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Violence erupted after two clans were given land
DAILY NATION
Story by LUCAS BARASA
Publication Date: 4/9/2007
An acute famine in 1971 ravaged huge swathes of Kenya. Among those most devastated were the Ndorobo clan of the Sabaot community who live near Mt Elgon.
“Women used to walk around with baskets to beg,” recalls Mr Ben Taboi.
“That’s when the Government had pity on us and settled us in Chebyuk where we could farm like other Kenyans.”
Get land
Mr Ndiwa Chemosin, now 74, was among the first people to get land at Chebyuk.
He recalls his exodus, together with 600 Ndorobo families, from the unproductive Chepkitale forest to the Chebyuk Settlement Scheme, which is now rocked by tribal clashes that have claimed more than 140 lives.
Also relocated were 100 families from the Soy clan, who were brought from Cheptais Division. President Kenyatta’s move, Mr Chemosin said, followed earlier recommendations by colonial authorities to move the pastoralist Ndorobo clan from the harsh Chepkitale area. It was expected that after moving to Chebyuk, they could engage in farming and stop over-reliance on relief supplies.
Mr Chemosin and Mr James Sirwa, 53, said the families were each allocated 50 acres at the scheme.
“We lived well. However, problems started in 1974 when a chief brought outsiders to occupy the land despite opposition from Ndorobos. Kapteny forest was also burnt following a chief’s order,” Mr Chemosin said.
In 1989, the Government reduced the allocations to five acres per family in what is now referred to as the Chebyuk Phase I Settlement Scheme.
The Ndorobo got the lion’s share under the scheme.
In 1994, they were also the main beneficiaries during the second phase.
However, it is the allocation of Phase III last year, during which the Ndorobo and Soy got equal allocations, that ignited the ongoing violence.
The Soy said that since the Ndorobo were the main beneficiaries during Phase I and II, they, the Soy, should have been the only beneficiaries of Phase III.
But Mr Chemosin said many people from both clans were left out of the allocation.
Out of the 7,500 applicants, only 1,732 benefited and this, he said, was what sparked the clashes.
He lamented that though many people had died, the “Government just promises action.”
Elders’ counsel
Were Mr Chemosin and Mr Sirwa to be asked, they would ask the Government to cancel the Phase III allocations and give the applicants alternative land.
Another elder, Mzee Luka Chemai, 80, accused the Government of ignoring elders’ counsel ahead of the allocation.
“Instead of leaving it to elders and the youth to decide on allocation criteria, the Government used surveyors who removed people from where they lived and took them where there are no houses. I used to plough 10 acres, but they were all taken away,” Mr Chemai said.
He said every squatter should have been given at least two and half acres of land.
He accused politicians of interfering with the allocations so that their supporters could to get huge tracts of land.
Mzee Chemai suggested that elders be made to meet separately with warring factions and government officials to resolve the land
dispute.
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