SOCIALIST UNITY

Just had this from the useful Intercontinental Cry.

Reminds me of work of the great Kenyan novelist Ngugi in books such as ‘The Wizard of the Crow’. His imaginary republic of Abruria, represents the situation is so many real African countries.
This forest was now threatened by charcoal, paper, and timber merchants who cut down trees hundreds of years old. When it came to forest, indeed to any natural resource the Aburirian State and big American, European, and Japanese companies, in alliance with the local African, Indian, and European rich, were all united by one slogan: A loot-a continua. They knew how to take but not how to give back to the soil. The unregulated clearing of forests affected the rhythm of the rains, and a semidesert was beginning to creep from the prairie to the hills‘ p.201 (2006) Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Wizard of the Crow. Harvill Secker.

This is the solidarity call please respond:

Unless the international community can pressure the Kenyan government to respect Indigenous Rights, in one month’s time, every single Ogiek will be evicted from their traditional lands in the Mau Forest. That’s about 20,000 people!

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga announced on July 29, that every single Ogiek will be evicted from the Mau Forest, in the name of “conservation.” Giving them until mid-September, Odinga said they have one chance to voluntarily abandon their homes. If they don’t leave, they will be arrested.

Survival International reports that police forces have already been stationed around the forest “in preparation” for the eviction.

Survival continues, “the Ogiek are resisting the move. Representatives met with the Kenyan private secretary of Environment earlier this week in a bid to dissuade him from evicting the Ogiek, who say no amount of compensation will undo the damage to their communities if they are forced to move.”

However, it doesn’t appear likely that the Ogiek will be able to overturn the eviction order unless the international community steps in for support.

This is in large part due to the government’s infatuation with the Mau Taskforce report, which explicitly recommends the Ogiek’s eviction without any form of compensation. The report, which failed to identify boundaries and overlooked the government’s obligation to consult the Ogiek, as defined by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, also attempts to invalidate a series of land titles that were granted to members of the Ogiek community in the 1990s.

This isn’t the first time the Ogiek have faced eviction.The government has repeatedly tried to kick them out “since colonial times”—almost always “on the pretext that they are degrading it,” Survival adds.

Resisting, the Ogiek have consistently maintained that it is in fact “the logging companies, and the more recent illegal settlers, who are causing the damage.”

Incidentally, in the same week that eviction was announced, the government gave 49 companies and individuals allotments of land in the Mau forest.

Business masquerading as stewardship at the expense of those who actually take care of the land. Business as usual.

What you can do
As committed as the Ogiek are to defending their rights as Indigenous People, who’ve lived in the Mau forests for centuries, they won’t be able to overturn the eviction without our help.

The Ogiek know this, and so they’ve asked for friends and allies around the world to rise up in solidarity, to “agitate for Ogiek rights in the Mau Forest.”

As a starting point, please write protest letters and petitions to::

Hon. Mwai Kibaki, President, Republic of Kenya, P.O. Box 30050 00100, Nairobi, Kenya, Fax: +254-020-243620, Email: president@statehousekenya.go.ke, Twitter: http://twitter.com/Mwaikibaki
Right Hon. Raila Odinga, Prime Minister, Republic of Kenya, P.O. Box 30050 00100, Nairobi, Kenya, Email: contact@statehousekenya.go.ke
You may also want to contact::

Hon S. Amos Wako, Attorney General, State Law Office, Harambee Avenue, P.0. Box 40112, Nairobi, Kenya, Tel.: +254-020-227461
Hon. Martha W. Karua, E.G.H., M.P., Ministry of Justice, Haile Selassie Avenue, P.O. Box 56057, Nairobi, Kenya, Tel.: 254-20-224029, Email: ps-justice@justice.go.ke