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Renewed threat on
Ogiek officials
by
John Kamau, Rights Features Service
(October
16, 2001) The Ogiek Welfare Council, who have been behind the
struggle to stop the excision of the community's Mau Forest, today
expressed fear that their lives are in danger after they refused
to withdraw the pending cases and that they could be "eliminated."
In a terse
statement released in Nakuru town and signed by J. K. Sang, the
Ogiek Welfare Council (OWC) coordinator, the groups asked the
international community "to solidly send protest letters" and
stop any harassment of OWC officials over the matter.
The state-run
Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) radio has been running calls
by Nakuru County Council chairman, Councillor Charles Rono, urging
the government to close down OWC offices and describing them as
"stumbling block" to the demarcation of Ogiek land.
The OWC officials
say that the radio announcements have increased tension in the
villages. In a recent meeting, part of the celebration of Moi
Day, a day set to commemorate the day Kenyan President Daniel
arap Moi took power, Charles Rono told OWC, " I am going to make
sure that the Government do resume Land allocation regardless
of your cases in Court."
"There has
been intense lobbying by the provincial administration which culminated
to a stand off when more than 40 community leaders confronted
the Provincial Commissioner (Peter Raburu) and the entire provincial
administration who had called them in a three-hour closed door
meeting to convince them to drop the case," says Sang in his statement.
During the
meeting one elder is said to have told Raburu, "No amount of intimidation
will deter us from demanding our God given right within the constitution."
"The PC (then)
became furious and stopped the meeting in his office," says Sang.
The OWC says
that senior Government officials have since been "holding a series
of meetings in order to derail and to clip OWC and force the people
to withdraw the cases" and that "plans are underway to confiscate
all OWC equipment in order to paralyze its operations."
Following
the above events OWC would like to call all partners to join and
support them in these testing moments where the rule of law is
not taken into consideration. Meanwhile they welcome any kind
of advice from partners. They also encourage partners who are
solidly behind them to send their protest letters to:
Mr. Peter
Raburu
Provincial Commissioner
Rift Valley Province
P.O. Box 28
Nakuru
Kenya
Fax +(254-37) 213647
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