We, the No REDD in Africa Network and the undersigned organizations and individuals, strongly condemn the massive evictions and forced relocation of the Sengwer Indigenous People, one of the few remaining hunter-gatherers of the world, from their ancestral home in Kenya’s Cherangany Hills, which are linked to World Bank-funded REDD, a land grabbing carbon offset scam. The militarized forced relocation of Sengwer People proves the urgency of our demand to definitively cancel REDD (Reducing Emissions Deforestation and Degradation).
Please see our report: Kenya: Preparing for REDD in the Embobut Forest and forcing Sengwer People “into extinction.” [i]
Sengwer spokesman Yator Kiptum denounced the “disaster” caused by combined force of the Kenya Forest Service and Administration Police, a paramilitary unit of the police, which is now evicting the Sengwer not just from the Embobut Forest but from the entirety of the Cherangany Hills, destroying property and burning homes. “The government of Kenya is forcing us into extinction,” he said.[ii]
The government of Kenya calls the Sengwer People ‘squatters,’ despite the fact that they and their ancestors have lived in the Cherangany Hills since time immemorial; and that Article 63d of the Kenyan constitution (2010) grants them inalienable rights to their ancestral lands.
We take great exception to the [iii]press statement issued by the World Bank in which it attempts to distance itself from the forced relocation of the Sengwer People. The cause and effect is perfectly clear; the bank in its highly controversial role as both carbon credit financier and broker is aiding and abetting the forced relocation of an entire Indigenous People through its Natural Resource Management Plan which includes REDD in Cherangany Hills. According to international human rights law such as the Convention on Genocide, forced relocation of ethnic or racial minorities is a very grave violation and can constitute genocide.
What is perhaps most disturbing about the statement is the World Bank’s offer to the Kenyan government, “to share best practices in resettlement in line with its safeguard policies. These seek to improve or restore the living standards of people affected by involuntary resettlement.” The World Bank is both admitting its complicity in the forced relocation of the Sengwer People as well as offering to collude with the Kenyan government to cover-up cultural genocide. Once again, the World Bank is showing its crude, paternalistic, colonial nature and sheer racist arrogance.
From [iv]2007 till date, there have been almost yearly forced evictions of the Sengwer People with the latest evictions being the most violent of them all. It is no coincidence that the evictions began in 2007, the very same the year that the World Bank’s Natural Resource Management Project started.[v]
In 2013, the Sengwer People moved to court to file an injunction against their imminent removal from their homes and in May an interim injunction was secured at the Eldoret high-court. These orders were further extended in November and on 18 January 2014; the same court issued further orders requiring that the police arrest anyone breaching the injunction until the matter of community rights to their land is resolved. The government of Kenya has continued to ignore these court orders, taking upon itself the role of judge and prosecutor of the Sengwer People’s case.
The Sengwer People are being accused of encroaching on and destroying the forests in the Cherangany Hills, leading to the drying up of rivers that provide water to nearby towns and villages. The government of Kenya states that evicting these ‘squatters’ is the only way to begin the ‘conservation’ of the ecosystems and specially the forests in the area. This is a complete obfuscation of the truth. The Sengwer People has always preserved these ecosystems in their ancestral land by practicing sustainable living and are now facing complete annihilation under the guise of ‘conservation’ and REDD.
The Kenyan government insists on not distinguishing between the Sengwer People and a large group of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), including those affected by the 2007-2008 post-election violence, and victims of landslides who have settled in the Embobut Forest area. The government’s refusal to make this distinction is an attempt to falsely label the Sengwer People as “squatters.”
REDD driving Land Grabs and Forced Relocation of Indigenous Peoples
More importantly, we are alarmed at the obvious connection between these evictions and the World Bank’s funding of the Kenyan government’s REDD+ ‘readiness’ program in the Cherangany Hills through the bank’s Natural Resource Management project (NRMP). REDD is a highly controversial emissions reduction scheme that uses forests, plantations and lands in the Global South as carbon offsets and supposed sponges of the fossil fuel carbon emissions and pollution from the Global North.
The head of conservation at the Kenya Forest Service, Mr. Solomon Mibei, is on record stating that “REDD+ mechanism is a future option.” He also admitted that the KFS is doing carbon financing workshops with communities. “At the moment, the KFS is conducting workshops with communities living around the Embobut forest and the Kakamega forest to educate them on carbon financing.” Furthermore, the Kenya Forest service has been designated as the REDD+ focal point for the coordination of national REDD+ readiness activities.
REDD+ allows rich polluting countries to shirk their historical responsibilities for and contribution to the climate crisis we now face by enabling them to shift the burden to ‘developing’ countries like Kenya. Instead of reducing emissions at source, which is the only sustainable way to stop the climate catastrophe, such schemes allow them to pretend to reduce emissions elsewhere in the world. Unfortunately as the Sengwer case shows, it is the poorest and most marginalized in developing countries who not only suffer the most from climate change but also the negative effects of the false solutions to climate change like REDD. These false solutions enable global economic interests to benefit from massive land grabs and the abuse of human and environmental rights.
The World Bank project initially set out or rather claimed to address the land claims of the indigenous communities, as part of the process of ensuring the fair and effective management of the Cherangany Hills forest. This was welcomed by the Sengwer People who thought it would be a great opportunity to address the decades of marginalization, regarding the access to their ancestral lands which they had faced under the hands of successive Kenyan governments.
This initiative was soon dropped by the bank which claimed that it was a ‘too complicated’ exercise but at the same time continued to fund the Kenyan government’s REDD+ work in the Cherangany Hills, thereby further entrenching the marginalization of the Sengwer People.[vi]
[vii]In January 2013, members of the Sengwer People made a formal complaint to the World Bank’s Inspection Panel, the organ tasked with the duty of reviewing the impacts of the projects funded by the World Bank. [viii]The Inspection Panel visited Kenya in May 2013 to assess the eligibility of the complaint and members of the Sengwer People described the loss of access to much of their ancestral lands as well as their traditional right to protect the forests which they have always depended on for their survival. The Inspection Panel found the complaint to be admissible and a full investigation was recommended, with the final outcome of the investigation expected by the end of the first quarter of 2014.
Unfortunately, the abuses against the Sengwer People are not an exception. The violent eviction of the Ogiek People from the Mau Forest for UNEP-funded REDD is another example of Indigenous Peoples in Kenya being evicted for REDD.[ix]
The No REDD in Africa Network’s [x]Maputo Declaration (2013), denounced that REDD-type projects are leading to displacement of forest dependent communities, servitude, killings, repression and other human rights abuses, and the Sengwer Peoples’ plight is a clear example of what we condemn and why there must be no REDD in Africa.
The No REDD in Africa Network has repeatedly denounced that REDD+ is not merely a false solution to climate change, but is emerging as a new form of colonialism, economic subjugation and a driver of land grabs so massive that they may constitute a continent grab.[xi] We must defend the continent from carbon colonialism.
The forced relocation of the Sengwer People by the AK-47 touting Kenya Forest Service is reminiscent of the forced removals of rural communities by the then South African government during the apartheid era. We had hoped that this kind of history would not repeat itself in the continent. Here, then, are our demands:
Demands to Governments and the United Nations:
- We demand that governments, companies, carbon traders and the United Nations including the World Bank, UN-REDD, UNEP, UNDP and other agencies, programmes and funds of the United Nations immediately cancel REDD and other carbon offset schemes in all their forms, including REDD readiness, pilot projects and implementation as well as legislative initiatives to gut legal frameworks on human rights, forests and land tenure for REDD throughout the world.
- We request that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special Adviser on Genocide, the UN Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples and the UN Expert Mechanism on Indigenous Peoples immediately coordinate, issue statements and take measures to halt the forced relocation and extinction of the Sengwer People, as well as propose concrete measures for the recovery of their territory, reparations, justice and guarantees of non-repetition.
- We request that the Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Special Adviser on Genocide prepare a report on how REDD and carbon offsets are causing violations of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples including the right to life, the right to self-determination, rights to land, territory and natural resources and the right to not be relocated or subjected to any act of genocide among others; and how REDD and the Green Economy must not be the basis of the post-2015 development agenda.
- We demand the creation of an International Truth Commission on the forced relocation of the Sengwer People and abuses associated with REDD, REDD-type projects, the Clean Development Mechanism and carbon trading and carbon offsets in the world; composed of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and experts on human rights, the environment and the climate.
Demands to Government of Kenya:
1. We demand that the government of Kenya immediately and definitively halt the evictions of the Sengwer Indigenous People, return their ancestral lands and provide full reparations and compensation.
3. We demand that the government of Kenya provide guarantees to the Sengwer People that they will not be attacked again and that their cultural, spiritual as well as their human and environmental rights will not be abused in the future.
2. We demand that the government of Kenya should issue a formal apology to the Sengwer, duly recognizing these law-abiding citizens of Kenya of as the owners and best custodians of their territory and forests in the Cherangany Hills.
4..We demand that impunity not reign and that the intellectual authors and perpetrators of the evictions of the Sengwer People be brought to justice and sanctioned.
Demand to African Governments
- We demand that African governments halt any and all complicity with the Continent Grab for carbon offsets by defending national sovereignty and immediately canceling REDD and other offset projects.
Request to African Commission
- We invite the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to prepare a report on the impact of REDD and carbon offsets on the Indigenous Peoples, local communities and land grabbing in Africa.
In closing, we cordially request that the Government of Kenya, the United Nations and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to respond to these demands and requests, and take the corresponding action.
For the No REDD in Africa Network,
Nnimmo Bassey
Anabela Lemos
Cc:
President Uhuru Kenyatta
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim
UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Navi Pillay
UN Special Adviser on prevention of genocide Adama Dieng
UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples James Anaya
UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition Pablo de Greiff
UN Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect Jennifer Welsh
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples
African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and its Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities in Africa
Coordinator of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Programme on Indigenous Peoples Dr. Albert Barume
UN-REDD Programme Policy Board and Secretariat
UNEP, Executive Director Achim Steiner
UNDP, Administrator Helen Clark
[i] Kenya: Preparing for REDD in the Embobut Forest and forcing Sengwer People “into extinction.” http://www.no-redd-africa.org/index.php/27-countries/kenya/96-kenya-preparing-for-redd-in-the-embobut-forest-and-forcing-sengwer-people-into-extinction
[ii] Kenyan government forcing us into extinction’: evictions of Sengwer tribe escalate , Survival International, 24 January 2014 http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/9932
[iii] World Bank Statement – http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/02/06/world-bank-statement-on-embobut-forest-and-cherangany-hills-evictions-in-kenya
[iv]World Bank Inspection Panel, Report and Recommendation KENYA: Natural Resource Management Project (P095050), May 29, 2013, page 70
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/05/31/000442464_20130531104013/Rendered/PDF/779590IPR0P09500lPN0REQUEST0RQ01302.pdf
[v] PROJECT APPRAISAL DOCUMENT ON A PROPOSED CREDIT IN THE AMOUNT OF SDR 46.0 MILLION (US$68.5 MILLION EQUIVALENT) TO THE GOVERNMENT OF KENYA FOR A NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PROJECT February 26, 2007
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2007/03/12/000020953_20070312104941/Rendered/PDF/37982.pdf
[vi] Kenya defies its own courts: torching homes and forcefully evicting the Sengwer from their ancestral lands, threatening their cultural survival
http://www.forestpeoples.org/topics/legal-human-rights/news/2014/01/kenya-defies-its-own-courts-torching-homes-and-forcefully-evi
[vii]How the World Bank is implicated in today’s Embobut Evictionshttp://www.forestpeoples.org/sites/fpp/files/news/2013/12/How%20the%20World%20Bank%20is%20implicated%20in%20today%E2%80%99s%20Embobut%20Evictions.pdf
[viii] World Bank Inspection Panel, Report and Recommendation KENYA: Natural Resource Management Project (P095050), May 29, 2013, page 70 http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/05/31/000442464_20130531104013/Rendered/PDF/779590IPR0P09500lPN0REQUEST0RQ01302.pdf
[ix] The Worse REDD-type Projects in Africa: Continent Grab for Carbon Colonialism http://no-redd-africa.org/index.php/16-redd-players/84-the-worst-redd-type-projects-in-africa-continent-grab-for-carbon-colonialism
[x] No REDD in Africa Network Maputo Declaration http://no-redd-africa.org/index.php/declarations/42-maputo-statement-no-redd-in-africa-network-declaration-on-redd
[xi] African Unite against New Form of Colonialism http://no-redd-africa.org/index.php/news/14-africans-unite-against-new-form-of-colonialism-no-redd-network-born