Kusadikika wrote:I am sure Kuki Gallman would feel more comfortable if the Pokots and Samburu just stayed in one place and allowed their cattle and themselves to starve to death so that she can go and feel philanthropic helping them with food. She says that she has all the papers to show that she owns her ranch which is 98,000 acres!!!! (ninety eight thousand acres!!!!) The Samburus and Pokots have lived in those areas for hundreds of years, their title is in their blood.
I agree with that Pokot warrior. For way too long both the colonialists and subsequent Kenyan governments have had nothing but madharau for the Pokot and other pastoralist communities. They have made it OK to trick them and steal their land. I do not think the leaders being accused of incitement have done anything more than just open their eyes to their current condition.
98,000 acres fenced off so that a few white people can live like this:
While your cows (your only way of life) are dying.
The problem lies elsewhere, not with Kuki Gallman. We don't know the provenance of her ownership documents and for that let us
give her the benefit of the doubt. If she acquired this property legally (it says on the interwebs she came to Kenya in 1972 -after independence), there is no case. We cannot claim to be a capitalist economy and then turn around and pick up guns and "reclaim" validly acquired property. It is a very dangerous and slippery slope. Today you see the unfairness of Kuki Gallman and her 98,000 acres, tomorrow it will be you and your 10 acre piece just south of Kajiado. In fact, we already have precedent in the cases of Enoosupukia when the Maasai, incited by selfish politicians, used this flimsy guise of "community land" and picked up machetes and spears and started chasing out people who had bought land with their hard earned savings -with deadly consequences.
"You will lie low like envelopes"...went the saying.
Kenyans have disastrously short memories.
Kuki Gallman and her land is fait accompli. Not to say that it cannot be remedied but let it be done properly. Investigate if it was acquired legally and fairly under the law of the day. Next, craft law that defines -and demarcates -this community land, whatever it is and governs its economic activity (sale, lease, use) ....if it should be reacquired, pay the woman
the market price (assuming she is willing to sell it) and release it to the herders and their animals. If the government is incapable of doing this in a civilized manner like a modern democracy, that is our fault as Kenyans. We elect thieves and criminals.
Leaving aside Kuki Gallman and her vast 98,000 acres, these herders have been living like criminals -the raids with the murders, theft and rape. It is indefensible.
The raiding, without any consequences, has given these guys the cojones to think they can just invade anywhere, attack, maim, kill and destroy property without any ramifications. Ati send police? They kill an entire contingent.
A nation-state can ignore criminal activities until those activities start challenging its monopoly of violence and subjugation over a populace. The state then brings the aggressors ruthlessly to heel,..and guess what? People look away and pretend nothing is happening. Not defending govt actions, just stating facts and history.
"Wamezidi, wacha wanyoroshwe" is the general sentiment.
Examples abound...the Mungiki, when it took to beheading people in Eastlands brought out the police murder squads, resulting in a week of sustained extra-judicial killings.
Whatever remnants of Mungiki remain were permanently cured of their murderous tendencies. Was anyone prosecuted? Did you hear or see any protests from the populace?
Next, the Sabaot Land Defence Force...again with the killing and cutting off people's ears ....Mombasa Republican Council ....
The Pokot, the Marakwet, the Turkana, the Samburu (and all the other raiders) should read the writing on the wall, surrender guns and forget completely about the raiding lifestyle... because if history is anything to go by, things are going to get ugly and very soon.
And the rest of Kenya won't care.