May 16-31, 2012
ISSUE 062
A bimonthly newspaper by the Media Diversity Centre, a project of African Woman and Child Feature Service
Rush to reclaim lost land Families displaced during the state of emergency now make demands By DAVID KIRWA As efforts to resolve long standing land disputes gain momentum across the country, hundreds of families from Nandi District who fled the area during the state of emergency in 1952 are making a quiet return in hope for restitution. Unrelenting in their quest to reclaim their lost land, the families have settled in makeshift structures at the former Chemilil sisal estates as they await the implementation of reforms espoused in Agenda Four of the 2008 Peace Accord. They strongly believe that this is their ancestral land lost during the colonial era.
Majority
The families left for Tanzania in 1952 at the height of colonial repression and majority opted to remain in the country that offered them refuge in the face of calamity, even after Kenya attained independence. And as they come back in droves, theirs is tale of mixed fortunes imbued with scenes of joy, pain and misery in a foreign land 60 years down the line. They were forced out of their fertile land to pave way for white settlers who offered them security in their transit to Tanzania. Their departure followed a directive by the colonial government limiting to a maximum of five, the number of cows the natives could herd in their homes. However, this turned out to be a ploy coined by the colonial masters to force them into leaving.
Lose
“Our fathers loved animals and thus were unable to read between the lines to see that they were losing their ancestral land to the colonial government even as they sought to protect their livestock,” says Mzee Kipyego Talam (87). He recalls that on the fateful day, his parents woke him up in the wee hours of the morning and asked him to join other youth in driving more than 400 herds of livestock from Chebarus village in Nandi to Busoga in Tanzania. “According to our parents, the
A group of squatters mill around Pato Pato trading centre at the Mumias sugar plantation where hundreds of families who fled the country at the height of colonial repression in 1952 have pitched camp. The families who have been living in Tanzania over the last 60 years are now demanding that the government gives them back their land or allocates them an alternative land. Pictures: David Kirwa colonial government had given us a go ahead to settle in Tanzania where there was plenty of unutilised land to herd our cattle,” he explains. By the time of departure, the com-
munity was at logger heads with the colonialists, having resisted the construction of the Mombasa-Kisumu railway line. The community was also opposed
“Our fathers loved animals and thus were unable to read between the lines to see that they were losing their ancestral land to the colonial government even as they sought to protect their livestock.” — Mzee Kipyego Talam
to plans by the Asians who wanted to take over their fertile land in Chemelil for sisal and sugarcane production. The community was, therefore, perceived as a security threat to the white settlers because majority refused to work in the tea, sisal and coffee plantations, as casual labourers, preferring to look after their livestock. A tradition that they still embrace todate. “The colonial government was relieved by our resolve to leave our ancestral land. They even offered us security to Tanzania through Kisumu, Kisii and Kuria districts, while our children and women were ferried in
lorries,” explains Talam. He says that they were later settled at Busoga, Mwanza, Bunde, Mugumu and Butiama, the hometown of Tanzania’s founding President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. “The Tanzanians, through their Ujamaa system were a great people and allowed us to settle in Butiama with hundreds of our cattle, sheep and goats,” Mzee Talam recounts. The departure was formalised in a letter by the then colonial Nandi District Commissioner Mr P D Abrams dated October 12, 1951. Continued on page 4
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