|
Settlement schemes at the root
of conflicts in Rift Valley
Story by NATION Reporter
9. Feb. 2008
Mafuta Scheme in Ziwa, 50 kilometres from Eldoret Town, is one of
the fertile lands that are being eyed by local people in Uasin
Gishu.
Although it holds members from different communities, the majority
of the settlers are actually ex-Mau Mau fighters who were settled
there in the early years of independence.
Rironi Scheme, in Lessos, at the border of Uasin Gishu and Nandi
North District, was another settlement scheme originally occupied
by non-indigenous people. However, all its former residents fled
during the 1992 ethnic clashes that hit Uasin Gishu. The local
community later renamed it Kaplelach.
Kiambaa village, where 35 people were burnt to death in a church
fire on New Year’s Day, was largely inhabited by one populous
community believed to be non-indigenous.
Its residents, however, say they bought the land in the 1960s from
a white farmer who used to own it. They completed paying the debts
they owed the white farmer as late as the 1990s.
Another coveted scheme is Kapchemugulmet in Moiben, 40 kilometres
away from Eldoret Town.
Most of it was pieces of land occupied by the white colonialist
and held good agricultural establishments.
Other settlement schemes include Ya Mumbi, Munyaka, Rokoine,
Kimumu, Rurigi, Kamukunji, Huruma and others within Eldoret Town.
The residents renamed the settlements they occupied after the
villages and towns they had been plucked from.
However, some of these schemes have since been renamed by the
local community after their inhabitants fled when the
post-election violence broke out a month ago. Munyaka has been
renamed Lucas Sang farm after the athlete who was killed around
the estate during the post-election violence. Kiambaa has been
renamed Kimnyigei farm and Kimumu renamed Kamumu.
To the local community, the renaming symbolically signifies taking
back what they had lost. However, recently people from other
communities have bought land, which they later gave names from
their home areas. Keroka estate, some 10 kilometres from Eldoret
Town, is a recently established estate largely inhabited by the
Kisii community.
|
