minorities in focus

Ishbel Matheson hears how the rich resources of Lake Victoria are dwindling, while the Nyala fishing community fails to benefit

Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria, still hasn’t recovered from Kenya’s post-election violence. After nightfall, this normally thriving city, vibrant with music, dancing, eating and drinking, is unusually subdued. The scars of the violence run deep. Indiscriminate police shooting left many dead in Kisumu after the disputed poll results.

Kisumu is the heartland of the Luo tribe - whose main political leader is Raila Odinga. It is widely believed in Kenya (including by many from the dominant Kikuyu tribe) that President Kibaki and his Kikuyu-dominated PNU rigged the election to keep Raila’s ODM out of power.

Despite being the second largest tribe, the Luos have never held Kenya’s top job, and following the Grand Co-alition deal, brokered by Kofi Annan, the presidency remains with the Kikuyus. This still rankles with some Luos - and Raila had a tough job selling the benefits of the co-alition to his people when he travelled to Kisumu a week ago.

But I did not travelled to Kisumu to reflect on the broader Kenyan political picture. I went to see for myself the difficulties faced by the Nyala fishing community, a group who don’t even have official recognition, forget a place in the political life of the country. Despite the fact they provide an essential service, linked to the lake they call home, they do not benefit from the rich resources the lake holds. Instead, this group remains officially unrecognised in Kenya, and is normally assimilated into the bigger Luhya group. And down on the lakeshore, about three hours drive from Kisumu, the fishermen described their concerns about the dwindling fish stocks in Lake Victoria.

They said the lake was fished round the clock, and even as we spoke, the long-prowed boats were skimming over the shimmering blue water, delivering their catch of tilapia and Nile Perch to buyers on the shore. The problem, say Nyalas, is that the business is now so profitable that outsiders from elsewhere in Kenya have moved in. ‘The lake is tired,’ one fisherman told me.

They welcomed the creation of a new fisheries ministry under the new government, but said it was only a first step. They also want to see a better road down to the beaches (the one that I travelled was lousy), and a processing plant in the area, instead of the fish being transported to far-away Nairobi.

And of course, they want a say in how the precious resources of Lake Victoria are managed. After all, they argue, they understand better than anyone the fragility of the lake’s eco-system. Without sustainable practices, they fear future generations of Nyala may not be able to survive from fishing for long.

You can find out more about how different ethnic groups in Kenya were affected by the post-election violence on MRG’s dedicated page Minority Voices from Kenya.

In the second of her blogs from Kenya, Ishbel Matheson sees the living conditions of the Endorois, and has a bad car day

The day began badly. The car broke down, belching black smoke, on the outskirts of Eldoret, where I had been visiting camps for those displaced by the political violence earlier in the year. I was bound for Lake Bogoria in the Rift Valley - one of the premier tourist spots in the country. It is also the ancestral home of the Endorois - but when the area was gazetted as a National Park in the 1970s, the Endorois were evicted, with only paltry promises of compensation.

Endorois rep Wilson Kipkazi was keen that I see for myself the living conditions of his people. But it was well after 2pm before we arrived at Lake Bogoria, picked up two local councillors who had been waiting since early morning, and set off towards the Endorois villages. It was a pretty, but rough road that threaded through acacia trees, bound for a now-defunct ruby mine. But it was an encounter with a steep river crossing that proved to be our undoing.

The car lurched down a steep bank, into a shallow river… raced up the bank at the other side and… slid back down again. The driver, John Kangethe, tried again… but to no avail. And the tricky issue was that, not only could he not go forward, he didn’t have enough room to turn and race back up the other side.

Worst case scenarios flashed through my mind: hours of fruitless pushing, shoving stones under wheels, and oh yes, the familiar prospect of everyone but everyone, including the watoto (children), becoming experts on four-wheel driving, and shouting multiple, conflicting advice to the driver on which way to turn the wheel. The councillor, of course, was reluctant to go back - because he had arranged a community meeting on the other side - so insisted on a couple more valiant efforts up the bank on the other side. But once the gear box started to whine oddly, I foresaw a night in the car, in the middle of nowhere, beckoning. I started to wave my arms madly and shout, ‘No, no, STOP!’Although loathe to give up the sport of trying to get a 4×4 car up a river bank, everyone reluctantly agreed, and a temporary road in the river bank was cleared to allow the car to drive out.

The second councillor wanted us to continue to his community. ’It’s not far’he assured me, as I looked dubiously at my watch. 4pm. ’Just round there’, he said flapping his hands vaguely. Two hours later, the sun sinking spectacularly, in purple, crimson, and pink hues on the other side of the Rift, we were still grinding up a punishing escarpment, heading further and further away from civilisation. Anxiety beset me. Driving at night in Africa is always a really bad idea - especially when thunderclouds are in the sky, and there is no road to speak of. Finally, I said ‘We really, really do have to go back’. The councillor and Kipkazi conferred and the councillor made a couple of phone calls. Yes folks; even in the middle of nowhere, these days there is a mobile telephone network in Kenya. At the next bend, we came to a village where a community group had been waiting for about eight hours, for our arrival.

The men (and one woman) gathered in a little clearing, and a bench was brought for us, and as the last light faded from the sky, they explained the difficulties: the cattle-rustling Pokot were launching raids into their traditional lands, killing some people, and leading to greatly increased insecurity; the more frequent cycles of drought had also decimated herds, making it difficult to find the funds to send children to school; the nearest hospital was 60 kilometres away, so the community had built a dispensary and health clinic from their own funds; but the government had failed to staff it, or give it any supplies. Indeed, apart from a recent visit from the new District Councillor, they had not seen a politician in their area, or a government official since 2005. At heart, this small community shares many of the problems experienced by minorities around the world. In a country where political power flows from economic muscle, their ancient cattle-herding traditions, their remote location, has left them on the very fringes of society.

We spent barely half an hour with them, but they were unbelievably grateful that someone, anyone, from the outside world had come to listen to their story. Back in the car again, we lurched back down the escarpment. It was pitch dark, and Kipkazi and the councillor were conferring in their local language. Kipkazi turned to me, and told me that the place we had stopped on the way up to take pictures of the Rift was in fact a place where the Pokot hung out to ambush people. We passed two members of the Il Chamus tribe, armed with shotguns, guarding their villages from Pokot attacks. At that point, I felt things couldn’t get any worse. But they did. In the couple of hours since we had driven up, it had rained in the Valley. The ground was now dangerously soft, and we had to creep forward while the councillor leant out of the window, peering at the ground in the pitch dark, and guiding the car forward. After an hour and a half of nerve-wracking travel, including the further revelation that we were actually travelling on an ‘unofficial’ road, that the alternative was too dangerous, we eventually reached terra firma, and safety.

Later, in the hotel, I told Kipkazi that I’d been worried that we’d never get the car out of the river bed. He laughed and said. ‘Oh Cynthia and Clive got stuck for three hours’. (Cythia Morel is MRG’s legal cases officer, and Clive Baldwin was formerly head of international advocacy). ‘But,’ he continued, ‘it was fine when I took Sian,’ (an external evaluator for the MRG legal cases programme). A thought began to creep into my head. Had every single MRG staff member who had visited the Endorois gone down the ruby road? Was this some kind of initiation rite? Kipkazi confirmed he had also taken Samia Khan, our head of programmes, on the same torturous journey. ‘But,’ he said ‘Paile (MRG’s African Commission project officer) hasn’t been.’ He shot me a side-long twinkly glance. ‘She’s in my sights’. Paile, you have been warned!

Ishbel Matheson, MRG’s Head of Policy and Communications, reports back from a trip to Kenya to research the situation of minorities following the recent violence

From the moment I landed, the effects of the recent convulsive violence were felt. Politics are an obsession. When the evening news comes on, busy restaurants and bars fall silent. Everyone is trying to figure out whether the Grand Coalition government, bringing together the opposition ODM and President Kibaki’s PNU, is going to last. Although it is early days - it looks pretty fragile. Already the opposite wings of the coalition have publicly contradicted each other, on key issues such as how to bring the perpetrators of the violence to justice. Every detail of senior politicians movements, and statements, are pored over. For example, when the new Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, went to ’sell’ the new government in his heartland of Western Kenya at the weekend, it was immediately noted that no senior PNU official accompanied him. How much of a partnership is this government, in reality, Kenyans are asking themselves.

They are, however, anxious that the terrible ethnic violence doesn’t return. On a drive up through the Rift Valley, from Nakuru to Eldoret, the landscape was scattered with sobering reminders of what the violence cost - in human terms. Burnt-out shells of buildings - shops, sheds, homes - dot the side of the road. Farms have been abandoned. Here, the Kikuyu ethnic group was targeted by the Kalenjin. Scores of lives were lost and tens of thousands displaced. Although the largest ethnic group in Kenya (and one which has been dominant politically and economically since independence), the Kikuyu are a minority in this part of the Kenya.

Weeks have passed since the last violence, but no one feels secure. 20,000 Kikuyu are still camped in Eldoret’s showground. The government is threatening to forcibly relocate them back home, but many are simply too fearful. They say there must be talks with Kalenjin village elders first, to get guarantees about the return of property and security. On the Kalenjin side, there are calls for those arrested in the wake of the violence to be freed as a gesture of reconciliation - something the Kikuyu see as completely unacceptable. Depressingly, although everyone agrees that tribalism in Kenya has got completely out of control, and that the political class are mostly to blame, there has nevertheless been a hardening of ethnicity. One Kikuyu told me the main message his community drew from the violence is that “the Kikuyu weren’t strong enough…we won’t be caught out like this again”. It is simply too early to say yet whether Kenya is on the road to recovery - or to ruin.

You can find out more about how different ethnic groups in Kenya were affected by the post-election violence on MRG’s dedicated page Minority Voices from Kenya.

Whilst attending the 43^rd session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Swaziland MRG’s International Human Rights Officer for Africa, Paile Chabane, continues with her work to facilitate the setting up of an African Minorities Forum

I wake up not feeling too well… have a bad headache and already wonder if I will be able to make it to our meeting in the afternoon. But other responsibilities force me to get up anyway and go into Mbabane town. Again I am struck at how unfamiliar this place feels.

Our side event is scheduled to start at 3pm and CEMIRIDE are busy finalizing the arrangements. Having arrived three days earlier, which afforded them the opportunity to attend the three-day NGO Forum which precedes the official Commission session, they say they managed to sell the idea to participants and so we could expect a satisfactory turn out. In the end, our event attracts about 22 people but sadly the Commissioners are busy with other meetings, and in spite of this being in their backyard, none of them are able to attend.

Our event programme includes a panel discussion with representatives of African linguistic, ethnic and religious minorities. I am moved when linguistic minority reps talk of being forced to abandon their identities. Apparently they are ashamed to be identified with their community because it is considered inferior. In order to participate and be accepted in the economic, social and political aspects of local life they choose to speak the language of the neighbouring, more dominant tribe. With respect to religious minorities, the representative indicated that in the wake of terror threats and fears, more rigorous requirements have been put in place when Muslims apply for travel documents and applicants have even been denied travel permits because they are immediately assumed to be linked to terrorists. This is in Africa!

The main objective of the event is to give shape to the idea of an African minorities forum. However participants emphasize that in order for it to succeed, it would need the true support and ownership of all those for whom it was established, going beyond the African Commission project which convened it, which will be coming to an end soon.

Following the meeting, we learn some interesting information about Swaziland, which serves to emphasize the many facets of this country. You may know that Swaziland is famous for its strict adherence to culture and tradition. So it’s certainly a very fascinating revelation to learn that there is an adult-only establishment not too far from where we are staying. It certainly sparks a lot of curiosity in some to go see for themselves and verify the existence of said establishment. Details of just how far this curiosity went shall be withheld on the principle and agreement commonly understood among the group that what happens in Swaziland, stays in Swaziland!

Paile Chabane, MRG’s International Human Rights Officer for Africa, revisits the 43^rd session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Swaziland

Once again my work has flung me back to the Southern region of Africa that is home… in Swaziland this time, where the 43^rd Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is being hosted. In fact, the tiny, beautiful, mountainous kingdom of Swaziland is a twin to my own country… the tiny, beautiful, mountainous kingdom of Lesotho, although if the truth were told the two countries are different in so many ways. In fact quite possibly the similarities end at the three adjectives I have referred to above: tiny, mountainous, kingdom. I often have to make the distinction between this kingdom and my own - Swazi culture is known for its colourful, controversial stories (such as the king and his many wives – our king has just the one!). And indeed the political and governance systems of the two states are very different. Returning to the subject of the monarchy - in Swaziland the king is the head of state as well as the government, while the king of Lesotho is a constitutional ceremonial monarch.

From a very young age I have visited Swaziland, mainly for family visits, since we have relatives here. But on this trip my presence here feels different… I have to figure things out on my own (and with the nine other colleagues and partners with whom I was attending the session as part of the MRG African Commission project). I have to interact with the place and the people beyond the orchestrated family occasions context. The funny thing is that it really feels like I am here for the very first time. In spite of the long intertwined history of the two countries (which together with Botswana have commonly come to be known in the region as Boleswa - Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland), I have never really been able to wrap my mind around Swaziland. Every time I would think of Swaziland images of lots of trees, rain and dense mist at night would come to mind. Well, the trees are still here since Swaziland once had the biggest man made forest, but fortunately the rain and mist seem to have disappeared.

Anyway, here I am and it’s important to not lose sight of the reasons why I’m here this time. The first good news is that the hotel is quite nice… something which we have learned to not take for granted after a not so pleasant experience at the last session which still lingers fresh on one’s mind months later! Tomorrow there will be a side event which will try to advance the discussions from the seminar we had in March in Pretoria on minorities and minority rights in Africa (see previous blogs The show must go on and My work is done…). In particular, we will discuss a minorities’ forum in Africa, which was one of the recommendations of the seminar. We hope to launch the forum at the November session of the African Commission.

MRG has supported five project partners who were at the seminar to attend this session in order to undertake further lobbying, so in total we have a formidable team of 10 ready to take on the Commission.

Being the last one to arrive in Swaziland the first thing I need to do is find my partners… there seems to be no sign of them… how hard can it be to find at least one of the other 9 members of the group? Then I learn… they have gone to a barbeque…

MRG’s Media Officer, Farah Mihlar, gets to grips with how climate change is affecting indigenous communities at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Co-incidentally the focus of the morning TV news in New York was also on the environment. It was amazing how the debate on television news in a capital city (on the east coast) was simplified into entertaining little quizzes on whether you should do your dishes by machine or hand?! I would have thought that the world’s biggest polluter had moved beyond this level of discussion - there were no experts, there was no analysis, there weren’t even statistics - so a comfortable avoidance of where US households stand with their carbon foot print.

But inside the UN the debate was very different. At the Indigenous Peoples Forum I was attending, the communities contributing the least to pollution were explaining how they were suffering the most.

The Inuit and Sami communities who live in the Arctic across Alaska and Greenland and Scandinavia are severely affected by melting ice caps. Patricia Cochran of the Inuit Circumpolar Council explains to me that there have been cases where peoples and villages have simply vanished as a resulting of the melting snow. Sami reindeer herders speak of how their everyday lives are affected as warmer winters prevent the reindeer climbing to the top of the mountains to find their food.

Indigenous activist from Siberia (left) talking to
pastoralists from Kenya

Further down in Ethiopia and Kenya pastoralist communities are finding the desserts hotter as a result of longer and more persistent droughts (I have pledged to stop complaining about the hot summers in Europe). They are dependent on their livestock, much of which is being lost to the drought together with people who die of the heat and starvation. The consequences are far reaching because in some cases men and specially women face exploitation as they migrate to cities and struggle to make a living.

In the pacific indigenous communities explain how the underwater sea life is for them similar to the forests that the South American Amazon dwellers are fighting to protect. For pacific tribes they are dependent on the fish and other sea-creatures who are affected by the rising water temperature that in turn is affecting the entire eco-system.

Every community represented at the UN from all regions of the world had their own unique story of how climate change was affecting them. Climate change for many years has been seen as a strictly environmental issue though later accepted as also a developmental issue. It is only now being recognized as a human rights issue but looking at it under a human rights lens is fairly new territory for many and that was clear even at the UN forum.

But for the indigenous communities it is less relevant how the debate is framed. For them the stark reality is that their communities are facing (or in some cases have already faced) a threat to life, development, self-determination, culture, etc. In some cases there is even a fear that entire communities may become extinct or at the least communities will lose fundamental aspects of their language, culture and literature that are so closely linked to nature.

This I think was the main point of emphasis at the forum - the exceptional, close relationship indigenous peoples have with the environment. Their dead live on in the soil, their Gods are in the waterfalls and the rivers, their spirits are in the wind. Their elders can interpret nature and have a way of communicating with the environment and although climate change challenges some aspects of this traditional knowledge these communities argue that their knowledgebase is diverse and they have historical experience of adaptation.

Hence the argument goes like this - because Indigenous peoples are the worst affected by climate change yet have the closest relationship to nature any solution on climate change should include them.

Getting world leaders grappling with issues of carbon footprints and CO2 emissions to also recognize this human cost is going to be tough one.

MRG’s Media Officer Farah Mihlar is learning about indigenous communities at the UN in New York

Aaahhh New York!!

There is just something about the Big Apple that makes it impossible to resist a trip here even if it comes at the busiest of times. It’s difficult to pin down exactly what it is about New York – something to do with the buzz, the vibrancy, the colour, the anonymity, the attitude, the art, culture, knowledge on offer – all of which makes it special even to someone who does not easily appreciate western capitalist culture and symbolism!

But this is not about New York (I eventually did wake up to the fact that I was not on paid holiday). I am here to attend the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFI) focusing this year on the impact of climate change on indigenous peoples. Following the release of a recent publication on climate change and minorities, MRG is looking to expand its work on how the scourge of our times affects minority and indigenous communities. We have chosen this issue as one of our online campaigns for this year and the UN forum, which brings together UN member states, experts and indigenous community representatives, could not be missed.

My mission: keep my antennas up, put on my journalist cap (never succeeded in getting rid of that), network but most importantly understand the issues, figure out what the communities want so we at MRG can better represent them.

Based on my experiences with other UN mechanisms such as the Human Rights Council (HRC) I was ready for an element of chaos, prepared for the politics, the diplomacy, the manoeuvring that often stains the work of the UN. But I was quite pleasantly surprised.

The first taste of what was to come was at the registration queue at the entrance to the UN headquarters in New York. Men and women in crisp suits were replaced by people wearing the most unusual, colourful shirts, dresses, sarongs, feathered hats, turbans and shawls woven, as they explain, in centuries of history and tradition. They were accessorized with beaded chains, metal medallions, feathers, flowers all heavily symbolic – as a young reindeer herder from the Sami community in Finland explains the shape of the button in their belts go as far as to indicate if they are married or not.

Two young Sami reindeer herders discuss climate change

In the main conference room the usual delegate boards naming member states are replaced by scribbled boards titled Batwa, Sami, rainforest people, Elmolo… hundreds and hundreds of different indigenous peoples from across the world proudly representing their status as the original inhabiters of the world.

The uniqueness of the UNPFI was stark. This is not a forum where states dominate with diplomats at the edge of their seats waiting to attack a country or defend their own. In fact this is forum where state parties are confined to one corner of the room and a majority of the delegates pay no respect to strictly defined borders. They often represent nations unrecognized as states and their communities spread across regions and countries. This is a forum where proceedings start not with acknowledgement to the UN or to the host country but by giving thanks to the Onondaga people, native Americans who were the original inhabitants of the land the UN is situated on (sorry, no thanks to George W Bush – not even for the visas). Elders, who are revered and respected in indigenous communities bless the forum and open the session by giving thanks to mother earth, the waterfalls and rivers, the thunder that brings rain, the sun and the air.

This is an event where the superpowers have no place and the heroes are those who defy the mainstream. Bolivia’s new Indigenous President Evo Morales, got a thundering applause and long standing ovation as he took up contentious issues of historic injustice to indigenous people and recommended a shift away from capitalist developmental models. It is a forum that not just introduces one to a whole different world but to vastly different world views – many issues that make our headlines have little relevance here – these are people that subscribe to entirely different belief systems (Samuel Huntington may want to rewrite ‘Clash of civilizations’ after a day of being here). Here you can not accuse ‘Americans’ of invading Iraq. Americans they will say are confined to reserves and national parks and had no role in invading Iraq.

For me it has been one of the most humbling and exciting learning. Throughout my work in human rights, coming from a country affected by conflict myself, I have grappled with issues of ethnicity and religion in identity formation and issues of nationhood. But this is another paradigm. The usual human rights jargon of oppression and injustice take on entirely different dimension.

I feel like making a run to a book store but I realize few history books and atlases will be accurate. The story is with the people themselves.

So I am off now, equipped with voice recorder and camera.

New mission: Climate change plus, plus.