Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
10 June 2008
Nakuru — The hurried resettlement of thousands of persons displaced by post-election violence has been paralysed by intense interethnic hate in the worst-hit areas, despite state assurances that normalcy had returned to the country, CISA can report.
The program, dubbed 'Operation Rudi Nyumbani' (return home), kicked off last month amidst much fanfare. Internally displaced persons boarded military trucks and left for the homes they had been chased away from in the violent aftermath of President Mwai Kibaki's disputed victory.
But with no peace building and reconciliation efforts accompanying the program, interethnic animosity is seething underneath. In some places, returnees do not see eye to eye with members of host communities.
CISA journalist David Omwoyo who's just returned from visiting camps and homes in Naivasha, Nakuru, Molo, Londiani, Kericho Kisumu and Eldoret says displaced persons are not actually returning to their farms since their homes and property were burnt down or looted during the violence. They are setting up new camps on the farms.
IDPs in Molo are being resettled at camps in Sirikwa, Kiambogo, Mau Summit, Nyakinyua, Kuresoi, Kamwaura and Mukinyai farms.
The trend is similar elsewhere. Only those daring enough have pitched up tents in their compounds but still live in fear. In Kipkelion, about 300 families have been resettled on their farms.
The government plan is bedevilled by fear and resistance. Some affected people said they had been forced out of the camps.
Thomas Mosioma at the Full Gospel Church in Nyakinyua told CISA that since they were taken away from the big camp in Molo, food and water is hard to come by as the new site is inaccessible to humanitarian agencies.
Only a handful of IDPs received meaningful assistance in front of television cameras while the majority were promised help only after resettling.
In the farms and new informal camps, the only government officials accessible are local chiefs. "We have been displaced a second time, moved from the big camps to ones where we are inaccessible in the villages has made our lives really difficult," said one IDP.
Church leaders also say the government should have given peace and reconciliation a chance before embarking on the resettlement.
"The ethnic animosity that sparked the violence is still high and unless the host communities and displaced people are reconciled first, the mere deployment of police in volatile areas would not bring about peace," Archbishop Peter Kairo of Nyeri, chairman of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, said.
There is obvious evidence of ethnic tensions even in urban centers where a semblance of peace has returned. At the Mau Summit in Molo, the local matatu (taxi) termini initially manned by touts from the Kikuyu community are now manned by Kalenjin touts.
It is the same case at Londiani Market, previously dominated by Kikuyu traders. The entire market is now under Kalenjin domination, with the Kikuyu and Kisii "only welcome to buy".
One of the accusations leveled against the Kisii and Kikuyu was that they had taken over all local business in the Rift Valley. The Kalenjin seem intent on keeping them at bay.
Naivasha and Nakuru towns had IDP camps for the different communities at the height of the ethnic violence. Still, people from one camp cannot even get near the other.
In the lakeside town of Kisumu where members of the Kikuyu community were targeted, they are still not allowed even to talk at matatu termini or to freely go to the market. Those who owned residential houses live in camps as locals have forcibly occupied the homes.
In the tea-growing area of Kericho, returnees who were working at the plantaions are not welcome. Some have been threatened with death.
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