Aid donors announce investigation into tribal evictions in Ethiopia</strong> - News from Survival

  • Print
Details
Published on Tuesday, 24 June 2014 09:20
Written by editor

Survival for tribal peoples

Australian TV station guilty of racism in “Freakshow TV” row

The Federal Court of Australia has upheld a ruling against Channel 7 for breaching the “racism clause” in their Sunday Night program about the Suruwaha. The Federal Court of Australia has upheld a ruling against Channel 7 for breaching the “racism clause” in their Sunday Night program about the Suruwaha. © Channel 7

An Australian TV station has been found guilty of racism for broadcasting a report about an Amazon tribe so extreme it was labeled “Freakshow TV” by Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights.

In September 2012 Australia’s press regulator ACMA, in a landmark decision, had found Channel 7 guilty of “provoking intense dislike, serious contempt or severe ridicule against a person or group” and of broadcasting inaccurate material. Channel 7 sought judicial review, but the Federal Court has now upheld the ruling.

The report by “adventurer” Paul Raffaele and reporter Tim Noonan portrayed Brazil’s Suruwaha tribe as child murderers, “Stone Age” relics, and “one of the worst human rights violators in the world”.

A Suruwaha man told Survival that the program contained lies about the tribe. He said, “They’re lying about us, because we don’t kill children. Paul and Tim lied. They took the footage they filmed here far away, to show JOCUM (a fundamentalist, evangelical missionary organization) and to lie about us.”

He added, “He (Paul Raffaele) is a bad person; he has really made us suffer. How could he treat the Suruwaha so badly?”

The report portrayed the Suruwaha as the 'worst human rights violators in the world'. The report portrayed the Suruwaha as the 'worst human rights violators in the world'.© Armando Soares Filho/ FUNAI

Survival complained to ACMA after Channel 7 refused to issue a correction to its report. Channel 7 did not appeal the substance of the ruling, but rather asked the court to declare that various statements in the report were not factual in nature. A judge has now rejected this attempt to overturn ACMA’s ruling on a technicality, and the ruling stands.

The Suruwaha have been the target of fundamentalist missionaries who falsely claim that they regularly kill newborn babies. The missionaries had lobbied Brazil’s Congress to pass a law which would have allowed Indian children to be removed from their families.

Channel 7’s website openly fundraised for the evangelical organization associated with the campaign.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said, “Tribal peoples have been accused of ‘savagery’ since the first European colonists arrived and sought justification for the brutalities of imperialism. Unfortunately the myth of the ‘Brutal Savage’ is rearing its ugly head once more – and it’s just as harmful now as it was then. It is right and proper that this ruling has been upheld. There is no excuse for such extreme prejudice in the media today.”

Notes to editors:

- Survival seeks to challenge public portrayals of tribal peoples as “primitive”, “violent”, or backwards. Survival believes that tribal peoples are neither more nor less violent than people in the West.
- Read more about the “Myth of the Brutal Savage” and Survival’s critique of “popular science” writers such as Steven Pinker, Napoleon Chagnon and Jared Diamond.

Read this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/10288

Aid donors announce investigation into tribal evictions in Ethiopia

Bulldozers clearing Mursi land in Mago National Park, where communities are being evicted from their land to make way for sugar plantations. Bulldozers clearing Mursi land in Mago National Park, where communities are being evicted from their land to make way for sugar plantations. © E. Lafforgue/Survival

Representatives of some of Ethiopia’s biggest aid donors have announced that they will send a team to the southwest of the country to investigate persistent reports of human rights abuses amongst the tribes living there.

Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, has exposed how the tribal people of the Lower Omo Valley are being persecuted and harassed to force them off their land to make way for cotton, oil palm and sugar cane plantations.

Many other organizations have published similar reports.

The plantations are made possible by the Gibe III hydroelectric dam, which is itself the subject of huge controversy.

The dam, which is nearing completion, will have a serious impact on the livelihoods of 500,000 tribal people, including those living around Kenya’s Lake Turkana.

It is also projected to have catastrophic environmental consequences for the region, which is home to renowned UNESCO World Heritage sites on both sides of the border.

Survival and other NGOs have repeatedly denounced the eviction of hundreds of Bodi and Kwegu and continue to receive reports that people are being intimidated into leaving their lands for resettlement camps.

Daasanach are being forced off their land to make way for infrastructure development such as this giant pump at Omorate, which will facilitate irrigation of the plantations. Daasanach are being forced off their land to make way for infrastructure development such as this giant pump at Omorate, which will facilitate irrigation of the plantations. © E. Lafforgue/Survival

The Ethiopian government has not sought or obtained the indigenous peoples’ free, prior and informed consent to move from their lands, in breach of the guidelines for resettlement drawn up by the Development Assistance Group (DAG), a consortium of the largest donors to Ethiopia, including the US, the UK, Germany and the World Bank.

DAG provides significant financial assistance to the local administration responsible for the forced evictions.

DAG has decided to return to the Lower Omo later this year to investigate the situation, even though the evictions continue regardless of past donor visits, the findings of which have often not been published.

This decision follows mounting worldwide concerns. European parliamentarians from Italy, Germany and the UK have asked questions in the European Parliament, and MPs in the UK and Germany have raised their concerns with various ministries. Parliamentary questions have also been tabled in the UK.

In February the US Congress ruled that US taxpayers’ money not be used to fund forced resettlements in Lower Omo.

Following a lawsuit brought by Friends of Lake Turkana, the Kenyan courts have ruled that the Kenyan government must release all information about the deals it has made with Ethiopia about buying electricity generated by the Gibe III dam.

Earlier this year, a UNESCO report recommended that Lake Turkana be inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Read this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/10310



Survival International USA, 2325 3rd Street, Suite 401, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA
T +1 415 503 1254

Survival International, 6 Charterhouse Buildings, London EC1M 7ET, UK
T +44(0)20 7687 8700

www.survivalinternational.org