ANB-BIA SUPPLEMENT

ISSUE/EDITION Nr 397 - 01/10/2000

CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS

LAND

In recent months there have been 
a number of worrying incidents relating to land-occupation

For years, senior government officials, notably Mr.Shariff Nassir, Mr.Ole Ntimama, and Polisi Lotodo among others, have been clamouring for various Kenya tribes to get off the ancestral lands in Mombasa, Masaailand and West Pokot, owned by these officials. During the 1990s, there was a great deal of violence in these places, with blood being shed and thousands having to flee. The police pretended not to notice what was happening, but Church leaders brought world attention to the organised nature of the killing.

After the Likoni killings in Mombasa in 1997, that brought a once vibrant tourism industry to the verge of ruin, many advocates of these politically inspired evictions suddenly went quiet. Not so Shariff Nassir, a minister in the Office of the President, who has continued to advocate these evictions with impunity.

Then came a bombshell when in early April 1999, an  opposition Member of Parliament from the marginal Safina Party, Mr.Steven Ndicho, called for a Zimbabwe-style seizure of white-owned lands, claiming the white settler farming community were «the successors of the British colonisers. It is time to get back what the colonisers grabbed and give it to the landless black population», he argued.

He said the white settler community and the international companies own thousands and thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land. At the same time, the poverty and squatter problem has grown by leaps and bounds ever since independence.

The «Criticos Case»

Then came another bombshell in early May. Basil Criticos is a Kenyan of Greek origin and the only white member of parliament and a deputy minister in the government. He is also a large-scale horticulture and sisal farmer. He called a news conference to announce that hundreds of people had invaded his land, in a Zimbabwe-style invasion. He blamed Ndicho and Nassir for inciting the seizure of part of his land. The government was quite embarrassed when the BBC, the Voice of America and other agencies gave prominence to the story.

Richard Leakey, the Secretary to the Cabinet, moved quickly to dispel the anxiety spreading through the white community and other prospective international investors, and this at a time when Kenya’s economy had virtually ground to a halt. President Moi also moved fast to dispel the fears, and on three separate occasions, criticised Ndicho for what he has said. Leakey accused Criticos of dishonesty. He pointed out that Criticos’ land had been the subject of litigation in the Kenyan Courts well before the Zimbabwe land upheavals. Others charged that  Criticos had imported the squatters from outside his home area to vote for him in the 1997 elections, then reneged on his promise to give them a small part of his land that he had inherited from his father, George, who settled in Kenya many decades earlier.

Within a few days, President Moi dismissed Criticos from his cabinet post. Criticos, however, believes he was sacked because he had called Leakey «a bold liar»!

Criticos now says that many among the Greek settler community are worried that their farms are being targeted. Since he was sacked, hundreds more squatters poured onto his land but now Leakey has taken firm steps to end the situation and ensure the protection of private land. Leakey has warned: «Henceforth, any politicians who incite the seizure of private land will be prosecuted.»

Leakey’s threat to take stern action has been challenged by a number of politicians. Mr.John Sambu, a Member of Parliament from the Rift Valley demanded that 130,000 hectares of land «stolen by the British during the colonial period, must be returned to the Nandi people.»

Muslim politician Mohammed Khalifa has told the government that it should «first review the land laws prior to threatening the landless.» Another leader, Shiekh Namoya,  has urged Kenyan leaders to «lead the landless in a battle against the land owners.»

In Kenya’s arid north, conflicts between white farmers and pastoral communities over the use of land, are common, particularly during periods of drought. However, the fear now is that the eviction threats will aggravate these conflicts.

Like Criticos, many white farmers are worried.