from: barack abonyo
subject “HOW DO OUR POLITICIANS LIKE THE MAU PICTURE NOW”
Yesterday poor people were moved from Mau with no promise of what is next. I saw an old man crying over his crops. I saw an old woman erecting a make shift house with twigs right next to the road. In the name of conservation of water catchment area we indiscriminately chased peasants from their farms and settled them right next to the roads so that they can display the face of Africa to the world. Amongst those poor people were children who were moved from their schools and friends with total disregard to what this may do to their psychology. They lost their friends, their cows, their dogs and yet their governement did not give a dam. Old people who may not even know how to read and write are being punished because they do not have the paperwork for land they have lived in for many years. It is very very sad.
I saw those faces and I was sad. Sad because we Kenyans do not care of our own. The more we move into the dungeon of poverty the happier we are. I hope the members of parlierment are happy about how this is playing in the international televison screens. I hope they are happy now that the water catchment area is free and the men and women who lived there have just become slaves. They have lost everything. None of them were worried about the land. They were simply worried about what they were going to eat. I am ashamed of my country’s leadership.
Watch. http://www.ntv.co.ke/News/-/471778/471778/-/ss135lz/-/index.html
Dr. Barack Abonyo
Babonyo,
Yours is an equivalent of incitement. I can hear your drums for war. Indeed, we all played a role in rising the ante during the pre-election campaign period. We did this as diaspora in the comfort of our overseas homes. When death struck, we could not imagine the horror. The pain we saw made most of us, including die hard PNU and ODM supporters regret giving our principals blind support. The great thing is that we asked for peace and found it. Us peace-lovers have even transversed the afflicted areas asking that our brothers and sisters forgive each other. After we shed blood and rheum and found peace, we are now busy reforming institutions and discussing a new constitution for our children so that blood and rheum will not be shed again. On your part Babonyo, you are yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre! Do you know what you are doing? Let me tell you again. You are inciting the Kalenjin against Agwambo and the Luo. Yes, you did not care to speak out for the Kikuyu when they were displaced out of their homes during the PEV. At that time all you cared about was Raila and our kin. At that time, I wrongly felt like you did. Now? Heck! WE DO NOT WANT ANYMORE BLOOD & RHEUM, BABONYO! Last month, I did not hear you speak for the displaced people in Rift Valley when they were moved out of the refugee camps. Your silence on this was deafening. The majority of Kenyans including RV political representatives agreed it was vital to reclaim and conserve the Mau. I remember how you yelled the loudest when the PM took this role. You said it was set up for your man? honestly Babonyo, do you truely empathize with the Mau evictees or are you only worried about how it will affect Raila? While you think about your answer, let me remind you what Raila said: “I am prepared to pay the price.” And now regarding your war drums, I wish Moreno on you.
—
Joram Ragem
wuod Ndinya, wuod Onam, wuod Amolo, wuod Owuoth, wuod Oganyo, wuod Mumbe, wuod Odongo, wuod Olwande, wuod Adhaya, wuod Ojuodhi, wuod Ragem! (Are you my relative?)
Barack,
This is what Kenya has degenerated to, nothing is planned well and thought out. Granted these people were to be moved to conserve our forests and water catchment areas, but isn’ it loosing the bigger picture when the historical injustices or the circumstances that created these people is not addressed in the first place?
It is time Kenya came up with laws of the ceiling of land that an individual can own, it is not that there is not enough land for all of us in Kenya, the problem is that the vast arable land is in the hands of a few grabbers who are content with having it lie fallow as they await selling it to government when the opportunity(like IDP resettlement) arises.
This is Kenya, brother, and we must strive to change it.
Sungu Otieno.
I have the same feeling as you. Although we respect our natural resources, we should not forget to respect our old and young. Nobody choose to be either. In Kenya wild animals are more respected than human beings. There is a lot of interest in these animals than domestic animals. When there drought and the domestic animals are dying nobody cares but wait until somebody interferes with that place where wild animals are found, everybody will know. Can our lovely government protect our aged and children?
Let us not look at the government on the bad side all the times. I have all the reason to believe that Hassan Noor’s team has factored in how and where these settlers will go after that. Surely, just a few months ago we were all up in arms saying the govt is playing politics with Mau. Now people are moving and we want to start making noise again? Tuwe na msimamo and let us watch Noor’s team do their job. These guys have to move out of mau one way or the other; and at the moment they are doing so voluntarily. So what’s the fuss.
Felix;
I don’t buy into your argument. At this point in time, human sanctity
comes above all else. I can foresee anger if it was you being evicted
from your ancestral land. We must accept human life to be superior,
just like God intended. By subjecting the citizens to such cruelty,
what sets apart the government from entities like mungiki or the al
qaeda?
I don’t buy your argument, you can go tell the squirrels in the Mau.
Get your family evicted and then come back so we hear what you have to
say. How about that?
Peter
While it is sad that those Kenyans are living in deplorable conditions, we should also think about the 40 million Kenyans who stand to suffer if these people were allowed to continue staying in the forest. I believe they came from somewhere in the recent past so they can go back there. To say they have lived all their lives in that forest is to peddle lies. Most of them went into the mau during the nyayo era, about 30 years ago, so a 70 year old cannot claim to have been born there, unless he is an Ogiek
There is no way this can be right. Evict people and settle them next to the road in the cold with little children. This is very comparable to German NATZI camps if anything. I as a person cannot subscribe to this. Every person who lives somewhere came from somewhere. People can coexist with the environment. How long will you keep the mau a forest without inhabitants with the population explosion in Kenya. Are we going to kill people to save others. What kind of logic is this. Kill poor people to save the rich or kill Kalenjins to save the maasai, the kikuyus and the luos. How come the other side of mau inhabited by the rich is still intact. Why did they not start with that side. The human casualty could have been lower. It is obvious, no one wants to be on the wrong side of the rich.
It is not right and no amount of logic can make it right. We have brains we can do better. There is a lot of land in Kenya, treat these people with respect. Settle them. You cannot treat Kenyans like dogs and tell us that you will treat us better.
Barack
The two Rutos that are crying foul are the same people who sold forest land to these people knowing very well that this was a water catchment land. They have pocketed the poor peoples money yet they are the first people to blame the government!!!!??? Yes, it’s sad for the poor people but it’s about time the Government take a stand. Wangare Mathai warned Moi in the 80s not to move these people to the water catchment but because of his ignorance and greed he did not heed the advise. Biwott, the Rutos have grabbed 1000s of acres of land enough to settle these people. If they are truly concerned then they should give part of their vast grabbed land to the poor people.
Ja Katweng’a
Barack, you look like someone who has an issue with somebody…..however…my question is ..do you live in Kenya? If you are, you will appreciate the ignomity of the situation. Lakes and rivers are drying. Even those who are against the eviction in Rift Valley, their people are some of the worst affected by drought. Mau issue is not a Kikuyu, Maasai or Luo affair as you are trying to insinuate. Everyone in Kenya is affected…be it from power and water rationing to high costs of food. If the people of Mau wanted to coexist with nature as you put, they would have not gone on the charcoal burning spree. They could have spared a thought to the consequences of their actions. I agree that land should have been made available long time, but action needed to be taken to save millions of people who live downstreams and whose livelihoods depends on the preservation of Mau. On the other hand, preservation of Mau would mean continued supply of adequate rainfall to the communities living around the RV.
George
My problem is not Kalenjins versus the rest. My statement was an analogy. My issue is eviction of poor people without winking. I hope you saw the poor child being dragged out of her house only to find herself in the cold next to a high road. Tell me where they are going to get the resources to start all over again. I have no issue with nobody specific, my issue is indiscriminate punishment of poor people. If Kenya has no money to put those poor people in tents then I must say we have no government in Kenya. If we cannot resettle 2000 people anywhere in Kenya then we better not have citizens. If we can spend money to give to people as welfare stripped as was purported in the papers, then I do not see any reason why we cannot spend a little to keep children in some warm place while waiting for alternatives. This is disorganization at the highest level.
Now your main point here is conservation. Yes it is important to conserve and it can be done even without moving people out. All you have to do is to plant forest and stop new encroachment. It has been done elsewhere. This issue will surface again if scientific methods are not implemented. The population is increasing at an alarming rate and there are not alternative resources. However, if they do not have the capacity to plan for the future then they should at least have an eviction plan. George is that too much to ask from my/your government? It is the government that should educate the public about the environment, put laws in place to conserve the environment and work hard to provide alternative resources including jobs. Right now Obama’s ratings are low because of lack of jobs. People are holding him responsible. I believe these people would not burn charcoal if alternative resources were made available.
You cannot tell a poor man to leave and ask him to go where he came from and yet they are riding on donkey backs.
People have lived in the Mau for over 30 years and if they destroyed it for that period, restoring it may take the same period. Why are we in a hurry to make example out of poor people who have very little to feed on. Why must this process have to have human pain if it is the same future pain we are trying to avoid through conservation.
My point George is that we should be sympathetic to our neighbors. It is in the bible and Koran.
Barack
Barack, I feel sad that women and children are caught up in this mess. But when you look at the bigger picture, majority of those people have places where they came from. I have my colleague I work with who told me that she had a brother who went there in 2005, but started moving his belongings when things started getting hot, and this was in May this year. However, I believe that those who have title deeds should be compensated….that is the poor not thieves who stole from us and sold the lands to unsuspecting wananchi. Mistakes were made on land when those who had means grabbed everything from the poor. This is what is needed be done……land grabbed be used in resettling those getting out of Mau and the IDPs. We know who those people are….we wouldn’t have problem if they can decide to return a portion of what they stole.
Ndugu Barack:
There is a bigger story about Mau Forest and a lot has been documented about it. Except for members of the Ogiek community who and indigenes of the forest, hence having the right to live and co-exist with the forest, with their deep and extremely developed forest management systems only comparable to the Loita Maasai of South Narok, there are thousands of illegal settlers that must be moved out.
When I was arrested and detained back in 2000 with 10 other human rights activists over our advocacy for the rights of the Ogiek not to be evicted from the forest, we stumbled on disturbing facts that have eversince been publicized through court cases litigated by the Ogiek, researches by Ogiek peoples organizations and land rights NGOs. Facts such as:
* the real encroachers and destroyers of the Mau water Tower are retired president Moi and his gang of theives, including loud mouths like Zakayo Cheruiyot (who is believed to be hiding Felicen Kabuga in Kenya, sometimes at his Mau Forest palace cum fortress) , Franklin Bett, Paul Sang (ex-CID boss – also believed to have played a lead role in covering Kabuga using state resources when he was a top cop), Mwaita (an ODM MP), Gideon Moi, George Saitoti, the late thug Kipkalya Kones- and many other thugs serving Moi and now serving Kibaki and Raila. Combined, these goons cleared, perhaps more than 50,000 ha. of forest land in the Mau;
* then they played the ethnic mischief of literally ‘importing’ poor and not so poor families of political surrogates and sycophants, mainly from Kericho, Boment and Baringo and freely/illegally allocated them land in Mau forest – registering them as Ogiek, and hence obfuscating legitimate Ogiek land rights claims and protection against eviction and destruction of their ecosystem. History actually witnesses that while Moi and co. were grabbing Mau Forest, they simultaneously heightened rhetoric that the Ogiek, who have lived in the forest, probably since creation, were encroachers and they invoked the Forest Act to subject them to decades of abuse and destruction of their livelihoods! State machinery was used to evict the Ogiek as well as bring in and allocate land to surrogates of the then ruling Kalenjin Mafia, mainly from Kericho and Bomet in the forest. The real reason for importing people and baptizing them Ogiek was to secure ground to play the ethnic card in future contestations, like are happening now, with the ruse crap that ‘their’ our community is being targeted by whoever attempts to clear the mess they created.
We must make distinctions when it comes to Mau Forest and get angry when public opinion is manipulated (by politicians, the media as well as middle-class commentators who do not take time to check on facts before erupting) away from focusing on the real culprits in the Mau saga.
I sympathize with the people who were imported and allocated land illegally. They probably thought their thug-leaders were being kind and considerate – but talking to many of them, you also get to know that they have land back home in Bomet, Kericho and Baringo, and so they are not desperate per se, but caught up in the national psyche of primitive accumulation of property and things, just like many of us are anyway. They are victims of a con-game, a pyramid scheme kind of thing, where their tribal kingpins are the real beneficiaries. But this does not mean that their being moved out of Mau should be done in an inhumane manner like is probably happening. But they should also see themselves as having the obligation to speak truthfully and secure appropriate assistance for safe repatriation to their abandoned lands back home where they were plucked and conned into illegally settling in Mau.
I think our focus and anger now should be around the possibility that the big shots will be spared because they can negotiate for arse-saving guarantees from the equally thuggish status quo. It is possible that the big fish will be spared, in the name of the contribution, of say, Moi’s tea factory to job creation and hence the country’s economy, or the dairy and wheat farms, etc. Will crap like this be put aside and have all encroachers punished, even have their property seized and channeled for the restoration of the forest? Will those who have committed environmental crimes, like illegal logging and trafficking in the Mau forest biodiversity be prosecuted and punished?
And how can we all stand up and demand that the rights of real Ogieks are promoted, protected and fulfilled by the state? And this community has a well documented history that makes them know who is Ogiek and who is not! In fact they have a problem with being blanketly categorised as Kalenjins as that categorization has been used by powerful Kalenjin thugs to dehumanize them.
Overally, the clean up that Kenya needs is huge and complex. I do not expect that it will always be a clean and neat affair- so much has gone wrong since independence and righting all that’s wrong is not easy at all, for anyone. But our main problem is that everything that gets done – both in action and analysis seems to automatically be pitched on ethnopolitical formulas, which conceal the real problem: political corruption, patronage and impunity enjoyed by the likes of the Members of Parliament we saw shedding in Mau last weekend.
My take:
* let’s have the rich thugs who have destroyed the mighty Mau evicted and punished;
* let the state repatriate the conned political surrogates and relatives of the rich Mau thugs and ensure their current crop does not go to waste until harvested, and that they pick up their new life back in Kericho, Baringo and Bomet in dignity;
* let the state curve out from the huge tracts of land, grabbed and owned by the Mois, Kenyattas, Nyachaes and others from the thug-class around Nakuru, Rongai and Molo to resettle genuine Mau squatters because there are a few in all this melee;
* Let parliament pass a special law that grants the Ogiek community their rights as indigenous of Mau forest and decree measures to ensure state investment, in partnership with them, in all areas needed to permanently guarantee them equal rights like citizens of Kenya.
Emotions aside: Mau Forest and other water towers MUST be protected.
Nduko
People have to live in dignity, so the fact that Kenyans are living by the roadside is an atrocity. They need to be resettled. But still, these people came from somewhere; why cant they be taken back there? Yes, there is the other side of the Mau where the rich have large tracts of land. They did not start evictions from there. Why? We all know that the rich have more justice in Kenya than the poor.What we should be asking ourselves i how as a people we can get equality for everyone. Maybe if the rich were to vacate the Mau, there would be no reason to evict the poor as long as the are taught how to live with the forest
. Saving the Mau is of paramount important whichever way we look at it- we can not punish 40million Kenyans because of 1000 Mau inhabitants. That is the truth and it has to be said. The issue of tribe is immaterial here, so let us not use it to justify any wrongs
Even the rest of the world had to go through some of this shameful moments in order to get where they are now. we can not always hide under humanitarian reasons not to act. the time to act is now. O’wise Dr. Abonyo you should go and try and live in those areas already affected by the destruction of Mau or even better join the kalenjin council of elders (war council). we are ready for u guys
To add on to what Nduko said, the kalenjin have also benefited from other kenyans for a long time , if they did not use their benefits/advantage to uplift their lives , then they should just have them selves to blame. we the rest of kenyans also want to benefit from our environment at least coz that is all we can get back. we can not always use our sweat/tax to support them, we also need bullet factories in kisumu incase they attack us when we tell them not to cut down trees.
Osotsi,
I cannot take my family to goverment land irregularly then feel mad that they are being told to vacate. As far as I know, upto last week those families were moving out voluntarily and the issue of setting up tents by the road is their own problem. The government is atleast trying to transport them somewhere and as one member says, the lives of 40 million Kenyans cannot be compromised because of a few individuals who are not in their land in the first place.
So the government is now walking the talk as we have always wanted, please get used to the fact that it can now talk and walk.
Human race is the most interesting. Animals smell danger from far and move to safe zones. Human beings will linger on till disaster happens yet we call ourselves of higher intellect.
We are the most destructive of what we should conserve, yet we suffer the most.
No human race has listened to reason time and memorial, none.
In fact at one time God was so angry with them He wanted to wipe them off he face of he earth. And by the way children were not spared. They say the fathers eat the sour grapes the children grit their teeth.
At one time He wiped them using the flood only eight were preserved. Am writing this because we feel God values a destructive human race and often does nothing about them. He destroys them. Even now He will wipe us all who have gone against His will. We have gone against the Law of nature endangered the earth, we want mercies. (Human sanctity comes above all else. I can foresee anger if it was you being evicted from your ancestral land. We must accept human life to be superior,just like God intended)SANCTITY!!!
The mess in this done in this country is so enormous we will not expect any change without some pain. If the people in Mau were conscious of the destruction they were doing since we started talking about this and it was possible to reverse it while they are in the forest, as good Kenyans they should have stopped logging and started planting trees. The Ogieks have a right to live in the forest. For them advocacy is needed.
Even as they At this point in time, as they were leaving there was still logging going on. What a sense of complacency. (A feeling of We don’t care our politicians will fight for us).
My take for us to make progress hard decisions must be made. Most are painful i agree but so be it if it will reverse the situation.
HUMAN BEINGS WILL NEVER DO THE RIGHT THINGS WILLINGLY, OUR INCLINATION IS TOWARDS WRONG. For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. All have sinned ALL. For man to do right it has to be forced down their throats.Naturally defiant, stubborn, destructive, careless, etc etc
BYE
TO ALL,
Agwambo said that this time round he will bite the bullet because of the Mau,that statement is enough to tell you the seriousness of taking care of the environment.The Rutos,langats,cheruiyots should now shoulder the responsibilty and take care of those people now affected.And where is Moi when all this is happening?.
The decision by Raila to order the Mau cleansing has majority support and should be commented by ALL.
Let Moi sacrifice his huge chunks of land to give these people after all there about 1000 or thereabouts.
REGARDS.
Felix
As we speak the lives of 40 million Kenyans is in the hands of a few who can sell it and have sold it for 40 pieces of silver. The most unfortunate part of it is that you are supporting without question. If they cannot plan moving 2000 people then they have no plan for 2030 and you know it. We as the cream of this society must resist the African way of doing things whereby once one is popular then their sons and daughters are obvious leaders. These people have made one major mistake after the other and instead of holding them accountable we attempt to thrive in our own consolation that since our man has done it, it must be right. For me, if it is wrong, it is wrong. I do not care who has done it.
This is wrong. If your mother was moved in this manner you would create chaos. It is time we fight for the right of all because this is the way you and me will survive. This is the only way through which we will leave behind a better Kenya for our children. Our fathers were psychophants and what did they get. Poverty!poverty! poverty! Why one would like to repeat this vicious cycle baffles me.
The way they have made these people desolate creates poverty not wealth.
Barack
Barack,
I highly doubt whether you live in Kenya. Because for those of us who do, we have seen why those fellows must move from that land. Houses that were on road reserves were demolished and life moved on; so what’s special about these guys who are even playing cat and mouse with the govt. They are seen during the day to come and hoodwink us that they are suffering and move to ‘somewhere’ else at night. These guys even lied on TV that they slept in the structures while it was clear they were not there. And in anycase, since when did someone who is using something that is not his feel bad when the owner wants it back.
Barack, we here in Kenya feel nothing for these guys. Let them move out of mau to wherever they came from.
not every one must own land. govt’ shld reposes all idle land and do commercial/large scale farming which can also create jobs. burning charcoal helps no one it just creates more poverty————
Dr Abonyo,
Our politicians have never cared about the people and these “Baldadash” you are writing here. The people to them are a menace. And that is why they stopped he who wanted to side with them.
The Calculations taking place now is to make these poor people extremely desperate so that theycan be manipulated at the times of Electioneering.Remember the following phrases, you will hear them a lot during the Campaigns og 2012. WATU WETU WALIYO TOLEWA KWA MASHAMBA ZAO TUTAWARUDISHA TUKISHINDA UCHAGUZI”
HUYO ASIWADANGANYE, MTAFANYIWA EVICTION TENA, AND MANY MORE STATEMENTS LIKE SUCH.
Dr. Abonyo,
I have dug into some archives, about the treatment of people in the Nazi camps, and I can tell you that it was very bad. And when you use it as a comparison to what is happening in Mau forest evictees then, I think that you are either going overboard or you totally do not know what you are talking about.
Please I ask you not to bring such atrocious scenes and compare them with Nazi Germany. For what Dr, Mengele, and the top Nazi gangsters like Goering,Goebbels,and especially Himmler, who was the head of Gestapo, is not comparable to what we have seen in recent years. Don’t even compare it to Rwanda because, some of those people in Rwanda had a little opportunity to escape or run away. In Nazi Germany that opportunity was very slim or not there at all. Many of those SS Guards were so inhuman and heartless, that it is just not right to compare them with anybody.
The only project comparable to Nazi Germany is the “Nanking project 763” run by General Shiro Ishi. If you have doubt, try to Google this “Nanking Massacre” and see for yourself, what the Soldiers who committed those atrocities are saying, 70 years later.
As such it is therefore very wrong to Compare Nazi Camps with the MAU forest evictees.
Now, if we analyze the Mau forest clearly, or if we ‘tooth comb’ it, we will find that those Mau evictees have lived there from the time Moi evicted the Ogiek from that forest, which is not a long time. In short they must have been living elsewhere before they settle there. So we might wonna ask, “What happened to where they came from? And why can they not manage the forest? Why are many of then burning thousands of hectors of forest leaving it bare without bothering to replant the trees so that the forest can be managed well and conserved?
The whole situation has been over-politicized, so that some people can gain political miles to be seen as though they are defenders of people’s justice. I disagree. If they were genuine, they would not have settled these people to destroy the forest in the first place. Why do I say this? I say this because considering the percentage of arable land in Kenya, which is just a little more than a third of the entire country, Genuine Leaders would have sat down and enacted laws in Parliament to protect and manage this land effectively. Instead what have the Leaders done? Play ping Pong of Circus with the Citizens. They then draw the attention of genuine sympathizers like you and others who join the fray to empathize with the victimized Citizens.
And in all this madness the source of the problem is never seen. A lot of noise in made on the surface, where such wild comparisons with Nazi Germany, are used, but the Bottom-line is that there is no proper land management Policies in our Constitution. This is what is supposed to be tackled.
Dr. Abonyo you live in Florida, how comes the Apachees cannot invade the everglades and claim to make their home there, After all, ain’t that a free land? You know why? The land where you live has proper Land management Policies entrenched in “State” (Florida) and “Federal” (USA) Constitutions. .” Can you say that about the Kenyan situation? No! This is why they continue with that kind of Circus. And in the end many of us are drawn into their game and join the noise without posing to look where the problem is.
Finally remember that kind of “Proper” Constitution with accountability is what the ODM wanted to bring to the people, a Decentralized form of governance “UGATUZI.” Unfortunately,Baba Jimmy and his henchmen rejected it. And so we will never see its benefits. the kind you enjoy when you are over there in “The State of the Sun.” I hear that is what they call Florida, over there, in the Land of Milk and Honey, the Land of Big Uncle SAM.
K’Onyiego.
Is this the same barack that want to lead me in Kisumu County?how dare you have such kind of a dream while you cant respect enviroment?Before you threw these comments, did you find out some of the factors that cause the failed rains in Kenya today???or are yoy like the Dr Koech who once tol;d those pathetic folks in Mau that RAO was just harsh on them since rain doesnt come from trees but from God?How many peolpe do you think suffer because of Mau depletion?Did you watch the fake Mau evictees???evictees by day but leave posh life at night???Be serious a nd convince me otherwise