Under the guise of fight­ing “cli­mate change,” Unit­ed Nations and World Bank “car­bon” pro­grams in Africa are lead­ing to mas­sive land grabs, the forced relo­ca­tion of indige­nous peo­ple at gun­point, and even what some crit­ics are call­ing “cul­tur­al geno­cide.” Now, a coali­tion of activist orga­ni­za­tions is demand­ing an end to the con­tro­ver­sial UN-linked plots that are dev­as­tat­ing com­mu­ni­ties while endan­ger­ing indige­nous peo­ples and cul­tures already at risk of extinc­tion. Crit­i­cism sur­round­ing the ongo­ing pro­mo­tion of “car­bon cred­its” is also esca­lat­ing world­wide from across the polit­i­cal spectrum.

The lat­est accu­sa­tions of ter­ror and bru­tal­i­ty per­pe­trat­ed against inno­cent civil­ians to sup­pos­ed­ly bat­tle “glob­al warm­ing” — on “pause” for 18 years and count­ing, accord­ing to undis­put­ed tem­per­a­ture data — come from Kenya. While the UN-linked forced evic­tions are not new, they are accel­er­at­ing. Just last year, the UN also unveiled a mas­sive eugen­ics pro­gram for the East African nation aimed at slash­ing the pop­u­la­tion. Whether the ruth­less car­bon-diox­ide machi­na­tions by the UN and the World Bank are relat­ed remains unclear.

The vic­tims in the most recent abus­es are the Sen­g­w­er com­mu­ni­ties in Kenya’s Embobut for­est and Cheran­gany Hills. Accord­ing to reports by the For­est Peo­ples Pro­gramme, a U.K.-based non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that sup­ports the rights of for­est dwellers, more than one thou­sand Sen­g­w­er homes were torched by World Bank-fund­ed author­i­ties ear­li­er this year as the Kenyan gov­ern­ment works to evict some 15,000 mem­bers from their ances­tral lands. Inac­cu­rate­ly refer­ring to the indige­nous peo­ples as “squat­ters,” offi­cials claim the effort is aimed at pro­mot­ing “sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

“We saw dozens of hous­es burn­ing as we moved through Sen­g­w­er com­mu­ni­ty lands,” the for­est peo­ples’ orga­ni­za­tion said in a state­ment about the atroc­i­ties. “We saw well over a hun­dred homes either burn­ing or that had been burnt, and the area was eeri­ly emp­ty of peo­ple. Peo­ple have run away out of fear…. When their homes are burnt, blan­kets, food and cook­ing uten­sils are also burnt, so chil­dren and the elder­ly are exposed to the cold and go hungry.”

The group also inter­viewed some of the locals whose com­mu­ni­ties were being razed to the ground by the World Bank-fund­ed Kenyan For­est Ser­vice. “All school uni­forms, cook­ing pans, water con­tain­ers, cups were burnt,” a 25-year-old Sen­g­w­er wid­ow with four small chil­dren said as her home was still burn­ing. “The chil­dren are very upset because we have lost every­thing. The chil­dren and elder­ly peo­ple will end up get­ting pneu­mo­nia because we don’t have any­thing to cov­er our­selves at night.” She also said there was no con­sul­ta­tion with locals or com­pen­sa­tion for the seizure of property.

In a let­ter denounc­ing what a coali­tion of more than 65 glob­al non-prof­it groups referred to as “geno­cide,” a spokesman for the Sen­g­w­er, Yator Kip­tum, blast­ed as a “dis­as­ter” the prop­er­ty destruc­tion, bru­tal­iza­tion, and forced evic­tions. “The gov­ern­ment of Kenya is forc­ing us into extinc­tion,” he was quot­ed as say­ing. The let­ter also points out that the schemes are a vio­la­tion of Kenyan law, the con­sti­tu­tion, inter­na­tion­al human rights agree­ments, and var­i­ous court orders.

Also this year, the group Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al, a char­i­ty that works with trib­al peo­ples around the world, doc­u­ment­ed sim­i­lar gov­ern­ment atroc­i­ties in Kenya’s Mau for­est. There, ram­pag­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials backed by glob­al­ist out­fits have been per­se­cut­ing and forcibly evict­ing mem­bers of the Ogiek, described as one of Africa’s last remain­ing hunter-gath­er tribes. The tribes may dis­ap­pear entire­ly if mea­sures are not tak­en to restrain author­i­ties and their “car­bon” scams. Reports sug­gest that peo­ple involved in resist­ing the forced Ogiek evic­tions are being tar­get­ed by author­i­ties for extra­ju­di­cial exe­cu­tion, too.

Appar­ent­ly, Kenyan politi­cians and their cronies are also get­ting wealthy on the land-grab schemes — at the expense of the poor indige­nous peo­ples whose com­mu­ni­ties are being burned to the ground. Beyond local cor­rup­tion, though, the scope of the prob­lem reach­es deep into the UN, the World Bank, the glob­al estab­lish­ment, and var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al “cli­mate” schemes.

In fact, the evic­tions under­way in Kenya are “a direct result” of a World Bank plot and are “effec­tive­ly fund­ed by the World Bank,” accord­ing to a for­mal Sen­g­w­er com­plaint filed with the infa­mous glob­al orga­ni­za­tion. Much of the pro­gram in ques­tion, mean­while, stems from the UN’s “Reduc­ing Emis­sions From Defor­esta­tion and For­est Degra­da­tion,” or REDD for short. Under that glob­al scheme, the pur­chase of “car­bon cred­its” — sup­pos­ed­ly aimed at reduc­ing CO2 emis­sions to stop “glob­al warm­ing” — are linked to the amount of car­bon con­tained in forests. Despite being absurd­ly demo­nized by UN as “pol­lu­tion,” CO2 is exhaled by humans and described by sci­en­tists as the “gas of life.”

“The dev­as­tat­ing plight of Kenya’s indige­nous peo­ples is symp­to­matic of the flawed approach to con­ser­va­tion on the part of inter­na­tion­al agen­cies,” explained jour­nal­ist Nafeez Ahmed in an explo­sive arti­cle for the U.K. Guardian this month about the Kenyan land grabs. “In prac­tice, REDD schemes large­ly allow those com­pa­nies to accel­er­ate pol­lu­tion while pur­chas­ing land and resources in the devel­op­ing world at bar­gain prices.” Land, appar­ent­ly, that has been eth­ni­cal­ly cleansed of all its pre­vi­ous native inhabitants.

The bru­tal­iza­tion of Kenyans and the mas­sive land grabs began accel­er­at­ing in 2007, when the Kenyan For­est Ser­vice began a deeply con­tro­ver­sial part­ner­ship with the World Bank to imple­ment a so-called “Nat­ur­al Resource Man­age­ment” project. Since then, activists report that Sen­g­w­er homes have been under vir­tu­al non-stop attack by author­i­ties aim­ing to uproot the indige­nous peo­ples. Once the joint World Bank-Kenyan gov­ern­ment plot was approved with­out any input from the Sen­g­w­er, the com­mu­ni­ties sud­den­ly learned that their cen­turies-old ances­tral home­lands were inside a “for­est reserve” and sub­ject to destruc­tion and seizure.

In a state­ment, the World Bank attempt­ed to dis­tance itself from the atroc­i­ties, say­ing it was not involved and that it was “con­cerned” about the reports. “The World Bank stands ready to assist the Gov­ern­ment of Kenya with its devel­op­ment advice draw­ing on its local and glob­al project expe­ri­ences, and to share best prac­tices in reset­tle­ment in line with its safe­guard poli­cies,” the state­ment said. “These seek to improve or restore the liv­ing stan­dards of peo­ple affect­ed by invol­un­tary reset­tle­ment.” The bank also claimed it was investigating.

Among crit­ics, though, the semi-denial prompt­ed a furi­ous back­lash. “The cause and effect is per­fect­ly clear; the Bank in its high­ly con­tro­ver­sial role as both car­bon cred­it financier and bro­ker is aid­ing and abet­ting the forced relo­ca­tion of an entire Indige­nous Peo­ple through its Nat­ur­al Resource Man­age­ment Plan (NRMP) which includes REDD (Reduc­ing Emis­sions from Defor­esta­tion and For­est Degra­da­tion),” not­ed the No REDD in Africa Net­work (NRAN), an alliance of 66 human-rights orga­ni­za­tions that oppos­es the UN plot.

Most dis­turb­ing about the World Bank response, the net­work said, was the outfit’s offer to help the Kenyan gov­ern­ment in mat­ters of “invol­un­tary” reset­tle­ment. “The World Bank is both admit­ting its com­plic­i­ty in the forced relo­ca­tion of the Sen­g­w­er Peo­ple as well as offer­ing to col­lude with the Kenyan gov­ern­ment to cov­er-up cul­tur­al geno­cide,” the alliance explained, adding that the Sen­g­w­er were now “fac­ing com­plete anni­hi­la­tion under the guise of ‘con­ser­va­tion’ under REDD.”

The No REDD net­work also named the devel­op­ments “car­bon colo­nial­ism.” The orga­ni­za­tion also argued that the UN scheme was “emerg­ing as a new form of colo­nial­ism, eco­nom­ic sub­ju­ga­tion and a dri­ver of land grabs so mas­sive that they may con­sti­tute a con­ti­nent grab.”

The let­ter, signed by over 300 human-rights activists and over five-dozen inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, also offered a list of demands to Kenyan author­i­ties, plan­e­tary enti­ties involved in the schemes, and more. “We demand that gov­ern­ments, com­pa­nies, car­bon traders, the World Bank and the Unit­ed Nations includ­ing UN-REDD, UNEP, UNDP [Unit­ed Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme] and oth­ers imme­di­ate­ly can­cel these harm­ful REDD and oth­er car­bon off­set schemes,” they concluded.

Even inter­na­tion­al offi­cials involved in the UN’s REDD machi­na­tions expressed out­rage over the devel­op­ments. “The car­bon mar­kets, when up and run­ning, need to sup­port the for­est stew­ard­ship of the peo­ple who live there, and not pro­vide nation­al gov­ern­ments with yet anoth­er tool to dis­pos­sess their cit­i­zens from the nat­ur­al resources they have cared for and depend­ed on for gen­er­a­tions,” for­mer chair of UN REDD nego­ti­a­tions Tony La Viña told The Guardian.

As The New Amer­i­can has report­ed, the atroc­i­ties in Kenya are hard­ly the first time that West­ern “car­bon off­set” scams by the UN, the Euro­pean Union, and oth­er inter­na­tion­al enti­ties have come under fire for bru­tal­iz­ing peo­ple and destroy­ing entire com­mu­ni­ties in Third World nations.  In Ugan­da, for exam­ple, tens of thou­sands of inno­cent farm­ers had their vil­lages burned to the ground so inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions could plant “car­bon-cred­it” trees on the land. Reports of chil­dren mur­dered and bru­tal beat­ings also grabbed head­lines. Dozens of Hon­duran mur­ders in 2011 were also linked to UN-backed land grabs and “car­bon” schemes.

Oth­er gar­gan­tu­an land grabs backed by mul­ti­ple glob­al­ist out­fits are tak­ing place world­wide, some, iron­i­cal­ly, under the guise of pro­tect­ing the rights of indige­nous peo­ples under UN treaties. In Brazil, for exam­ple, whole towns were recent­ly evict­ed at gun­point by fed­er­al troops wear­ing UN logos using the eas­i­ly debunked pre­text of “return­ing” land to a hand­ful of Indi­ans who had nev­er even lived in the area.

With accu­sa­tions of cul­tur­al geno­cide in Kenya now in the head­lines of major West­ern media out­lets, out­rage is grow­ing quick­ly against ped­dlers of “car­bon off­set” scams — the UN, the World Bank, the EU, Euro­pean gov­ern­ments, cor­rupt Third World politi­cians, and var­i­ous oth­er inter­na­tion­al out­fits. How­ev­er, even as the the­o­ries under­pin­ning the cli­mate alarmism crum­ble, it has become clear that with­out a mas­sive out­cry, the atroc­i­ties and land grabs around the globe will con­tin­ue under vir­tu­al­ly any pretext.