Peter Leshan, Hillary Mageka and Winstone Cheseremi
It’s the moment of reckoning as the government yesterday deployed security personnel to Maasai Mau forest ahead of today’s eviction of more than 40,000 settlers.
However, leaders from the region yesterday urged President Uhuru Kenyatta to intervene and stop the forcible removal of residents.
According to sources at the Environment ministry, a joint security team comprising Kenya Forest Service (KFS), Narok County and Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers as well as the Kenya Police Service will carry out the exercise.
The eviction squad, which was deployed yesterday morning to the 46,000-hectare forest area, a trust-land under the local county government, caused panic among locals, prompting some to pack in haste and flee ahead of today’s deadline.
Hundreds of thousands of settlers, who the government says, have no legal claim over the forestland, continued – for the third day – to leave the forest. Settlers, who have already harvested their crops and moved out their children, the elderly and women, said they had decided to leave despite instructions to stay put from some Rift Valley politicians.
“Like in previous evictions, we don’t want to be caught unawares. We have removed all important things from our farms,” said William Cheruiyot, their spokesperson from an area dubbed Sierra Leone.
Validity of title deeds
Area leaders want the President and his deputy, William Ruto, to intervene and stop the evictions. This as the fate of about 2000 school-going pupils hangs in the balance as schools re-open countrywide for the third term today.
At a press conference in Nairobi yesterday, Kericho Senator Aaron Cheruiyot and Belgut MP Nelson Koech, accused the President and the DP of reneging on pre-election pledges to resettle and compensate the affected families.
“I want to know from the President and his deputy whether they have changed their public position on this issue,” said Cheruiyot.
The politicians also want the Ministry of Lands, the National Land Commission (NLC), Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNHRC) and the National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC) to come out clean on the validity and legality of the title deeds and sale agreements in possession of inhabitants.
“All these are public servants whose salaries are paid for by these Kenyans who CS Keriako Tobiko wants to brutally disinherit,” said Cheruiyot.
Reconciliatory tone
Elsewhere, politicians allied to DP warned the government to stop the evictions or lose support and goodwill of the Kalenjin community.
Led by outspoken Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi, the leaders criticised the Jubilee administration for being discriminative in the looming evictions.
Speaking at a funds drive in Turbo sub-county on Saturday, Sudi accused the State of protecting owners of huge tracts of land in the forest and targeting hundreds of poor families who have settled on the same property for eviction.
Sudi asked the government to tread carefully, saying the community’s continued support for the current regime will depend on how it handles the matter.
DP’s personal aide Farouk Kibet, Soy MP Caleb Kositany and former Kakamega senator Bonny Khalwale accompanied him.
Former Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto struck a more reconciliatory tone, calling on politicians and the authorities to embrace dialogue.
Ruto urged local leaders to tone down political rhetoric, saying it could hurt an already charged and polarised situation.
“All we are calling for is a consultative way of handling this issue so that we don’t do more harm than is desired,” Ruto, who is the Chama Cha Mashinani party leader said at a separate press conference in Nairobi yesterday.
That the eviction exercise has taken a political angle is not a surprise. Ten years ago, ODM leader Raila Odinga burnt his fingers, when as Prime Minister, he pushed for evictions of residents from the Mau forest. Then, residents of the area were allied to ODM, having voted overwhelmingly for Raila in the 2007 presidential poll, bolted.
Ruto, who is the political kingpin in the Rift Valley region, has been quiet on the Mau issue. And although the President has similarly not firmly pronounced himself on the same, senior officers in his government have made it clear that the evictions will proceed as planned.
Public participation
On Saturday, Tobiko categorically said no amount of threats or intimidation from local politicians “would stop a major government operation”.
He warned politicians against targeting the Rift Valley Regional Coordinator George Natembeya for intimidation and asked them to instead confront him (Tobiko).
The operation, which is supposed to take one week, targets Sierra Leone, Nyamira Ndogo, Kalyasoi and adjacent areas of Mau forest. The Service Operation Commandant Isaac Lemarkoko, has already briefed officers engaged in the exercise, People Daily has learnt, on details of the operation at Narok KFS offices.
Sources within the operation command confirmed that the whole exercise, covering about 20,000 acres in the closed-canopy forest, is expected to end on Wednesday.
Natembeya has assured that the exercise will be conducted humanely and there will be no burning of houses and property.
“We want to ensure people’s lives and property are protected. Security personnel on the ground have been adequately briefed on this,” he said.
In the meantime, Parliament wants the government to adhere to public participation, sensitisation and engagement with local leaders from the affected counties/communities, as envisaged in the Constitution.
Chairman of National Assembly’s Environment Committee Kareke Mbiuki said in a statement the government must have a post-eviction plan to ensure affected persons are resettled and that they are able to move on with their lives with minimal disturbance, including the school-going children, especially those sitting exams.
“Before embarking on Phase II evictions, Tobiko should update Kenyans on the successes of Phase I including the number of hectares restored,” read the statement.
Powerful people
Mbiuki said the committee would invite the CS next week when Parliament resumes, to shed more light on the proposed Phase II evictions before the exercise is conducted.
Khalwale expressed similar concern over the fate of school-going children and especially those sitting exams in two months time. There are about 200 pupils in schools inside the controversial forest, whose encroachment started in 1997 when five group ranches neighbouring it were subdivided to accommodate powerful people in the Kanu government. Their fate now hangs in the balance.
“Why can’t the government allow these pupils to sit the national examination before embarking on the eviction exercise instead of rushing to kick out the entire population from the only place they have called home for more than two decades?” posed Khalwale.
The operation centre for the eviction squad, which also comprises the Rapid Deployment Unit (RDU) will be at TM area, five kilometres west of Narok town, on the Narok-Bomet road.
In the past three evictions in the section of the forest, which is part of the 22 blocks that form about 400,000 hectares Mau Complex, property worth millions of shillings was destroyed.
“In the first eviction in July 2005, schools, churches, houses and ready maize in farms were burnt. In subsequent ones, temporary structures were pulled down,” claims Kibet, an aide of the DP.
In July last year, about 8,000 settlers were kicked out of a section of the forest for lack of title deeds.
Most of them are still camping outside the cutline between the forest and settlement areas while some have been accommodated by relatives.
