UGANDA MUST RESPECT RIGHTS OF THE BENET MOSOP

On October 27th, 2005, the Ugandan High Court directed the national government to set aside parts of the Mt. Elgon National Park for the benefit of the Mosop of Benet Mosopisyek, recognizing that community as Indigenous inhabitants of Mount Elgon, and giving them the right to remain in temporary settlements and reclaim their schools and services.

However, eighteen years later, the Government of Uganda has still not enforced the judgment, and in July 2019 passed new regulations (without consulting the affected Indigenous Peoples), that increased penalties for livestock found grazing on what is their own ancestral lands.

In September 2022 the community took legal action against the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) for past human rights abuses, and organized peaceful assemblies to reclaim their land, and since that date the Benet Mosop have been attacked by UWA agents with greater frequency and brutality.

The community relates that the UWA often uses lethal force: shooting or beating community members found within the boundaries of the park or on its outskirts. UWA has also destroyed homes and farms and impounded animals, depriving the people of the community their livelihood.

According to the Benet Mosop, since October 2022, 96 houses have been razed, 70 community members arrested, and 1,295 animals impounded. Among the most grievous violations, on December 28th 2022, a 16 yearold girl was raped by a UWA agent, and on February 10th 2023, a 45 yearold man was killed by Park Rangers when they found him collecting firewood in the Mt. Elgon forest.

The Mount Elgon National Park area was home to the Mosopisyek of Benet Indigenous People well before it was declared a forest reserve in 1920 by the British colonial administration. The British left in 1962, and in 1968 the newly independent Ugandan government declared the area a central reserve, and in 1993 named it Mt. Elgon National Park, all without prior and informed consent  of the Mosopisyek of Benet.

Since the designation of the Mt. Elgon region as a conservation area in 1920, the Ugandan government has assumed primary responsibility for environmental protection, and it is this obligation that is being utilized by the UWA to justify displacing thousands, and preventing the Mosopisyek of Benet from accessing their ancestral lands, and the sacred sites that are an essential element of their cultural history.

Amongst the problems the Benet Mosop face, is that while Article 10 of the 1995 Ugandan Constitution provides citizenship by birth for Indigenous Peoples living within the Uganda boundaries in 1926, the list of Peoples registered does not include all Uganda’s Indigenous communities. The Mosopisyek, for example, were not included, and as a result do not enjoy their full political and socio-economic rights such as  access to public services.