Regional Coalition for Indigenous Batwa Rights
We advocate for the rights, empowerment and well-being of the Indigenous People in the Congo Basin region, monitor and respond to human rights abuses, mediate disputes, and promote long-term solutions to existential threats to the Batwa people.
IfE’s work with the indigenous Batwa people in the Congo Basin takes place through RIFE (Réseau Initiative for Equality) – a democratic, self-governing network of Batwa rights organizations. RIFE, which currently has 21 member organizations, was initiated in 2017 at a meeting of organizations from DRC, Burundi and Rwanda, held in Bukavu, eastern DRC. RIFE’s purpose is to advocate for the rights, empowerment and well-being of the Indigenous People in this region, to monitor and respond to human rights abuses, to mediate disputes, and to find and promote long-term solutions to the existential threats to the Batwa people.
Priority objectives adopted by the regional network include:
- advocate effectively for indigenous rights, land rights and human rights of the Batwa
- monitor human rights abuses and seek legal justice when they occur
- protect the rights and dignity of Batwa women and girls, and work to end sexual and gender-based violence
- mediate disputes among various Batwa communities and factions so they can coexist and collaborate with one another
- build conflict resolution mechanisms between the Batwa and neighboring tribes to avoid violence and promote peaceful coexistence
- build an effective communications network between the Batwa communities in the region, using telephone networks, meetings, citizen journalism and community radio
- interview elders to learn their stories and knowledge, and find ways to protect traditional knowledge from being lost
- promote food security and income-generating activities for impoverished Batwa communities
- help Batwa communities establish community forestry and indigenous-led conservation projects that can take advantage of funding to prevent deforestation, reduce climate change, and protect biodiversity while still protecting the land rights and livelihoods of the Batwa
RIFE has undertaken various projects to protect and empower Batwa communities, including the following, among others:
* Our project to document the mass atrocities against Batwa peoples in Tanganyika Province, after an uprising of local agricultural people against them. Read the report here.
* Our project to address sexual and gender-based violence through coordinated activities by six Batwa rights organizations in DRC, Burundi and Rwanda, working in a total of 18 villages. Read about the project here.
* Our project to compile a list of human rights abuses and attacks on the Batwa community in and around Kahuzi Biega National Park, traditional lands from which the Batwa were expelled in 1975. Read the report here.
* Our work to gather evidence for some of the worst crimes mentioned in the report above, so these crimes could be taken to court (the evidence is confidential to protect the witnesses).
* Our successful lawsuit to free Chief Kasula and 7 other Batwa community members (from Kahuzi Biega National Park lands) who were arbitrarily arrested and sentenced to long prison terms without any opportunity to challenge the charges. Sadly, one of the people died from the dangerously inhuman conditions in the Bukavu military prison, but the rest were freed. Read about the court decision here.
* Our evidence entered into a successful case by MRG challenging the expulsion of the Batwa people from Kahuzi Biega National Park. Read the Commission’s favorable decision here.
* Our work to document the problems of the Batwa people, and especially women and girls, in the educational system in Sud-Kivu and Nord-Kivu Provinces. (Unfortunately, the funder of the work, USAID, did not make the report public.)
RIFE’s ongoing projects are temporarily on hold due to the invasion and occupation of the eastern DRC by Rwanda and their proxy groups (M23, Congo River Alliance, Red Tabara, Twirwaneho and others). To learn about our coalition of Congolese civil society groups (including members of RIFE) which addresses the invasion and occupation, read this article.
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