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Botswana: Bushmen denied right to enter the CKGR
January 2007
The first group of Bushmen who tried to return to their land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) after the court victory in December 2006 have been stopped by wildlife scouts.
 Read the article
Read the FPK press release
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Botswana: Botswana NGO CKGR Coalition urges Bushmen and the Government to negotiate
January 2007
Recognizing that the Court ruling has not dealt with fundamental developmental issues, the Botswana Non-Governmental (NGO) Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) Coalition emphasizes that negotiation between the affected parties remains a viable option.
Read the press statement by Botswana NGO CKGR Coalition
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Botswana: The President asks Bushmen not to go back to CKGR
January 2007
Despite the High Court ruling in December 2006, President Mogae was asking people not to go back to the CKGR at a meeting at New Xade resettlement camp. However, a group of Bushmen have returned to their ancestral hunting grounds despite a heavy police presence and attempts to persuade them to stay in relocation camps.
Read the press statement by FPK
Read the article on The Independent
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Namibia: New report on San land rights
February 2007
A report by the Legal Assistance Centre highlights the San's dispossession of land and their status as the most marginalised ethnic group in the country.
Read the article
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Africa: New book on the San
February 2007
"Updating the San: Image and Reality of an African People in the 21st Century" is an important new work on Botswana and Namibia. The book is edited by Robert K. Hitchcock, Kazunobu Ikeya, Megan Biesele,
Richard B. Lee.
Read more
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Kenya: Newsletter focusing on the World Social Forum 2007
February 2007
CEMIRIDE has published a newsletter focusing mainly on the World Social Forum held in Kenya in January and the Kenya Pastoralists Week in December 2006.
Download the newsletter (PDF)
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Mali: No progress since signing of the "Alger Accords"
February 2007
The situation of the Tuareg population in Mali remains precarious, and not much progress seems to have taken place since the signing of the "Alger Accords" in July 2006. The Preseident of the Congrés Mondial Amazigh has visited the area and released a press statement.
Read the press statement
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Kenya: Indigenous communities oppose wildlife policy draft
March 2007
Kenyan indigenous communities living adjacent to wildlife ecological zones are adding their voices to the recently released wildlife policy draft. Of great concern to them is the failure of the National Steering committee to incorporate their views which the committee collected during the regional consultative workshops held countrywide between November 2006 and January 2007. In a press conference that was held on March 1, 2007, and a subsequent peaceful demonstration that was planned on March 14, 2006, of which the later was blocked by the police, the communities are calling for the expunging of the so called wildlife uses from the policy draft.
Read the press release
Read the letter to the Minister for Tourism and Wildlife explaining the position of indigenous communities
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Africa: Expansion of game parks threatens indigenous peoples
March 2007
UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people notes that indigenous communities in Africa, such as Kenya and Botswana, are on the brink of destruction due to the expansion of national game parks and insufficient law enforcement.
Read the article
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Angola: First Angolan San Conference
April 2007
On April 27, 2007, San and non-San representatives gathered in Lubango, Angola, for the First Angolan San Conference. The conference had been convened by OCADEC under the auspices of the Provincial governments of Kunene, Huila and Kuando Kubango and its purpose was to inform and reflect upon the situation of the !Kung San communities in these three provinces.
Read more about the conference |
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Tanzania: Survival of the Hadzabe people threatened
June 2007
Efforts by the Tanzania UAE Safari Ltd Company to secure a hunting concession in the Yaida Valley in Karatu District of the United Republic of Tanzania present a direct and serious threat to the survival of one of Africa’s oldest surviving language and ethnic groups, the Hadzabe. Loss of the Yaida Valley would devastate the Hadzabe and lead to their disappearance; a fate already experienced by the Aasax and Akiek peoples.
Read IPACC's briefing note (pdf)
Read afrol News' article online
Read Washington Post's article online
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Botswana: Diamond mining to be developed on Bushmen's land
July 2007
Gem Diamonds, which recently acquired the Gope mine in Botswana's Kalahari Desert from De Beers for US$34 million, has announced that it will consult with native San Bushmen regarding the development of the site. A court judgment in December ruled that hundreds of San Bushmen had been illegally forced out of their homes in the Kalahari game reserve and were given permission to return. During the court case, De Beers made a considerable effort to claim that the removal had nothing to do with diamond mining – a claim upheld by the High Court which found that the removal was for reasons other than diamond mining.
Read IWGIA's update
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Republic of Congo: Pygmy musicians housed in a zoo
August 2007
Twenty pygmy musicians who have come to Brazzaville to perform at a Pan-African music festival organized by the government of Congo Brazaville, have been put up in a tent in the zoo. Other artists performing at the same festival are accomodated in city hotels. Human rights organizations compare the situation with earlier centuries' displays of pygmies in zoos, where they were meant to entertain the public much in the same way as the animals surrounding them there.
Read the story on BBC-online (web link)
Read a protest letter from the indigenous rights organization ADPPA (PDF - in French)
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Kenya: Human Rights groups criticize delayed endorsement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
August 2007
Although indigenous pastoralists and hunter-gatherer communities in Kenya occupy close to 80% of the country's land mass, they still lack visibility and suffer poor governance. At the international level, the Kenya government hesitate to endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is up for voting in the UN General Assembly before the present session ends in September.
Read the Kenya Times' online story on the issue (web link)
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Kenya: IL Chamus demand their own constituency before General Election in December
August 2007
The IL Chamus community in Kenya has petitioned the government and the Electoral Commission of Kenya to create a constituency for them before the General Election, in accordance with the Constitutional Court judgement of December 2006.
Read CEMIRIDE's update (pdf)
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Kenya: Border nightmare for Pokot herdsmen
August 2007
The Pokot community living on the Kenya-Uganda border has suffered great atrocities and other human rights abuses from the Ugandan Peoples Defence Force (UPDF – the national army of Uganda) in the past three weeks. 10 Pokot herdsmen have died in the raids, more than 2000 have been displaced, and 24 have been abducted and detained in Ugandan army barracks.
Read CEMIRIDE'S update (pdf)
Read The Standard's online article about the release of two hostages (web link)
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Congo Brazzaville: Pygmy voters exploited in recent elections
August 2007
According to observers and local human rights activists, Baka hunter-gatherers, also known as pygmies, were largely exploited during recent elections because they did not understand the voting process.
Read the online story at IRIN Humanitarian News and Analysis (web link)
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Ethiopia: Omo National Park threatens indigenous peoples
September 2007
The Omo National Park was established in 1966, but its boundaries were never legally established (gazetted). The Dutch conservation organization African Parks Foundation (APF), has taken over management of the park, and in connection with that, the gazettement process is now being carried out in a hurried manner. Authorities are persuading the tribal people living in the park to sign away their land, without compensation, on documents they cannot read. It is estimated that 40,000 tribal people will lose their land and access to the resources vital to their survival. They will become illegal squatters on land that has been theirs for centuries.
Read Native Solutions to Conservation Refugees' update on their website
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Mursi in South Omo, Ethiopia.
Photo taken by a Mursi. |
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Tanzania: Lake Natron Soda ash plant threatens Maasai communities
October 2007
Indigenous Maasai communities living in areas sorrounding Lake Natron on the border between Tanzania and Kenya fear that their livelihood will be destroyed by a proposed Soda ash plant. The plant would extract soda ash for industrial production of for example glass and pharmaceuticals. The Maasai communities fear that the plant's huge consumption of water would deplete their water resources, and that it's waste products would pollute the area and undermine their livelihood.
Read CEMIRIDE's update (pdf)
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DRC: Pygmy delegation to meet head of the World Bank in attempt to safeguard their forest home from loggers
October 2007
A delegation of Pygmies from the Democratic Republic of Congo are visiting the World Bank's headquarters in Washington during the third week of October, hoping to save their forest home from being handed over to European logging companies. The Bank has been involved in plans to turn 60,000 sp km of pristine forest into industrial logging concessions since 2002. Last month an independent panel of experts upheld the pygmies' complaints about the logging
Read The Independent's article online (web link)
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Botswana: Bushmen ask for their legal rights to be recognized
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November, 2007
San from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana are disappointed and devastated by the government's reaction to last December's High Court judgement on the unlawfullness of their eviction from their traditional lands. The evicted San want to return home - but they are denied access to water, and thus have no chance of surviving if they do so. On November 20, 2007, they delivered hundredes of protest letters to the Botswana government, threatening to go back to court if they are not granted access to the waterhole at Mothomelo within 2 weeks' time.
Read FPK's press release (pdf) |
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San woman in Mothomelo
Photo: Chris Erni |
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Central African Republic: Mbororo pastoralists flee to escape brutal conflict
December 2007
More than 300,000 people have been displaced by a violent conflict in Northern Cameroon. 45,000 of these have settled in Eastern Cameroon. Most are indigenous Mbororo pastoralists. Many have lost most of their livestock to extremely violent attackers before leaving the country.
Read IRIN's story (web link)
Read IRIN's portrait of a 34-year old Mbororo woman refugee (web link)
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Niger: Extrajudicial executions and population displacement in Tuareg region
December 2007
At least thirteen civilians have been extrajudicially executed by the Niger security forces in the Touareg region in the North of Niger over the past four weeks. In a press release Amnesty International call on the Niger authorities to investigate the killings and make it clear to the security forces that such extrajudicial executions and other human rights violations will not be tolerated.
Read Amnesty International's press release from December 19 (pdf) |
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Tuareg boy near Agadez
Photo: IWGIA Archive |
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