Uganda : Peasant Organizations call upon the national government to frame laws in line with the Peasants’ Rights Declaration (UNDROP)
Each year, ESAFF Uganda joins La Via Campesina and like-minded organizations to observe the International Day of Peasant Struggles on April 17 and to recall the 1996 Eldorado do Carajás massacre, in which 21 peasants who were defending their right to land were killed by the State apparatus working with agricultural interests. On this day, we also call attention to and denounce the ongoing criminalization, persecution, and repression of peasant, worker, immigrant, and Indigenous communities around the world.
Half of the world’s population is made up of small farmers, pastoralists, landless individuals, peasant fishermen, and Indigenous people, who also generate 70% of the world’s food. The absence of peasants from the public eye is a result of the replacement of peasant agriculture with huge agribusiness firms and international trade.
Recent international events have made clear the fragilities that exist within the supply networks for food and energy. These weaknesses, however, put societies all over the world’s access to fresh, wholesome, and sufficient food in jeopardy while serving the interests of a small number of very strong organizations.
“Despite the existence of legal principles in the nation, small-scale farmers, particularly women in rural areas, continue to experience avoidable violations of their rights. Today gives us the chance to draw attention to these issues and urge the government to preserve rights in a proactive manner, particularly in view of the aggressive consolidation of power in the agricultural sector.” – Hakim Baliraine
The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) recognizes the past, present, and future contributions of peasants and other people working in rural areas in all regions of the world to development and to conserving and improving biodiversity, which constitute the basis of food and agricultural production throughout the world, and their contribution in ensuring the right to adequate food and food security, which are fundamental to attaining the internationally agreed development goals, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
In commemoration of the International Day of Peasants’ Struggle, small-scale farmers call upon the government to domesticate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, which stresses the need for greater protection of the human rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, and for a coherent interpretation and application of existing international human rights norms and standards.