New report exposes brutal expulsion of Indigenous communities from their ancestral land in DRC

Using militarised forces to evict people from their ancestral land to create ‘protected areas’ for conservation tramples on human rights and is never acceptable. It also goes against scientific evidence that demonstrates Indigenous peoples better protect biodiversity, and that the results are even greater where they have security of tenure and control over their traditionally owned territories.

Over the last three years, Batwa people have been assaulted, tortured, raped, and murdered by institutions that are supposed to be protecting the Congo’s rich biodiversity. This violence in Kahuzi-Biega, with similar documented in other sites across Africa, has been perpetuated in the name of “conservation”, despite clear and mounting evidence of indigenous peoples’ care for land around the world when indigenous tenure is recognised.

A report published today by Minority Rights Group exposes the extreme level of violence used by Kahuzi-Biega National Park (PNKB) guards and the Congolese army against the very people on whose land the Park is established and who have effectively preserved the biodiversity of their land for centuries/millennia.

 

“We have no officially recognized home. But we live here in the forest, and it is our home, regardless of whether that is recognized. I don’t care what happens—even if the devil himself crawls out of hell to take our land—we aren’t leaving. This is our home.”

 

Quote from Batwa community member as part of the investigations for the report

The report documents a systemic campaign of violence against the Batwa, aimed at excluding them permanently from their ancestral lands. It also documents the fact that many organisations, including the communities themselves, have been alerting Park authorities, national conservation authorities, and international donors about these abuses ever since they started. These warnings[i] – including from FPP and our partners - have all been ignored or dismissed, and the violence has continued and escalated. In fact, some of the whistleblowing organisations and individuals have subsequently been targeted by security services and subject to false accusations by Kahuzi-Biega staff and national conservation bodies[ii].

A history of injustice

In the mid-1970s, Batwa people were forcibly expelled from their lands to make way for an expanded National Park on the pretext of ‘conservation’.

They were not consulted, they did not give their consent and they have never been compensated for their loss of their ancestral territory. Instead, they have been marginalised, discriminated against, and forced into poverty and landlessness. This is despite the scientific evidence that – globally, including in Africa - lands that are owned and managed by indigenous peoples can protect biodiversity far better than so-called ‘protected areas,’ including those which seek to remove all human settlements and use from the land under an exclusionary vision of wilderness.

The Batwa want to protect their lands and ecosystems and have been willing to negotiate with conservation bodies to do so. Since the 2014 Whakatane dialogues, Batwa communities have sought to engage in dialogues with Park authorities. They have come up with maps and plans detailing how they could be central to caring for their lands. All parties agreed that the land was Batwa land in the first place and that the fundamental challenge for achieving PNKB’s conservation goals was to address this original injustice. 

Community-led conservation

However, conservation authorities made promises that they didn’t keep, and offered solutions that were impossible to realise. In 2018, some community members chose to take the solution into their own hands and simply returned to their ancestral lands. Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to negotiate a new way of managing the land, the Park authorities have responded with increasing violence – culminating in the atrocities documented in today’s report.

 

“They lied to us for 30 years. For 30 years we had no home, no place to live. That’s why we decided to return to the forest. After that, we were expelled for the second time. In 2019, the park decided to expel us again. When the time came, every day we could hear the bullets ringing out’

 

Quote from Batwa community member as part of the investigations for the report

The situation in DRC is extreme. Powerful economic and political interests vie to have clandestine access to the rich resources inside Kahuzi-Biega. This climate of violence and fear is only exacerbated by the human rights abuses documented in this report. Paramilitary conservation bodies have proved themselves utterly ineffective in dealing with powerful interests. Instead, they focus on victimising the already marginalised Batwa rather than allying with them.

 

“We are prepared to die in the Park, because outside life is impossible”

 

Quote from a Batwa community member at a meeting held with FPP on February 25th

In response to MRG’s report, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) publicly said that they will work to create ’concrete and creative solutions on-the-ground in DRC.’ Since 2018, many organisations have repeatedly contacted WCS to highlight abuses taking place in the park, and yet this is the first time they are taking a public position. It is crucial that their public words are backed by rights-based action on the ground.

There is always an alternative to militarising protected areas such as has happened at Kahuzi-Biega National Park. The Batwa are passionate about their connection to their land and their willingness to protect it. The Congolese conservation authorities and those that support them need to start from a different place, one which recognises the central role that the Batwa could play in living in and caring for their lands and forests, rather than criminalising and persecuting them.

[i] Deadly raids are latest case of abuse against Indigenous Batwa in DRC park, groups say, Mongabay, December 21, 2021 https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/deadly-raids-are-latest-case-of-abuse-against-indigenous-batwa-in-drc-park-groups-say/

Coercive conservation on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Forest Peoples Programme, January 6, 2021 https://www.forestpeoples.org/en/coercive-conservation-on-trial-democratic-republic-congo-kahuzi-biega-ecoguards

Press Release: Fresh atrocities in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the name of “security” and “conservation”, Forest Peoples Programme, December 7, 2021 https://www.forestpeoples.org/en/press-release/2021/Fresh-atrocities-Kahuzi-Biega-National-Park

Statement: Protected areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo – A Broken System, signed by Amnesty International, Forest Peoples Programme, Initiative for Equality, Minority Rights Group International, Rainforest Foundation UK, January 25, 2021 https://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/statement-protected-areas-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-a-broken-system

Letter: Human rights violations against the Batwa in Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo, signed by Forest Peoples Programme, Minority Rights Group International, Centre d’Acompagnement des Autochtones Pygmées et Minoritaires Vulnérables, the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs and Rainforest Foundation Norway, January 29, 2018 https://www.forestpeoples.org/sites/default/files/documents/Letter%20to%20UNESCO%20re%20designation%20of%20PNKB%20as%20World%20Heritage%20site%20FINAL.pdf

[ii] Attaque du convoi d’un ministre provincial par les personnes que nous dénonçons à cors et à cris depuis plusieurs jours, Journal de Kahuzi Biega, October 15, 2020, www.kahuzi-biega.com/attaque-du-convoi-dun-ministre-provincial-par-les-personnes-que-nous-denoncons-a-cors-et-a-cris-depuis-plusieurs-jours/

FPP response to the above 

Eastern DRC: Fears that unfounded accusations by conservation authorities will incite violence, Forest Peoples Programme, October 16, 2020, https://www.forestpeoples.org/en/fears-unfounded-accusations-DRC-conservation-authorities-incite-violence