Rights of indigenous forest peoples in DRC and Central Africa

Statement by the Forest Peoples Programme
to the 41st Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
16-30 May 2007, Accra, Ghana

Madam Chair, Honourable Commissioners, Distinguished colleagues,

Indigenous forest peoples such as the Batwa, Baka and Bagyeli of Central Africa suffer some of the most extreme forms of marginalisation, discrimination and neglect to be found anywhere in the world. Summarily expelled by governments from their ancestral forests over the years for industrial activities and conservation initiatives without consultation, consent or compensation – in direct violation of a vast body of international law on indigenous rights – they have been left to live as squatters and beggars on the fringes of society, with little or no land of their own.  Without exception, they have been forced to live within the structures of the dominant society and yet those structures fail to take their unique needs and realities into proper and equal account.

For instance, throughout the Central African region national regulatory frameworks recognize and protect customary land rights and yet indigenous peoples on whose customary lands national parks or forestry zones have been created by the State are unable to avail themselves of these land rights protections. Throughout the region, regulatory frameworks recognize the rights of individuals to own and gain legal title to land that they exploit productively (‘mettre en valeur’ en français), except that only agriculture and other methods of land exploitation practised by the dominant society really count whereas traditional land use by indigenous peoples such as the extraction of clay from marshes for pottery or hunting and gathering for subsistence do not. This type of latent discrimination pervades the region’s laws and policies and act to perpetuate the poverty and marginalisation of its indigenous forest peoples. Governments also continue to give extractive industries the green light to exploit natural resources located on traditional indigenous territories without consultation, consent or compensation. The DRC, for example, continues to grant logging concessions on indigenous lands despite a 2002 government issued moratorium on logging, extended by Presidential Decree in 2005 – an issue on which the Forest Peoples Programme submitted a report to the Commission’s Working Group in November 2006.

Despite this dire situation, the African Union has been working to block the efforts of the global community to advance the human rights situation of indigenous peoples through the adoption at the UN General Assembly of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a compilation of existing legal standards relative to the specific problems faced by indigenous peoples, which was adopted by the Human Rights Council in 2006 after over two decades of work by experts from around the world. Despite widespread recognition in international law that the right of peoples to self-determination must be exercised within the existing territorial boundaries of States, the African Group justifies its reservations about the Declaration on grounds that African States are concerned about their territorial integrity. Despite the African Commission’s clear and thorough analysis of the distinction between being indigenous to the continent of Africa and being an indigenous peoples as that term is widely understood in international human rights law, the African Group maintains its position that ‘all Africans are indigenous’ and therefore recognition and protection of the rights of the uniquely marginalised groups of indigenous hunter-gatherers and pastoralists is unnecessary. These stances are blocking Africa from keeping pace with the advancements in the enjoyment of human rights that are being seen all over the world. They are limiting Africa’s opportunity to act as a leader in the development of international law. And they are shackling some of the most marginalised peoples in the world to continued poverty, isolation and discrimination.

The Forest Peoples Programme repeats its request made during the 40th  Ordinary Session that the Commission or its Working Group on Indigenous Populations:

(a) organise a mission of enquiry to DRC as soon as practicable to examine the urgent situation of indigenous forest peoples in that country;

(b)in the interim, draft and deliver a letter to the government of DRC urging it to suspend all logging activities until such time as a thorough study of the land rights of indigenous forest peoples is conducted and such rights are recognized and protected in Congolese law. In so doing we refer the Commission to the detailed information submitted to this Commission by Forest Peoples Programme during the 40^th Ordinary Session, additional copies of which I would be pleased to provide if necessary.

The Forest Peoples Programme also respectfully requests:

(c) that the Commission urge the AU to reconsider its position on indigenous peoples on this continent taking full account of the Working Group’s report adopted by this Commission in 2003;

(d) that the AU seize its opportunity to become a leader in, rather than an antagonist to, the human rights movement, by supporting the UN Declaration and working to bring an end to the undeniable suffering of indigenous peoples on this continent; and

(e) that the governments represented here today accelerate the creation of legal, regulatory and policy frameworks to recognize, respect and protect indigenous rights including indigenous land rights, in accordance with international law.

Thank you, Madam Chair.