Batwa People of Eastern Congo

The Batwa people were traditionally hunter-gatherers.  In Eastern Congo, they lived off what the forest provided, until prolonged warfare and the creation of national parks ended their way of life.  Neglected by the government, shunned by other ethnic groups, the Batwa live on the margins of Congolese society.  They have no knowledge of agriculture or animal husbandry.  They have never participated in a cash economy.  They live in temporary villages in constant fear of being driven out by real estate developers or the government.  They build their houses out of sticks and leaves and die of things like too much rain.  There are about 3,000 living in the area around Goma.  They want dignity, they want a way to live as others live, but how?  No one can simply give that to them.

In August, I met an American girl in Kigali with a friend named Morgan, a student at the Université de Goma.  On a whim, I went to eastern Congo, ostensibly to climb a volcano and see some gorillas, all  because Morgan knew a guy who knew a guy who could get me a good rate. Morgan also happened to be one of the most extraordinary individuals I've ever met--a law student, an eldest son, the founder of his own NGO, and a good guy to have around the next time Mt. Nyiragongo erupts--and so on a second whim, I made a promise I intend to keep to Morgan and 3,000+ people. Needless to say, I never did get to see the gorillas. 

In a series of posts, learn about the Batwa, the support Morgan's NGO needs to help them, and how I hope to mobilize that support while avoiding all those pitfalls of aid I love to critique, but to which I can offer no easy solutions.

Who are the Batwa?

(copy and pasted from the Wikipedia article)

The Twa, also known as Batwa, are a pygmy people who were the oldest recorded inhabitants of the Great Lakes region of central Africa. Current populations are found in the nations of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2000, they numbered approximately 80,000 people, making them significant minority groups in these countries^[2].

There are also a number of southern "Twa" populations in Angola, Namibia, Zambia, and Botswana living in swamps and deserts far from the forest. These are little studied, and this article will deal only with the Twa of the Great Lakes region.

When the Hutu, a Bantu people, arrived in the region, they subjugated the Twa. Around the 15th century AD, the Tutsi, a Nilotic people, subsequently arrived and dominated both the Twa and the Hutu. The Twa speak the same language, Kinyarwanda, as the Hutu and Tutsi. For several hundred years, the Twa have been a very small minority in the area (currently 1% in Rwanda and Burundi) and have had little political role. [This history of Hutu and Tutsi is disputed by a reader (see below), by the Rwandese government, and by many scholars.  I have yet to find a good presentation of the debate surrounding these definitions, and the problems attendant with them, online, but you might read Mahmoud Mamdani's When Victims Become Killers to learn more about colonialism in the Great Lakes Region and Belgian's role in ossifying these definitions, to disastrous effect.]

The Twa are often ignored in discussions about the conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis, which reached its height in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.^[2]. About 30% of the Twa population of Rwanda died in the fighting.^[3]

Traditionally, the Twa have been a semi-nomadic "hunter-gatherer" people group of the mountain forests. Due to clearing of the forests for agriculture, logging, development projects, or creation of conservation areas, the Twa have been forced to leave these areas and establish new homes. As they seek to develop new means of sustaining their communities (such as agriculture and livestock development) most are currently landless and live in poverty. The ancestral land rights of the Twa have never been recognized by their governments and no compensation has been made for lands lost.

Twa children have little access to education and their communities have limited representation in local and national government. Due to their pygmy ancestry, they continue to suffer ethnic prejudice, discrimination, violence, and general exclusion from society.^[4][5]

The Batwa of Eastern Congo

Morgan's NGO, Action Pour le Developpement des Peuples Defavorises (APDP), runs entirely on volunteer steam.  It was through him that I visited three different pygmy settlements in and around Goma. 

I interviewed Mahor Faustin, the Secretary General of all the Batwa/pygmies in North Kivu.  He was at the first site I visited, a temporary camp of shelters of sticks and leaves, built on land loaned by the Catholic Church.

Here is how he explained the history of his people and how they came to be in their present situation.  This was communicated through an interpreter and translated from old notes, so I've filled in a bit for fluency's sake, but I think it captures his general meaning:

We came here from different places where war was happening.  This land here belongs to the Catholic Church.  We had villages on the lake, but the land was sold by the government to build mansions.  We were living there for nine years, and six months ago, we were forced to move to this temporary place owned by the Catholic Church.  Others came from the highlands.

We used to live in the bush, hunting animals.  We fled to the lake so we could fish.  We don't know how to cultivate.  We have no lands. 

The government tried to end hunting in the national forest--monkeys, baboons, wolves, large snakes, wild cats. 

There is a new site where we hope to build a permanent village [on land granted by the government, thanks to Morgan and his NGO's legal and negotiating skills; there, there is bush, and Morgan's NGO hopes to teach them how to cultivate and teach some professional trades].

Since we were born, we have been hunting in the forest.  Since former times, we have been living in the bush.  We were getting traditional medicine from plants in the forest.  When we were living in the forest, we didn't catch malaria because it was cold.  We prefer to live in the bush because we could pick fruits and eat them with our children.  It produces vitamins, and we don't have disease.  There are potatoes that are natural to the bush.  Now we have no health.   Today pygmies are starving.  We don't have opportunity to hunt or gather fruits.

We don't understand why the government can tell us to leave the forest.  We are ill here; we don't have food. We need to go back to the forest to live there.  And today, as it is forbidden for us, we are struggling to see how we can live.

We need to live with other people, because we need development.  We need our children to go to school.  We need to go into market as other people.  Even to be professionals.  To be integrated in total.

Among all the other tribes, only pygmies are still down.

We are the ancestors of Africa.

The government doesn't recognize us.  We don't know who can help us to solve problems.  White men in NGOs?  The government?  We want your help. 

For example, these women are starving.  The way they are living is really pitiful.  They build a house today, tomorrow it burns down.  Yesterday, 10 houses burnt down.

Other tribes don't like pygmies because we are small in number.  Because we are not many we don't have power.  Everywhere in the world it is the same for pygmies.  Sometimes we wonder, do people disdain us because we were raised in the bush?

We need someone who can helps us, a spokesman.  If not the government, then the UN?  The problem is our government is very weak.

We are still illiterate.  It's only today that we have a few people studying, but we have no school.  We tried to collect our children [on our own], training them to know how to read and write.  Now we have some pygmies who know how to read and write.

But the number of pygmies is decreasing, rather than increasing because of bad living conditions.  The people [foreign organizations] help [other ethnic groups]; they help them because they are the majority.

If we could be allowed to sell in the main market, as other people do, and sell clothes from Dubai, radios from China, we would be happy!

*  *  *

In my next post(s) I'll write about more about the Batwa's specific needs, what Morgan's organization has already done and hopes to be able to do to help them, and the challenges of empowering a group as small and marginalized as the Twa to integrate with the town-dwellers and cultivators who comprise the majority of Congolese in Kivu, not a place known for peace and stability.

Comments

[KB]

Your concern for the people is touching. Let me however, point out that your descriptions of the twa and the other people therein (copied and pasted from a Wiki- so you say) does require alittle more investigation. Pygmies, how many did you actually come across? The 'first' inhabitants' of the region- are you sure? Who are the hutu and tutsi? Are they really classified into the 'bantu' and 'nilotic' mythical groups? Believe in the hamitic groups as well? And how did these different peoples end up with the same language, culture, religion and other ways? If the source of humans is believed to be the great lakes region, is it logical that you had them coming in rather than going out to other areas? would people have logically moved from the highlands towards the valleys following the flow of the Nile or viceversa? The north parts of Africa are cliamed to have formed from the water over time, how then would people have come from the north southwards? Jennifer as an Afro optimist, isn't it worth you finding out more on the peoples before re-affirming misrepresentations? These are questions you need to ask yourself before further fueling ethnic mindsets, particulary in the great lakes region. Thank you, and keep blogging.

[Jennifer Brea]

Hi KB. I met several hundred people when I was in Goma, and when they say they came from the highlands, they don't mean historically, as in thousands of years ago, they mean in the last generation, as in the older members of the group remember living in the mountains near Goma before the very recent creation of the gorilla preserve and the national park, etc.

As for the actual differences between Hutu and Tutsi and whether they are biological, historical, cultural, political, or just plain imagined, that is a hornet's nest of a conversation I don't want to touch on this blog post for anything! The nilotic myth goes against everything I've read, but for whatever reason, is a persistent myth that has been related to me by Rwandans themselves and by Somalis in Kenya, Uganda, etc. As an outsider, I am really not in a position to refute it, defend it, promote it, or reject it. But I am fully aware of the reasons why those definitions and that history are contested. My apologies for not thoroughly reading the Wikipedia definition before posting it. That was sloppy of me, and I have flagged the potential problems with it.

The rest-- hunting-gathering, discrimination, disenfranchisement--are to my knowledge and the knowledge of others, completely accurate.

To suggest (or rather directly make) changes to the Wikipedia definition of Twa, you can join Wikipedia. Why don't your post your concerns on the article's talk page? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Twa

Your comment about the hamitic myth was gratuitous and offensive.

Moving on?

[KB]

Thank you for the comments Jennifer. Apologies for sounding offensive (hamitic...). All i meant to mention is the same breathe of (mis)classification as is bantu and nilotic. So sorry. Like u, these myths go against all i have read, in which case querying becomes a wider issue not just for 'insiders'. Afterall the myths, as far as i have read, most suited 'outsiders'! Out of interest were all the hundreds yo met actually pygmies in the actual sense of the term?

Moving on, certainly yes!

[Jennifer Brea]

The hamitic myth dig stung only because it was used in America to justify the enslavement of Africans, so I suppose it hit a little close to home. Thank you for reading and for critiquing; it's good to be kept on my toes.

I don't know what you mean by "actual" pygmies. This is what these people called themselves and international groups, I believe, consider them an indigenous people.

Whatever their origin or history, it's clear that their situation and the challenges they face are distinct from other groups living in that area.

[KB]

How sad! Same classifications were used, and still do divide Africans to this day.

By 'actual' pygmies i meant as per definition of a pygmy (a member of a race of dwarfs and/or a member of any of various peoples, especially of equatorial Africa ..., having an average height less than 5 feet (152 centimeters)0. source: answers.com].

The 'indigenous' label is one open to question; there are reports of Pygmies as far as Egypt (Ancient). The idea that humans originated in the African great lakes region itself does get one querying 'indigenous' labels. True, the challenges the people in that region are enormous, and so are other seemingly isolated areas like Karamoja in the past.

[willtogood]

please post morgans website info etc