Calls are being made for the Finnish government to suspend a €9.5 million fund to the Kenya Forest Service because of
escalating human rights abuses of the country’s indigenous Sengwer people.
In an open letter sent to the Finnish government, organisations from across the world said: “The Finnish Government has
been the main supporter of the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) over many years and so shares significant responsibility for
funding these human rights abuses.”
The letter was sent today - the day the Sengwer of Embobut Forest gathered for the funeral of Robert Kirotich, a
41-year-old man who was shot and killed by the KFS on 16 January while out herding cattle on the Sengwer’s ancestral
land.
The European Union has already taken the step of suspending funding of a €31 million project to the Kenyan government
and KFS in response to the killing. A delegation from the EU is due to conduct a site visit tomorrow, with Amnesty
International and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR).
Justin Kenrick, a senior policy advisor at Forest Peoples Programme, said: “The Finnish government has been a major
funder of KFS over many years, and needs to learn from KFS's history of illegally logging the forests they are supposed
to protect. Conservation science is clear that securing the collective land rights of such indigenous forest
communities, communities who have cared for their lands for centuries, is the surest way of securing such forests and
the flow of water from them to Kenya. The Finnish government should support forest indigenous communities to secure
their constitutionally recognised land rights, rather than fund KFS which violently evicts them. "
"The other excuse KFS and the Kenyan government provide for these violent evictions is that they are clearing bandits
from the forest, but there are none. The government is treating the Sengwer as bandits because they have not left their
ancestral lands. In these years no one has been killed at Embobut by bandits, only by the KFS.”
On January 22, the Eldoret High Court in Kenya issued a court order stopping the police from evicting members of the
Sengwer community from the Embobut Forest. Following the suspension of EU funding, however violent forced evictions of
the Sengwer community have continued at the hands of the Kenya Forest Service. Yesterday, a Sengwer leader, Yator
Kiptum, reported that "evictions continue with KFS guards burning down more Sengwer homes in Kapkok glade, Embobut
forest."
Another Sengwer delegate Milka Chepkorir Kuto spoke to EU officials yesterday in Brussels. She was invited to the
Investing in Human Rights Defenders event, and outlined the human rights abuses that have been ongoing for decades but
which have intensified in recent years as powerful interests use the excuse of conservation to remove the very people
who are protecting their ancestral forest
She said: “Today Kirotich, one of my own community members, is being buried. He leaves behind a family that looked up to
him. He was killed by KFS in Embobut forest during their violent forceful evictions. KFS officers are committing massive
human rights violations. Any funding and any organisation or person willing to fund KFS is funding violations directly
or indirectly.”
Justin Kenrick added: “Whether the Finnish public support development aid or not, none surely want their tax money to be
wasted on a KFS that destroys forests and commits such human rights abuses?”
The current spate of attacks by the Kenya Forest Service against the Sengwer began on Christmas Day, when more than 100
armed guards went on to Tangul, in Embobut Forest.