Mau forest squatters have been mistreated

By Kipkirui K’Telwa

The ongoing Mau evictions can only be described as reckless, casual and catastrophic process, whose results will be human tragedy. In fact, one woman, who could not withstand destructions of her property, is already dead and her kin do not know where to inter her remains.

The ongoing eviction will deprive the victims of their livelihood, dignity, neighbourhood and sense belonging.

What exactly did the Forest and Wildlife minister Noah Wekesa and his Heritage counterpart William Ntimama mean when they said the evictees should go back to where they came from? Are they implying that the State is planning mass deportation of Mau residents to their ‘former homes’ in Kericho, Bureti, Bomet and elsewhere?’

But this will promote tribalisation and balkanisation of the country.

Most of these people we want evicted sired children and buried their kinsmen in Mau forest?

Relief agencies took long to provide much needed humanitarian support to the displaced persons. Whether these people return to their homes at night and go back to the roadsides in the morning cannot surprise anyone who has been living in Kenya.

It is normal practice for a dispossessed person to sneak back to former home as a way of beating disorientation.

The people being accused of sneaking back to their former homes at night are women and children, whom we cannot expect to live under leaves or in the open air at night unless we want them to die of diseases such as pneumonia.

Therefore, it would be an unrealistic demand on dispossessed persons not to sneak back to their old homes for a ‘stolen comfort’ when the weather is too harsh.

If the government is housing and feeding slum dwellers in Nairobi, then the same should be extended to Mau evictees. Otherwise, it would be applying double standards to ask people to move out of their homes but fail to compensate, feed and shelter them once they have executed part of the bargain.

Many institutions have benefited from the excision of Mau forest. Apart from the much-talked about Kiptagich Tea Factory, Unilever Tea, James Finlay and George Williamson Tea firms are some of the institutions standing on what used to be parts Mau forest.

Seizing of land for tea farming by British settlers displaced thousands of people from their original habitats in South Rift, who moved to the Mau forest for alternative settlement.

Successive governments have invoked eviction orders on the forest dwellers. Records indicate that evictions started immediately after gazettement of the Mau in 1932. The same exercise continued intermittently up to August 1992.

The 1974 eviction disregarded sanctity of life, human dignity, protection of family and public ridicule. Security personnel including GSU confiscated and sold their livestock at between Sh10 and Sh20.

These brutalities did not deter the people from returning to the forest because they were not given alternative settlement. Therefore, the State should compensate the evictees whether they had land title deeds or not.

It is the work of the government to feed, shelter and protect its citizens without discriminating as it is doing in Kibera and other urban slums.