Minority clan in plea to govt

The Kenyan Government has been urged to speedily implement an African Union ruling that the Endorois community be recognised as rightful owners of the Lake Bogoria Game Reserve.

Human rights groups have organised a meeting in Lake Bogoria to laud the ruling and demand that they be given back the land on which the lake sits.

Through the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights vice-chairman Hassan Omar and the community chairman Charles Kamuren, the groups said since Kenya is an AU member, the government should respect the decision that followed a five year case. The AU ratified the ruling by the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights on February 2.

The ruling said the government erred when it displaced the 60,000 population Endorois from their ancestral land without compensating them. The ruling, delivered in Gambia, ordered that the community be given unrestricted access to Lake Bogoria and surrounding sites.

During a press conference in Nairobi on Sunday, the groups said the AU ruling is a call to the government to urgently evaluate the status of rights and protections accorded to minorities and other Kenyans.

For long, they noted the minority, marginalised and indigenous communities have been subjected to degrading human rights abuses and other injustices, received unequal treatment under law and resource allocation opportunities and subjected to insecurity of land tenure and alienation from state administration.

“In calling for the Endorois to be granted access to Lake Bogoria and its surrounding areas, the AU Commission is calling for the State to respect the culture of indigenous communities in addition to recognising the intrinsic link associated with land and culture for indigenous communities,” the groups said in a statement.

The Commission further pointed out that the Trust Land System, as provided in the constitution, has failed to protect the rights of indigenous communities as it allowed for dispossession of their land in a manner that is disproportionate to any identified public need.

In 1973, the government forced the Endorois people off their ancestral land Baringo to create a wildlife reserve, plunging a community of traditional cattle-herders into poverty and pushing them to the brink of cultural extinction.

Promises by the Moi regime to resettle the community were futile as land set aside for them was given to other rich personalities.

Mr Omar and Mr Lumumba said land rights were key to solving the problems facing the country.

Others who hailed the ruling were Kenya Land Alliance coordinator Odenda Lumumba, a representative of the Centre for Minority Rights Development and the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

Also present were representatives of Constitutional Reform Consortium, Action Aid International Kenya, International Commission of Jurists and Mainyoito Pastoralists Integrated Development Organisation.