Yawn! Uncle Joe your cut and paste up there is off KenyaImagine.com; a posting by some dude called Rubia! As he was told then I will tell him now… If you for one minute think that only Matiba and Rubia stood up at that critical time then you dis-respect those who stood with them and even further dis-respect those who came before them and were still standing while these 2 and others were just “vinyangarikas” get it right!

Yawn! This is off KenyaImagine.com; a posting by some dude called Rubia! As he was told then I will tell him now… If you for one minute think that only Matiba and Rubia stood up at that critical time then you dis-respect those who stood with them and even further dis-respect those who came before them and were still standing while these 2 and others were just “vinyangarikas” get it right!

http://bulletsandhoney.wordpress.com/2006/09/28/a-letter-to-my-father-and-others-2/

Peter Kuria

Introduction

The history of land crisis in Kenya cannot be viewed solely from a post independence point of view. For a comprehensive understanding of the underlying factors and in order to develop frameworks for a lasting solution, a deeper look at the historical dimension of the crisis should be given due consideration. A thorough forensic examination should generate a timeline of when and the context of how land became a tool for oppression and political control and hence the center of the evolving crisis.

Post independent Kenya undoubtedly inherited a highly skewed system of land ownership in 1963. The period of colonialisation dating back to 1895, the British introduced a system of widespread land alienation for the benefit of settler agriculture. As a result the best agricultural land so called the White Highlands, and the adjacent rangelands were taken from Africans, without compensation, and distributed out to white settlers. This was achieved through the Crown Lands Ordinance of 1915, commenced on 26.11.15 (AG Chambers 2008).

Through the Ordinance, Africans were declared Tenants at Will of the Crown. The Ordinance declared that all ‘waste and unoccupied’ land in the protectorate ‘Crown Land’ and was subject to the governor’s powers of alienation. It created the reserves for ‘natives’ and located them away from areas scheduled for European settlement.

Through the ordinance the British Government implemented its policy of European settlement in the Kenyan Highlands. Crown land was allocated through direct grants by the Governor or sold by public auction unless the Governor ordered otherwise. This in effect legalized mass alienation with the result of whole communities loosing valuable land that they had occupied over generations.

The colonial government, acting on the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown, declared on December 13, 1899 that under Britain’s Foreign Jurisdiction Act of 1890, the imperial power had control over and could dispose of “waste and unoccupied land in protectorates where there was no settled form of government and where land had not been appropriated to the local sovereign or to individuals”.

At the coast of Kenya, through the Land Titles Ordinance and a Concession Agreement, the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) acquired all the rights to land in the Sultan’s territory, save for private land. Private land in this context meant land held under certificates of ownership issued by the Sultan. They were issued to Arabs. Unfortunately, only a few of the local inhabitants were aware of the process and few availed themselves of the opportunity to register land in their names. The land later became Government Land at independence contributing to the massive landlessness in this part of the country.

Land resettlement programmes never addressed the mass alienation and the schemes that were introduced failed to reverse the loss of African land. The first president Jomo Kenyatta’s government opted for a land resettlement programme based on a “willing buyer-willing seller” system rather than direct land repossession and redistribution.

Post Independence “willing buyer-willing seller” land reform?
The underlying assumption under this scheme was that every Kenyan including those who had been made landless by the legislative framework was capable of mobilising financial resources. This was not the case. Majority of the Kenyan landless did not have the means; they were the poorest of the poor. Loan schemes that were put in place by the government were not crafted to suit the times and many who took the loans were unable to repay them leaving them in an insecure tenure regime and totally inhibiting their economic potential (KLA 2004).

The Africans, those in the middle class and other economic elites bought much of the land that had been first been taken by the white settlers from the same poor communities.

Politics and corruption of the government supported resettlement schemes?
The government settlements schemes were assumed to be apolitical and above board. The abuse of powers and corruption in the land resettlement programme allowed the corrupt political and economic elites within the Kenyatta government to acquire land that was meant for the landless. In Kenya today, the Kenyatta family owns over half a million hectares (Daily Nation – Ongwen 2004) in a country with a population of over 34 Million and with 5 million hectares of land suitable for rainfed agriculture. (?)

Constitution and land rights and multiple conflicting policies
The Constitution negotiated at Lancaster House in London, provided for an elaborate protection of private property without reference to the history of its acquisition. The successive post-independence governments have continued to uphold the sanctity of privately owned land to the frustration of the large number of Kenyans who had been dispossessed through colonialism leaving them squatters on their ancestral land or landless poor.

This is one of the key issues that the government must draw a clear and comprehensive road map to addressing it. In addition, new legislations like the Forest Act 2005 go deeper in alienating land from the indigenous communities by creating institutions that make it legal for privatisation of such lands without due compensation. Majority of policies related to natural resources including water, minerals, wildlife, tourism have been crafted based on the constitution and therefore need a comprehensive review in order address the underlying problems on the historical injustices.

According to Joseph Ole Simel (MPIDO), commenting on The Commission of Inquiry into Land Law Systems of Kenya (1999) and on Draft Constitution of Kenya 2004 (Bomas Draft), ‘Legislation be passed for review of ancestral/historical land claims and disputes including those dating back to 1895 with a view to reaching a just and peaceful resolution of the same, taking into account the nature of the unresolved claim or dispute and the current needs and interests of the nation.

Should there be another Commission?
The current crop of politicians have benefited from the flawed land policy (or lack of) and own huge tracts of land in disputed areas like referenced above. The most likely response from the current crop of politicians will be the creation of a commission to look into the issue of land and historical injustices.

There already exists various reports supported by governments and NGOs which have pointed out to the historical injustices and deliberated at length under the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Land Law System of Kenya and the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land and the National Land Policy Formulation Process. There exist clear recommendations on what needs to be done.

The crisis facing Kenya today has forced the hand of the government and it must now act to provide a road map to equitable access to land and resources. Land is the engine to economic development. The various studies of the land question in Kenya have established the inextricable linkages between the problems of poverty, insecurity and landlessness (KLA 2004).

The failure by successive governments to adequately deal with the land issue has lead the problem to ferment into a national crisis (Ndungu Land Report, Southall 2005).

One of the tragedies is that both candidates, have few doctrinal differences. All the world powers care about is stability. They don’t care who won.

Kenya is another example of why neoliberalism doesn’t work. It is time for the oppressed to unite for real change, revolutionary socialism.

While some of us grieve lost ones, and while thousands of Kenyans grapple with the reality of losing all their earthly possessions(Unlike Pro ODM Kwani Bloggers and pro British leftist Kikuyus- Bad Apples )it’s time to reflect on how the violence escalated to these, previously unimaginable levels.

In my view the violenc and its drivers can be divided into several categories.

The spontaneous expression of outrage at the perceived flawed election

This was what was witnessed in Kibera and Kisumu. Traditionally, this rather loud and exuberant expression of either political opinion or disappointment has historically had few if any cases of violence meted out on individuals. The disappointment was expected especially considering that this was a close election. Exit polls conducted by independent parties showed that Kibaki had won by 47% of the vote to Raila Odinga’s 42%, but pre-election polling had for a long time prepped the ODM for a victory. The expectation was that as reality and sanity set in, these expressions of exultant exuberance would have peacefully dissipated.

This has provided the hallmark of how Kenya has achieved political progress and change by civil means. This non-violent expression of political opinion is encouraged. The transition to multi-partysm led by most famously Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia is based on just this.

The dousing of the spontaneous expression by inflammatory statement.

I do not recall any calls for calm by the so-called people’s president when his supposedly aggrieved supporters had the upper hand in the violence that raged. Matter of fact, all I heard was him calling Kenya’s legal president a thief. There were further calls for “mass action”.

In an already volatile situation, the call for mass action in a situation that is already spiraling out of control is tantamount to inciting the perpetrators of the violence. In repeated press briefings, there were claims by ODM that they had won most of the provinces. The reality is that President Kibaki won 4 of the 8 provinces and was not the president of one tribe as the ODM has sought to promote. Half of the provinces is not most. This was a convenient oversight that was continuously relayed to the Kenyan people. The Kenyan and international media has not made a protracted effort to rectify this false perception. The continuous and false claims that ODM had won most of the provinces did little to assuage their peeved supporters. When the country needed leadership, neither Ruto from Eldoret nor Raila from Kibera appealed to their constituents to maintain the peace. It is really most preposterous to ask that President Kibaki make this effort, quite clearly his presence in these areas would only be inflammatory.

The planned and well coordinated attacks in the Rift Valley

This international media has characterized the violence in the Rift Valley as ethnic violence. There is the implication that neighbor is rising against neighbor. This is not the truth. The truth is that there are organized criminal gangs that are unleashing this violence. These criminal gangs are not even native to the areas when they are unleashing the violence. The reality is that gangs of people do not assemble on a single night and cause mayhem over an entire region as a sporadic act of expressing anger and outrage. There is more to this violence than meets the eye, and it needs to be thoroughly explored. Even Bishop Cornelius Korir agrees.

“Bishop Cornelius Korir spoke in western Eldoret, scene of the fiery massacre of Kikuyu. Eldoret and surrounding areas have seen an exodus of Kikuyus since. The violence across the country has killed some 500 people.

“The way the attacks were managed seems to me very organized,” Korir said as the U.S. envoy, Jendayi Frazer, toured the region Tuesday. “No, it did not seem spontaneous to me … It seems it was well planned.”

Over a quarter of a million people have been displaced – each has a story of property razed, or a personal testimony of a threat of violence, there have been numerous witnesses that have claimed that the violence was promised even before the elections (so much for spontaneity!). Pause and comprehend that number, – 250,000 displaced! Not over a month, but in two or three days. The MO of the perpetrators of this mayhem, ranging from Kuresio, to Ngenia Farm in Molo, to Eldoret was the same. Burn! Loot! Maim!

Even then we must not overlook those who have risen above the hatred. Most of the residents have stories of their neighbors (some of them from the supposedly terrorizing tribe) helping them to hide or providing assistance in one form or the other.

But who then are the perpetrators of this violence? Where does their hatred, over and above the normal arise from? Why such ruthless efficiency? Where do they get the resources to travel in such large groups and cover such long distances? Who are this people? Who is sponsoring them? How come they are only to be found in ODM strongholds? Why have the ODM leaders not strongly condemned these acts of violence? Or prevailed upon their supporters with sincerity to stop the violence?

These are not freedom crusaders; they are local terrorists. Calling this low life criminal gangs anything but that is an insult to our freedom fighters, an insult to all those that have fought for democracy, an insult to the heroes who spear-headed the crusade for multi-partysm. The violence in the Rift Valley was not about an election loss. It was about majimbo – enforcing a political system by hook or crook, demanding zones of ethnic exclusivity much in the same way as the ethnic cleansing of the 1990s did. The violence would have broken out irrespective of the outcome of the elections

I also believe the final death count from the Rift valley will be higher than the official death count as it stands today – as evidenced here. From various media sources, the victims of the violence say that there are still bodies not yet collected and are out there – in the razed wheat fields, in the rolling lush green tea bushes in Kericho, in the burnt houses in Burnt Forest and in small outposts where killing a family of Kikuyus is not exactly going to make the news.

To serve and protect

The claim that there are multiple deaths by bullet wounds does not implicate the police only. As has been clearly documented in the one case where some refugees were attacked in a police station, these criminal gangs have guns. Not every bullet-riddled body is a result of police bullets. We should not blame the police for serving and protecting. That they killed marauding armed criminals who had shown a propensity to kill is called serving and protecting.

The real culprits are still roaming free in the killing fields of Kuresoi, Burnt Forest, Ngenia Farm, Eldoret, Kericho and more areas in the North Rift. These criminal kale gangs that barricaded roads and pulled Kikuyus from matatus exiting the North Rift should be pursued, prosecuted and tried for pre-meditated killings.

The accidental deaths of innocent people caught in the melee by the police are, in America speak, collateral damage. Their deaths are truly unfortunate, as they were truly innocent victims caught in the line of police fire. Some were maybe genuine demonstrators, some were looters who in a situation that was quickly deteriorating, were met with the full force of the law.

It would be wrong as some commentators are doing, to labell all the violence, post-election violence, or tribal clashes. All across the country, it has shwon itself to be very varied in both its inspiration and its execution.

Oh and since it pains and hurts some that i said we can t be ruled by a kihii i say it again just to drive the knife in deeper and give it a twist for Kwani supporters – for every few in nairobi who think its backward there are millions like me who care less what you think