Madagascar: strong concerns around the new land law

At its last meeting on 10 November, the Committee's experts exchanged views on recent legislative developments in Madagascar and expressed their concerns regarding the likely adoption of Law 2021-06. This calls into question the recognition of customary land rights and leads to a reversal of the decentralized land management process that had been under way since 2005.

Landgrabs at  gunpoint escalate in Uganda as the operations of a defender of affected communities are suspended

On Friday, 20th August, Uganda's Non-Governmental Organization Bureau suspended 54 organizations for alleged 'non-compliance'. However for multinationals it was time to merry-make as their ‘nemesis’, Witness-Radio, has been cornered.   

Witness Radio - Uganda is a not-for-profit organization that facilitates the provision of legal representation and support to poor and vulnerable victims of land grabs financed by development financing.   

Nepal’s Indigenous peoples have suffered a litany of human rights violations over the past five decades as a result of abusive conservation policies, said Amnesty International and the Community Self-Reliance Centre (CSRC), in a new report published today.

According to human rights activists, an alleged crackdown is happening against those who are vocal against Bahria Town Karachi and the forced acquisition of lands and evictions.

Last month, while Murad Gabol’s two children were sleeping, police raided his house. “We showed them the papers of our home, but they beat us and locked me up in jail,” Gabol said.

Photo: Indigenous people form a human chain in Tangail district, Bangladesh as they demand legal rights to their ancestral forest land. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

TANGAIL, Bangladesh, Jul 7 2021 (IPS) - When the Bangladesh Forest Department felled Basanti Rema’s banana orchard, Rema, a Garo indigenous forest-dweller of Madhupur Forest, felt she was living a nightmare.

Several families along river Nile in Jinja are on the brink of losing ownership of their land as preparations for redevelopment of the area take centerstage. The residents however claim the investor, Heritage Site Uganda, has no authority over their land. Buikwe Resident District Commissioner, Jane Francis Kagayi has since asked the investor to liaise with the physical planner's office to establish facts about the land in order to avoid future land wrangles.

Kiryandongo – Uganda – As natives continue to resist illegal evictions, multinational companies opt to hire livestock as a new tactic to forcefully evict smallholder farmers from their land.

In the recent years, commercial banks have widened categories of assets that are considered for secured lending perhaps due to improved measures of risk mitigation.

Of particular interest has been the Bibanja Interests on land which the commercial banks now accept as collateral for secured lending.

Kiryandongo – Uganda – A team of police detectives attached to the Land Protection Unit, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), and the Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) have arrested a senior lands officer, Kiryandongo District Land Board for land fraud that caused a forced displacement of thousands of natives off their land.

The Agriculture Development Corporation (ADC) is involved in a scuffle with residents of Kaskini, Kilifi County.

A report by the Nation on Monday, June 14 stated that the government parastatal is claiming ownership of 900 Acres which the residents state to have been given to them by the government in 2006.

The dispute began in 2014, when ADC laid claim to the land which had been occupied by locals for decades. 

Opondo Cathy, (not real name due to the sensitivity of the matter), has never owned even a small radio in her entire life. This is a clear indication that the villager may not be aware of critical developments in the country. And this does not come as a shock, since the first time she heard the news of the COVID-19 in Uganda was when she visited her neighbor who’s 500 meters away from her home, barely a month after Uganda had even registered a first case COVID-19.

A three-judge bench has begun hearing a petition in which the Ogiek community has sued the government for evicting them from Mt Elgon Forest.

The Ogiek community living in Chepkitale in Mt Elgon Forest says the government erred in evicting them from the land and gazetting it as a national game reserve.

Community members say they have occupied the land since 1932 after colonialists chased them away from their farms in Trans Nzoia.

Their case is being heard by judges Boaz Olao, Stephen Kibunja and Nelly Matheka.