Category Archives: Land

RUMOURS AND MYTHS OF LAND GRABBING IN EASTERN AFRICA

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from ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2011

You wonder why for example, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda could just give away Mabira forest for foreign private investors when he knows very well that it is a rain forest, even after he was advised not to give-away the forest land as he would be acting against Article 237(2) of the Constitution and Section 44(1) of the Land Act cap. 227.

Not only that, Mr Museveni knows very well that Mabira was gazetted as a Central Forest Reserve under legal notice No. 87 of 1932 as an area of 29,592 hectares and that in legal notice No. 41 of 1948, the forest reserve was re-gazetted, expanding to an area of 30,003 hectares.

All the same Museveni has justified the sale of forests, saying it opens more land for industrialisation, despite the fact that Environmentalists and the local people have protested the proposal to give the foreigner investor, Mehta Group 5,000 hectares of Mabira forest to cultivate sugarcane.

You also wonder why retired Presidents Benjamin Mkapa and Ali Hassan Mwinyi, former prime ministers Frederick Sumaye and John Malecela, ex-CCM secretary general Philip Mangula and former cabinet minister Iddi Simba could just wake up one morning and make people landless by grabbing their lands.

This brings us to the big question as to why many foreign investors target Africa. A friend of mine told me the other day that Africa is being targeted because ‘African farmland prices are the lowest in the world’ and ‘it is the last frontier’. That is why many African leaders, and foreign investors, peddle the myth that there is a vast amount of vacant, unused land, owned by no one – and hence available to outsiders.

As Tanzanian shadow minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development, Ms Halima Mdee (Kawe-Chadema), warns, that unless the government controlled the allocation of vast tracts of land to a few powerful individuals, it was creating a “ticking time bomb.”

Land disputes between investors and wananchi may she warns may cause bloodletting. Politicians had acquired big chunks of land that was earmarked for Wami villagers in Morogoro Region with former presidents Mwinyi acquiring 2,000 hectares and Mkapa 1,000 hectares, Mr Sumaye has 500 hectares, former cabinet minister Hassan Ngwilizi, who is now Mlalo MP (CCM) 100 hectares, Mr Malecela 100 and Mr Mangula 2,000 hectares.

Surprisingly all these hectares of land had not yet been developed except 1,000 hectares belonging to Mr Mkapa. According to the shadow minister,14,437 hectares of paddy fields at Mbarali and 18,425 paddy farms at Kapunga in Mbeya, which catered for 30,000 villagers from 10 villages had been allocated to a businessman and a CCM member.

The minister who tabled the motion in the parliament recently said the government dubiously allocated the paddy fields to Mbeya CCM chairman Nawab Mulla and businessman Jeetu Patel also known as Jayantkumar Chandubhai Patel. She said they acquired the land at giveaway prices.

Others include two companies — Agrisoil Energy and Serengeti Advisors Ltd — owned by Mr Iddi Simba, a former minister for Industry and Trade, acquired a 99-year-lease for 80,317 hectares at Lugufu and 219,800 hectares at Mishamo in Rukwa Region and Coast and Mara regions where the government has allocated big chunks of land to politicians, businessmen and investors as.

It is not only that, the Village Land Act No 5 of 1999 had to be amended to allow investors and developers to directly negotiate with farmers or villagers in acquiring any plot according to a senior official of ActionAid Tanzania.

Under the village Land Act there are provisions that empower the President to declare and transfer village land to reserved land. This may happen as a result of advice that the President may receive from Local Government Authority in that particular area.

In Kenya, Ugandans living on the Migingo Islands are in panic following a heavy deployment of Kenyan administration officers near a contested island. Kenya sent over 50 officers on Monday to the island ready for war should Museveni insist of taking away the Island.

But why did President Kibaki take that long to claim back the Island? While details have emerged that despite Uganda President Yoweri Museveni’s feigning ignorance about the dispute, the combined force of Uganda Peoples Defence Air Force (UPDAF), Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB) marines, and police involved had his full backing, rumour has it that Kibaku gave the Island as a token after Museveni had helped him with soldiers to shoot Raila’s supporters in Nyanza during the post election violence.

It is also rumoured that Uganda, which caught Kenya off-guard over the Migingo saga, is now keen on “reclaiming” the island by intercepting any Kenyan military activity near the island. That is probably why Kenya has decided to send its troop should Museveni’s uniform men and women attack Kenyan fishermen.

In a confidential memo availed to the press and written by the Ugandan Inspector-General of Police Edward Kale Kayihura, a copy of which was in their possession, the Ugandan Government claims that Kenya had initially agreed that Migingo was Ugandan territory. This confirms the rumour that it was given as a token.

While the two governments agreed that the current status of the island, namely that it is Ugandan territory according to the memo be maintained, according to media report it is on this premise that Migingo was in Uganda that Museveni launched the February 20 rapid assault to “reclaim” it from Kenya Administration Police “aggressors” on sovereign Ugandan territory.

Some Kenyans have even expressed fear that Museveni, like Amin, could lay claim to Kenya up to Naivasha with his recently acquired air power. Just like Kibaki has been silence over Migingo dispute for long, some of these Kenyans think there is anything much Kibaki could do about it if Museveni decides to take up to Naivasha.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail- ppa@africaonline.co.ke
omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org

Kenya: The Spectre and Dominion factor in Greater Luo Nyanza

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from Judy Miriga

Folks,

The attached is just a tip of an iceburg, which explains why PM Raila should face charges against crime and violations of Human Rights, including creating atmosphere of excessive poverty, hopelessnes and sufferings to people living in and around Lake Victoria, Migingo and Ugingo, notably the on the people of Luo Nyanza in Yala Swamp and Kano in Ahero, where Local Community land was forcefully taken away from these poor community in the Luo Nyanza. The reason why PM Raila and Kibaki must be investigated and taken to Hague to answer charges. PM Raila and family cheated the Greater Luo Community rich and poor, to donate money for Mollasses, which was thought was the Luo Community Cooperative venture, but it later became personal and family property of the Odingas. This from ongoing activities, is seen as Raila’s smart way to reduce the whole of people of Luo Nyanza as SLAVES to be used as Labour Resorvour to Dominion Investments, Specter and Mollasses, and altogether to serve other prospective Foreign Investors through the same method of falsely taking away their community land by force.

PM Raila and family do not own land, the size they have posed out in the International Market at the World Bank, IMF or other United Nations organization and Foreign Investors for which they solicited for funds. Who is going to pay the Debt that has been incurred by these politicians for their private businesses….Can the world and ICC help the poor to unravel this conspiracy and put these Legislatures spot on…….???………How could Raila, Kibaki, Uhuru and Kalonzo sign for land they that are not their personal land and did not follow the Investment Regulation or policy…….putting the people into excessive poverty and suffering…..???

There is a conspiracy between PM Raila and Kibaki with others who are suspected to have used their political position to rob and criminally steal from the public, the people of Kenya, by floating public facilities, resources and taxpayer money for self motivated businesses or private interests. The National Debt thereof that has been since accrued, are not people’s Government debts but are corruptly made by these politically leaders. Such as these illegal activities has caused many to be killed, others were pushed to excessive poverty, homelessness, painful frustrations, mental torture, and others died. They are the reason why other small businesses were technically killed and were put out of business. They are the reason for excessive drug peddling and human trafficking including child pornograpy and the growing child sale.

Recently, Dominion Trading Company was seen to have maneuvred to outplace the TSC Offices for Siaya Teachers and very soon, Siaya teachers will not be able to perform and so children of Siaya will loose opportunity for education.

Because of poor planning, and because the Luo professionals and community were not involved and engaged in the original plan of their community land, this is treated as theft. Instead of reducing poverty, it has aggrivated poverty into excessive unbarable situation. This is to a point, families are becoming homeless without food or shelter, as their lands have been taken by Dominion and Spectre. The cost of food is too high and familys cannot afford to buy high cost of food controlled by Dominion and Spectre. People are being pushed out of Luo Nyanza and from their community land.

PM Raila, Dominion and Kibaki must be stopped urgently before they destroy the Luo people of Nyanza.

Enough is enough, they must be investigated and charged accordingly.

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

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Giant marsh farm that has Dominion over us

By EMMAN OMARI, Daily Nation

In the magical year 2030, Dominion in Siaya County will become an Agri City.

It will become the Punjab of Kenya as the net producer of rice and the city where everything will be found — farm produce, factories, hotels, a popular tourists’ destination plus every service you can imagine.

Rice, fish, bananas and sorghum are just a few of the crops to be found on the multi-billion shilling Dominion Farms land in the sprawling swamp on the Yala river, west of the county near where it pours into Lake Victoria.

And to the north is the upcoming irrigation canal on the Nzoia river that is set to turn more than 10,000 acres into an agri-business hub.

Conventional fishing on the many beaches of the lake will continue to generate income for the people and the county.

Yala swamp is a muddy black soil marshland turned into black gold whose impact is being felt in the whole of Kenya.

Its rice, sold under the brand name of Prime Harvest, is in every supermarket; its fingerlings are being sold to fish farmers throughout the country and Kisumu Molasses gets its sorghum from there.
The Sh2.5 billion project, the work of Mr Calvin Burgess, the CEO from Oklahoma, US has turned wasteland into productive land that is feeding the country.

Sarah Achieng, aged 34, employed as a fish pond attendant, did not go far in school before she was married and began to have her five children.

“I get everything from Dominion, money to educate my children and help my relatives too,” she said.
Mr Philip Abir, a company director said: “Our objective is to become the biggest rice producer in Africa as we continue to reclaim the swamp.”

There is 3,500 acres under rice —harvested twice a year, effectively giving them 7,000 acres of the crop — plus 20 acres given to sorghum. That is out of 17,000 acres given to Dominion to farm.
When reclamation of the swamp is completed in the next 18 years, it will be a giant farmland agro-city comparable in size to Tharaka-Nithi County or the whole of Mombasa.

Dominion has been given a 25-year lease, of which seven years has already been taken.
“We are negotiating for more and hope that whatever good we are doing will be our strength to enable us get the extension,” Mr Abir said.

The company has also dug canals to take water to 200 acres given to Siaya residents and a further 45 acres for Bondo as part of the company’s community development programme.

“They can also plant their rice or other crops for their livelihood,” Mr Abir said. There are seven big fish ponds already and a total of 32 planned.

Last year, said Mr Abir, Dominion produced rice worth Sh337 million, more than a year’s budget of some of the smaller ministries.

Dominion has a milling plant with a capacity of 78 million kilos of rice a year.

Plant manager David Waweru said the entire country mills 45 million kilos a year, meaning that Dominion alone can mill rice for all the producers in Kenya.

The ponds produce 2.5 million fingerlings which supplement the Government’s efforts to promote fish farming.

According to Mr Abir, such numbers can replenish the fish stocks in lake Victoria.

And Mr Enos Were, the Aqua-Culture manager said: “Our fish with a small head has less bone and more meat and in 10 years we want to be the biggest producers of fish in the world.”

Fish is harvested from the ponds and sold both locally and as far as Kisumu and Nairobi. Sorghum for Kisumu Molasses is used in making alcohol.

Ms Ruth Adhiambo Odinga, director of Spectre International which runs Kisumu Molasses, explained the pilot sorghum project at Dominion is to produce seeds which will go to out growers who will in turn sell back to them.

“We want to change the lives of the people in the entire region by making them part of the firm by earning a living from it,” she said.

The sorghum stems will be used to make alcohol while other farmers will grow the crop for seeds and for food. Apart from well maintained roads, the farm has a 500-metre airstrip which is to be extended for bigger planes.

And Dominion is all the time rolling out new projects to help the community.

Hydro-power production is about to start from a waterfall 1,153 metres above sea level, built on a canal on the Yala river. It will light Dominion and sell the rest to the national grid.

A pressing machine is being installed to make diesel oil from the jatropha plant also grown on the farm. And the massive production of soya beans is in the offing.

The beans will be grown on 7,000 acres of the swamp for making fish feed both for the farm and to be sold on commercially.

Mr Abir said that will offset the monthly cost of Sh2 million for importing the feed from Uganda.

Already, a fish feed milling plant has been installed with a capacity to produce 30,000.

By EMMAN OMARI, Daily Nation

Ruth Odinga, Director, Spectre International Ltd

Spectre International is a team effort by Kenyan and Canadian investors, to revive an industrial plant that politics had made idlefor twenty years. Our aim is two-fold, to do profitable business and to contribute to Kisumu’s development. We are very pleased with our progress over the past three years and would like to see other investors join us in Kisumu

Corporate News

Agro Chemical opens new battlefront with Spectre

When Spectre International pulled the plug on its sole rival, Agro Chemical and Food Company, by introducing the extra neutral alcohol in its production line after Canadian investors took over in 2005, it was presumed they had won the battle for supremacy.

However, recent developments in both the local and global energy industry that have spurred intense interest on renewable energy appear to be reigniting the rivalry.

The Muhoroni-based Agro Chemical and Food Company achieved a sales turnover of over Sh1 billion this year and announced plans to commission a new extra neutral alcohol plant at its premises at a cost of about Sh700 million.

The firm said the new plant will be ready by the end of this year.

Speaking to Business Daily, board Chairman William Kirwa noted that the decision to start manufacturing extra neutral alcohol (ENA) would enhance the company’s competitiveness locally and beyond the borders.

“This will not only add value to our products but also improve our competitiveness in the local, regional and international market.”

The firm is also opening another battlefront with its Kisumu-based rival by venturing into sweet sorghum production to supplement its main raw material molasses as it seeks scale up the production of ethanol to meet the regional demand.

Spectre International took to sweet sorghum production mid last year as supply of molasses from the surrounding sugar millers dwindled.

The entry into sweet sorghum production by state corporation, ACFC signals a new battlefront for out growers in the region who will be expected to supply feedstock to run the firms.

“We are now involved in the research and development of an alternative feedstock to sustain our production,” said ACFC managing director, Mr O. P. Naran.

Already, Spectre is in talks with Kibos Outgrowers and the Siaya-based Dominion Farms to supply it with the grain, but the director in charge of procurement and administration, Mr Israel Agina, has in the past stated that the intention was to eventually increase the acreage under the crop to 8,000 acres to adequately supplement molasses.

But the main battle front appears to be opening in the ENA production which has been hitherto a preserve of Spectre.

ACFC, owned collectively by the government and business giant Mehta Group, has moved in with the Sh700 million investment to start producing ENA, said Mr Naran.

The company aims to produce 50,000 litres per day, an amount that is 10,000 litres less than the capacity of Spectre.

“Once operational, we will be one of the alcohol plants producing the purest spirits and we promise our customers a quality comparable to none in the region,” said Mr Naran.

Other product areas where the two firms have locked horns include methylated and rectified spirits, and baker’s yeast.

In total, the two firms control the entire Eastern, Central and Southern African markets in countries including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, DRC and Southern Sudan.
ENA is used in the manufacture and blending of alcoholic beverages, while methylated spirit is used as an antiseptic and for manufacture of skincare products.

However, ACFC is pleading with the government to write off it’s over Sh6 billion debt as it clears those owed by sugar millers to give it the competitive edge it requires.

It is also asking the government to enact a law that would revive production of power alcohol which failed due to what Mr Naran blames on “non-co-operation of multi-national oil companies” in the 1980’s.
The renewed competition could be a boon to the struggling energy sector long strained by the high oil and power prices. Ethanol production through fermentation can utilize a variety of feedstock including sugar, starch and biomass.
The feedstock available locally with the three contents includes molasses, cassava, potato, sweet sorghum, sugar cane juice and sugar beet.

KENYA: HOW COCKY RAILA GOT IMMERSED IN MAU SAGA (1)

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From: sang kip

By Chris Lang, 19th November 2009 [ Read Reuters online of November 19, 2009]

One villager told The Standard that “The Government must look for alternative land to resettle us lest it creates a crisis worse than that of post-election violence IDPs [internally displaced persons].” But Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga said yesterday, “The government is saying: ‘Get out and go back where you came from’. But they have refused to go home and they are blackmailing the government to give them free land.”

In July 2009, Odinga announced that the Ogiek would be arrested if they did not leave their ancestral lands in the Mau Forest

Kenya: Kisumu farmers plans to demonstrate in support of the Court of Appeal judgement on Miwni Sugar farm

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu.

LOCAL sugar cane farmers in Miwani and its environ have planned to stage a peaceful street demonstration in favor of what they termed as milestone judgment by three appellant judges in Kisumu Court last Friday.

Members of the Riwruok Dongruok Jokano Manyien {RIDOKAM} a welfare organization which is involving in development and investment by the local community within the Kano Plains in both Nyando, Kisumu and Muhoroni district led by their chairman Mzee Walter Kitoto Adell thanked the three appellant judges for they described as “Solomonic Judgment”.

Adell said that as a gesture of appreciation to the job well done by he judicial officials the group would like to show Kenyans that the county’s judiciary system is very much alive and strong.”We are pleased and satisfied with the outcome of the prolonged court case because it has now put the question of ownership f Miwani nucleus estate to rest.” Said Mzee Adell.

Three Judges of the court of Appeal sitting in Kisumu last Friday ruled that 10,000 acres belonging to the Miwani Mills currently under the official receivership revert to its original owners and that a land title deed fraudulently obtained by a firm known as Crossly holdings be cancelled immediately.

The farmer’s decision to stage the demonstration in favor of the rung came immediately after an appeal court ruled that the land in dispute be reverted to Miwani Sugar Mills with immediate effect. The land in question had been sold to Crossly Holdings by firm’s consultant in the name of Nagendra Saxena, way back in 2003 for Kshs 752 million which was far much below its market value of Kshs 2 billion.

Saxena a company whose one of directors is also a dirt with the Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries had claimed that he had attached the land to recover defaulted debts owed to him the previous owners of Miwani Sugar Mills way back in 1993.

However, the matter was put to rest last Friday when three appellant judges Riaga Omolo, Phillip Tunoi and Daniel S Aganyanya ruled that the land reverted to its original owners, the Miwani Sugar Mills and the title currently held by Crossely Holdings be cancelled immediately.

The judges said that after examining the case, it was with no doubt that the regular procedures wee not followed during the same and acquisition of the Miwani factory and its estate.

The ruling threw the court into frenzy and dozens of local farmers who had jammed the court to hear the verdict burst out in jubilation with songs and dances.

It all started in 2003 when the government who owned Mwni Sugar Mills advertised for its privatization and a local firm in association with foreign investors successfully made their for with for Kshs 2.7 billion

Local farmers whose company was among the bidders, but whose bid was unsuccessful collaboration with other moved to court and filed legal suit claiming that the former owners of Miwani Sugar Mill owed them money in the equivalent of USD 400,000 for consultancy services and attached the land s collateral. The land was later sold in stage managed public auction in mysterious manner and its original title deed cancelled and a new one issued within the same day of the said auction.

The latest verdict follows a successful defense suit filed by the joint official receiver managers appointed by the government Eng.Martin Owiti and Kipng’etich Bett and the Kenya Sugar .Board.

In another verdict made a couple years ago the High Court Judge Justice John Mwera had ruled that certain individuals and groups involved in the alleged public auction and fraudulent transfer of the farm’s title deed to Crossely Holdings be thoroughly investigated by a competent police authorities.

The people suspected to have been involved in the scam include a magistrates, lawyers, senior officials from the Land Ministry, officials of the Nyando County Council and court officials.

The matter has since resulted in close to seven people including director of a sugar factory, senior land Ministry official, officials of the Nyando County Council a magistrate were arraigned to court late last year by the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission sleuths. They were released on cash bail of Kshs 5 million allegedly bailed out with cash bail deposit paid by one Sugar Company.

And now that the appeal has come out in favor of Miwani Sugar Mills it is hoped that the other case filed by KACC will be pursued to its logical conclusion by the KACC. And that the fraudsters will not be let out of the hook.

Ends

Kenya: Bumper crop harvesting in some parts of Luo-Nyanza but “The Ocampo Six Famine” still bites

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News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

THERE is bumper harvesting of new food grains in some parts of Luo-Nyanza, and the arrival of new maize from the field I expected to reduce the prices f the same to an affordable proportion.

The relief of pressure of acute food shortage in the region is expected to be last only a few weeks, because the crop failure is widespread, most in low-lying locations along the shoreline of Lake Victoria.

The most biting famine which has since been christened “The Ocampo Six” is likely to continue until December. This will depend on how the short rains, which begin in late August and early September, will behave.

“The Ocampo Six” had sent the price of food grain sky rocketing from the previous Kshs 20/ per 2 kg of maize up to Kshs 160/- two kilograms in some regions. The situation is aggravated by the refusal of the neighboring Tanzania to allow its maize to be exported into Kenya.

Apart from banning the import of maize through the normal borders posts, some unscrupulous traders have since resorted to using parts of unguarded Lake Victoria and other “Panya Routes” in the villages, but the quantities which comes via such illicit routes are quite insignificant and cannot help the situation.

Crop failure is wide spread in places like Kano Plains, Nyakach, Karachuonyo, Lambwe Valley, Homa-Bay, Mbita, Gwassi and Nyatike constituencies. On the northern parts the crops failure covered areas like Raried, Alego-Usonga,Ugenya and part of Kisumu Rural constituencies.

In the upper parts of South Nyanza in areas like Kasipul-Kabodo, Rangwe, Rongo, Awendo Uriri ,Migori and Kuria there is bumper harvest. But fear persists that the grain would not last longer due to the scourge of “Ocampo Six” famine, which the locals says is the worst in the 21st century and only compare with two other previous famine “Nyaldiema and Nyngweso” of the 1920s and 1936.

Some older and still surviving Luos still remember other famine like” Ladhiri {1943} and Chung’ni Kimiyi{1961} and Ke Mau Mau of 1953. However, all acknowledged that the “Ocampo Six” will go down as the most biting famine in modern history of the region.

Other region which is reported to have received bumper harvest is Trans-Nzoia and parts of Kuria.

The poor harvest in some parts of Western Kenya is attributed to the supplies of irrelevant maize seedling by prepared by some unscrupulous and unprofessional seed companies, which have sprung up like mushroom in recent years. Also in the business re conmen, know to be using logos and container of the much efficient Kenya Seed Company based in Kitale town in Trans-Nzoia County.

The harvest is nearly 100 per cent better in Ndhiwa district, which of late has become the bastion o food in the greater Southern Nyanza.

Gwassi district which usually known as the bastion of grains in Suba region has witnessed a total crop failure, a making the situation in the two islands of Rusinga and Mfangano even worse.

Another bastion of food production is Uyoma in Rarieda.In some places it rained a lot flogging the crop field, or it rained less and insufficient to support the crop.The situation varied due to the climate change in the region.

Politicians and community leaders in the region have appealed to the peasant farmers to plant roots yielding crops such as cassava and sweet potatoes to avert further deterioration of the famine.

Among them is Nyatike MP Edick Omondi Anyanga and Karachuonyo MP Eng. James Rege. The two legislators have appealed to their constituents to make good use of the short rains by planting cassava and sweet potatoes in places where the two crop could grow and flourish.

Ends

KENYA: WORKSHOP ON LAND AND WATER SECURITY

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Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
WUNDANYI-TAITA TAVETA
FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2011
TAKE-3

Workshop on land and water security entered its third day yesterday here at Taita Taveta County in Mombasa Catholic Archdiocese with challenges on the implementations of the new constitution with some participants wondering why Kenyans voted for it overwhelmingly despite the fact that some church leaders told their flocks to vote against it.

Some participants were even concerned why the very church leaders who rejected the constitution and called the meeting to condemn one single man for wearing stud on his ear cannot do the same for over 10 million Kenyans who die of hunger.

Church leaders fear they would be blamed if they don’t condemn things that touch on morality that is why they were afraid if they did not reject the constitution because of abortion or condemn Dr Willy Mutinga for wearing the studs, which to them meant that he was either homosexual or advocating for it they would be blamed.

Those who die of hunger or still live in IDPs camps is not of a great concern to church leaders because they don’t touch on morality and therefore don’t see any need to call for meeting to push on the government to ensure that no body is dying because of hunger when they are able to feed them.

Kenyans overwhelmingly and peacefully voted “YES” for a new constitution as opposed to some Church leaders who commanded their flocks to vote “NO”. ‘YES’ got 5,954,767- representing 67.25 percent of the total votes while “NO” got 2,687,193- representing 30.25 percent.

Kenyans and for that matter, the vast majority of Christians went against their church leaders’ command and voted “YES” because they generally agreed that the proposed constitution, while not perfect, is a huge improvement over the old constitution, a colonial-era document that gives almost total power to the President and leaves out any mention that the government serves at the behest of Kenya’s citizens.

They voted “YES” because Kenya’s new constitution is not only designed to re-distribute political power away from the capital, Nairobi, to 47 newly created counties (the devolution of powers), but also the land issue. It explains why numerous groups played a pivotal role in delivering this historically critical outcome, including established groups such as the Kenya Land Alliance.

Other groups included the Center for Land Economy, Women’s Right Movements, the Green Belt Movement, and newer groups such as the young women’s advocacy group Warembo ni Yes (an outgrowth of Bunge la Mwananchi—Women’s Social Movement).

Warembo ni Yes used new technologies such as mobile phones, Facebook, Twitters and the Internet, and more traditional methods such as community forums to amplify the voices of their constituency. In the process, innovative female leaders emerged to advance women’s rights.

Women were to vote overwhelmingly for the new constitution because it guarantees that they will fill at least one-third of elected and appointed government posts, land and property inheritance. Under Kenya’s previous law, inheritance was governed by customary law, often preventing women from inheriting property from their parents or laying claim to joint assets when their husbands’ died.

A new Bill of Rights also provides that all marriages shall be registered under an Act of Parliament. This means that even customary law marriages will be certified, protecting women’s interests in disputes between a widow and her in-laws over property. Currently, in the case of customary marriage it is the in-laws who attest to the existence of the union since they are the ones who oversee the traditional wedding.

In the new dispensation, all marriages will be officially registered. Women will also be protected from claims by other women who turn up following a man’s death, claiming to have been married to the same man under customary law and demanding a share of his estate – a common occurrence.

Historically land has been the centre for controversy in Kenya especially the issue of women being denied the right to own or inherit land. There are numerous cases where women are disinherited of land and new law seeks to change this as stated in the following articles Article 60:

(1) Land in Kenya shall be held, used and managed in a manner that is equitable, efficient, productive and sustainable, and in accordance with the following principles-

(f) Elimination of gender discrimination in law, customs and practices related to land and property in land: Article 68 Enact legislation (vi) To protect the dependants of deceased persons holding interests in any land; and water.

The new law defines community land as ancestral land and lands traditionally occupied by hunter –gatherer communities or lawfully held as trust land by the county governments. The new law entrenches provisions that protect culture and traditional lifestyles of indigenous people.

“The constitution shall protect indigenous communities that have retained and maintained a traditional lifestyle and livelihoods based on hunter- gatherer economy or pastoral persons and communities, whether they’re nomadic or settled community because of its relative geographical isolation who have experienced only marginal participation in social and economic life of Kenya as a whole.

That is why a day after Kenyans voted to accept a new constitution women across the country spoke about their hopes and expectations. Formerly women have been robbed of their financial contributions to matrimonial assets.

Men for example could just wake up one morning and sale the house they had bought together with his wife without her consent. This cannot happen now because the new constitution provides for the elimination of gender discrimination in law, customs and practices related to land and property.

This is indeed a very historic moment for the women of this country who have for years battled with their in-laws in succession cases. Formerly in the case of customary marriage it is the in-laws who attest to the existence of the union since they are the ones who oversee the traditional wedding.

The new constitution also grants health budgets for counties, making health care services more available in rural areas. It will ensure that there will be better deployment of health workers in all parts of the country, better nutrition and provision of health services. This will enable more women to deliver in hospitals and a sharp improvement of family planning services.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya
Tel 254-20-4441372
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org

Kenya & Uganda: Kenyan and Ugandan Ministers finally agreed to have survey work on the disputed Migingo Island resumed immediately

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo.

KENYANS and Ugandans living in village around Lake Victoria have good reasons to smile following a brief statement issued after a two days ministerial consultative meeting held in Nairobi resolved that the two countries should resume joint survey with the view to establish the true ownership of the disputed island in Lake Victoria.

The two small and rocky islands, which are located close to Kenyan mainland have been the subject of heated argument between the two sister countries. And at one time, the dispute about the ownership of Migingo and Ugingo had threatened to derail the regional integration under the auspices of the East African community, which both countries are the founder members.

Other members of the EAC include Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda shared lake Victoria with Tanzania having the lion’s share of 54 per cent, Uganda 42 per cent and Kenya had the smallest portion of the lake’s water at only 6 per cent, mainly around the Nyanza Gulf (formerly Kavirondo Gulf.

A joint ministerial consultative meeting held in a Nairobi hotel and chaired by Kenya’s Acting Foreign Affairs Minister Prof.George Saitoti and attended by a Ugandan delegation led by his counterpart Sam Kutesa also agreed that a joint policing exercise on the two islands should be established.

Prof Saitoti disclosed to the newsmen that police chiefs from the two countries would meet soon to operationalise the directive of the joint security policing and its mode.

Kenyans living on Migingo and Ugingo islands have often complained of harassment by Ugandan authorities, which they allege demand that, they pay taxes and bribes money before they are allowed to fish.
Migingo’s wealth lies in its proximity to some of the richest remaining deep water fishing ground in Lake Victoria. The highly prized and economically important Nil Perch species is said to be in abundance around the two islands.

Prof Saitoti spoke to newsmen on Wednesday evening at the end of the two days consultation meeting held in a Nairobi hotel between Kenyan and Uganda delegations. He said there is need to approach the issue soberly.”That is why I am happy that the joint consultative meetings that have been held in Nairobi have been very fruitful.”

Ministers in the Kenyan delegation at the Nairobi talks included James Orengo {Lands} Gerald Otieno Kajwang’ {Immigration}, Yusuf Hajji {Defense} and Prof.Hellen Sambili {EAC Affair}. Also in attendance was Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of lands Dorothy Angote and the Nyanza Provincial Commissioner Francis Mutie.

Diplomatic row erupted between Kenya and Uganda three years ago and shortly after President Yoweri Museveni controversially claimed that the disputed Migingo Island was in Kenya territory, but its waters were in Uganda.

Museveni defiantly declared that Kenyans would not be allowed to fish on the island, sparking off outrage and protests from the Kenyan public. At one time even Kenyan parliamentarians were up I arms demanding that the issue be handled militarily instead of diplomatically. But the principals in the ruling coalition government President Kibaki and the Prim Minister Raila Odinga repeatedly called for calm and insisted that the issue would be solved harmoniously.

President Kibaki took some time before he public reiterated that both Migingo and Ugingo were on the Kenyan side of the common international border between the two countries.

And on Wednesday this week Minister Saioti said Kenyans and other inhabitants of the two islands should go about their day to day activities without fear.

He added that while carrying out the joint survey, teams from both countries should be guided by the African Map of 1926 and 1962 Lancaster House constitution of Kenya and he 1995 Ugandan constitution.

ON HIS PART, Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa said that the Migingo issue should not be politicized, adding that all efforts and consultations be made to resolve the matter

“Let us be sincere while conducting the survey and not engage in acts that may cause unnecessary excitement or tensions,” Kutesa said.

The Ugandan Minister said residents of both countries who lives on the two islands should co-exist peacefully as they wait for the survey to be completed..

Ends

Kenya and Uganda have agreed to resume survey work on the disputed fishing islands in Lake Victoria

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

KENYA and Uganda have agree to resumed the suspended joint survey work in Lake Victoria to establish the exact border and restore the ownership of the disputed two fishing islands of Migingo and Ugingo in Lake Victoria.

The two survey teams will report to their respective governments within two months. While the exercise is going on the two governments have agreed that contingent of police team from both countries would be deployed to patrol the islands.

The dispute over the ownership of Migingo Island has been the subject of heated exchange between the Kenyan and Ugandan governments with the MPs in Kenyan parliament up in arms urging their government to take military action to restore its sovereignty over the two islands.

Uganda has been adamant posting its marine police to patrol the two island and despite of repeated agreement that it should pull its security personnel out of the two islands to allow the joint team of surveyors to complete their work an determine the exact boundaries.

Meanwhile the Kenyan Ministry of Fisheries is set to spend over Kshs 6 billions within three years to beef up security in Lake Victoria.

Disclosing this good news, the Assistant Director of Fisheries Michael Obadha said the money is to buy surveillance boats, train rescuers in time of disasters, and introduce coast guards. The envisaged plans, he added are in advance stage.

He was addressing fishermen an fish traders at Mahanga fish landing beach in Siaya County .He said plans to introduce coast guards to patrol the Kenyan side of the lake against pirates and criminal element is in advance stage. Coast guards are a special security agents who deal with safety and criminal matters around water bodies.

The Ministry said the Obadha is now waiting for procurement of equipment and training of personnel who will be hired as coast guards before launching the essential service needed around the Kenyan side of Lake Victoria.

He said decision to introduce coast guards services was arrived at following rising insecurity in the lake. Fishermen have persistently complained of piracy and harassment from security agents from the neighboring countries.

The director assured fishermen that the presence of coast guards in the lake would be felt within the next one year. He said the constant wrangling between Kenyan fishermen and fishermen from neighboring countries were unhealthy and needed to be addressed urgently.

Obadha, however, advised the fishermen to desist from demanding more rights given that Kenya had the least size of water bodies in Lake Victoria.

His remarks come amid complaints by the Kenyan fishermen over harassment from neighbors .The neighbors accuse Kenyans fishermen of invading their territorial waters. “Although we only have six per cent of the entire water mass in Lake Victoria, yet we have majority of fishing crafts and fishermen in the lake. If each country was to stick to its territory, then we will be the sufferers.”

Director Obadha called on the Kenyan fishermen to be calm and patient over border conflicts. He further urged the fishermen to safeguard the cordial relationship with the neighboring counties of Uganda and Tanzania as their survival in fishing business depended on this.

He, however, cautioned that Kenya should be taken for granted over Migingo and Ugingo fishing island in lake Victoria, which Ugandan are illegally occupying at the moment, though the government wants to see the matter solved harmoniously.

Ends

KENYA: LAND AND WATER SECURITY IN TAITA TAVETA COUNTY

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From: ouko joachim omolo

Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ

WUNDANYI-TAITA TAVETA

TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2011

TAKE-1

From July 24- 28 2011 myself (Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ,) Fr Ken Thesing, Maryknoll, Mr Joseph Adero Ngala, People for Peace in Africa are conducting workshop on land and water security in Taita Taveta County, Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa.

Taita Taveta Country is one of the forty seven counties of Kenya, located in the Coast Province of that country. It lies approximately 200 km northwest of Mombasa and 360 km southeast of Nairobi city. It covers an area of 16,975 km2. of which a bulk 62 percent or 11,100 km2. is within Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks.

Historically, about 86 per cent of Taita Taveta County was grabbed by the colonial government which carved out 62 percent of it and converted it into the two national parks while the remaining land was given freely to European war veterans for sisal estates and subsequent governments of Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki, the Taita Taveta community was therefore displaced and rendered landless.

According to the latest census results, the county has a population of 284,657. These, however have to squeeze within 4,000 square kilometers for settlement and farming as the rest of the land is occupied by ranches, rocks and wetland.

The remaining 5,876 km2 is occupied by ranches, sisal estates, water bodies such as Lakes Chala and Jipe in Taveta and mzima springs, and the hilltop forests which occupy less than 100 km2. or approximately 10 km² out of 587.5 km².

The County has approximately 25 ranches. The main land use in ranche is cattle grazing. The three operating sisal estates of the district are the Teita Sisal Estate, Voi Sisal Estate and Taveta Sisal Estate.

There are 48 forests which have survived on hill tops in the district of which 28 are gazetted and are under government protection and management. They range in size from small 500 square metres with a few remnant trees to modestly vast 2 square kilometres indigenous and exotic forest mountains.

Land grabbing has become one of the major issues in this County. The large scale farmers who are wealthy Kenyans have continued grabbing land in this county. The land owned by the Kenyatta family alone in Taita Taveta farm is 74,000 acres. This is not to mention 50, 000 acres currently under Mrs Beth Mugo, Minister for Public Health and niece of the first President.

Former Assistant Minister for Roads and Public Works Basil Criticos who has been accused of one of the land grabbers in Taita Taveta was sacked by Moi. Mr Criticos had complained about the squatters who occupied his land. Several hundred families had moved on to his farm and a neighbouring farm, beaten up security personnel, and burnt sisal crops.

It is not clear why land in Taita Taveta has been known for its crisis. Historical background could give some hints. Historically the land was not occupied not until the Taita people migrated to Kenya through Tanzania. They migrated to Kenya in five groups each settling at different places of the present Taita Taveta County in Kenya.

While settling in these areas the Taita speaking people interacted with other communities or tribes particularly the Taveta, the Pare of Tanzania, the Borana, the Wakamba and the Maasai. Since then about 20 percent alone are from Western Kenya.

Others who settled in the area include the Falasha (Jewish) that settled in Taita Hills after conflicts in the Ethiopia or settled at the area during some migration south. Today there are sub groups or subtribes of Taita.

They can be divided into Wadawida, who traditionally lived around the Dawida, the Wasagalla who lived around the Saghalla, and the Wakasighau who lived around the Kasighau massif of the Taita Hills.

The Saghalla people speak Kisaghala which is much closer to the Kigiriama or mijikenda (nine tribes who speak almost same language). The Kasighau are closer to the Pare and Chagga of Tanzania but are Taita speaking people.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya

Tel 254-20-4441372
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org

KENYA: ARMED POLICE GUARD OFAFA MEMORIAL HALL

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OFAFA MEMORIAL HALL IN KISUMU IS UNDER ARMED POLICE GUARD FOLLOWING ITS CONTROVERSIAL RENTING OUT TO THE BATA SHOE COMPANY.

Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City

The Ofafa Memorial Hall, which is the nerves center of Luo cultural and at times political activities in Kisumu, is currently under armed policemen for unclear circumstances.

But inquiries by this writer has revealed that one of the warring groups claiming the leadership of the Luo Council of Elders had rented out the main hall to the Bata Shoe Company for a period of one month. The company made a down payment of Kshs 60,000.

Bata Shoe is using the Hall for its annual grand sales for its old and outmoded shoes, which are sold to the public at cheap prices and the sale is a countrywide exercise by the company.

Following the deal entered between the group of Luo Council of Elders led by Ker Opiyo Otondi, the other stakeholders had read a mischief and threatened to storm the Hall and eject the Bata Shoe Company by force.

This is what prompted Ker Opiyo Otondi to seek for police protection. Contacted by this writer, the chairman admitted that it was he who consulted the Kisumu West D.C. and requested for the police protection. And the D.C. in response posted a team of armed Administration Policemen to Ofafa to keep an eye on any group which might be tempted to disrupt the Bata She sales.

Further inquiries revealed that that there is a court injunction, which was obtained by the former Trustees of the defunct Luo Union East Africa which barred all the warring parties from accessing the Hall until the hearing and determination of a case which is pending before the courts regarding the Hall’s ownership.

The court injunction had also barred the previous Luo Council of Elders under its former chairman Ker Meshack Riaga Ogalo and their agents from accessing the Hall on the same condition, and the order is said to be still in force.

According to our source the D.C. visited the Hall last week and when reminded of the existing of court injunction barring all the warring factions from accessing the Hall is reported to have told one of the tenants operating at the Hall that he did not care whether there is court order or not, but his men were to protect the property.

Built in the 1950s, the Ofafa Memorial Hall was constructed with money raised from members of the defunct Luo Union East Africa who working in Cities and towns all over East African region and also at Home in rural locations located inside Luo-Nyanza.

The Hall was named after the slain ex-Nairobi City Councilor Ambrose Ofafa from Alego Ka-Kalkada in Siaya district. Ex Coun Ofafa was shot dead in 1953 near Burma Market after his motor vehicle had stalled on Donholm road as he headed home by the agents of the Mau Mau agent’s in Nairobi who felt he was a collaborator of the colonialists. He was among the highly educated African to be nominated to the City Council. A fellow civic leader the late Tom Mbotela was also shot dead by the Mau Mau secret agents.

The original purpose of the Ofafa Memorial Hall which is standing magnificently on the main Kisumu-Kakamega rod near Kibuye Market was be used for restoration of Luo cultural artifacts, meetings, education hand other activities.

It has been used in the past also as a Hall of fame where dignified Luo personalities, mainly political luminaries, professionals, academician and others have had their departed souls taken there to lie in state over night stay as signs of community’s appreciation and respect before such bodies are taken to their rural homes for burial.

In such exercise members of the public usually piled up for viewing the body f the dead personality and paying homage as their last respect.

However, there has been the subject of heated disagreement between the various groups of stakeholders ever since the banning of the tribal welfare organizations by the retired President Daniel Arap Moi in early 1980.

At one time while serving as the Patron of the Ramogi Institute of Advanced Science and technology {RIAT} the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga unilaterally handed the management of the Ofafa Hall to the management of RIAT which turned it into its City Campus until some years later when the former patron of the defunct Luo Union East Africa moved to court and retrieved it from Riat.

The court ruled that Ofafa Mamorial Hall was an important institution belonging to the entire Luo community therefore Jaramogi Odinga as an individual had no right of deciding about the fate of this property or that power of handing over to Riat and ordered that the status quo be restored.

The reportedly existing court injunction also barred any faction of the disputed leadership of the Luo Council of Elders from receiving cash rent fro the tenants carrying out businesses there, and that all the rental money be deposited to the court for safe custody.

The Hall has been the subject of legal tussle before the courts for close to fifteen years with no group coming out clearly to claim its ownership. Members of the Odinga family are also being blamed for the Hall’s woes tribulations as it is being alleged that the family wants to have a grip over the properties of the defunct Luo Union East Africa using oblique techniques without the approval of the community.

Rumors making the rounds in Kisumu City and its environs have it that some people among them senior Luo politicians had a grand scheme and a plan to grab the Ofafa Hall and construct a five star hotel on the site,but the rumr culd not be confirmed immedtaley.

Luo Union {EA} had several other commercial buildings in Kisumu and Maseno towns The company also sed to own a 430 acres large scale Ramogi Farm near Miwani Sugar Mills where it used to grow sugar cane for sale to the Miwani factory. But some years back it was reported that part of the farm was sold to the former Emuhaya MP the late Weldon Muchilwa for undisclosed amount of money.

It remained unclear as to who had brokered the sales and whose bank account the amount realized from the sales, which was understood to have been n excess of Kshs 10 million was banked.

The company, however, had remained under the management of people closely connected to the Odingas serving as its directors. Most of its directors are hand-picked by the Odingas and their favorite agents. It has never posted any profits or sent our dividends to shareholders for years.

Ends

AFRICA: THE DEPOPULATION AGENDA

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Sent by Mbugua Ngugi

By Jon Rappoport
www.stratiawire.com 19 Feb. 2003

From a round-up of my best intell sources, and from my own 15 years of research…the subject is depopulation.

A third of Africa to go under in the first long phase, which is underway now… AIDS and other diseases will be the COVER STORY for the decimation. The real causes will be starvation, contaminated water (which has existed for a long time), toxic vaccines given to people who are already immune-suppressed, wars, and of course, stolen farmland.

Many reports of rural villages disappearing…this will be laid at the doorstep of AIDS. It already is. This is a cover story. This is a lie. HIV, as detailed in my past stories (keyword search my archive), causes nothing. It is basically a dormant retrovirus, like many others of its class. Its “amazingly intricate” activity in the body is a made-up piece of non-science.

The day after my 1988 book, AIDS INC., hit the shelves, a copy was on its way out of California to Moscow in a diplomatic pouch. It was sent by an agent of the USSR who was operating under diplomatic cover here.

This fact was relayed to me by one of my major sources for the book. He said, “Won’t they be surprised when they actually read it.”

What he meant was, the Russians at the time were fronting the theory, developed by East German biologist, Jakob Segal, that HIV was a lethal germ engineered in Maryland. A biowar US creation.

My book instead proved that HIV—wherever it came from—was a harmless retrovirus that was being used as a cover story to explain/conceal an emerging depopulation operation in the Third World. HIV was also a cover for other agendas outside the Third World.

As long as AIDS is the target of WHO/UN “humanitarian” efforts, the actual causes—which are easily reversible—of death in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are allowed to remain and fester and expand.

Thabo Mbeki, the president of South Africa, has been a major thorn in the side of the depopulationists. He knows that HIV does not cause human disease.. He knows that the front-line drugs for AIDS, especially AZT, attack the bone marrow, where certain cells of the immune system are manufactured. Thus CREAT ING what is called AIDS through pharmaceutical means. In particular, giving AZT to pregnant mothers is a major goal of the depopulation effort.

Mbeki understands that the causes of death in the Third World I have mentioned above are killing Africa. However, he continues to ask for outside help to alleviate these ravages. There is no chance he will get this help. ZERO.

Mbeki is being contained, to a degree, in his attempts to form a real coalition of leaders all over the African continent. MONEY is the weapon being used against him. Payoffs, “aid” dollars, and so on.

Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier and other retrovirologists were languishing at the end of the 1970s at the National Cancer Institute and the Pasteur Institute, respectively. They had just finished their work on the doomed Viral Cancer Project, which was a failed attempt to show that cancer was caused by one or more viruses—in particular, a newly discovered class of germs called retroviruses. These scientists had cut their teeth on these so mewhat exotic but unimportant germs. That was what they knew. They were fishing around for a new disease that could bring them government dollars.

They were SET UP to become the new tigers who would get major research money to explore an emerging phenomenon called AIDS.

HIV was, in their hands, destined to become the COVER STORY for death that actually was occurring for MULTIPLE REASONS.

So Montagnier and Gallo did “discover” HIV and the rest is history—false history.

I apprised the East German biologist Jakob Segal, via mail, that his theory about HIV was way off base. In the sense that it was not causing human disease. If it was indeed a biowar creation, it was a failure.

Either my letter was intercepted, or he ignored it because he had his own agenda. He had answered a previous letter of mine which had asked direct questions about his work—but when I blew the whistle, he fell silent.

Meanwhile, I had interested author and environmentalist Jeremy Rifkin in HIV.. For a time—before I discovered the truth—I was exploring the possibility that HIV had been put together from bovine and sheep viruses—and Rifkin was very hot on the bovine factor—because there was a chance that HIV or some bovine germ close to it was in smallpox vaccine. If so, it potentially implicated the vaccine in millions of deaths in the Third World.

But then I dug deeper. I found out that NOTHING strange or exotic needed to be in the vaccine. All by itself it could kill people. Particularly those whose immune systems were suppressed already. And then I examined very closely the medical evidence that had been advanced by Gallo and others to prove that HIV was the cause of what was being called AIDS. I realized, in 1987, that this evidence was non-existent.

I pointed out these two discoveries to Rifkin. He was not pleased. I think he felt a little betrayed, because I had been feeding him much different information before I saw the deeper truth. And Rifkin was basically pointing himself toward a theory that irresponsible medical germ machination itself was implicated in AIDS. He felt that tinkering with germs in labs was where the real action was. I told him the Plot was more insidious than that, and HIV was really a cover story for the depopulation agenda. He soon abandoned his AIDS project.

During this period (1987-88), I met a member of the secret service of one of the African nations “most afflicted with AIDS.” This man was basically loyal to his people, and he felt that a gigantic hoax was being perpetrated. At some risk to himself, he spoke to me about various doctors who had come to his family and told them that AIDS research was being done in order to prove that so-called Slim Disease—at that time the African label for AIDS—was the result of HIV. These doctors were amazed that such obviously false research was being accepted. In particular, they cited Lancet, the famous British medical journal, as the publisher of some of this research.

I then did my own examination of a key paper by Serwadda which attempted to establish Slim as a new and emerging phenomenon on the African continent. The paper was so full of unsupported statements, so rife with omissions, that I concluded Slim was basically a diversionary label for: starvation, dirty water, stolen land, and immunosuppressive vaccines.

At bottom, why all this false science? Because someone needed a cover story to conceal a persistent and intentionally unsolved situation in Africa that was causing death according to a plan to depopulate the continent.

A PLAN: DEPOPULATION.

A COVER STORY TO CONCEAL THE PLAN: HIV.

MEDICAL DUPES TO PROVIDE THE COVER STORY: GALLO, MONTAGNIER, SERWADDA, AND OTHERS.

AN INTERNATIONAL HEALTH AGENCY THAT WOULD DO EVERYTHING EXCEPT HELP SOLVE THE REAL AND CONTINUING CAUSES OF DEATH IN AFRICA: THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION..

A DIVERSIONARY AND PHONY DEBATE THAT ACTUALLY FORWARDS THE DEPOPULATION AGENDA: WHETHER TO LOWER PRICES ON TOXIC AND DESTRUCTIVE AIDS DRUGS FOR AFRICA.

Jon Rappoport has worked as a free-lance investigative reporter for 20 years. He has written articles on politics, health, media, culture and art for LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, Village Voice, Nexus, CBS Healthwatch, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Rappoport is the author of “AIDS Inc.

Tana River Qatar, Nyanza Belgium Company HG consulting….etc.,

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from Judy Miriga

Folks,

Orengo should let PLO Lumumba smoke out all those found engaged in corruption at the Ministry of Lands……Njoki is also brawled in the Timoin lands in Kwale, how will she be able to take stand while compromised………She has a tale tale to tale first… …poor people are being ripped off…..!….Election Broundary Committee must be free from all those associated with Kibaki, PM Raila, Kalonzo, Uhuru etc.,……Even Oswago has nothing to swago for Kenyans, he too should not come anywhere near the commission team……ata swago nini??? akili zetu au mali ya uma au ya community?

We need fresh start people…I am sick and tired of these folks….PLO should go ahead and smoke them all….!

PM Raila previously at the Court in Mombasa claimed that the Original land he bought, he did not see any neighbours within the surrounding and that the owner of the original land is “GOD”………Surely……!

PLO has all rights to swing into full action and let the heads swing and spiral, we are all set to protect the poor-man land and the disadvantaged by matching through the “Walls of Jericho”……….7 seven times……People …!

Each and everyone get into full gear action……..take charge…..Give the thieves sleepless nights…….YES, join with the 40 MPs who are against the thieves……and the thieves must be exposed and smoke them out people……..!

Unataka nini….??.”Tuna taka UNGA”……No Ethanol when people are dying from hunger…….you cannot sucrifice PETRO-DOLLAR ETHANOL for UNGA…..and this is DANGER…..

Ati Land for Sale…..?????

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

– – – – – – – – – – –

Orengo attack personal, replies livid Lumumba

The war of words between Lands minister James Orengo and anti-graft agency boss Patrick Lumumba over corruption at the ministry of Lands escalated on Friday with the latter now accusing the minister of making personal attacks.

The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (Kacc) director wrote to the minister asking him to stop attacking the anti-graft body for raising concern over issues facing his ministry.

In his letter which was copied to the Sunday Nation, Prof Lumumba accused the minister of attacking his character and other lawyers rather than addressing the issues raised.

Last week, LSK and Kacc protested over the “serious rot” in the ministry, and they demanded immediate action against corrupt civil servants who “frustrated efficient services in the lands office”.

Prof Patrick Lumumba and LSK chairman Kenneth Akide led the demonstration. (READ: Lawyers besiege Lands ministry)

“I fail to understand how your involvement in the struggle for multiparty politics is related to the performance of the Ministry of Lands and the protest by the legal fraternity in which I am a member of good standing without any history of impropriety and without any case in its disciplinary committee in my 25 years of practice,” Prof Lumumba said in his letter.

He went on to tell the minister that just because he was “involved in the multi-party politics struggle” it does not mean that any ministry he leads is “immune to public scrutiny”.

“Please do not pooh pooh the message against corruption and poor service delivery at the ministry of Lands because you dislike the messenger, nor should you forget the antelope of corruption in pursuit of the squirrel of ad personam (personalised) attacks,” Prof Lumumba told the minister.

He added that he and Kacc will not be “deterred from using all legal methods to create awareness in the fight against corruption as it is mandated by law”.

On Wednesday, Mr Orengo had launched an attack on Prof Lumumba asking him to “focus on his work” instead of engaging in public theatrics. (READ: Orengo accuses Kacc of incompetence)

He was dismissing claims by Kacc and the Law Society of Kenya that his ministry was not acting tough on corruption.

The minister produced correspondence between him and Prof Lumumba in which the latter asked him to revoke titles of public land that had been grabbed.

He added that the anti-graft body should concentrate more on prosecuting cases on economic crimes instead of “making noise” about it and not acting.

“I take exceptions to the director of Kacc who — forgetting about his mandate and instead of doing his job — he is out there demonstrating; the reports we give get nowhere. If he wants lessons in demonstrating I can organise counter demonstrations effectively,” he said.

“It is therefore amazing that people can now come and say we are not working and yet there is evidence of our cooperation with Kacc.”

The minister also came to the defence of his ministry following a public spat between the lawyers and his PS Dorothy Ongote during the demonstration.

He challenged the Kacc boss to prove that he was committed to his work by investigating and instituting proceedings against officials of the Lands ministry found culpable.

Source: Nation media

Africa: secret land deals fleece Africa 0

Jul9
Kenya risks leasing out huge tracts of land in rushed, one-sided deals that may create new social and environment problems, according to new reports questioning such deals across the continent.

The reports say most contracts are heavily biased in favour of foreign investors. They grant them long-term access to public and community land at very low costs. There is also little to safeguard benefits for local people and the environment.

Foreign companies are currently acquiring large amounts of lands in Kenya and other African countries to grow food crops for export and for biofuels.

In Land deals in Africa: What is in the contracts? author Lorenzo Cotula analysed several contracts and found that most were negotiated in secret “Expected benefits are often in the form of jobs or irrigation and infrastructure development, rather than rental fees,” he says in the report produced by London-based think-tank, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

The report analyses 12 recent contracts through which investors have leased millions of hectares of land in East, West, Central and Southern Africa for farming. It found many problems with the contracts but also some signs of positive deals.

In Kenya, multinationals have applied for 500,000-plus hectares of land – more than five times the size of Nairobi – to do large scale farming and mining. The government earlier agreed to lease 40,000 hectares in the Tana River Delta to the Government of Qatar to grow crops to feed the people of Qatar.

Further, an Italian company, Kenya Biofuel Ltd, has been allowed to convert 5,000 acres of Dakatcha woodland at the Coast and plant Jatropha.

The investor had asked for 50,000 acres to plant Jatropha but that was scaled-down to 5,000 for “trial” after protests by conservation groups. “I will use any means to ensure the project begins,” Magarini MP and Fisheries minister Amason Kingi, who is the area MP, said recently.

In Nyanza, Belgium Company HG consulting is expected to put 42,000 hectares of land under sugarcane production while Dominion Farms Ltd has invested in 17,500 hectares around the Yala Swamp. There are other projects in the works, mostly at the Coast.

A second report released in Nairobi last week by Oxfam predicts food riots in East Africa, saying decreasing farmland will severely limit food production in the next 20 years. Oxfam is grouping of 15 international organisations which campaigns against poverty and injustice.

Its report, Growing A Better Future: Food Justice In a Resource-Constrained World, Oxfam advises governments to stop leasing fertile farmland and grazing land to foreign companies for tourism, large-scale agriculture for exports and biofuels. The report says African governments should instead support women and small scale farmers.

Oxfam projects food prices across the world will double in the 20 years and biofuels will increase hunger in Africa. “The grain required to fill the fuel tank of one 4×4 vehicle with ethanol is enough to feed one person for a year,” said Irungu Houghton, Oxfam’s pan Africa director. Oxfam says with the current trends, population will far outstrip food production.

The latest revision of United Nation’s World Population Prospects, for instance, shows that Kenya will be grappling with 71.5 million people in the next 20 years, yet maize production is only expected to rise by a third.

By John Muchangi – Nairobi Star

KENYA RISK LEASING OUT HUGE TRACTS OF LAND IN A RUSHED ONE-SIDED DEALS

Kenya risks leasing out huge tracts of land in rushed, one-sided deals that may create new social and environment problems, according to new reports questioning such deals across the continent.

The reports say most contracts are heavily biased in favour of foreign investors. They grant them long-term access to public and community land at very low costs. There is also little to safeguard benefits for local people and the environment.

Foreign companies are currently acquiring large amounts of lands in Kenya and other African countries to grow food crops for export and for biofuels.

In Land deals in Africa: What is in the contracts? author Lorenzo Cotula analysed several contracts and found that most were negotiated in secret “Expected benefits are often in the form of jobs or irrigation and infrastructure development, rather than rental fees,” he says in the report produced by London-based think-tank, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

The report analyses 12 recent contracts through which investors have leased millions of hectares of land in East, West, Central and Southern Africa for farming. It found many problems with the contracts but also some signs of positive deals.

In Kenya, multinationals have applied for 500,000-plus hectares of land – more than five times the size of Nairobi – to do large scale farming and mining. The government earlier agreed to lease 40,000 hectares in the Tana River Delta to the Government of Qatar to grow crops to feed the people of Qatar.

Further, an Italian company, Kenya Biofuel Ltd, has been allowed to convert 5,000 acres of Dakatcha woodland at the Coast and plant Jatropha.

The investor had asked for 50,000 acres to plant Jatropha but that was scaled-down to 5,000 for “trial” after protests by conservation groups. “I will use any means to ensure the project begins,” Magarini MP and Fisheries minister Amason Kingi, who is the area MP, said recently.

In Nyanza, Belgium Company HG consulting is expected to put 42,000 hectares of land under sugarcane production while Dominion Farms Ltd has invested in 17,500 hectares around the Yala Swamp. There are other projects in the works, mostly at the Coast.

A second report released in Nairobi last week by Oxfam predicts food riots in East Africa, saying decreasing farmland will severely limit food production in the next 20 years. Oxfam is grouping of 15 international organisations which campaigns against poverty and injustice.

Its report, Growing A Better Future: Food Justice In a Resource-Constrained World, Oxfam advises governments to stop leasing fertile farmland and grazing land to foreign companies for tourism, large-scale agriculture for exports and biofuels. The report says African governments should instead support women and small scale farmers.
Oxfam projects food prices across the world will double in the 20 years and biofuels will increase hunger in Africa. “The grain required to fill the fuel tank of one 4×4 vehicle with ethanol is enough to feed one person for a year,” said Irungu Houghton, Oxfam’s pan Africa director. Oxfam says with the current trends, population will far outstrip food production….Quote…(Mollasses is producing ETHONAL…..The reason PM Raila is starving Luos through Dominion land thieving/grabbing)

The latest revision of United Nation’s World Population Prospects, for instance, shows that Kenya will be grappling with 71.5 million people in the next 20 years, yet maize production is only expected to rise by a third.

The country is currently unable to feed its 40 million people, and is a major maize importer despite having large tracts of unfarmed arable land. Irungu says African countries can produce enough food if they stop leasing land to other countries and instead empower women and small scale farmers. “Food is about power – those with power and money can eat, those without cannot. Africa is abundant with resources, yet governments fail to invest effectively in its biggest resources – its people and its land,” he says.

Already in the Tana Delta, where different foreign companies are jostling for more than 300,000 hectares land, indigenous communities are feeling the pinch.

About 250,000 villagers in Tana and Lamu, where a Canadian company wants 130,000 hectares to plant sugarcane for ethanol, have already been threatened with eviction notices. “Farmers in Wema and pastoralists in Dida Waride affirmed that they would die first before moving out of their land,” says Nature Kenya’s advocacy officer Serah Munguti, who leads a campaign to protect the Tana Delta. This is an expansive area where Kenya’s biggest river, the Tana River, branches out before emptying into the Indian Ocean.

She says it is one of the most important wetlands in Africa. It supports more than 350 species of birds, including globally threatened birds such as the Basra reed warbler, for which the delta is a critical wintering site, and two threatened primates found nowhere else in the world – Tana red colobus and Tana River mangabey. But some political leaders and locals accuse the NGOs of blocking developments at the Coast.

Magarini MP Kingi says the Italian Jatropha project will, for instance, create 7,000 jobs. Most villagers in this region are poor, jobless and the government has not sponsored any irrigation project there. “It is godsend,” says Mohammed Gule, a jobless father of six in Magarini.

District environment officer Samuel Ng’ang’a told the Star the 5,000-acre Jatropha project has already been licensed but the National Environment Management Authority in Nairobi contradicted this.

Other parties with projects include Bedford Bio fuels Inc, a private multinational company based in Canada, which wanted 90,000 hectares through 45-year lease agreements. They have been licensed a smaller portion to grow Jatropha curcas. Mumias Sugar Company and Tarda will jointly get 20,000 hectares for a Sh24 billion sugarcane project. The fifth, Tiomin Kenya Ltd, a company incorporated in Canada, mines titanium near Kwale.

The report by IIED expresses fears that nearly all farming companies surveyed have not created the jobs they promised. There are no mechanisms to force them to do so, says Cotula, the report author.

He says most contracts reviewed across Africa lack enforceable commitments, or fail to provide detail about how many and what kind of jobs the investment will create. “Some of the contracts analysed by the report are just a few pages long, with scant details on what investors should do to ensure that risks will be properly managed and that expected benefits will materialise,” he says.

Changamwe MP Ramadhan Kajembe, expresses a similar concern. “What happens to the owner of the land where minerals have been discovered? Is he going to benefit in any way?” he asked recently at a meeting to draft legislation on land use and natural resources provisions of the Constitution.

An exception is Liberia where contracts stand out for their shorter duration. They are also specific commitments on jobs and greater attention to local food security. In addition, the Liberian contracts are ratified by Parliament and are available online. Kenyan contracts are not available to the public. Head of Kenya Land Alliance Odede Lumumba says deals shrouded in secrecy cannot be good deals.

KLA is an alliance of 117 civil society organisations and individuals advocating for reform of policies and laws governing land in Kenya. “Mutually beneficial decisions need to be made, and this cannot happen when land agreements continue to take place without involvement of the public,” Lumumba said recently during the meeting on Politics of Food Security in Eastern Africa meeting.“The veil of secrecy that often surrounds these land deals must be lifted so poor people don’t ultimately pay the heavy price of losing their land,” World Bank Managing Director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said last year when the bank released its report on land deals.

The IIED notes agricultural investment can bring benefits to developing nations, but large land deals carry big risks as local people may lose access to the land and resources they have used for generations.“The more promising investments are those that involve supporting local smallholders, rather than large plantations,” their report says.

Secret Land Deals Fleece Africa
John Muchangi
6 July 2011

Kenya risks leasing out huge tracts of land in rushed, one-sided deals that may create new social and environment problems, according to new reports questioning such deals across the continent.

The reports say most contracts are heavily biased in favour of foreign investors. They grant them long-term access to public and community land at very low costs. There is also little to safeguard benefits for local people and the environment.

Foreign companies are currently acquiring large amounts of lands in Kenya and other African countries to grow food crops for export and for biofuels.

In Land deals in Africa: What is in the contracts? author Lorenzo Cotula analysed several contracts and found that most were negotiated in secret “Expected benefits are often in the form of jobs or irrigation and infrastructure development, rather than rental fees,” he says in the report produced by London-based think-tank, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

The report analyses 12 recent contracts through which investors have leased millions of hectares of land in East, West, Central and Southern Africa for farming. It found many problems with the contracts but also some signs of positive deals.

In Kenya, multinationals have applied for 500,000-plus hectares of land – more than five times the size of Nairobi – to do large scale farming and mining. The government earlier agreed to lease 40,000 hectares in the Tana River Delta to the Government of Qatar to grow crops to feed the people of Qatar.

Further, an Italian company, Kenya Biofuel Ltd, has been allowed to convert 5,000 acres of Dakatcha woodland at the Coast and plant Jatropha.

The investor had asked for 50,000 acres to plant Jatropha but that was scaled-down to 5,000 for “trial” after protests by conservation groups. “I will use any means to ensure the project begins,” Magarini MP and Fisheries minister Amason Kingi, who is the area MP, said recently.

In Nyanza, Belgium Company HG consulting is expected to put 42,000 hectares of land under sugarcane production while Dominion Farms Ltd has invested in 17,500 hectares around the Yala Swamp. There are other projects in the works, mostly at the Coast.

A second report released in Nairobi last week by Oxfam predicts food riots in East Africa, saying decreasing farmland will severely limit food production in the next 20 years. Oxfam is grouping of 15 international organisations which campaigns against poverty and injustice.

Its report, Growing A Better Future: Food Justice In a Resource-Constrained World, Oxfam advises governments to stop leasing fertile farmland and grazing land to foreign companies for tourism, large-scale agriculture for exports and biofuels. The report says African governments should instead support women and small scale farmers.

Oxfam projects food prices across the world will double in the 20 years and biofuels will increase hunger in Africa. “The grain required to fill the fuel tank of one 4×4 vehicle with ethanol is enough to feed one person for a year,” said Irungu Houghton, Oxfam’s pan Africa director. Oxfam says with the current trends, population will far outstrip food production.

The latest revision of United Nation’s World Population Prospects, for instance, shows that Kenya will be grappling with 71.5 million people in the next 20 years, yet maize production is only expected to rise by a third.

The country is currently unable to feed its 40 million people, and is a major maize importer despite having large tracts of unfarmed arable land. Irungu says African countries can produce enough food if they stop leasing land to other countries and instead empower women and small scale farmers. “Food is about power – those with power and money can eat, those without cannot. Africa is abundant with resources, yet governments fail to invest effectively in its biggest resources – its people and its land,” he says.

Already in the Tana Delta, where different foreign companies are jostling for more than 300,000 hectares land, indigenous communities are feeling the pinch.

About 250,000 villagers in Tana and Lamu, where a Canadian company wants 130,000 hectares to plant sugarcane for ethanol, have already been threatened with eviction notices. “Farmers in Wema and pastoralists in Dida Waride affirmed that they would die first before moving out of their land,” says Nature Kenya’s advocacy officer Serah Munguti, who leads a campaign to protect the Tana Delta. This is an expansive area where Kenya’s biggest river, the Tana River, branches out before emptying into the Indian Ocean.

She says it is one of the most important wetlands in Africa. It supports more than 350 species of birds, including globally threatened birds such as the Basra reed warbler, for which the delta is a critical wintering site, and two threatened primates found nowhere else in the world – Tana red colobus and Tana River mangabey. But some political leaders and locals accuse the NGOs of blocking developments at the Coast.

Magarini MP Kingi says the Italian Jatropha project will, for instance, create 7,000 jobs. Most villagers in this region are poor, jobless and the government has not sponsored any irrigation project there. “It is godsend,” says Mohammed Gule, a jobless father of six in Magarini.

District environment officer Samuel Ng’ang’a told the Star the 5,000-acre Jatropha project has already been licensed but the National Environment Management Authority in Nairobi contradicted this.

Other parties with projects include Bedford Bio fuels Inc, a private multinational company based in Canada, which wanted 90,000 hectares through 45-year lease agreements. They have been licensed a smaller portion to grow Jatropha curcas. Mumias Sugar Company and Tarda will jointly get 20,000 hectares for a Sh24 billion sugarcane project. The fifth, Tiomin Kenya Ltd, a company incorporated in Canada, mines titanium near Kwale.

The report by IIED expresses fears that nearly all farming companies surveyed have not created the jobs they promised. There are no mechanisms to force them to do so, says Cotula, the report author.

He says most contracts reviewed across Africa lack enforceable commitments, or fail to provide detail about how many and what kind of jobs the investment will create. “Some of the contracts analysed by the report are just a few pages long, with scant details on what investors should do to ensure that risks will be properly managed and that expected benefits will materialise,” he says.

Changamwe MP Ramadhan Kajembe, expresses a similar concern. “What happens to the owner of the land where minerals have been discovered? Is he going to benefit in any way?” he asked recently at a meeting to draft legislation on land use and natural resources provisions of the Constitution.

An exception is Liberia where contracts stand out for their shorter duration. They are also specific commitments on jobs and greater attention to local food security. In addition, the Liberian contracts are ratified by Parliament and are available online. Kenyan contracts are not available to the public. Head of Kenya Land Alliance Odede Lumumba says deals shrouded in secrecy cannot be good deals.

KLA is an alliance of 117 civil society organisations and individuals advocating for reform of policies and laws governing land in Kenya. “Mutually beneficial decisions need to be made, and this cannot happen when land agreements continue to take place without involvement of the public,” Lumumba said recently during the meeting on Politics of Food Security in Eastern Africa meeting.

“The veil of secrecy that often surrounds these land deals must be lifted so poor people don’t ultimately pay the heavy price of losing their land,” World Bank Managing Director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said last year when the bank released its report on land deals.

The IIED notes agricultural investment can bring benefits to developing nations, but large land deals carry big risks as local people may lose access to the land and resources they have used for generations.”The more promising investments are those that involve supporting local smallholders, rather than large plantations,” their report says.

Large Land Deals Threaten Farmers, World Bank Says
September 08, 2010, 4:25 PM EDT

By Sandrine Rastello
(Corrects third paragraph to reflect Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a woman.)
Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) — Foreign purchases of agricultural land from Mozambique to Cambodia pose “significant risks” to the livelihoods of farmers in countries with “weak land governance,” the World Bank said in a report.

Large-scale purchases raise “a real concern about the ability of local institutions to protect vulnerable groups from losing land on which they have legitimate, if not formally recognized claims,” according to the report by the Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development department.

“The veil of secrecy that often surrounds these land deals must be lifted so poor people don’t ultimately pay the heavy price of losing their land,” World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian finance and foreign minister, said in a statement. The acquisitions “can come at a high cost,” she said.

Rising prices of rice, corn and palm oil in 2008 triggered deadly unrest in some parts of the developing world. The report, Rising Global Interest in Farmland, said that over the next year farmland investment spiraled, with 10 times more property bought in developing countries by nations seeking food security.

Nations dependent on food imports, such as Saudi Arabia and South Korea, stepped up efforts to buy land and lock-in overseas resources to ensure food security, the bank said. Foreign investment in Sudanese agricultural land in 2009 was estimated to increase five-fold by 2014, according to a Sudan Investment Ministry estimate last year.

Environmental Impact

Investor deals also have an environmental impact in countries such as Brazil, where deforestation was pursued to enable farmland expansion, the report said. The report reviewed data from 14 countries in Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia between 2004 and 2009.

“The question will be what will the bank be able to do to change these dynamics,” said Vince McElhinny, who is a project manager for The Bank Information Center, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. that advocates for transparency and public accountability within the World Bank. “In practice what we’re seeing is a trend that suggests that it will be able to do very little.”

Foreign agricultural investments have sometimes met with resistance. Protests by local communities in Madagascar caused that country to abandon a $6-billion farming agreement last year with Daewoo Logistics Corp.

Governments were “unprepared” for the increase in such land deals after the food and fuel crisis, the report said.

The report noted that private investors had the potential to increase productivity in less-developed countries with technological help. “In many cases, however, the desired benefits were not achieved,” the report said. The World Bank is trying to develop voluntary principles for responsible agricultural investment, it said.

Kenya: Suba region is the richest area within the Homa-Bay County

10 Replies

News Feature By Leo Odera Omolo In Mbita Town.

Sub-region, which is part of the Homa-Bay County, the largest in the greater Southern Nyanza is potentially and versatile in facilities which could rack in millions of shillings in terms of revenue collection if such resources could be properly developed.

Suba region is covering areas like Mbita and the newly created Gwassi administrative districts. This region along with its abundance resources is capable of making he vat Homa-Bay County one of the richest among the 47 counties countrywide.

It potential source of the resources and revenue include tourism, fishing and fish trades, hidden minerals, pre-historic sites and its proximity to the cross border trades across Lake Victoria and the neighboring states of Tanzania and Uganda.

Mbita and Gwassi parliamentary constituencies are parts of the eight parliamentary constituencies, covering Kasipul, Kabongo, Karachuonyo Rangwe, Homa-Bay and Ndhiwa, which forms the larger Homa-Bay County. The region needs only he good governance to be put n place at its administrative headquarters, which is located at Homa-Bay Town. The regional headquarters can now be accessed by good tarmacked roads via Rongo and also via Kendu-Bay in Rachuonyo North district.

The pre-historic sites on the twin islands of Rusinga and Mfangano could also be accessed by roads using the ultra-modern Ndori-Luanda-Kotieno road in Bondo that links Kisumu and Mbita Towns. Here the visitors could be ferried in a von voyage 40 minutes journey of crossing the narrow Nyanza Gulf using well maintained and serviced Mbita Ferries.

The Mbita Ferries, a company which is owned and managed exclusively by he local entrepreneur maintains two ferries with one sailing across while the other one stand by in case the one sailing across the channel is stalled in the middle of the lake.

The yet to be fully developed tourist attraction sceneries include Ruma National Game Park in Lambwe Valley, pre-historic sites on Rusinga and Mfangano Islands, Gwassi and in Rachuonyo. It is also a versatile region for lovers of birds watching and fishing leisure.

Ruma National Game Park is rich in abundance game animals of all species, and it is the home of the rare Roan Antelope, a very special species only found at the Simba Hill Game Reserve in Kwale district at the Coast and also in the famous Kruger National Game Pak in the Republic of South Africa.

The park is also housing other wild animals species like elands, reed-bucks, water-bucks, bush-bucks, Rothschild’s giraffes, tofi, the rare waiter antelopes which is only known in vernacular language as “Nyambaja”which resides on the summit of the nearby Ruri Hills and only occasionally come down to the plains in search of drinking waters during dead hours of the night. But only seen by the locals and visitors during the drought and dry spells of time when grass on the hill tops are burnt down by poachers.

However, the “Big Five” namely elephant, lions, rhinos are missing from the list f the wild animals currently stocked in the park. But the fifth which is evasive leopard is there with a few herds of the fiercest buffaloes, which rarely comes out of Bungu-Ruma forest. There are other predators like Hyena.

Next to Ruma National Game Park is the Gwassi Hills which reputed as being full of tree with medicinal substances and herbs. The beauty and value of the Gwassi Hills have in the recent years been vandalized due to intensive human settlement and farming. However, a Kisumu based NGO, the OSIENALA working in collaboration with foreign based financial agencies has made frantic efforts to save the Gwassi Hills with an intensive reforestation program, which has seen millions of tree seedling being planted on the hills and illegal settlers, sent packing.

Also located near Nyandiwa Trading Centre in Central Gwassi is the famous pre-historical site known as “Nyamgondho Wuod Ombare”. In this place mystery human foot-prints and those f domesticated animals could be seen on the rocks, especially during early morning hours when the lake waters are so clean.

The foot-prints are related with the mythological story of an estranged wealthy woman who rebelled against her foster husband and walked back into the lake where she had earlier on been fished out by Nyamgondho a fisherman after some alleged serious family disagreement. The woman is said to have run back to the lake and disappeared with all her worldly wealth including her domesticated animals.

The newly to be instituted County government must go out full blast and source the funds with which t could support the local entrepreneurs to establish luxury hotels and the beaches on both Rusinga and Mfangano islands, Gwassi, Kaksingiri and Rachuonyo North districts along the shorelines of Lake Victoria a part of tourist attractions.

Another pre-historic site s the two rocks resembling the fighting bull which stands a few kilometers off Wanyama beach in Rusinga Island. The stories go that the bull christened Nyama-Gi-Ware, representing the families of two brothers who are ancestors of the Waware and Wanyama sub-clans. One bull as the stories goes belonged to Mnyama while the other one belonged to his brother Ware. It is being alleged that the bull had fought fiercely until they enter into the lake waters while locked their horns and turned into permanent rocks erected inside the lake.

At a place called Soklo Kipenji, which is an island located off the Mirunda and Malela beaches I Lambwe Location, the story goes that the rock island is inaccessible by any human being. Travelers sailing from Rusinga Island to Homa-Bay town are always getting a forewarning not to ask about this mysterious island as their canoe, boats or dhow passes by the uninhabited island. A common and popular say goes that I the early 1930 two British tourist had made an attempt to land at the rocky island and all disappeared without trace to-date. Even local fishermen keep a safe distance from the rocky island while on their fishing expedition in nearby areas. The place, the local fishermen says even birds such as fish eagles and other kept away from.

Other potential spot for the possible development of tourist attractions includes the volcanic Lake Simbi Nyaima in Central Karachuonyo, which is also the center of attraction to lesser flamingoes and other migratory birds during certain period of the year.

Homa-Bay County is also endowed with abundance mineral resources such as the now disused Awuoro Mines in West Kisipul, Limestone in Lambwe Valley, the suspected uranium deposits in Gwassi and other parts of Suba region, gold, copper and nickels.

The region therefore required men and a woman of the highest caliber to man it is resources to generate revenues and good governance to be in place.

Ends

Kenya: I bought beach plot, Raila tells court…Has This Got To Do With Grabiosis Tendencies…??

Leave a reply

from Judy Miriga

Folks,

No one is above the law, and fight against corruption graft and impunity must be faught squarely by all good citizens, Diaspora, friends and sympathizers of Kenya and Africa.

Let the truth be known……..people…….!

Rights, Dignity and virtue for Humanity must be respected by all, and real justice shall be our defender…..The Truth, Nothing but the Truth, shall be our goal post as we cross Canaan to a promised land, where Peace, Love and Unity for common good of all shall prevail and thus offer privilleged advantage to an improved better destiny for all.

Kibaki’s words should be action oriented…..not just words for the sake of words…….. Ministers should have a free-hand to excercise duty calling according to the satisfaction of needs and demands of public, not not as rubber-stamp to favor politically correctness.

I wonder why Prof. Mengich should be reinstated after interviews have been done and suitable candidates elected……..what would be the reason for calling for interviews….. This hoolabaloo now calls for further investigation and vetting of Prof. Haroun Mengich as, where there is smoke, there is fire. We now believe something is not right with Prof. Haroun Mengich in his public service…….

It is about time public must do their private investigation and produce answers to the forum for more actions………!

It is fundamentally and crucially important to use public power-force pressure to fix fixtures for better results people……..time is running out…….

PLO Lumumba of KACC cannot deny, their plates are full, and they have to speed up to consume servings……..for another course of desert…….

Cheers everybody…….!

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

– – – – – – – – – – –

Kenya: I Bought Beach Plot, Raila Tells Court
Daniel Nyassy
23 June 2011

Nairobi — Mr Odinga, who was testifying at the Malindi High Court, told Lady Justice Helen Omondi he bought the plot in 1999 from former Malindi mayor Frederic Kazungu Diwani.

However, Mr Diwani later fraudulently sold the same plot to a British citizen, Mr John Presser Unsworth, and appeared in a Kilifi court in 2009 where he admitted the offence and was fined Sh800,000.

Now, Mr Unsworth wants the land to which he claims to have ownership documents declared his and has already started fencing it.Challenged by Mr Unsworth’s lawyer Ms Virginia Shaw to name his neighbours around the disputed plot, Mr Odinga said he did not know any as the area was not occupied.

Planted palm trees

“When we bought the property in 1999 from Mr Diwani, we inspected it and found it was vacant. We planted some palm trees on it. But early last year when I went to the plot, I found someone had trespassed on it,” he said.

Asked whether he was aware that a restriction over ownership had been put on the plot by one Mr Alex Ramica Chakacha who was one of the defendants in the suit, Mr Odinga said: “This is fantasy”.

The case involves Mr Unsworth as the applicant and Kango Enterprise Ltd, which is the PM’s company, the Registrar of Lands at Kilifi and Mr Chakacha as the defendants.

Mr Odinga is represented by lawyers Otiende Amolo, John Ligunya and Felix Nyauchi while Mr Diwani is represented by Mr Richard Otara.

Earlier, Justice Omondi dismissed Ms Shaw and Mr Otara’s objection to two documents produced in court by lawyer Omolo, saying, they were legally introduced before court.
Ms Shaw and Mr Otara had argued that the documents were introduced in court “at the 11th hour”.

Before the hearing, Mr Odinga had kept the court waiting for the better part of the morning. According to court schedule, the case was set to start at 11am.

But Mr Odinga, who was escorted by MPs Gideon Mung’aro (Malindi), Ali Hassan Joho (Kisauni) and a host of Malindi councillors, arrived in court at 1.18pm after the case had already began. He was composed as he answered a barrage of questions from his lawyer, Ms Shaw and Mr Otari, causing laughter at times with his answers.

For example, when he was asked by Mr Otari whether he had seen any land search document, he repeated several times: “Every transaction was done by my lawyer.”
Asked whether he bought the land from the original owners, Mr Odinga said this would be surprising because “the original owner of the land is God”.

All vehicles were cleared off the court premises and all other cases suspended to accommodate that of the PM. When he came out of court, the PM addressed a big crowd outside.

He told journalists he supported calls for MPs’ salaries to be taxed, saying this was in accordance with the new Constitution.

Local News Round up

Uploaded by kenyacitizentv on Jun 23, 2011

In a rather rare occurrence, Prime Minister Raila Odinga appeared before the Malindi high court as a witness in a land case. This and other news making headlines with Judy Kosgei.

Raila in court

Uploaded by standardgroupkenya on Jun 23, 2011

Prime Minister Raila Odinga appeared before a Malindi court today to testify in a land case. Raila testified before justice Helen Omondi in a case where an Italian investor claims a company owned by Raila defrauded him of 13 million shillings. The money was allegedly paid for a beach plot in malindi, which is also being claimed by a local squatter. The prime minister said he owns the land legally and denied selling it to anyone. KTN’s Eric Njoka reports.

Malindi financiers unhappy over govt move

Uploaded by NTVKenya on Mar 8, 2011

Investors in the multi-billion shilling tourism industry in the coastal town of Malindi are frustrated with a task force investigating irregularities over ownership of land in the area. This is after the task force put a construction embargo in the area as there were people with multiple title deeds. They complain of harassment and intimidation yet they have invested significantly in the region besides creating much-needed employment.

KENYA: CLAIMS THAT FORMER CABINET MINISTER FROM NYANZA HAD GRABBED A PIECE OF LAND WHICH WAS MEANT FOR JOINT COMMUNAL FARMING AND CONVERTED IT INTO PERSONAL USE.

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Our investigative Reporter at Kendu-Bay In Rachuonyo South.

CLAIMS and allegations that a former cabinet minister from Nyanza Provincegrabbed a piece of communal land which was set aside for group farming and converted it into his personal use.

The project was originally initiated by the same MP who persuaded the villagers to donate pieces of land parcel under the pretext that the farm would be used in production of horticultural, bananas and other cash crops as part of the scheme to eradicate poverty in the area.

Those who donated pieces of land were supposed to retain their own pieces as demarcated on the ground. One member of the group donated his lorry to serve the group farmers and later purchased a water pump and its engine for Kshs 248,000 and surrendered to the group. But the engine altogether with the pump was later sold out in his absent in unexplained circumstances.

The engine and the water pump were supposed to be used in irrigating the farm.

Deeply involved in the alleged land grabbing scam is the former two times MP for Karachuonyo, Dr. Adhu Awiti.

The former MP at one time had served briefly as the Minister for Planning in the Treasury during the brief merger between KANU/LDP under the retired President Daniel Arap Moi. He lost his seat in 2007 when he suffered defeat under the incumbent Eng.James K Rege during the ODM preliminary nominations.

He is currently serving in the Officer of the Prime Minister as an adviser on political matters to Raia Odinga.

The farm in question measuring between 20 and 30 acres is baptized as “Atandi Farm. It is located near Miti Mbili fishing landing beach in Kanjira sub-locatin, Karachuonyo West in Rachuonyo North district within the Homa-Bay County. It is situated along the shoreline of the Nyanza Gulf {part of Lake Victoria}.

It could be assessed from the Junction of Pala Market and the road to Huma-Kanam.

It is located in an area which is bordering the Kapiyo sub-clan of Wagwe to the east and the Ohindo Kamunga sub-clam of Kanjira clan in the west. Those donors who surrendered their farms which were later converted into “Atandi Farm was mainly from the Ohindo-Kanjira group, but with few other peasants’ farmers living along the boundary of the two sub-clans.

Rumor making the round is that one widow who resisted the scheme and refused to surrender her piece of land had her house burnt to ashes by some people suspected to be hired political goons. But the rumor could not be confirmed immediately.

According to a Kisumu based prominent businessman-cum-politician, Mr George Kwanya Odidi, the farm was established and built out of consolidated pieces of land donated by the local peasant farmers on the understanding that it would be registered and turned into a group farming. And that the profits accrued from the sales of its products would be distributed to members and shared equally by the group. But has not been the case.

A relative of the MP who was previously working in Nairobi as a dress-maker Mr Magonya Otondi was engaged and posted to the farm to work as its manager. The said manager has sine left the areas in huff and went back to Nairobi where he resumed his tailoring work in the City.

The former MP is currently growing bananas , vegetable and horticultural crops for himself and his family as if the entire farm belonged to him. The issue has elicited discontent in the area with those farmers from Wagwe sub-clan demanding that the former legislator vacate the land so that it could revert to its original owners.

Odidi told this writer that he had sourced a very powerful leister engine which he bought from a farm machinery and implement in Kisumu. The engine and the water pump were to be used in irrigating the farm.

As he was by then working as a senior employee of the Ministry of Water Resources and at one time, he was sent for further training abroad. He left the engine and the water pump in a working condition and under the custody of the former MP for safe keeping.

But upon his return, he only learnt through hearsay that the engine altogether with the pump had been sold to some farmers from either the Rift Valley or Central Province at a double price of Kshs 480,000 and he was mesmerized and perplexed at the turn of events

Information reaching us says the matter has caused jittery and even at times charged tension with the farmers demanding back their land as the project seemed to have failed before taking off from the ground.

Dr Awiti is currently involved in the campaign for the ODM grass root elections, which has since been postponed for more than thrice. He has been on the ground in Karachuonyo addressing a series of ODM party campaign rallies across the vast Krachuonyo Constituency while working together with groups identified as anti-the current MP Eng James K Rege.

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Kenya: Businessman Mr Sajjad Mohammedali Rashid Fights Arrest Over Moi Land

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from Judy Miriga

Folks,

How did Moi own all these lands, were they public land or Moi land?

Hon. Orengo has a tall order to get matters of land straight……….hence these were times when public land and public toilets were going like hot cakes in Mombasa…..AND Sajjad from the blues became His Lordship in Business-Cum-Politico/King of Mombasa, overshadowing other known giants then……..

Cheers …. !

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

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Businessman Fights Arrest Over Moi Land
Jillo Kadida
10 June 2011

Nairobi — A businessman has gone to court seeking to stop his arrest and possible prosecution over a piece of land allegedly sold to him by retired president Daniel Moi.

Mr Sajjad Mohammedali Rashid says he bought the land in question from the retired head of state for Sh7.5 million in 1996.

The deal was struck during a visit to State House, where Mr Rashid was accompanied by another businessman, Mr Mohammed Bawazir, and former presidential aide Joshua Kulei, he said.

It was at this meeting that the retired president is said to have asked Mr Rashid and Mr Bawazir to buy the piece of land that was registered in his name.

The two agreed to make the purchase in the name of their firm, then known as M S Bawazir and Company, the court documents indicate.

According to the businessman, a sale agreement was signed on June 3, 1996, at State House in Nairobi.

On June 25, 1996, Mr Moi is said to have executed the transfer documents.

Ten years later the company sold the property for Sh18 million to another company called Dina Management Limited.

Investigations

Mr Rashid’s trouble began in January 2011 when he was informed that Mr Mohammed Amin, the deputy director in charge of investigations at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters, was looking for him in relation to the piece of land.
As soon as he learnt this, he says, he called the former president and arranged for a meeting.

The businessman says that when they met, the former president assured him that he would withdraw the complaint.

Despite the promise, he told the court, CID officers came to his office and asked him to record a statement over the matter.

The officers also requested him to settle the matter with Mr Moi by offering him extra money in the purchase price for the property, failure to which they will charge him, he said.
Mr Rashid is accusing Mr Moi of using his office to alter the terms of agreement for the sale of property which no longer belongs to him.

On Friday, High Court judge Daniel Musinga gave a temporary order stopping the police from arresting the businessman.

The judge also directed that the case be transferred to the Mombasa courts, given that the land in question is in Mombasa.

The case will be mentioned on June 15 and the temporary order will be in force until then.

Uganda has dispatched more security personnel to the two disputed fishing islands in Lake Victoria

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo

PERHAPS alarmed by the tough talking by Kenyan leaders who include President Mwai Kibaki and MPs and last week’reconnaince flight staged by Kenyan military helicopter which flew over the two disputed Lake Victoria islands,Uganda is reported to have beefed its security personnel.

Travellers and fish traders who came out of the two disputed islands of Migigo and Ugingo have reported spotting the arrival of close to 30 more marine police over the weekend.

The new arrivals of men in military uniform, they said have brought with them military equipment including anti-aircraft rackets and heavy guns. They arrived in a speed boat from either Jinja or Kampala and took position on the islands.

Kenyan fishermen said Ugandan security personnel continued controlling the two islands in Lake Victoria despite President Kibaki insistence that the islands lie squarely on the Kenya side of th lake.

Juma Ombori who is serving as the Migingo Island Beach Management Unit confirmed by phone that a senior Ugandan army officer has called on Ugandan businessmen and fishermen living in Migingo and Ugingo islands to ignore the reports of outbursts by Kenyan leaders.

He said Kenyan fishermen and fish traders sharing the two fishing island were also told not to expect any change on the islands and that they must continue obeying the rules and regulations set by Ugandans or else they would be kicked out.

The senior army officer, according to Juma Ombori insisted that the situation would only change with the joint official announcement from Nairobi and Kampala simultaneously. The officer whose names was not given had told Kenyans that Ugandan business will continue with the construction in Ugingo and others will cross to Kenyan mainland towns of Sori in Karungu By, Muhuru Bay in search of building materials because the next large commercial town on Uganda’s mainland is far way and travellers needed ten hours to cruise in a voyage through the lake using boats, so the nearby places they can purchase the constructions materials are the two Kenyan lake side towns.

Three fisheries officials sent by Uganda to the Island from Bugiri as well as about40 marine police officers went on with their operations as usually ,seemingly undisturbed.

Kenyan fishermen have asked the government to stop making empty statements in Nairobi and Migori if they want to resolve the row over the ownership of the two islands. Such pronouncements usually endangered the lives of Kenyan fishermen living on the two islands as Ugandan armed security personnel always react angrily.

Statement made in Nairobi or even carrying out aerial survey by Kenyan military helicopter as it happened last week will not make Ugandans leave the islands, one Ugandan officer told Kenyans.

Addressing a mammoth crowd of Kenyans who thronged the Nyayo National Stadium in the capital, Nairobi on June ist to commemorate the 48th Madara Day anniversary celebrations, President Mwai Kibaki assured Kenyan that the islands of Migingo and Uhgingo lie squarely on Kenyan territory.

He said the government would provide its citizens with the maximum security.”I wish to assure Kenyans that the islands of Migingo and Ugingo lie squarely on Kenyan territory in Lake Victoria.There should, therefore, be no cause for alarm on this issue,” he added

President Kibaki said the government would opt for diplomacy rather than use of force to resolve with dispute with its neighbors.

“My government is committed to providing security to every Kenyan.We have intensified border patrols along our frontier to contain any forms of crimes.”

The dispute between Kenya and Uganda over Migingo Island began way back in 2009 when Uganda lid claim to the fish-rich rocky island, which is very close to the Kenyanb mainland, but takes ten hours to travel to the nearby Ugandan mainland town.

A survey carried out found that the two neighboring island are 510 metres inside Kenya territory, in an are situated east of Kenya Uganda border.

Meanwhiletwelve Kenyan fishermen arrested at Osieko beach, Bondo district in Siaya County, by Ugandan authorities were on Sunday released after being held for more than 24 hours at Sigulu Island in Uganda.

Bondo DC Salim Muhamum confirmed and said the 12 were released on Sunbday morning after being grilled by the Ugandan security forces for trespassing into their territory and using illegal fishing nets,which are not alowd on the Ugandan side of the lake.

The D.C said four boats belonging to the fishermen were impounded by Ugandan during the operation.Th boats were towed to Sigulu Iusland in Uganda where they were still be held.

Fishermen who managed to escape said the boats were taken with fish catches that the fishermen had harvested from traps laid at night..

According to the fishermen on the beach, marine police officers from Bugiri have been patrolling the beach for 24 hours. At some time, civil society members have vowed to lead a protest match against the posting of Ugandan security officers at Migingo and Ugingo islands.

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Kenya: The Kipsigis families are demanding back their land seized by the British colonialists by force and turned into a tea estate

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Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Kericho Town.

The Kipsigis County Council has been served with a four months quite notice to surrender back the 470 acres Kabianga Tea estate back to its original owners or else face court action.

Kabianga was one of the first institutions which was established by the colonial authorities in Kenya first as a Government African School and later as a Teachers Training College and expanded to the Farmers Training School in the early 1950s.

At the time of the establishment of the Farmers Training School in the area, there was a big demand for more land to cater for the school experiment farm, and so the colonialists moved into the Kipsigis reserved land and forcefully evicted close to 30 families out of their ancestor’s land.

Those evicted by the colonialists out of their ancestor land were never compensated, so most of them ended up living squalid life as squatters in other parts of the region.

But around 1962 shortly before Kenya attained its political independence, the Farmers Training School was disbanded, and the land measuring about 470 acres was converted into a tea nursery by the Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with local authorities. The Ministry for some unclear reasons later handed the farm under the sole management of the County Council of Kipsigis.

It was, however, turned into a full fledged tea estate, and the County Council of Kipsigis took charge, and for close to four decades, the council has been fetching close to Kshs 4 million monthly from the sales of the farmers green tea leaves to the multinational tea companies in Kericho and its environ.

But last week 28 representatives of the families whose land was forcefully taken by the colonialists to make room for the tea estate without compensation got together and issued a four months notice to the Council to return their ancestor’s land or else face legal redress through a court of law.

Through the lawier of the former High Court Judge, Mr. Justice Johnson Mitei, the families said they would seek legal redress should the Council fail to surrender the land back to its original owners in the newly created Kericho west district.

The families said in the letter addressed to the Clerk to the Council of the Kipsigis County Council and dated May 27, 2011 they stated that at around independence, the colonial authorities abruptly vacated the land when Kabianga Farmers Training School was disbanded and the vacant land was converted into a tea nursery by the Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the local authorities..

In the demand notice, the 28 representatives of the displaced families said the farm under the name of Kabianga tea estate was originally known as “Koitab Kipsimot, but the Council moved in and illegally registered it under the name of Kericho Kabianga.

They further claimed that on February 16, 1970, without consulting or seeking the opinion of the families concerned, the Kipsigis County Council registered the land under its own name, a move that said is illegal.

“Without consulting or seeking our client’s concurrence, the Council caused the said piece of land to be registered in its name and purported to have reserved it for the Kenya Tea Development Authority {KTDA}, Kabianga an entity whose existence is in doubt,” said the lawyer’s letter.

They claimed that as the result of the degrading and inhuman treatment they were subjected to, they are now living in squalid conditions.

“Our instruction are that you make arrangements to vacate the said and parcel of land a within four months,” said the notice.

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KENYA: TRUTH JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION WESTERN KENYA HEARINGS BEGIN

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By Agwanda Jowi

The Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission began its hearings in western Kenya to hear from witnesses in Mt Elgon a district that has experienced some of the worst episodes of violence in the country.

Former MP Wilberforce Kisiero and representative of the Sabaot community presenting their memorandum to the TJRC at Kibuk Catholic Church in Kapsokwony, narrated the long history of conflict between his community and their neighbours, the Bukusu.

“ The mountain’s problems began when the colonialists removed people from their ancestral land that is Tran-Nzoia, Bungoma including Mt Elgon. They removed the Sabaot because they wanted to settle soldiers from World War 1 and so began to forcefully remove them to Uganda, ” Mr. Kisiero said adding that some were still there to this day and others have eastern Congo, into Pokot county and Nyanza.

Describing a series of perceived betrayals by successive regimes by whom the Sabaot had been displaced and never compensated, he said all they wanted was to be settled as in government farms.

‘All we want is for land for the Sabaot to be looked for in the remaining government farms which are in Trans Nzoia which is their ancestral land, not all just a token. There should further be consideration for 5,000 displaced from Chebyuk settlement scheme. While we would prefere Mt Elgon be divided into three constituencies, in consideration of the economy and the expense, we would be happy if it was split into two, ” he said.

Mr. Timothy Mulumbi representing the Bukusu community said he recalled former President Moi saying that the removal of Section 2A from the constitution turning Kenya into a multi-party state would lead to tribal clashes and it did happen in 1992 after elections.

“The Bukusus were not armed. We still have wounds from the past but I believe that we have started healing from the testimonies being brought to you TJRC, ” Mr Mulumbi said

Asked by the Presiding Chair Prof. Tom Ojienda if he knew who among the leadership had caused the cyclical violence in the region, Mr. Mulumbi said he did. “ Yes it is our leaders, we know them but we want healing. When we reported to the police they dismissively likened to a match between AFC and Gor Mahia (alluding to rivalry between the top football teams in Kenya); they did nothing. We want healing and we want to co-exist with our neighbors,” he ended. His testimony followed by the Teso experience.

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