By Jemimah Chungu
A documentation by Minority rights organization https://minorityrights.org. revealed how the human rights of the Batwa community members in about 6 villages of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been inherently violated by Kahuzi-Biega Park guards and authorities in the guise of nature conservation yet living the Batwa lands and resources embezzled.
The Minority rights organization revealed disturbing information of how this minority group (Batwa people) are abused, killed and forced to leave their own ancestral home by first hand source, victims and eye witnesses of the violent attacks, as well as physical evidence such as burnt homes, spent ammunition and gravesites across the three-year campaign of violence.
The creation and on-going operation of these “conservation projects” are fundamentally colonial act executing a violent ideology which roots clearing natural landscapes and other environmental degradation deeds to create an ‘unpeopled wilderness,’ void of the very people who have been safeguarded such ecosystems for generations.
The Batwa are the main indigenous hunter-gatherer communities residing in DRC, with a population approximated at 100,000 and a few others in Kivu near the Uganda and Rwanda borders. The term Batwa is used to cover a number of different cultural groups, while many Batwa in various parts of the DRC call themselves Bambuti.
Many Bambuti and Batwa depend in part on forest hunting and gathering, and both traditional semi-nomadic agriculturalists and cultivators. They settled/ returned to their home ultimately due to civil years of broken promises by governing bodies after their displacement.
Batwa ancestral lands are hereditary their territory. Batwa Lands have diverse rich resources ranging from mineral resources, aquatic fresh water bodies and diverse fauna and flora while encompassing a rich terrestrial ecosystem. These cover the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Lake Tumba region and parts of the mighty Ituri region.
The Batwa people have primarily protect their ancestral land and resources by simply living in their homeland with “primitive” technology that causes the least harm to the environment and through their cultural way if life. Therefore, the said nature conservation only does the opposite by oppressing the rights and well-being of the Batwa social environment and physical environment while living many without basic needs attained from their immediate environment.
The Batwa group return and choice to live in their home has been met with devastating violence by local park authorities’ in-conjunction with foreign private military contractors that are highly trained and heavily armed. These military forces are alleged to have support from the Congolese army and substantial support and funding provided by international foreign governments and international organizations.
During this aggressive militarized form of conservation the Batwa people are charged with of ‘illegal occupation of the park’ which has resulted to many attacks by the park authorities where they are gunned down using arms such as guns and grenades with effective authorization to ‘shoot-to-kill’ Batwa inside the park. Meanwhile, a large number of the Batwa people are indiscriminately fired upon in Batwa villages with machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
The Women and children of this minority group are consistently raped with the latter being damaging. Their homes burnt to the ground, they flee in fear of the devastating violence and because they have no homes any more into deep forests with their fates unknown. They hallow in lack basic social services leading to high rates of malnourishment, disease, and high mortality rate both in their land and when forced to flee.
According to allAfrica; In an effort to scare the native Batwa and push them from their land, the soldiers reportedly shot and killed the chief’s son. https://allafrica.com › stories
The end result of forcing indigenous people to leave in an instance like this is inconsistency with the physical and cultural such that these people can become extinct or with no remains of their cultural and ancestral heritage.
Editor’s take; It is believed that the park guards and secondary responsible parties are heavily funded with money and arms to destabilize the peace of this community to dominate their natural resources just like many other areas of DRC and many other parts of Africa. The resources are dominated for hunting, tourism, mining, trading and more.
If truly the park guards and supporting parties mean to conserve the environment with the view of creating an ‘unpeopled wilderness’, national and international governing bodies such as the UN could resolute their displacement with creating a civil understanding, displacement and settlement unlike the overwhelming violence they have been executing.
