Geoffrey Inzito says he really likes the forest. To him and all his people. But he also admits that he is the first leader of the Batwa ethnic group who has had to govern outside of it. “Before we hunted and gathered. Now we do other things, especially we sell wood and charcoal,” he explains. Inzito estimates that he is 65 years old. He looks somewhat disheveled: shaved head, threadbare T-shirt, and several missing teeth. He is no taller than 1.55. He has reigned among the Batwa since 1998, after the death of his father, and has a wife and eight children. “Life is very difficult. We cannot do business like other people. Nothing more than trading firewood and selling things to some tourists. How are we going to prosper? It is impossible,” she continues.
The Batwa, also known as pygmies, are found throughout the Great Lakes region and other parts of Central Africa. In Rwanda and Burundi they are also called twa; in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, they are the Mbuti or the Bayanda. Anthropologists believe who are among the oldest inhabitants of these equatorial forests and estimate their population between 86,000 and 112,000 people in total, about 6,200 of them in Uganda. Traditionally, they have resided in temporary cabins or caves and subsisted on resources such as honey, fruits, animals, mushrooms and vegetables. They also depended on the forests for medicine, fishing or basketry. But, in the 1990s, the declaration of the Bwindi Impenetrable Park (southwest of Uganda) as a world heritage site marked the expulsion of thousands of them.
The same thing happened with the Geoffrey Inzito community, made up of about 125 people, living in Bundibugyo, in the Western Region of Uganda. They had resided in the Semuliki forest for several centuries, but everything changed in 1993, when they were expelled in pursuit of the conservation of the place, which was declared a national park. Following reports of forest destruction and wildlife poaching that allegedly plagued the local community, the people of Bundibugyo were resettled without compensation to land a few kilometers away. “No one took into account their context, and their way of life. They were not even used to living in houses; They couldn't stand the sound of rain, for example. But they had nowhere to go, so they became dependent on NGOs and social workers,” explains Barbra Babweteera, executive director of CCFU, a body dedicated to the rights of indigenous minorities in Uganda. “The eviction process was degrading to her dignity,” the expert complains. “They were not integrated into conservation. They went from living in the forest, as they had done since time immemorial, to living in a rocky place, without any trees, without any means of subsistence. “Before, they built their homes in 10 minutes, they were semi-nomadic, they gathered, they were great herbalists… And they became marginalized.”
They went from living in the forest to living in a rocky place, without any trees, without any means. Before they built their homes in 10 minutes, they were semi-nomadic, they gathered, they were great herbalists… And they became marginalized
Barbra Babweteera, executive director of CCFU, an organization for the defense of indigenous minorities in Uganda
The scourge of alcoholism
After going through several resettlements, Geoffrey Inzito and his people now live in around twenty houses built for them in a town they have named Kapepepe Village, located a short distance away. And the consequences of three decades of evictions and relocations are now emerging in all their harshness, starting with alcoholism and drug use. “They do not have enough economic activities to dedicate themselves to and commit to. They earn very little money and have a lot of time,” says Babweteera.
Furthermore, Inzito explains that he and his neighbors can only enter their ancient forest thanks to a special permit from the Government to collect wood to sell. “We can get 5,000 shillings (around 1.25 euros) a day,” he details. Without land to work and without a place to apply their ancestral knowledge, the Batwa have sunk into misery in a country that already has a problem with poverty: Some 18 million people, 42% of the population, live on less than two euros a day, according to World Bank figures..
Alcoholism is not the only problem the Batwa of Bundibugyo are facing. Going from living without communication with the outside world in the Semuliki national park, whose area is around 200 square kilometers, to residing alongside other local communities, exposed them to many diseases. “Before, for example, we did not contract HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases,” says Inzito. “Now its spread worries us; “Miscegenation with other peoples has caused us to become infected.” Approximately 1.4 million people in Uganda are living with the AIDS viruswhich causes the death of about 20,000 Ugandans a year.
Going to any medical center is also a difficulty for most Batwa. “When they lived in the forests, they relied on their knowledge of herbalism. They knew which plants to use for one disease or another. But when they were taken out of the jungle and forbidden to enter it, that was over. They had to start going to hospitals and they were discriminated against there,” says Barbra Babweteera. The local communities, unaccustomed to seeing different people, also did not accept these thin and small new inhabitants who did not speak the language well and did not know how to read or write. “Because of segregation and stigma, they have stopped going to the doctor. Furthermore, these same reasons are what make them not take their children to school,” adds Babweteera.
“I pray that the government allows us to return to live in the forest. There are fish, and rivers, and shadows, and honey. “Just us, without anyone”
Geoffrey Inzito, leader of the Batwa community in Bundibugyo
Karungi Joyce, a 16-year-old girl, is the first Batwa in Bundibugyo to attend secondary education after successfully completing primary school. She lives in Kapepepe with the others and is no stranger to the problems of her community. “Sometimes I have to go to school on an empty stomach, after eating only a handful of sugar,” she says. Joyce attends a school located about 10 kilometers from her settlement, where she eats at least once a day. “I like mathematics, but when I finish my education I want to be a nurse,” she says. “I want to be a role model for the children in my community. Explain to them that you have to work hard, that you have to suffer sometimes, but that we are just as capable as others.”
“Everything has to be aimed at getting Batwa children to go to school. Without losing their identity, their culture or their traditions, but to develop and progress, the youngest have to go to school,” says Babweteera.
Inzito shares the same opinion, but temp
ers his enthusiasm. “The future of my people is to be educated, but it cannot always be achieved. “Some of our young people have to work to help their families.” The Batwa leader ends by remembering the past and expressing a clear desire for the times to come: to return to the jungle, to live among the trees, to build their own houses, hunt for their food and live the traditions: “I pray that the Government allows us return to the forest, where my grandparents were from. Where there is shade, and rivers, and fish, and honey. “We want to live without diseases, without anyone, just us, like before.”
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