Evicting Mau squatters is mob justice that plays to the gallery

By Tom Kigen

The opinion by Okech Kendo in The Standard newspaper is mob justice administered via kangaroo courts. To try, accuse and sentence the Mau squatters with a one-sided court coupled with a spirited campaign to malign and discredit the people of Rift Valley is a continuation of injustices and persecution this community has continually suffered since the advent of colonisation and neo-colonisation.

It is wrong to condemn the people, particularly Kipsigis and Ogiek without taking into consideration the oppression and the challenges they continue to suffer due to dispossession and disinheritance of their land.

Eighty per cent of the Kipsigis are squatters with no land to call their own. Ninety per cent of the land there is owned by multinational relics of colonialism and the then influential people in Kenyatta’s government.

The Kipsigis found themselves in the Mau when the then, president, Daniel Arap Moi was petitioned by Kipsigis elders to expel multinational tea companies or forcefully acquire Kipsigis ancestral land which the companies were occupying and resettle the Kipsigis, the largest and poorest sub-tribe of the Kalenjin by virtue of being squatters in their own land.

Moi would hear none of it. He instead decided to hive off part of the land to settle the Kipsigis.

It is therefore ignorant to address the issue of Mau without taking into consideration the effects of the continued presence of tea companies, who draw and exploit resources in the region.

Painful reminder

According to Mr Kendo, ‘our people’, as Rift Valley politicians put it are only 15,000. He exhibits the same indifference to the people of Rift Valley that they have continued to suffer for ages. The 15,000 to him do not deserve to live and should be deprived of their livelihoods forthwith.

Mr Kendo forgets that the tea industry ceased to be the darling of the masses long ago. Its continued presence in the Rift Valley is a painful reminder of past and present injustice, exploitation and slavery. What indeed takes place behind the grandeur of tea farms are modern day slavery and an affront to humanity.

The 2007 UN declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People sets forth the rights of indigenous people and proclaims that the UN will be at the forefront of protecting these rights. In particular article 10 and 26 recognise the rights of indigenous people.

Article 10 says: Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible, with the option of return.

Article 26 says: Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.

• They have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired.

It is clear we are yet to protect the rights of discriminated, dispossessed and oppressed indigenous people and are instead infringing on their rights.

If recovery of forests and other wetlands is what drives the Mau debate, where is the concerted effort to recover the greater Mau hived off during colonial and Kenyatta’s time.

It is an open fact that Mau encompasses Molo, Elburgon, Njoro, Ngata, Kericho tea farms, Borabu, Menengai and Rongai. If the government is therefore serious in reclaiming forest cover, then it should evict all the settlers in these areas.

The Mau issue cannot be solved by playing to the gallery of media and mob psychology. It runs much deeper than many pen-wielding journalists and donor-seeking conservationists would know. It touches on the backbone of the Kipsigis, their suffering, concerns and bitterness at the hands of indifferent and oppressive, successive governments.

Treating symptoms

The Kipsigis story is the common story of the Rift Valley; it is a story of deprivation, of oppression and exploitation. The Government should not heed the mob baying for the brutal eviction of Mau settlers, but look at the genesis of the problems and solve its root causes. Treating symptoms will not help, as it might boomerang later.

As the UN declares in the rights of indigenous people while adopting it that "It is a tool for peace and justice, based upon mutual recognition and mutual respect’’.

How Mau squatters are treated will have ramifications across the Rift Valley. Mr Kendo owes the ‘mere’ 15,000 people in Mau and the entire Rift Valley an unconditional apology.

—The writer is a commentator on social issues.