Kuneena Batwa a History of Discrimination and Marginalization of Indigenous People - Using the Example of the Batwa in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region

FACHBEREICH GESCHICHTE

Masterarbeit

zur Erlangung des Grades Master of Arts an der Kultur- und Gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät

“they could be easily ignored” -

Kuneena Batwa A History of Discrimination and Marginalization of Indigenous People - Using the Example of the Batwa in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region

Betreuer: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Albert Lichtblau

Eingereicht von: Michael Ellmauer 1220025

Salzburg, 24. Mai 2018 2

Contents

1. Introduction ...... 6

2. Theoretical Framework ...... 11

2.1. Literature ...... 11

2.2. Terminology ...... 12

2.2.1. Indigenous People and Minorities ...... 12

2.2.2. Community (power) ...... 16

2.2.3. Political Representation ...... 17

2.2.4. Discrimination ...... 20

2.2.5. Marginalization ...... 22

2.2.6. Racism ...... 27

2.3. A Circle of Discrimination and Marginalization ...... 31

3. A History of Discrimination and Marginalization ...... 34

3.1. Land ...... 34

3.1.1. Different Conceptions of Environmental and Social Relation ...... 35

3.1.1.1. The meaning by the “civilized” world ...... 35

3.1.1.2. The meaning by indigenous people ...... 41

3.1.1.3. „Traditional“ Batwa lifestyle ...... 42

3.1.2. Need and Desire for Land ...... 46

3.2. Early Times ...... 55

3.2.1. Pre-Colonial Times ...... 56

3.2.2. Colonialism ...... 62

3.2.3. Excursus: Hate by Design - Ethnic and Racial Identity ...... 65

3.2.4. Independence ...... 75

3.2.4.1. Land situation of the Batwa after independence ...... 76

3.2.4.2. Political situation of the Rwandan Batwa until 1990 ...... 80 3

3.2.4.3. Batwa Economic Crisis ...... 83

3.2.5. Excursus: Conservationism and Tourism ...... 86

3.3. Conflict, Genocide and Aftermath ...... 94

3.3.1. Rwanda ...... 94

3.3.1.1. In the Eve of Rwandan Genocide ...... 94

3.3.1.2. Victims, Supporters and Perpetrators ...... 98

3.3.1.3. Refugees, Displaced Persons and Homecoming ...... 102

3.3.2. Burundi and Uganda ...... 105

3.3.3. DRC ...... 107

3.3.4. Change of Legal Status ...... 111

3.3.5. Does it make a Difference? ...... 117

3.3.6. Who cares? ...... 122

3.3.7. Identities ...... 131

4. Conclusion ...... 135

5. References ...... 139

6. List of Figures ...... 151

Abstract

This master thesis deals with the historical discrimination and marginalization of the Batwa in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, notably in the countries Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and DRC. The thesis aims, with the help of an exemplary analysis, to elaborate the causes, stages, and effects of this discrimination and marginalization over the past roughly 150 years. The Batwa generally have been seen by their neighbors as dirty, uneducated, ugly, or useless. As a result, they are excluded from any main social interaction, as well as economic and political participation. Such an inferior status is almost unique in Sub-Sahara Africa, and it has its origin in the different environmental and social relations of the Batwa in comparison to their neighbors. The intention of the master thesis is to explain these differences and their consequences by analyzing the thoughts and motives on both sides. Additional emphasis is laid on the international involvement in this issue. Concerning this matter, the racist theories of the 19th and 20th century, conservationism, economic interests, and the academic sphere are most noteworthy.

Acknowledgements I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the people from the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), most notably Tommaso Nodari, for their rendered help. Without hesitation, they offered me insight into their work, information, and access to their archive. I also wish to express gratitude to Felix Ndahinda and Doris Burtscher for providing me with useful resources.

I am particularly grateful to my dear friend Anna Wegscheider who did an excellent job by giving me the opportunity to make some field research in Rwanda. Together with her Rwan- dan colleagues, I was able to talk to and to interview several Batwa and their acquaintances. At this point, I have to thank my Kinyarwanda and French translators as well.

I to sincerely thank my supervisor Univ.-Prof. Dr. Albert Lichtblau for his guidance and support while writing this thesis. The talks, discussions, and critics have always been of great value for my further research.

My grateful thanks are also extended to all the people proofreading the thesis and giving me useful critiques for my work. I would also like to thank all the other people who were willing to spend their time to help me with my research.

Finally, I wish to thank my parents for their support and encouragement throughout my study. Without you, all of this would not have been possible.

1. Introduction The word Kuneena can be translated to “to disdain, to treat as a pariah, to refuse to share drink or food with someone who is deemed contemptible, disgusting, or who might transmit a sickness.”1 To treat someone like this is almost unique in Sub-Sahara Africa but the Batwa (among other indigenous groups) are an exception. Since pre-colonial times they have struggled to be accepted as part of mainstream society in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and DRC. But due to their different lifestyle in ancient times these people are facing prejudice, negative stereotyping, discrimination, marginalization and violence. Surprisingly, this finds no large international interest as scholars and researchers, and even most NGOs do not focus on them when addressing issues of any matter in this area. Even during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, when worldwide attention directed towards on Rwanda, the Batwa have been vastly ignored. Instead, the discussion was completely co-opted by the Bahutu-Batutsi relationship although this relation agreed on one thing: “[…] that the Twa were at the bottom of the Rwandan hierarchy.”2

There is the possibility that numbers are a reason driving this exclusion because the population size of the Batwa in this region does by no means exceed 200,000. It has always proven difficult to deduce an exact number on their population though. The people who are identified or have identified themselves as Batwa are scattered around the African countries without many places of concentration. In Rwanda, the estimates between 1917 and 1959 are somewhere around 3,000 and 16,000. On other occasions, the number of 16,000 includes Burundi as both countries were administered together under German and later Belgian rule.3 Reliable numbers could not be obtained. In DRC, the main problem is that there are no clear distinctions to other groups, such as the Mbuti, and also reliable sources are missing. But even today, it is impossible to give adequate numbers. However, the rough estimates which were made for the Batwa in all four countries around the Great Lakes Region between the 1990s and today are as following:

Jackson estimated that the total Batwa population around the 2000s was somewhere between 69,500 to 87,000, based on an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 in Burundi; 16,000 in DRC; 20,000

1 Irenee Jacob 1987, cited in: TAYLOR, Christopher C., Mutton, Mud, and Runny Noses. A Hierarchy of Distaste in Early Rwanda, in: Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice 49/2 (2005), p. 213–230, p. 224. 2 AFRICAN UNION, Rwanda. The Preventable Genocide, July 2000. Available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/ 4d1da8752.html (Jan. 25, 2018), p. 13. 3 See SEITZ, Stefan, Die Töpfer-Twa in Ruanda. Inaugural - Dissertation, Freiburg im Breisgau 1970, p. 32; SEITZ, Stefan, Die zentralafrikanischen Wildbeuterkulturen, Wiesbaden 1977, p. 59-60. 7 to 27,000 in Rwanda, and 3,500 to 4,000 in Uganda.4 The Unrepresented Nations and Peo- ples Organization (UNPO) states that the number in Rwanda by 36,228, according to district records from 2012.5 A similar number of 33,144, was given in 2003.6 In Burundi, the Batwa had a population of 78,071 in 2008.7 However, only two years earlier M. Philippe Nzobonari- ba, Secretary General to the Government, stated that the Batwa population was between 0.5 and one percent of the population which would be between 38,000 and 77,000 people.8 For Uganda, IWGIA estimates that today around 6,700 Batwa live in the south-west of the country.9 Due to the great variety of different Batwa and other indigenous groups in DRC, no numbers for the Batwa (besides Jackson’s in 2003) in the eastern parts of the country are available. The estimated population sizes vary greatly and are often from different time periods. If we take the lowest and the highest given numbers of the last 25 years, the total population of the Batwa in the Great Lakes Region is roughly somewhere between 69,000 and 132,000. Additionally, in none of the four countries, the Batwa population represents more than one percent of the population. These numbers have to be taken with caution due to the extensive time period, and most numbers have not been proven. Regardless of the lowest or highest number, the Batwa population is marginal in comparison with the whole population in this area.

This “state of the art”, the overall discrimination together with their marginal numbers, arose two fundamental research questions for this thesis:

• What are the causes of discrimination and marginalization of the Batwa? • What are the effects of discrimination and marginalization for the Batwa?

Although the questions sound simple, both contain multi-layered aspects which have to be carefully analyzed. First of all, it is inevitable to discuss the most important terms used in

4 See JACKSON, Dorothy, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Minority Rights Group International report, London 2003, p. 4. 5 See UNREPRESENTED NATIONS AND PEOPLES ORGANIZATION (UNPO), Batwa. Available at: http://unpo.org/ members/7861 (Apr. 24, 2018). 6 See THIEBOU, Wouter S.B, The Twa indigenous of Rwanda. A marginalized people in a post-conflict society seen from a cultural and human rights perspective., A thesis submitted to the Board of Examiners in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Conflict Studies & Human Rights, Utrecht 2007, p. 18. 7 See AMANI, Jean-Pierre, 1. Burundi. Historical developments in Burundi’s land law and impacts on Batwa land ownership, in: Forest Peoples Programme, ed., Land Rights and the Forest Peoples of Africa. Historical, Legal and Anthropological Perspectives, Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh 2009, p. 4. 8 See ACHPR and IWGIA, Regional sensitization seminar: "The rights of indigenous populations/communities in Central Africa", 13-16 September 2006, [1. oplag]. Report of the African Commission's Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities, Banjul, Copenhagen 2009, p. 19. 9 See INTERNATIONAL WORK GROUP FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS (IWGIA), Indigenous peoples in Uganda. Avail- able at: https://www.iwgia.org/en/uganda (Apr. 24, 2018). 8 such an analysis. This terminology includes the following: indigenous, minority, community, political representation, discrimination, marginalization, and racism. All of these terms are contested, unclear or have a broad spectrum of interpretations and it, therefore, needs clarification on how these terms will be used and understood in this thesis. It is necessary to explain the mechanics of the constant discrimination and marginalization and how it creates new causes and new effects of discrimination and marginalization over time (chapter 2.3). Only after this, we will have some basic understanding of how multi-layered this analysis will be and has to be. The study itself will begin with the origin of the discrimination of the Batwa: Land. The different understanding of environmental and social relations resulted in the perception that the Batwa (and, in their point of view, the others) are somewhat different because of their distinct way of life. Following on from this, a historical analysis will take place, examining how the resulting differentiation was expressed and how new factors caused additional methods of discrimination and marginalization. The second last chapter will deal with the academic and international response to this issue by asking the question, “Who cares?” as this is a crucial factor on the aspect of marginalization of the Batwa. At this point, I will also explain why I will often use the pronoun “we”. Thereby I mean the whole international community (NGOs, politicians, agencies, “western” people” etc.) but foremost the academic sphere which I want to speak directly to, as their role is crucial for this thesis and I am an active part of it. In the final chapter, I will elaborate upon the impact that discrimination and marginalization have had and continues to have on the identities of the Batwa. At the end, we should become a sufficient understanding of this issue in particular and the different causes and effects of discrimination and marginalization of indigenous groups in general.

It is important to note; I will actively avoid using the term “ethnicity” (or other forms of it) were possible. Weber states that “ethnic” categorization founds itself on a social agreement that sees these “ethnic” differences as factual.10 Because such identities are particularly flexible in Sub-Sahara Africa,11 I will not refer to the Batwa as a distinctive ethnicity. It would simply make it an absolute state of being that they are different. During the analysis, we will see how difficult it would be to make such a clear distinction and that it is not possible to do so. Another highly contested term is “pygmy” or “pygmies” which is often used for describing the Batwa. However, this will be explained in chapter 3.2.3 in more detail.

10 See SUDERLAND, Maja, Ein Extremfall des Sozialen. Die Häftlingsgesellschaft in den nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 136. 11 See KENRICK, Justin and LEWIS, Jerome, Discrimination Against the Forest People ('Pygmies') of Central Africa, in: Suhas Chakma and Marianne Jensen, ed., Racism Against Indigenous Peoples, IWGIA Document, vol. 105, Copenhagen 2001, p. 312–323, p. 314. 9

I tried to use as much literature as possible because firstly, I want to show that there is plenty of literature available when you look closely. Secondly, primary sources are not that numerous, and therefore I will lay heavy emphasis on an Oral History approach. In most NGO reports, as well as documentaries, high numbers of testimonies and interviews with Batwa have been conducted which I can utilize in outlining the issues faced by this group. I made a short trip to Rwanda for two weeks to complete relevant field research,12 during this time I conducted numerous interviews with people from two different Batwa communities. Third, one of my goals was to combine most of the existing (English and German) literature and research on the Batwa as most of it are only single chapters of a more significant theme, articles in a journal or reports. At the end, I was able to collect several dozens of such articles, chapters, reports, etc. who were dealing with the Batwa (see next chapter). Therefore, I believe that this thesis will be one of the most extensive ones on this topic. French literature is not included due to my linguistic limitation.

In the upcoming analysis, I will only skim over the legal aspects of indigenous people and minorities as numerous NGO reports are extensively dealing with this topic. It is also important to note that clear geographical distinctions are not always feasible. In DRC we have the problem that several Batwa groups and other indigenous groups exist near each other and whom also face the same issues. Because of this, there is not always a clear distinction in literature between such groups. As a consequence, I will use examples from north-eastern and south-eastern parts of the DRC as well in this analysis. Although much research and reports focus on Rwanda only, I will generalize from time to time as the overall social structure is and was very similar in the neighboring countries and areas I am concentrating on and there are no indications that the situation there was any different. One of the most common maps showing the geographical distribution of the Batwa people in the area is the following one. But it should be only seen as a rough visualization without any guarantee on its accuracy or topicali- ty:

12 AUTHOR, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 10

Figure 1: Distribution of Batwa communities, source: Thiebou (2007), p. VI. 11

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1. Literature Although it was mentioned that plenty of literature on the Batwa exists, there is one problem: Many texts are based on or cite the same few primary pieces of literature. This is especially true for works which deal with the topic of discrimination. Only a few people, mainly Doro- thy Jackson, Judy Knight and Jerome Lewis, are the authors of the standard literature.13 They have laid out the foundation for this thesis, but their work was done 18 to 25 years ago and are still almost the only reliable sources when dealing with the Batwa in a historical perspective. The report of UNPO,14 which deals with the Batwa during the Rwandan Genocide is also of high value but again was written 23 years ago. There is an urgent need for more of such standard literature that covers the different time periods in more detail. On the other hand, several anthropological studies exist who are dealing with hunters and gatherers in general and/or the Batwa in particular. Especially noteworthy include Christopher C. Taylor, Tim Ingold, Marcus Colchester and Kairn A. Klieman who have performed extensive work on the life and struggles of (former) hunter and gatherer communities in Sub-Sahara Africa.15 The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers16 is probably one of the most recent and most extensive collections of anthropological studies on hunter and gatherer communities that exists.

Probably the most significant part of literature and sources are NGO reports, and they are too many to name them all here (many are listed or named in chapter 3.3.6). The works of Jack- son, Lewis, Knight, UNPO are also part of this. Apart from anthropological studies, these are some of the only reliable sources when dealing with this topic. Not only because of their interviews but also because of their statistics and analysis on rights issues etc. But this is often problematic, as many focused on human rights issues at the end of the day; although this topic is already covered extensively. Nevertheless, they offered insightful explanations and substantial amounts of background information which was used in this thesis. One of such is a series of five reports,17 made by the Forest People Programme (FPP), who greatly inspired chapter 3.1. Another part of reports is those of international institutions such as the UN and their

13 See references. 14 OVEREEM, Pauline, Batwa Final Report. A Report of the UNPO Mission with APB, Investigating the Situation of the Batwa People of Rwanda, September 28 - December 15, 1994, The Hague 1995. 15 See references. 16 CUMMINGS, Vicki et al., ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter- Gatherers, Oxford 2014. 17 FOREST PEOPLES PROGRAMME, Land Rights and the Forest Peoples of Africa. Historical, Legal and Anthropo- logical Perspectives. Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh 2009. 12 commission or the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) who is part of the African Union (AU).18

Three short documentaries which focus on the Batwa in Uganda are also used as sources, especially for collecting testimonies of Batwa people and other players regarding their issues. These documentaries are The Fog of Bwindi,19 Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda,20 and Batwa: Uganda and the Human Story behind Gorilla Tourism.21

The literature on Rwandan Genocide is often used to describe the overall developments during this time but is also crucial for the literature review regarding the interests on the Batwa in chapter 3.3.6. Therefore, I will not go into any further detail at this point.

I was also able to visit UNPO in Brussels, and their archive in Antwerp which provided me with some additional material. Due to the marginal role of the Batwa, in general, this gain was limited, something that I was already warned of by UNPO before my visit.

2.2. Terminology

2.2.1. Indigenous People and Minorities22 According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the term “indigenous” refers to “naturally existing in a place or country rather than arriving from another place.”23 This somewhat unclear and simplified, but also true definition offers a large basis of discussion on who is indigenous and who is not. Because when has enough time passed, that we can consider someone or something as “naturally existing in a place or country”? Is it after ten years, a century, hundreds, thousands, or millions of years? Hence, there should be no surprise that the discussion, on who can be called or identified as indigenous, is highly contested in sub-Saharan Africa (and of course every other part of the world).24

18 See references. 19 BÖHLMARK, Anna, The Fog of Bwindi 2015. Available at: https://vimeo.com/163738299 (May 21, 2018). 20 VICE NEWS, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda 2015. Available at: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITzWIBHEPqA (May 21, 2018). 21 THE GUARDIAN, Batwa: Uganda and the Human Story behind Gorilla Tourism | Guardian Features 2015. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56G9Ag0JMs0 (May 21, 2018). 22 For a broader and more detailed discussion about "indigenousness", see: NDAHINDA, Felix Mukwiza, Indige- nousness in Africa. A Contested Legal Framework for Empowerment of 'Marginalized' Communities, The Hague 2011. 23 CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY, "indigenous" Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary. Available at: https:// dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/indigenous (Nov. 09, 2017). 24 See HERGUM, Hans Petter, The First Peoples. Indigenous Peoples and Norwegian Church Aid. Occasional paper / Norwegian Church Aid, vol. 2006,1, Oslo 2006, p. 7. 13

Therefore, the Cambridge Dictionary gives another definition to the term as well: “existing naturally or having always lived in a place; native.”25 This is one of the most accepted concepts of indigenousness within sub-Saharan states, but it is still problematic. The proponents of this concept argue that all Africans are indigenous because all have been, at a point in history, colonized by Europeans. As a consequence, all Africans are “naturally existing” in their country of origin.26 Nevertheless, we can see dozens of exceptions, for example when it comes to bilateral international treaties between a country and international institutions. Afri- can governments often recognize certain groups of their population as indigenous people in reward for political or economic benefits: “In law this is persuasive evidence of at least a state of mind, and in this case more: of international relations and legal opinion.” But this is no evidence for a true recognition of indigenous people because such international agreements only affect certain parts of African societies, mostly those in which uneven economic development (internal colonialism) has taken place. By declaring certain parts of the population as indigenous, governments can acquire much needed international development assistance.27 Adding to this, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) states that the question of “who came first” and of aboriginally is pretty much irrelevant. The situation is the same with the argument of colonization by Europeans because both (colonization and domination) were and are practiced by local dominant groups as well. It was never exclusive- ly practiced by white or foreign people.28

(Former) Central African forest people,29 including the Batwa, are yet seen as distinctly indigenous by most of their neighbors (not necessarily in a good way) and themselves. They are recognized as the true first people who belong to the forest:

“The Babembe, Bafuliru, Bahavu, Bahunde, Bahutu, Bakiga, Banande, Banyanga, Bashi, Batutsi, Bavira, Bayindu and Warega, for instance – all claim their origins from outside this area. Their oral histories tell of migra- tions, of wars and even conquest. In contrast, the Batwa emphasize that they

25 See Cambridge Dictionary, "indigenous" Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary. 26 See KIDD, Christopher and KENRICK, Justin, 0. Overview: analysis and context. Part I - The forest peoples of Africa: land rights in context, in: Forest Peoples Programme, ed., Land Rights and the Forest Peoples of Africa. Historical, Legal and Anthropological Perspectives, Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh 2009, p. 4– 27, p. 4-5; AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES' RIGHTS, Indigenous Peoples in Africa. The forgotten peoples? The African Commission's work on indigenous peoples in Africa, Banjul, Gambie, Copenhagen, Som- erset, et al. 2006, p. 12. 27 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 4. 28 See African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Indigenous Peoples in Africa, p. 10. 29 “Forest people” may be described as peoples who live in and have customary rights to their forests, and have developed ways of life and traditional knowledge that are attuned to their forest environments. Forest peoples depend primarily and directly on the forest both for subsistence and trade in the form of fishing, hunting, shifting agriculture, the gathering of wild forest products and other activities, CHAO, Sophie, Forest People. Numbers across the world. Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh 2012, p. 7. 14

have no origins elsewhere, no history of migration, that they are the truly indigenous people of this region.”30 Representatives of the Batwa generally emphasize their ethnic and cultural distinctiveness.31 Most ordinary Batwa share the same view: “Our grandfathers told us that the Batwa were here long before the others. Those that have sat on school benches also know this.”32 The Rwandan government instead labels the Batwa as “Historically Marginalized People” (HMP).33 But then what makes these people indigenous or “more” indigenous than other Africans and is there a more specific definition of the term in general?

Firstly, groups, who identify as “indigenous” people have a considerably different way of life and culture as the dominant society they are living in. Secondly, almost all affected groups face a serious threat to their culture, sometimes to the brink of extinction. They face discrimination and marginalization across numerous levels: They are seen as inferior, live isolated (often in geographically inaccessible regions), cannot participate politically and socially in the same way as members of the dominant society, face economic exploitation and they cannot assume their basic human rights. Their often solely goal is the survival of their way of life, which depends inextricably on the access and rights to their traditional lands and resources.34 In the case of most Batwa in the Great Lakes Region comes an additional problem: They do not live in well-defined areas. Instead, they are scattered across several nation-state borders and loosely connected communities within a state. Anthropological and social studies, for example, struggle to distinguish between Batwa, San, and East African foragers. The ill- documented history of these people further adds to this problem. It makes it harder for them to form a legal community, which is large enough to participate in international discussions on indigenous rights successfully. However, there has been some progress in recent years. This kind of self-identification and self-recognition are in further consequence the core aspects of being indigenous.35 Nevertheless, being indigenous, or better said, claiming to have an indigenous identity is:

30 LEWIS, Jerome, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region. Minority Rights Group International (MRG), London 2000, p. 6. 31 See MC DOUGALL, Gay, Report of the independent expert on minority issues. Addendum - Mission to Rwan- da, United Nations, General Assembly - Human Rights Council. A/HRC/19/56/Add.1, n.p. 2011, p. 15; Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 6. 32 Mutwa man aged 65, Mungwa, Burundi, July 1999, quoted in: Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 6. 33 See Mc Dougall, Report of the independent expert on minority issues, p. 14; this definition contains nevertheless controversial aspects and is criticized on many sides (see chapter 3.3.7.) 34 See African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Indigenous Peoples in Africa, p. 10. 35 See NDAHINDA, Felix Mukwiza, Marginality, Disempowerment and Contested Discourses on Indigenousness in Africa, in: International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 18/4 (2011), p. 479–514, p. 483-485. 15

“[…] not an absolute state of being, rather it is a political claim that takes place in the context of perceived marginalisation and vulnerability […]. The claim of being indigenous is made relative to a perceived threat from a dominant society where there are historical antecedents to the tensions.”36 This statement brings us to another discussion point about the issue of indigenous people in Africa, the intersection of the terms “indigenous” and “minority”. Some argue that African governments would potentially respond more favorably to of the affected groups if they are calling themselves “minorities” instead of “indigenous people”. We can argue that if someone comes up with the “all Africans are indigenous”-argument, African governments, could also be labeled as colonizers, in relation to these people. So there should be no surprise when governments often oppose the term “indigenous”.37 We can find many aspects which are characteristics of both, but there are some crucial aspects that distinguish them though: “The crucial difference between minority rights and indigenous rights is that minority rights are formulated as individual rights whereas indigenous rights are collective rights.”38 Minority rights, as defined by the UN, ensure that members of a certain ethnic, religious or linguistic minority are able to practice their own culture and religion, to use their language, etc. Indigenous rights build on these rights, but they are adding some particular collective rights: the right to land, territory and resources. All three aspects are crucial for the survival of a group outside of a dominant society and the cornerstone for the exercise of their individual rights. Groups who want to ensure their own way of life are therefore more devoted to calling themselves “indigenous” rather than a “minority”.39 Another important aspect is that hardly anyone bothers to differ, and so indigenous people and minorities are mostly seen as the same. But minorities are not automatically groups that were “first” in a geographical setting and belonging. They are often scattered across vast areas, and not in a specific one, whereby they originated from other places as where they live now. Minorities can only claim cultural rights and not material rights. Indigenous people, on the other hand, lived in a specific area for several centuries. Therefore, they can well claim material rights too.40 Adding to this, indigenous people are not a minority in all cases, but surely in the most including all indigenous people in Africa.41

36 CRAWHALL, Nigel, Indigenous Peoples’ in Africa. Occasional paper / Norwegian Church Aid, vol. 2007, Oslo 2007, p. 7. 37 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p.5; African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, p. 13. 38 African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Indigenous Peoples in Africa, p. 13. 39 See Ibid., p. 13-14. 40 See Hergum, The First Peoples, p. 7-8. 41 See INTEGRATED REGIONAL INFORMATION NETWORKS (IRIN), Minorities Under Siege. Pygmies today in Africa. Report 2006, p. 3; LEWIS, Jerome, Forest People or Village People: Whose voice will be heard?', in: Alan Barnard and Justin Kenrick, ed., Africa's Indigenous Peoples. 'First Peoples' or 'Marginalized Minorities'?, Edinburgh 2001, p. 61–78, p. 62. 16

As we can see, the term “indigenous” strongly connects with the access to land and resources needed for the cultural survival of a group, which are not part of the dominant society.42 One could say that being indigenous is a (needed) political catchphrase to ensure individual human rights and the collective identity of a group which is threatened by extinction or assimilation as the Alfred and Corntassel put it:

“[…] being Indigenous means thinking, speaking and acting with the conscious intent of regenerating one’s indigeneity. […] As Indigenous peoples, the way to recovering freedom and power and happiness is clear: it is time for each one of us to make the commitment to transcend colonialism as people, and for us to work together as peoples. […] we only need to start to use our Indigenous languages to frame our thoughts, the ethical framework of our philosophies to make decisions and to use our laws and institutions to govern ourselves.”43 2.2.2. Community (power) A community is a relationship between people who share something in common. In most cases, it is related to their collective identity even though the properties often remain unclear. As seen in the previous chapter, such undefined aspects create a wide range of possible argumentation. First, there is no widely accepted definition on which specific characteristics a community must encompass. Already in 1955, George A. Hillery analyzed more than 94 concepts of “community”. The only aspects that all analyzed concepts had in common was that they deal with people. In all other aspects, such as geographical area, self-sufficiency, kinship, consciousness of kind, traditional lifestyles, etc. combinations as far as in- and excluded characteristics were numerous. Some use a concept of community to describe specific types of population settlements. Other scholars refer to the prime theoretical example of the way of life in those settlements and others again to the common social interaction within and between different settlements. In recent times researchers often combine all three types by creating terms such as “traditional inner-city working-class communities”. But this combined approach creates another problem: It identifies and endorses a specific type of community to the detri- ment of others.44

This kind of approach misses a critical discussion about the definition of “community” and possible negative aspects of it. Putnam addresses this problem in an article in The American Prospect. In the beginning, he argues that: “Working together is easier in a community

42 See COLCHESTER, Marcus, Salvaging Nature. Indigenous Peoples, Protected Areas and Biodiversity Conserva- tion, Revised and Expanded Edition, Montevideo and Moreton-in-Marsh 2003, p. 12. 43 ALFRED, Taiaiake and CORNTASSEL, Jeff, Being Indigenous. Resurgences against Contemporary Colonialism, in: Government and Opposition 40/4 (2005), p. 597–614, p. 614. 44 See SCOTT, John and MARSHALL, Gordon, A dictionary of sociology, 3rd rev. ed., Oxford 2009, p. 107-108. 17 blessed with a substantial stock of social capital.”45 Meaning that communities with a high social organization (networks, norms, trust, etc.) benefit better from the physical and human capital they are creating. These communities are often those endorsed and favored ones, not necessarily in the science sphere, but in the real society, they are situated in. The endorsed community benefits from these created norms and networks, but it hinders other communities to endorse themselves too, especially when the favored community uses a discriminatory and marginalizing framework.46 John Wanna, for example, states:

“Little research has been devoted to policy implementation in relation to Aboriginal or ethnic groups in large urban communities. This involves more than simply identifying those with less power and less involvement in policy development, and requires a reconceptualisation of the terms of analysis for community power studies.”47 The Batwa are lacking much in social organization, physical and human capital and they are extraordinarily negatively affected by the “social capital” of the dominant societies surrounding them.48 Many identify themselves as indigenous and therefore have a specific set of characteristics that can be used to describe their kind of community and identity. Furthermore, Batwa groups have strong social relations and recognize themselves as a community. For them, the community was (and still is?) more important than the individual.49

2.2.3. Political Representation “Another feature of indigenous peoples and communities is that their representation in the legislative assemblies and other political structures of their respective states tends to be weak, hence issues that concern them are not adequately addressed.”50 Thus, political representation is another critical aspect for the survival of indigenous people. If they can represent themselves on a political level, they are presented with the possibility to address their issues and call attention to their situation adequately. Otherwise, they only thrift further into marginalization.51

45 PUTNAM, Robert D., The Prosperous Community, in: The American Prospect, March 21. Available at: http://prospect.org/article/prosperous-community-social-capital-and-public-life (Nov. 14, 2017). 46 See Ibid. 47 WANNA, John, Community Power Debates. Themes, Issues and Remaining Dilemmas, in: Urban Policy and Research 9/4 (1991), p. 193–208, p. 204. 48 See Mc Dougall, Report of the independent expert on minority issues, p. 14. 49 See NAKAYI, Rose, 5. Uganda. Historical and contemporary land laws and their impact on indigenous peoples’ land rights in Uganda: The case of the Batwa, in: Forest Peoples Programme, ed., Land Rights and the Forest Peoples of Africa. Historical, Legal and Anthropological Perspectives, Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in- Marsh 2009, p. 9. 50 African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Indigenous Peoples in Africa, p. 19. 51 See HAIDER-MARKEL, Donald P. et al., Minority Group Interests and Political Representation. Gay Elected Officials in the Policy Process, in: The Journal of Politics 62/2 (2000), p. 568–577, p. 568. 18

With the term “representation” we face the same irony as with the previous and following ones: “[…] everyone seems to know what it is, yet few can agree on any particular definition.”52 For example, the only types of representatives that are addressed in the discussion of political representation are often limited to formal representatives. In other words, limited purely to those who are elected. Most concepts of representation are therefore only limited to “specific kinds of political actors within a particular context”. Scholars who want to address a broader view on this topic must, in consequence, distinguish between the representation of elected officials, social movements, judicial bodies, and informal organizations, but they are often not able to describe how such different forms of representation relate to each other.53 Despite this, five components are existing in almost every kind of political representation:

1. Some party that is representing (the representative, an organization, movement, state agency, etc.);

2. Some party that is being represented (the constituents, the clients, etc.);

3. Something that is being represented (opinions, perspectives, interests, discourses, etc.); and

4. A setting within which the activity of representation is taking place (the political context).

5. Something that is being left out (the opinions, interests, and perspectives not voiced) – this aspect is often ignored though.54

As the concepts of political representation are complex, I will only focus on a specific idea, one that suits most to the situation of the Batwa. Pitkin’s Four Views of Representation offer a vast possibility on how someone can use the term. Pitkin argues that we must consider such different ways in order to understand the concept of political representation at all and because the definition of the term relies heavily on the question someone is asking:

1. Formalistic Representation (The institutional arrangements that precede and initiate representation. Formal representation has two dimensions: authorization and account- ability) – What is the institutional position of a representative?

2. Symbolic Representation (The ways that a representative “stands for” the represented - that is, the meaning that a representative has for those being represented) - What kind of response is invoked by the representative in those being represented?

52 DOVI, Suzanne, "Political Representation", in: Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philoso- phy, Winter 2017 Edition, Stanford forthcoming. 53 See Ibid. 54 Ibid. 19

3. Descriptive Representation (The extent to which a representative resembles those being represented) – Does the representative look like, have common interests with, or share certain experiences with the represented?

4. Substantive Representation (The activity of representatives - that is, the actions taken on behalf of, in the interest of, as an agent of, and as a substitute for the represented) – Does the representative advance the policy preferences that serve the interests of the represented?55

On the other hand, Pitkin gives a simple definition of political representation, one that shows the need for the Batwa to be able to represent themselves: “[…] representation means, as the word’s etymological origins indicate, re-representation, a making present again.”56 To be straightforward: Political representation is to show the others that you are (still) existing. Something the Batwa are hardly able to do. This definition lays out the basic framework in which the role of the Batwa will be analyzed regarding their political representation. To give an example: Since the implementation of modern international human rights, indigenous people have the right to participate in the national decision-making process so that they can address the issues affecting their traditional lands, territories, and resources. Several human rights bodies ensure, at least in theory, the right of indigenous people to free prior and informed consent regarding these topics.57

The specific questions we must ask on the political representation of the Batwa are therefore depended on the period in history we are looking at. During particular periods, such as the colonial era, they had no (own) representation at all, and in others, they legally had one but failed to claim a regular kind of representation. By addressing the right questions, it should be possible to redraw and explain the problems, developments, and chances of their political representation. Because in case of the Batwa (and similar groups) following problem always existed and still exists:

“The ‘village world’ is global and seemingly unstoppable. Forest people experience intense discrimination in their own countries and their forests have been transformed by global capitalism into a series of faunal and floral as- sets to be distributed among white and black ‘village people’. Forest people are deeply resentful about the lack of respect for their rights by village peo-

55 Ibid. 56 PITKIN, Hanna Fenichel, The Concept of Representation, 1st paperback edition, Berkeley 1972 (1967), p. 8. 57 See COUILLARD, Valérie and GILBERT, Jeremie, 0. Overview: analysis and context. Part II - Land Rights under international law: historical and contemporary Issues, in: Forest Peoples Programme, ed., Land Rights and the Forest Peoples of Africa. Historical, Legal and Anthropological Perspectives, Forest Peoples Programme, More- ton-in-Marsh 2009, p. 1-3, p. 28-47, p. 42-43. 20

ple, but without outside support they are unlikely to be heard before it is too late.”58 2.2.4. Discrimination Discrimination is a complicated matter. Individual people and groups affected by discrimination usually face unequal treatment. They are seen as inferior because they belong to a specific group. But discrimination is more than just treating someone differently. Discrimination has a pejorative meaning. Unfair treatment can range from passive and less positive responses to another member of a different group to specific and active negative behavior towards such a person or group. In the traditional or explicit sense, discrimination is a deliberate response to beliefs and attitudes (physical appearance, socio-economic status, sexuality, behavior, etc.) towards individuals and groups. Another form of discrimination, implicit discrimination, is a lack of awareness and unintentional activation, such as unappropriated behavior when facing these people.59 Another aspect of discrimination is that the own group is often favored and positively associated. Discrimination is therefore a biased behavior.60 The sources and manifestations of this biased behavior are different though. There are at least three categories of discrimination that we can conclude:

• Individual, • institutional or structural61 and • cultural discrimination.

Individual discrimination is the explicit or implicit negative actions of an individual towards another individual or group. Batwa are often treated differently than other people. Individuals do not share food with them; they also avoid talking or interacting with them. It is not stated that the discriminatory person is a member of a dominant or hegemonic group of whatever categories. Members of the discriminated group can also discriminate, either people of their own, people of other groups, or the other group as a whole. This is the case when people with minority or ethnic background need (or want) to distance themselves from “others”. The reason for this can be that they re-establish existing prejudices to benefit from it. Or they are “as-

58 Lewis, Forest People or Village People: Whose voice will be heard?', p. 10. 59 See ÇETIN, Zülfukar, Homophobie und Islamophobie. Intersektionale Diskriminierungen am Beispiel binationaler schwuler Paare in Berlin, Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Univ., Diss., 2011, vol. 3, Bielefeld 2012, p. 19-20; DOVIDIO, John F. et al., Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination: Theoretical and Empirical Overview, in: John F. Do- vidio et al., ed., The SAGE Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination, Los Angeles 2010, p. 3– 29, p. 8-10; KAMALI, Masoud, Racial Discrimination. Institutional Patterns and Politics, New York, London 2009, p. 5. 60 See Dovidio, et al., Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination: Theoretical and Empirical Overview, p. 8-9; Kamali, Racial Discrimination, p. 5. 61 There is no clear theoretical differentiation between these two kinds of discrimination and it can therefore cause many methodological problems. For the sake of clarity and convenience I will not separate between the two terms and will only refer to it as institutional discrimination. 21 similated” by the existing prejudices of society and identify themselves by such.62 Individual discrimination is, therefore, a “[…] behaviour that creates, maintains, or reinforces advantage for some groups and their members over other groups and their members.”63

Institutional discrimination is manifested by institutional policies and orders, routines, arrangements, norms and functions. It can also be carried out by individuals controlling these institutions (“Gatekeepers”).64 Their own prejudices and stereotypes can lead to the production of discriminatory laws and policies. But institutional discrimination does not necessarily need an acting individual to “work”.65 Policies and laws creating these problems are often “race” and gender neutral but practically harm “ethnic” minorities and women. People often do not realize this because laws are typically seen as just and moral (e.g. Rwanda: the abolishment of ethnic discourse, see below). Institutional discrimination, hence again, can be intentional and unintentional. It is an outcome of an ideology, patterns of behavior and procedures which exclude individuals and groups from having jobs, getting education, the same treatment in the justice system etc. Examples for this are certain socio-economic structures which lead to segregation and apartheid in the US (the same development are facing the Bat- wa in the past and now), the justification of slavery or the seizure of indigenous lands.66 After the Genocide, Rwanda abolished any ethnic discourse. This law has affected Batwa negatively as they are not allowed to distinguish themselves from the dominant society anymore. This means that they are not allowed to represent themselves nationally and internationally if they use the term Batwa or indigenous people.67 With this creation of unimportance they are denied social reputation. Issues affecting them are not considered as important, neither by individuals nor by the public. An exception is when such issues can be used to further discriminate such people.68

We must also acknowledge that institutions are not separate from one another. They are instead closely linked to each other. Together they form the “[…] institutional arrangements of society, which, in turn, reproduces established power relations as well as ethnic inequali-

62 See Kamali, Racial Discrimination, p. 5. 63 Dovidio, et al., Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination: Theoretical and Empirical Overview, p. 10. 64 See Kamali, Racial Discrimination, p. 5-6. 65 See Dovidio, et al., Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination: Theoretical and Empirical Overview, p. 10- 11. 66 See Kamali, Racial Discrimination, p. 6; Dovidio, et al., Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination: Theoreti- cal and Empirical Overview, p. 10-11; Çetin, Homophobie und Islamophobie, p. 22-24. 67 See HUGGINS, Chris, 4. Rwanda. Historical and contemporary land law and their impact on indigenous peoples' land rights in Rwanda, in: Forest Peoples Programme, ed., Land Rights and the Forest Peoples of Africa. Historical, Legal and Anthropological Perspectives, Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh 2009, p. 9- 10. 68 See Çetin, Homophobie und Islamophobie, p. 22. 22 ties.”69 For instance, if certain people are denied primary education, for whatever reason, they cannot participate adequately in labor market or receive any higher education. They will be de facto excluded and silenced in society (in which such competencies are needed). This deter- mines that institutional discrimination becomes a systematic and daily experience. Institution- al discrimination contrives the reproduction of an established ethnic inferiority.70

Cultural discrimination, on the other hand, is deeply connected to standards and normative ways of behaving within a culture. This kind of discrimination takes places when a specific group establishes universal values for a society which benefits their own culture, heritage and values. These norms and values are furthermore imposed on less dominant groups. Cultural discrimination “combines” both, individual and institutional discrimination, as it can be expressed in individual actions and institutional policies. Sometimes affected minorities adopt such propagated beliefs to distract from their inferior status. They develop “false consciousness” that only contribute to their systematic disadvantage:71 “[…] the unique power of cultural discrimination resides in its power to shape how members of different groups interpret and react to group disparities, fostering compliance to the status quo without explicit intentions, awareness, or active support for these group-biased disparities.”72

As we can see discrimination can occur on various levels and in multiple forms. Prejudice and stereotypes create biases that find their ways into the minds of people which are then expressed (intentional and unintentional) in discriminatory social interactions, ideologies, and laws which establish an unequal socio-economic power distribution between different groups.73

2.2.5. Marginalization Marginalization, or social exclusion, is a topic hardly covered in the past and came only recently in focus even though this phenomenon has always been present throughout history. Just in the 1990s, the issue came to attention in the European Union and only then people tried to give an adequate definition to it. The problem of most early characterizations was that they only offered an indirect description of social exclusion. Meaning that factors (low income, unskilled labor, poor health, immigration, low education level, etc.), who may lead to this problem, were targeted, but the issue of social exclusion itself was still ignored: “Social ex-

69 Kamali, Racial Discrimination, p. 7. 70 See Ibid., p. 6. 71 See Dovidio, et al., Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination: Theoretical and Empirical Overview, p. 11. 72 Ibid. 73 See Ibid. 23 clusion is thus seen as a potential consequence of a number of risk factors, without that consequence being spelled out.”74 Further researches soon showed that poverty (with all its aspects) does not necessarily cause such exclusion, which made these definitions obsolete.75

The ongoing scientific debate regarding this matter has led to two different concepts: The French school favored the importance of collective values and norms, solidarity, social cohe- sion and the risk of social alienation as critical aspects. The Anglo-American school, instead, focused on unequal access to income, basic goods, public services, and citizenship rights as the main factors of poverty and social exclusion. Some argue that these two concepts differ fundamentally. Again, others think that there are only marginal distinctions. Nevertheless, both concepts lack the clarification regarding the contrast between absolute poverty and relative social exclusion. Although poverty is often measured in concrete numbers and categories, these categories vary over time, location and setting.76

Scholars were, therefore, looking for a broader sense of the meaning of poverty and social exclusion in the first place. Soon they noted some differences between poverty and social exclusion: The prime reason for poverty is undoubtedly the lack of financial means, whereby social exclusion can be caused by many other factors such as illness, old age, discrimination, etc.77 As mentioned in the previous chapter, discrimination can be caused by the actions of affected people themselves as well as by the actions of others (individuals and institutions). This also applies to marginalization and social exclusion. Socio-economic developments such as rising unemployment, structural changes, demographic transitions and cultural changes are the third source of exclusion. Social exclusion and poverty, therefore, cannot be wholly separated from each other.78

Jehoel-Gijsbers and Vrooman elaborated, consequently, a characteristic of social exclusion which includes the aspects of both, the economic-structural (Anglo-American school) and the social-cultural (French school) concept. The economic-structural exclusion refers to the distributional dimension, while the social-cultural exclusion emphasizes on the relational dimension:

74 JEHOEL-GIJSBERS, Gerda and VROOMAN, Cok, Explaining Social Exclusion. A theoretical model tested in the Netherlands. SCP-special, Den Haag 2007, p. 11. 75 See Ibid., p. 11-12. 76 See Ibid., p. 12-14. 77 See Jehoel-Gijsbers and Vrooman, Explaining Social Exclusion, p. 14-15; YOUNG, Iris, Five Faces of Oppres- sion, in: Seth Nii Asumah and Ibipo Johnston-Anumonwo, ed., Diversity, Multiculturalism and Social Justice, Binghamton and New York 2002, p. 35–73, p. 57-58. 78 See Jehoel-Gijsbers and Vrooman, Explaining Social Exclusion, p. 14-16. 24

• Economic-structural exclusion (distributional dimension) is manifested in the denying of o Material rights (income and goods) and; o Non-material rights (social rights). • Socio-cultural exclusion (relational dimension) is manifested in the missing of o Sufficient social integration (A lack of participation in formal and informal social networks, inadequate social support and social isolation) and; o Sufficient cultural integration (A lack of compliance with core norms and values associated with active social citizenship, indicated by a weak work ethic, abuse of the social security system, delinquent behavior, deviating views on the rights and duties of men and women; no involvement in the local neighborhood and society at large).79

Marginalized people are those who are excluded from participating in the dominant social system, either because they are simply seen as unimportant (socio-cultural exclusion) or because the system of labor they are living in cannot or will not “use” them (economic-structural exclusion): “The fact of marginalization raises basic structural issues of justice, in particular concerning the appropriateness of a connection between participation in productive activities of social cooperation, on the one hand, and access to means of consumption, on the other.”80 The definition of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)81 adds some additional details to this characterization which are substantial for the upcoming analysis of the situation of the Batwa. In the EIGEs terms marginalization exists when:

“Different groups of people within a given culture, context and history at risk of being subjected to multiple discrimination due to the interplay of different personal characteristics or grounds, such as sex, gender, age, ethnicity, religion or belief, health status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, education or income, or living in various geographic localities. Be- longing to such groups or even being perceived to belong to them heightens the risk of inequalities in terms of access to rights and use of services and goods in a variety of domains, such as access to education, employment, health, social and housing assistance, protection against domestic or institutional violence, and justice.”82

79 See Ibid., p. 16-17. 80 Young, Five Faces of Oppression, p. 58. 81 Based on the information of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN OHCHR). 82 EUROPEAN INSTITUTE FOR GENDER EQUALITY, Marginalized groups. Definition. Available at: http:// eige.europa.eu/rdc/thesaurus/terms/1280 (Nov. 29, 2017). 25

Although, while this definition is detailed and covers a wide variety of the issues relevant to poverty, discrimination, social exclusion, marginalization, etc. aspects are missing from this concept: Firstly, the denying right to access land and acquire resources in the first place. Several laws, as well as cultural and social understandings, withhold the Batwa from perceiv- ing these rights and furthermore determine the framework of discrimination and marginalization against them. This shows why it is so important to identify and analyze the Batwa not only concerning their discriminatory and marginal status they are facing but also because of their highly contested (self-claimed) indigenous status and how these aspects are related to each other.

Secondly, the role of the international community (States, politicians, intellectuals, NGOs, human rights agents, international institutions, etc.). This is a point that surprisingly few people consider as important in terms of marginalization (as well as discrimination). This point offers a new level of analysis: an international level. All aspects, arguments, and considera- tions made in the previous paragraphs dealt on a coherent national level within a specific social and cultural sphere. But what about the scientific, political and moral debates, works and literature relevant to these affected people (often in the context of a broader issue revolving around them), or rather, the non-existing ones (the explicit dealing with a particular marginalized group)? A point that I wish to reiterate is that discriminated people struggle to ensure their way of life and to represent themselves so that they can make people aware of their fate. So how does the international non-covering or non-recognition of these people affect this development?

What I noticed, when reading about Rwanda and other countries within this region, is that the Batwa are hardly mentioned at all in popular readings, political, or NGO reports. Erin Jessee stresses this issue too.83 Regardless, if it is a short article, a biography such as Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil, a thousand-page human rights watch report or any other book and report, claiming of explaining specific events and developments of the region. To give an example: François Lagarde created a 368-page long bibliography about English and French literature (until 2011) that is dealing with Rwanda. He cites 7,136 archives, bibliographies, catalogs, and databases, whereby only 50, that means 0.7 percent, explicitly deal with the Batwa. At least it is a little bit more than the population percentage of the group in most states they are living in. Several of these 50 sources are reports by NGOs. All were published in the 1990s or later, not even one before. The same goes for bibliographies. This shows at least that

83 See JESSEE, Erin, Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda. The Politics of History, Cham 2017, p. 224. 26 in recent times the Batwa got somehow in the focus of scholars and researches.84 In an update of the bibliography from 2012, Lagarde only adds three more Batwa-specific-titles.85 In 2014 none is added.86 Although he misses some titles and he solely focuses on Rwanda, we can see that the focus on the Batwa is marginal, close to non-existing Of course, I cannot say that all those titles do not cover the Batwa in parts, many do for sure. Especially Anthropological studies, whose very purpose is to talk about people, publish papers on these people. We can find specific reports from NGOs and international organizations dealing with (indigenous) people facing discrimination and marginalization and several kinds of literatures that deal with issues of indigenous people.

However, when we read political, historical, or even humanitarian writings, dealing with struggles, conflicts, social, or economic developments and living conditions of people in the Great Lakes Region, Batwa will often not be considered as important enough to be a part of the analysis. When talking about the Genocide in Rwanda or the general social tensions in this area, only Bahutu and Batutsi are part of the debate, almost never Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa. They will only be mentioned for the sake of it: This means there are just a few sentences, maybe one or two paragraphs (see chapter 3.3.6 for more details).

I experienced this myself too. I had already written about Rwanda and dealt with the surrounding region several years ago now while studying. When I came to the part of describing the people I was in the same position where specific cultural groups were forgotten or ignored. When talking to two professors, who both organized a field trip to Rwanda a few years ago, I explained that I wanted to write about the Batwa and they realized that we had never addressed them. Not in preparation for the trip, not during and not after. They did not think about them although both are specialized in topics such as ethnic conflicts, Genocide, minorities, marginalization, etc. No one in Rwanda that we talked to, regardless of if he or she was an ordinary person, a politician or an intellectual found it necessary to mention that Batwa. They are completely excluded from any debate. This is the exact point of my whole argument: No one has ever considered them because no one ever reads, talks or hears about them. It is an ongoing circle of marginalization: “Such is the source of the phenomenon highlighted at the

84 See LAGARDE, François, Rwanda, 1990-2011. Une Bibliographie, Austin 2012, p. 188-191. 85 See LAGARDE, François, Rwanda, 2012. Bibliographie, Austin 2013, p. 38. 86 See LAGARDE, François, Rwanda, 2014. Bibliographie, Austin 2015. 27 beginning of this chapter – that Batwa people figure significantly in scientific, but not historical research.”87

Even if the Batwa were able to represent themselves properly, it would be useless if no one cares. The international community can help make a difference in this situation. The indigenous people in Latin America, for example, get far more coverage in relation to the Batwa and are therefore able to fight more actively against land grabbing and for their cultural survival. The Batwa can hardly do this because of the lack of attention giving to them in debates. Which raises another question: Do numbers matter? And if they matter, why?

2.2.6. Racism Racism is a concomitant of the terms discrimination and marginalization and is closely inter- twining with them. This is important to state out in the beginning as a lot of people think that racism can only be connected to violence, verbal abuse or deliberate segregation. But these are only the most extreme signs of racism. In reality, racism has a far more conceptual framework. It is more than just a personal discriminatory opinion, it deals with: “[…] historical legacies and social formations that are not within an individual’s capacity to alter. Like all forms of discrimination, racism is primarily and unequal collective power relationship […].”88 Racism can, therefore, be subdivided into several terms and concepts such as “institutional racism”, “individual racism”, “cultural racism”, “indirect racism” and other specific terms (Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Eurocentrism, Intersectionality, etc.), each covering different aspects and levels of racism.89

However, according to Garner, any definition or concept someone may use for racism has to include following three elements:

• A historical power relationship in which, over time, groups are racialized (that is, treated as if specific characteristics were natural and innate to each member of the group).

• A set of ideas (ideology) in which the human race is divisible into distinct “races”, each with specific characteristics.

87 KLIEMAN, Kairn A., "The Pygmies Were Our Compass". Bantu and Batwa in the History of West Central Africa, Early Times to c. 1900 C.E., Portsmouth, NH 2003, p. 19. 88 GARNER, Steve, Racisms. an introduction, London 2010, p. 5-6. 89 See Garner, Racisms, p. 5-6; QURAISHI, Muzammil and PHILBURN, Rob, Researching Racism. A guidebook for academics and professional investigators, London 2015, p. 17-24. 28

• Forms of discrimination flowing from this [practices] ranging from denial of access to resources through to mass murder.90

Racism explains the distinctions in the social world as a cause of biological (and therefore natural) difference and not as a cause of historical, cultural, and economic factors, poor and marginalized people are not able to advance in the socio-economic hierarchy. A common racist argument would be that these people are just culturally inferior or genetically ill-equipped to keep up with the other members of society.91 But because of the sheer amount of different aspects of racism, we cannot find a universal definition of racism, but we can identify the range and processes which ensure and maintain racial discrimination.92 Consequently, racism, in a general way, can be described as a:

“[…] multifaceted social phenomenon, with different levels and overlapping forms. It involves attitudes, actions, processes and unequal power relations. It is based on the interpretations of the idea of “race”, hierarchical social relations and the forms of discrimination that flow with this.”93 Now, what exactly is a “race”? Identifying (by an individual, a group or institution) someone as a member of a certain “race” is always an act of categorization. This categorization often happens because of the physical appearances of individual being inspected. The characteristics of such categories differ from culture, country, society, etc. The terms of these categories differ as well. This creates a crucial question for the term “race”: What physical (external) characteristics should we use to classify someone as a member of a certain “race”? If you think about that for a little bit the possible “typical” characteristics (skin color, size of the nose, form of the head, height, etc.) of “race” will soon merge into one another. It makes it simply impossible to create any logic in these distinctions. If we include possible genetic differences to our “races”, any leftover “logic” will become obsolete. No one is completely “black” or “white”, has any other specific skin color or other specific and unique physical attributes.94 Yet there are only some specific terms people use to categorize each other. Ac- cepting that “race” is a natural part of our social world is therefore only a wrong (and simplified) explanation of existing differences. “Race” is rather a particular and contingent social fact than a universal biological fiction. But in reality, “race” in biological terms (the look of

90 Garner, Racisms, p. 11. 91 See Ibid., p. 11. 92 See Quraishi and Philburn, Researching Racism, p. 25. 93 Garner, Racisms, p. 18. 94 For a short history of the construction of "race" see for example Quraishi and Philburn, Researching Racism; Çetin, Homophobie und Islamophobie; or JAMES, Angela, Making Sense of Race and Racial Classification, in: Tukufu Zuberi and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, ed., White Logic, White Methods. Racism and Methodology, Lanham 2008, p. 31–45. 29 people) matters, as it, for example, offers the range of access to resources which, in consequence, always result in an uneven distribution of power.95

For this research two related concepts of racism will be used to analyze and describe the situation of the Batwa: First, the institutional or structural racism. This is a systematic form of discrimination and disadvantage through social structures. The term was defined by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in the 1960s in the US. It is closely linked to institutional and structural discrimination as it can be an outcome of unintentional policy actions within institutional activities. Critics argue that this kind of racism ignores the individuals’ responsibility.96 Or that it places “race” in a subject where it does not necessarily belong and is, consequently, unfair and counter-productive in the overall debate. Thomas Sowell argues that the political claims of indigenous and minority groups are not a call for equality but racial prefer- ence. These critics miss a certain point: The basic idea was to claim equal justice and to address a level of social action beyond the power of an individual to affect. People working in an institution or organization can be racist and can help implement racist policies.97 The goal of the concept was to make these factors of “race” within institutions visible. The real problem is that we lack a legal concept of the relationship between racism and power. Institutions and organizations which are not obviously created as racist ones can, therefore, discriminate others in racial terms if they “feel so”. This makes the distinction between the legal concept of institutional racism and the sociological concept of structural racism apparent. The sociological concept makes it possible to look beyond individual racist behavior. It concentrates on social actions on national and international levels. It sees racism as a problem of society.98

Secondly, the racism of “symbolic elites” (politicians, journalists, scholars, writers, corporate managers, etc.), in other words: the people working in such institutions. Van Dijk argues that the structures or strategies of text and talk (word selection, intonation, semantic implications, overall discourse topics, schematic firms and strategies of argumentation or news reports, dialogical strategies of face-keeping and persuasion, etc.) do not have to be intentional racist, but within a specific context they can be racist though.99 The factor which is most important for this research is the academic discourse of race. Van Dijk states out that the indirect influence and power of academics can be huge: “If knowledge is power, the knowledge of other people may be an instrument of power over other people. This truism is especially relevant in

95 See Garner, Racisms, p. 1-5; James, Making Sense of Race and Racial Classification, p. 32-34. 96 See Quraishi and Philburn, Researching Racism, p. 18-19; Garner, Racisms, p. 102-103, 107. 97 See Garner, Racisms, p. 107-108. 98 See Ibid., p. 107-109. 99 See VAN DIJK, Teun A., Elite Discourse and Racism, reprint, Newbury Park 1999, p. 12-13. 30 examining the academic discourse of race and ethnicity.”100 Researchers, writers, and scholars have highly influenced the public, political, economic and social relationship between the addressed people and the rest of the world.101 Until the present we can find powerful ideological layer of self-interest, in-group favouritism and ethnocentrism which focus on:

“[…] differences and not on similarities, on hierarchy and not on equality, on oppositions and not on variation, and a variety of corresponding meta- phors that signal opposition and hierarchy, such as modern versus backward, fast versus slow, or efficient versus inefficient.”102 Especially with respect to the Batwa, and other indigenous groups or minorities, a more sub- tle, indirect and strategic way of speaking and writing is practiced. This is a result of more or less shared official egalitarian and humanitarian norms and values in this kind of ethnic relation, expressing:

“[…] lofty ideals of hospitality, understanding, and tolerance, as well as emphatic denials of racism, may thus combine with more or less overt forms of derogation, marginalization, and problematization of immigrants, refugees, or other minority groups. In this way, the general strategy of positive self-presentation discursively enables and legitimizes the general strategy of negative other-presentation, while at the same time expressing, especially among elites, a self-image as moral leaders in society.”103 The concept of racism used throughout this thesis can be seen as a phenomenon in which a specific group, the Batwa, is denied access to cultural, social, symbolic and political resources because they have, in the eyes of the suppressors, specific negative characteristics.104 This construction of “us” (which is always positively manifested) and “the others” (which is always negatively manifested) is the “logic” by which people legitimize their racist behavior such as denying the others the access to whatever helpful resources. In addition to this, all people from the affected groups will automatically be associated with these negative characteristics and seen as inferior whereby the own group is seen as superior. The Batwa body, for example, is characterized as dirty and potentially dangerous by others.105 This “logic” of racism creates the hierarchical social relations and unequal power distribution within a society:

“The dominant race in a society, whether white or otherwise, rarely admits to its own racism. Denial is near universal. The reasons are manifold. It has a huge vested interest in its own privilege. It will often be oblivious to its

100 Ibid., p. 158. 101 See Ibid., p. 158-160. 102 Ibid., p. 160. 103 Ibid., p. 283. 104 See van Dijk, Elite Discourse and Racism, p. 159; Çetin, Homophobie und Islamophobie, p. 40. 105 See TAYLOR, Christopher C., Molders of Mud. Ethnogenesis and Rwanda's Twa, in: Ethnos 76/2 (2011), p. 183–208, p. 187. 31

own prejudices. It will regard its racist attitudes as nothing more than common sense, having the force and justification of nature.”106 Racism is, therefore, a multifaceted social phenomenon as stated by Garner. National and international institutions, as elites, are crucial factors in the overall concept of racism, especially when addressing the case of the Batwa. They contribute, intentionally and unintentionally, to the characterization of these people as inferior people in a global perspective.

2.3. A Circle of Discrimination and Marginalization As we can see, all critical terms in this thesis have a wide range of meaning. Discrimination, marginalization, and racism are intimately connected to each other with sometimes almost identical definitions. It is therefore essential to combine these three terms on how they affect the overall circumstances of life of a specific disadvantaged group such as the Batwa. All three contribute to the ongoing ill-treatment of these people. Their meaning, intensity, and power vary over time, often depending on the overall socio-economic development of a country, region or society. The problem which occurs now is somehow of philosophical nature, the question on what came first: Do they have such a poor socio-economic and political status because they are discriminated and marginalized or are they discriminated and marginalized because they have such a poor socio-economic and political status (from our point view)? Because of the ill-documented African history, and especially the one of the Batwa, it is almost impossible to define what exact kind of discrimination came first or when they became marginalized. However, what we can say is that the inferior status of the Batwa already existed long before Europeans came to the Great Lakes Region. But with their arrival, the status quo changed, either because of the Europeans direct or indirect influence in the existing social, economic and political structures in this region. The change and development in the previous and following times can, therefore, best visualized in “A Circle of Discrimination and Marginalization”:107

106 JACQUES, Martin, The global hierarchy of race. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/ 20/race.uk (Dec. 13, 2017). 107 This circle is inspired by so called “vicious circles” which are used to describe complex chains of events that reinforce themselves through a feedback loop. These cycles will continue until an external factor intervenes and breaks the cycle; See FISCHER, Dietrich, Peace as a self-regulating process, in: Charles Webel and Johan Gal- tung, ed., Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies, London 2009, 187–205, p. 189-191. 32

Figure 2: A Circle of Discrimination and Marginalization108

Thoughts Prejudice

Results Attitudes Institutionalized Discrimination/ Dehumanization/ Masskilling or Stigma/ Stereotypes Masselemination

Acts Accepted Prejudice, and „justified“ Discrimination/ Belief in the minority's innate Inferiority/ Socio-economic or political Disadvantage and Isolation

Every kind of discrimination and marginalization starts with prejudice, the Thoughts. This prejudice is either an outcome of an earlier circle or a result of an external “Input” such as social, cultural, economic, political or environmental changes. These changes, along with some ethnocentric ideology, are used by dominant groups to justify their accumulation of power and resources (of social, cultural, and natural nature) at the cost of other groups in their sphere of influence (or even beyond). Because this process is of a psychological nature, it does not necessarily have to be intentional. People different cultures, religions, language, etc. are often seen as a real or imaginary threat. As a result, the communication between the dominant and the suppressed group often finds itself in an amoral utilitarianism. This means that the best and most moral action to solve a problem is the one that maximizes the utility of all affected people. But in this case, it is at the cost of a group that is seen as inferior because of their different way of life.109 The Batwa have a different understanding of land usage, but because of the general land, food, and population pressure in the region, they are an obstacle for the upkeep of adequate food production for the rest, and the vast majority, of the population. Another aspect is the creation of national parks in the region. In the eyes of conservationists’,

108 The graphic was created by the author and is based on several similar circles on specific topics. 109 See GOLDHAGEN, Daniel Jonah, Worse than War. Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity, 1. ed., New York 2009, p. 198. 33 humans and animals cannot live together, and because the Batwa are (or better were) hunters and gatherers, living in the woods along with animals, they later faced discrimination on an international level as well.

Sooner or later this prejudice is manifested in Attitudes of stigmata and stereotypes. The thought about the “others” on how they are different to “us” becomes more specific and publicly known. The affected group is attached with specific negative characteristics and attributes such as “dirty”, “uncivilized”, “physically weak”, “brainless”, etc. When the “others” are publicly negatively characterized, the members of the dominant group(s) Acts against this group of people. The targeted group becomes socially disadvantaged. People try to avoid communicating with or act hostile against them, and they are excluded from different acts of social interaction (eating together, marriage, participating in social events, etc.). They are despised, feared, or even hated in their whole existence. As a consequence, these people will inevitable occupy a low (or the lowest) position in the dominant social hierarchy. They are now living on the outskirts of social stratification; they do the most unwanted jobs or have to beg. Not later than that, members of the dominant group(s) will interpret this socio-economic disadvantage as evidence of the innate inferiority of the suppressed group and not as a result of earlier prejudice.

The Results of this process can be multifaceted. The most common outcome will be institutionalized discrimination. The affected people will intentionally or unintentionally be excluded from better working perspectives, education, health care and other economic and social benefits. With no formal education, hardly anyone will be able to advance in the social hierarchy and will therefore not be able to contribute to easier access to natural, cultural or social resources for his or her people. The person or group will be stuck in social isolation because they have no access to social, cultural or economic resources. They become marginalized. Historically, the vast majority of the Batwa have had no formal education or access to it, nor access to land or much-needed resources such as clay for pottery. Because of the ongoing discrimination they soon lost many of their basic human rights. They were not able to represent themselves or give attention to issues concerning them. It can even occur that they are even further dehumanized because of their inferior status which, again, is used to justify the discrimination and marginalization of these people. The worst “Result” would be mass- elimination and -murder of the members of the suppressed group by the members of the superior group(s) as it happened with the Batwa during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda or any other violent conflicts in this area. 34

New inputs can, at any time, create a new Circle of Discrimination and Marginalization. The circle itself can be such an input on its own when, for example, it only results in “basic” institutional discrimination. This usually creates new prejudice and most often with more dangerous and dehumanizing attributes which did not occur in the first circle. This results in further discrimination and marginalization and can sooner or later result in mass-elimination and - murder. Another outcome could be that no violence ever (or only hardly) occurs because of existing social and political structures, norms and rules. The time in which all of this happens is fluctuating. The circle can be completed within a few years and can go up the several decades or even longer. New social, economic, political or environmental factors can slow down or speed up the process though or are used as new inputs for a new circle.

Another aspect that we have to acknowledge is that the discriminated and marginalized groups can contribute to this development in some ways. Batwa use the term “indigenous” to attract at least some kind of attention to their issues, but it also fires the debate of who can be called “indigenous” making them the scapegoats for this debate. Sticking to their old way of life or adapting already existing negative stereotypes, can also be counterproductive in weak- ening stereotypes and stigmata against them as it only reinforces them. Because they were victims and perpetrators at the same time in the 1994 Genocide, it is even easier for the others to discriminate and marginalize them, simply by pointing out that they were the “bad” people, the perpetrators.

3. A History of Discrimination and Marginalization

3.1. Land The central aspect that “created” the ongoing discrimination and marginalization of the Batwa is the different understanding of land regarding its use, legal aspects and overall conception and in further consequence the different social and cultural concepts between the Batwa and the rest of the population. When Europeans first arrived in the Great Lakes Region, they found well-structured and centralized kingdoms with a hierarchical society and the Batwa already at the bottom of it. This issue was present long before the first Europeans arrived. What the Europeans did was “modify” the existing discrimination of these people by adding more economical, racist and conservationist ideologies. It is, therefore, necessary to start our argumentation with a theoretical debate over nature before going into the historical details. We also have to keep in mind that both levels (local and international) of this discrimination 35 and marginalization contain actions on purpose, of pragmatic need and unintentional behavior. It is by far not a black and white history.

3.1.1. Different Conceptions of Environmental and Social Relation “That nature is a cultural construction is an easy claim to make, […]. It is not so easy, however, to ascertain what might be meant by it.”110 3.1.1.1. The meaning by the “civilized” world The understanding of the relationship between humans and nature became mutually exclusive over the past centuries in the “civilized” world111: “For a long time, by all accounts the last few centuries, nature was perceived as an intractable domain of utility and danger which, […], was to be mastered, tamed, brought under ‘man’s’ control, bent to his will, forced to reveal her secrets, compelled to satisfy his needs and minister to his happiness.”112 Nevertheless, this statement, the idea, that humankind is somehow apart from nature, roots back into ancient times. Already the Tale of Gilgamesh describes the conflict between his kingdom and the evil forests. People in ancient Greece characterized nature as wild and irrational, the home of the barbarians and the mythical Amazons: Long haired, naked, female savages. Both were the opposite of the rational male culture of Greek city-states. Christianity ensures the “God- given” dominion over beasts: “And God blessed them [granting them certain authority] and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subjugate it [putting it under your power]; and rule over (dominate) the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves upon the earth.”113 This idea of dominion was later carried by fundamentalist Christian missionaries who saw indigenous people and their shamanism beliefs as “devil wor- ship” and had, therefore, to be “saved”.114 Whereby, this was the most positive view of indigenous people and in conflict with the secular perception. Most conquerors of South America saw indigenous people simply as creatures that can be annihilated. In African slave trade, Af- ricans were a raw material that can be exploited. The church condemned this as well, but again only to enforce their own “civilizing mission”.115

110 INGOLD, Tim, The Perception of the Environment. Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill, London 2000, p. 40. 111 The „civilized“ world, in this case, does not only include European and Western understandings of nature but of the agricultural and pastoralist world as a whole. 112 ARGYROU, Vassos, The Logic of Environmentalism. Anthropology, Ecology and Postcoloniality, New York and Oxford 2005, p. vii. 113 The Holy Bible. Amplified Bible, La Habra 2015, Genesis 1:28. 114 See Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 1-2; Kenrick and Lewis, Discrimination Against the Forest People ('Pygmies') of Central Africa, p. 312. 115 See Kenrick and Lewis, Discrimination Against the Forest People ('Pygmies') of Central Africa, p. 312-313. 36

Consequently, this “struggle” between humans and nature underlines the arguments of most modern archaeological, anthropological and economic concepts. In these, we only have two possibilities on how we can make a livelihood out of the natural environment: Either by collection (hunting and gathering) or by production (agriculture and pastoralism). Production is only possible if we transform the wild nature to our needs. In Marxist and Communist theories, the distinction has its founding in Friedrich Engels Dialektik der Natur, written at the end of the 19th century:

„Das Tier bringt's höchstens zum Sammeln [collection], der Mensch produziert [production], er stellt Lebensmittel im weitesten Sinn des Worts dar, die die Natur ohne ihn nicht produziert hätte. Damit jede Übertragung von Lebensgesetzen der tierischen Gesellschaften so ohne weiteres auf mensch- liche unmöglich gemacht.“116 Production is therefore an intentional way of changing the environment, done by humans. Collection instead is an unintended way of doing so and done by animals. In the conception of Engels animals do not act in order to change its surroundings because they are not aware of their consequences. Humans, on the other hand, well know the probable results. This transformation process of plants, animals and landscape by humans are, according to Engels, only part of agriculture and pastoralism, not of hunting and gathering. Humans who practice this kind of foraging are for Engels “Wilde” (“savages”). These “savages” furthermore “rank lowest in intelligence of all human beings” as stated out in a National Geographic article about Australia in 1916.117 They have not yet recognized their “true potential” and “unique constitution” but have already made considerable steps to be “human”:

„Und was sind die ältesten Werkzeuge, die wir vorfinden? Die ältesten, nach den vorgefundenen Erbstücken vorgeschichtlicher Menschen und nach der Lebensweise der frühesten geschichtlichen Völker wie der rohesten jet- zigen Wilden zu urteilen? Werkzeuge der Jagd und des Fischfangs, erstere zugleich Waffen. Jagd und Fischfang aber setzen den Übergang von der bloßen Pflanzennahrung zum Mitgenuß des Fleisches voraus, und hier haben wir wieder einen wesentlichen Schritt zur Menschwerdung.“118 Now the humanity of hunters and gatherers itself has been in question. They have not been seen as the same kind of humans as agriculturalists or pastoralists: “[…] Westerners of the late nineteenth century located central African forest societies at the bottom of a presumed scale of evolution. Batwa were deemed remnants of the earliest age of humankind […] lost in

116 FRIEDRICH ENGELS, Dialektik der Natur, in: Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED, ed., Karl Marx/ Friedrich Engels - Werke. Band 20, Band 20., Berlin 1975, 305-570, p. 565. 117 GREGORY, Herbert E., Lonely Australia. The Unique Continent, in: The National Geographic Magazine Vol. XXX, No. 1 (July 1916), p. 473–568, p. 510. 118 Friedrich Engels, Dialektik der Natur, p. 393. 37 time.”119 In the mid-20th century, people such as the archeologist Robert Braidwood still wrote that such people are living the same life as an animal.120 Hans Meyer distinguished between “tame” (sedentary) and “wild” (nomadic) Batwa. The first lived outside of the forest among the rest of the population and the others still in the forest. Richard Kandt gives that furthermore a moral description: the “good” Batwa were sedentary, practiced agriculture, and pottery. The “bad” ones were the nomadic hunters and gatherers.121

Another archeologist, Vere Gordon Childe, created a clear distinction between humans who collect and those who produce: The first ones are the “Paleolithic” hunters and gatherers; the second are “Neolithic” people, the ancestors of farmers, herdsmen, and urban dwellers. Other contemporary scholars and authors used similar distinctions but the main argument, that agriculturalists and pastoralists set the notion of food production, remained identical: Because through the transformation of nature, humans have also transformed themselves. As a result, these people now produce society in order to live; they create history, as stated by Maurice Godelier in 1986. He continues that this domain of social relations and mental realities include aspects such as representation, judgment, and principles of thought, which stand above the materiality of nature. In this concept hunters and gatherers have not even thoughts about transforming their environment. Instead, they conserve it where possible. If we now consider Godelier’s views, we can assume that people who do not change nature lack history, he avoids arguing this way. For him, hunters and gatherers have their own source of society, a mental representation. Their history is not written on paper; it is in the minds of the people.122

The arguments of liberal and economic writers such as John Locke, Adam Smith or other early anthropologists, missionaries, traders, and explorers are not different either. They all see the life of hunters and gatherers as a constant struggle for survival. With only the most rudi- mentary technology equipped it was assumed that they have to look for food at every point of their lives. That this picture is either exaggerated or even entirely false was only depicted in more recent ethnographic studies.123 Locke says that private ownership (of land) is only possible if land and goods are the application of labor. Land transformed by humans is domestic land, and all other is untouched natural land. The “mastery of nature” was thus seen as the

119 See Klieman, "The Pygmies Were Our Compass", p. 1. 120 See Ingold, The Perception of the Environment, p. 77-78; GOWDY, John M., ed., Limited Wants, Unlimited Means. A Reader On Hunter-Gatherer Economics and the Environment, Washington D.C 1997, p. xviii. 121 See Seitz, Die Töpfer-Twa in Ruanda, p. 29. 122 See Ingold, The Perception of the Environment, p. 78-79. 123 See Ibid., p. 65. 38 main characteristic of “man” and civilization as such and not only in a European context.124 Klug states: „Eigentum heißt nämlich, über die Verwertung einer Sache selbstverantwortlich bestimmen zu können. Wer kein Eigentum hat, kann grundsätzlich über fremdes Eigentum auch nicht bestimmen oder mitbestimmen wollen.“125 Meaning that without private ownership you are not allowed and able to participate in public life. Smith goes even further and catego- rizes the human economic activities in four stages of development, whereby a nation of hunters is considered as “the lowest and rudest state of society”.126 Only pastoralism and agriculture were seen as an economic activity because only such produce commerce and manufac- ture.127 Even Charles Darwin wrote: “I could not have believed […] how wide was the difference between savage and civilised man; it is greater than between a wild and domesticated animal, inasmuch as in man there is a greater power of improvement.”128 English writer Rider Haggard called “pygmies” a “half-human race”, describing them in his novels as people who chatter like parrots (The Ghost Kings) or as one who looks up to his master like a squatting toad (The People of the Mist). In The Yellow God, he describes the murder of one by the white hero as he would describe a little hunter-adventure.129

The consequence of these theories and descriptions, whether they are of Marxist, Liberal or Literary nature, is that indigenous people were denied their self-determination, humanity, and ownership rights of their ancestral lands because they only gathered what they needed. It allowed colonial powers to justify their claims and annexation over indigenous land: “But if either the grass of his enclosure rotted on the ground, or the fruit of his planting perished without gathering and laying up, this part of the earth, notwithstanding his enclosure, was still to be looked on as waste, and might be the possession of any other.”130 In other words: All use of land that was not settled agriculture was declared as wasteful because it had no productive or “rational” use – as understood by “civilized” cultures. The basis for any legal property

124 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 8-9. 125 KLUG, Oscar, Katholizismus und Protestantismus zur Eigentumsfrage. Eine gesellschaftspolitische Analyse, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1966, p. 148. 126 SMITH, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Vol. III, 9th ed., London 1776, p. 44. Available at: https://archive.org/details/inquiryintonatur03smituoft (Dec. 30, 2017). 127 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 8. 128 Cited in: Ingold, The Perception of the Environment, p. 62. 129 See BERNHARD, Norbert, Tarzan und die Herrenrasse. Rassismus in der Literatur, Basel 1986, p. 74. 130 LOCKE, John, Second Treatise of Government, in: Owen Goldin and Patricia Kilroe, ed., Human Life and the Natural World. Readings in the History of Western Philosophy, Peterborough, Orchard Park, Hadleigh, Rozelle 1997, p. 133–142, p. 139. 39 rights by people living on these lands was missing131 and it was the “manifest destiny” to tame these wild lands.132

In western understanding, indigenous people had no institutions or any concepts regarding their sovereignty or jurisdiction. This means that any legal occupation of their land by themselves was not possible. This theory of evolutionary anthropology, together with the economic and social theories at that time, saw land, inhabited by indigenous people, as terra nullius (nobody’s land) or vacant et sans maîtres (empty land). But a terra nullius doctrine was not always used by colonial powers. If a society were seen as advanced enough, meaning their social institutions would ensure legal land rights; colonial powers negotiated treaties with them. This was especially true when they were dealing with hierarchical societies such as kingdoms. However, societies of hunters and gatherers never clearly fulfilled these criteria.133 This understanding of land rights and use continues until the present and is now often executed by formerly colonized people.134 However, this discriminating behavior existed long before the European colonization of Africa. It is therefore not an ideology of the Western world but one of the “civilized” world:

“In the eyes of Rwandese, the Twa were men endowed with a humanity that was sometimes difficult to distinguish from bestiality: so voracious that they would feel like animals on all types of refuse, whose sexuality was unre- strained by cultural prohibitions, unable to feel shame or even a sense of de- cency, unintelligent and only good for dull and tedious jobs, held in con- tempt and feared at the same time, identifiable by their attitude and physical appearance.”135 Beswick states:

“Their livelihoods were regarded as inferior to those of agriculturalists, and can also be distinguished from that of pastoralists whose way of life centres on animal husbandry. […] Due to their alternative livelihoods, the Batwa are speciﬁcally identiﬁed as different, and often as inferior, to others in what is now Rwanda.”136 The basic divide between nature and culture, “wild” and “domestic” created something else: “wild lands” and “wildlife”. Because of the “need” to transform nature thus far to produce

131 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 9. 132 See Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 2. 133 This is not true for all Batwa communities. Germans actually did try to negotiate but most Batwa refused or avoided them. 134 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 10; BESWICK, Danielle, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda. The case of the Batwa, in: Democratization 18/2 (2011), p. 490–511, p. 493. 135 Kagabo and Mudandagizi 1974, cited in: LEWIS, Jerome and KNIGHT, Judy, The Twa of Rwanda. Assessment of the Situation of the Twa and Promotion of Twa Rights in Post-War Rwanda, Chadlington 1995, p. 32. 136 Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 493. 40 economic value out of it the factor “wild” becomes missing. This development was the reason that some people tried to “conserve” wild nature.137 Conservationism was born. Although some, such as the romantic George Catlin, saw the Indians as part of wild nature itself, the belief that nature “must be preserved free from human interference“, to ensure “the recreation of the human spirit” became dominant and emerged in the late 19th century in the United States.138 From then on governments as well as conservation organizations all over the world tried to protect this wilderness. Such areas of wilderness included all land inhabited by indigenous people because their land was not domesticated and therefore the property of the state and not of an individual or non-legal group of people. This thought was shared by governments as well as by conservation organizations.139 They saw humans as a direct conflict with nature, and the only logical consequence was to separate them. The argument was that people living in protected wildlife areas had to be removed because otherwise, they would destroy this conserved part of nature. The consequence was forced relocation, impoverishment, cultural destruction, and the undermining of traditional systems of natural resource management of hunter and gatherer societies.140

However, there are exceptions. Occasionally indigenous people were allowed to stay in protected areas as long as they embodied the stereotype of being wild, natural, primitive, and innocent, meaning they were not allowed to adopt modern practices.141 However, in the case of the Batwa, this was and is usually not the case. Their right to self-determination and control of their lands was denied. The forceful dislocation of them, and other indigenous people in Central Africa, without compensation, was justified by the argument that they do not have any transformative labor to the forest. For example, there is no evidence that in the last 15 years (as by 2009) dislocated indigenous people in Central Africa were granted compensation or rights of any kind.142 Conservation projects have instead: “[...] largely failed in their own terms, while destroying local peoples’ livelihoods, should suggest that their actual rationale is not conservation of ‘nature’ but the imposition of international control.”143 From a “civilized” viewpoint the relationship between humans and nature can only be an economic or scientific one. The first one is driven by consumption (includes humans and transforms nature) and the

137 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 10. 138 See Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 2-3. 139 Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 10; Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 3. 140 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 10. 141 See Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 4 142 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 11. 143 Ibid. 41 second one by preservation (excludes humans and protects nature).144 This dualist view exists due to a multitude of opinions regarding the human relationship with nature:

“The idea that humankind, or to be more accurate mankind, is apart from nature seems to be one that is deeply rooted in western civilization. In contrast to the ‘animistic’ religions of many indigenous peoples, which, to use our terms, see culture in nature and nature in culture, […]”145 Which means that this concept is not shared by all people, especially not by those who have a different way of life and are therefore negatively affected by such separation.

3.1.1.2. The meaning by indigenous people For indigenous people, the environment is something that is experienced in a relational and not in a rational way. They are not making a view of the world. Instead, they are making a view in it. For example: The Mbuti of the Ituri forest (northeastern DRC) call their forest “father”, “mother”, “sibling”, “lover”, and themselves as the “children” and “people of the forest”,146 because they receive food, warmth, shelter, and clothing from it. Seeing the forest as a parent is, according to Bird-David, a common metaphor of hunters and gatherers. By contrast, neighboring cultures of cultivators see their environment more likely as an ancestor.147

Hunting and gathering are actions between natural resources and humans, an organism with “needs”. For Ingold, this means that such actions are taking place in nature because the socio- economic factor of sharing takes places after the food has been extracted and transferred to their society. It all takes place in one world and not in two separate worlds of nature and society. This world is “[...] saturated with personal powers, and embracing both humans, the animals and plants on which they depend, and the features of the landscape in which they live and move. […] Between these spheres of involvement there is no absolute separation, […].”148 To understand nature, hunter and gatherers approach it just as other humans, by spending time with it, taking care of it, feeling it, and giving attention to it. All visits in the forests are therefore well spent, even though when hunters and gatherers will not get much or even nothing in return.149 Jakob Malas, a Khomani hunter from the Kalahari, underlined this perception clear: “The Kalahari is like a big farmyard. It is not a wilderness to us. We know every plant, animal and insect, and know how to use them. No other people could ever know

144 See Ibid. 145 Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 1. 146 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p.12. 147 See Ingold, The Perception of the Environment, p. 42-44. 148 Ibid., p. 47. 149 See Ibid., p. 45-47. 42 and love this farm like us.”150 A Batwa leader called John Rwubaka gave a similar statement: “As well as us, there used to be elephants and other kinds of animals, but they were docile. We lived in harmony with them, neither would disturb their neighbor. […] We took care of the forest that belonged to our ancestors.”151

Ingold states that “[…] we find nothing corresponding to the Western concept of nature in hunter-gatherer representations, for they see no essential difference between the ways one relates to humans and non-human constituents of the environment.”152 Sharing among humans and hunting of animals contain the same principle of trust. They use the same behavior of carrying and knowing for animals as for other human beings. This argument would also be valid for most pastoralist societies. But a change from equality to domination affects the relations between humans and animals as well as among humans. The Western dichotomies of humans and nature (or non-humans) try to make a clear distinction, but in practice, these borders are easily crossed. As a next step, almost all anthropological concepts (which are also a product of the West) say that the view of hunters and gatherers, the equal treatment of humans, nature and animals, is not the reality. Ingold states: “For nature, we say, does not really share with man.”153 But when these people say something different we argue that they cannot tell apart their belief from reality. We automatically assume that hunters and gatherers are wrong, and we are right:154

“Their lives and customs, their traps and their invention of fire bear witness to their way of life. There was a simplicity to their daily lives; they lived in a different world. They weren’t ashamed of the way they lived. They were happy because they lived on their own and didn’t compare themselves with anyone else. Today everything has changed.”155 3.1.1.3. „Traditional“ Batwa lifestyle Agricultural and pastoral societies invest something for a certain amount of time before yield can be produced or consumed. Therefore, such societies are sometimes called “delayed return” societies. The opposite of this are hunter-gatherer societies which are often referred to as “immediate-return” societies, meaning that they are not looking for long-term or delayed rev-

150 Jakob Malas, a Khomani hunter from the Kalahari, cited in: Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 7. 151 John Rwubaka, Batwa leader in Uganda, cited in: VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda, 4:38-5:00. 152 Ingold, The Perception of the Environment, p. 75. 153 Ibid., p. 76. 154 See Ibid., p. 75-76. 155 Comment of a facilitator at Kahuzi-Biega National Park, cited in: MUTIMANWA, Kapupu Diwa, Case study 2: Democratic Republic of Congo. The Bambuti-Batwa and the Kahuzi-Biega National Park: the case of the Barhwa and Babuluko people 2001, p. 92. 43 enue.156 Such societies are strongly oriented to the present. People seek for immediate and direct return for their labor; they consume immediately without creating large stockpiles. Their whole social organization is based on a temporary camp often not larger than ten huts and around 60 people. Because these camps have to guarantee their viability on hunting and gathering as well as maintaining social harmony, they can expand or contract at any time. They live a nomadic and positively value movement. To solve problems, hunters and gatherers use, what is referred to as “avoidance strategy” which contains the moving away from conflicts with other people, political domination by their agricultural neighbors, hunger, illness or even disputes among themselves.157

Many hunter and gatherer societies usually have no individual ownership of land and resources. All group members are free to use the natural resources they need, in whatever quan- tity. Within a group, great emphasis lies on obligatory non-reciprocal sharing. It is used as a moral principle to regulate upcoming social inequalities in the group. Someone is usually ob- ligated to share their goods with others if this person possesses more of it than he or she immediately needs. If this does not happen voluntarily, the other camp members will avoid, joke or tease the person or loudly demand their share. Because of this “demand-sharing”, high economic and social equality is ensured within a camp. There is hardly any social inequality between young and old, men and women. It is especially noteworthy that gender relations in such societies are one of the most egalitarian ones.158 Women have access to resources regardless of their relationship with men. The women’s autonomy is assured by the collective nature of rights over resources, and their ability to access these resources freely and independently.159

Such social equality leads to another understanding of leadership. If a person, regardless if woman or men, is somehow experienced or has specific skills for a particular task (hunting, ritual performances, speaking to outsiders, etc.), others may popularly accept his or her authority in this field. The role of leadership is context depending, informal, and operates on the principle of consensus. If someone tries to claim authority outside of his or her specialized field, the person can be mocked, resisted or even abandoned. This concept of leadership,

156 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 8; BERGE, Gunnvor, Reflections on The Con- cept of Indigenous Peoples in Africa, in: Hanne Veber et al., ed., "… Never Drink From the Same Cup.". Pro- ceedings of the conference on Indigenous Peoples in Africa. Tune, Denmark, 1993, IWGIA document no. 74, Copenhagen 1993, p. 235–246, p. 238-239. 157 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 8. 158 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 8; Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, p. 7. 159 See Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, p. 7. 44 however, struggles with modern institutions because it can make effective political representation difficult when there is no commonly accepted “leader”. Modern societies often become suspicious when dealing with hunters and gatherers because they often only see antagonism, conflict, and fragmentation and no “definitive” leader. Frustration and ignorance are the results of this.160

Although hunters and gatherers can ensure a decent life by agricultural standards as long as environmental degradation is limited, the immediate-return economy limits agrarian development because the value system of hunter-gatherers restricts necessary investment and sav- ings. Besides, other societies view this kind of value system as “backward”.161 It contrasts European-based property ideas in which autonomy and freedom is associated with individual property rights. Lack of property and wealth accumulation is an indicator of poorness by their local farming and pastoralist neighbors as well. Nomadism, personal autonomy, equality strategies and other social behaviors such as hilarity, ridicule, shouting, improvised singing, and storytelling, etc. are different to the values of their neighbors which are instead shaped by authority, politeness, and deference to seniors. This can lead to people being unable to understand the values and strengths of forest peoples’ cultures. Societies of hunters and gatherers are rather easily stigmatized as ignorant, stupid, primitive, lacking in proper culture and not entirely human.162

Hunters and gatherers can and do, however, get in a relationship with their farming neighbors; they nevertheless appear often destitute, subservient or as clients, partly to gain access to goods and resources of farmers. However, such a relationship is seen as normal by hunters and gatherers as long as they can uphold their autonomy (because of sufficient remaining forests and other resources). It is therefore essential to note that in the beginning, hunters and gathers were not merely victims of their neighbors. They used active relationships to agriculturalists and pastoralists to maintain their autonomy.163 On the other hand, in the whole area of the Great Lakes, farmers always had an ambivalent relationship towards hunters and gatherers. Most of the time they were seen as slaves and not (entirely) human, and sometimes also as equals and even as the first civilizing beings. At the same time, they were deeply rooted in

160 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 8; Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 3; Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, p. 7. 161 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 8. 162 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 14-15; Kenrick and Lewis, Discrimination Against the Forest People ('Pygmies') of Central Africa, p. 314; Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, p. 7. 163 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 129. 45 the traditional social system and on the other hand despised for their backwardness.164 This “backwardness” was determined by the fact that they did not practice the “normal” way of life, which is farming and agricultural based subsistence.165 Today the discrimination they experience is:

“[…] a way which fails to engage with and support forest peoples’ processes of inclusiveness. If support focuses only on forest peoples’ fight against the discrimination perpetrated by their neighbours, then the fight will be in terms of what Jerome Lewis has called ‘white and black “village people”,’ involving structures of representation and leadership that will undermine the very equalising processes at the heart of forest peoples’ social worlds.”166 The few remaining Batwa, who still have direct and regular access to the forests and practice a traditional lifestyle, are called Impunyu. Especially for forest administrators, this regular access is seen as illegal. Today’s Impunyus are even discriminated by most other Batwa (potter or fishermen):

“Even among Batwa, the Impunyu are often looked down upon. […] Batwa refugees from Ruhengeri prefecture, […] hastened to stress that they could not be considered real Impunyu. According to these respondents, the Impu- nyu are dirty and uncivilized as ‘they do not even wear clothes.’”167 Assimilated Batwa have mostly adopted the mindset of the main society and are now using it against their past:

“When living in the forest we would sometimes go outside it to some relatives and ask for food, especially potatoes. But when we would approach them they would get scared and call us monkeys and baboons from the bamboo forest.”168 In Burundi, whole communities who have acquired decent land and housing feel offended when someone calls them Batwa. They only accept the term Abaterambere (“people who are developing”). But as a result, such “developed” Batwa are contributing to the overall negative perception of the Batwa by accepting the determinism of ethnic stereotyping.169

This examination of the different understandings of nature, its general perception in the first place as well as its use, is crucial for the next steps of the analysis. Furthermore, these different concepts have established different ways of defending social and political relations in the

164 See KENRICK, Justin, The Batwa of South West Uganda. World Bank Policy on Indigenous Peoples and the Conservation of the Bwindi and Mgahinga National Parks. Forest Peoples Programme, with the United Organi- sation for Batwa Development in Uganda, n.p. 2000, p. 2. 165 See Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 493. 166 Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 16. 167 Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 9. 168 Batwa man, cited in: Böhlmark, The Fog of Bwindi, 6:08-6:25. 169 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 13-14. 46 past. It offers us a general understanding as to why the Batwa are, intentional and unintentionally, discriminated and marginalized by their local neighbors and foreigners over time. It will also show us why current laws support this kind of negative behavior towards them and why the Batwa are hardly able to establish a friendlier relation to their neighbors. But before, I will present a more pragmatic view on why the land issue is more complicated than this sole discussion about theories and perceptions of it.

3.1.2. Need and Desire for Land170 The Great Lakes Region of Africa is densely populated. Especially Rwanda and Burundi have one of the highest population densities in the world and the highest density in Africa.171 In historical perspective mountains and highlands formed for a long time natural protection against most hostile intrudes from the Indian Ocean coast such as the Swahili slave traders. This fact, together with the existing military structure, ensured that this area has been mostly untouched by any foreign intruders until the late 19th century and has been uninvolved in the Arab and European slave trade. The population was never reduced but increased by it as refugees from other parts of Central Africa sought refuge here. In colonial times the Catholic Church played a crucial role in opposing any population control measures.172 Another aspect of the rapid population growth was the traditional position of women in a household.173 Fur- thermore, marriage was always one of the most basic social institutions in this society. Having children was a sign of wealth. Therefore, the pressure for marrying and bearing children was high and an important social duty.174

If we combine Rwanda and Burundi, today about 23 million people live in an area of about 54,168 km² which brings us to 425 people per km². In 1950 the combined population was only around 4.4 million (82 people per km²).175 In 1911 the Rwandan population was estimat-

170 Numbers presented in this chapter will mostly deal with the situation in Rwanda and Burundi as it is not easy to find reliable statistics for the eastern parts of the DRC and the southern parts of Uganda only. 171 See VERWIMP, Philip et al., Livestock, Land and Political Power. The 1993 Killings in Burundi, in: Journal of Peace Research 46/3 (2009), p. 357–376, p. 371. 172 See MILLWOOD, David and SELLSTRÖM, Tor, Historical Perspective. Some Explanatory Factors Lessons from the Rwanda Experience / Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda. Study 1 (1996), p. 16; CARNEY, J. J., Rwanda Before the Genocide. Catholic Politics and Ethnic Discourse in the Late Colonial Era, Oxford 2014, p. 23. 173 See Millwood and Sellström, Historical Perspective, p. 16. 174 See WORLD CULTURE ENCYCLOPEDIA, Countries and Their Cultures. Rwanda - Marriage, Family, and Kin- ship. Available at: http://www.everyculture.com/No-Sa/Rwanda.html (May 14, 2018). 175 See FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS (FAOSTAT), Annual population. Available at: http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/ (Jan. 05, 2018). 47 ed to be approximately 1.5 to two million.176 It is also important to note that the demographic is not merely concentrated in few conurbations but is scattered around and within the borders of the two countries, creating an immensely populated area, especially when comparing the remaining parts of DRC and Tanzania:

Figure 3: Population Density 2015 - Data by Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the DG for Regional Development (DG REGIO) of the European Commission.

Today 74.5 percent of Rwanda’s and 73.3 percent of Burundi’s land is used for agriculture. 75.3 percent of Rwanda’s labor force is working in the agricultural sector. The numbers in Burundi are even higher: around 93.6 percent of the population force is employed in the agricultural sector, and over 90 percent of the population relies on subsistence agriculture.177 In Rwanda, the agricultural area per person dropped from 0.47 ha in 1961 to 0.16 ha in 2015. In

176 See MBONIMANA, Gamaliel and NTEZIMANA, Emmanuel, Weisse Väter und Bethelmission. Die Niderlassung der christlichen Missionen - Die katholische Kirche, in: Gudrun Honke, ed., Als die Weißen kamen. Ruanda und die Deutschen 1885 - 1919, Wuppertal 1990, p. 128–138, p. 133. 177 See CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA), The World Factbook. Available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/ publications/the-world-factbook/ (Jan. 06, 2018); LEMARCHAND, René and CLAY, Daniel, Rwanda. Ency- clopædia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/place/Rwanda (Jan. 11, 2018); LEMARCHAND, René and EGGERS, Ellen Kahan, Burundi. Encyclopædia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/ place/Burundi (Jan. 11, 2018). 48

Burundi, this indicator fell from 0.56 ha in 1961 to 0.19 ha in 2015. At the same time, the overall agricultural area in both countries was significantly rising.178 Because of their weak infrastructure both countries had for a long time no noteworthy imports of agricultural goods and were therefore literally self-sufficient in feeding their population. Only since 1994 agrarian imports are slowly growing in both countries.179 Consequently, there should be no surprise that almost all available land is used for agriculture and that there have been several food shortages over the past decades. The remaining circa 25 percent of the land is urban area, lakes, mountains, forests, and national parks.180 The situation is similar in the surrounding areas of DRC and Uganda. Most land there is used for agricultural purposes as well.181 Whereby, national parks cover a significant amount of the remaining forest areas:

178 Own calculations on behalf of the population and agricultural area statistics provided by FAOSTAT. 179 See FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS (FAOSTAT), Crops and livestock products. Available at: http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/ (Jan. 05, 2018). 180 See Lemarchand and Eggers, Burundi; Lemarchand and Clay, Rwanda. 181 See PLUMPTRE, Andrew et al., Socioeconomic status of people in the Central Albertine Rift, in: Albertine Rift Technical Reports Series 4 (2004), p. 21-23. 49

Figure 4: Comparison of forest areas (dark green - right/above) with national parks and other protection areas (green - left/below) in 2018 - Data by Google Maps 50

The land was and is merely needed to produce food for the population, the most basic and necessary need of every human. The local governments are therefore faced with two major intervening problems: The rapid and ongoing population growth by upholding the food supply at the same time. This is not a current issue. It already occurred throughout the 19th and 20th century.182 In the profile and rhetoric of kings, colonial rulers, dictators, and presidents we can find evident characteristics and statements of promoting aspects such as land, fertility, soil, peasantry, food, etc., and how they were used politically, as we will see in the following paragraphs. We can nevertheless argue how strict these problems were pursued in reality.

It is also worth mentioning that the rate and impact of deforestation is historically and geographically unequal among the countries. In the Kivu region of DRC, the population and social structures differentiate much more than in Rwanda and Burundi. Pastoralism was not a typical act in this area so that many forests exist until today. The remaining Batwa in this area of DRC, therefore, have much higher access to the remaining forests, greater economic independence, and can ensure more effective resistance against their neighbors.183 Unfortunately, this also means that the conflict in this area is much more violent and people on both sides are killed on a regular basis (see chapter 3.3.3).

In pre-colonial times the Mwamis (kings) of Rwanda and Burundi founded their legitimacy, credibility, and legal force, like all kings, in the relationship with their people. The Mwami was a holy person because he was seen as the personification of imana, the mythical force of life and fertility. In Rwanda, the term also includes the beliefs of “man”, “husband”, “man- hood”, “bravery”, and “generosity”. In Burundi imana means “reign” and “(to) give”.184 In northwest Rwanda the title umuhinza was given to local Bahutu rulers, it came from a word that meant “agricultural prosperity” or “territorial security”. The title itself was described, after the country’s independence, in part, as “the farmer par excellence governing a people of cultivators”, or “President of Crops”.185 A Mwami was, therefore, the source of richness and wellbeing, the embodiment of the realm and the living, a donor deity which guaranteed fertility of the soil, livestock, and population. At least that was the theory. In reality, the Mwami relied on the workforce of their peasants. He was, therefore, the showpiece of the existing social class-relation. His reign was nevertheless not solely exploitative; he also had to give to

182 See Taylor, Molders of Mud, p. 196-199. 183 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 5. 184 See SMITH, David Norman, Globalisierung und Genozid. Ungleichheit und Massensterben in Rwanda, in: Isidor Wallimann and Michael N. Dobkowski, ed., Das Zeitalter der Knappheit. Ressourcen, Konflikte, Le- benschancen, Bern 2003, p. 183–212, p. 192. 185 See KIERNAN, Ben, Blood and Soil. A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur, New Haven 2007, p. 563. 51 retain his legitimacy. By the end of the 19th century, this relationship was already in decline because the kingdoms became more and more centralized, especially under the last pre- colonial king Rwabugiri in Rwanda. “The drum is bigger than the loud scream” was a catchphrase at the end of his kingship, meaning that the king distanced himself more and more from his people. Rwabugiris’ wars and structural reforms became the leading source for most future domestic problems at the beginning of the 20th century.186

The former colonial powers had no real intentions to fund a sufficient food supply in this area. They were interested in involving the two kingdoms in the global economy for a “gesamtge- sellschaftliches Ziel” (“a goal for the society as a whole”).187 In early literature, countless an- notations were made regarding the rapid decline of the forest area in Rwanda between 1878 and 1931 (in 1931 the government forbid any further deforestation in Rwanda. It can be presumed that the development was similar in Burundi as both countries were administered together). Suggestions of the decline in different regions ranged between a few hundred meters up to one kilometer per year. Many Batwa communities found themselves surrounded by Ba- hutu agricultural fields although they still could remember when their huts were deep in the forest.188

During the German occupation of Rwanda and Burundi, the area was mostly ignored, and it was believed to have no real economic value for the colonial rulers. Germans governed the area by indirect rule. This is also a reason why these two countries are of few African states which today have the same borders as 150 years ago. However, after the Belgians came into power, they tried to give the area a more “active” role. They promoted modern European statehood in which Rwanda and Burundi (the same happened in Buganda (a kingdom in south-east Uganda)) was transformed into a source for Cash Crops. During the 1920s the Bel- gians cultivated more and more coffee which soon replaced copper as the main export product of Rwanda and Burundi. This development brought furthermore higher taxation, forced cultivation, and mandatory anti-erosion measures, mass mortality, famines, and finally Genocide with it.189 “Stress-migration” was a typical result in the early phase of colonialism, meaning that people migrated because of famine, droughts, and land scarcity. In the later periods, mi-

186 See Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 192; Carney, Rwanda Before the Genocide, p. 13; NTEZIMANA, Emmanuel, Ruanda am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts. Gesellschaft, Administration und Politik, in: Gudrun Honke, ed., Als die Weißen kamen. Ruanda und die Deutschen 1885 - 1919, Wuppertal 1990, p. 73–81, p. 77-78. 187 See KRALER, Albert, Migration und die Universalisierung der Nationalstaatsform am Beispiel Ruanda, in: Stichproben. Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien 9/16 (2009), p. 107–142, p. 117. 188 See Seitz, Die Töpfer-Twa in Ruanda, p. 57. 189 See Kraler, Migration und die Universalisierung der Nationalstaatsform am Beispiel Ruanda, p. 123; Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 188. 52 gration was often a part of a strategy to ensure the lineage of a family and to get access to essential resources. Migration became, therefore, a part of a patron-client relationship. This was favorable for the local landowners and chiefs because those migrants had no free access to land.190

In 1932, one year after the implementation of forced cultivation and forced labor (soon called akazi or umuganda), a priest protested the colonial administration because he feared many peasants in his community would soon starve to death. The creation of pathways, the planting of trees, field work and other construction works occupied the most working time of the peasants. Adding to this, soon all taxpayers had to plant 100 coffee bushes. Until 1937 around twenty million coffee bushes were planted in Rwanda and Burundi, followed by many more in the years after. In 1944 every adult had to do 120 work days of forced labor. In 1955 a Governor saw the limit reached when he wrote indignantly that the chiefs brought the peasants to their subsistence minimum.191

Another example: In the 1930s Belgian colonial authorities initiated a large resettlement program for migrants from Rwanda to Masisi (North Kivu, DRC). The official statement for this step was the overpopulation and land scarcity in Rwanda. The primary and unofficial reason for this program was nevertheless the urgent need for workforce in the plantations of North Kivu. In addition, this program was different from other colonial resettlement initiatives. The Rwandese settlers (at least 85,000) received enough land for subsistence agriculture, work on the plantations was not mandatory, and a Rwandese Chief governed them. The colonial authorities goal was a slow modernization by keeping up the “traditional” authority structure and to “transplant” whole communities (the migrants and settlers were called “Transplantés”). The long-term effects were an ethnicization of politics and inherent tribalism. This means that peasants received their land and the access to important resources only by the local Chiefs and only for “rent” which affected soon all areas of Rwanda and Burundi as well as the surrounding areas. The owner of the land was still the government.192 This system remained after the independence of the colonies.193 The combination of tribal colonial-government, plantation economy, and massive resettlement programs changed the identity of the people and the access to land. People identified themselves more and more as “autochthonous” or indigenous

190 See Kraler, Migration und die Universalisierung der Nationalstaatsform am Beispiel Ruanda, p. 122-123. 191 See Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 193-194. 192 See Kraler, Migration und die Universalisierung der Nationalstaatsform am Beispiel Ruanda, p. 124-125. 193 See Kraler, Migration und die Universalisierung der Nationalstaatsform am Beispiel Ruanda, p. 125; LEMAR- CHAND, René, The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa. National and ethnic conflict in the twenty-first century, Philadelphia 2009, p. 211. 53 which brings us back to our problem on who can be called “indigenous”. Before these resettlement programs were initiated the area in DRC was sparsely populated, the mobility of the people was high, there were no larger communities, and hunting played a much more significant role than agriculture. At the end of the colonial period, first land conflicts of ethnic char- acter (indigenous people versus Rwandans) occurred. The resettlement programs itself became a blueprint for future refugee settlements. Both created a closed ethnic community which came hardly in touch with the local population. It reinforced the creation of different spaces between settlers, migrants (past) and refugees (present) on the one hand and locals on the other hand. It fostered the creation of ethnic identities and ideologies furthermore.194

After Rwanda’s independence, the situation for peasants got worse through widespread corruption and mismanagement. The average land property declined rapidly; most people lost their whole existence. The gap between rich and poor increased. The goal to solve the demographical and subsistence problem failed. A deterioration of the living standard instead of improvement and a worsening of the social and political climate in the country were the result.195 Juvénal Habyarimana came 1973 with the help of a coup d'état into power. From the beginning, his goal was a sufficient food supply for the country. According to him, the increase of the agricultural production was the only way how to achieve that.196 Under his reign, peasantry and agriculture was romanticized. He promoted a “moral revolution” whereby his predecessor, Grégoire Kayibanda, proclaimed a “social revolution”. The justification for his coup d'état was that he wanted “to ban once and for all, the spirit of intrigue and the feudal mentality” and “to give back labor and individual yield its real value”. Anyone who refused to do agricultural work was seen as harmful to society. In 1974 he reintroduced forced labor by stating: “First the population must get down to work – the Government and myself want to emphasize the value of work on land. Thus, we shall devote each Saturday to tilling the soul with hoes in our hands.”197 The year 1980 was declared as “the year of the protection of the soil”. 1988 was the year of “protection of the peasant revenue”. In interviews, he repeated that the interests of the rural collectivity were above individual interests. He saw himself and his family as cultivators and simple peasants whereby the life on the land, the countryside, and the hills have influenced him the most. In 1983 he said that “Our food strategy gives absolute priority to our peasants”, adding just one year later that “the government takes always care of

194 See Kraler, Migration und die Universalisierung der Nationalstaatsform am Beispiel Ruanda, p. 125-128. 195 See Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 196. 196 See VERWIMP, Philip, Peasants in Power. The Political Economy of Development and Genocide in Rwanda, Dordrecht 2013, 29. 197 Grégoire Kayibanda, cited in: Kiernan, Blood and Soil, p. 563. 54 the peasant families” because they were “the essential productive forces of our country”.198 Four years later he praised peasants for their total and everyday devotion to work. He declared that from now on that all Rwandese people would be termed as Umuturage (peasants) because they make Rwanda live.199

Developments in Burundi were similar. Bashingantahe was a customary institution whose members were the most respected persons in a community and worked independently from local chiefs. Their tasks were to keep the land record, overseeing land transactions, setting local disputes, representing the local population to authorities, etc. After the country’s independence the role of the Bashingantahe declined and was mostly determined by political affiliation whereby political unrest and violence further weakened the institution. This made ground for a new distribution of land after widespread violence with thousands of deaths and mass flight occurred in 1972. Local Batutsi authorities redistributed their properties whereby many Batutsi who had properties in less fertile land regions got most. The ethnic dimension of this redistribution, or better said land-grabbing, is undeniable because Bahutu peasants formerly cultivated most of the land. Reclaiming such land was and is very complicated, and often unsuccessful, especially for women.200

In recent time conservationism combined with tourism became more and more critical for additional revenue of the whole Great Lakes region. Today thousands of square kilometers are declared as national parks or environmental protection areas. Environmentalists played a crucial role in it as they pushed the governments to create such areas to protect endangered species such as gorillas in the first place. Soon after governments recognized the high value of such parks as wealthy tourists from across the globe came to their country, willing to pay hundreds and thousands of US$ to see such animals. The governments, especially poor ones, need and want this income to build infrastructure, schools, create farmland, etc., to guarantee a stable society with a rising living standard. Of course, corruption is of high significance here, but it does not change the fact that the money from tourists is desperately needed to fund sufficient budgets to help the population. But the consequence was that people living in those areas were often forced to leave without compensation, mainly when they lived in or near the forests such as the Batwa who were one of the losers of this development.201 Most remaining

198 Grégoire Kayibanda, cited in: Ibid. 199 See Ibid., p. 563-564. 200 See VAN LEEUWEN, Mathijs, Crisis or continuity? Framing land disputes and local conflict resolution in Bu- rundi, in: Land Use Policy 27/3 (2010), p. 753–762, p. 755-758. 201 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 15; Jessee, Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda, p. 227. 55 areas of wilderness are today national parks. This means, together with the agricultural need of land, that there is no place left were the Batwa are able to live their traditional life:

“Twa were fierce fighters but, like foragers elsewhere in central Africa, they were simply in the way of agricultural expansion. When push came to shove, they were the ones who were pushed and shoved. In both Rwanda and Burundi, they were demographically overwhelmed by cultivators and herders whose productive systems could support much larger populations.”202 Additional, in areas where market economies expand (in this case coffee and tea), the more likely it is that farmers exploit forest people labor.203

The 2009 report of the Forest Peoples Programme came to the following findings in all four countries (including Cameroon) regarding the land issue:

• Colonial and independence laws have slowly dispossessed indigenous peoples of their customary rights, leaving them, no or very restricted, access to their ancestral lands, which have become protected areas and/or national parks.

• They were evicted without compensation and without being given alternative land. They are widely excluded and marginalized from ownership and administration of forest resources.

• The following landlessness of indigenous communities is reported as a common de- nominator throughout the region. This situation has not been redressed. As a result, processes for acquisition of land titles are barely available to indigenous peoples because the procedures and costs are not accessible to them.

• The content and structure of colonial, independence, and contemporary laws pertain- ing to tenure and forests have clashed with pre-existing customary laws and practices. Contradictory and conflicting legal norms have stemmed from the mixture of codified and customary systems.

• Governments of the five countries are committed to international and regional treaties guaranteeing the rights of indigenous peoples but there is a blatant lack of implementation of human rights treaties.204

3.2. Early Times The previous chapters were of theoretical, introductory, and general nature. This was necessary to understand the different views and concepts on the environment and all its conse-

202 TAYLOR, Christopher C., Dual Systems in Rwanda. Have they ever really existed?, in: Anthropological Theo- ry 4/3 (2004), p. 353–371, p. 364. 203 See HEWLETT, Barry S. and FANCHER, Jason M., Central African Hunter-Gatherer Research Traditions, in: Vicki Cummings et al., ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers, Oxford 2014, p. 936–957, p. 948. 204 See Couillard and Gilbert, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 2-3. 56 quences. It gives us a better sense of why discrimination and marginalization are not always created solely (but most of the time) intentional and evident in the first place. We have to be aware of the time, place, and circumstances when making these claims. However, negative stereotypes are a great tool to create apparent legitimacy over morally wrong behavior such as land grabbing, violence, displacement, abuse, etc. The history of the Batwa is a good example for this. That is why I will now specifically focus on the role of the Batwa in all of this and how their status may have changed over the past roughly 150 years in the Great Lakes Re- gions and how themselves and others shaped their presence. The historical facts presented in the following chapters are somehow problematic because many accounts are biased or have gaps in their data, especially early records of European scholars. The Batwa were often either wholly left out in historical texts or denoted with discriminatory and marginalizing aspects.205

3.2.1. Pre-Colonial Times The pre-colonial kingdoms of the Great Lakes Region situated in southern Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi were highly centralized and dominated by extensive agricultural and pastoral economies. The existing social relations were of hierarchical nature divided into Bahutu, Ba- tutsi and Batwa but also determined by clans and lineages within those groups. Because of the large-scale deforestation Batwa at this time were already struggling for survival when they tried to stick to their traditional life as hunters and gatherers. Many were unwillingly incorpo- rated in the numerous superior agriculturalist and pastoralist society where they found themselves soon at the lowest social and economic level. They favored economic activities such as woodcraft, tinker, blacksmithing, day labor, but especially pottery. Some Batwa even became bards and performers, clients of chiefs or servants at royal courts, including assassins, spies, warriors, and court executioners.206 However, pottery became connected with the Batwa already during the establishment of the Batutsi kingdoms in the 17th century, but due to the limited records this cannot be said for sure.207

Batwa even formed parts of the royal guard which was specifically feared among the enemies of the Mwami.208 Hans Meyer, a German explorer and researcher, noted such appearances of Batwa at the royal court: “Während wir die Zelte aufstellen, ertönt von der Residenz her

205 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 24; THOMSON, Susan M., Ethnic Twa and Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Policy, in: Peace Review 21/3 (2009), p. 313–320, p. 314; Amani, 1. Burundi, p. 6. 206 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 5-6; ADAMCZYK, Christiane, ‘Today, I am no Mutwa anymore’. Facets of national unity discourse in present-day Rwanda, in: Social Anthropology 19/2 (2011), p. 175–188, p. 181; Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 27; Amani, 1. Burundi, p. 2. 207 See KOHTAMAKI, Marjaana, An ethnoarchaeological study of Twa potters in southern Rwanda, in: Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 45/3 (2010), p. 298–320, p. 300. 208 See STRIZEK, Helmut, Geschenkte Kolonien. Ruanda und Burundi unter deutscher Herrschaft. Mit mit einem Essay über die Entwicklung bis zur Gegenwart, 1. Aufl., Berlin 2006, p. 52. 57 dumpfer Trommelschlag und unter Vortritt von sechs Riesentrommeln, die von Batua getra- gen und geschlagen werden, […].“209 On another occasion he states: „Doch weicht die Menge zurück und gibt uns Raum, den Msinga, seine Grossen – worunter mehrere von über 2m - und daneben auch einige Batua zu typen.“210 The drums had substantial ceremonial value and were essential for every Mwami and his court.211 All these professions had one in common: quick revenue, something most Batwa were much more interested in than long-term subsistence strategies because in their previous life as hunter and gatherers they had not to think in long terms.212

Batwa played a vital role in the ideological justification and power structures of the Batutsi ruling authority. Around Lake Kivu, a chief without a Batwa present at his court was irrelevant.213 The founding hero of the last ruling Batutsi dynasty in Rwanda was the: “[…] bastard of a recluse and of a hunter coming from hellish places, brought-up by a poor potter. He kills his maternal grandfather during sheperds’ brawl, and afterwards becomes renowned for his hunting and his conquests.”214 Although a Batwa is not clearly mentioned, it can be suggested so because of the mentioning of a potter. This myth implies that the Batutsi control over Bat- wa land was agreed by Batwa initially. Here and in other contexts, Batwa are represented as conferring legitimacy on Batutsi royal rule. Thus, in ceremonial hunting expeditions, the Mwami was always accompanied by a Batwa.215 Another Rwandan creation story, told by an elderly Batwa man, is as follows:

“The myth says that Gihanga, who created Rwanda had three children and it is said that one night he gathered all three of his children – Gahutu, Gatutsi, and Gatwa - and told them that he was going to give them a test. So he placed milk in front of them and said whoever passes the test will be the successor to my kingdom. So the test was to allow nothing to happen to the milk – it could not be tasted or touched. Gahutu fell asleep and he poured the milk to the ground unconsciously. When Gatwa saw this, he decided to drink his cup of milk, and Gatutsi was the only one left with milk in the cup. So in the morning Gihanga told Gatutsi to always keep milk in the cup and Gahutu could go to Gatutsi when he wanted milk but he must cultivate. Fi-

209 BINDSEIL, Reinhart, Ruanda im Lebensbild von Hans Meyer (1858 - 1929). Erstbesteiger des Kilimandscharo, Forschungsreisender und Verleger; ein biographisches Portrait, mit Tagebuchaufzeichnungen aus dem Land der tausend Hügel, einer Darstellung des Kivu-Grenzstreits (1885 - 1910) sowie Streiflichtern vom Ersten Weltkrieg und dem Ende der deutschen kolonialen Präsenz, Berlin 2004, p. 159. 210 Ibid., p. 169. 211 See Strizek, Geschenkte Kolonien, p. 30; LEMARCHAND, René, Burundi. Ethnic Conflict and Genocide, 1. paperback ed. with new preface, Washington D.C 1996, p. 36. 212 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 5-6; Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 27. 213 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 9. 214 Chretien 1981, cited in: Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 30. 215 See Ibid., p. 30-31. 58

nally, Gihanga told Gatwa that he must go everywhere Gatutsi goes and when Gatutsi holds ceremonies, he must give Gatwa a goat every time. Gatwa would then be there doing nothing, except dancing for and protecting the king of Rwanda. Nothing would go to the king without passing by Gat- wa.”216 Several former Central African kingdoms used similar founding myths: “In stories about settlement, Pygmies are guides who taught the immigrants how to cope with the various habitats within the rainforests.”217

However, the profession as executioners, spies or even warriors were later used by many Ba- hutu to justify their discriminatory behavior against the Batwa, despite only a few ever hold such occupations. Batwa serving at royal courts were able to build a special relationship to the royal family and were therefore often regarded as the King’s men. Others again contracted themselves as clients of local chiefs to be protected from any exploitation. The result was that in the 19th century many Batwa were in a dependency relationship with Batutsi kings and Ba- hutu landlords.218 With this “assimilation” process the affected Batwa adopted the land tenure system of individual ownership and dismissed their own of collective ownership. Own land tenure vocabulary disappeared or had been appropriated.219

On the other hand, the vast majority of Batwa did not have any connections to the social power structures. Instead, they became potters’ which was soon after their new identity, leaving the old customs and knowledge as hunter-gatherers mostly aside. Only a few Batwa remained in the forests, on the periphery of the “civilized” society.220 Alongside Kinyarwanda (Kirundi in Burundi) became the dominant and universal language between the three groups (although the language spoken by Batwa can still quite differ). They soon seemed to share the same overall culture; practicing a same ancestor cult and telling the same oral history.221

However, it is important to note that cultural differences still existed; especially regarding consumption. Batutsi tried to ensure a liquid diet only consisting of milk, blood, and beer (although most could not meet this ideal). Cattle were rarely slaughtered; goat or mutton meat was never eaten because it was said that these animals were peaceful and helpful calming cat-

216 Elder male Batwa, Musanze, Rwanda, cited in: NTAKIRUTIMANA, Richard and COLLIN, Bennett, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’. Examining the ‘Historically Marginalized People’ Label and the Acculturation of the Twa in Rwan- da, AEGIS Working Paper WP 005,, n.p. 2017, p. 15. 217 Vansina 1990, cited in: Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 31; Seitz, Die zentralafrikanischen Wild- beuterkulturen, p. 194-198. 218 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 26-27. 219 See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 2. 220 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 10. 221 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 26-27; See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 2. 59 tle. Other solid food was only consumed in the evening at home. Chicken (including eggs) was simply seen as disgusting. Many Batutsi until the 1990s thought that talking in detail about food was vulgar. Direct references to food and eating were avoided as much as possible. The Rwandan wife of Taylor was shocked in 2000 when she heard in a videotape that a speaker at a Batutsi marriage said kurya (“to eat”) instead of the euphemistic term gufungura (“to open” or “to inaugurate”). Bahutu diets were more solid and consisted of goat meet, but they still avoided mutton. Batwa had almost no food taboos; they ate chicken, eggs, goat, and mutton without hesitation because all were reliable protein sources. Because of these eating habits, Batwa bodies were considered to be permanent repositories of impurity and therefore usually used as scapegoats in case of calamities.222 In one kingship ritual, “The Path of Inun- dation”, such impurity of a young Batwa girl had to be expelled in order to stop excess rain- fall.223

In African cultures, it is common for identities to be considered as flexible. Group identities are not a strict and exclusive caste such as in India. People in Africa usually eat and drink together or intermarry. Stressing out a person’s mixed origin is therefore not uncommon. The Batwa was this participation denied although sometimes there was no noticeable difference. Meyer mentions: “In Nähe wohnen Batwa in eignen Dörfern, aber sie unterscheiden sich we- der in Grösse noch in Gesichtszügen noch in Wohnform von den Wahutu. Indessen wird nie ein Mhutu eine Mutua, nie ein Mutua eine Mhutu heiraten.“224 From an early time in history, Batwa experienced but also enhanced actions that prevented them from participating normally with others.225 These practices of avoidance intensified during the 19th century.226

Not sharing food or drinks is one of the strongest indicators of discrimination in this region. In Rwanda for example, sharing a beer in calabashes is usually a typical expression of friendship.227 Bishop Enoch Kayeye, the founder of the Ugandan NGO African International Chris- tian Ministry (ACIM), experienced similar acts of exclusion in the 1950s: “In the 1950s, when my father had a big homestay and the Batwas came to beg for food – so they would sit, they would not mix with the others. They would sit aside. And then my parents would give them

222 See Taylor, Molders of Mud, p. 203. 223 See Taylor, Dual Systems in Rwanda, p. 365-366. 224 Bindseil, Ruanda im Lebensbild von Hans Meyer (1858 - 1929), p. 173. 225 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 14-15; Taylor, Dual Systems in Rwanda, p. 361; Adamczyk, ‘Today, I am no Mutwa anymore’, p. 181; Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 494; Kenrick and Lewis, Discrimination Against the Forest People ('Pygmies') of Central Africa, p. 313-314. 226 See Taylor, Dual Systems in Rwanda, p. 363. 227 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 33. 60 food aside of other people.”228 During his fieldwork in 1984, Taylor experienced this unwill- ingness by other Rwandans of eating and drinking together with Batwa as well.229 Other prov- erbs in this context are as following: “If you shelter from the rain in a Batwa hut, then remain there.”230; or: “One must not mix sheep and goats” which again refers directly to the different food habits and the reason why they have to be kept apart from the rest of the society.231 There are, again, exceptions: Francis Sembargari, a present time Batwa leader in Uganda, said that they are allowed to eat with Bahutu: “Sometimes they give us sheep that died of natural causes. And they invite us to eat, because we need to eat.”232 It remains unclear if this happened due to the different time period or if such exceptions already existed in former times.

There were and are exceptions to this exclusion though, but they are limited. Concerning intermarriage, most Batwa men cannot afford the demanded bride prices. Batwa women are more likely to be mixed married because their future husbands benefit from their low or even non-existing bride price. In today’s time, Batwa parents usually do not mind if such a marriage is happening if they see that their daughter is genuinely in love, although in modern times they are concerned that she may become infected with HIV. However, husbands may scorn their Batwa wives due to their low “value”. As a result, such relationship is usually one of sexual convenience for the husband only. Similar cases occur among the Bambuti233 in eastern DRC: “C’est ça le problème parce que parfois les Bantous cherchent seulement à se satisfaire ou bien faire une expérience voir comment est-ce que le Pygmée.”234

Therefore, most husbands do not assume their proper responsibilities for the children, and as a consequence, many Batwa wives move back to their community. The identity of the children depends strongly on how well their mother is or was integrated into her husband’s community. Sometimes they can take the identity of their father, but in general, they identified as Bat- wa.235 Hans Meyer mentions in the early 20th century:

228 Bishop Enoch Kayeye, founder of ACIM, cited in: Böhlmark, The Fog of Bwindi, 16:45-17:17. 229 See Taylor, Molders of Mud, p. 192. 230 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 25; Thomson, Ethnic Twa and Rwandan Na- tional Unity and Reconciliation Policy, p. 315. 231 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 14. 232 Francis Sembargari, Batwa leader, cited in: VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda, 5:38-5:45. 233 In north and south Kivu (DRC), the term “BaMbuti” tends to be used by the upland Batwa groups and “Bat- wa” by the groups living close to Lake Kivu. Hunter and gatherers of Ituri province in north-eastern DRC are also known as “BaMbuti”, see: Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, p. 36; Because all share the same fate I will use some interview passages who had been made in these areas. 234 Interview with a male doctor and a male nurse in a private clinic in eastern DRC, BURTSCHER, Doris, Field work in eastern DRC 2017. 235 See Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, p. 12. 61

“Batua gibt es ziemlich viele in hiesiger Gegend [at the border between Rwanda and Burundi]. […] sie sind äusserlich von Wahutu nur bei scharfem Zusehen und den breiteren Gesichtern, stärker eingestülpten Nasen und et- was geringerer Grösse zu unterschieden. […] Es wird wohl viel Wahutublut in ihnen sein, obgleich sie bei den Watussi und Wahutu als Parias gelten, und kein Mhutu eine rechtmässige Frau aus Batuastamm heiratet.“236 This citation shows us, again, how inferior the Batwa were seen as by their Bahutu and Batut- si neighbors and that the overall perception of the Batwa was negative and that of a pariah (a term usually used in India for the untouchables). Another quote from John Hanning Speke underlines this negative characteristic of the Batwa. When he resided at the court of king Ru- manyika (kingdom of Karagwe, north-western Tanzania) in 1861 the king told him stories about the Batwa:

“On visiting Rǔmanika again, and going through my geographical lessons, he told me, in confirmation of Mǔsa’s old stories, that in Rǔanda there existed pigmies who lived in trees, but occasionally came down at night, and, listening at the hut doors of the men, would wait until they heard the name of one of its inmates, when they would call him out, and, firing an arrow in- to his heart, disappear again in the same way as they came.”237 This rumor resulted from the fact that Batwa were feared for their military skills. They were able to conduct raids on sedentary people and then disappear into the forests.238 Because Bat- wa also resisted against their steady expulsion and extrusion from the forests they made de- mands when outsiders used their forests for hunting, collecting firewood or just wanted to traverse it. If they felt too threatened by other people living nearby, they often raided and destroyed these settlements.239

Taylor acknowledges that not all Rwandans showed antipathy towards the Batwa, but “among those who did it was not uncommon to hear that Twa were thieves, sexually immodest, dirty, smelly, and, perhaps worst of all, gluttonous and indiscriminate drinkers and eaters. As proof of this, it was pointed out to me that Twa eat mutton […].”240 A proverb allegedly existing in Burundi, set Batwa apart from humankind: “It is forbidden for Batwa to share things with humans.”241 Schuhmacher stated that the Batwa had not to fear any thefts because no Bahutu would touch it in fear of getting an infection. Other reported that Batutsi did not want to be

236 Bindseil, Ruanda im Lebensbild von Hans Meyer (1858 - 1929), p. 183. 237 HANNING SPEKE, John, Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, Second Edition, Edinburgh and London 1864, p. 230. 238 See Taylor, Molders of Mud, p. 196. 239 See Seitz, Die Töpfer-Twa in Ruanda, p. 58-60. 240 Taylor, Molders of Mud, p. 193. 241 See VANDEGINSTE, Stef, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain. The Batwa in Burundi and Rwanda, in: Africa Spectrum 49/1 (2014), p. 3–25, p. 12. 62 treated with the same medical tools that were used for Batwa before. Generally, all vessels which were touched or used by Batwa were either destroyed or not used anymore.242 When the Association pour la Promotion des Batwa (APB) applied in 1992 for UNPO membership, they wrote: “Twa are stereotype of dumb, worthless, dirty, ugly, crual [sic!], whatever unhu- man qualification you may think of. They are not allowed to share the straw (sign of unity and friendship) with no Batwa, even the intermarriage is rare.”243

Adapting a more “civilized” lifestyle outside of the forest did not change the “characteristics” of the Batwa for the better. Pottery (the most common profession then) contained a constant direct contact with the earth which was seen as impure. On the other hand, cattle herding, practiced mostly by Batutsi, was considered as one of the most esteemed livelihoods because this work involved no direct contact with the earth. Cultivation, the occupation of most Bahu- tu, was in between. This mindset came again from legends and myths, and over the years the boundaries established a polarity of esteem and disgust. Batwa were the ones who already lost most and now became again stigmatized with disgust because they did the most unwanted professions.244 Negative stereotypes of Batwa in early times rooted in the different modes of subsistence rather than in clear “ethnic” differences although people very much perceived them as such. Batutsi and Bahutu, for example, can be both, agriculturalists and pastoralists, but they would only identify themselves as one or the other, Batwa remained in the lowest social position as they did as hunters and gatherers although most of them were no longer following this traditional way of life. They still had different cultural behaviors and were doing the most unwanted and “dirty” professions. Always when Batwa left their forests, they became part of the dominant society and their separation went even further and soon had clear characteristics of segregation:245 “Without the economic autonomy the forest provides, their neighbors’ perception of the Batwa becomes more negative, discrimination more marked and exploitation easier and more frequent.”246

3.2.2. Colonialism The colonial period of Central Africa, especially in the area of Rwanda and Burundi, com- menced quite recently. Although Africa was theoretically colonized after the 1884/85 Berlin

242 See Seitz, Die Töpfer-Twa in Ruanda, p. 155-156. 243 ASSOCIATION POUR LA PROMOTION DES BATWA (APB), Pictorial Situation of Batwa in Rwanda, UNPO membership applications (D18093(2/1)) 1992. 244 See Taylor, Dual Systems in Rwanda, p. 367; Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 494. 245 “To separate” is to split people into groups. “To segregate” is to isolate those groups and to take steps to keep them apart, see Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 14. 246 See Ibid., p. 9. 63 conference, it was not until 1894 that Germans first entered the kingdoms of Rwanda and Bu- rundi and administered it together as Ruanda-Urundi. The Germans used the indirect-rule principle in Ruanda-Urundi and supported the reigning Mwamis.247 In Rwanda, they helped him furthermore to expand his territory either by conquest or political maneuvering over the whole area of today’s Rwandan borders.248 The reason for the support of the Mwami Musinga by the Germans rooted in the overall opposition to the king after he made a treaty with the Germans in 1897. Many people (including local chiefs) who paid some tribute to the agents of the Mwami wanted to avoid subjugation because they had not necessarily identified themselves as subjects of his rule before. The Batwa were involved in this process of subjugation on the side of the Mwami and received some of this new land because of their particular functions at the court and relation to the king. A handful was promoted to sub-chiefs, and one Batwa clan of Rwanda was even ennobled. But, again, this affected only a fraction of the Batwa. Most remained geographically, politically, and socially far removed from the royal court during the colonial period.249

The Germans reported in their annual reports that the Batwa were despised, feared, hated, and excluded from the community of eating. In 1902-1903 a German officer reported that most territories were at peace, trouble only existed with the persecuted Batwa.250 In 1911 Hans Meyer mentioned that some Batwa he knew conflicted with their neighbors: “[…] sie [the Batwa] stammen aus der Hüttengruppe Uakaninja im Bugoier Wald, Häuptling Duhabura. Der Stamm ist im Wald zerstreut und zählt etwa 150 Seelen, […] Sie leben in tödlicher Stammesfehde mit den benachbarten Wahutu.“251 During this time at least three greater upri- sings occurred across Rwanda. One was carried out by the Batwa in the north for many years and ended in 1912.252 This uprising consisted of around 100 Batwa and many Bahutu.253 It is not clear if their leader, Basebya, was a Batwa or Bahutu because different records are made in the literature.254

The Germans tried to negotiate with Batwa who were uninvolved in the royal court, but they refused to talk with the Germans and used their avoidance strategy and withdrew into still existing remote areas. Consequently, no treaties were ever made between the colonial admin-

247 See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 3-4; Strizek, Geschenkte Kolonien, p. 29. 248 See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 3-4. 249 See Ibid., p. 4. 250 See Ibid., p. 5. 251 Bindseil, Ruanda im Lebensbild von Hans Meyer (1858 - 1929), p. 145-147. 252 See Seitz, Die Töpfer-Twa in Ruanda, p. 61; Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 19. 253 See Seitz, Die Töpfer-Twa in Ruanda, p. 61. 254 See Strizek, Geschenkte Kolonien, p. 100; Taylor, Molders of Mud, p. 200; Seitz, Die Töpfer-Twa in Ruanda, p. 61. 64 istration and the Batwa. Technically Batwa had never seeded any rights, except those who served at the royal court because they could be considered as “subjects” of the Mwami.255

Under the British rule, all communities in Uganda were allowed to remain in possession of their land as long as they proved “cultivation and regular use”. Meaning that theoretically customary ownership rights of the Batwa were safeguarded but only if the landowner presented a customary title. But such “documentary title” was not possessed by most Batwa because any such document would not have applied to their communally owned land. Therefore, it can be heavily doubted that hunting and gathering was included in the phrase “regular use”. Peo- ple had to settle in one place, only then their land would have been recognized as “cultivated” or “regularly used”, or in other words: as their land.256

Because indirect rule marked the whole period of German rule, the land tenure system was solely executed by the Mwami and his chiefs. Only colonial enterprises (administrative offices and churches) were treated differently. In both cases, all land was legally gifted or sold by the Mwami. In consequence, his authority gained a written legal status. Private property rights imposed by the Germans and reinforced by the Belgians followed the classical European conception of landownership: That there are only individual rights and no collective rights. Meaning that the traditional sharing and collective landownership system of the Batwa was not recognized under the colonial law.257 Instead, land occupied by hunter and gatherers was defined as terra nullis.258 The same development occurred under British rule in Uganda259 and the Belgian Congo.260

After the First World War, Rwanda and Burundi came under Belgian administration. Belgians continued the policy of indirect ruling in the beginning, but over time paternalism and bureau- cracy led to a rationalization of the traditional power structures; not only in political and economic terms but also in social policies (most notably education and Christianization). The former flexible Bahutu-Batutsi relationship became more rigidified, meaning that the system became more oppressive and ethnic and racial characteristics more and more defined group identification. On the other hand, more Batwa were given the right to own land and became the clients and servants of the Mwami. Those Batwa, however, soon struggled to keep their

255 See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 5. 256 See Nakayi, 5. Uganda, p. 11-12. 257 See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 5-6. 258 See Couillard and Gilbert, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 36. 259 See Nakayi, 5. Uganda, p. 12-14. 260 See MUSAFIRI, Prosper Nobirabo, 3. DRC. The Dispossession of Indigenous Land Rights in the DRC: A History and Future Prospects, in: Forest Peoples Programme, ed., Land Rights and the Forest Peoples of Africa. Historical, Legal and Anthropological Perspectives, Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh 2009, p. 3-6. 65 property because the majority of the population, the Bahutu, saw this as an unfair development because their life had become increasingly harder by the newly implemented policies.261 This created a sort of ambivalent relation between Batwa, Bahutu, and Batutsi: Generally, Bahutu mistreated Batwa and despised them, Batutsi instead often supported and protected them in a quid pro quo for their services.262

In 1925 the Belgians obliged customary authorities to make wetlands and marshlands available for all farmers. The purpose was to develop food producing crops to stem the famine that was occurring throughout the area. However, this created enormous legal problems concerning land issues. Before, marshland was reserved for grazing cattle during the dry season and for clay extraction by Batwa at other times. Now the primary resource for pottery became harder to obtain. This affected the rest of the population too because they received ceramic products to store food and other things mostly from the Batwa.263 In Rwanda marshlands were still communal property; therefore no exclusive rights could be claimed over this land. The only exception was to use marshland for brick making. But in the 1950s modern kitchen uten- sils started competing with pottery products and resulted in an even worse economic crisis for the Batwa.264

3.2.3. Excursus: Hate by Design - Ethnic and Racial Identity Mamdani argues that Western colonialism was often presented as a civilizing project, just because the concept of modern statehood rooted in Western law: “[…] and the rule of law was in turn central to the construction of civilized society, in short civil society.”265 As a result, colonialism was thus seen not more than a “modernization” by Western norms through West- ern law. To make it clear who was ruling, discrimination on a racial and sexual basis became the primary tool. Regarding indirect rule, “race” became even more important. Indirect rule divided the natives into different groups, whereby each group should be governed differently through a specific set of “customary” laws, by its own distinct “native authority” and adminis- tering its own “home area”. The term “native” was legally dismantled as different native groups were set apart by ethnicity. The now created ethnic groups became a political commu-

261 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 27. 262 See SERVAES, Sylvia, Die ethnographische Erforschung Ruandas, in: Gudrun Honke, ed., Als die Weißen kamen. Ruanda und die Deutschen 1885 - 1919, Wuppertal 1990, p. 99–111, p. 105. 263 See Amani, 1. Burundi, p. 11. 264 See Ibid., p. 14-15. 265 MAMDANI, Mahmood, When Victims Become Killers. Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, 3. print., and 1. paperback print, Princeton 2002, p. 24. 66 nity and were not anymore determined by their cultural identity. Under (indirect) colonial rule, former group distinctions became naturalized, based on race, gender, and ethnicity.266

During the 19th century European explorers such as Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, and Sir Harry Hamlin Johnston where the first white people who traveled to the Great Lakes Re- gion of Central Africa. They found aristocratic-monarchic societies, consisting of Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa, which were much more complex than any other African society they had seen before.267 Almost all early reports from Rwanda (1892-1900), regardless of how adum- brate they were, had two aspects in common: First, the Rwandan population consisted of different ethnic groups which can be identified through physical characteristics. They formed a society in which those groups had different political, social, and economic positions. Second, Rwandese people were skilled agriculturalists and pastoralists. This shows us clearly on what Europeans laid their emphasis when describing their ethnographical “discoveries” in Rwanda: The “racial” and “ethnic” composition of the population, their positions in the different social areas because of these “racial” differences, and the types of economies. Regarding the physical descriptions, Europeans found it especially noteworthy to mention the “beautifulness” of the Batutsi, their “European-like” appearance and noble behavior.268

This mindset created the “Hamitic Hypothesis”. The hypothesis suggested that civilization in these parts of Africa was the product of “Caucasoid” (white like) Hamitic or Neolithic people, the ancestors of the ruling Batutsi.269 This argumentation was supported with stories of the biblical Ham-myth (Ham was a son of Noah) which created a link to Ethiopia and Palestine. Others again believed that those people originated from India, the lost continent of Atlantis or even from the Garden of Eden itself. However, a common ground was found that the “aristocratic Pastoralists” derived from another racial origin than the agricultural Bahutu and the hunter-gathering Batwa. Both were subjected by the “Bantu” when they arrived. It was assumed that this development was quick and massive, such as the antic migration movement in Europe. For this reason, the “Hamites” were a “superior race”, born to rule. They were warriors, persons of cultural value, and constructionists of state structures and religion, more intel- ligent, more trustworthy and hard working. To say it clear: They were seen as “whiter”.270 In

266 See Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, p. 24-25; Taylor, Dual Systems in Rwanda, p. 355-356. 267 See PRUNIER, Gérard, The Rwanda Crisis. History of a Genocide, 4th ed., revised, London 2002, p. 7; Kraler, Migration und die Universalisierung der Nationalstaatsform am Beispiel Ruanda, p. 112; STRAUS, Scott, The Order of Genocide. Race, Power, and War in Rwanda, Ithaca 2006, p. 19-20. 268 See Servaes, Die ethnographische Erforschung Ruandas, p.102. 269 See Straus, The Order of Genocide, p. 20-21. 270 See Kraler, Migration und die Universalisierung der Nationalstaatsform am Beispiel Ruanda, p. 112; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p. 8; Straus, The Order of Genocide, p. 20; African Union, Rwanda, p. 9-11; Carney, Rwan- 67 physical terms, the Batutsi were portrayed as tall, elegant, light-skinned, and thin-nosed. Ba- hutu instead were described as short, stocky, dark-skinned, and wide-nosed.271 Later the Ba- tutsi rulers agreed on these characteristics and internalized them.272 The Batwa were clearly classified as pygmies, therefore short in statue and as nature pariahs.273 Anthropologists such as Armand De Quatrefages described them as “[…] always of little stature, have rounded forms, and their skull is braehycephalie or subbrachyeephalie – that is to say, it is relatively short and broad and of little height.”274 Whereby:

“These little blacks are today almost everywhere scattered, separated, and often hunted by races larger and stronger. […] Finally, they have become the subject of legends which the poets have collected and which the most serious classical writers have not disdained transmitting to us.”275 His conception of a “global pygmy race” was widely accepted until the 1960s.276 Italian anthropologists at the same time suggested that the Negrito (the name for the African pygmies, according to Quatrefages) compromised all populations of short stature (Asiatic, Oceanie, and African).277 Schumacher was also suggesting that the Batwa were a “pygmy race of pure breed.”278

Until this day, there is no universal agreement as to how, when and from where Bahutu and Batutsi came into this area. However, it is quite sure that Batwa were the first people and that the other two groups arrived later and at different times. There is also no common agreement on the etymological definition of the terms Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa. The “Hamitic Hy- pothesis” is nevertheless rejected, but only since a few decades. Until the 1960s the “Hamitic Hypothesis” was the leading theory for the ancient history of Central Africa. It shaped the ethnic mythology of Rwanda, Burundi, and DRC until the late 20th century.279 Today the Ba- hutu still prefer this ethnical version of their origin. The Batutsi controlled government in Rwanda instead emphasizes common national identity (Banyarwanda) without any ethnicities. Any ethnic discourse or terms are forbidden. However, the mindset of distinction is still da Before the Genocide, p. 11; Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa, p. 222; DES FORGES, Alison, "Leave None to Tell the Story". Genocide in Rwanda, New York, Paris 1999, p. 37. 271 See Straus, The Order of Genocide, p. 21. 272 See Strizek, Geschenkte Kolonien, p. 33. 273 See Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa, p. 222. 274 QUATREFAGES, A. De, The Pygmies. Translated by Frederick Starr, London, New York 1895, p. 20-21. 275 Ibid., p. ix. 276 See Klieman, "The Pygmies Were Our Compass", p. 15. 277 See Quatrefages, The Pygmies, p. 21. 278 See Seitz, Die Töpfer-Twa in Ruanda, p. 27. 279 See SINEMA, Kyrsten, Who Must Die in Rwanda's Genocide? The State of Exception Realized, Lanham 2015, p. 45-46; Straus, The Order of Genocide, p. 20-21; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p. 8; Des Forges, "Leave None to Tell the Story", p. 37; Carney, Rwanda Before the Genocide, p. 12-14; Strizek, Geschenkte Kolonien, p. 30- 31, 34-35; Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, p. 50; African Union, Rwanda, p. 9-11. 68 well alive. Even the current president Paul Kagame uses it all the time during interviews, although often in the context of promoting the now officially existing unity:

“You find a family owning a business, whether it is Hutu or Tutsi, and you find they are hiring Hutus, or they are hiring Tutsis. In fact, they are hiring Rwandans. They are just looking for talent. […] In fact, the other day in Boston, I met 2,000 Rwandans from the United States and Canada. […] And it doesn't matter if they are Hutus or Tutsis. They are all talking about how the country has given them opportunity. It has given them equal opportunity whether they are Hutus or Tutsis, and they're here studying. […] They're saying, ‘We are Rwandans. It doesn't matter if we are Hutus or Tutsis.’”280 When asked how he would define races, categories, ethnicities and social groups in Rwanda, he answered the following, indirectly blaming the Bahutu:

“It was more or less a differentiation according to social occupation. […] However, it is highly questionable as to whether you can restrict these three categories [Bahutu, Batutsi and Batwa] directly to a specific people elsewhere. For example, you can find cattle keepers throughout the entire region as well as pottery makers; it doesn’t necessarily mean they are strictly connected to a particular people. At the time, there was a misconception dis- seminated for political reasons by the Bahutu. They would say, ‘Batutsi are foreigners…they don’t belong here.’”281 In the official version of the country’s history, pre-colonial times were peaceful and without major problems. Only the colonial powers caused a breakdown in society with their racist classification. Such official narratives must be seen as problematic as the racist theories of the past. Although it is true that the colonial administration created a worsening of the situation they were not the source of it. Because of these opposing historical viewpoints (“no difference” versus “distinct difference”) people, today can still easily tell who is who when hearing them articulating.282

But which version is “true” or “truer” than the other? Here are two examples of why both ver- sions are problematic: First, there had been wars between different local kingdoms and chief- tains long before Europeans arrived. Arguing that there was a peaceful coexistence is wrong.283 Second, social, political, and economic tensions had already existed before Europe- ans added their ethnic and racial distinctions. They were the result of a long-term development in the past:

280 KAGAME, Paul, From Massacres to Miracles. A Conversation with Paul Kagame, in: World Policy Journal 29/4 (2012), p. 18–26, p. 20. 281 SOUDAN, François and KAGAMÉ, Paul, Kagame. Conversations with the President of Rwanda, New York 2015, p. 13. 282 See Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, p. 41. 283 See African Union, Rwanda, p. 9-10. 69

“Die Bahutu benehmen sich recht sonderbar. In Gegenwart ihrer Herren ernst und reserviert und unseren Fragen ausweichend; sobald aber die Watussi unserem Lager den Rücke gekehrt haben, und wir mit ihnen allein sind, erzählen sie bereitwillig fast alles, was wir wünschen, und vieles, was ich nicht wünsche, denn ich kann den zahlreichen Mißständen, über die sie klagen, ihre Rechtlosigkeit, ihrer Bedrückung, doch nicht abhelfen.“284 The situation was similar in Burundi as stated by Lemarchand: “Even the most superficial reading in Burundi’s precolonial history reveals unmistakable evidence of widespread social discontent […].”285; or Botte: “In Burundi the nineteenth century ended in distress and afflic- tion: epizootics, epidemics, famines, and colonial conquest.”286

These quotes make it quite clear that the social and economic relations were already tense, whereby the cultivating population was unable to support itself on the available lands.287 One of the main reasons for this was the existing Ubuhake-system (or Ubugererwa288 in Burundi). In this tenure system, ordinary peasants (mostly Bahutu) were able to get one or two cattle from their lords (mostly Batutsi) in exchange for specific services. However, those cattle were no property of the peasant; the person was only allowed to use them for usufruct. Ubuhake became more and more a synonym for the dependency of poor peasants on the rich pastoralists. Peasants became depended subjects. The system was abolished during the Belgian rule, but then it was already too late to heal the social and economic gaps caused by it.289

In pre-colonial and in early colonial times the existing social structures in Rwanda and Bu- rundi were relatively fluent.290 In both countries clans, patrilineages, and kinship often mat- tered more than the identification of being a Bahutu or Batutsi.291 In early times it could be

284 Strizek, Geschenkte Kolonien, p. 45. 285 Lemarchand, Burundi, p. 41. 286 Botte 1985, cited in: Ibid. 287 See Taylor, Dual Systems in Rwanda, p. 363. 288 “Ubugererwa is a traditional institution, which is deeply established in the minds of the Burundian people and was the result of a contract between two individuals: the shebuja, who was the owner of a plot of land and committed to allowing the mugererwa to have enjoyment rights. The mugererwa agreed to make payments in kind and to carry out various different tasks for the shebuja. The contract, the length of which was unspecified, could be annulled at the request of either party. However, although the agreement granted both parties the freedom to terminate the contract, this clause gave the shebuja greater power and they undoubtedly used their power to terminate contracts more often than their clients. The institution is now referred to so frequently by the Batwa to show their distress due to their lack of land that it sometimes causes confusion, although there is no confusion between the bagererwa and the Batwa without land. Due to the nature of the ubugerewa institution and the precarious situation of the Batwa, who faced the pressure of farming on free areas of land and had trouble accessing the political authorities, some Batwa became bagererwa thinking that by providing benefits to shebuja they could take advantage of the protection and continue to practice hunting and pottery. It is important to note that pre-colonial land laws were not modified during the German protectorate over Burundi,” Amani, 1. Burundi, p. 8-9. 289 See Strizek, Geschenkte Kolonien, p. 36. 290 See Des Forges, "Leave None to Tell the Story", 36; Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 187; Le- marchand, Burundi, p. 1-2. 291 See Lemarchand, Burundi, p. 1, 11; Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, p. 54-56. 70 possible that the Batutsi (the term means “newcomers”) were a Luo speaking group, arriving from the north which became sedentary pastoralists subduing Bahutu and Batwa.292 But through time the terms of Batutsi, Bahutu, and Batwa merged, and soon a clear determination of someone’s affiliation was only able through the current economic and social situation of the individual. Generally, Bahutu were people with low social status, ordinary peasants. Ba- tutsi had a higher social status because of being pastoralists or holding high offices in society.293 Batwa, again, were the lowest class, mostly living in the forests as hunters and gatherers: “Twa was the term applied to people who lived in the forests of the north and west and who subsisted by foraging. Later as Rwanda’s forests were cleared, many Twa became potters.”294 Lewis states that:

“The term -twa is used in the Bantu languages of most of sub-Saharan Afri- ca to refer to peoples who are in almost every case hunter-gatherers and former hunter-gatherers who are recognized as the original inhabitants of the area and as people who have very low status.”295 In reality, not all Bahutu were poor peasants, nor were all Batutsi wealthy aristocrats, nor were all Batwa despised. The whole social structure had many more subcategories, exceptions, and interferences. If for whatever reason, Bahutus owned enough cattle, they could become Batutsis, and if Batutsis lost too many cattle, they could become Bahutus. Bahutu- kingdoms existed as well as Batutsi-kingdoms.296 For Batwa little possibilities existed for changing their status, although few reports exist, describing that Batwa families favored by the Mwami occasionally were granted Batutsi status.297 To summarize: Bahutu and Batutsi, as well as Batwa, were terms associated with the social-economic status of people. In economic conditions, a Bahutu was an agriculturalist, a Batutsi a pastoralist, and a Batwa a hunter and gatherer (or potter). In social terms, all three groups were able to occupy low or high statuses whereby a Batutsi was more likely to have a higher rank than their Bahutu or Batwa counterparts. Batwa faced more possible discrimination because of their different social and cultural values. Whatever the case may be, ethnic or racial characteristics were almost non-existing in pre-colonial times:298 “Status, not ethnic identity, was the principal determinant of rank and

292 See Des Forges, "Leave None to Tell the Story", p. 36-37; Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 187. 293 See Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa, p. 229; TWAGILIMANA, Aimable, The Debris of Ham. Ethnicity, Regionalism, and the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, Lanham 2003, p. 19. 294 Taylor, Molders of Mud, p. 195. 295 Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 5. 296 See Straus, The Order of Genocide, p. 19-20; African Union, Rwanda, p. 9; Strizek, Geschenkte Kolonien, p. 30; Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, p. 73–75; Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa, p. 229; Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 187. 297 See Taylor, Dual Systems in Rwanda, p. 362. 298 See Straus, The Order of Genocide, p. 19-20; African Union, Rwanda, p. 9; Strizek, Geschenkte Kolonien, p. 30; Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, p. 73–75; Lemarchand, Burundi, p. 3; MELVERN, Linda, Conspir- 71 privilege. Not only were there significant discrepancies between social ranking and ethnic identity, but many variations could also be detected within the broad range of dependency relations […].”299 Due to non-existing documents or other sources, the only unanswered question that remains for the socio-economic status of the Batwa is, if a Bahutu or Batutsi could become a Batwa.300

In addition, especially in the Bahutu-Batutsi-relationship, people spoke the same language, had the same religion, and shared the same culture. Mixed marriages were widely ordinary and communal life was not hostile. Open hostilities and wars between kingdoms of the same ruling group were much more common than between Bahutu- and Batutsi-kingdoms.301 Even Gustav Adolf von Götzen, one of the eager individuals trying to manifest the “racial” and ethnic differences, remarked problems in doing so: “Im eigentlichen Ruanda […] haben sich Herren und Unterworfene in Sitten und Gebräuchen schon fast gänzlich assimilirt. In Bewaff- nung und Kleidung ist der Mhuma von den Ackerbauern meist nicht zu unterscheiden“302 In northern Rwanda Bahutu chiefs were as common as Batutsi chiefs. Even a Batwa chief existed in this area. According to Heinrich Bethe, a German officer, this chief conflicted with his neighbors probably because of “racial hate”. Such conflicts were often rather interpreted in ethnic than in political terms by Europeans.303 One last example: A Bahutu called Lukara became a direct vassal of Rwabugiri, and since then he called himself a Batutsi. His people called him so too after his “promotion”.304

Regarding the Batwa, it is important to stress out that the physical term “pygmy” is wrong in describing them. First, the term is often used in pejorative matters.305 In historical and etymological matters the term is referred to “human beings of exceedingly diminutive statue”. Early scholars simply depicted such people as “pariah tribe”.306 Second, as with all physical terms, it is not possible to use this “characteristic” on all members of the group.307 Already Hans

acy to Murder. The Rwanda Genocide, London, New York 2004, p. 4; Ntakirutimana and Collin, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’, p. 6-7; Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa, p. 229; KIWUWA, David E., Ethnic Politics and Democratic Transition in Rwanda, London 2012, p. 65; Twagilimana, The Debris of Ham, xxiv; Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 187. 299 Lemarchand, Burundi, p. 10. 300 See Ntakirutimana and Collin, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’, p. 6. 301 See African Union, Rwanda, p. 9; Kiernan, Blood and Soil, p. 555-557. 302 Gustav Adolf von Götzen, cited in: Servaes, Die ethnographische Erforschung Ruandas, p. 104. 303 See Ibid. 304 See Ibid., p. 110. 305 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 9; Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa, p. 217. 306 See Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa, p. 217. 307 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 9; Kohtamaki, An ethnoarchaeological study of Twa potters in southern Rwanda, p. 299. 72

Meyer mentioned that it is sometimes impossible to tell Bahutu und Batwa apart.308 Klieman stresses out that the idea of “the Pygmy” is an entirely Western social construct and that it became a term that signified “a very complex and multilayered aggregate of meanings”.309 A former Rwandan Batutsi became falsely accused of being a Batwa during the “Hutu Revolu- tion” due to his physical appearance even though he had an identity card showing this: “We [Twa-looking] are people who cannot be trusted so I was forbidden to help. The official also didn’t realize I was a Tutsi myself – he once insulted me as a Twa […].”310

Until this day archaeologists struggle to link pygmies with ancient hunter-gatherers.311 Seitz stated in 1977 that only the “purest representatives of the Batwa” with the most typical ethnic and racial features such as their height and cultural distinctiveness were used in research, leaving smaller and different groups aside.312 Even the outcomes of modern genetic studies largely depend on their methods used to construct them. Comparative studies tend to focus only on similarities rather than on differences. Often only the “purest pygmies” were considered as reliable “objects” of biological and anthropological studies. Again, other studies show that some Batwa communities are as different from each other as they are from populations of any other part of the world. On behalf of genetic data, arguments can also be made that modern Batwa are the outcome of admixture between “Pygmy” and Bantu people in the distant past. On the other hand, the same results can be used to argue that both “Pygmy” and Bantu people derive from a single original population. However, modern conceptions and manifestations of “pygmies” remain linked to the premises of primordially, approbation, evolution, and race.313 Earlier racist elements have only been replaced by others (“the noble savage” instead of social evolutionism). Klieman states in this respect:

“[…] the modern-day Idea of the Pygmy plays much the same role it did in the past - mediating emergent knowledge about the origins and nature of human beings. It is for this reason that both the primordial and racial premises remain so difficult to reject; to do so would require greatly recasting current understandings of human cultural evolution as well.”314

308 See Bindseil, Ruanda im Lebensbild von Hans Meyer (1858 - 1929), p. 183. 309 See Klieman, "The Pygmies Were Our Compass", p. 3. 310 Aimable, Batutsi, cited in: THOMSON, Susan, Rwanda. From Genocide to Precarious Peace, New Haven and London 2018, p. 25. 311 See BLENCH, Roger M., Are the African Pygmies an ethnographic fiction?, in: Karen Biesbrouck et al., ed., Central African Hunter-Gatherers in a Multidisciplinary Perspective. Challenging Elusiveness, Leiden 1999, p. 41–60, p. 42. 312 See Seitz, Die zentralafrikanischen Wildbeuterkulturen, p. 2-3. 313 See Klieman, "The Pygmies Were Our Compass", p. 18-19. 314 Ibid., p. 19. 73

Third, people described as “pygmies” hardly use the term to describe themselves. In our case, they call themselves “forest people”, “people of the forest”, “potters”315 or simply “Batwa”.316 Those who use the term “pygmy” usually (unintentionally) accepted their inferiority. The reason for this should be obvious at this point. However, this does not mean that they still live in the forests or exercise pottery; it is rather because of their traditional relationship to it. In addition, “the Batwa” are no homogenous group. The only generalization we can make is that the term “Batwa” is a denomination for former hunter-gatherers who were over hundreds of years successively expelled from the forests.317 Therefore, the term “pygmy” should rather “[…] be regarded as specialised castes of their larger neighbours who have developed a distinct ethnicity relatively recently.”318 Overeem states in the UNPO report that Batwa only stood out because of their cultural distinctiveness.319 Enoch Kayeye, a bishop in southern Uganda, always questioned this ethnic and racial separation: “I was always watching this: Why are they treated like that? […], these Batwas look like other people […].”320

Regardless of how wrong, illogical or non-provable the arguments were surrounding the “Hamitic” theory, they became a social and political fact not later than the Belgians took over the control of Rwanda and Burundi in 1919. Between 1926 and 1932 Belgians created identity cards for the population in which their “characteristics” and group affiliations were captured. From this time forward, it became almost impossible to move between the categories, and the cards made it later possible to “identify” the “inyenzies” (cockroaches)321 during the Geno- cide.322 During the continuous colonial period, Batutsi were granted even more privileges due to their “racial superiority”. The Bahutu lost most of their chief positions and their influence steadily declined. The now existing racial classification on strict terms fueled the already existing social, economic, and political tensions between the groups in future decades.323

Racism was not only supported by the colonial rulers, but also by the church. Together with the administrative reforms of the Belgians hundreds of thousands converted to Christianity. The church became the most significant social institution of the countries, guaranteeing a higher and more efficient centralization of the colonies. Especially the order of the “White

315 See Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 6. 316 See Ntakirutimana and Collin, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’, p. 15. 317 See Adamczyk, ‘Today, I am no Mutwa anymore’, p. 181. 318 Blench, Are the African Pygmies an ethnographic fiction?, p. 42. 319 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 9. 320 Bishop Enoch Kayeye, founder of ACIM, cited in: Böhlmark, The Fog of Bwindi, 17:17-17:26. 321 This derogatory term was used by the Bahutu extremists to describe the targeted Batutsi. 322 See African Union, Rwanda, p. 11; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p. 26-27; Twagilimana, The Debris of Ham, p. 55; Des Forges, "Leave None to Tell the Story", p. 36. 323 See African Union, Rwanda, p. 10-11; Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 187; Lemarchand, Burundi, p. 42-44. 74

Fathers” was a pioneer in promoting the “Hamitic” theory among the local population. They had a monopoly over the colonial school system, making it possible to convince generations of future Bahutu and Batutsi leaders with this racist theory. The African Union furthermore states in its report:

“Together, the Belgians and the Catholic church were guilty of what some call “ethnogenesis” – the institutionalization of rigid ethnic identities for political purposes. The proposition that it was legitimate to politicize and po- larize society through ethnic cleavages – to play the 'ethnic card' for political advantage, as a later generation would describe the tactic – became integral to Rwandan public life.”324 Society became simplified and strictly hierarchical with white people at the top and a few privileged Batutsi beneath. Interestingly the clear majority of the particularly privileged Ba- tutsi came from only two clans, even though dozens existed. Such clan structures were complicated and reflected different and far reaching family relationships. Members of the clans were identified by their totems (lion, snake, crowned crane, etc.) although most clans had only Batutsi or Bahutu as members mixed clans existed too. It shows us that such clan structures could be older; and overlapping the actual distinction between Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa.325 This is another example of how ridiculous the racial classification was, because not even under racist guidelines a clear homogenous community among Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa existed. In practice, most Batutsi had no higher social or economic status, at least not so apparent as presented by early scholars. Both, Batutsi, and Bahutu were not more than serfs or peasants because most cattle were property of the king anyway. The report of the African Un- ion concludes:

„From the past century through to the present, the Hutu and the Tutsi have always included various groups with different interests and perspectives. […] Below the small indigenous Tutsi elite were not only virtually all of Rwanda's Hutu population, but the large majority of their fellow Tutsi, as well.”326 In reality, Batwa, Bahutu, and Batutsi were exploited by a small privileged class of Batutsi who set themselves apart from low-level Batutsi, all Bahutu, and all Batwa.327 However, because of the “Hamitic” theory most Batutsi thought better about themselves and treated their Bahutu and Batwa-fellows unfavorably.328 Colonialism did not invent these categories; instead it exacerbated their distinctions by adding the concept of biological determinism. Batwa

324 African Union, Rwanda, p. 12. 325 See Strizek, Geschenkte Kolonien, p. 35-36; Lemarchand, Burundi, p. 14. 326 African Union, Rwanda, p. 13. 327 See Taylor, Dual Systems in Rwanda, p. 364; Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 11. 328 See African Union, Rwanda, p. 13; Des Forges, "Leave None to Tell the Story", p. 37. 75 were seen as the most archaic and primitive of Africa’s “races”, often indistinguishable to humanity and bestiality, and “destined” to disappear. But because they were so few in numbers in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and DRC, they could be easily ignored for a long time as the following chapters will show us.329

3.2.4. Independence After the Second World War and with the founding of the United Nations, the Belgian colonial rule slowly came under pressure. The Bahutu emancipated more and more in their political representation and participation. The Batutsi instead insisted on upholding the status quo. The result was a radicalization of the Bahutu elite which was later expressed in the so-called “Hu- tu Revolution” in Rwanda. This new ethnic nationalism meant (independent) democracy equaled Bahutu-rule. Before Rwandan independence in 1962, Bahutu were with the help of the Belgians able to overthrow the Batutsi monarchy, to establish a Bahutu-leading presidential government, and to forceful displace Batutsi out of local positions of power.330 The now ruling Bahutu spread rumors that Batutsi were still in power although this was already a fact of the past. However, because of these rumors, the “threat” remained in the mindset of many Bahutu.331 Under the first president of Rwanda, Grégoire Kayibanda (1962-1973), several massacres were carried out by both the government and the military. In 1965, a one-party system was established, it was ruled by the Mouvement républicain national pour la démocratie et le développement (MRND) and in the same totalitarian way as the despised former Batutsi- monarchy. Few people other than only Bahutu from the middle south of the country, the region of origin of Kayibanda, were beneficiaries of his rule.332

Because of this, opposition within the Bahutu emerged. Especially the Kiga people (Bahutu landowners in the north) carried out this opposition movement. In 1973 the government tried to establish a new institution for the private economic sector. It became the trigger point for a coup d’état by the military. Kayibanda’s “successor” was General Juvénal Habyarimana who (unsurprisingly) originated from the north of the country. Consequently, almost only Kiga- Bahutu were in power of the military, economic, and political institutions.333 Authorities in Kigali and the Northern provinces now received 90 percent of all agricultural investments.

329 See Taylor, Dual Systems in Rwanda, p. 364; Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 32-33; Ntakirutima- na and Collin, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’, p. 6-7; Kiwuwa, Ethnic Politics and Democratic Transition in Rwanda, p. 65; Lemarchand, Burundi, p. 15. 330 See Straus, The Order of Genocide, p. 20-21; Des Forges, "Leave None to Tell the Story", p. 39-41; Melvern, Conspiracy to Murder, p. 8-9. 331 See Sinema, Who Must Die in Rwanda's Genocide?, p. 30-31. 332 See Straus, The Order of Genocide, p. 23. 333 See Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 194-195; Straus, The Order of Genocide, p. 23; Des Forges, "Leave None to Tell the Story", p. 41-44. 76

Only one percent was received by local authorities in the provinces of Gitarama and Kibuye (central and western provinces) although 20 percent of the population resided in this area. The new monetary economy made it impossible for most farmers to buy land. The average land ownership declined, and the gap between rich and poor increased.334 The official aspiration by Habyarimana, to solve the demographical problem, failed. Instead of improving the living standard a worsening occurred which furthermore poisoned the already tense social and political climate.335 Especially between the 1980s and 1990s the government, with assistance from international actors, confiscated large amounts of land from citizens without compensation. Because Batwa were at the bottom of society, they became easy victims for others who had been dispossessed of their land and sought reparation.336

In the wake of independence, similar events occurred in Burundi. Several years before the colonial rule ended, two political parties became most influential in Burundi: the Parti de l’Union et du Progrès National (Uprona) and the Parti Démocrate Chrétien (PDC). The first consisted mostly of members of the Bezi family, the second one of the Batare family. Both were led by young, dynamic, thoroughly westernized, and well-educated chiefs rather than by the old traditional aristocrats. The Belgians heavily supported the Bahutu leading PDC. But to the surprise of most people, especially Belgium and other PDC allies, Uprona won decisively in the legislative elections in 1961. Shortly after first assassinations of leading politicians, such as Prince Louis Rwagasore in December 1961, occurred. In 1965, the first coup d’état to overthrow the monarchy, led by Bahutu militaries, failed. However, one a year later (now lead by Batutsi) was successful. The result was that in Burundi the Batutsi were able to regain their power positions.337 But the “Hutu Revolution” in Rwanda fueled the ethnic hatred in Burundi as the ruling Batutsi found their past perceptions confirmed: “Perceptions of a ‘Hutu danger’ were greatly magnified by the identification of Hutu syndicalistes with a neo-colonial, church- sponsored movement […].”338 As a consequence, riots and mass killings occurred several times in the next decades with victims on both sides.339

3.2.4.1. Land situation of the Batwa after independence The fall of the Batutsi monarchy in Rwanda left the Batwa without support. They became even more vulnerable and dependent on the will of their farming neighbors. The Batwa who

334 See Smith, Globalisierung und Genozid, p. 196. 335 See Verwimp, Peasants in Power, p. 26-29. 336 See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 7. 337 See Lemarchand, Burundi, p. 51-60. 338 Ibid., p. 62. 339 See Ibid., p. 60-63. 77 received land from the Mwami, lived in family groups together, often attached to Bahutu households at which they served as clients and tenants. Because they were only able to rent this land, abuse and exploitation were common. Governments in Rwanda showed no effort to change the exploitation and marginalization of the Batwa. Instead the last Impunyus were expelled from their forest lands in the 1990s. The land redistribution during the “Peasant Revo- lution” in the early 1960s often ignored the Batwa. Landowners took back their leased lands and gave it to their children, making Batwa tenants especially vulnerable. Batwa thought of this as unfair treatment and often refused to leave. They provoked conflicts, but because of their lack of support, any uprising was destined to fail.340 Batwa with actual legal titles were victims of this “redistribution” process too:

“Ntaganira had come with his wife to Bwakira to seek refuge for a week. His father owned land surrounded by Hutu farmers […]. Their neighbours coveted their land. […] the food was frequently laced with rodent poison. […] Over the past few years his neighbours had succeeded in killing his mother, sisters and all but one of his brothers. Ntaganira’s father had been so severely poisoned that he lost his mind and was unable to recognise even his own sons. The neighbours had hacked his arms so severely with machetes that the old man could no longer use them.”341 Lewis and Knight viewed violent discrimination of this sort as widespread. As a consequence, many Batwa were forced to flee into the aridest areas of Rwanda or had to join relatives who still lived on land they obtained from the Mwami. Food security seemed almost impossible due to the general periodic food shortages in the country and especially in these arid areas.342 Huggins reminds us that indigenous people often interpreted land deals (if such occurred) in terms of their customary tenure systems: common ownership. Land would always be considered as “Batwa land”, and only the user right would be sold. This simple but wide-ranging difference lead often do disconnect and misunderstanding.343 However, during this time most Batwa land was simply seized or stolen, and they could not seek any justice: “When we [Lew- is and Knight] asked if they went to ask the local authorities to return their land, they laughed.”344

A survey undertaken by the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) in 1993 contacted 37 cellules, representing 4,553 Batwa people. The population of nine cellules, in sum 604 people (13.3 percent), were entirely landless: 3,876 people (85.1 percent) in 26 cellules had insuffi-

340 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 35; See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 7. 341 Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 36. 342 See Ibid., p. 37. 343 See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 7-8. 344 Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 41. 78 cient amounts of land. Meaning that most of these people only owned the land their house was on. Only 73 people (1.6 percent) of two cellules had enough farmland to do subsistence farming. There was also clear from whom these people received their property. 25 cellules or 3,837 people (84.2 percent) lived on land given to them by the Mwami prior to 1959:

“The famous community in Rutonde, Kibungo Prefecture […] Very popular with the Tutsi kings for their excellent musicians and dancers, members of this community, under the leadership of Mbishibishi, were given a big area of land by the kings. When the monarchy fell, things changed dramatically and since then life has steadily been getting worse.”345 Merely 112 people (2.5 percent) of three cellules had received their land from the government between 1961 and 1993. Just in the case of the Kanama commune (33 people), the land was potentially adequate for their food supplies and only because a Belgian missionary named Jean-Pierre Godding, had intervened heavily to secure land for those Batwa.346

37 Batwa in Bwakira, Kibungo were given land recently to the survey. Before this, they had lived in the surrounding area as clients of individual Bahutu households. The Bahutu complained to the local authorities because the area was overcrowded. After houses for Batwa were built near the Bahutu community, they complained again because there was allegedly too much smoke from pot-firing, rubbish, and filth. After this second complain the Batwa received land at a hill side, three kilometers away from the commune. This land was on a steep slope with a pitch of almost 60 degrees. The rain washed their crops away on a regular basis, and most of this hillside was already used for cow- pasture, leaving the Batwa only tiny plots to cultivate. The revenue could not feed even one person for the year because cows often wandered into the forlorn gardens of the Batwa, causing severe damage: “[…] they couldn’t find anywhere to bury us, so they gave us this place!”347

The government gave another Batwa community (42 people) land; this property was their ancestral land prior to 1959. It was situated directly behind the Kabarando Commune Offices in Kibungo. During the “Peasant Revolution” the Bahutu seized the land which forced the Batwa to flee. Batutsi property was confiscated as well during this time. It took 14 years until they were able to acquire some of their land back and only because of a sympathetic Burgo- master. But he was replaced in 1974 because the Habyarimana regime did not appreciate this aiding behavior. Allegedly the new Burgomaster, together with other important officials and the local farmers, tried now to expel the Batwa from their ancestral lands. He built a large

345 Ibid. 346 See Ibid., p. 38. 347 Old Batwa widower, cited in: Ibid., p. 39. 79 dispensary around the Batwa’s farmland within six months. During this process fruit trees and other crops of the farm were destroyed. The Batwa were not consulted or compensated. An elder of the community told the Prefect what happened. He responded that they should stay on the remaining land. Only a few days later a cemetery was built on most of the remaining farmland. At the end, only one Batwa man had a reasonable farm left. He was soon accused of violence, robbery, and the deliberate destruction of his property. Just three weeks before Lew- is and Knight visited this community a Hutu farmer came to this man’s house to collect the man’s son. When the Hutu farmer saw that the boy tended the father’s pig, he accused the boy of killing his pig. Later the Hutu returned with some friends. They beat up the boy, killed the father’s pig, and stole it along with their manioc supplies.348

In other communes’ similar incidents involving violence and expropriation occurred. Espe- cially during the events of 1959-1961, many Batwa were killed because Bahutu thought they were on the side of the Batutsi. Other Batwa people often had no food for several days. They ate the skins of the bananas they earned by doing casual labor. Some children even deserted to become beggars in towns because they had no food at home. Many Batwa suffered from diseases such as malaria, stomach disorders, worms, skin, and eye diseases because of their malnutrition.349

In Burundi, Batwa were hardly able to access resources such as clay because of the existing land laws that were enforced following independence. The government often used delay tac- tics to avoid any significant reform of land legislation to tackle the current problems regarding natural resources, although it affected all people. In 1966, the ruling Mwami ordered a hunting ban across Burundi which affected the Batwa most. Many settled near villages and communities asking families with substantial land ownership to lend them land. This opened a new chapter of dependency because the old land servitude system ubugererwa was reintroduced though it was officially abolished: “[…] certain Batwa continued to be exploited by this regime of land servitude - possibly due to ignorance - to the point that they did still did not consider they had the right to land ownership […]”.350

In Uganda, land rights remained the same as colonial times. Although authorities recognized and upheld the customary tenure system in 1969 by strengthening the rights of customary landowners nothing has changed for the Batwa.351 After DRC’s independence in 1960, the

348 See Ibid., p. 39-40. 349 Ibid., p. 41. 350 Amani, 1. Burundi, p. 16. 351 See Nakayi, 5. Uganda, p. 16. 80 colonial tenure system was retained until 1973. After 1973 a law was passed that brought all land back into state domain but also promising to settle the question of land concerning indigenous communities through a presidential ordinance. However, such actions were never implemented.352

Batwa struggled to address their problems and concerns in the legal system not only because they are generally ignored if they do so; due to their traditional collective landownership system Batwa usually nominate one of their members to defend their land rights. Those people, especially the most vulnerable ones, were and are often not able to pay travel and accommo- dation costs for court hearings or to pay for witnesses. Additionally, most Batwa always lacked the sufficient understanding of the law, its civil procedure, and organization. It is reported that they still do not know that the ubugererwa system in Burundi and other tenure systems are mostly illegal.353 This overall ill-treatment caused mistrust on both sides as: “We do talk to the Hutu but we always lie to each other so we rarely get on well together.”354

3.2.4.2. Political situation of the Rwandan Batwa until 1990 In 1955, for the first time, a Batwa representative was appointed to the Conseil Supérieur du Pays (CSP),355 but seen in an overall perspective, Batwa played a marginal role in the political and social life in Rwanda. Hardly any Batwa were involved in the political changes of 1959- 1961. Only a few Batwa attended school, even fewer had paid jobs or any higher position in society. Despite this negative situation some Batwa were able to form a political party, named The Association pour le Relèvement Démocratique des Twa (AREDETWA). The party was founded on July 1st, 1960, by Laurent Munyankuge and others. AREDETWA’s aim was it to improve the situation of the Batwa and to enhance the level of political participation. The still ruling Batutsi elite, however, hindered this emancipation effort together with those of other groups. AREDETWA had no other possibility than seeking close relations with Aproso- ma/Parmehutu (today MNRD), the newly formed Bahutu party of future president Gregoire Kayibanda. Only two years later, in 1962, AREDETWA merged into Parmehutu. According to Munyankuge, this merge was necessary to defend Batwa rights more effectively. He then served as deputy of Parmehutu in the Rwandan National Assembly from 1962 until Novem- ber 1965. Afterwards, he left the political stage. From 1965 until 1990 the Batwa had no polit-

352 See Musafiri, 3. DRC, p. 6-10. 353 See Amani, 1. Burundi, p. 21-22. 354 Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 41. 355 See Carney, Rwanda Before the Genocide, p. 88. 81 ical representation at all, and no Batwa had a significant role in the country’s political development.356

Between 1959 and 1973 several waves of repression forced hundreds of thousands of Batutsi and thousands of Batwa to flee the country. Sadly, there are no reliable figures among these exiled communities that indicate the percentage of Batwa people. UNPO spoke in 1994 with several Batwa families who originated from Byumba prefecture and who had returned from exile in Uganda after around 35 years. They only did so because of the radical political changes during the Genocide in 1994 which brought the Batutsi back to power. They all pointed out the insecurity and civil war like situation between 1959 and 1962 were the main reasons for leaving the country. They fled in small groups and never mingled with Batutsi during the flight or later in Uganda. In exile, they shared no commodities of other villagers, and they experienced the very same discrimination as in Rwanda: Water or food touched by Batwa did not change hands with Bahutu or Batutsi. Refugees still did not eat mutton because it was a dish of the Batwa and therefore filthy and unhealthy. The Ugandan population, as well as authorities, showed harsh behavior towards all refugees. During camp transfers, refugees were regularly beaten. The refugees were taken to camps in southern and western parts of the country. But already in 1963 Ugandan president, Milton Obote cleared the southern- most strip of Rwandan refugees because Kayibanda wanted a decrease of rebel attacks which were operating from this area into Rwanda. The camps were generally situated in mosquito- ridden forests lacking basic necessities such as food, clean water, medicine, clothes, and construction materials. Education was mostly non-accessible because few could pay the fees. Batwa were affected even harder by these problems as they formed the poorest and most badly informed group of refugees. This disadvantage was reinforced by the grouping of the refugees which was organized by their place of origin. The result was that Batwa were scattered around the camps and could not form a group strong enough to stand up for their rights when violated. Batwa often did not receive the fair number of commodities provided by authorities. These authorities were often church leaders who favored Batutsi and discriminated Batwa. However, most Batwa stressed that the discriminatory behavior diminished during their exile when compared with their treatment in Rwanda. Because all refugees were poor, strict class distinctions became obsolete. The disposal of traditional Batutsi rule added to this develop-

356 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 11; Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 99. 82 ment. Pottery and day labor remained as the primary source of income among Batwa refugees in Uganda.357

During the war between Uganda and Tanzania in 1979, many Rwandan refugees (always including Batwa) had to flee from Uganda to Tanzania. The situation in Tanzania was slightly better than in Uganda. However, in 1982 Ugandan military reached refugee camps in Tanza- nia and looted the properties of the refugees, intimidated, kidnapped, raped, and killed many. As a consequence, many refugees fled back to Rwanda. Charles Uwiragiye was one of them, he and his family first settled in Byumba prefecture but soon had to move to Kigali due to the extremist political climate in the village.358

Many Batwa reported how they struggled to preserve their tradition and culture during their time as refugees. Pots and pipes, they created had to be adjusted to local Ugandan taste, and in this process, old ways of decorating and modeling had to be abandoned. Many Batwa refugees of the second generation lost the knowledge of their ancestral traditions such as songs and dances, and sometimes even their mother tongue.359 John Rwubaka, a current Batwa leader in Uganda, confirms this struggle: “And we, the children, who knew the kind of food we used to eat, we have now lost that knowledge. Our culture is almost gone.”360

In 1980/81 a noun called Augustine and other Bahutu church representatives of Butare prefecture formed the Association pour le Progrès Social des Batwa (APSB). The organization aimed to develop the “backward” Batwa and to convert them to Christianity. In 1989 this aim shifted and focused now on all indigenous groups of Rwanda whereby the organization changed its name to Association pour le Progrès Social des Demunis (APSD). In 1994 the organization became inactive because Sister Augustine did not survive the Genocide. Only a few years later, the Développment Intégré des Groupes Marginaux au Rwanda (ADIGMAR, now ADBR) which focused on the Impunyu was founded. Church officials, as well as high government officials, including the president Habyarimana, ministers, and the Archbishop of Kigali, were seated in the board of ADIGMAR. Although this inclusion of top officials ADIGMAR became a source for corruption, to give an example: According to Jean Pierre Godding from Caritas International, ADIGMAR was supposed to distribute land to a group of Batwa, but instead it became the property of the military. In ADIGMAR and APSB only one

357 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 12. 358 See Ibid., p. 13. 359 See Ibid. 360 John Rwubaka, Batwa leader, cited in: VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda, 5:00-5:08. 83

Batwa named Jean Damascene Kayombya was ever involved. He fled the country during the Genocide.361

3.2.4.3. Batwa Economic Crisis In the 1970s products such as jerry cans, basins, bowls, plates, etc. became industrial products. The Batwa’s traditional income which came through pottery was suddenly in trouble because of this. Before they had a monopoly on producing such goods, however, they now had competition and failed to adapt to this situation. The prices for their products remained static and therefore cheap, but the real income from pottery fell because all other product prices rose. The number of pots that were selling slowly but steadily declined and because of the land pressure during the 1980s in which many Bahutu reclaimed clay marshes for farming, access to the much-needed clay became more difficult. Either the farmers denied the access completely or the Batwa potters had to pay for collecting clay. In the 1990s, Batwa of Ka- barondo in Kibungo, for example, relied mostly on selling illegally collected firewood because they could not afford the resources to create pots anymore. This has led to the reputation that all Batwa of this community are thieves and were used as scapegoats for any other occurring problems.362

Not only was the access to clay denied or hardened by their neighbors. Batwa were often not allowed to fetch water from public wells, mainly when they were the better water sources of an area. Because children were beaten less hard if they got caught, they were often the ones sent for water. Batwa were also beaten when they tried to collect firewood and other grasses to heat their pots. These problems forced many Batwa into extreme poverty and increased their marginalization even more. Lewis and Knight report that in 1993, 70 percent of the visited Batwa’s income was due to begging. Another primary source of income was insecure and marginal casual day labor.363 According to Jackson employers paid Batwa laborer usually half of what other workers would get for the same work. The income of such activities (selling firewood, day labor, etc.) was around 0.15 US$ to a few US$ a day in the early 2000s, depending on the work and the amount of sold things.364

By no surprise some landless Batwa women and girls living around towns have no other choice than to undertake sex work: “When we go home from school, we find there is no soap, no food, and other things, so when boys or men promise to give us these things some of us

361 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 13. 362 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 42-43. 363 See Ibid., p. 44-46. 364 See Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, p. 9. 84 end up giving in.”365 For many Batwa women this is a part-time job, typically during market days when men have enough money to spend. Because of the Batwa women’s low social status such contacts are casual and will hardly result in long-term support. The women only get a few cents for their services, but most of the time they are only “paid” in alcohol or food.366 An interview with men in Ituri province (north-eastern DRC), discussing the payment of such indigenous Bambuti sex workers shows us this low sort of payment. Even two cups of rice or some alcohol are sometimes enough to get such services:

“I: Mais j’ai entendu même les 500 francs [around 0.30 US$] c’est possible. R : Oui oui, même avec les 500 francs, comme les pygmées. I: Oui c’est ce qu’on m’a dit que les pygmées sont moins chers. R : Avec 500 francs, avec un verre d’alcool on va coucher avec elle. Pu- isqu’elle n’a [sic!] as le moyen d’avoir ces 500 francs; soit un gobelet du riz ici au village. I: Pourquoi on lui donne de l’alcool ? R : C’est pour son besoin non. I: Besoin, l’alcool ? R : Oui oui. Il consomme de l’alcool et lorsqu’il en a besoin, il est assoiffé de l’alcool, avec les 500 francs elle se donne. Même le manque de moyen pour manger, la famine, pour avoir à manger; ça veut dire même avec un gobelet ou deux gobelets du riz, tu lui propose et puis facilement elle ac- cepte de faire la relation à cause de ce deux gobelets.”367

There are also myths that when people have sex with Batwa women, it will heal their back pains which, in consequence, caused a lot of HIV infections within the Batwa communities:368

“People used to say that if a non-Mutua sleeps with a Mutua, the Mutua will cure their backache. […] So, the non-Batwa used to sleep with the Batwa and so the Batwa were infected [with HIV]. When they don’t have anything to eat, they go somewhere and someone gives them like five thousand [around 7 US$] and they sleep with them. Even sometimes, they meet them on the way and they rape them. For example, last year they met a [Batwa] somewhere there and they raped her.”369 During my field trip to Rwanda, I was told similar stories in which men were thinking they would get cured of HIV if there were to have sex with Batwa women.370 Poverty and alcohol- ism furthermore cause massive violence against Batwa women. A study in Uganda found that

365 RAMSAY, Kathryn, Uncounted: The Hidden Lives of Batwa Women. Minority Rights Group International (MRG), London 2010, p. 11. 366 See Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, p. 9. 367 Group discussion with men in Ituri province (DRC) about sex work payment for indigenous women, Burtscher, Field work in eastern DRC. 368 See Ramsay, Uncounted: The Hidden Lives of Batwa Women, p. 11. 369 Alice Nyamihanda, Batwa women and culture officer for OUBDU, cited in: VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda, 8:28-9:12. 370 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 85

100 percent of Batwa women experienced violence. Numbers in other countries also reached high percentages and were always above the average 371

Foreign help attempts were made to modernize the pottery techniques to earn more money. However, the moment aides pulled out, or patrons died, people often stole and misappropriat- ed money or took over the business forcefully. The problem here was and is that Batwa often are only able to develop dependency relations but cannot develop enterprises with their power because they lack confidence and know how. But in at least one case in the 1980s such mod- ernized potters were treated differently than before. Suddenly they were no longer discriminated against with the same hostility than other members of the community. Some Bahutu even shared food and drinks with them.372

Pot production contains another essential aspect for the Batwa: It is a sociable process in which the whole community is involved. Furthermore, selling these pots is often the only possibility to engage in a conversation with other people. Such a dialogue can sometimes lead to another work opportunity, a gift, help at a later date, a new acquaintance or even a friendship. Sometimes potters give their products away for free just in hope for receiving one of these things. Losing access to necessary resources of pottery is therefore not only an economical but a social problem. Sometimes even the youngest Batwa have to beg in urban areas resulting in the breakdown of social relations to their family or community:

“Before, when one of us got meat we would always share with everyone. Now we have so little that we are hardly managing to feed our own families. Each of us has to look after themselves. If you come and we are eating we will invite you, but we don’t have enough to give you something to take home and prepare for your family like before.”373 The groups become smaller, and tensions only rise because they can no longer defend each other from discrimination, insecurity, marginality, poverty, and exploitation. It also led to a crisis of identity because Batwa built their identity either around hunting and gathering, pottery or fishing, which all are economic practices. The later established Batwa organizations tried to tackle this problem by promoting assimilation policies. The challenge by such organizations is that they only focus on non-forest Batwa communities, meaning that the Impunyu are not included in such processes.374

371 See Ramsay, Uncounted: The Hidden Lives of Batwa Women, p. 9-11. 372 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 44-46. 373 Mutwa man aged 45, Myangungu, Burundi, July 1999, cited in: Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 10. 374 See Ibid., p. 10-11. 86

When I visited a Batwa family (25 people and three households) in Niyabihu sector, Rwanda, I experienced these problems within the family and between others. The first time I visited them I bought 25kg of beans, maize flour, and some other things with me for them. A few days later I was told by a boy from this family that the family head wanted to keep all the food for his household and did not want to share it with the two other households. The family’s income was generated by selling pots and compost. A pot was usually sold by 200 to 300 RWF (around 0.25 to 0.35 US$). Clay must be bought at the bottom of the hill they are living at. The way down and up takes approximately three or more hours. When they showed me their land, a woman from one of the two other households came to us crying and desperate. She told us that a neighboring kid destroyed a pot by accident. The husband immediately sought revenge. But when we agreed that I would give him 2,000 RWF, the brawl seemed to be settled. However, a few days later we got the information that the husband was imprisoned because he allegedly spoiled for a fight again. All because of a pot worth 0.35 US$. When we revisited the family five days after our first visit he was already released.375

3.2.5. Excursus: Conservationism and Tourism “From royal forests and hunting reserves, through game reserves and wildlife sanctuaries, to national parks, the practice has a history almost as long as civilization. Yet in recent decades, the establishment of protected areas has become a global business and the types of protected areas have become much more sophisticated.”376 The conversation began by protecting prized game animals and was later widened to other larger forms of wildlife. In the end, hunting was almost wholly forbidden because conservationists, and especially people from urban areas, saw such wildlife as something that could only be watched and not hunted.377 In our case, most emphasis was and is placed on the protection of gorillas whose numbers were stately declining in the last century. However, traditionally no people hunted gorillas in Central Africa.378 Even Batwa did not have the intention to hunt them, not even for their meat:379 “Niemand, auch nicht die Batua essen Gorillafleisch, aus totemischen Gründen.”380 In Rwanda, the Batwa I interviewed called them their “neigh-

375 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 376 Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, p. 19. 377 See Colchester, Salvaging Nature, 19–20. 378 See ADAMS, Jonathan S. and MCSHANE, Thomas O., The Myth of Wild Africa. Conservation Without Illu- sion, Berkeley 1996, p. 195. 379 See UNREPRESENTED NATIONS AND PEOPLES ORGANIZATION (UNPO), Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4. Alternative Report submitted to the UN Committee on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for the consideration of the combined second to fourth Reports of Rwanda during the 50th session, The Hague 2013, p. 9. 380 Bindseil, Ruanda im Lebensbild von Hans Meyer (1858 - 1929), p. 139. 87 bors” who are “like men”.381 Nevertheless, around 1973 one or two groups of Batwa started to kill and capture gorillas. They sold the skulls to collectors and museums; the cut-off hands found their way to the tourist trade and young gorillas were vended to foreign collectors. Soon the Batwa were constantly blamed for any evidence of hunting and poaching in national parks. Those who created the demand were hardly investigated or prosecuted.382 The image of being poachers and savages became an “international” stereotype for Batwa through the 1988 movie Gorillas in the Mist. They were blamed for the murder of the famous conservationist Diane Fossey and the poaching of the gorillas she protected. The movie suggested that to ensure conservation in Africa the confrontation with indigenous people could only be violent.383

Fossey generally had a narrow view on conservationism and always refused to broaden her scope. Later, her book (Gorillas in the Mist) and a National Geographic documentary about her work became popular whereby both spent little focus on the local population. Because Fossey had a lot of first-hand experience with poachers she interpreted African attitude to- ward wildlife as cruel. With the death of her favorite gorillas, she called for an “active conservation”, whereby Richard Barnes later renamed it to “confrontational conservation” because of her actions. Fossey waged a psychological war against the alleged Batwa poachers just like early explorers did before. The former U.S.-Ambassador of Rwanda, Frank Crigler, described a visit with Fossey to a Batwa community as following: “They [the Batwa] were a fragile, frail, frightened people. They wailed and wailed, ‘Please go away. Please leave us alone.’”384 Most supporters of Fossey, outside of Africa, endorsed her steps because they also believed that this was the only way.385 In a National Geographic documentary the narrator argues that through this lens, her work was seen to focus “the world’s attention on the deadly threats from poachers.” Right afterward the narrator explains that she was “a victim of the violence she had struggled to keep at bay”.386 The reasons behind the poaching were ignored in this mindset of protecting the gorillas. Poaching was often the only reliable and remaining source of income which existed due to foreign demand and not solely because local people did not care about the animals. More recent documentaries such as the popular and Oscar-

381 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 382 See Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 28; Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Re- port to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 9. 383 See Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 28; WILLIS, Owen, Forgotten People in a Remembered Land: The Batwa and Genocide, in: Susan M. Thomson and J. Zoë Wilson, ed., Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region: Ten Years On From Genocide, Halifax 2005, p. 126–148, p. 133. 384 Frank Crigler, former U.S. Ambassador of Rwanda, cited in: HAYES, Harold, The Dark Romance of Dian Fossey, New York 1990, p. 274. 385 See Adams and McShane, The Myth of Wild Africa, p. 193-196; See Hayes, The Dark Romance of Dian Fossey, p. 274. 386 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, Gorilla Murders. The Lost Gorillas of the Virunga 2008, 14:32-14:48. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDYBEQXtAOY (May 21, 2018). 88 nominated Netflix documentary Virunga (2014) also fails to address the faith of the expelled local forest population in this area.

The result was that the conservation of species was enlarged to the preservation of the habitat itself. Because most endangered animals and ecosystems were situated in developing countries, a top-down style of operation along a North-South axis was established. Conservation agencies located in developed countries were trying to protect the resources from the exploitation of their people at home in such countries. Because biodiversity was vanishing rapidly, conservationists focused only on specific key areas. This made it possible to bundle all resources, though coming with the disadvantage of having to write off other areas entirely. The criteria by which such areas were chosen had the unintended result that social and political issues were only secondary. Conservationists instead focused on the degree of endemism of plant species and their degree of threat. Until 1994, the World Conservation Union followed the US model, meaning that protected areas had to be established on public land and adminis- trated by governmental agencies. Only after the adoption of a revised protected area classification, NGO and indigenous management and ownership were allowed.387

In DRC, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, national parks were established to protect the mountain gorillas and other species. The Batwa were entirely ignored in the planning and evaluation of these parks. Due to their marginal socio-economic and political status surveys of affected people did not include the Batwa communities. As a result, they were expelled and dispossessed of most remaining forest areas without receiving any compensation.388 Praveen Moman, a provider of Safari tours, stated:

“One of the most challenging things is to get the balance right between humans and wildlife and traditionally in Africa when parks have been created the tendency in most parks has been to remove the people and of course it’s something understandable but I don’t think is desirable.”389 Between 1960 and 1970, 580 Bambuti/Batwa families (around 3,000 to 6,000 people) were forced out of the Kahuzi-Biega forest in eastern DRC to establish a national park:

“We did not know they were coming. It was early in the morning. I heard people around my house. I looked through the door and saw people in uni- forms with guns. Then one of them forced the door of our house and started shouting that we had to leave immediately because the park is not our land. I first did not understand what he was talking about because all my ancestors

387 See Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 19-21. 388 See Ibid., p. 28. 389 Praveen Moman, Founder of Volcanoes Safaris, cited in: The Guardian, Batwa: Uganda and the Human Story behind Gorilla Tourism | Guardian Features, 3:13-3:30. 89

have lived on these lands. They were so violent that I left with my children.”390 Another large park in eastern DRC is the famous Virunga National Park (formerly known as Albert National Park) which had existed since 1925. At that time already, Batwa were forbidden from undertaking their activities although the hardly ever faced prosecuted.391 In Uganda, Batwa were forced out of the forests of Bwindi, Mgahinga, and Echuya by the Uganda Wild- life Authorities (UWA) due to the establishment of conservation areas in the early 1990s: “What happened was, the government came to chase us away. We were chased from the forest, so we ran and many were lost. […] The ill-fated died and the lucky ones survived. There was also a time they would come and capture Batwa and beat them, [...].”392 John Rwubaka, another Batwa leader, stated: “Now, we’ve lost our dignity due to the loss of our livelihood and because we were chased from the forest. Because we’ve lost a lot, and what we’ve lost was significant to us.”393 Other Batwa reported similar treatment: “When Bwindi was converted into a national park, people were chased with guns. We never put up any resistance cause we did not know what was going on. We were also scared because they were threaten- ing us with guns.” Another one reported that: “When they found us we were sitting by the fire. They asked us to gather around, then they fired some shots up in the air. We never understood what was happening. […] They never shot at us but they shot at who tried to escape.” Generally, violence seems as a commonly used threat and practical instrument to ensure the expulsion of Batwa people: “Before we left the forest they told us they would kill us if we would return back. Me and my female friend decided to go back to the forest anyway. There they hit us and they cut off my friend’s toe.”394

In Burundi, forest reserves in the Kibira, Bururi and the Kigwena forests were created, also by displacing their inhabitants. In Rwanda, around 4,500 Batwa were expelled from the Nyungwe Forest and the Parc des Volcans. Both became a national park and a sanctuary for gorillas.395 Batwa were also expelled from the Gishwati forest. Many expelled Batwa lost their traditional livelihoods of hunting and gathering and were now living in illegal camps at the borders of the forests: “[…] since we were expelled from our lands, death is following us.

390 Batwa widow, cited in: BARUME, Albert Kwokwo, Heading Towards Extinction? Indigenous Rights in Afri- ca: The Case of the Twa of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo. IWGIA Document, vol. 101, Copenhagen 2000, p. 80. 391 See Willis, Forgotten People in a Remembered Land: The Batwa and Genocide, p. 134. 392 Francis Sembargari, Batwa leader, VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda, 2:34- 2:59. 393 John Rwubaka, Batwa leader, cited in: Ibid., 4:24-4:35. 394 Several Batwa, cited in: Böhlmark, The Fog of Bwindi, 2:50-3:30. 395 See Couillard and Gilbert, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 2; Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 494. 90

The village is becoming empty. We are heading towards extinction. Now the old people have died. Our culture is dying too […].”396 In the commune I visited near the Parc des Volcans some Batwa received land from the government, but it was not theirs and not enough. They had no legal documents, meaning that the state still owns this land and, being able to evict them at any time if they wanted to. Some other land was received from the church, but they had no seeds to cultivate it.397

Wildlife authorities in Uganda argued that such testimonies of Batwa evictions were largely exaggerated. It furthermore needed to be done due to the demographic pressure around the forests (chapter 3.1.2.):398

“So, when you look at the rate at which the Batwa were hunting, even other people from outside the protected area were joining the Batwa to hunt these animals to the extent that some animals had come to extinction. […] they would have all become extinct and we would have no conservation for the future generation.”399 It is true that the high population density led to increased and unsustainable use of forest resources such as game-meat, timber, poles and stakes, fuel-wood, honey, and bamboo. Vegeta- tion around protected areas declined and was followed by erosions which again caused a decline in the usable soil for agriculture and destruction of the already weak infrastructure. The outcome was increased food insecurity, whereby at the same time the population and their needs continued to grow.400 It was also argued that the evictions were necessary because of the traps which were set out by the Batwa for hunting. They often accidently caught gorillas. Since the low numbers of gorillas, the wildlife authorities saw it as inevitable to ban hunting and gathering and to force the Batwa out of the forests.401

However, Batwa themselves were never interested in the extermination of any sort of animal, because they depended on them. When they killed and captured gorillas, it was due to the foreign demand and not because of their own need.402 And whatever the case may be, there was no clear ecological reason to ban the remaining Batwa out of the forests. Encroaching tea

396 Barume, Heading Towards Extinction?, p. 87. 397 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 398 See GOUBY, Melanie, 'The Real Pygmies Experience': Evicted Batwa People Now Just Act Out a Previous Life for Tourists | VICE News. Available at: https://news.vice.com/article/the-real-pygmies-experience-evicted- batwa-people-now-just-act-out-a-previous-life-for-tourists (Feb. 25, 2018). 399 Deusdedit Twinomugisha, Mgahinga National Park Warden, cited in: VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda, 3:23-3:49. 400 See Plumptre, et al., Socioeconomic status of people in the Central Albertine Rift, p. 16-17, 25. 401 See The Guardian, Batwa: Uganda and the Human Story behind Gorilla Tourism | Guardian Features, 3:48- 4:15. 402 See Mutimanwa, Case study 2: Democratic Republic of Congo, p. 109. 91 plantations, road construction, illegal gold mining, and the frequent use of the forest as military training ground seriously threatened the survival of the forest and endangered the position of the Batwa in the first place.403 The Batwa furthermore demonstrated a rare sense of ecological responsibility. The Impunyu from the Gishwati forest in Rwanda, for example, claimed that they only gathered undergrowth or second-generation wood. They did never use charcoal. They were still forced out of the forest in the mid-1980s but not due to the creation of a national park in the first place but due to the creation of tea plantations and pasture as the World Bank required it. Only the remaining forest areas became a national park afterwards.404

Many conservation projects, as well as deforestation (for whatever reason), have initially been funded by the World Bank and other international players. Different reasons for the expulsion and forced settlement of Batwa were tax and control purposes but also to guarantee that the international reputation of the respective country was not labelled as backward because of such people. However, Central African governments tended to leave the actual work for settlement projects of expelled Batwa to Western NGOs and missionaries:405 “The local government they tell us: ‘ADRA take your Batwas away from here.’ As if they were ours. They say, ‘they only cause trouble.’”406

Especially governmental agencies but also conservation itself had another highly significant factor that had to be considered for their work, profit. Colchester states:

“The ethic underlying the conservation of biological diversity is that it is for the global good and the needs and rights of future generations. Nevertheless profit motives have never been far away. […] This raises the question, never far from the forefront of indigenous peoples minds when they learn that their lands are to be developed for conservation: conservation for whom?”407 Although the ethic motives of most conservationist projects are often questionable, the arguments are, again, reasonable from a rational point of view: Conservation combined with tourism brings money. It is a reliable source of income and employment for many local people: “They needed to get money because it is a tourist attraction. I think tourism [in Uganda] now is our second biggest earner of foreign exchange.”408 However, these positive aspects are not

403 See Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 8. 404 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 8. 405 See Kenrick, The Batwa of South West Uganda, p. 2. 406 Margareta, Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA Sverige), cited in: Böhlmark, The Fog of Bwindi, 11:36-11:54. 407 Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 21. 408 Ugandan citizen or state official, cited in: Böhlmark, The Fog of Bwindi, 2:14-2:27. 92 counting for everyone. From the hundreds and thousands of US$ earned by each tourist, only a fraction or nothing at all finds its way to the Batwa. Only five US$ of every sold permit (500 US$) in southern Uganda are put aside to a community fund, and only 15 percent of those five US$ go to fund vulnerable groups such as the Batwa. This is not enough to significantly improve the living standards of a community and to properly integrate them into conservation projects:409 “No! Do you think we see any tourism money from the government? We don’t see a penny. […] We know that they are collecting a lot of money through the tourism in the forest. But those sums of money are not seen anywhere by me or the Batwa people.”410 Another Batwa sates: “It hurts me so much to know that all of this money is being made through the tourism programs in what used to be my home and yet the Batwa people see no benefit.”411

The situation in Rwanda is the same. Various organizations do not consider Batwa into their community work. The government earns all the revenue derived from tourism and decides on who should benefit from it. In the early 2000s, no mechanism existed to distribute the income among local communities.412 The park employed no Batwa of the community I visited near the Parc des Volcans due to their lack of education. They received no money from official sides or the park management. They only got some if they dance for tourists from time to time. A small private initiative called Red Rocks Initiatives for Sustainable Development offered some assistance to them as well. When I interviewed a woman, who lives near the en- trance of such a hiking path to the park she said that tourists are only passing by. I realized that I was one of them just a day ago.413

Although organizations exist to help relocated Batwa, they have problems to do so. Not only because Batwa are marginalized but also because of their historical lack of legal land ownership. The administrators of the Mgahinga and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest Conservation Trust (MBIFCT) (which is funded by the World Bank) for example argued that they also have to consider the other local people. Many of them do not want that Batwa receive land or forest access, or even that they are integrated into mainstream projects. Others again have benefited

409 See The Guardian, Batwa: Uganda and the Human Story behind Gorilla Tourism | Guardian Features, 4:21- 5:15. 410 Older Batwa man, cited in: Ibid., 5:15-5:50. 411 Batwa man, cited in: Ibid., 8:28-8:40. 412 See ZEPHYRIN, Kalimba, Case study 1: Rwanda. The situation of the Batwa forest dwellers and conservation of the Volcanoes National Park and Nyungwe Natural Forest 2001, p. 62-63. 413 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 93 from the exploitation of the Batwa.414 Ntayombya Phocus, director of the Environment at the Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Environment, Government of Rwanda (MINITERE) also noted that many staff members of NGOs are local people and they do not see the point in promoting Batwa because of the existing segregation.415

Christian organizations that help the Batwa often pressure them to abandon their own beliefs and adopt Christianity. If they do this, together with getting educated, they will achieve equality with their neighbors, such organizations argue. In reality, this is not always the case. Espe- cially older Batwa are often not willing to get educated. They fear humiliation because of their slow learning process and because they usually only experienced exploitation from other people in the past. They do not expect any difference in such adult literacy programs and are suspicious about any non-Batwa claiming to help them:416

“We are trying to make sure they learn with others to gain confidence, and to be accepted by others. But two classes of Batwa refuse to mix with others because they think this programme is only theirs and that when other people come they come to steal their knowledge; also they say other people humiliate them.”417 Some Batwa only want to live their own way of life, apart from the mainstream society: “Their [Bahutu and Batutsi] way of living with us is bad. We don’t like being with them.”418

Protected areas and even many conventional development programs have one thing in common: They violate the rights of indigenous people to own land and to self-determination. They are taking away land from the control of local (indigenous) communities and expel them so that it can be used by foreigners.419 Although some Batwa have been able to participate by creating some living museum or experience walk in these parks in the last years, most have not yet been able to benefit from conservationism and tourism: “The community don’t know what to offer the tourists and how to deliver it and the tourists don’t know that there’s anything else on offer […].”420 Most Batwa communities are the poorest communities around such protected areas. They are badly represented in any decision-making process and remain

414 See Kenrick, The Batwa of South West Uganda, p. 9-10; Plumptre, et al., Socioeconomic status of people in the Central Albertine Rift, p. 28. 415 See Zephyrin, Case study 1: Rwanda, p. 73. 416 See Kenrick, The Batwa of South West Uganda, p. 22-23; Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 16. 417 ADRA management, cited in: Kenrick, The Batwa of South West Uganda, p. 23. 418 Batwa woman 50, Burundi, July 1999, cited in: Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 23. 419 See Colchester, Salvaging Nature, p. 22. 420 Amy Scarth, Founder of Big Beyond Volunteering, cited in: The Guardian, Batwa: Uganda and the Human Story behind Gorilla Tourism | Guardian Features, 7:01-7:08. 94 marginalized, stigmatized, uneducated, and discriminated.421 A Batwa representative describes the situation as following: “[…] they [the Batwa] are dying from simple diseases . . . yet mountain gorillas get drugs and medical care.”422

3.3. Conflict, Genocide and Aftermath Generally speaking, Batwa did not get involved in politics in the past. They instead advocated their independence and impartiality. Other groups nevertheless often tried to gain the support of the Batwa during war and conflicts. As a result, Batwa have been caught up between the wars of Bahutu and Batutsi as well as other ethnic or political conflicts throughout history. The motives of the Batwa to join a party were either of involuntary nature or of possible material gain. Political reasons for joining a side were almost non-existing as they often participated on both sides. However, it is a given fact that most Batwa were affected negatively by any conflict and war as the following examples will show.423

3.3.1. Rwanda 3.3.1.1. In the Eve of Rwandan Genocide The Batwa in Rwanda hardly had any information about the current political situation, neither before the Genocide nor at any other time. They never had any impact on national politics. Illiteracy and poverty contrived that no Batwa was politically interested or able to get information because they could not read or afford a radio. Batwa reported to UNPO that only a few knew about the RPF movement and the raging war in the north-eastern part of Rwanda since the early 1990s. However, because of the former and often misinterpreted links to the Batutsi royal court Batwa suffered immensely from the ethnic tensions which intensified during this time. They were still seen as friends of the Batutsi and therefore as “guilty” as them. On the other hand, many Batwa returned from Uganda to Rwanda in December 1993 because rumors spread about the victories of the RPF. Some Batwa refugees even supported the RPF with some financial support which could have confirmed the suspicion of Bahutu extremists.424 However, Batwa were already accused of being an RPF sympathizer or member when they remained neutral and not joined the paramilitary group of Interahamwe.425

421 See Plumptre, et al., Socioeconomic status of people in the Central Albertine Rift, p. 29; Böhlmark, The Fog of Bwindi, 8:45-9:15. 422 Innocent Munyarugero, Batwa representative, cited in: Zephyrin, Case study 1: Rwanda, p. 84. 423 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 23. 424 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 15-16. 425 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 64-65. 95

Because Batwa knew little about politics as well as their poverty and inferior status, they became an easy target for manipulation.426 Members of at least two larger communities visited by Lewis and Knight joined MRND or Interahamwe.427 Mr. Mpamo, the former mayor of Masango and chief of the local Interahamwe, was also able to get some Batwa to join the In- terahamwe. According to the UNPO’s Batwa respondents, Mpamo was a hero.428 Lewis and Knight saw in 1993 that there was a shocking level of poverty among the Batwa in this commune. Many suffered from injustice and were imprisoned because of their misery as they were not able to pay taxes or register for legal marriages. Mpamo later bribed the Batwa to join Interahamwe, and many willingly agreed because it was a great opportunity for money, food, and political protection.429 Most Batwa, however, still did not understand the context of the situation. Socio-economic reasons remained the primary motivator to join and stay. It was often the only chance to escape poverty and get support. This is why dancers and singers were the first ones who joined:

“In fact, the political message was not the main attraction for Batwa who joined the Interahamwe, the prospect to perform in a national group and to receive a salary were [sic!]. The respondents did not know of any kind of division of tasks within the Interahamwe among Bahutu and Batutsi, but were not surprised that Batwa often looted after the Bahutu had killed the inhabitants of a house, for the Batwa had joined the Interahamwe for economic reasons mainly.”430 Another example of how Batwa were used in a political conflict was during the early stages of the “Hutu Revolution”, when 64 of 912 people who were brought to court because they had committed crimes for Batutsi-extremists were Batwa.431

During the early 1990s, violence against Batwa was spreading. One Batwa man in Shyorongi, Kigali Prefecture, was beaten to death during a rowdy MRND demonstration in 1993 because he was wearing the “wrong (political party) hat”. In 1993, the WRM visited the village Ntili near the Burundian border because reports spread that Batwa villages had been burned down. This incident happened because a few days before, Batwa bought some vegetables from a Bahutu who refused to give them their change. When the Batwa objected to this, a group of Bahutu attacked them violently. The attackers also warned them that their village would be burned down on their return. When the Batwa arrived at their village, it was already set on fire

426 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 57; Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 21. 427 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 57. 428 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 20. 429 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 58. 430 Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 21. 431 See Kraler, Migration und die Universalisierung der Nationalstaatsform am Beispiel Ruanda, p. 130. 96 and the Bahutu, again, attacked the Batwa. Ten similar cases were reported between Decem- ber 1993 and March 1994.432

Contradictory to this development is that the Batwa slightly benefited from the political liber- alization during the Habyarimana regime in the early 1990s. Because the regime accepted a multi-party democratic state by signing the Arusha Accords in 1990, the ruling party MRND had to gain popular support for the next election.433 In 1991 several Batwa (including Zéphyrin Karimba, Tharcisse Kaguba, Claver Ndayambaje, and Laurent Munyankuge) got together to create a new Batwa organization. In that process, there was disagreement whether they should form a political party or an NGO. Both were ambitious projects, but especially the formation of a political party lacked sufficient funds. In August 1991 a Batwa delegation was able to meet with Habyarimana. He made it clear that he would not approve any political party by and for Batwa, but he was willing to fund a politically insignificant NGO. As a result, the Association pour la Promotion des Batwa (APB) was founded the very same year. The Batwa, though, were not willing to accept any money from the government as long as it was not free of conditions. Therefore, APB never received any governmental funds.434 Other Bat- wa who were offered gifts to join MRND and refused faced violent encroachments. Mbishi- bishi, the community leader of Rutonde, had to hide several times in 1993 after MRND member came to the village and tried to kill him. He was later killed during the Genocide among others of his community.435

The APB’s goals were to defend the rights and interests of the Batwa, especially as intermedi- ary for contacts to national and local authorities, to promote the socio-economic and political development (with emphasis on primary health care, education and employment) and to promote Batwa culture. François Munyeshuri, one of the founders of APB, met with Native American organizations in the USA to collect ideas for the democratization and emancipation of the Batwa. APB also created connections with the International Alliance of Indigenous Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests and met with other local indigenous organizations from Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and Gabon. Much time and effort were spent in in- forming the international community about the Batwa of Rwanda (often to create awareness

432 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 57-59. 433 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 56. 434 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 15. 435 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 56. 97 that they exist). In January 1993, the represented Batwa of APB became members of UNPO. In 1993 in Kigali APB organized several meetings, manifestations, and workshops.436

The start of all of this sounded promising, but problems soon emerged. Especially after the death of François Munyeshuli, APB lost its cohesiveness. The administrators of APB lacked experience and (financial) management skills, leading to a non-transparent organization. A small core of educated Batwa formed the leadership; some were even related to each other. In the beginning, APB only focused on Batwa in and around Kigali, and especially the Impunyu were neglected to some extent. APB was not able to raise awareness in the lowest levels of Rwandan society. Other indigenous organizations criticized the APB because of their dis- charge of coordination tasks with them. In January 1993, some Batwa of APB split off and created the Association pour le Développement Global des Batwa du Rwanda (ADBR). Their primary goal was to highlight out the importance of adapting to modern life. ADBR received aid from the government and cooperated with ADIGMAR. Moreover, the mandate of ADBR was in opposition to APB. At the same time, APB’s leadership was often physically attacked, poisoned, and harassed by governmental agents. The regime’s goal was to sabotage the early success and reputation of APB. In 1995, UNPO reported: “It does not seem to be an exaggera- tion to say that the Habyarimana Government invested in ADBR to sabotage the work of APB and to ruin its reputation. In that sense, ADBR’s mandate was a negative one: to oppose APB.”437 Although ADBR received much more support, the organization was not able to set up any project until April 1994.438 The Association des Batwa Progressives du Rwanda (ABPR) was the second split-off that formed in February 1994. This organization lacked ideas, funds, and support, and was not able to undertake any activities until and after the Geno- cide.439

However, the work of APB had also its positive aspects: Many Batwa had put faith in the actions of APB and praised their efforts to improve their living conditions. For example, in the Ntongwe commune in Gitarama prefecture, all 587 Batwa were APB members before April 1994. APB played a crucial role in negotiating between some local Batwa and their neighbors about a dispute over the use of a certain swamp. The organization was able to secure this area

436 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 15; Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 100. 437 Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 16. 438 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 15-16; Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 16. 439 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 16. 98 for the Batwa community to cultivate sweet potatoes. APB was also able to successfully press Batwa parents to send their children to school after they were exempted from school fees.440

3.3.1.2. Victims, Supporters and Perpetrators When returning from a regional summit, the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed after their plane was shot down on April 6, 1994, in Kigali. Without much delay, first massacres were carried out by the Interahamwe, the army and the presidential guard supported by a majority of the population. Although Batutsi were the primary target of the massacres, Bahutu and Batwa suffered as well. Batwa were furthermore “Apart maybe from the APB members, […] not at all aware of the political tensions in the country. Hardly any Batwa had taken sides in the political struggle or were at all involved in politics.”441 Or as an old Batwa women put it: “During the war we were very miserable because we couldn’t do anything. We were suffer- ing for no reason since we did not belong to any political party. This is the general problem of Twa people.”442 Threats such as „First we will kill the Batutsi, then we will kill you“, or „your turn will come“ occurred on a frequent basis. This event offered an opportunity for the perpetrators to use the historical negative stereotyping of the Batwa as justification for killing them as well. Batwa were often targeted as RPF sympathizers and “friends of the Batutsi”. The former close connections of some Batwa to the royal court were simply transmitted to modern contexts. However, few Batwa, especially from Burundi, contributed to this “bad reputation” because they were indeed involved into dirty politics.443

The attacks on the Batwa communities were often devastating and caught many by surprise: “When the war started, all we could hear was gun shots. So we tried to run away, […].”444 Another Batwa woman stated: “We started to hear loud bangs and ran away. On our way I lost two children […]. Many have lost their children also.”445 A Batwa man reported of a larger massacre on his people: “Another thing to mention is the death of a large number of Twa who were killed at Kibagabaga primary school.”; he himself was also threatened by a Bahutu: “He replied that he was going, but if he saw any of us the next day he would kill us like the Tutsis.”446 In some villages, up to 80 percent of the Batwa people were killed or fled whereby in others only a few people died or fled. The Gituza commune in Byumba prefecture was almost completely whipped out. Just 25 Batwa out of 600 remained. Only 40 people of

440 See Ibid. 441 Ibid., p. 19. 442 N.C., Twa woman 66, Rutonde 1995, cited in: Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 57. 443 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 19. 444 K. A., Twa woman 30, Kanzenze 1995, cited in: Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 60. 445 M. M., Twa woman 35, Tambwe 1995, cited in: Ibid. 446 R. D., Twa man 46, Kibagabaga 1995, cited in: Ibid., p. 60-61. 99 about 150 in the Kanzenze commune in Kigali prefecture remained. A group of Batwa in Gi- tarama prefecture had been instantly killed after Interahamwe identified them as Batwa due to their identity cards. Other Batwa were killed because they had links to APB or other political ties. At this point, it must be acknowledged that it was not easy for UNPO to obtain accurate information. People were traumatized, many were unable to give reliable figure due to their innumeracy, and many survivors could not speak freely because they feared punishment of fellow Bahutu villagers.447 Some Batwa, together with other villagers, were able to defend themselves in areas in which Interahamwe or other government troops were weak: “On the fifth we saw soldiers herding people into the church at Nyamata. Later in the evening we heard gunshots and we realized they have finished them all. We villagers used bows and arrows and spears to defend ourselves.”448

Although the main killing was stopped after RPF-soldiers arrived it did not end for the Batwa. Many died through the hands of RPF-soldiers in the early days of their takeover or were victims of the acts of war. Several reports exist that mention crimes of RPF soldiers, especially in the first weeks of June 1994. A Batwa man reported that 70 people of his village, including 17 Batwa, were forced to attend a meeting at which all were killed by the soldiers, afterward the soldiers fled. In a similar incident, more than 500 people (including several Batwa) were massacred. Another group of displaced Batwa was killed out of pure malignity after they came back to their houses to look for food. Batwa were also killed when soldiers looked for Inte- rahamwe members and other participants of the Genocide. In Ntongwe commune, people reported that 250 out of 587 Batwa were killed by the RPF over several weeks after they called the people for a return to their houses.449 In sum, it is estimated that around 10,000 Batwa, which was 30 percent of the whole Batwa population in Rwanda at that time, died during the Genocide.450 Approximately 5,000-8,000 fled into the DRC, 1,000 to Burundi and 1,000 to Tanzania.451 Lewis and Knight compared the populations of their visited communes in Rwanda in 1993 and 1995:

447 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 19-20. 448 M.J., Twa woman 24, Kanzenze 1995, cited in: Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 61. 449 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 20-22. 450 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 23; Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 23; Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 92-93. 451 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 27. 100

Table 1: Population of visited Batwa communities 1993/1995, Lewis and Knight 1995, p. 81.452

1993 1995 Prefecture Commune Child Adult Total Child Adult Total Kigali Rurale Shyorongi 168 90 258 34 26 60 Kigali Rurale Kanzenze 131 103 234 63 48 111 Kibungo Kabarondo 20 22 42 7 5 12 Kibungo Rutonde 61 63 124 21 31 52 Gitarama Kigoma 26 27 53 16 15 31 Gitarama Tambwe 25 32 57 31 20 51 Kibuye Bwakira 21 16 37 3 1 4 Totals 452 353 805 175 146 321

According to the UNPO report, only a marginal number of Batwa such as members of the Masango commune in Gitarama prefecture willingly joined the ranks of Interahamwe and just after they got brainwashed for years. But some of these Batwa participated in the killings: “The way I see the war is that on Thursday 11th April 1994 Habyarimana’s soldiers started killing Tutsi and some Twa. The leaders of this area were the ones who were showing which people should be killed. Some Twa were also helping in that massacre. […]”.453 Even after they had to flee, Batwa from the Runda commune in Gitarama prefecture still believed the “classic” conspiracy theory of Bahutu extremists: “They blamed the RPF for killing their president and stated that ‘it was only after April 6, 1994, that they had come to realize that it were the Batutsi who had secretly been preparing for the massacres.’”454 However, most of participating Batwa were forced to kill: “During that time some Twa were forced to kill Tutsis otherwise they were also killed, accused that they were on the Tutsi side. […] Therefore we had no alternative since we were afraid of being killed as well.“455 A Batwa woman reported: “During the war Interahamwe people came into our house and asked my husband why he was not helping in the massacres. As he said he was unable to do so, they took him by force.”456

It was nevertheless not exceptional that Batwa often looted abandoned houses. But this was only due to the poor living conditions of these people. The Ntongwe commune in Gitarama prefecture, for example, did not at all participate in the killings because the Batwa there were able, together with APB, to improve their living conditions the years before. They had no

452 They did not list every single Batwa during their visits, so the figures do not necessarily show the total number of Batwa there. Furthermore, the places/ villages they visited are simply listed as communes. 453 M. M., Twa man 30, Shyorongi 1995, cited in: Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 57. 454 Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 26. 455 M. J., Twa man 53, Kacyru 1995, cited in: Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 65. 456 M., Twa woman 40, Kacyru 1995, cited in: Ibid. 101 economic desire or need to join the perpetrators. Many Batwa who were imprisoned later claimed to be innocent or said that he had been forced to kill.457

Another report Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance describes several cases in which Batwa participated in the Genocide. In one case a Batwa woman was gang-raped by Interahamwe and was later “given” to a Batwa to humiliate her in the social context of Rwanda.458 But this report has to be seen with caution as the organization behind it, African Rights, had close ties to the RPF. The organization was completely unknown before April 1994 but was able to publish over 40 titles about the Genocide and its aftermath, more than any other institution or individual. The report itself (around 750 pages) was published only two months after the RPF declared victory in July 1994.459 Luc Reydams stresses out that

“Death, Despair and Defiance’s methodology is most obscure; the AR field investigator enjoyed unusual privileges and conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews in a short time; the authors […] had access to an instant archive; […] AR publications echoed RPF positions and systematically defended the RPF against criticism; and finally, Death, Despair and Defiance was endorsed by the RPF.”460 The report was nevertheless a main source for countless scholars (cited in 363 academic publications, including Lewis and Knights’ work), researches, mass media, and even politics. It shaped the narrative of the Genocide in favor of the new government for a long time because journalists, politicians, and editors relayed uncritically on the content for years.461 Because of these more than visible red flags, I will not consider this report in any more details.

However, such practice of handing women to men from inferior groups or men who were unwashed and dressed in rags was allegedly common. Batwa were given women by the Inte- rahamwe to rape them in the streets, especially roadblocks to publicly scandalize the women. A woman described Batwa as the most aggressive members of an Interahamwe group who urged to others to rape her in public. When one member refused, the Batwa allegedly filed a complaint against him because he showed soft heart behavior.462

457 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 21-22. 458 See Ibid., p. 21. 459 See REYDAMS, Luc, NGO Justice. African Rights as Pseudo-Prosecutor of the Rwandan Genocide, in: Human Rights Quarterly 38/3 (2016), p. 547–588, p. 548-549. 460 Ibid., p. 550. 461 See Ibid., p. 579-588. 462 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 22. 102

3.3.1.3. Refugees, Displaced Persons and Homecoming Many Batwa (mostly Impunyu) already fled in the years 1990-1993 when the RPF first attacked the Habyarimana regime in northern Rwanda. Several were sometimes traveling for months but finally settled on the hills outside of Kigali.463 The social and economic disadvantage continued for those Batwa who stayed in refugee and displaced person camps before and after the Genocide. They experienced difficulty in satisfying their basic needs such as getting food, materials for shelter, and medical care. They furthermore had a disproportionate problem in getting in touch with international aid organizations in camps. In the refugee camps in North Kivu, many former Bahutu administrators oversaw the daily administration. Because aid organizations cooperated with them the traditional power structures of Rwanda remained in the camps. Only two local Batwa organizations (Pygasse and Seipy) tried to help the Batwa refugees there.464

Batwa in the Mugunga refugee camp in North Kivu reported that they arrived in August 1994 after the RPF engaged in large-scale killings of all remaining Bahutu and Batwa in Gisenyi prefecture. Due to their anti-RPF attitude, it could be assumed that these Batwa then were treated better in the camp, but that was not the case. Instead, they lacked all basic necessities, but with the help of Pygasse, these Batwa were able to elect some leaders from their midst, including the founding member of ADBR, Jean Damascene Kayombya. Their goal was to secure some jobs with aid organizations for Batwa. Batwa were generally scattered around the camps, a fact which reinforced their vulnerability and powerlessness even more. In the Kibumba refugee camp (also North Kivu) an effort was made to cluster all Batwa refugees together so that they can get a fair share of the distributed aid. But there is no information that this was actually achieved.465

In Bukavu, South Kivu, another local Batwa organization, the PIDP, helped arriving Batwa refugees. The organization reported that only potter Batwa fled into this area and no Impu- nyus. In other camps of DRC, it was also reported that the vast majority were potter people. The UNHCR in Bukavu was skeptical about the help of PIDP. They had concerns that the organization did with some self-interest.466

Many Batwa expressed that they did not wish to return anytime soon although they had great difficulties in the camps. Their main profession in the camps remained pottery, but UNHCR

463 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 52-53. 464 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 26-27. 465 See Ibid., p. 27. 466 See Ibid., p. 28. 103 only distributed firewood for cooking so the Batwa often had problems to bake their pots properly. Many had specific health problems such as rheumatism. Because of their work with clay, many became dirty, and the lack of soap was therefore especially problematic. In the Magara camp in Burundi, Batwa were able to create a music and dance group with the assistance of Oxfam.467

Displaced person camps were set up in summer 1994 in the Zone Turquoise in Kibuye prefecture. They existed until October 1994 when the RPF dissolved them. Around 1,500 – 2,000 Batwa lived in these camps. Until mid-August the camps were organized by French troops. The Batwa complained about the harsh French regime. After the French left, Senegalese UN- AMIR troops took over the camps. Within the chain of food supply, these troops only delivered the food to the camps, but the displaced persons themselves did the distribution. In consequence, Batwa claimed that they did not get their fair amount of food, other help supplies and that they were discriminated once again: “Our children died at Kibeho [refugee/displaced person camp]. Indeed, a lot of our people perished there. This place [the home village] is all in ruins and I cannot estimate how many people died here. They were too many.”468 But, again, they were afraid of protesting officially against these bad conditions as Bahutu threatened them to use violence otherwise. They had no jobs with international aid organizations because of their lack of influential contacts. Communication between the different Batwa communities were rare too, simply because many Batwa lacked the physical strength to visit each other or to sing and to dance together. As in the refugee camps, Batwa had difficulties in producing and selling pots. Many Batwa were not ready to return to their villages because they feared that the living conditions there would be even worse than before. They feared RPF activities due to the rumors that Batwa were accused of participating with Interahamwe. 469 Other experienced this persecution for real: “The problems started when we came back from exile. Many of our people were thrown into prison by people saying they were Interahamwe. […] Maybe this is happening to us because we are Twa.”470 Another almost similar story: “When we came back from exile people started to look for us. After 3 months my son was taken from us by force. It was around one a.m. Until now no one knows where he is and that is my wor- ry.”471 UNPO visited the prisons in Butare, Gitarama, and Kigali in which, altogether, 72 out

467 See Ibid., p. 27-28. 468 M. B., Twa woman 55, Kanzenze 1995, cited in: Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 67. 469 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 29-30. 470 M. B., Twa woman 60, Tambwe 1995, cited in: Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 69. 471 M. J., Twa woman 42, Tambwe 1995, cited in: Ibid., p. 75. 104 of around 7,600 prisoners were Batwa.472 Although some of them were guilty, the RPF often did not even distinguish between innocent and guilty people:

“All these are innocent people: […] These people were taken by soldiers not by our village leaders. Until now we have not heard any news of them. The only thing we know is that they are in Kigali prison. Our people were innocent except Bu. and Nt. who admitted to what they have done.”473 Batwa also lacked reliable information about the real situation in their former villages.474 Some Batwa had no state identity cards which encountered problems within the refugee camps and when they tried to return.475 Those who got imprisoned suffered discrimination from their fellow inmates and because of the generally poor conditions, and overcrowding in the prisons, surviving long-term imprisonment was difficult.476

Others again expressed gratitude towards the new government and the RPF: “When we returned to our homes we were given sorghum, soya beans and other beans by the RPF. We have managed to sell 100 pots and we have a market once a week.”477 Another woman stated: “The RPF helped us a lot […]. The RPF gave us some seeds, peas, maize and beans to grow again.” However, this woman stated right after: “An elder brother disappeared. They tortured me asking the whereabouts of a man who lived with us.”478 The relationship of the Batwa with the new people in power was on two extreme poles. Some Batwa were saved and supported by RPF whereby many others experienced the same ill-treatment as before.479

Although all Rwandans suffered from the Genocide, Batwa were among the most vulnerable ones. They have been extremely poor already before and now had no financial reserves, property, and hardly any social networks to fall back on: “Right now we have no household equipment, no plates, no clothes, not even doors. We only have empty huts with no doors.”480 UNPO suggested that only 10,000 to 12,000 Batwa remained in the country in 1995 which is a decline by two-thirds of the pre-war population. The constant violent incidents were generally of arbitrary nature and initiated by traumatized Batutsi. Due to the inexperience of the new administration and their personal, the re-allocation of land was generally uncoordinated, chaotic and greedy. A situation in which the Batwa had limited possibilities to secure land and

472 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 23. 473 M. S., Twa woman 25, Shyorongi 1995, cited in: Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 74. 474 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 30. 475 See SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL, Twa 'Pygmies' - Rwanda. Rwanda's Hidden Tribe, in: Survival International. 476 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 74-75. 477 K. P., Twa woman 55, Kanzenze 1995, cited in: Ibid., p. 71. 478 U.A., Twa woman 32, Kanzenze 1995, cited in: Ibid. 479 See Ibid., p, 71-72. 480 R. Y., Twa woman 28, Kanzenze, cited in: Ibid., p. 90. 105 resources: “Our problem is that all our possessions have been seized, even all our lands. Therefore, there is nothing remaining. We would like the RPF to solve this problem so that we can go back to our land.”481 Another Batwa woman stated: “When I went to claim my father’s land which had been seized, I was chased away. All the people who are living there are new to that place.”482 Batwa were not able to assure their needs and sometimes even lost the access to swamps to collect clay. They struggled to find employment under the new government although enough work had to be done and some even had the skills: “I know how to drive a car and have a licence [sic!] but I do not know how to read. I used to drive the local parish priest’s car. […] Although I am a good driver with a clean driving licence [sic!] and a good record with the parish priest, I am still being refused work.”483

But some Batwa stated that the general ethnic and social segregation had lessened because the people with the strongest antipathy against the Batwa had fled the country. When the UNPO mission was about to leave the Runda commune in Gitarama prefecture the Batwa performed traditional songs praising the RPF.484 These were the hopes which were also shared by UNPO after their mission and the promises were given by government officials. The government acknowledged and agreed that the Batwa were one of the more vulnerable groups of the country and that they needed special support to overcome the traditional and widespread discrimination. Parallels were drawn between the desired emancipation of the Rwandan women and the development and uplifting of the Batwa. They wanted to give them media attention, access to education, and employment, full participation in social structures as well as political and civil rights: “The UNPO mission was most pleased with the positive stance of the government in addressing the specific needs of the Batwa. […] The government came up with creative and substantial proposals to assist the Batwa in different fields.”485 But in reality, not much was done. The term “uplifting” furthermore suggests that Batwa were overall seen as inferior people.

3.3.2. Burundi and Uganda In Burundi hunting has been illegal since the 1970s. As in Rwanda, land distribution after independence did not positively affect the Batwa and so most were landless laborers, potters, and beggars. They were caught in the same racial conflict as their fellow Batwa in Rwanda. Again, Batwa had no fixed position in this conflict. They emphasized their neutrality and

481 M. A., Twa woman 48, Rutonde 1995, cited in: Ibid., p. 86. 482 M., Twa woman 22, Kabarondo 1995, cited in: Ibid. 483 M. D., Twa man 40, Kigoma 1995, cited in: Ibid., p. 88-89. 484 See Overeem, Batwa Final Report, p. 23-24. 485 Ibid., p. 35. 106 complained that Bahutu used rumors that they sided with the Batutsi to justify their violent actions against the Batwa population. However, Batwa had to side with the group that current- ly dominated an area they were living in due to their powerlessness: “The Bahutu now say that they will kill us all when the war starts again because we refused to kill the cows of those they killed.”486 Sometimes a Batwa community supported a different group as their neighboring one. In that case, they avoided to meet each other for fear of being killed:

“We participated in one way or another, dragged in by our fellow citizens [Bahutu and Batutsi]. When the rebels massacred people we were here. When the army arrived we had to go on patrols with them. They asked me why I hadn’t fled. I answered that I was innocent, no one accuses me of doing anything. They burnt six abandoned houses. They ordered me to go in and loot the manioc flour and goats saying “Batwa like meat”. Since no one was there I took out the nine goats. They ordered me to take them home. But since I had hidden some Bahutu in my house I couldn’t do that. I let them go. They continued burning and killing. They even killed a Mutwa sitting in a bar.”487 Those who fled had the same fate as their counterparts in Rwanda.488

Years later individual violence against Batwa was still prevalent. One Batwa was killed by a mob in 2009 after he was falsely accused of being part of Cédric Mazoyas’ bandit group. Sev- eral more were beaten on different occasions by people after they suspected them of theft. One such incident was reported as followed by a victim:

We were coming back from the party [when] the people at Bihororo carried out an ambush at the river with machetes. […] They started to beat us. It was almost the whole village who was there. For several days there had been thefts, and they suspected us. [...] We were tied up and beaten. [...] One of our group was killed. He arrived last, and saw that others had already been beaten. He asked why, and they started to beat him too. He ran and they chased him. When they brought him back 20 minutes later, he was almost a cadaver. [...].“489 Mazoya (a Batwa) was carrying out armed robberies, sometimes with the help of the police. He was arrested in 2010 and was later shot by the police. As per police assumptions, he attempted to flee. However, Burundian journalists and UN human rights monitors believe he was murdered due to the risk that he would reveal his ties to the police. He called himself “liberator of the Batwa people”.490 However, according to HRW, mob justice did not solely

486 Batwa man 25, Burundi, July 1999, cited in: Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 25. 487 Batwa man 45, Burundi, July 1999, cited in: Ibid. 488 See Ibid., p. 24-25. 489 Robat Ntakarutimana, Giheta, Gitega province, December 11, 2009, cited in: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH (HRW), Mob Justice in Burundi. Official Comlicity and Impunity, New York 2010, p. 52. 490 See Ibid., p. 50-52. 107 affect Batwa people and was instead a widespread phenomenon in Burundi in 2010. 74 other people were killed because of mob justice in 2009. Only one was clearly defined as Batwa.491

The Batwa in Uganda are much less affected by conflicts in the last decades. However, conflicts in the neighboring countries have spilled over into the parts of Uganda in which Batwa were living during the 1990s. Members of Interahamwe who fled Rwanda after the Genocide massacred Batutsi-related groups in southern Uganda at the end of the millennium. Batwa in the area of Busanza reported that they hid together with their Bahutu neighbors from Inte- rahamwe throughout the early parts of 1999. They stated that the Bahutu neighbors would not have survived without them because the Batwa were the only ones who sneaked back to the farms to collect food. As a result, these Batwa later experienced less discrimination from their neighbors. Lewis, however, acknowledges that is hard to foresee if this positive will continue throughout the upcoming years.492

In other parts of Uganda, for example, in Kabale, violent acts against Batwa were still occurring in 2014. Minority Rights Group International (MRG) reported that in December two Batwa were stoned to death and several were injured. Before three women of the dominant Bakiga community were murdered, Batwa were blamed for this crime: “The Bakiga community, armed with all sorts of weapons ranging from machetes to bows and spears, attacked the whole Batwa community. They killed two men and critically injured two Batwa – an 18-year- old girl and a man aged 22 years […].”493 Earlier that year several Batwa huts were burned after a young Batwa man failed to pay the bride price of his wife who was a member of the Bakiga community. The authorities did very little to deal with this incident. Generally, the Bakiga show the same discriminatory behavior towards the Batwa as most others: Viewing the Batwa as evicted outsiders with no rights to have a place on their land.494

3.3.3. DRC The Batwa in DRC experienced different circumstances, they are living in a more diverse society, and they have had more possibilities to resist. In the last two decades, the Batwa became much less tolerant with their exploitation and used more and more lethal violence to

491 See Ibid., p. 80-86. 492 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 25. 493 Part of a statement from AICM Executive Director Faith Tushabe, cited in: MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP INTER- NATIONAL (MRG), MRG condemns killing of Batwa in Uganda. Available at: http://minorityrights.org/2014/12/ 08/mrg-condemns-killing-of-batwa-in-uganda/ (Mar. 10, 2018). 494 See Ibid. 108 fight their inferiority.495 Lewis wrote that this is based on one major factor: Their accessibility to the forests which was still possible in most areas around Lake Kivu. Many Batwa there still depended on hunting and gathering but were also more confident about their customs and culture. They had more independence from their farming neighbors, and they were still able to use their avoidance strategy or defend themselves. However, Lewis made a prediction: “Bat- wa in DRC are more easily able to maintain independence because they still have some autonomy. However, the long duration of the conflict there is likely to have serious consequences.”496 In the national election of 2006, not a single “pygmy” has shown interest in being a candidate.497

18 years later, the situation in DRC remains extremely violent. For the Batwa, the events of 1997 that brought Laurent-Désiré Kabila to power are most notable for this situation. Kabila, and later his son Joseph used Batwa militias to assist the military forces in the 1998-2003 civil war and more recently against Kata Katanga, a predominantly Luba secessionist movement. It was emancipation by armed conflicts: “The mask of the Bantus slipped. The pygmies understood that the Bantus were not all-powerful, and they could resist them.”498 On the other hand, it fueled the hostility of the Luba people (and others) against the Batwa.499

By April 1999 eight armies and at least twelve different armed groups were active in eastern DRC, including Interahamwe and Mayi Mayi. Some had established training camps near Batwa communities so that the Batwa often had no choice other than to flee the area. Others were caught up between the different conflict parties and sometimes Batwa were simply used as cannon fodder. Because Mayi Mayi rebels mainly operated out of the forests other rebel groups often assumed that Batwa people are Mayi Mayi and targeted them. Many Batwa have been executed and at least one village (Rambo Kalonge) had been burned down when Lewis wrote his report. Other Batwa were forced to become trackers and guides for the soldiers. When they had done their job and returned home, Mayi Mayi approached them and avenged

495 See INTEGRATED REGIONAL INFORMATION NETWORKS (IRIN), Displaced Congolese civilians sent back to a widening war. Available at: http://www.irinnews.org/feature/2017/07/11/displaced-congolese-civilians-sent- back-widening-war (Mar. 10, 2018); Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 11. 496 Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 11. 497 “Pygmies” in DRC include many other tribes and people. Their number was suggested to be around 900,000 (around 1.5 percent of the whole population) in 2006, see Integrated Regional Information Networks, Minorities Under Siege, p. 23. 498 Rogatien Kitenge, cited in: Integrated Regional Information Networks, Displaced Congolese civilians sent back to a widening war. 499 See Ibid. 109 them because the Batwa helped the soldiers. PIDP suggested that most Batwa were internally displaced people (IDPs) in 1999 but without being able to present any estimates.500

Between August and October 2008, fighting broke out in Rutshuru territory, North Kivu. 120 Batwa families were expelled during this conflict. 20 of these families were missing afterward. At the same time, the NGO Cater International was forced to suspend a major program in this area which focused on marginalized people.501 Since 2012, throughout the whole province of Katanga, disputes between Batwa and Luba have occurred, resulting in the displacement of approximately 4.000 Batwa people. Most of these disputes rooted in land disputes, including access to land but also the relation to it.502 In 2013, large scale fighting broke out between Luba and Batwa people in the Manono territory of Katanga after the Batwa demanded their basic rights, access to land and to end forced labor.503 David Ngoy Luhaka, a Kalemie-based priest and activist, stated that “for many Bantu, the pygmy is a slave, a thing, […].”504. A Batwa adviser of the provincial government noted: “There is no portion of the land which belongs to the indigenous people. Everything is for the Bantu.”505 Since then the UN reported that hundreds of civilians were killed, and thousands displaced because both groups (Bantu and Batwa) formed loosely organized militias. In 2015 Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that ethnic militias in DRC killed around 30 Batwa in a camp for displaced persons after deadly raids on Luba occurred. Additional dozen more Batwa were missing afterward: “They started to shoot arrows at us. We had no arms to protect ourselves. They massacred us. They killed so many Pygmies. They killed us like animals, like things with no value.”506 A Batwa man stated: “The Elements [Luba militia] didn’t see me but they saw my brother. I heard how they killed him. I was not far from him. I heard when he cried out, ‘For-

500 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 25. 501 See ELMHIRST, Sophie, Africa, in: State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2009. Events of 2008. Education special, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) and UNICEF, London 2009, p. 92–117, p. 97. 502 See UNITED NATIONS, Study on the impact of technical assistance and capacity-building on the human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2008-2014). Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General - Thirtieth session, A/HRC/30/33, 24 August 2015, p. 15. 503 See HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH (HRW), DR Congo: Ethnic Militias Attack Civilians in Katanga. Dozens of ‘Pygmy’ Killed in Camp Following Deadly Raids on Luba. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/08/11/ dr-congo-ethnic-militias-attack-civilians-katanga (Mar. 10, 2018). 504 David Ngoy Luhaka, priest and activist, Kalemie, cited in: Integrated Regional Information Networks, Dis- placed Congolese civilians sent back to a widening war. 505 Mulezi, provincial governments's Twa adviser, cited in: Ibid. 506 Batwa woman, cited in: Human Rights Watch, DR Congo: Ethnic Militias Attack Civilians in Katanga. 110 give me! Forgive me!’ And they said to him, ‘You thought we wouldn’t catch you. We will exterminate you all.’”507 Another witness reported:

“My husband returned [to our hut] saying, ‘Flee! Flee! The Elements want to kill us.’ […] I saw through the grass how they killed my husband. They shot an arrow into the side of his stomach, and then they hit him with an axe on the head. They cut off his genitals and removed the skin from his stomach. While they were doing this, they cried out: “You Pygmies, we will exterminate you all this year.”508 But before, Batwa militias, also known as Perci, attacked villages in Luba and other areas with bows and machetes, killing and kidnapping civilians, and burning villages: “A group of pygmies came suddenly under the cover of darkness to attack us and burn the houses. There was nothing else for us to do but flee with our families.”509 A young boy reported the killing of his family:

“The Pygmies said that our chief did not want them to receive humanitarian aid so they were planning to come and kill us all. I heard people say that. When they arrived, they found us in our village. They had arrows and they started to shoot at us. My father was killed by an arrow. My small brother was hit by an arrow in his stomach and also died. The Pygmies took my youngest brother, and they hit him against the ground and cracked his head.”510 Another report of an elder man tells the killing of a woman by “pygmies”:

“She was living with her family in Nyunzu town after she had fled attacks by the Pygmies. […] When they got to the farm, Pygmies came and attacked them. The children were able to flee, but their mother was caught and killed by these Pygmies. Later, when we found her body, she no longer had breasts and her genitals were cut off.”511 Other Bawa militias attacked Banyamulenge (Batutsi) communities, slaughtering their cows.512

The counterattack of the Luba was also carried out with machetes, axes, and bows, and people furthermore were wearing witchcraft symbols. Afterward, the government and the peacekeeping mission MONUSCO sent troops to reinforce security. Officially there is “no longer this

507 Batwa man, cited in: Ibid. 508 Batwa woman, cited in: Ibid. 509 Bulanda Sulemani Cyprien, Kalunga, cited in: Integrated Regional Information Networks, Displaced Congo- lese civilians sent back to a widening war. 510 A 12-year-old Luba boy, cited in: Human Rights Watch, DR Congo: Ethnic Militias Attack Civilians in Ka- tanga. 511 Elderly Luba man, cited in: Ibid. 512 See Integrated Regional Information Networks, Displaced Congolese civilians sent back to a widening war. 111 conflict between the Twa and Bantu”.513 However, authorities threatened aid workers who researched these attacks:

“The authorities don’t want it to be known how many people were killed. When I was collecting information among the Pygmies, I was followed by officials from the ANR [national intelligence agency], and they prohibited me from continuing what I was doing. To save my life, I abandoned it.”514 A health worker reported:

“Nobody talks about the number of dead and the authorities don’t want to hear anybody reveal the secret. […] The [Congolese] Red Cross and the authorities won’t say anything or they’ll give you a very low number [of people killed] because they don’t want to make enemies.”515 On the other hand, Congolese officials are aware of the discrimination of the Batwa communities and addressing that it is crucial to end intercommunal violence:

“The Pygmies felt like they were living under an apartheid situation. This conflict won’t end today or tomorrow. It’s a movement for the emancipation of a people. We won’t stop the movement, but it needs to be contained. […] We need to find ways to break the cycle of dependency between the colo- nizer and the colonized, the dominant people and the dominated people.”516 HRW stressed that the government had not put up any clear and credible plan to tackle these discriminatory practices.517 In eastern DRC hundreds of thousands of people were IDPs in 2017 and over one thousand were killed. In Kalemie territory alone, 240,000 people were living in IDP camps.518 The UN Human Rights Council reported that in 2016 and 2017 more violent incidents in Tanganyika province between Batwa militia and Luba militia occurred.519

3.3.4. Change of Legal Status Especially in DRC violence and intentional discrimination against the Batwa is still widespread and not much had changed in the past decades, except that Batwa are attempting to defend themselves now with force.520 Consequently, the situation has worsened, and it looks like this decline will continue for many years to come. In Rwanda and Burundi, things

513 See Ibid. 514 Human Rights Activist, cited in: Human Rights Watch, DR Congo: Ethnic Militias Attack Civilians in Katan- ga. 515 Health worker, cited in: Ibid. 516 Kitungwa, Katanga’s provincial interior minister, cited in: Ibid. 517 See Ibid. 518 See Integrated Regional Information Networks, Displaced Congolese civilians sent back to a widening war. 519 See UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, The human rights situation and the activities of the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights Council - Thirty-sixth session 11-29 September 2007, Advanced edited version A/HRC/36/34, 4 September. Advanced edited edition 2017, p. 8. 520 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 11. 112 changed following the violent conflicts. Large-scale physical violence generally disappeared; however, discrimination on a cultural and institutional level has remained.

In Rwanda, no ethnic identity is recognized and had been eradicated from public and political life because it is seen as a colonial dive-and-rule instrument which was later used by Bahutu extremists to initiate the Genocide. This historical “truth” or “national unity and reconciliation” is now passed on to the people as an official stated:

“I don’t agree that history has marginalized [the Twa]. I studied history, but I never read that information, only the Tutsi have been discriminated in school and decision-making. If you tell me about the Tutsi I can agree because there is a document showing and explaining their discrimination, but for the Twa I cannot agree because there is no document showing that information.”521 It seemed to be most appropriate to promote an individual civic identity to erase the divisions of the past. The installation of gacaca courts or ingando (re-education) camps should help to overcome the divisionism of the past.522 But because no Bahutu and Batutsi exist anymore, Batwa do not exist as well according to this narrative. The Batwa have now hardly any legal possibility to address their problems: “My [local official] doesn’t understand that my people died because of the events [of 1994] and that I have even more problems that need solutions, since they say peace and unity have been restored.”523 A Batwa representative of COPORWA stated:

“The genocide only made worse our efforts to get recognized as culturally distinct. This leaves us more disadvantaged than before [the genocide]. On top, the government no longer allows us to identify as Twa. One Rwanda for all Rwandans is maybe a good idea for Tutsi and Hutu, but not for us Twa. Even the mountain gorillas get more protection. They after all bring in tourist dollars. We will get rubbed off the face of Rwanda before they do.”524 A statement by a local official made this problem of non-recognition clear although it seems that he did not realize this: “The Twa haven’t been the only ones marginalized though - all Rwandans were marginalized due to poor governance in the past. Now the Twa are not marginalized anymore.”525 Although any ethnic discourse is against the law, no one seems to care

521 Vice District Mayor of Social Affairs, cited in: Ntakirutimana and Collin, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’, p. 12. 522 See Thomson, Ethnic Twa and Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Policy, p. 313-314; Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 7-8. 523 A Batwa survivor of the 1994 genocide, cited in: Thomson, Ethnic Twa and Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Policy, p. 313. 524 Batwa representative of COPORWA, cited in: Ibid., p. 319-320. 525 District Mayor, Kigali Province, cited in: NTAKIRUTIMANA, Richard and COLLIN, Bennett, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’. Examining the ‘Historically Marginalized People’ Label and the Acculturation of the Twa in Rwanda, AEGIS Policy Brief PB 005,, n.p. 2017, p. 4. 113 if someone makes a Batwa joke. If a person does something stupid, people still say “Oh, you are becoming a Batwa.” as it is stated by Benjamin Ndahirwa from the Rwanda Ministry of Local Affairs.526 The Batwa are therefore the only ones who can be discriminated against without fearing serious prosecution.527 An official told that:

“In Kinyarwanda, we used to always compare something bad to the Twa. Like if a person is not clean, you would say he has Twa manners, or he mis- behaves or mismanages ‘like a Twa’. So this means that there are stereotypes that have been given to the Twa because of their many bad habits. So in Rwanda now, we may not have ethnic categories, but Rwandans will still call each other a ‘Twa’ because they have bad manners.”528 The framework of this unity policy is solely designed to overcome the differences between Batutsi and Bahutu. Batwa cannot participate in this project of national unity and reconciliation because the law “does not recognize their lived experiences before, during, or since the genocide.” The government sees them as peripheral to its narrative of how the Genocide happened.529 One Batwa man who tried to attend an ingando camp said that his local official told him:

“‘You don’t need re-education because you are not part of the genocide. Your people did not kill or get killed.’ I was so angry with him. I lost my mother and sister and I even hid some Tutsi in my home! As soon as he said that [I don’t need re-education], I slammed my fist on the table like this [gestures]. He looked at me and I knew I had done a wrong thing. He called some people and I spent the next week in prison for disrespecting national unity.”530 In 2008, the government refused to recognize the existence of the Batwa as an indigenous minority group and to honor its international legal obligations. In their opinion, the Batwa did not meet all four recommended criteria to be identified as “indigenous”.531 Otherwise, they would have to recognize the Batwa’s right to self-determination, control of their territories and resources, and to be effectively involved in decision-making processes that would affect

526 See MATTHEWS, Lisa, The people who don't exist, Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, June 2006. Availa- ble at: https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/people-who-dont-exist (Apr. 11, 2018). 527 See Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 492. 528 Jean Claude, Local Governmental Official, Nyamagabe, cited in: Ntakirutimana and Collin, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’, p. 15. 529 See Thomson, Ethnic Twa and Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Policy, p. 314-316. 530 Batwa man, cited in: Ibid., p. 314. 531 See Ibid., p. 345. 114 them. By not recognizing their indigenous status, the government can deny these rights as laid out by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).532

In a study, conceived by the Rwandan Senate, the term “indigenous” is only used to describe all Rwandese in the historical context. The term “Twa” is only used once (p. 75) in the context of a suggestion of a foreign politician on how the three categories (Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa) could be referred to on an international level in the 1950s. Terms such as HMP or hunter and gatherers are not used at all. Throughout the report and the historical explanations, the existence of the Batwa is ignored.533

On the other hand, article 82 of the Rwandan constitution states that the representation of “historically marginalized communities” should be ensured. Because of this, one Batwa sena- tor was appointed in 2009.534 Before his appointment, he was the director of the Batwa organization Communauté des Potiers du Rwanda - Rwandese Community of Potters (COPOR- WA).535 He was appointed out of convenience; even COPORWA allegedly states that he does not speak up enough for the Batwa community.536 In other branches of the government such as the Chamber of Deputies or local officials, it is almost impossible to inquire the amount of HMP because it is simply illegal to do so. However, it is assumed that no Batwa are serving in the Chamber and only a few are local officials. Both, the UN and the African Union, have expressed great concerns about this. It has become increasingly harder for national and international organizations to fund projects specifically targeting the Batwa.537 COPORWA for example even had to change its name in 2007. The Ministry of Justice said they would risk closure for including the word “indigenous” (autochtones) in their previous name Commu- naute´ des autochtones rwandais (CAURWA).538 A compromise offered by CAURWA was denied because it would have still identified the Batwa as somewhat distinguished people, furthermore promoting and reinforcing ethnic differences.539 MRG and its local partner organ-

532 See CULTURAL SURVIVAL, Observations on the State of Indigenous Human Rights in Rwanda in Light of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Rwanda - Prepared for United Nations Human Rights Council, Universal Periodic Review. Universal Periodic Review 2015, p. 2. 533 See SENATE OF THE REPUBLIC OF RWANDA and CENTER FOR CONFLICT MANAGEMENT OF THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF RWANDA, Pluralism and Power Sharing in Rwanda, Kigali 2010. 534 See Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 7-8. 535 CAURWA was set up in 1995 by some educated Batwa and with the mediation of WRM who tried to bring ADB and ADBR together; See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 101. 536 AUTHOR, Interview with UNPO official, Brussels 20.02.2018. 537 See Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 8-9; Thomson, Ethnic Twa and Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Policy, p. 315. 538 See Thomson, Ethnic Twa and Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Policy, p. 319; Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 9-10; Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 502- 503. 539 See Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 502. 115 ization were denied holding a workshop for Batwa because it was “divisionist” and “contrary to national unity and reconciliation.”540 Similar incidents were reported by other NGOs when making any claims of a distinct identity for Batwa or advocating their rights.541 An UNPO official told me that they did not yet experience any direct problems with the government but they had problems with one local organization some time ago after they published an article and it seemed that the government could have played a role in this discrepancy. The local organization refused to work with UNPO since this incident.542

These steps are somehow contradictory to actions from the past. A few years earlier CAUR- WA agreed with the Ministry for the Interior to establish a joint team to educate local officials about the specific problems of the Batwa people.543 The National Unity and Reconciliation Commission recognized in April 2000 the discrimination against the Batwa and that affirma- tive action’s in terms of education and health services are necessary.544 It is also somehow strange that the Rwandan Senate Commission on Social Affairs published a report545 in 2007 about HMP in Rwanda. It focused mainly on the Batwa and did acknowledge their unique problems and that they had to be treated as matter of urgency:546 “The government has recog- nised that the Batwa need special assistance but has yet to acknowledge that the Batwa continue to face institutionalised discrimination and has been unwilling to give them a clear legal status.”547

Vandeginste and Beswick argue that the government is acting this way because of the risks and potential costs associated with the Batwa becoming acknowledged as distinctive. The concept of being “indigenous” or “a minority” could furthermore apply to Bahutu whose masses are politically excluded and already demanding more equitable political representation. The result would be that the elites would risk losing their power positions.548 The current condition allows it to discard such emancipation as divisionism, but when Batwa would be recognized, Bahutu could use this to legitimize their own grievances: “The Batwa are indirect,

540 See Thomson, Ethnic Twa and Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Policy, p. 316. 541 See Mc Dougall, Report of the independent expert on minority issues, p. 15. 542 Author, Interview with UNPO official. 543 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 12. 544 See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 10. 545 RWANDA, SENATE CHAMBER, COMMISSION IN CHARGE OF SOCIAL AFFAIRS, HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ISSUES, Report on the Living Conditions of Some Rwandans Disadvantaged Throughout History (Raporo ku mibereho ya bamwe mu banyarwanda amateka agaragaza ko basigay inyuma), Kigali 2007. 546 See Cultural Survival, Observations on the State of Indigenous Human Rights in Rwanda in Light of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, p. 4; Mc Dougall, Report of the independent expert on minority issues, p. 14. 547 See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 16. 548 See Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 15-16; Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 495-497. 116 unintended and therefore collateral victims of the political dominance of a party whose leadership belongs to a demographic minority group […] which has no interest whatsoever in a public debate on Hutu political participation.”549 In July 2011, the Rwandan government reaf- firmed their position and that the recognition of the Batwa is against the constitution.550 Rwanda only noted the recommendations of the member states which referred to the Batwa or HMP at the last Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.551 Hartley argues that the Rwandan government maybe would be willing to do more but is not able to do so because of their already implemented policy on ethnic unity.552 On the other hand, it can be argued that the current policy instead reflects the fact that the Rwandan government does not want to (positively) discriminate between the different ethnic groups at all.

In Burundi, the distinction between Batutsi, Bahutu, and Batwa is still prevalent. The official narrative tries to combine a shared identity with the recognition of the country’s ethnic diversity.553 Because of this, the Burundian National Assembly’s composition is associated with specific quotas. Besides a gender quote (30 percent female) the constitution of 2005 says that 60 percent of the directly elected members have to be Bahutu and 40 percent Batutsi. But a mandatory Batwa quote does not exist. However, the electoral code allows the local electoral commission to co-opt a Batwa representative if such one was not elected.554 Before the constitution was set up, a Batwa woman named Libérate Nicayenzi was appointed as a national representative at the National Assembly after the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement in August 2000 was signed.555 Batutsi representatives have turned out to be indirect allies of the Batwa during the negotiations of this treaty. In the 1990s, they were no longer in control of Burundi’s politics and military. Therefore, the Batutsi attempted to implement a system of power-sharing in the negotiations. At the end, it was possible to establish an elaborate quota system, corrected proportionality and qualified majority requirements in parliament, some-

549 Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 15-16. 550 See Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 21. 551 See UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW (UPR), UPR Info. Database of Recommendations and Voluntary Pledges. Available at: https://www.upr-info.org/database/index.php?limit=0&f_SUR=145&f_ SMR=All&order=&orderDir=ASC&orderP=true&f_ Issue=All&searchReco=&resultMax=300&response=&action_ type=&session=&SuRRgrp=&SuROrg=&SMRRgrp=&SMROrg=&pledges=RecoOnly (May 08, 2018). 552 See HARTLEY, Brett Robert, Rwanda’s Post-Genocide Approach to Ethnicity and Its Impact on the Batwa as an Indigenous People. An International Human Rights Law Perspective, in: QUT Law Review 15/1 (2015), p. 51–70, p. 70. 553 See Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 11. 554 See Ibid., p. 6-7. 555 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 12; Integrated Regional Information Networks, Minorities Under Siege, p. 26; Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 12. 117 thing the Batwa benefited from. However, Batwa are excluded from positions in the executive branch and the security sector, those who matter most.556 Another Batwa who was able to emerge on the political level was Stanislas Mashini, a former executive member of the opposition party RPB. He was sentenced to death in July 1997 after a “grossly unfair” trial.557

When compared to Rwanda, Batwa organizations in Burundi can conduct research, international organizations can freely support them, and they can seek political support. The most notable Batwa organization, Unissons-nous pour la Promotion des Batwa (UNIPROBA), is visible in the local media and its chairperson, former parliamentarian Libérate Nicayenzi, is actively taking up the cause of the Batwa.558 But it is by far not enough to represent the Batwa people sufficient and give them all the necessary help they need. In 2006 only four Batwa were working for other NGOs in the capital Bujumbura. No Batwa was working in the civil service.559

3.3.5. Does it make a Difference? Hardly. Regardless of which country or area we focus on, the Batwa remain to be the most discriminated and marginalized people in Central Africa. The Batwa are solely depending on the current political situation in the country they are living in and the will of the authorities. If there is peace, and the government is properly working, the Batwa are “only” experiencing the traditional socio-economic discrimination. If conflicts occur and escalate, Batwa will be severely affected, regardless if they are actively or passively affected by such. Their dominant neighbors use them either as victims, supporters, or perpetrators. Due to the inferior and im- poverished status, they are often willing to participate in the hope of a better economic future. They are highly dependent on current attitudes and needs by others in such situations. If people see the Batwa expandable or as a hindrance they kill or expel them if they see them as a useful tool for their own purposes they bribe and “help” the Batwa. If people have neither the desire nor urgent need to do both, they ignore or discriminate the Batwa, leaving them at the periphery of society. These are the most common ways of how their neighbors treat Batwa. An exception is the situation in DRC where Batwa fight against their inferior status but with little to no success. However, throughout the analysis, we have also seen people who try to help them and to improve their living conditions. But this is only happening on a small and local scale.

556 See Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 17-20. 557 See REYNTJENS, Filip, Burundi. Prospects for Peace. Minority Rights Group International report, London 2000, p. 20. 558 See Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 9. 559 See Integrated Regional Information Networks, Minorities Under Siege, p. 20. 118

According to Zephyrin, 99 percent of the Batwa population in Rwanda were illiterate in the early 2000s. Very few had visited a primary or secondary school.560 Lewis stated that only 0.5 percent of Batwa of the Great Lakes Region had full secondary education in 2000.561 Due to malnutrition and lack of primary health care they were considered as mentally retarded. They had no formal presentation and no land. Even after the Genocide in 1994 when UNHCR and other NGOs “flooded” the country no one thought of the Batwa, because these NGOs relied on the local authorities telling them who should benefit from their aid. They argued that Bat- wa do not have any problems and if houses would be built for them they would quickly be ruined because of lack of maintenance.562

Until today Batwa have struggled to ensure their rights to land and housing. Prejudice, discrimination, violence, and general exclusion from society is still common and not an exception. In Rwanda, there is still only one Batwa in the Senate. No one is serving in other notable institutions. Other Batwa, who meet the education requirements for becoming elected (six years of education) have almost no possibility to receive enough support by non-Batwa. In 2015, 77 percent of the Batwa in Rwanda were still illiterate,563 compared to 48 percent of the general population.564 Of the six adult people I interviewed, only one had secondary education (P6). Just a few of the children went to school. In a larger family (three generations and 17 children) only four went to school. The rest had to work. Other cases were similar, and some who had been at school received primary education only. In cases in which all children were able to go to school the struggle of paying the school fees was always present. This is the underlying reason as to why many will be unable to attend higher classes or university in future.565 In addition to this, many Batwa children in all four countries faced historically discrimination in school:566

“I had a horrid teacher in P3 [third year of primary school]. One day I came late. He asked me why I was late so I told him. He sent me home. When he called me back he beat me so badly that I cried the whole day. He told me I

560 See Zephyrin, Case study 1: Rwanda, p. 50-51. 561 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 15. 562 See Zephyrin, Case study 1: Rwanda, p. 50-51. 563 See Cultural Survival, Observations on the State of Indigenous Human Rights in Rwanda in Light of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, p. 6. 564 See Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 11. 565 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 566 See Elmhirst, Africa, p. 114. 119

would just have to become a beggar like all the other Batwa and sent me home again. Even now when I see him I feel so frightened.”567 As a result of this discrimination and being not able to afford the school fees, the dropout rate is exceptionally high: In 2015 95 percent of Batwa children in Rwanda were able to attend primary school, but only 45 percent attended secondary school and only 5 percent university.568 In 2006, 200 Batwa in Burundi visited a secondary school, only six Batwa attended university.569 The rest is caught in a circle of marginalization that only few can escape:

“The high levels of poverty correlate directly to the high levels of illiteracy. And, because of the high levels of illiteracy, participating in politics is cur- rently inconceivable for many Twa. Many Twa children face discrimination in school and are often chased away from the classroom.”570 But even Batwa who are educated have problems to find an adequate job. The result is that many go back to pottery and remain poor. They are not able to inspire others to achieve and education. Instead, uneducated Batwa opt not to go to school as they see no point in it.571

Because the Rwandan government does not recognize the Batwa as indigenous, few policies and programs exist to protect and promote Batwa rights (or merely considering them):572 “The Batwa are unfortunately not merely omitted on paper but also in reality.”573 Many general development programs have a largely negative impact on Batwa communities instead of a positive one. Especially housing programs are often used to demolish Batwa houses.574 On a frequent basis, officials referred Batwa as “ignorant” and not capable of benefiting from government assistance:575

“We can’t accuse the high authorities of mistreating us, no. The problems are all with local authorities. The chef de colline [chief local administrator] tries to stop anything we do. He hopes that the Batwa will never learn to write. He wants us to remain in our misery and stay as beggars. He sends

567 Batwa girl aged 16, Burundi, July 1999, cited in: Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 15. 568 See Cultural Survival, Observations on the State of Indigenous Human Rights in Rwanda in Light of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, p. 4-6. 569 Statement by Liberate Nicayenzi, according to a UNICEF report, see Integrated Regional Information Net- works, Minorities Under Siege, p. 30. 570 Cultural Survival, Observations on the State of Indigenous Human Rights in Rwanda in Light of the UN Dec- laration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, p. 6. 571 See THE INDEPENDENT (Kampala), Rwanda's Twa Challenge. Available at: http://allafrica.com/stories/ 201701090623.html (Mar. 17, 2018). 572 See Huggins, 4. Rwanda, p. 20; Mc Dougall, Report of the independent expert on minority issues, p. 16; Un- represented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 11. 573 Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 10. 574 See Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 15; Mc Dougall, Report of the independent expert on minority issues, p. 16. 575 See Mc Dougall, Report of the independent expert on minority issues, p. 16. 120

people, officials, to arrest us for no reason. For me, I’m one of their favour- ite victims. All I need do is go to the other side of the hill and I’m arrested.”576 Many Batwa have internalized the negative stereotypes which are reinforced by the discriminatory behavior of their neighbors.577 Some even try to use this to their advantage. Such Bat- wa encourage their neighbors to feel pity for them which increases their success when begging. Others feign ignorance and stupidity, so they can avoid responsibilities or obligations that inconvenience them.578 Taylor describes how a Batwa man used all the stereotypes of his people. Thereby he concludes that: “In effect, the Twa man, like so many of his compatriots, appears trapped in the endless cycle of reproducing the very ethnic classiﬁcations that he is trying to escape.”579

Food security is still problematic in Rwanda and is seriously affecting the Batwa. The child mortality rate and miscarriage is around 58 percent, mainly due to malaria and malnutrition.580 Thomson also mentions that during her fieldwork she saw evidence of starvation on a regular basis:

“[…] several of my research participants as well as their children exhibited symptoms of kwashiorkor and marasmus (both forms of malnutrition marked by lack of protein in the diet). Their hands and faces were weath- ered and gave the appearance of an older age than their biological years.”581 Access to primary healthcare and clean water is still luxury. The medicaments are just too expensive. Even in the free health care system of Rwanda Batwa cannot afford to pay the necessary ten percent of the total costs due to their impoverishment. The water provided is either dirty which causes waterborne diseases or Batwa are not allowed to use the same draw water from public wells at the same time as others.582 Statistics from 2004 show that the Batwa in Rwanda relied twice as much on unsafe sources of water as the national average. More recent statistics are not available.583

576 Batwa man aged 40, Burundi, July 1999, cited in: Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 16. 577 See Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 10; Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 13. 578 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 13-14. 579 Taylor, Mutton, Mud, and Runny Noses, p. 215. 580 See Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 12-13. 581 Thomson, Ethnic Twa and Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Policy, p. 318. 582 See Integrated Regional Information Networks, Minorities Under Siege, p. 20; Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 13, 17. 583 See Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Alternative Report to CESCR – Rwanda E/C.12/RWA/2-4, p. 13. 121

Although the Rwandan government implemented several policies to improve the lives of the Batwa a COPORWA report of 2014 concluded that:

“[…] households visited are facing include extreme poverty, landlessness, inaccessibility to services delivered coupled the absence of their participation in decision making, and above all the their [sic!] feeling of being disre- garded and marginalized to the extent of marginalizing themselves as less humans than other Rwandans.”584 The African Commission’s Working Group on Indigenous Populations/ Communities concluded similar four years earlier.585 The documentaries of VICE, Böhlmark, and The Guardi- an, news by the BBC, and the website of ADRA show identical problems in Uganda and were already mostly addressed in chapter 3.2.5.586

It is possible to make the statement that although the political situation in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and DRC are different for the Batwa in the past years, the overall socio-economic discrimination and marginalization remains mostly the same. This is especially true when looking at it from a historical perspective as Vandeginste and Ndahinda pointed out.587 The socio-economic and political inferior status of the Batwa roots too deep in society as it could be erased within a couple of years:

“Burundi’s Batwa clearly benefitted from the negotiated settlement of an armed conflict […]. At the same time, it is obvious that guaranteed political representation is no panacea for problems related to inequality in development opportunities or to discrimination of a group that has traditionally been marginalized in society.”588 Especially in DRC, the situation nowadays is more likely to be comparable with the conditions in the other three countries during their conflict periods.

Improvement exists even though it is a slow process, on a small scale. The literacy rate is improving despite the concerns and fears of many Batwa. Several (small and low paid) projects have been established to employ, educate, and support Batwa communities. For example, in Uganda today around 40 percent of the Batwa have received enough land to do subsistence

584 COPORWA, The Socio-Economic Situation of the Historically Marginalized People in Rwanda 2014, p. 51. 585 See Ntakirutimana and Collin, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’, p. 7. 586 See VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda; Böhlmark, The Fog of Bwindi; The Guardian, Batwa: Uganda and the Human Story behind Gorilla Tourism | Guardian Features; TRENCHARD, Tommy and MARRIER D'UNIENVILLE, Aurelie, BBC News - The dark side of Uganda's gorilla tourism industry. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37034248 (Mar. 16, 2018); ADVENTIST DEVELOPMENT AND RELIEF AGENCY (ADRA), Uganda - Hilfe für das Volk der Batwa - ADRA. Ein Leben am Rande der Ge- sellschaft. Available at: https://www.adra.at/project/batwa-uganda/ (Mar. 17, 2018). 587 See Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 12. 588 Vandeginste, Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain, p. 21; Ndahinda, Indige- nousness in Africa, p. 248. 122 farming.589 According to UNIPROBA, the Burundian Senate acknowledged in 2008 that Bat- wa should be helped regarding schooling and land ownership. After Burundi ratified the UNESCO Convention on Discrimination in Education, Batwa children are the first time allowed to sit together with Bahutu and Batutsi children in classrooms. It is reported that discrimination in schools has decreased since then.590 According to UNPO, improvement can be seen on the Batwa in Rwanda due to such small-scale projects.591 Other noteworthy NGOs, besides all local Batwa organizations (an overview of them is on the MRG-website), are the Forest People’s Programme, Survival International, Minority Rights Group, Norwegian Church Aid, Adventist Development and Relief Agency, and some other church groups.592 However, the process could be vastly improved and speeded up because otherwise “The Bat- wa cannot survive […] presumably they will become assimilated in society at the margins.”593

3.3.6. Who cares? “It’s so sad, there is no way to address the issues we’re facing. At the moment, I’m not even sure anyone else cares about helping us. It is sad because everyone expects a resolution. It’s sad, but we have no one to go.”594 In this chapter, I will focus on the academic and NGO community and how both have responded to the situation of the Batwa in the past. However, when referring to the academic community, I will focus on popular examples of historical and political (western) publications, simply because they are numerous, well-known, and influential. In the following examination I will ask the following three questions:

• Are the Batwa mentioned in the first place? • If yes, how and to what extent? • What are the probable reasons for their exclusion?

The food for thought of this chapter provided me with one statement from Alison Des Forges in her HRW report about the Rwandan Genocide. But first a general statement of HRW in the preface of this report:

“We [HRW] stand with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, […]. We investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers ac-

589 See Adventist Development and Relief Agency, Uganda - Hilfe für das Volk der Batwa - ADRA. 590 See Elmhirst, Africa, p. 95-96. 591 Author, Interview with UNPO official. 592 See Willis, Forgotten People in a Remembered Land: The Batwa and Genocide, p. 143. 593 Ibid. 594 John Rwubaka, Batwa leader, cited in: VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda, 12:34-13:05. 123

countable. We challenge governments and those who hold power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law.”595 That means, theoretically, that this report should somehow include the Batwa because they were discriminated against long before this Genocide. Yes, they are mentioned, explicitly in one paragraph (in other cases only when it is said “Hutu, Tutsi and Twa”) containing some general information about the Batwa and ending with the sentences: “During the genocide, some Twa were killed and others became killers. Because Twa are so few in number and because data concerning them are so limited, this study does not examine their role.”596 A thousand-page long HRW report has no intention to talk about a group of which 30 percent of their population was killed, and another 30 percent fled the country although they say that they are standing with such victims. But why?

Firstly, 30 percent of the Batwa population is relatively more than “some”. Secondly, it is false to state that the data was “limited” when this report was written. The UNPO report597 alone contains enough “data” and Lewis and Knights report598 contains enough testimonies to write a few pages regarding this topic. Of course, it can be argued that it was not the focus of this report or that the resources were not enough to cover them, but it should at least be possible to cite or refer to these reports. Especially in the time of the internet and when you already decided to write a paragraph by ending it with “this study does not examine their role”. This indicates that you know that they exist and were victims as well, but you do not want to write about them. Twagilimana and Jessee, for example, show that it is easily possible to include the Batwa at least a little bit in such research.599 Thomson can also address that the Batwa were victims of the Genocide:

“A third of Rwanda’s ethnic Twa population – some ten thousand people – also met their end. As members of a marginal minority group […] the Twa played no visible political role in society. They were still affected, as they too live with the politicization of ethnicity.”600 Thirdly, why is a human rights activist using the argument “few in number” as an excuse for not covering the Batwa? Is it not worth mentioning if “only” some 30,000 were killed in a Genocide? It is not achievable to answer this question adequately because to achieve a correct response; it would be necessary to personally ask Des Forges, a task which is no longer possi-

595 Des Forges, "Leave None to Tell the Story", preface. 596 Ibid., p. 34. 597 Overeem, Batwa Final Report. 598 Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda. 599 See Twagilimana, The Debris of Ham; Jessee, Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda. 600 Thomson, Rwanda, p. 24. 124 ble. However, Willis helps and argues that “size matters”. However, other aspects matter as well: “After all, the deaths of 10 Belgians received considerable international attention.”601 Which brings us to another question, asked by Goldhagen in the context of Genocide: “[…] why do we value the life of an American (or in Germany a German, in the United Kingdom a Briton, in Italy an Italian, in Japan a Japanese) so much more highly than African or Asian lives […]?”602 He furthermore vehemently condemns the international community of not rais- ing enough awareness and using concrete actions against types of mass slaughter and mass murder. Ironically Goldhagen fails to mention the Batwa when addressing the Rwandan Gen- ocide although he later cites Dallaire’s statement that 320 mountain gorillas would become more international attention if someone decided to wipe them out.603 Fourthly, in the same paragraph of the HRW report another statement is made: “[Batwa are] physically distinguish- able by such features as their smaller size, […]”604 The “smaller size” or “pygmy” argument is used by many and I will examine this later in more detail. But why writing “such features”? Is there something else that she thinks about them but does not want to write or is it just a phrase of laziness or ignorance? It seems that she did not care at all about the Batwa in this report. Not only in general terms but also in the little paragraph that she was writing about them. Instead of making a plain short and clear statement, she uses discriminatorily and marginalizing terms to justify her non-attention on the Batwa. She is among many.

Now some examples in popular research: Mamdani spends in his book 100 pages on “race”, political identities, and origins of Rwandan society. But he only includes Bahutu and Batutsi. The Batwa are not a matter of interest. During his examination he caught himself on this problem of marginalization without realizing it: “The Twa were short, like pygmies. […] Since the Twa were insignificant numerically, hardly a few percentage of the population, attention focused in the Hutu and the Tutsi.”605 He clearly mentions that they are insignificant in most researches because of their few numbers. And he is actually one of them. Size obviously somehow matters in research. Mamdani furthermore does not even bother to mention the Batwa in the Index. A German example: When Hankel discusses the origins of Bahutu, Batut- si and Batwa he states without hesitation that the Batwa are small, “pygmies”, insignificant in history because of their small population and therefore not relevant enough to be considered in any further explanations:

601 Willis, Forgotten People in a Remembered Land: The Batwa and Genocide, p. 137. 602 Goldhagen, Worse than War, p. 249. 603 See Ibid., p. 260. 604 Des Forges, "Leave None to Tell the Story", p. 34. 605 Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, p. 44. 125

“[…] die Gruppe der >>Twa<<, kleinwüchsige, oft als Pygmäen bezeichne- te Menschen, kann hier unberücksichtigt bleiben, weil sie mit maximal einem Prozent der Gesamtbevölkerung zahlenmäßig nicht ins Gewicht fiel und auf der Fortgang der Geschichte keinen Einfluss hatte […]“606 Temple-Raston addresses the Batwa shortly: “The Twa, a forest people, known for their pottery and representing about 3 percent of the population, were not party to the argument. They were left to their own devices.”607 Although she uses the term “forest people” no more information about the Batwa is given in this book. She leaves them “to their own devices”. Similar is the case with Reyntjens, in one paragraph he shortly addresses the problem of CAURWA because of their name and how it conflicted with the law and that the Batwa are marginalized in general. Why they are marginalized remains unclear.608 The same is happening in Gourevitch’s book. It is only shortly addressed that the Batwa are marginalized and make up less than one percent of the population.609 Prunier spends focus on the Batwa two times. The first time he gives a citation where the Batwa are defined as the bottom of the society.610 On another occasion he cites a description of De Lacger (1959) indirectly with the words “the scruffy Twa pygmies.”611 The complaint here is that he obviously mentions two enormous important aspects about the Batwa (“bottom of society” and “scruffy pygmies”) but fails to give any context or information on it. Kiernan is doing similar; he says that “Rwanda and Bu- rundi, […], each compromised a Hutu majority and a Tutsi minority along with a smaller group of Twa, often called ‘pygmies’.”612 The main hypothesis of his book Blood and Soil is that “land” is a main source for Genocide and Extermination but he is not able to acknowledge that the Batwa always have been victims of this and were casualties too in the Rwandan Genocide. But it seems important enough to note that they are often called “pygmies”. Uvin states: “The longest-standing inhabitants of the region are the Twa, a small and marginal group (only 1 percent of the population) engaged primarily in pottery making and hunting.”613 He already mentions that they are marginalized, without realizing that he is contributing to it because he does not include the Batwa in his work. Although his topic is international development aid, including chapters such as Poverty and Inequality, The Forces of

606 HANKEL, Gerd, Ruanda. Leben und Neuaufbau nach dem Völkermord: Wie Geschichte gemacht und zur offiziellen Wahrheit wird, Springe 2016, p. 118. 607 TEMPLE-RASTON, Dina, Justice on the Grass. Three Rwandan Journalists, Their Trial for War Crimes and a Nation's Quest for Redemption, [Place of publication not identified] 2014, p. 10. 608 See REYNTJENS, Filip, Political Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda, Cambridge 2013, p. 74-75. 609 See GOUREVITCH, Philip, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families. Stories from Rwanda, New York 1998, p. 47. 610 See Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p. 6. 611 See Ibid., p. 14. 612 Kiernan, Blood and Soil, p. 555. 613 UVIN, Peter, Aiding Violence. The Development Enterprise in Rwanda, West Hartford 1998, p. 14. 126

Exclusion, Prejudice and Humiliation, etc. These aspects literally define the whole fade of the Batwa since pre-colonial times but later he writes: “In a country like Rwanda, where the culture and the language are very different from those of almost all technical assistants, and where intermediaries of all kinds are always present, it is hard to hear voices of poor farmers, women, Twa, and so on.”614 Not knowing the language seems as is his excuse for not taking the Batwa into account although it relates to all people of Rwanda.

One last example: Sinema even names a chapter The Origins of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa but then writes in the very first paragraph: “[…] very little research or data is available on their origins [of the Batwa]. While Tutsi and Hutus intermarried, neither group mixed socially or intermarried with the Twa.”615 And continuing two paragraphs later: “For the purposes of this chapter, we shall dispense with further discussion about the Twa, as they are a very small minority of the population and were not central to the development of the societal structure on Rwanda prior to the Genocide.”616 When you are writing the “Origins of…” you honestly should consider all groups that you are mentioning in the title. But obviously size and historical significance matter (again) more. Furthermore, the statements made are false. It is wrong that there was no intermarriage. Yes, they only have been few, but they existed. In 2015 more than enough data was available on the Batwa. Technically I could write a whole dissertation about the Batwa only by using the existing literature. It is also not true that the Batwa were of no importance in Rwandan history. However, analyses still have different perceptions on the Batwa’s exact role in the various kingdoms of Rwanda.617

These researchers are examples of how you can do considerable damage and contribute to the discrimination and marginalization of people with little effort. With the constant arguments that they are “pygmies”, the small quantitative size of the Batwa population, the “non- existing” data, their insignificance and other heedless, sometimes even false, statements Bat- wa are discriminated and marginalized in the academic sphere and pushed to the periphery of research interest: “While serious literature tends to include the Twa in discussing the context of Rwanda, lack of detail makes them as peripheral in the literature as they are in political and economic life – they are short on status.”618

614 Ibid., p. 156. 615 Sinema, Who Must Die in Rwanda's Genocide?, p. 46. 616 Ibid. 617 See Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 493. 618 Willis, Forgotten People in a Remembered Land: The Batwa and Genocide, p. 130. 127

The (unintentional) institutional racism and racism of symbolic elites as described by van Dijk have great verification here. The reason for this sort of racism in my view is platitudinous: It is pure laziness or ignorance. The Batwa are not worth mentioning because no one else (other researchers, politicians, media) will particularly care or be interested in this little additional work if been made although it would only take a few more hours or days of additional work. Even more problematic is the search for excuses which makes it only worse by saying they are “insignificant” and “not worth mentioning”. It would be less harmful by simply saying “I will not consider the Batwa in my research”. It would be still problematic but not as much as with all the excuses. Anyway, this laziness, ignorance and (unintentional) racism has a deeply negative impact: The Batwa will remain as a tiny side note in history until they disappear even though they became victims of a Genocide: “Such is the dilemma of the Batwa: to be invisible in their own genocide – part of a wider genocide, which, as a result of media coverage, has become one of the most visible genocides in history.”619

The exclusion of the Batwa is furthermore a simplification of history. Romeo Dallaire and the UN-peacekeeping mission UNAMIR are an excellent example of what happens when no researcher and scholar addresses the Batwa. First of all, he also misses addressing the Batwa in his book Shake Hands with the Devil in any detail.620 But far more important is the fact that when he went to Rwanda, he and his staff were under the impression that Rwanda had one cohesive government and one cohesive rebel side. In other words, that Rwanda only consisted of Batutsi, on the one hand, and Bahutu on the other side.621 An UN-peacekeeping mission fails to understand the social structures because the information they (hastily) picked did not adequately examine the complicated social hierarchy consisting of tribes, families, social, economic and political groups, etc.

Another group of analyses is those who mention the Batwa almost solely in two phrases: “Hu- tu, Tutsi and Twa” (often used multiple times) and “The Twa make up one percent of the population” (or similar) and do not even try to make an excuse or any considerable information. The first example is Dallaire who uses both phrases once each.622 Straus uses both phrases (the first one multiple times) except one time in a footnote where the Batwa are men-

619 Ibid., p. 137. 620 DALLAIRE, Roméo and BEARDSLEY, Brent, Shake Hands With The Devil. The Failure of Humanity in Rwan- da, London 2004. 621 See POWER, Samantha, Bystanders to Genocide, in: The Atlantic Montly, September 2001. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/bystanders-to-genocide/304571/ (Mar. 20, 2018). 622 See Dallaire and Beardsley, Shake Hands With The Devil, p. 533, 543. 128 tioned in a direct citation.623 The same is doing Kiwuwa, in the index he indicates only one page where he mentions the Batwa shortly in the context of ethnicity.624 Melvern even leaves out the population phrase and only uses the first one a couple of times.625 Other examples are Verwimp626 and Hatzfeld and Sontag.627 Barnett does not mention the Batwa a single time.628 Hewlett and Fetcher conclude the result of this exclusion as follows: “Without this research, others will exploit forest foragers and their lands, and economic, political, and social marginalization will increase dramatically.”629

The interest on the Batwa was also close to non-existing when the media was covering the Rwandan Genocide. During my visit to the UNPO archive in Antwerp, I looked through a large folder of news articles containing news of the Batwa and the Ogoni people in Nigeria. The news articles about the Ogoni were numerous and filled almost the whole folder. News articles on the Batwa were only a fraction of it. Just three news articles published in 1994 dealt with the Batwa during the Genocide.630 Only the last one of these articles is a whole page long.

The last group of publications I will focus on is NGO reports which are explicitly dealing with indigenous people and minorities and therefore are focused on the Batwa. In case of Rwanda, these reports tend to target them more frequently, as focus shifted from immediate topics around the Genocide to more long-term issues regarding the nation-building process in recent years.631 However, several of them, and others are using the term “pygmies” for describing Batwa people. NGOs should be aware that this term is probably not the best way in describing these people, but they still do. Examples regarding this problem are Lewis,632 together with Kenrick,633 Jackson,634 IRIN,635 Freeman,636 MRG,637 SI,638 and others.639 All of

623 See Straus, The Order of Genocide, p. 215. 624 See Kiwuwa, Ethnic Politics and Democratic Transition in Rwanda, p. 65. 625 Melvern, Conspiracy to Murder. 626 Verwimp, Peasants in Power. 627 HATZFELD, Jean and SONTAG, Susan, Machete Season. The Killers in Rwanda Speak; a Report, 7. printing, New York 2005. 628 BARNETT, Michael N., Eyewitness to a Genocide. The United Nations and Rwanda, Ithaca 2003. 629 Hewlett and Fancher, Central African Hunter-Gatherer Research Traditions, p. 950. 630 See PRENTICE, Eva-Ann, Rwanda pygmy describes ordeal in war zone, in: The Times Friday, August 19; NORTH, Andrew, Rwanda's forgotten tribe, in: Geographical Magazine, July; NO AUTHOR, The forgotten people speak out, in: [It is not readable which newspaper or magazine it is from but the information is mostly from Survival International], May 6. 631 See Hartley, Rwanda’s Post-Genocide Approach to Ethnicity and Its Impact on the Batwa as an Indigenous People, p. 52. 632 Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region. 633 Kenrick and Lewis, Discrimination Against the Forest People ('Pygmies') of Central Africa. 634 JACKSON, Dorothy, Implementation of international commitments on traditional forestrelated knowledge. Indigenous peoples’ experiences in Central Africa. Forest Peoples Programme, San Jose 2004. 635 Integrated Regional Information Networks, Minorities Under Siege. 129 them are addressing the problems of the Batwa in a sufficient way. Therefore, it is not clear why they use the term “pygmies” for describing the Batwa. Even Lewis himself says that the term is often used in pejorative matters, that it is not possible to describe all Batwa as such and not widely used by Batwa themselves.640 He furthermore states that: “‘Pygmy’ is an academic term designating the small-stature hunter-gatherer and former hunter-gatherer peoples of the equatorial forests and adjoining areas across Central Africa.”641 He refers to the physical characteristic that is conjugated with the term “pygmy”, but it seems that he is ignoring the fact that such features cannot be transferred to all Batwa. Lewis and almost all others do not offer any clear explanation on why they still use this term, especially when they use terms such as “forest people” in the same report. Some, such as Jackson, additionally use the term “pygmy” very inconsistently. In one we can find the term “pygmy” or “pygmies” around 200 times,642 in another one only one time643 and again in another one around 34 times644 (in those with more numbers several findings are among the titles of used literature). Hewlett argues that the term “pygmy” is used in his miscellany because it is popular and easy to recognize. It is however confusing when he states right afterward that especially African officials, but also academics stress out that the term is used in derogatory ways and does not adequately represent all people under this term.645 In the end, the only pro-argument to use the term “pygmy” is the wide international recognition. But I do not think it is desirable to use such a problematic and pejorative term only to receive more attention. It only bolsters already existing stereotypes.

Another problem is wrong facts. However, I only see one as very problematic, and this is the statement about the percentage of deaths of Batwa to Batutsi and Bahutu during the Genocide. Lewis cites himself from an earlier work646 when saying that 30 percent of the Batwa were

636 FREEMAN, Luke, Promoting the Rights of the Batwa Pygmies. Recognition, Representation and Cooperation. Minority Rights Group International (MRG), London 2007. 637 MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP (MRG), Enhancing Batwa Pygmies Leadership in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda & Uganda (2007-2009). Final evaluation Report 2010. 638 SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL, The 'Pygmies'. Available at: https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/pygmies (Apr. 09, 2018). 639 See HEWLETT, Barry S., Hunter-Gatherers of the Congo Basin. Cultures, Histories, and Biology of African Pygmies, Somerset 2014, p. xxiv. 640 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 5. 641 Ibid. 642 Jackson, Implementation of international commitments on traditional forestrelated knowledge. 643 JACKSON, Dorothy, Annual Report 2005. Forest Peoples Project, Moreton-in-Marsh 2006. 644 Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. 645 See Hewlett, Hunter-Gatherers of the Congo Basin, p. xxiv. 646 See Lewis and Knight, The Twa of Rwanda, p. 93. 130 killed, compared to 14 percent of the rest of the population.647 Beswick, Kidd and Kenrick are citing Lewis in later works. With a few stranger mathematics and comparisons, they try to suggest that the Batwa inflicted way more casualties than the Batutsi during the Genocide, by merely putting Bahutu and Batutsi together, as we can see on the example of Kidd and Ken- rick:

“The severe consequences that can result from such discrimination are evident in the numbers of Batwa killed during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. Whilst 14% of the total Rwandan population was killed, 30% of the Batwa were killed, despite making up only between 0.3 and 0.4% of the population.”648 Of course, the percentage is lower when you take the whole population of Batutsi and Bahutu. But when you only look at the Batutsi victims the picture turns drastically: A general consent exists that around 800,000 people were killed during the Rwandan Genocide. Around 500,000 of them were Batutsi.649 The Batutsi made up about 15 percent of the whole population (approximately 6,000,000) back then. If we now reckon the entire Batutsi population out of the entire population, we get the number 900,000 (15 percent of 6,000,000). The percentage of Batutsi victims will be therefore around 56 percent (500,000 Batutsi victims out of 800,000 total victims – see above). If we assume that only 30 percent of the Batutsi (such as the Bat- wa) would have been killed during the Genocide, the number would just be 270,000. It is, therefore, more than evident that the Batutsi were affected way higher by the Genocide than the Batwa. Both, in case of numbers and percentage. Consequently, I do not know why these authors used this strange equation without realizing that they are utterly wrong in the end. Even worse are those who blindly or willingly cited it. There is also no need to exaggerate the percentage of deaths. Because with the arguments of discrimination and marginalization, and that the Batwa were not involved in any mayor politics, we have plenty of arguments to emphasize the role of the Batwa within the Rwandan Genocide, before or after. Maybe they wanted to highlight the fate of the Batwa even more, but when you present wrong facts, the result will not be in favor of these people.

This chapter intended to examine the problems which occur on the academic level or among NGO and human rights researchers. The Batwa are constantly referred as marginal and not worth to be mentioned in a greater context because of their low numbers. Even if they are mentioned the statements are often wrong and the excuses, for not including them in research,

647 See Beswick, Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-genocide Rwanda, p. 495; Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 14; Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 23. 648 Kidd and Kenrick, 0. Overview: analysis and context, p. 14. 649 See Thomson, Rwanda, p. 24. 131 unintentional racist and in the end a result of pure laziness and ignorance. However, several examples show that it is no big deal to include them. Even among NGOs Batwa are labeled as “pygmies” or numbers are exaggerated and often blindly cited. By not presenting right facts or problematic terms no favor will be done either. Charles Uwiragiye, former Executive Sec- retary of APB, said in 1994 that the Batwa are the “forgotten people” and some scholars such as Willis agree on that.650 Cultural Survival even called them “people who don’t exist”.651 But I think this is not true. They are not forgotten, most people (researchers, activists, aid workers, conservationists or officials) know about the existence of the Batwa, but they ignore this fact. They do not care although they know.

3.3.7. Identities But who are the Batwa now? Giving them a strict label or to tell how they identify themselves is difficult to say because they are no homogenous group in whatever category. They are scattered around the area of the Great Lakes and always had different living styles. I therefore will only present terms, labels, and identities which are used by the Batwa people themselves and which are given to them (and that I found during my research). Important to acknowledge here is that identities change and “names often said more about the giver than the receiver. […] By giving him or her a new name, you also may change a person’s identity.”652 So there is no surprise that especially in Rwanda and Burundi many Batwa are somewhat confused about their identity and cannot escape from their negative stereotypes. Some who try to assimilate agree on the negative characteristics of their former traditional lifestyle and others still promote their distinctiveness.653

One of these promoters are Batwa representatives, who generally emphasize the cultural and ethnic distinctiveness of the Batwa people. According to them, Batwa have distinctive dia- lects, a unique culture, and customs. On the other hand, it is often argued that knowledge from their former life as hunters and gatherers is almost lost. Some Batwa wish to go back to the forests,654 others again, particularly the younger generations, are already integrated and were born outside of the forest, raised within the local society and found support:

“Going back there [would be different] for us who were born here at Gatera. We developed a good relationship with the Bahutu living here. […] If I ever

650 See Willis, Forgotten People in a Remembered Land: The Batwa and Genocide, p. 126-127. 651 See Matthews, The people who don't exist, Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, June 2006. 652 Hergum, The First Peoples, p. 10. 653 See Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 11. 654 See Mc Dougall, Report of the independent expert on minority issues, p. 15. 132

go back [to the forest], things would change. There would be a difference, a remarkable one. What’s so special about that place?”655 A young man in Kigali said: “Today, I am no Mutwa anymore. I am a Munyarwanda [a Rwandan] and I want to develop myself. Therefore, I have stopped discriminating myself.”656 For him, it was important to escape being a Batwa due to the inferior status associated to this term. By being a Munyarwanda, he got offered more support by a greater undivided community.657 All my Interviewees were saying that the abolishment of Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa in Rwanda was a good thing. Now people would help them because all are the same. Howev- er, an older woman said they have to be the same because the government said so.658 In a recent survey done by AEGIS 87 percent of the 235 participants said that they identify themselves still as Batwa but even more (95 percent) also identified themselves as Rwandans.659 Many Batwa are still proud of having a distinctive culture but also embrace their multiple identities: “I am a Twa, a Rwandan Twa woman. That is what I want to be called.”660

After I visited a family in Nyabihu district, my translator said that it was quite hard for him to go there because for him these people do not want to be part of Rwandan unity and still want to be different. A friend from Rwanda at the end of the trip told me that especially the older generations (of Impunyus) still have their “old mindset” and will not change anymore.661 Jean Claude, a local government official, gave the following statement regarding this issue:

“Personally, when I see all of these [problems], I say that there is a mental issue... that is to say, in their understanding and knowledge, everything they are given, the first thing that comes to mind is ‘eat’. I am sure if you give them clothes, they would sell them immediately.”662 Nevertheless, all interviewed Batwa said that it is a good thing that their children can go to school now and that they get medical help.663 Batwa in other places often think the same: “At least now our children can go to school.”664 In relation, most are more satisfied outside of the

655 Beatrice Rwubaka, Uganda, cited in: VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda, 10:09-10:48. 656 Young Batwa man, Kigali, cited in: Adamczyk, ‘Today, I am no Mutwa anymore’, p. 186. 657 See Ibid. 658 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 659 See Ntakirutimana and Collin, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’, p. 15. 660 Middle aged Batwa woman, cited in: Adamczyk, ‘Today, I am no Mutwa anymore’, p. 187. 661 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 662 Jean Claude, Local Government Official 1, Nyamagabe, cited in: Ntakirutimana and Collin, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’, p. 11. 663 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 664 John Rwubaka, Batwa leader in Uganda, cited in: VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda, 7:21-7:25. 133 forest although the living conditions are still deficient.665 But without much doubt, a caesura is taking place within the Batwa communities between the old and new generations and if they should uphold their old customs or assimilate into the dominant society:

“We have a song that says, ‘We used to live in the forest, they have taken away our gorillas, our forest. We were pulled out of it and we are settled on new shores. We are lost here.’ And there is another one about that movement that says, ‘Though the government brought us out of that forest, we met other people like Hutus. We share their food and they energize us, and we are happy.’”666 In the scientific sphere, the struggle always existed if it is possible to tell Batwa apart from their fellow neighbors genetically, linguistically and archaeologically.667 Fourshey brings this to the point:

“BaTwa ancestry is one of the great unanswered questions of African history. The various BaTwa communities are distinguished from each other in scholarly literature according to language and culture. […] BaTwa cannot necessarily be traced to a single ancestral community and may have been historically connected to one or all of the aforementioned language families.”668 Many Batwa representatives struggle to represent these different attitudes and the scattered communities. They concentrate on urban areas were the Batwa potter communities are living and are already somehow assimilated into mainstream society. The Batwa that I interviewed were either residing in Nyabihu or Musanze district. The 25-member family in Nyabihu never received help from any Batwa organization. They only got help from the local mayor who gave them land and from the government they recently received a cow. Those in Musanze district said that COPORWA and AIMPO came a year ago with sponsors, but since then nothing happened. One man said that AIMPO is doing a good job but is lacking in resources (he was a former security guard of the organization). However, a 25-year-old woman from this area said that she had never heard of these organizations. An older woman said that the organizations are only for Bahutu and Batutsi and are therefore not helping them.669

In Rwanda, the Batwa are officially labeled as “Historically Marginalized People” (HMP) and some think that this is helping but 74 percent of the AEGIS survey said that HMP is a label of

665 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018); Several Batwa, Uganda, Böhlmark, The Fog of Bwindi, 20:30-20:33. 666 Beatrice Rwubaka, Uganda, cited in: VICE News, Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda, 10:48-11:22. 667 See Kohtamaki, An ethnoarchaeological study of Twa potters in southern Rwanda, p. 299. 668 Fourshey 2004, cited in: Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa, p. 228. 669 Author, Field work in Rwanda (23.03.2018 - 07.04.2018). 134 discrimination, and two-thirds have no idea about the meaning of HMP.670 In DRC we have the problem that the Batwa are also called “Bambuti”. Sometimes they are meant as the same and sometimes they are described as two different people. There is no clear distinction between those two and also no explanation on how both are in relation to similar groups in the regions.671

In all cases, we have still not elaborated if there is a distinctive difference between the potter, forester and fishermen Batwa or how many identify as such in modern times. But we already know that the Impunyus are the most minor ones. However, it is still argued that Batwa want rather to be called “forest people” or “people of the forest”, but does that also include the Batwa potter or only the former Impunyu? In Burundi we know, for example, that many assimilated Batwa want to be called Abaterambere (“people who are developing”). From the fishermen no clear information at all exists: “Very little is known about these small groups. The majority live around Lake Kivu and on Idjwi Island in DRC and some live on the shores of Lake Tanganyika and Lake Rweru. Their numbers are unknown but are unlikely to exceed 3,000–4,000 people.”672 We can also not be sure how long and how many Batwa actually practiced hunting and gathering. Especially when we consider the fact that most Batwa in Rwanda and Burundi are identified as potters in recent times:

“[…] whilst some groups appear to have practised hunting and gathering historically, we are unsure of the time-scale or extent of hunting and gathering amongst the Twa of Rwanda. […] it should not be surprising that the chronology for ‘Twa pottery’ remains unclear.”673 This transition from hunting and gathering to pottery was most likely a gradual one due to the steady loss of land and not an immediate shift. However, much more historical and archaeological research has to be done to clarify this relationship.674

Concerning the claims that they should and want to be called “indigenous” people has also its flaws. Ndahinda asks if they should be recognized as such because they have been the first people or because of their different socio-cultural features.675 This brings us back to the argument that “being indigenous” is mostly used for political reasons. Another possible term that could be used in Rwanda is abasangwabutaka (“first-comers in Rwanda” or “first owner of

670 See Ntakirutimana and Collin, ‘Am I Twa or HMP?’, p. 10-13. 671 See Jackson, Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, p. 36. 672 Lewis, The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, p. 9. 673 Kohtamaki, An ethnoarchaeological study of Twa potters in southern Rwanda, p. 299-300. 674 See Kohtamaki, An ethnoarchaeological study of Twa potters in southern Rwanda, p. 300-301; Blench, Are the African Pygmies an ethnographic fiction?, p. 48. 675 See Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa, p. 248. 135 the land”), but when Adamczyk discussed this with an old Batwa man he answered her: “What sense is there in being abasangwabutaka? That means first owner of the land. I do not care what you call me, as long as my stomach is full. But this name, abasangwabutaka... We do not own any land no more. It has no meaning to me.”676 The identity is therefore often simply connected to practical questions as we can see with other terms such as potters, Impu- nyu or fishermen.677 The term Abahejejwe inyuma n’amateka (“those wo are left behind by history”) is also one that could be thought of but is seen by many as an insult because the term suggests that they do not yet wholly participate in Rwandan nation-building process.678

Whatever the case may be, due to their relatively isolated forest lifestyle in the past and the general exclusion from society afterward, the vast majority have kept to themselves for most of the time.679 As a result, in all four countries, the Batwa share the same historical discrimination and marginalization from most of the population and international actors. Because of this, they have to be seen as a group on their own but with many facets and distinctions within. As the whole society of the region cannot only be divided into Bahutu and Batutsi, the Batwa cannot solely be seen as one homogenous group within strict nation borders. Identities already differ within different communities:

“At the local level, where the rather elitist discourse does not play a decisive role, the question of identity is by no means an apolitical one but is also tied to questions of daily life. Besides, presentation of individual or group identity differs situationally and depends also on the recipient of the identity message.”680 Regardless of this struggle, in the end, those who identify themselves as Batwa or with any other term, or are identified by others by any different political, socio-economic, ethnic or historical characterization, they all have the same interest, desire and need: “After centuries of prejudice and discrimination, the Batwa simply ask to be treated as human beings.”681

4. Conclusion The historical discrimination and marginalization of the Batwa in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and DRC is a multi-layered act and almost unique Sub-Sahara Africa. However, the causes of it are not uncommon if we look on a global scale. From an early time on two different modes

676 Old Batwa man, south-eastern Rwanda, cited in: Adamczyk, ‘Today, I am no Mutwa anymore’, p. 186. 677 See Ibid. 678 See Ibid., p. 185. 679 See Willis, Forgotten People in a Remembered Land: The Batwa and Genocide, p. 131. 680 Adamczyk, ‘Today, I am no Mutwa anymore’, p. 187. 681 Willis, Forgotten People in a Remembered Land: The Batwa and Genocide, p. 144. 136 of life (hunting and gathering, on the one hand, agriculture and pastoralism on the other side) and the resulting diverse cultural, social, economic and political behaviors manifested certain prejudices and stereotypes about “the others”. The first circle of discrimination and marginalization has already resulted in the partly dehumanization and segregation of Batwa from the main society. Their inferior status was used by the Bahutu and the Batutsi as justification to expel the Batwa from their forests due to land and population pressures and also the necessity of food security. Any resistance only encouraged their neighbors to treat the Batwa more unfavorably and to exploit them. On the other hand, Batwa had significant cultural and social roles in cases such as the legitimation of kingship and being part of a king’s court. But any resulting positive effect of this relationship only affected a fraction of the Batwa.

Later, this ongoing discrimination and marginalization was reinforced by the racial theories and perceptions of Europeans who used allegedly physical and biological determinism to underline the inferiority of (former) hunters and gatherers. This racist view was adopted by the local population who saw their initiated discrimination and marginalization of the Batwa confirmed. During colonialism, a new loop with the same results of dehumanization, segregation, and expulsion emerged but (more) physical violence was added. With the Europeans, the Batwa furthermore became not only a “hindrance” for food security of the growing population but the global market on cash crops as well.

When the world found out about their reckless behavior on nature, the “noble” thought emerged of protecting the remaining wildlife from the “dangerous men”. But the “civilized” relation-concept of humanity and nature only allowed separating nature and humans. To combine these two worlds, as most hunters and gatherers societies exercised it, was seen as not achievable. The result was a déjà-vu for the Batwa in the post-independence era. Again, they were seen as the main cause of the problem due to their “backward” and “uncivilized” lifestyle. National and international agents simply ignored the dependency of the Batwa to their forests, leaving them without any compensation at the margin of society.

Ironically, the adaption of a more “civilized” lifestyle and a new collective identity by many Batwa in the form of pottery only strengthened their negative stereotyping as this profession was commonly seen as dirty and impure. On the other hand, a division took place among the Batwa as some saw their former hunter-gatherer lifestyle as the origin for their misery and rejected their fellow Batwa who still stuck to this way of life. Forming a cohesive voice to tackle their inferiority became even harder and was later reflected by the establishment of 137 several Batwa organizations instead of one. None of them was and is able to represent all Batwa (even in one country).

In the Rwandan Genocide (and other conflicts), the circle of discrimination and marginalization reached its peak when Batwa became victims and perpetrators of mass killing. Although the vast majority of Batwa did not participate in politics at any time and had no influence in the political, racial and ethnic discourses, they were sooner or later involved in almost all major conflicts. In case of the Genocide, the Bahutu saw it as the perfect opportunity to eliminate the Batwa “problem” and afterward the RPF targeted the Batwa, as well as some, have been perpetrators during the Genocide. This caused the extermination of one-third of the Rwandan Batwa population. At the same time, the Batwa’s need for reliable income, food, and compan- ionship was used in conflicts frequently to turn them into tools of violence. This willingness to participate was mainly driven by basic needs or force and hardly because of racial or ethnic perceptions. In Rwanda, this created the paradox that the Batwa were henchmen of their own Genocide. Because Batwa were perpetrators in several conflicts, the remaining population received, again, acknowledgment of their negative perception.

Although the Rwandan Genocide received worldwide attention and the aftermath created a relative social and political peace, the situation of the Batwa did not improve much prior to the Genocide. Due to their past discrimination and marginalization, they were denied being recognized as victims of the Genocide. They were not able (and some did not want to, due to past negative experiences) to participate in the government’s aim to a united Rwandan identity. This social exclusion is undermined by the fact that the situation was and is similar in Uganda since decades and in Burundi after peace negotiations succeeded in the early 2000s. The Batwa in all three countries remain the poorest, most uneducated, most unrepresented and most inferior people. In DRC the situation is even worse, but these Batwa withstand their exploitation by force as they still have some sort of independence due to the remaining forest areas. However, if this is a step in the right direction is highly questionable.

It is also debatable if the majority of the Batwa cannot or do not want to integrate or assimilate into mainstream society. Both arguments have their validity though: If we say they cannot, it is due to their existing inferior status, the long existing discrimination and marginalization and the rejection by larger portions of the main population. This is also the very same answer to the second argument: That they do not want to. Because they have been poorly treated for their whole life, we cannot expect that they voluntarily and carefree adapt to the “civilized” way of life without hesitation. Whatever the case may be, some of the younger 138 generations do not have this problem because they have been raised within the mainstream society and reject their former social and cultural distinctiveness. These Batwa want to get rid of the old negative stereotypes and do not want to be associated with their “traditional” lifestyle. The Batwa community is therefore not unified under a collective identity or goal such as promoting either their autonomy or assimilation.

During the exemplary analysis of the international community’s attention and response to this issue, it soon became clear that the Batwa are often seen as too insignificant to be mentioned. Therefore, arguments of laziness and ignorance in different types of writings regarding the Batwa are common. According to these authors, it seems that the Batwa played no vital role in any larger historical, social, economic or political development in the region. This missing “active influence” is maybe true for some periods and areas but the Batwa were always (negative) affected by such events. As a result, this exclusion in research only intensified the discrimination and marginalization of the Batwa as the international community passively and actively reinforced the inferior status of the Batwa. NGO’s and others try to fight this status and to draw attention to these people but sometimes with some questionable methods. Most noteworthy is here the use of the term “pygmy” or “pygmies” as an overall description of the Batwa. The pro-argument is that this term is widely known and calls for more attention, but for what price? Numerous problematic and negative connotations are associated with this term and alone underline the assumption that the Batwa are not only in social and cultural aspects somewhat different to us. As it was already said regarding conservationism and the following removal of the people: Almost all sources for the discrimination and marginalization of the Batwa are somewhat rational reasonable or at least understandable but the following results and acts are not.

139

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6. List of Figures

Figure 1: Distribution of Batwa communities, source: Thiebou (2007), p. VI...... 10 Figure 2: A Circle of Discrimination and Marginalization ...... 32 Figure 3: Population Density 2015 - Data by Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the DG for Regional Development (DG REGIO) of the European Commission...... 47 Figure 4: Comparison of forest areas (dark green - right/above) with national parks and other protection areas (green - left/below) in 2018 - Data by Google Maps ...... 49