African Commission on Human Rights condemns eviction of indigenous groups to protect nature

Batwa people lived as hunters and gatherers in the forested areas of Uganda, Rwanda and Congo. In 1970, a Belgian photographer and conservationist founded the now famous Kahuzi-Biega National Park near the western shore of Lake Kivu on an area traditionally used by the Batwa people.

After the park was expanded in 1975, some 13,000 Batwa people were evicted from their homes in the name of biodiversity protection. Most still live on the edges of the park in makeshift villages, struggling to access land and health care.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has called on the Congolese government to allow the safe return of the Batwa people, grant them ownership of their ancestral lands in the national park, issue a public apology acknowledging their abuses, and pay compensation to the indigenous people after they are recognized as citizens.

The commission also criticised the so-called ‘fortress conservation’ model, which argues that the best way to protect biodiversity is to isolate ecosystems and displace local communities that depend on these areas for their livelihoods.

“The decision dispels the idea that solving the climate crisis requires displacing indigenous communities and seizing their land,” said Samuel Ade Ndasi, African Union Litigation and Advocacy Officer at the Minority Rights Group, a charity representing the Batwa people. “From now on, no indigenous community should be displaced in the name of conservation, anywhere in Africa.”

In 2015, the case was brought to the commission on behalf of the Batwa community by MRG and Environnement, Ressources Naturelles et Développement, a Congolese human rights group.

The commission, which does not make its decisions public, ruled in favor of the Batwa people in 2022. Lawyers said publication of the decision was delayed because of errors in the French-language version. They added that the Congolese government has not yet taken action to implement the decision.

The Batwa people have made repeated attempts to return to their ancestral home in the national park.

In October 2018, some members of the Batwa community, who according to Amnesty International “lived in extreme poverty in areas surrounding the park,” returned to the park area to rebuild their villages, only to be met with swift and devastating violence from park officials and Congolese soldiers, human rights groups said.

In July 2021, Amnesty International expressed “deep concern and dismay” over reports that joint contingents of park rangers and soldiers had recently attacked villages in the national park and committed “serious human rights violations”.

In 2022, an investigation by the Minority Rights Group documented a three-year campaign of organized violence by park managers and Congolese soldiers to force Batwa off their land, resulting in the deaths of at least 20 people, the gang rape of at least 15 people, and the forced displacement of hundreds.

Congolese authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Commission’s decisions are binding on all African Union countries, but many governments have ignored them in recent years.

If the Congolese government decides not to implement the decision, human rights organizations can take the case to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the continent’s highest judicial body charged with protecting human rights.

According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, some 250,000 people worldwide have been forcibly evicted since 1990 to make way for conservation projects.