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OGIEK
(picture copyright
© 2004, ECOTERRA Intl. / yoshi shimizu)
Kihooko kiunaga
uta mugeete - The Truth
is Stronger than Weapons !
Muacha mila ni
mtumwa - Once you forget your culture you become a slave !
The
Ogiek, an indigenous people living mainly
in Kenya's Mau and Mt.Elgon Forests, are fighting to remain
in their ancestral homeland. The former government tried to force
them out of the forests, allegedly to protect the environment.
But the Ogiek pose not only no environmental threat, but are actually
the guardians of these forests since time immemorial.
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Click here to visit
the Ogiek PHOTO GALLERY
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!!!
FOREST DESTRUCTION IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW !
!!!
!!!
- see it for yourself -
!!!
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A historical moment:
Prof. Yash Pal Ghai
, Chairman of The Constitution of Kenya Review Commission , received
Ogiek elders and their statements concerning constitutional changes
. That was the first time that the postcolonial Kenya Government
officially recognized the existence of the Ogiek people and granted
them to be heared - the most important moment in the last decades
on the way of the Ogiek People out of the oppression .
THE CASE FOR THE RECOGNITION AND PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTS OF KENYA’S
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
THE WORK ON THE
DRAFT CONSTITUTION OF KENYA :
SPECIFICALLY REFERS TO THE OGIEK
CONSTITUTION-MEMO BY THE SENGWER OF KENYA
Finally! Unilateral
Recognition by Kenya Government:
Ogiek
and Sengwer are respected Indigenous Peoples
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COMPARE
THE CONSTITUTION DRAFTS
a)
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA 2002 (PDF)
b)
DRAFT CONSTITUTION - BOMA'S DRAFT (PDF)
c)
DRAFT CONSTITUTION - KIBAKI / WAKO - DRAFT (PDF)
A MESSAGE
TO THE "DEVELOPERS" IN KENYA AND ELSEWHERE:
"If only someone would once tell these people whom the
Almighty has forsaken that everything is so imperfect among them
only because they leave nothing pure uncorrupted, nothing sacred
untouched by their coarse hands and that nothing strives among
them because they do not respect the root of all thriving, divine
Nature; that life with them is stale and burdened with
cares and and full of cold, silent discord, because they scorn
the Genius, which brings power and nobility into human endeavour
and serenity into suffering, and love and brotherhood to towns
and houses. And that too is why they are so afraid of death and,
for the sake of their molluscan existence, bear every indignity,
for they know nothing higher than the bungling job that they have
made of things."
Friedrich Hoelderin in the year 1797
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The world's most
primitive people have few possessions, but they are not poor.
Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just
a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation
between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the
invention of civilization.
Marshall Sahlins -
Anthropologist
(quoted in "BEYOND CIVILIZATION - Humanity's Next Great
Adventure")
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The right to be
let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.
William O. Douglas
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"However much
we may detest admitting it, the fact remains that there would
be no exploitation if people refused to obey the exploiter. But
self comes in and we hug the chains that bind us. This must cease."
Mohandas Gandhi
UHURU!
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