Elders say no to new home for IDPs

Tension is building up in Taita and Taveta districts over land row involving the government and residents, with youths planning to invade a farm allegedly bought to resettle people displaced in the 2007-2008 election violence.

Several meetings were held in Taita and Taveta to
strategise on the invasion of the land that has been idle for many years but has now been sold to the government to settle more than 10,000 internally displace people (IDPs).

On Friday a demonstration was held in Voi town to protest against the government plan to settle IDPs on part of the land belonging to one of the major land owners in Taveta. The protest began as a prayer meeting but later turned into a demonstration that attracted former MPs and civil society groups to press the government to rescind its decision, warning it was courting trouble.

The IDPs, who have been in camps for three years, have been pressing the government to settle them but the programme has been beset by many problems ranging from lack of political goodwill to loss of money meant for their upkeep.

Some Taita and Taveta leaders gathered at the church ground to pray and plan how to deal with the problem.

Taveta Council of Elders spokesman Nahashon Mkunde said there has been pressure from the Taveta community to settle them since independence but nothing was forthcoming.

“I wonder what criteria was used to acquire land that we have been fighting for for many years to be given to outsiders at our expense,” he said. He said they would go back to the drawing board to review their strategies on how to handle the matter because it called for a traditional intervention.

“We have been talking to our counterparts from Taita who, through their council of elders - the Waghosi wa Isanga - have agreed that we revisit the abandoned shrines and conduct prayers as our forefathers,” he said.

The protest comes after meetings between the government and one of the major landowners struck a deal to sell the parcel of land for the settlement of IDPs in Taveta.

Waghosi wa Isanga chairman Gabriel Nyambu on his part said they would not allow any settlement of the displaced people. “We have suffered enough through the Kenyatta and Moi regimes and cannot allow such a thing to happen in our land,” he said.

This problem occurred in Rift Valley and majority of those in the camps were from Central Province, he said, adding they should either be taken back to their original land or to Central Province.

Former MPs Eliud Mcharo and Mwandawiro Mghanga said it was wrong for Taita Taveta residents to be used as a door mart.

Mr Mghanga urged the National Integration and Cohesion Commission to investigate and take action against the leaders who negotiated the deal because it could cause violence.

Mr Mghanga said he had petitioned Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Lands minister James Orengo to intervene before the matter got out of hand.

Mr Mike Banton, a Taveta youth representative, said should the IDPs settlement go on, a rebellion that has not been witnessed in region in the past would begin.

Source: Daily Nation