Land
When people lose their land, through conflict or in the name of development, they are not just losing their home – terrible though that is. They are losing part of their identity and their history. Once displaced, they can be forced into generations of poverty. Their access to education, employment and political participation becomes more and more difficult.
Even if compensation is forthcoming – and it rarely is – the memory of home remains. In many cases such a loss can spark and fuel conflicts, which have their own long term, devastating impacts.
Minorities and indigenous people worldwide live in particular danger of losing their homes, and are at greatest risk of not getting compensation for the seizure of their ancestral lands. Whether in the Botswana, Turkey, Romania or Brazil, marginalised people often lack written evidence of their claim to land they may have lived on for thousands of years. At an extreme level forced eviction can be judged to constitute 'deportation' or 'forcible transfer of population' which are now considered a gross violation of human rights.
Because we believe land is so intricately linked to these issues, our campaign focuses on land and development and land and conflict – see how we campaign, or check out our Trouble in Paradise campaign to find out how you can be involved.
How we campaign for land rights
Early warning
MRG monitors and highlights situations where minorities land rights are being ignored. We provide an essential early warning system through our programmes, political lobbying, media work, and publications, working to stem any spiral into displacement or violence.
Training on rights
We identify communities under threat of loss or land or property, work to advise them of their rights and support them in campaigning to combat the threat. In the Philippines, MRG is supporting the Sama Dilaut, a nomadic sea-based community who are being violently intimidated through killings and threats to remove them from the waters they depend on for their homes and livelihoods. They are being forced into the margins of society, reduced to begging and slum dwelling. The local authorities seem unwilling to protect them, and they continue to be at risk.
Legal cases
Through our legal cases we campaign for people who have been expelled to have their rights acknowledged, their land returned or full compensation given. We have supported the Chagos Islanders who in May 2007 won their high court battle against the British government for the right to return home. They were evicted when the British leased Diego Garcia – the biggest island in the Indian Ocean archipelago – to the Americans to establish a military base. This has been used in the ‘war on terror.’ MRG believes the British actions against the Chagossians are a crime against humanity.
Working in partnership
All MRG work is undertaken with partner organisations in the countries in question and with the participation of minorities themselves.
Land and development
Minority and indigenous peoples’ rights are seldom recognized by States and private companies looking to develop land. This is the experience of the Ogoni tribe in Nigeria, whose land has been commandeered by international oil companies, and the Traveller communities in London, UK who are being evicted and relocated as the city gears up to host the Olympics in 2012. It is the experience of the Endorois tribe in Kenya, displaced to make way for game reserves and nature tourism.
Our campaign, Trouble in Paradise is your opportunity to get involved to support ethical tourism, and make a positive difference to the lives of countless people who are being evicted from their homes and whose livelihoods are under threat – because of tourism developments in their ancestral homelands.
Land and conflict
Minority communities forced to flee from violence, such as in Iraq and Kosovo, face the difficulties of political marginalisation and discrimination in their fight to return home. MRG has produced groundbreaking reports on both these situations. In Iraq, we are working with partner organisations and with the UN Assistance Mission to support minorities to campaign for changes to the new constitution that will protect them in future. We are involved in training UN researchers in Iraq on the specific issues faced by women from minorities. See Assimilation, Exodus Eradication, Iraq’s minority communities since 2003 for more.
As the future status of Kosovo was being decided far from the reach of the most affected minority communities such as Roma, we have worked with over seven partner organisations in Kosovo to hold seminars and briefing meetings with decision makers in the European Parliament. See Minority Rights in Kosovo Under International Rule to find out how the UN’s most expensive and longest running mission to date has failed to protect Kosovo’s minorities, and in fact may have sowed the seeds for further ethnic cleansing.
Our report Pastoralism on the Margins, shows how conflict has flared between nomadic communities in Africa as their land and lifestyle is battered by climate change, disease, drought and famine, and their basic survival needs go unaddressed.