Leaders ask Uhuru to end 'guerrilla-like' Mau evictions
Wesley Ngetich, one of the settlers at Sierra Leone in Mau Forest, Narok South, talks about land ownership during a meeting on September 10, 2019. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- The leaders said the presidency promised Rift Valley leaders that legitimate land owners in Narok South would not be evicted.
- However, they said, tens of thousands of residents have been "forcefully and brutally" evicted from their homes, 14 schools closed, and markets and many other properties destroyed.
- The leaders said they will continue to document all abuses of fundamental human rights with a view to ultimately pursuing accountability through local and international legal means.
Governors, senators and MPs from Rift Valley have appealed to President Uhuru Kenyatta to help end the suffering of people being evicted from Mau Forest in Narok South.
The leaders said the presidency promised Rift Valley leaders that legitimate land owners in Narok South would not be forced out.
They said this was to be the case pending consultations on whether residents live on their farms and if a legal compensation process should be undertaken.
VIOLATIONS
However, the lawmakers said in a statement, tens of thousands of residents have been "forcefully and brutally" evicted from their homes, 14 schools closed, and markets and many other properties destroyed.
“Events of the last two months have baffled us, with the provincial administration ordering evictions and with statements of no compensation,” said the statement that Kericho Governor Paul Chepkwony read on their behalf after a day-long meeting at Ole Sereni Hotel in Nairobi.
“Since these unfortunate statements were made, we have sought the intervention of, or a meeting with, the President, his deputy and the minister of environment but all our efforts have been in vain,” he added.
He went on: “We are shocked by the ongoing cavalier, clandestine, guerrilla-like operation against innocent unarmed citizens, being carried out by a legitimate democratic government in Narok south. This is completely unacceptable, heinous and criminal.”
He added that residents have been reduced to homeless, helpless squatters and refugees in their legitimate homes.
"ILLEGAL"
The leaders said they will continue to document all abuses of fundamental human rights with a view to ultimately pursuing accountability through local and international legal means.
“Three cases by different entities have been filed to stop this heinous, illegal evictions but many judicial officers have intimated to us that the Executive has intimidated the Judiciary against issuing any orders on this matter irrespective of the merits,” the leaders said.
They called on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Kenya Red Cross Society and any other humanitarian organisations to help them collect resources and provide shelter for the evictees.
“A humanitarian crisis of monumental proportions is escalating in Narok South. Innocent citizens are being targeted and subjected to deliberate abuse, torture, dispossession, humiliation and other atrocious crimes by security officers of the government of Kenya,” read the statement.
Governors Jackson Mandago (Uasin Gishu), Stanley Kiptis (Baringo), Senators, Aron Cheruiyot (Kericho), Kipchumba Murkomen (Elgeyo Marakwet), Christopher Langat (Bomet) and scores of MPs from the region attended the meeting.
Emurua Dikirr MP Johana Ngeno called on the Directorate of Criminal investigations (DCI) to charge Mr Ogaso Bruno, an assistant county commissioner in Olenguruone who allegedly directed residents to “go back to their ancestral homes”.
