A Prince Harry-affiliated charity has acknowledged that its park guards had violated human rights on many occasions. From 2017 to 2023, the Duke of Sussex served as African Parks’ president before joining the board of directors.
According to an investigation that was released by the Mail on Sunday in January of last year, guards employed by the non-profit organization in the Republic of the Congo allegedly tortured and raped indigenous people.
The nonprofit acknowledged that violations of human rights did occur in the park it oversees, Odzala-Kokoua. The confessions follow a study by Omnia Strategy LLP, a legal company led by Cherie Blair. The organisation hasn’t, however, made the complete results public.
“The board of African Parks has reviewed Omnia’s advice and endorsed the management plan and timeframes to implement the recommendations resulting from this process,” said a portion of a long statement issued by the organization.
“African Parks acknowledges that human rights violations have happened in certain cases, and we sincerely apologise for the suffering and anguish these have caused the victims. Additionally, Omnia’s process brought to light a number of shortcomings in our systems and procedures that were inadequate for the amount of responsibility entrusted to us, especially during the early years of our administration of Odzala [a Congolese national park].”
Concerns regarding the mistreatment of the Baka people, who were native to the region, have been brought up time and again by the charity Survival International, which advocates for the rights of Indigenous people. Its director, Caroline Pearce, attributes the start of the study to her charity’s efforts to bring attention to the abuse involving Prince Harry.
“We still don’t know the details of what they found because African Parks has refused to allow the findings to be made public,” Ms. Pearce said, criticizing the organization’s choice to keep the review’s conclusions confidential.
“It has committed to more reports, more staff and more guidelines, but such approaches have not prevented horrific abuses and violations of international human rights law in the decade or more that African Parks has known of these atrocities, and there is no reason to believe they will do so now.”
“The root of the problem, which the investigation did not address, is that African Parks continue to cling to a racist and colonial model of conservation, which kicks out the indigenous people whose land it is, while outsiders take control. As long as this is the case, the Baka will continue to face abuses and the destruction of their livelihoods.”
Omnia stated in a statement that since December 2023, it has been conducting an independent investigation into the alleged mistreatment in Odzala-Kokoua. “Thorough and proportionate without attempting to be exhaustive” was how it characterized its inquiry.
African Parks claimed to have enhanced its institutional and Odzala-Kokoua National Park protection procedures during the previous five years. Additionally, it stated that steps had been taken to better help the Baka tribes, including hiring an anthropologist.
There are other charities connected to Prince Harry that are being investigated besides African Parks.
The Duke of Sussex, who co-founded the charity Sentebale with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, resigned as its patron in March. After Sophie Chandauka, the charity’s chairman, made a number of accusations, the two resigned from the organization along with the board of trustees.
Sentebale is now under investigation by the Charity Commission.
The controversy surrounding Sentebale began when Ms. Chandauka, a corporate finance attorney from Zimbabwe, accused the charity’s board of bullying, harassment, and “misogyny,” which is a type of sexism directed at black women. She also asserted that the Duke attempted to boost his wife’s public image by using the charity as “an extension of the Sussex PR machine.”
