Cabral Pinto
26 April 2008
The resettlement of Kenyans who are refugees in their country and in Uganda is the first political test for the grand coalition government. But as usual, Kenyan politicians have created a dispute over it; whether or not it should start immediately.
Most Kenyans think the issue should be the security of the resettled, the creation of peaceful relations among the communities and projects to address the basic needs of the poor, who constitute the majority.
Yet again, politicians have shown that they have no idea of issues of national interest. The resettlement should show serious commitment to addressing historical grievances, protecting the displaced's private property and laying a firm foundation for other reforms.
It is important to get some facts very clear about the resettlement. All these people have been evicted from land they legally owned, which is now occupied by poor people from the local communities.
To the Kenyans who lost land, the idea of sanctity of private property does not make sense any more. They have title deeds for land that is occupied by other people who may also have deeds for it.
The constitutional guarantee that no property shall be seized without prompt and full compensation sounds hollow and immoral. To any Kenyan peasant the assertion that private property is protected is painful nonsense. Now Kenyan peasants know whose private property is protected - that of the elite.
Another important fact about resettlement is that poor Rift Valley residents are pitted against counterparts from other communities whom they call madoadoa, or foreigners.
Some politicians were elected to Parliament because they had promised to evict the "foreigners." Such promises were sweet-sounding to the poor indigenous residents who saw an opportunity to be landowners.
None of the peasants raised the question about the huge tracts of land owned by the multi-racial and multi-ethnic Kenyan elite, whose property is protected by the state machinery of violence.
This is a thorny issue. Not every indigenous Kalenjin peasant will get a piece of land. After the "foreigners" leave what will stop a full-fledged class war? It is possible the Kalenjin elite have not thought through the class war; they and colleagues from other communities will have to face the wrath of the poor peasants who have been left out in land redistribution.
It becomes clear why some Kalenjin politicians are opposed to the resettlement. They will be accused by their constituents of lying since, with the resettlement, they will have failed to keep their promise of keeping the Rift Valley free of "foreigners." They also know that the returning peasants will never vote for them, one of the reasons for evicting them in the first place.
Politicians who want the resettlement to proceed forthwith have their own interests, too. The Kikuyu elite would love to see the backs of their peasants from the diaspora.
Whenever peasants have had to go back to Central Province the land-owning elite have seen in them a real threat to their property. This may explain, in part, why it is said that the rich Kikuyu elite, at the height of the post-election violence, raised funds to undertake retaliatory missions in the Rift Valley and evicted non-Kikuyus from Central Province.
It seems odd, however, that when the Kikuyu elite demand the right to rule Kenya, they do not take into account what President Kibaki says, his body language showing anger and disbelief, that it is backward to argue that Kenyans are "foreigners" in any part of the country. Does not the divine right of the Kikuyu elite to rule express the same idea - that other communities, "foreigners" to state power, cannot rule Kenya?
Land reform in Kenya has never been taken up seriously. The strategy of diffusing land problems has never worked. Solutions that have been offered in various national discussions to deal with the land question have not been implemented, for the political will to do so has been lacking.
The solutions have been land taxation to weed out speculators, different land use for the releasing the huge tracts of land now underutilised, land ownership ceilings, compulsory acquisitions to mitigate land hunger, changing tenure systems in areas where land is not yet a commodity and general redistribution to get land from the major owners.
Previous governments thought the land issue would simply go away. It is now literally a burning issue, and it has to be addressed. Abstracting the resettlement issue from the broad land question is politically naive. Avoiding the relation of the question to the whole issue of economic reforms, in particular youth unemployment, is also politically unwise.
The Kenyan elite need to understand that ethnic ideology that perpetuates their rule is a double-edged political sword. Confronting the ideology head on is part of the important reforms that have to take place.
The era of politics of issues has come. Politicians who do not abandon seeking votes through sowing seeds of ethnic, religious and ethnic hatred will surely find themselves behind bars.
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Kenyans must be waiting to see when the president will start to treat odm as an equal partner and reduce the incidents of public humiliation meeted out to the odm leaders, kenyans are also waiting to hear WHEN THOSE RESPONSIBLE for the death of the young recruits to the AP force , those who sent them unprepared to a danegrous and illegal mission will answer to the house of mumbi, when will funds allocated for the public utility and housing of civil servants be actually used for that instead of fattening swiss bank accounts? may Ngai not allow the curse to continue falling on that first house on account of these pains caused to the kenyans who are despised by the leader and only valued as voting instruments, shall the millitary continue to pretend that no one was totured? What a pitty for grown men of high rank to become like messengers of other men who may not even be better than then and for whom they do the dirty work,toturing killing, stealing votes etc where is the dignity that goes with the brass and rank?