GREAT LAKES: IRIN Focus on the Twa people

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

NAIROBI, 5 Jul 2000 (IRIN) - Last week the Rwandan capital, Kigali, was the venue of a conference highlighting the plight of the indigenous forest peoples, or pygmies, of Central Africa. Traditionally forest dwellers and marginalised by society, they are now mobilising themselves to gain acceptance and involvement in national decision-making.

The forest peoples of the Great Lakes region, known collectively as the Batwa, are particularly threatened, having been dispossessed of their traditional land and subsequently shunned by their governments.

Kalimba Zephyrin, the director of the Community of Indigenous People of Rwanda (CAURWA), a Twa umbrella organisation, says enough is enough.

According to him, the Twa people have constantly been the victims of “poverty, persistent starvation, lack of education, lack of basic healthcare, social isolation and excluded from decision-making”.

“Our rights have been flouted,” he told IRIN. “The Twa have been chased away from their natural environment with no compensation. We receive no education, our culture is threatened.”

In the past, the Twa were able to treat themselves in the forests with natural herbs. “Since we’ve been displaced from our natural environment, we are falling ill and have no medical recourse,” Kalimba stressed, adding that there was very high death rate among the Twa.

In a recent letter to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, he pointed out that since feudal times, the Twa had always been relegated to the bottom rung. “They were the servants of the rulers, kept on the fringe of society,” he said. “They were the untouchables, with their own straw huts, their own sources of water, their own wooden plates...” Conditions did not improve after independence. “Ignorance, deprivation and injustice worsened,” he said.

The hunter-gatherer pygmies are the indigenous inhabitants of Central African countries such as Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Gabon and Cameroon, and number about 500,000 in all. In the Great Lakes region, they have been largely displaced by deforestation and the arrival of agriculturalists. They have traditionally been perceived as primitive by their compatriots because their way of life has not evolved.

Forced out of the forests, they had to find other means of existence and turned to pottery making, although Kalimba told IRIN it was impossible to make a living from this. “To get one kilo of beans, you have to sell six pots,” he noted. “Now it’s even difficult to get the clay.”

According to regional analysts, part of the problem is that the Twa did not want to change their way of life, resisting missionaries and other people who came to Central Africa. They stayed in the forests and did not socialise with other sectors of society. “It is as if they have been left in the 18th century,” one observer noted. He added that the Twa had been caught up in regional conflicts - particularly in the Great Lakes region - siding with either the Hutu or the Tutsi, depending on their interests and location.

“We are caught up in wars that are not of our making,” Kalimba explained. “Rebel groups make the forest areas their rear bases and we are then deprived of our natural culture.” He underlined that during the Rwanda genocide of 1994, some 10,000 Twa of a total 30,000 were wiped out. “Did anyone ever mention them?,” he asked.

Dr Dorothy Jackson of the UK-based Forest People’s Programme points out that most of the forest people in Rwanda and Burundi were displaced long ago, but others in the Kivus of eastern DRC, in Uganda and particularly in Cameroon and Gabon still have a strong forest connection. In Rwanda, the last forest-dwelling Twa - the Impunyu - were displaced from the Gishwati forest in the 1970s and ‘80s by development projects, some of which were funded by the World Bank, she said.

“The main problem facing the Twa in Rwanda and throughout the Great Lakes region is lack of land, which means they have no security, resource base or possibility of developing livelihoods,” she said.

“In Uganda, Kivu and Rwanda, forest-dwelling Twa have been expelled from
their lands for conservation projects (national parks) and agricultural
development.” The Twa’s rights to forest lands where they had lived for centuries have not been recognised. “In Rwanda, Twa lands originally acquired under the Mwamis’ [traditional ruler] patronage have been steadily eroded through theft and expropriation,” Dr Jackson added.

A survey carried out by the Twa in 1993 revealed that 13 percent of the Twa in Rwanda were landless and 85 percent had insufficient land for their needs (usually only the patch their house stood on). Since the 1994 genocide the situation has worsened. “The Twa’s vulnerability and marginalised status in the eyes of the rest of society makes it very hard for them to press their governments for land or acquire it under customary law or legal title,” Dr Jackson noted. “Governments should take affirmative action so that the Twa can obtain and retain land just as other sectors of society can.”

The Rwandan government’s National Unity and Reconciliation Commission says it wants to focus more on the Twa. “The marginalisation of the Twa people is a dark side of our society,” the Commission’s executive director Aloise Inyumba told IRIN in a recent interview. “They have been systematically forgotten as if they don’t exist.” She said the Commission had made a point of seeking the Twa’s views on reconciliation and had recommended affirmative action in terms of free education and health services for the Twa. “We also want the few that are educated to be given priority when it comes to employment,” she added.

However, Kalimba says that until the Twa are represented in the Commission or in government, these are “merely words”. “How can they address our problems?” he asked. “We have to be part of any programme aimed at resolving our problems. They speak, and then it’s forgotten.” According to Kalimba, the problems facing some 2,500 Twa in Uganda are even worse. “They are the least educated of all the Batwa,” he said.

There are some signs that the problems facing the indigenous forest people are being addressed. In the DRC - home to about 150,000 pygmies - the UN Foundation is supporting a UNESCO project to protect natural heritage in areas affected by conflict. The project - which requires a total US $4,186,600 - includes protection of the Mbuti pygmies in the Okapi Faunal Reserve near Bunia and other indigenous people who largely depend on wildlife for their survival. “The expansion of commercial hunting is also seriously undermining their hunter-gatherer way of life,” UNESCO said in press release, issued in January. It noted that the influx of refugees along border areas, rebel activity, banditry and increased poaching were all adverse factors to the pygmies’ survival.

The Kigali conference - the first of its kind in Rwanda - and the letter to Kagame are initiatives instigated by the Twa people themselves. Dr Jackson says it is important to stress that the Twa are not being manipulated by outsiders.

Kalimba wants the indigenous forest people to benefit from services in their own environment. “Why can’t we have schools and medical centres?”, he said. “We are now mobilising ourselves because this is the 21st century and we have a right to be part of it...We have to defend our rights.”

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