Posted on December 20, 2009 with No Comments
The Kenyan drought continues to be severe, especially in the Turkana province. I think this article nicely illustrates the desperate situation facing many Kenyans:
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/820848/-/vo1qa4/-/index.html
Category: News Updates
Posted on December 20, 2009 with No Comments
Hello everyone,
Here is a link from Survival International, an advocacy group for tribal peoples:
www.survivalinternational.org
Definitely doing some good work!
Category: Resources
Posted on November 30, 2009 with No Comments
‘Moves to stop global warming are devastating tribal people’, says new report
Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 9:22pm
Hydropower dams are being built across the Amazon in the name of combating climate change.
© Survival
Measures to stop global warming risk being as harmful to tribal peoples as climate change itself, according to a new report from Survival.
The report, ‘The most inconvenient truth of all: climate change and indigenous people’, sets out four key ‘mitigation measures’ that threaten tribal people:
1. Biofuels: promoted as an alernative, ‘green’ source of energy to fossil fuels, much of the land allocated to grow them is the ancestral land of tribal people. If biofuels expansion continues as planned, millions of indigenous people worldwide stand to lose their land and livelihoods.
2. Hydro-electric power: A new boom in dam construction in the name of combating climate change is driving thousands of tribal people from their homes.
3. Forest conservation: Kenya’s Ogiek hunter-gatherers are being forced from the forests they have lived in for hundreds of years to ‘reverse the ravages’ of global warming.
Ever since colonial times there have been attempts to evict the Ogiek from their ancestral forest, usually on the pretext that they are degrading it. But when the Ogiek are removed, their forest is not protected but rather exploited by logging and tea plantations – some owned by government officials. This influx of illegal settlers has been so extreme in recent years that much of the Mau forest is severely degraded. The Kenyan government is trying to evict everyone from the forest, including the Ogiek who have been living there for centuries. If the Ogiek are evicted from their forest home it could spell disaster for the forest and for the Ogiek, who will become ‘conservation refugees’.
4. Carbon offsetting: Tribal peoples’ forests now have a monetary value in the booming ‘carbon credits’ market. Indigenous people say this will lead to forced evictions and the ‘theft of our land’.
The report calls for tribal people to be fully involved in decisions that affect them, and for their land ownership rights to be upheld.
Survival Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘This report highlights ‘the most inconvenient truth of all’ – that the world’s tribal people, who have done the least to cause climate change and are most affected by it, are now having their rights violated and land devastated in the name of attempts to stop it. Hiding behind the global push to prevent climate change, governments and companies are mounting a massive land grab. As usual, where money and vast profits are at stake, the world’s indigenous people are being shamefully swept aside.
Full PDF Report: http://assets.survivalinternational.org/documents/132/survival_climate_change_report_english.pdf
Category: Background
Posted on November 30, 2009 with No Comments
According to an IRIN report oneducation in Samburu, some schools in Samburu are inititating unique solutions to literacy concerns with night school programs. ”Currently under way in Baragoi District, the pastoralist night school initiative targets cattle herder children who are unable to attend day school, ” the report states.
“The children leave the fields at 4pm and then attend class,” said Emanman. “The students get `uji’ (maize meal porridge) in the evening and are taught until 10pm.” Some children from these schools have progressed to the formal education system, but the night school initiative is largely designed to teach basic literacy to herders and others, he added.
Category: Background
Posted on November 30, 2009 with No Comments
 Photo: Ann Weru/IRIN  |
| Classmates, Nabik Kekichorumongi and Kelly Lanyasunya of Lesidai Primary School have changed schools severally due to insecurity |
LESIDAI, 10 November 2009 (IRIN) – Many Kenyan children are in school, but enrolment in the north has been adversely affected by insecurity, food scarcity and traditional attitudes, residents and teachers said.
“I just joined a new school a few weeks ago [20 October],” 14-year-old Kelly Lanyasunya said at Lesidai primary school in Samburu Central District (central-northwestern Kenya). “I got a new uniform and I am making friends but if this area gets insecure, I will have to move to another school.”
Like her classmate, Nabik Kekichorumongi, is forced to change schools whenever bandits attack the surrounding villages.
Stephen Leparachwo, head teacher at Lolkunono primary school in Samburu Central, said Lesidai primary school often receives parents bringing their children from Pura, a neighbouring area affected by banditry.
“When they come, some are even without food… The bandits follow the fleeing residents [and their cattle], not giving the children a chance to read,” he said.
To read to full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86968
Category: Background
Posted on November 29, 2009 with No Comments
Published on 18/09/2000
By James Munyeki
Samburu leaders have claimed the killing of 35 people on Tuesday was part of a plot to evict residents from a 6,000-acre ranch. The land was bought in 2000 from the Government and each shareholder was allocated 50 acres, according to Samburu County Council Chairman Julius Leshinkiro.
Speaking during the mass burial of the victims, leaders alleged the Pokot were planning to evict them from the land to graze on it.
Samburu Anglican Church archbishop Jacob Lesuda said the raiders were not interested in stealing cattle, but wanted to cause deaths.
“Anyone claiming to own the land should do so legally. We have legal documents to claim the land ownership,” he noted.
To read more: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/news/InsidePage.php?id=1144024228&cid=159&
Category: Background
Posted on November 29, 2009 with No Comments
Category: Background
Posted on November 29, 2009 with 1 Comment
Kenyan cattle rustlers kill 32 in gunfight
In Summary
The area is also prone to banditry on the roads and prominent personalities, motorists and passengers have become common targets.
Earlier in the year, the then Rift Valley PC Hassan Farah established a permanent security buffer zone separating the Samburu and Pokot, resulting in some truce.
The drought has forced the two communities to head in opposite directions in search of pasture, with the Samburu going to Mount Kenya.
Insecurity has seen the Samburu families residing at PND Farm move towards Rumuruti and have since created a camp where 2,800 people live. Mr Omariba, Samburu West DC Joseph Mathenge and Laikipia West DC Ombaso Sagero visited the scene of the attack.
Also killed were 40 head of cattle, 20 goats and 30 sheep.
Reporters on the ground said they saw bodies strewn everywhere as three district commissioners coordinated a security operation after the attack.
To read the full story:
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/658672/-/item/1/-/xt9b6z/-/index.html
KARE Samburu has provided 30 video Flip cameras to give the Samburu a Voice. Anyone serious about documenting these incidents and recording testimonies should contact us for equipment. We will provide as many as necessary. Congratulations, Evans, for getting your photos published on the front page of the Nation today and making people aware of these conflicts.
Comments:
Ole Koissaba: It may be difficult to count the dead, leave alone the people living because the inhuman and unjustified state sponsored violence against Isampur is systemic and strategically planned to disposes, impoverish annihilate and still everlasting fear for purposes of political domination, land alienation and making them perpetual dependents of the … See Moreneighboring communities . The Pokots were armed in 2007 and the next thing was a raid where 70 Samburu were moored down by police and Pokot fire, then planned displacement in Laikipia West due to political reasons by the likes of GG Kariuki, and Oldonyiro by the war lord Kuti courtesy of support from Muthaura and blessings from statehouse. This led to the massacre in February 2009. From then countless children, women and men have continued to lose their precious lives in the hands of the government that the people pay taxes for protection or government supported militia.This is not short of ethnic cleansing and genocide.Can people that believe in the sanctity of life raise to the occassion
Category: Background
Posted on November 28, 2009 with No Comments
NAIROBI – President Mwai Kibaki fired Kenya’s police commissioner yesterday, sending the chief of a force accused of having committed executions and rapes to head the postal service. Human rights activists welcomed the move but said more steps are needed to reform a corrupt and dangerous force.
Six years ago, Mohammed Hussein Ali was brought in to clean up the force but did little to tackle a culture of corruption and abuse during his tenure.
The United Nations alleged the police commissioner even ran death squads, after the bodies of hundreds of young men were found dumped at morgues and other sites during a crackdown on a banned gang. Most had been executed with a gunshot to the head, their hands often tied behind their backs. Many were last seen in police custody.
Human Rights Watch and the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights say police also looted and raped and killed Kenyans during riots that followed the contested December 2007 elections, in which more than 1,000 people died.
To read full story: http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2009/09/09/kenyan_police_chief_fired_amid_abuse_claims/
Category: Background
Posted on November 28, 2009 with No Comments
Land and Pastoralists
CSQ Issue: 8.1 (Spring 1984) Nomads: Stopped in Their Tracks?
No issue is more critical to the future well-being of Kenya’s pastoral populations than secure land tenure. Herders’ access, particularly during dry months, to grazing land and water resources is the essence of any pastoral existence. Pastoralists’ concern with security of land tenure overrides other development considerations – provision of technical assistance in the areas of animal health, marketing, cooperatives, and water development. Only when the land tenure issue is boldly addressed will sustained development take place in Kenya’s rangelands. This essay briefly describes and analyzes the history of the pastoral lands crisis in Kenya, the social and ecological effects of insecure tenure, and contemporary efforts toward redressing the pastoral land issue in Kenya.
To read more: http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/land-and-pastoralists
Comments: Once, Maasai land, roughly 1 million acres that once served as the cushion for droughts like this one, but it was coerced from the Maasai to make way for white settlement in British East Africa at the turn of the 20th century. This land, part of what is known today as the White Highlands, has been the root of contention between the Maasai and the Kenyan government since independence in 1963. “The Maasai experienced the biggest colonial land rip-off in all of Africa,” said William Ole Ntimama, Maasai Minister of Parliament for Narok North.
With the stroke of a pen on June 15, 1895, Maasai land became part of British East Africa. Using force, intimidation, and coercion, colonial officials succeeded in signing two agreements with Maasai representatives, the first in 1904 and the second in 1911. The 1904 agreement removed the Maasai from the most fertile lands in all of Kenya, paving the way for white farmers and agribusinesses. Samburu is understocked and sparsely populated. Their land has been receding over time. In Samburu, the average family owns 4 cows. Very few have large herds. September 9
Reuben Lemadada This is true. We do not have enough cows..the few we have do not benefit us enough to survive…we have vast land that do not benefit us except a few business pple…everything seems odd. What can be done to elevate the pastrol community from poverty? Over 50% of their land has been placed into conservancies with darn little compensation for it! Less than .01 % of revenue returns to the people. This is outrageous.
Category: Background
