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Donors told to push for human rights in Kenya

Saturday April 21 2018
sengwer

A member of Sengwer community speaks to journalists. PHOTO | PHOEBE OKALL | NATION

By KEVIN J KELLEY

Donors should use their leverage to force the Kenya government to respect indigenous peoples’ rights, an activist from the Sengwer community said at the United Nations last week.

Milka Chepkorir Kuto told reporters that donors can help end displacement of the Sengwer because “they are the ones who give funds to the Kenyan government and fail to really follow the human rights standards that guide them.”

Ms Kuto noted that Finland provides financial aid to the Kenyan Forest Service, which, she said, is burning Sengwer homes and forcing the Embobut forest dwellers to leave their ancestral lands.

A Sengwer man was recently killed by Forest Service officers, she said.

The Kenyan government has not complied with entreaties to respect Sengwer rights, nor is it obeying court orders to halt evictions, Ms Kuto said at a press conference at UN headquarters in New York.

“We hope that one day the government of Kenya will listen and respect their own Constitution,” she added.

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Kenyan officials have denied that the Forest Service is forcibly evicting Sengwer. They say the government is seeking to resettle the forest people elsewhere in the country so that a $38 million European Union-funded water conservation project can move forward.

A team of UN human rights experts said earlier this year, however, that more than 100 armed Forest Service guards had burnt at least 15 Sengwer homes and killed livestock in an operation carried out in late 2017.

“The Sengwer are facing repeated attacks and forced evictions by agents of the Kenya Forest Service,” the three-member UN team declared in January.
Ms Kuto said at the UN that she has been unable to return to the Sengwer area in recent months due to threats to her safety.

“My community is termed as bandits,” she said at the press conference held in conjunction with the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

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