Sunday, May 24, 2009
I arrived in New York City on Monday night of May 11th 2009 from my Caribbean island home of
Barbados, I came here to finish my second year of the Project Access Global Capacity building for
Indigenous Peoples - under the kind sponsorship of the Tribal Link Foundation. One of the guiding
principles reinforced in me by our tutors during the course - was empathy and solidarity with fellow
indigenous brothers and sisters from around the world; and the conviction that we CAN each make a
difference in our own small way...even if merely by the act of informing the non-indigenous majority -
and appealing - solely in my own name - to the many kindhearted souls among them.
I was very fortunate to meet and befriend a mild-mannered, soft spoken gentleman from the Ogiek
People in Kenya, actually he is one of the 3 fellow indigenous roommates for the duration of my stay; I
honestly feel that this heroic yet humble man has never uttered a deceitful word in his entire life. The
Government of Kenya officially recognizes 42 tribes in their country, but the Ogiek (number 43) are
not counted, some politicians there will tell you very matter-of-factually "The Ogiek do not exist" ...but I
am fairly certain that the man whom I have come to know and hold dear to my heart is NOT a figment
of my imagination, nor a specter or phantom. The Ogiek are 20,000 in number in Kenya, with a further
10,000 in neighboring Tanzania, historically they never lived in fixed villages, never farmed, and never
attended school; even today - very few progress beyond the primary level of education...they simply
cannot afford it - for they are hunter-gatherers with only a dwindling forest to provide their every need.
Most tribes in Kenya have at least one tribal member who is either a member of Parliament or Government
official - or is in close contact with one or the other, except the Ogiek - who have no voice beyond the nongovernmental (NGO) level to raise their issues; as one would expect...this has left the Ogiek quite marginalized in Kenyan society. Until the year of Kenyan Independence in 1963, the Ogiek were contentedly hunting, fishing and gathering wild honey in their traditional territory which is the Mau Forest, an area that stretched from the west treeline of the Mau escarpment - to the East treeline below Mount Kenya. Older maps had the swahili name for the Ogiek which is 'Ndorrobo' (which insultingly means 'the people who have nothing')clearly printed in their Mau Forest traditional lands, however newer maps have the name removed and instead the name of another considerably larger encroaching tribe is shown instead.
Ogiek at Supreme Court of Kenya Encouraged by unscrupulous politicians who dole out titles to what is rightfully Ogiek lands in exchange for votes - the new 'landlords' (who are farmers and pastoralists) are systematically clearing the Mau Forest to create crop fields and pastures for their cattle; this is driving the game away and causing the Ogiek to retreat ever deeper into a dwindling green homeland. What is worse, these powerful new settlers have very bluntly told the Ogiek "you are poor, you are few in number, you have
no education, you have no land titles, you have nothing, and if you try to stop us from clearing the
forest we will exterminate you in just one day".
I wish to add my voice to those reminding the government of Kenya that these actions by some public
officials to the detriment of the Ogiek People's inherent and undeniable Rights are in actual fact a gross
violation of the the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the International
Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination - as well as a myriad of International Human
rights Conventions concerning Indigenous Peoples; and we urge the Kenyan Government to rectify this
situation by implementing Article 81 section 2 (e) of "The Proposed New Constitution of Kenya" under
the heading for community Lands to be granted official recognition - which reads as follows: "ancestral
lands traditionally occupied by hunter-gatherer communities".
The Ogiek have inhabited these forests since time immemorial - and they only want to be able to
continue to live in peace and harmony with nature in the only home on God's green Earth that they
have ever known.
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