NGO WORK

Benet residents battle disability meted by UWA

Published

6 years ago

October 27, 2020

Kween, Uganda About 15 Kilometers away from Kween town lies Kwortow village in Kwosir sub-county, which is adjacent to Mount Elgon National park. 45-year-old, Alex Sorowen, a father of five children is one of the residents of the village. Donned in a brown blue jacket and a pair of brown shorts, Sorowen limped on crutches to the spot where he was meant to meet our reporter for an interview.

He sat down on a rough and dusty bench, which had some chicken dropping he struggled to clean before the interview. Sorowen explained to URN how he ended up with the permanent disability. “In 2015, while I had gone to graze my cattle on the peripheries of the park boundaries, this is when from a distance, I saw Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers and due to fear, I decided to run away and in the process, they (rangers) shot at me rupturing my right leg,” he said.

According to Sorowen, the bullet lodged in his right leg and that he was unable to walk. “I was left in the bushes for dead. Nobody among the rangers cared even to check on me despite reeling in deep pain. I on that fateful day struggled for my dear life in the forest alone,” he said.

He says the rangers reported the matter to a nearby police post indicating that they had shot and injured someone in the forest and that he needed some help. According to Sorowen, it is then that police informed the community members about the fateful incident. “Community members came running to the forest to rescue me and found me totally abandoned in deep pain, they then took me to the nearest health facility in Benet,” he said.

He was referred to Kapchorwa General Hospital. The teary Sorowen told URN that he was advised to see Dr. John Ekure, an orthopaedic at Kumi Orthopedic Hospital where he was amputated of his right leg. According to Sorowen, he has sold off almost everything he had to meet the medical bills yet he is the sole breadwinner of his family but has been rendered useless. Sorowen now survives on handouts from well-wishers in the community who have kept soliciting for him basic needs like food and other items.

He faults the management of the park for failure to take over his medical bills yet he is suffering due to the action of their rangers. Over time, UWA, which is mandated to manage national parks and wildlife in the country has been at loggerheads with the community over the park boundaries resulting from encroachment. Residents say they have any land to live on and cultivate crops for a living.

As a result, many lives have been lost and injured on the side of the community and UWA. Like Sorowen, 36-year-old Janet Chebet, another resident in Karatow village too has tested the wrath of the UWA rangers. She told URN that she has had difficulties passing urine due to a broken bladder resulting from several injuries inflicted on her by UWA rangers. According to Chebet, in August this year, she was badly assaulted by rangers who found her tending to her farmland that borders the park.

“It was from the beatings that I sustained at the park on that day that affected by bladder to-date,” she told our reporter. Police medical examination forms that URN has obtained show that Chebet’s bladder and her lower abdomen were injured. This, according to Chebet is the sole cause of her current experience.

She has since been advised by medical experts not to stop engaging in heavy work like tiling land. According to Chebet, she currently unable to provide for her family.

David Mande, a resident of Kween told our reporter that since the government ordered the eviction of the Benet people from their ancestral land, the Benet have faced hard life at the hands of the rangers who keep raping their women and daughters while beating and shooting men.

“Over the years the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has terrorized this community burning homes, beating and killing people while several others have been arrested for grazing their animals in the park and trying to demand for their land,” Mande said.

He says the community appreciates the fact that the area was gazette National Park but the government needs to fulfil the court’s maiden ruling of resettling the people on the 2250 hectares of land that was degazetted from the park.

Wrangles between residents and UWA date back to 1983 when the first degazettement was done. There are two contradicting boundary lines of 1983 and 1993. The Benet sub-county asked for land for resettlement in 1983. In the spirit of being a custodian of its citizens, the government gave it to them but in 1993, they created another line, which triggered confusion.

The law on grazing animals in the park has escalated the clashes since many of the people injured are found in the park while grazing their animals. The owner of the animals is fined Shillings 50,000 for every head of cattle that is impounded from the park. This, the community says has impoverished them since several animals are impounded from the park each day. Those who don’t pay or bribe the officials lose their animals for good.

Jackeline Sangay, the Kwosir and Kitwoi sub-county woman Councilor, says that as leaders they have severally presented petitions expressing the grievances of the people to the district councilor for possible redress in vain.

Sangay says people around the park are ignorant about the fine since it didn’t go through the local leadership in the district.

She adds that, the UWA rangers have meted all sorts of atrocities to the communities around the park including raping the women and their daughters and this now has left the majority of the people live in a state of fear to speak out about their untold suffering for fear of losing their marriages.

Fredrick Kiiza, the Chief Warden of Mount Elgon National Park has dismissed the allegations of torture by the rangers, saying the impasse in the park especially in Kween District is motivated by politicians and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

“The Impasse in Kween, is politically motivated, it’s the disgruntled politicians who keep promising residents things that they cannot deliver,” he reasoned. Adding that “Its these organizations like Solidarity and Action Aid that are doing public accountability to their funders but we shall not accept as UWA to be fooled, you enter the park we shall crush you, that is a protected area for Ugandans, not an individual.”

He, however, hastens to add that there could be a few errant rangers who have meted the atrocities on the locals but it isn’t sanctioned by UWA.

Kiiza says the resettlement on the landless people that was ordered by the court was meant to be done by the Office of the Prime Minister and not UWA.

Source: The independent.

NGO WORK

The Great “Green” Heist: When Artificial Intelligence and Arms Dealers Seize the Minerals of the South

Published

3 weeks ago

August 4, 2026

witnessradio.org

By Franck Zongwe Lukama, Congolese journalist and researcher, leads the independent media KilaloPress in DRC.

We were sold a simple equation: to save the planet, we must dig. Dig faster, deeper, extracting from the earth the cobalt, lithium, or copper needed for solar panels and electric vehicles. Yet, this climate rescue rhetoric conceals a staggering statistical deception. Today, 70% of global demand for critical minerals does absolutely nothing to support the energy transition. These resources end up in aerospace, communication technologies, and, above all, weaponry. Sectors that, ironically, exacerbate the global ecological crisis. The green revolution has become the perfect smokescreen, the moral veneer for a very different kind of war.

Far from the promises of sustainable development touted by the World Bank, the current scramble is driven by a strict logic of geopolitical power. A damning report from the California-based Oakland Institute exposes this global scheme. The report reveals an unprecedented and formidable convergence of interests between the American military-industrial complex and the giants of Silicon Valley. With the Pentagon openly pivoting toward a combat strategy focused on artificial intelligence (AI), securing supply chains is no longer a matter of ecology, but a question of survival in the face of Chinese influence. The United States is not seeking to reduce carbon emissions; it is seeking to guarantee its technological and military supremacy.

Artisanal Coltan - manganese - cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Photo: Erberto Zani.

The real winners of this frantic race wear suits far removed from environmental activism. Trillions of dollars are flowing into new alliances that intertwine AI-driven mining companies, like KoBold Metals—backed by billionaires such as Bill Gates—and companies specializing in cutting-edge defense technologies, like Palantir and Anduril, not to mention the networks of influence close to the Trump family. For these players, the discourse of climate emergency acts as a powerful public relations tool. It justifies massive and accelerated extraction that would otherwise provoke international outrage.

Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world.

And the price of this hypocrisy is being paid in full throughout the Global South. In the Rubaya hills, in the Kolwezi copper belt, as in the Indigenous territories of Latin America and Asia, the promise of “prosperity” translates into a terrifyingly familiar tragedy. Land grabbing, forced displacement, devastating groundwater pollution: the plundering of ecosystems and human lives is accelerating. Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world. Today, opposing the destruction of one’s village by a multinational mining company risks being accused of hindering the fight against climate change. The rhetorical trap is devastatingly effective.

The long-term consequences of this diversion are alarming. The exponential surge in demand generated by future AI data centers, mass surveillance, and global rearmament will mathematically deplete available reserves. Every ton of copper, nickel, or cobalt consumed by combat drones or algorithmic data processing servers is a ton diverted from the production of renewable energy infrastructure. We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.

We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.

If no strict regulations are put in place to curb this rampant mining frenzy, hundreds of new mines will spring up in the coming years, causing irreversible damage on an unprecedented scale. The question facing citizens today, from Kinshasa to Washington, is no longer whether we will have enough minerals to save our atmosphere. It is why we are willing to sacrifice millions of lives and destroy our lands to fuel next-generation algorithms and weapons. In ten years, when the Global South is nothing more than a vast crater serving a militarized hyper-technology, it will be too late to realize that the planet was never the priority.

Photos: Artisanal Coltan – manganese – cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Erberto Zani – stock.adobe.com

Source: oaklandinstitute.org/

NGO WORK

EU: IPI welcomes action against 14 states over Anti-SLAPP Directive delays

Published

4 weeks ago

July 27, 2026

witnessradio.org

EU states must introduce robust measures to protect journalists and media from vexatious litigation

The International Press Institute (IPI) today welcomes the infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission against 14 EU Member States over their inaction or delays in transposing the Anti-SLAPP Directive.

The countries included are Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

The EU infringement proceedings were initiated on 15 July, with letters of formal notice sent to these Member States for failing to notify about progress made in implementing the Directive. States now have two months to respond and update about measures taken or could eventually face legal action at the European Court of Justice.

The Anti-SLAPP Directive introduced EU-wide rules which protect journalists and civil society actors from manifestly unfounded or abusive civil proceedings with cross-border implications, including early dismissal tools and remedies for targets of SLAPPs. It was adopted in April 2024 and the transposition deadline was 7 May 2026.

Monitoring by IPI shows that while in some of the countries identified, such as Greece and Spain, steps have been taken to prepare for the transposition and bills are actively in development and reportedly close to being presented to or adopted by parliament.

In others such as Bulgaria and Portugal, initial work done to develop legislation has been delayed by institutional changes, changes in governments or political instability, though transposition work remains ongoing.

In other states, such as Italy and Hungary, little to no measurable progress has yet been made on transposition. However, with the new Tisza government in Hungary driving forward media freedom reforms, there is hope the new administration will introduce initial anti-SLAPP measures in the next legislative package identified for the autumn.

While Ireland has been actively working to tackle SLAPPs through legal reforms, and passed the Defamation Bill in 2024, further legislation is required to fully transpose the Anti-SLAPP Directive during its Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Although these 14 countries have been identified in the EU action, monitoring and analyses show that the overall picture for implementation of the Directive across the EU remains fragmented and uneven.

According to the European Anti-SLAPP Monitor, almost all EU Member States missed the May 2026 transposition deadline, with only a handful fully implementing on time.

IPI notes that even in those Member States where the Directive was implemented, such as Malta, these reforms only included minimum standards protecting against cross-border cases, and failed to include measures to safeguard against domestic SLAPPs.

In the wake of the EU’s opening of initial infringement action, IPI renews our call – made previously with Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners – for Member States to demonstrate their commitment to media freedom by accelerating their legislative processes in protecting against SLAPPs. This includes the 14 countries identified by the EU Commission and those in which reforms have been presented but not yet adopted.

Crucially, legislative reforms should both fully reflect both the letter and the spirit of the Anti-SLAPP Directive and introduce the substantive and procedural safeguards set out in the EU and Council of Europe Recommendation on SLAPPs.

A model here should be Poland, where last month the President approved a law which covers both domestic and cross-border SLAPPs, ensuring implementation of both EU Directive and Council of Europe Recommendation.

Member States which continue to delay or fail to transpose the directive should face legal action from the Commission, which must use all tools at its disposal to help safeguard media freedom across the bloc.

IPI, which has advocated at the EU and national level for measures to protect journalists and media from SLAPPs, will continue to monitor implementation in collaboration with European partners, including through MFRR media freedom missions.

Source: ipi.media/

NGO WORK

No Heritage Without its People: Why Ngorongoro Cannot be a World Heritage Site and an Eviction Zone

Published

1 month ago

July 20, 2026

witnessradio.org

The Tanzanian government, under the guise of “conservation,” restricts Maasai livelihoods and denies access to essential services forcing Indigenous residents away from their ancestral lands and turning their heritage into a playground for safari tourists.

As the 48th Session of the World Heritage Committee begins July 19, UNESCO continues to legitimize the continued forced displacement of the Maasai from Ngorongoro. If UNESCO cannot ensure that the World Heritage designation protects the rights of its Indigenous custodians, then the Committee must remove the Ngorongoro Conservation Area from the World Heritage List.

Increased international pressure is imperative to hold UNESCO accountable and protect the lives and rights of the Maasai!

Read our Open Letter to the World Heritage Committee.

Source: oaklandinstitute.org