Recognition of indigenous peoples problematic

There is disagreement in ministerial quarters as to whether the relevant United Nations protocols on the matter, which Tanzania has signed, and in that case the state human rights monitoring agency, the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) has put out an appeal that the government should enact a law to recognise indigenous peoples. That is what it is supposed to do under terms of those protocols as we have signed them.

But at times protocols are signed so as to shorten work among diplomats at the UN, or any other international body, and that is why such conventions must still be crafted (or drafted) into law so as to be part of domestic legislation, as no ‘international legislation’ exists. That is how such protocols clash with intuitions on development, as in the larger part of UN member states and especially the dominant groups of stakeholders when it comes to humanitarian laws have in their history chequered experiences which militate against any qualification on that demand. There are populations that were exterminated when invading groups came from outside, and remain in bits.

The protocol at issue is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), where interestingly enough it is CHRAGG chairman Bahame Nyanduga who put across the viewpoint of the declaration and what has for decades been the government position. He did not quite seem to challenge that position despite that it is clearly at variance with the tone and tenor of the UN declaration, where he pointed out that under the country’s laws, constitution included, all African inhabitants are indigenous. In that case it is hard to create a special category of African inhabitants who qualify for the title of indigenous peoples with special rights thereof.

The usual groups cited under that denomination or inscription are Hadzabe, Tatoga, Tindiga and some little known groups who are either tribes or clans of the more well known hunter-gatherer groups. What is at times captivating is to hear that the Maasai, well scattered across the country as livestock keepers with elaborate claims to the use of land, grazing land that could be marginal, agro-settled land which ought not be disturbed by livestock herds and even in reserved lands as they tend to have more grass than marginal land allocated for livestock keeping. When a protocol seeks that their rights be regarded as special, does that mean other laws ought to be placed aside?

Even for the formally indigenous groups there are times only a sense of particularity that they live in a defined area of some thick bush, or valleys with natural enclosures like the East African Rift Valley as a specific zone. But when such places are linked to roads, dispensaries, schools and tap water, not to talk of crop extension, HIV and other epidemic prevention services, pushing for the rights of girls to attend school and compulsory basic education plus free secondary education for all pupils passing to join secondary school, where does ‘indigenous’ particularity come up? Is there anyone saying that girls of indigenous groups remain at home and receive no education, or these areas should be closed to roads, clinics or small industries because they are indigenous? One has to distinguish right as ability to be treated fairly - not pushed out by some land grabbing or mining company, for instance. Not attending school or clinic isn’t another right.