From: James Sang
Thursday, November 19, 2009 1:26 PM
RIFT VALLEY CIVIL SOCIETY NETWORK PRESS STATEMENT ON MAU EVICTIONS AT 680 HOTEL ON Nov.18, 2009
TIME: 10 AM
PREAMBLE:
We, members of Rift Valley Civil Society Network,
* Working to empower communities socially and economically,
* Aware of the impact of environmental degradation,
* Committed to the protection and conservation of our environment
* Supporting our Government’s effort to protect and conserve the Western Kenya Water Towers,
* Committed to truth and justice for all citizens of Kenya ,
* Promoting sustainable peace and justice in Rift Valley and Kenya at large,
* Respecting human rights and the rule of law by all citizens of Kenya ,
* Working to alleviate suffering and restoration of human dignity among communities,
* Having assessed the Mau eviction situation,
Do hereby issue this press statement:
INTRODUCTION:
The Mau Evictions process started on Tuesday 10/11/09 following the expiry of the 14 day quit notice by the Kenya Forest Service that ended on 9th. The targeted areas for eviction included Lelpanget, Kipkongor, Saptonok, Tiloluet, Koilonget, Kipsengwet, Arorwet, Kusumek and Ndoinet. In preparation for the evictions, the Government reportedly deployed over 300 armed security officers and maintained that the evictions shall be peaceful and humane.
The settlers started moving out of their settlements on Tuesday 10/11/09 to displacement Camps and highlighted by the media. This confirmed that these settlers are peaceful and law abiding citizens.
On Friday 13th November 2009, a humanitarian mission was organized by Rift Valley Civil Society Network spearheaded Emo Foundation and four other partners namely Kenya Foundation for youth and Women, Kipsigis Heritage Foundation and Kuresoi Kipsigis Council of Elders, accompanied by the media.
PURPOSE OF VISIT:
The purpose of the mission was to assess the humanitarian situation of the evictees and see how to assist them.
OBJECTIVES:
· To identify the locations that the evictees have camped
· Determine the numbers and assess their humanitarian situation.
· Identify and highlight their needs.
· Appeal and plan for humanitarian intervention.
METHODOLOGY:
The mission interviewed among others the District Commissioner, Area MP, Elders and evictees. The road conditions were very bad and we had to walk for some distance to access the camps.
FINDINGS:
· Evictees moved out peacefully. They heeded the Government’s notice hence moved out and camped by the roadside.
· Evictees camped in 10 areas namely:
o Lelpanget -1600 people
o Kipkongor -1400 people
o Saptonok – 230 people
o Kiptisia – 780 people
o Tiloluet – 640 people
o Koilonget – 482 people
o Kipsengwet – 348 people
o Aroruet – 560 people
o Kusumek – 403 people
o Ndoinet – 3560 people
Total population: 10,003 people
Humanitarian situation:
· No shelter, only temporary sheds.
· No food as the evictees had finished all they had.
· Very poor hygiene situation as there were no toilet facilities and water
· No medical facilities and one child who got burnt could not access medical care whereas several sick elderly persons and disabled left behind in the abandoned homesteads at the mercy of marauding wild animals e.g hyenas.
· People were highly traumatized especially children and women.
· People had left their crops in the fields and the evictees complained that the security personnel had harvested their crops and took to their base which the DC denied receiving any compliant. The area MP confirmed receiving the information and raising it with the authorities concerned thus ending the vice.
· Education had been disrupted due to the evictions as children flee with their families.
· There was no humanitarian intervention four days since the people arrived at the camp and the DC confirmed that plans were still underway for logistical and relief intervention. It was clear that the Government had not adequately prepared for the entire exercise.
· There was no humanitarian agencies in sight though the area MP said he had approached Red Cross but were nowhere on site four days after the exercise.
· The evictees claimed that they camped because they did not have land anywhere else to go.
Land issues:
The evictees claimed to be landless and had nowhere to go. They claimed to have been sidelined in land allocation where powerful individuals including former provincial administration and senior Government officials allocated themselves large chunks of land at their expense thus pushing them to the forest. This was quite visible as large trucks of large of land belonging to individuals were widespread.
It was reported that a land in Molo formerly belonging to a former prominent politician had been bought by the Government to settle them but was instead secretly allocated to members of one community.
Impact on Peace and reconciliation:
The developments in Mau are raising tensions and likely to affect peace in the area. Utterances attributed to some leaders especially the Minister for Forestry and Wildlife asking people to go to where they came from is a big blow to peace gains so far achieved and national healing process.
We therefore make the following statements:
Humanitarian:
We are appealing to the Government to speed up the relief assistance to the evicted Mau settlers (GDP’s) Government displaced Persons, to reduce human suffering.
We urge other humanitarian organizations and individuals of goodwill to come to the aid of the Mau evictees.
Land issues:
We are asking the Government to speed up the resettlement of the evicted squatters just like it is resettling IDPs and should not be seen to be selective.
The Government cannot be trusted as a custodian of public land as its officials and officers have allocated themselves large chunks of land instead of squatters. It should therefore target powerful individuals who have unscrupulously acquired land and revert it back to the forest.
Conservation of Mau:
The Government should make the communities in the region and especially the youth to partner in conservation by enabling them to participate in the rehabilitation of the degraded forest.
Peace and reconciliation:
The Government should promote peace and reconciliation by addressing the resettlement issue fairly and promote national integration. The current resettlement exercise clearly seems to target by not targeting only certain communities for resettlement while persecuting others e.g. Govt. Displaced Persons (GDPs), Ogiek, Siringonik, Embobut and Mt. Elgon .
The Government should come out clean on the allegation of allocating the land in Molo to one community at the expense of genuine Mau squatters and take the necessary actions.
We vehemently abhor irresponsible utterances by senior politicians and civil servants alleging that people should go to where they came from which negate the spirit of national healing and cohesion as well as national integration.
Reforms:
The Government should speed up reforms especially agenda 4 and constitution-making to address the land issues in Kenya , especially the Rift Valley. This will guarantee Kenyans their rights and justice thus bring lasting peace and security in the country
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Message Forwarded by:
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
Friends,
I share in the plight of those who are moving out of Mau out of their own volition. They are doing the right thing. They should not have gone into Mau in the first place.
Secondly, I share more deeply in the plight of the so many Kenyans who have been made to suffer immensely because of the greed of these few lot.
Several rivers went dry because of these few invaders. Our wildlife suffered some more because of these few invaders. At one point, I wept when I saw Hippos in the Mara River stuck in mud, with no water to cover their backs, courtesy of these few invaders.
In Nairobi and several places, our taps have gone dry because of these few invaders.
Again, we all know that power is being rationed because of these invaders. We are paying higher tariffs because of these invaders.
As much as we might sympathize with their plight, I am more inclined to support the approach of Hon William Ole Ntimama. He has been fighting a lone battle for almost 10 years. But now, we have all seen what he has been seeing; the kind of destruction brought on our water towers by these selfless invaders.
When their time was up, courtesy of brilliant journalism from the KTN journalists, we were exposed to the Mau lie. These people are being used for more selfish reasons. They are not content with the kind of destruction they have visited on Kenya, they are still playing games. How selfish can one become?
Secondly, the media have been all over Mau, they never saw the number that you are passing around as fact. This is some very fertile imagination from the very architects of the Mau destruction. Having failed, not really failed, having devoured the beauty of Mau, they now have their sights on our money; for compensation.
We now need to compensate these few people for messing up with Mau and our lives.
I wish I was the President, and not all Kalenjins are this callous.
Odhiambo T Oketch
In the press statement that has just been circulated, this line caught my eyes; In preparation for the evictions, the Government reportedly deployed over 300 armed security officers and maintained that the evictions shall be peaceful and humane.
Are you as a Kenyan convinced with this?
oto
Date: Friday, November 20, 2009, 1:47 AM
If its true the government has deployed over 300 officers then I thnk that very unfortunate. I think PM and Ruto should tour the area together.
Joe Ageyo wrote an article
Why I’m not celebrating the Mau Move
http://www.kensja.org/?p=208
By Joe Ageyo
For the first time since the battle for Karura Forest in the 1990s, environmental activists in Kenya must be celebrating. The Mau Forest saga has captured the imagination of the nation in ways only similar to political campaigns. Could this be a signal that environmental conservation is finally taking its rightful place in Kenya ’s national psyche or is Mau just another political fad, in a country with a penchant for quarrels and disagreements?
The position taken by the Prime Minister Raila Odinga is a case in point. Mr Odinga has always had only one response to environmental disputes – that nature has to be ‘destroyed’ a little for a country to progress. In fact his sound bite is often juicier, he says: ‘if you want to have grand children, then your daughter must not remain a virgin’. This was his take on both the controversial Tana Delta sugar scheme and the equally contentious Yala Swamp project. This past few days however he has indicated that he is willing to put his political career on the line to ‘save’ the Mau. This can only suggest one of two things: either the Prime Minister has finally seen the light or the Mau situation is really grave.
I will address only the latter proposition since that is how the Mau situation has been framed these past few weeks. Yes, it is true, the Mau Complex is a very important national resource- as one of the so-called five water towers in the country. And yes, it is true that the destruction going on in the Mau is indeed grave, and ought to have been stopped many years ago. But is Mau the most serious and pressing environmental crisis facing the country today? Is it the most endangered national resource in Kenya today? Put differently, is there something more to the Mau saga than what the government or indeed the Rift Valley MPs would want us to believe? Something stinks about the timing and framing of this genuine environmental concern!
A recent survey by UNEP and KWS indicated that between the year 2000 and 2003, a whopping 6,013 hectares in the Mount Kenya Forest was illegally cleared, compared to about 5,000 hectares in the Mau over the same period. The same aerial survey suggested that Mount Elgon Forest too was disappearing at nearly the same rate.
Granted, no nation can deal with all its environmental problems in one fell swoop, but what guarantee is there that after the Mau, the government will extend the same enthusiasm to Nairobi River, whose clean-up has been ‘going on’ for the last ten years and not even an inch has actually been cleaned? Or Lake Victoria , which is choking in raw sewer and agrochemicals from the highlands?
The government has skilfully presented the Mau situation as being the cause of all our problems ranging from the famine in parts of the country to the biting water shortage in Nairobi . This partly explains why the issue has become so emotive. Yet some experts would rather argue that Nairobi ’s water has more to do with the Aberdares and Mount Kenya forests more than the Mau – but that is neither here nor there. The point is, environmental issues are complex and are oversimplified only at the risk of misleading the nation.
If the government were really serious about addressing the issue of deforestation, it should have unveiled a comprehensive policy of protecting all forests in the country. The current plan suggests the formation of a Mau Complex Authority to oversee the restoration and protection of the Mau, does this mean we will eventually have five such authorities to steward all five of Kenya ’s water towers? Are we always going to form a task force or a new institution every time we are faced with a crisis?
What is needed in the Mau is not the creation of a new institution but ensuring the current institutions work. All the studies conducted on Kenya ’s forest situation invariably point to weak enforcement of existing laws owing to an incredibly low morale and corruption among forest officers. In addition, the Kenya Forest Service does not know for certain how much forest there is in the country, and therefore is ill-prepared to safeguard this resource.
The government has also curiously presented the eviction of the so-called squatters as the ultimate solution to problem of deforestation in the Mau. Whereas, people who irregularly acquired forestland must pay for their sins, including surrendering the land, we must not let the heat of the moment push us into discarding reason. The new forest management regime under the Forest Act 2005 expressly provides for the involvement of local communities in the management of forests. Indeed it is now widely accepted that no environmental policy, including the management of the Mau, can succeed without the support of the local communities. We should therefore not create a national impression that people who live next to forests will always destroy them. Furthermore the fledgling Kenya Forest Service does not have enough personnel to police all the forests in the country; they need the numerous eyes of local communities to secure these important national resources.
Good treatment always begins with an accurate diagnosis – the Mau situation may yet prove to be a serious case of misdiagnosis!
Joe Ageyo- NTV (Currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Environmental Governance at the University of Manchester , UK )
This article should be re read again to show us that may be the reason we missed water in Nairobi is because of a failed state that keeps Kikuyu peasants to small acres of plots to produce food instead of putting money in the North of Kenya to save the environment.
Mau is sensational but that it may be just a political battle zone not where the future of Kenya’s environmental salvation lies. An integrated development Policy approach is the way. And that needs to ask questions with what do we do with our Export led agricultural produce Policy that continues to deny Kenyans food and hence forces peasants to penetrate further into the forest to grow food and cash crops.
I have decided to look at things with a more holistic view. There is a very skewed view of things in Kenya.
Cyprian Orina Nyamwamu
Mr. Odhiambo T. Oketch,
I had all along thought you were much better person than this, I think I was wrong! Do you have to be so shallow?
These, ( MAU EVICTEES ) are poor people being attacked for being poor! The rich headed, by your Prime Minister, take actions when it comes to robbing the Poor only, or punishing the poor.
Have you forgotten how he defended Mr. Moi, when he was summoned to testify, in the Goldenberg Affair?
Tekere
To All,
If its the poor being targeted for eviction, where are there leaders,the monied Rutos, cheruiyots, poghisios who now appear to cry with them in front of tv cameras. A few acres for the poor souls from the big thieves and squatter problem will be over.
They thought they will blackmail the country, and so the prime minister, with threats to cut off Rift valley votes, but the the PM appears less distracted by crocodile and frog tears.
You need your people assisted, do not issue ultimatums on tv and being cheeky about the 2007 elections results. Which leader will stomach these jabs?
Let conservation begin, votes or no votes.