism around the Ogiek land rights issue.  Yet the majority of Ogiek women still have quite traditional roles, as one speaker identifies when he asks them to tell him what would happen if they didn’t work for a day.  “My family would go hungry”; “My family would be naked”; “My family would be dirty”; “My family would be lost”, the participants respond.

But by the end of the seminar, the women are inspired and motivated to try and step out of those roles, to seek education for their daughters, to participate more in politics, to empower themselves, and to seek their land rights. “We are enemies of ourselves!” one woman cries, as we discuss the way forward.

I leave Nakuru hoping that she is right, that these women will feel empowered to act on what they have learnt, that their husbands and families will allow them to do so, and also that they have learned as much as I have in the space of just 2 days.

Part 1 – Training, interviewing, community visits and clubbing – all in a week’s work.

MRG’s media officer Farah Mihlar shares her stories from the sidelines of a media training for community activists in Nairobi, Kenya.

Part 1

I think in my previous life I must have been born to an indigenous community in Africa. I have been just twice, to Uganda and Kenya, but on both times I have had an instant connection.  Like in my last trip to Kampala, this time too, in Nairobi, I was there for a regional training for community activists on how to use the media. The training was, as always, intense and interesting, but I want to share here some of my experiences outside of the class room.

The first lesson on African culture came even before the training started. I reached Nairobi over the weekend and on the Sunday decided to go to a popular coffee place to check e-mails and prepare my presentations (I know it’s sad – I do on occasion work on weekends!!). While waiting for a hot chocolate that took forever and trying to reply to e-mails, I struck up a conversation with a Kenyan, Indian-Muslim girl seated beside me. Shortly, I was introduced to a male friend of hers and we got chatting about Islamic practices and cultures…the conversation led to being asked out for dinner…followed by two text messages and one call (in a matter of hours)….followed by me completely freaking out!

Perhaps it was being in a new country as a woman alone, or possibly just having got used to the London dating culture, where this sort of thing would happen only when the guy is properly drunk.  I was only calmed by a sweet brotherly lecture from my colleague Mohamed. I decided to solicit his advice and to keep him informed – just in case. I can still picture Muhammad scowling at me, gesturing wildly ‘This is normal in Africa, this is our culture, what is wrong with the men in London’ (I’d like the answer to that too!). Calm down Farah,’ he says, ‘remember we are hunters, we go behind people.’ Great consolation Mohamed, I have now turned into a prey animal. That works well for the feminist in me!

During the course of the week the training was far too demanding to be distracted by anything. My role was to help activists think like journalists – spot the good story, know how to tell it but also to be sensitive and get their point across effectively. We practiced through case studies which the different teams came up with, such as low level violent conflicts amongst pastoralists and tension in South Sudan ahead of the referendum.

Participants learn to operate a camera at the training

Days two and three were run by the illustrious Lee Kanyare, who together with his assistants Christine and Njoroge,  brought the world of filmmaking and audio/video editing alive. We watched movies till late in the evening about different communities in Africa, and participants made their own short films interviewing each other on the issues they worked on.  The last day was learning to create websites, which was conducted by Carson, who is himself from the indigenous Endorois community. Most of the participants were from Kenya, from several different communities, including Maasai, Ogiek, fisher communities and Endorois. There were two participants from Southern Sudan.

As media officer, I had a dual role to play.  One was to train and the second was to gather content for MRG’s new Minority Voices Newsroom.  This meant lunches and dinners were spent chatting to people learning about their lives, the issues they work on, and grabbing them during coffee breaks to do quick interviews.  I learnt fascinating stories from Anne, Miriam and Maryam, about Maasai cultural practices that affect women and girls. Cherono, the first university graduate from the hunter gatherer Ogiek community, talked of the many obstacles she had to go through to get her qualification. Kipkazi and Evans always kept our spirits up telling us how the Endorois were trying to reap the benefits of the success of a recent land rights case. Paul kept the focus on South Sudan without letting the Kenyans steal the limelight. Dalmas knew just about everything on minorities in Kenya.

Participants at the media training in Kenya

Despite the tight schedule, I did however manage to cram in two other interesting activities. The first was to visit the Nubians, a small minority community in Kibera, Nairobi’s slum area. The Nubians trace their history to pre-biblical times. They moved across Egypt to Sudan, where the small numbers who live in Kenya originated from. Despite having lived in Kenya for centuries, even before colonial rule, the Nubians lack proper recognition, have no legal ownership of their lands and struggle with poverty and unemployment.

The second activity was more exciting than interesting. I managed to squeeze in 30 minutes of proper African clubbing with my friends Stella and Esmael, who were also participants. Stella is originally Maasai, living in Narok and working on gender rights and Esmael is Somali Kenyan working on sexual rights and HIV prevention. Unfortunately I don’t have a bone of rhythm in me,  certainly not compared to Kenyans.  I would have loved to stay longer but I had to wake up at 6 am to leave for a community visit. Stella and Esmael were supposed to be our guides, they promised to leave in time to make it by six. If you want to know if that happened you will need to read part 2.

Oh, and if you are wondering if I ever went on the date…well I’ll leave that to your imagination!

• Read part 2 of Farah’s blog post from Kenya!

Part 1 – Terra nullius

Carl Soderbergh, MRG’s Director of Policy and Communications, posts a 2-part blog on the issues confronting Maasai communities in the Serengeti and Ngorogoro regions of Tanzania. In the first part, he considers the fact that Maasai have faced repeated evictions over the past several decades.

Terra nullius is a Latin expression used in ancient Roman law meaning “empty land” or “land belonging to no one”. The doctrine permitted title to be claimed to land through occupation. It was repeatedly applied by European empires to justify the seizing of land in the Americas, in Oceania and in Africa. Essentially, European governments turned a blind eye to indigenous land ownership when applying the doctrine. In part, this was because the often communal land use of indigenous peoples do not follow the same patterns of land ownership as in Europe. Mostly, the doctrine was a convenient excuse for the colonisation of whole continents.

I reflected often on the doctrine of Terra nullius during a recent trip to Tanzania. I was travelling with my colleague, MRG’s head of law, Lucy Claridge. We went there in order to study the situation of Maasai in Loliondo district, a hilly area abutting the Serengeti National Park to the west and the Kenyan border to the north. To the south and east rise the airy highlands around the Ngorogoro Crater. We travelled with friends from the Pastoralist Women’s Council (PWC), an MRG partner organisation which works to support Maasai women in several villages in the area.

In principle, Terra nullius has been repudiated in international law through a series of decisions by national courts and regional tribunals recognising indigenous land claims. The African Union’s decision in the Endorois case concerning Kenya is one of the most recent. Sadly, though, Terra nullius has not been buried with the passing of the European empires but rather lives on in new ways, not least in the blindness outsiders have to traditional patterns of relating to the land.

Lucy and I participated in several large village gatherings in the area. Every speaker was given the time to speak for as long as he or she chose. At each meeting, we asked those gathered what their major concerns were – an open question, since we were there to hear how best MRG could support the communities via PWC. The participants would first discuss among themselves what topics they as a group should prioritise. The meetings could take over five hours, but the gatherings seemed to be as much about the conversations as the results achieved.

In every single meeting, the participants agreed about what was foremost on their minds – land. Access to land is a vital issue for Maasai, given the very central place reserved in their culture for their livestock and the inherent vulnerability of pastoralism to periods of drought when access to secure water sources is quite literally a matter of life or death.

The Maasai of northern Tanzania have a particularly sad history when it comes to land rights.  In 1959, ten thousand Maasai were displaced from the Serengeti by the British colonial administration in order to create a vast wildlife sanctuary. In exchange, the British established the neighbouring Ngorogoro Conservation Area centred on the crater of the same name; Maasai were permitted to graze their livestock alongside the wild animals there. Sixteen years later, the Maasai who had settled in Ngorogoro were told by the Tanzanian government that they had to leave the crater floor for the sake of the wildlife. Over time and to become more resilient during droughts, Maasai families took to cultivating small plots of land on its slopes. And now, the government is telling those who farm on the rim of the crater and in the highlands around it that they must stop doing so or risk arrest. The government has started to relocate thousands of Maasai out of the Conservation Area.

Ngorogoro Crater, Tanzania

In all our conversations with Maasai communities, I got a strong sense of how helpless Maasai feel in the face of these relocations as well as foreign investors coming in and encroaching on their traditional pastorage. Soitsambu Ward women’s chair Mairetwai Nguya expressed this movingly: “We are living like in a house with no doors. Like people without air to breathe… There is no serious action [on our behalf].” Nguya had even participated in a Maasai delegation that visited the Tanzanian parliament. Commenting on their attempts to seek support from the government, she added, “We must be wrong in their eyes. Why don’t they answer?”

Mairetwai Nguya

One can see a new form of Terra nullius in the general lack of respect towards Maasai land use. According to Alais Ole Morindat, Coordinator of Kimange DSC and an adviser to PWC, the combination of modern land tenure legislation plus repeated evictions are “breaking up specific principles of being and belonging”, namely as represented by centuries-old Maasai communal land use.

The belief appears to be that if Maasai do not establish a clear title to the land, through building permanent homes and other amenities, they do not have the right to remain. This happened when the British established Serengeti National Park. However, as Carol Sorensen, a respected expert at the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum, explained to us, the Serengeti is “not a wild but a cultural landscape”. Pastoralist Maasai have been there a very long time, and according to her, the open landscape is at least in part a result of the grazing of their livestock. Another natural resources expert, Fred Nelson, told Lucy and me when we got back to Arusha that the Maasai are not really nomadic. Their movement across the land is “rubber-banding”, whereby “claims to resources become vested and overlapping at certain times of the year.” A problem now, Fred added, is that Maasai have to range such long distances as “acts of desperation, since the land is so fragmented”.

In Loliondo, one of the Maasai women whom we met said, “We are not even equal to wildlife. The government values wildlife more than human beings.” Given what is going on, who can blame her for saying so?

• Read Part 2 of Carl’s blog post on the Maasai in Tanzania…

Just like a George Clooney movie

Cecile Clerc, MRG’s Head of Fundraising, ruminates on the wonders of international travel.

Have you seen George Clooney’s latest comedy Up in the Air? It’s the one where the main character (played by George) spends his life between planes and revels in his travelling lifestyle? Well, if you saw it, then you will understand how my life has been over the last few months. If you have not seen it, I’m not sure I should recommend it….that would reveal too much about my movie tastes…

Getting back to my travelling…It was not exactly like in the movie…It was actually much better.

First of all, I was not flying across the United States but across the world (Bosnia, Kenya, Uganda and back to Bosnia again). Secondly, the aim of all my trips was not to fire people, as George does in the film, but to meet with MRG partners and discuss new strategies and ideas on how to advocate for the respect of the rights of the minority and indigenous communities that they represent.

MRG has a network of more than 150 partner organizations worldwide so as you can imagine I met very few of them.

Endorois Elders

Still, it was very interesting and inspirational. Also quite cheerful – after all, in two of the countries I visited, MRG and our partners had just achieved amazing legal victories. The outcomes in the Finci case in Bosnia and the Endorois case in Kenya are both direct examples of the successful strategies MRG and our partners use to challenge the discrimination faced by the communities that we support.

In the two regions of the world that I visited, MRG is particularly active and my meetings with partners were to discuss how to strengthen our work further there and how best to support their efforts. In Kenya, we have just launched a big new initiative, supported by the European Commission and focusing on tackling the discrimination that minority and indigenous communities constantly experience.

In the Balkans, we met partners to support them in the design of a new programme that we will closely support. My visit to Uganda was a little different as it enabled me to participate in the recruitment of a Capacity-Building Officer, whose role will be to support the organizational development of our partners in Africa to ensure the sustainability of their work.

All these travels have been great opportunities to also engage with colleagues from MRG’s regional offices in Kampala and Budapest, with whom my contact otherwise is mostly through the relatively cold media of Skype and e-mail.

The last few months may have been busy (unfortunately donors did not stop releasing calls to leave me time to travel) but clearly worth it.

Now, I’m not sure when or where my next trip will be. I once told my colleague Sadiya when she joined the Fundraising team that, “at MRG, fundraisers travel on average every 12 months.” With all the travelling I’ve done recently, I’ve probably reached my quota for the next four years.

Could be a while before you next hear from me…

Cutting a shine on the Endorois dancefloor

Emma Eastwood, MRG’s Trouble in Paradise Campaign Manager, rounds off her trip to the Rift Valley discussing Obama ‘the Kenyan wonder boy’ and struts her stuff dancing with the Endorois. Sign our petition to pressure the Kenyan government to guarantee the Endorois community’s traditional way of life.

Today we take yet another bone-shaking ride up a poor excuse for a road to the Mochongoi Forest, which at around 2500m affords us views of the entire Endorois territory, bordered by dark hills swathed in rain clouds on the horizon.

The forest (which represents about one tenth of their land) is as crucial to the Endorois as the land surrounding Lake Bogoria. In the old days during the dry season the community would migrate up here with their cattle to the plentiful pastures – that was until the government gazetted the Forest in the 1970s, depriving them of yet more of their ancestral homelands.

To an outsider it would seem that the Endorois have plenty of space – only 60, 000 people scattered over a huge area, encompassing dry lowland plains dotted with irrigated maize fields and this highland plateau covered with lush grasslands and conifer groves. Playing devil’s advocate I point this out to Kipkazi, but he’s quick to remind me that the crux of the matter lies in the community’s lack of collective title to any of this land – they live daily with the possibility of being kicked out of their homes at any minute (in much the same way as they were from Lake Bogoria in the 1970s).

High up on the plateau we meet the volunteers who run the Human Rights Office, a humble wooden hut festooned with last year’s Christmas decorations and calendars portraying Obama ‘the Kenyan wonder boy’. Politics – everyone we’ve met so far is obsessed with the subject – the only words in Swahili I can ever make out are Obama, Raila, Kbaki and Obama and more Obama.

The main topic of discussion revolves around whether the presidential candidate will bring about change for Kenyans – so many people are pinning so much hope on this one man. Incidentally in Nairobi we found out that Obama’s father’s family are from the indigenous fisher folk community of the northern shores of Lake Victoria, a group MRG recently featured in our briefing on Kenya.

Paul Chepsoi, the Human Rights Office Chairman, looking incongruously smart in the rural surroundings in his suit and tie, takes us through the history of the dispossession of the Endorois from the Mochongoi Forest (and their continued struggle for the return of their lands). He accompanies us on a tour of the area, which is dotted with traditional mud huts (and some newer dwellings made entirely from zinc sheets, which, although easier to maintain, must become ovens in these temperatures during the day).

We meet the Endorois elders from one of the villages who tell us of how they are forced to graze their cattle on barren lands whilst outsiders have been allowed to settle on more fertile plots.

Volunteers at the Mochongoi Forest Human Rights Office

My education in pastoralist culture continues…I’m told that back in the day an Endorois girl’s family would have received ten cows for her hand in marriage, but nowadays she’s worth only four. My companion Neil wonders whether that’s deflation in the value of girls or inflation in the value of cows…Kipkazi says he would have been a rich man in the old days – he has four daughters!

Later that afternoon our visit to the Endorois community is rounded off by a show of traditional song and dance in a shady clearing backed by an enormous termite mound. After a welcome dance we were shown to a gnarled log and seated to enjoy the show – which features songs about the importance of Lake Bogoria and the community’s hopes for the return of their homeland. I am embarrassingly moved to tears by the spectacle and am thankful for my overlarge sunglasses and the distraction of trying to film and record the proceedings (and keep my dignity when obliged to strut my stuff on the dancefloor…)

Endorois traditional dance

We finish off the afternoon by giving impromptu speeches which we hope in some small way can communicate how, with the support of people like you, the Trouble in Paradise campaign can bring about real change for this resilient and courageous community whose traditional culture and livelihood is under threat.

There’s rubies in them there hills

Apart from having lost their land to make way for a game reserve, the Endorois, like many other indigenous peoples throughout the world, have also been adversely affected by opencast mining. Emma Eastwood, MRG’s Trouble in Paradise Campaign Manager, investigates.

In 2003, without consultation with the community, a private company began ruby mining on the land the Endorois had been forced on to after their eviction from Lake Bogoria. After complaints from the community of diarrhoea and stomach cramps, the Endorois’ sole drinking water sources were tested in June 2006 and found to be contaminated by poisonous chemicals used in the mining process. The Kenyan government forced the mine to shut down a few months later.

Wilson Kipsang Kipkazi, Secretary of the Endorois Welfare Council and our guide whilst visiting the area, eagerly shows me a document he recently found on the internet (which was mysteriously withdrawn soon after) detailing the amount of rubies the company running the mining operation had extracted and the market value of the gems – 1grm of rubies sells for around 135, 000 Ksh (approx US$193). He suspects that the company may never have paid any taxes on the revenue it gained from the mine and that the rubies were extracted under a prospecting license rather than a full mining license.

And so we set out to visit the abandoned mine, a two-hour, dusty ride down a road that often resembled a dry riverbed, scattering baboons as we bumped our way further and further into the bush. How they had ever managed to get huge earthmovers and mining machinery into such an isolated area in the first place baffled me.

After various 4-wheel drive dilemmas we ditched the car and continued on foot down a steep track towards the abandoned mine. Although the whole operation was abandoned over 2 years ago, the landscape was still scarred – exposing the purple earth that indicated the presence of rubies beneath the soil.

We forded the river (the very same one that had poisoned the community…. I put thoughts of bilharzia and elephantitis out of mind as I felt my barefoot way across the slippery rocks) and climbed up to inspect the mining equipment. The whole area had an eerie feeling – what was left of the rusted, derelict machinery had been ransacked and vandalised in the post-election violence according to Kipkazi, a couple of donkeys (looking considerably fatter and well fed than the poor beasts I’d seen toiling away in Morocco a few years back) eyed us docilely from the top of the mine shaft, ubiquitous goats, dotted around the site, bleated mournfully.

Abandoned machinery at the mine site

A small group of Endorois men who’d been tending their goats nearby appeared from nowhere – the sense of remoteness I felt was misleading, the area is far more densely populated than it first appears. Kipkazi and Richard Yegon, an elder from an Endorois village called Kapkuikui who was also accompanying us, chatted with them about their experience of the mine.

Endorois men who live and tend their goats close to the mine

Apparently hardly any of the people from the surrounding area were employed here – and when they were it was only to shovel dirt into the cleaning and sorting machines, they were never allowed to see the rubies. They were also prevented from grazing their goats and cattle within the vicinity of the mine (bear in mind that we’re on Endorois land here and permission was never sought for the mining operations from the community) and were often harassed by security guards.

Whilst Kipkazi and Richard poked around in the dry, purple earth (hoping they might get lucky?) one of the men showed me a ruby the size of a sunflower seed, which would fetch around 1000 Ksh at a local dealers. When I asked him what he thought about the mine he said, “I wish it had never existed.”

A ruby found at the mine site

Kipkazi tells me that a 2006 Mining Bill, which contemplates payment to local communities for mining privileges, is stagnating at a draft stage. Same old story…