SUMMARY
The Batwa (sing. a Mutwa, also called Twa or Bambuti) people are a Pygmy people residing around the Kivu lake region in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and the DR Congo. In DR Congo, they can also be found in South Kivu and Maniema province as well as in northern Katanga, Tanganyika province. Most Batwa are semi-nomadic, and traditionally hunter-gatherers. Batwa are generally believed to be descendants of the original inhabitants of the equatorial rainforest. Conservative estimates put the population of the Batwa at around 100 000 in the Lake Kivu region.
Batwa are one of the most marginalized groups in central Africa. Political access and customary rights in DR Congo are connected to the right of land. Being a people of the forest and living as hunter-gatherers deprived Batwa of such customary access to land when a new land law in 1979 was interpreted as granting land rights only to communities occupying or cultivating the land. The rainforest is central to the Batwa way of life. In response to the destruction of forestlands by agriculturalists and pastoralists, conservationists were able to achieve legal protection for them. However, this did not help the Batwa’s cause, but rather presented further problems, since the conservationists claimed that Batwa customs threatened specific species' niches in the forests. In other words, the conservationists claimed land to be "World Heritage" without acknowledging the Batwa as part of the heritage that was to be protected. Consequently, the inhabitable space conforming to the Batwa people's traditions decreased, and the Batwa were evicted from the forest land they were living on. As a result, Batwa were displaced to the margins of society where their customs were seen as more uncivilized by the local dominant groups, and some became enslaved to work for the farmers of the region.
The marginalization of the Batwa expands beyond restrictions to land use or land rights and has affected most aspects of life: the job market, the economy, political participation as well as health. Furthermore, the Batwa have been the target of political violence by militias of bigger, socially more dominant groups in the DR Congo – most commonly from the Baluba who have systematically raped and killed members of the group. To face this systematic discrimination, the Batwa and other Pygmy people formed representation bodies to effectively advocate for their rights legally on the local, national, and international levels. Aside from the legal strides for recognition, the Batwa also resorted to violence to fight for human rights, land rights, ethnic recognition and protection, and to avenge other groups of people, the Baluba in particular, who had previously targeted them. In the DR Congo, the Batwa organized loosely in 2014 and fought a non-state conflict with the Baluba. Moreover, Batwa people organized more coherently in militias, particularly the Perci militia (the Batwa warriors are referred to as Perci, short form for “personnel civil” (civilian personnel)), which operated in the Katanga province, Tanganyika territory of the DR Congo.
Former DR Congo president Laurent-Désiré Kabila organized the Congolese Batwa into militias to support him and strengthen his position. These organized Batwa militias were then used by current president Joseph Kabila to spy on and fight the Kata Kanga rebellion.
The Bambuti (also called Mbuti, and many Batwa call themselves Bambuti) are a Pygmy people living mainly in the Ituri Forest, a 70 000 km2 tropical rainforest located in northeast DR Congo. The Bambuti are a marginalized group of people who have been, and continue to be, subjected to loss of their traditional lands and violence by armed groups. They are the shortest pygmies in Africa, averaging under 137 cm (4 feet 6 inches) in height. Their population is estimated to be 35 000, and they are likely the earliest inhabitants of the area with Egyptian records showing the Bambuti living in the same location around 4 500 years previously.
The Bambuti are nomadic hunters and gatherers who have developed a symbiotic, if not subservient, relationship with Bantu agricultural villagers living on the outskirts of the forest. The Bambuti trade meat, medicinal plants, construction materials and cheap wage labor to the villagers in return for plaintains, clothes and other goods. The Bambuti live in bands of 10 – 100 people, made up of smaller family units. They live in temporary villages situated close to the periphery of the forest in order to trade with the Bantu agricultural village located there. They move through the forests to follow game and vegetation, most often hunting with nets where all members of the community are involved. The Bambuti do not have central authority figures, instead they settle disputes through general discussion.
The forest is the most important aspect of Bambuti life not only because it provides them with resources but because they consider it sacred, and believe in a benevolent forest deity. The Bambuti are characterized by singing and dancing, and one major ritual is the ‘molimo’ through which they give thanks, grieve, or re-center their lives in the forest. The Bambuti are considered ‘the forest people’ and are recognized by others as having special powers and spiritual unity with the forest, which is why they are so at ease within it and efficient at extracting its resources. This special connection has also made them a target for violence, especially rape and sexual violence. There are beliefs that having sex with Bambuti or Batwa women bestows special powers onto the rapist. While the Bambuti’s special relationship to the forest was once valued by other communities, it is now derided and seen as inferior.
The forest is invaluable to the Bambuti for their way of life and culture. However, this land is being taken from them in various ways. In an effort to reduce ethnic conflicts, the DR Congo has emphasized the concept of ‘one people’ in the country, thereby denying the indigenous title to Pygmy communities and refusing to recognize their distinct needs. A land tenure law passed in 1973 stated that lands occupied by local communities would become state land, effectively removing the land from the jurisdiction of the customary law which had previously dictated land tenure in rural areas. This created opportunities for multinational logging companies to enter the forests and harvest timber, reducing the land size that the Bambuti and other Pygmy groups subsist on. Conservation efforts such as certain areas becoming World Heritage Sites have hurt the Pygmy communities rather than helped them. While protecting these areas from logging companies they also push the pygmies off their traditional land, which was the case for the Bambuti people and the Okapi Wildlife Reserve. The Pygmies’ low status and lack of government representation makes it difficult for them to defend their traditional lands.
In addition to the process of land loss, the Bambuti have suffered from war. Both the Batwa and the Bambuti have been the targets of various armed groups. Beginning in the latter part of 2002 the MLC and RCD-N rebels cooperated on the operation ‘Effacer le tableau’ (‘Erasing the board’), which was a campaign to systematically exterminate the Bambuti and Batwa populations. The motivation was to gain control of the Pygmy territory for strategic purposes and to exploit its natural resources. Systematic rape and instances of cannibalism took place, due to beliefs that these acts would confer the forest people’s powers onto the perpetrators. Killings and rape have continued in 2006-2007 by Rwandan rebel forces in Sud Kivu, and in Nord Kivu the Batwa and Bambuti communities have been displaced due to the fighting between CNDP, various Mayi Mayi groups and the Congolese armed forces (FARDC).
Since 2016, the Bambuti has engaged in conflict with the Bantu Bahemba population, as well as the Bafulero, Baluba and Banyamulenge communities in Tanganyika province. The reasons given for these conflicts are that the Bambuti feel threatened and despised by their Bantu neighbors, they are subdued into slavery, the forest environment they depend on is being destroyed through uncontrolled logging and animal extinction, and they feel deprived of political, economic, social and cultural privileges. The Bambuti were accused of claiming total ownership of the forest which their neighbors consider to be in bad faith, stealing cattle, holding animistic values and beliefs, being intellectually underdeveloped, and plundering property and setting fire to homes.
