Nairobi police disperse Maasai

[Oshun_Auset]

Nairobi police disperse Maasai

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3594184.stm


The Maasai want white farmers off what they view as their land

Kenyan riot police have used tear gas to disperse more than 100 Maasai protesters in traditional outfits in the capital, Nairobi.
The Kenyan police said they used force because the protest was illegal.

The Maasai are demanding the return of farmland leased to British settlers 100 years ago.

The original lease expired last weekend on one million hectares of land but the government says it does not recognise the colonial era agreement.


"We have arrested quite a number of ringleaders and recovered knives from them because this meeting was illegal," Nairobi police chief Julius Ndegwa told AFP news agency.

Maasai leaders say up to 10 people were wounded in running battles.

A Maasai statement said their lawyers would take their fight to the Kenyan High Court and the International Court of Justice.

Protests

Over the weekend, Kenyan police shot dead a 70-year-old Maasai tribesman who was trying to graze his cattle on a white-owned farm.


The Maasai want white farmers evicted

Four other herdsman were injured in the shooting which took place 40 km north of Nanyuki township in central Kenya. Police said 71 people, all believed to be Maasai land protesters, were arrested.

Last week the Maasai held demonstrations across Kenya.

The 99-year lease expired on 15 August.

The one million hectare area, mainly in the Rift Valley, is now subdivided among some white farmers, who own ranches, and black Kenyans, who practice small-scale farming.

The Maasai want the white farmers that remain to be evicted and are seeking compensation from the British.

The Kenyan government rejected their appeals.

Lands and Housing Minister Amos Kimunya said at the weekend that the government would not condone the occupation of private farms and ranches by any groups.

"It should be clear that those inciting the youth will face the full force of the law," he said.

[ptaured7]

This is a difficult matter.  The former British colonists have become in most cases citizens of the Republic of Kenya.  

On the other hand, pastoralists like the Masai have been among the most "screwed" people in Africa when it comes to land distribution.  The game park fiasco of the last 30 years is one such example of land expropriated for 'tourism' absent the people who have lived in harmony with wildlife for millenia.  various pastoralist groups were "relocated" and forced into farming in one place.  The consequences have been disasterous.   I have seen European tourists lecturing Kenyans that they had better not let any people back into wildlife areas or "people will not want to come anymore"..  

The lease's could be honored in the Masai's favor if the white Kenyans were allowed to stay in a new, innovative capacity.  However, this might be difficult, as the whites are often very protective and arrogant on the matter. So are the Masai.   Wouldn't you be alarmed if you were an African American farmer and some Sioux indians claimed your land based on a treaty signed but never honored by the Federal govt?
What would you do?

In fairness to the whites, black Africans have historically moved on their neighbors in conquest and there are many factors to be considered relating to that history in Kenya and the political strife it causes.  

Another problem may be that the white land owners pay taxes to the government and are a conduit to Euro-financing and funding of various schemes and "AID" packages, thus government reluctance to change the status quo.

Mugabe's actions have had a profound affect on Kenyan public opinion with regard to land redistribution.  However, the current Zimb. govt is not all that it appears and Mr. Mugabe, brilliant as he is, is still considered by many a conniving jesuit.  

There are many good people who are white and who own ranches in Kenya who would probably be ammenable to an innovative settlement.
There has been much written and talked about on this subject in Africa and abroad, particularly as it relates to the game park issue and ranch land .  In fact, the ranch land is where much of remaining wildlife exists.

That the European Union should pony up reparations in Africa based striclty on material resource wealth plundered in the last 400 years or so is a given and these "loans" that we hear so much about are visciously innapropriate and wrong. But, will a European or USA citizen accept such a transfer?   Would a person of AFrican descent in either place support such a transfer of wealth at their expense?  It's all so difficult now.  

A start is to abandon the war for profit machine on all sides, including the sides of African "strong men" and their respective governments.  I recall that the new and improved South Africa is still one of the largest small armaments manufactureres in the world and they are more than anxious to sell off their strategic metals to supply the world wide war machine, particularly in military aerospace  P.7

[gman]

What on earth is "difficult" about this matter. It's their land, plain and simple. The pigs just murdered a 70-year-old farmer for grazing his cattle on land claimed by some backra. What is "difficult" to understand about that situation, it's the cold-blooded murder of an elder by the black lackeys of a sytem where a small number of white people still hold an inordinate amount of power.
Did the 'African American farmer' in your example brutally drive the Lakota people from their land and take it over? No, so it's not an equivalent example. But if you want to take that example, I would say yes, the Black farmer should hand over the land back to the Lakota, and should demand compensation not from the Lakota, but from the white gov't that created the whole situation in the first place.

[ptaured7]

I think "bufallo soldiers" did just that, just as African American soldiers killed alot of Viet Namese.  Yes there are alot of people killing people in Africa.......pigs are not people unless you mean to dehumanize a group and use the label as a metaphor to justify reprisals and revenge.   My post was made before that man was killed.  Yea, it's bad.  A lot of people have been killed in Kenya for their views by other Kenyans.  

Seeing evil whitey behind all of it is a form, I would suggest, of great disrespect to Kenyan people.   See what kind of reception you get if you go there and prosletize with the evil whitey sermon.  You'll be scoffed at.  What you think we are children?  We're like you.  All the same weaknesses, petty greed, history of war and conflict.  

On the farmer parable:

I don't think what you and I think someone should do  is important, the issue is, what would be the likely response of the African American Farmer?  His or Her livelyhood and children would be threatened and she would fight.  

If you read my post over again, I hope you will see there is more agreement than disagreement between us.   It's the net result for women and children that is important in my view, white and black, there's room for an innovative solution.  I'd agree, though, if the whites are intransigient, like so many were in Zimbabwe and they expect mother england to come to their rescue (which is what is happening now through certain factions in the Kenyan govt - read my post), then they ought to be repatriated.  

30 years ago I was scoffed at by eminent scholars in African affairs and history by suggesting that powerfull elements in the environmental movement and the game park protocols in east Africa were fronts for a conspiracy to deprive people of their land and that wildilife would flourish off the parks in private ranch areas.  This is exactly what has happened and not all the whites are bad or disprespect the people living on the land with them.  No doubt it is time for a change and for a coumuppance of sorts for these old colonists, many who, as I say, are now Kenyan citizens.

Unfortunately the beligerent inflexible ones may come to the USA, just like the worst elements of the old RSA and Rhodesia did, much to my great personal pain and many others who are suffering retribution campaigns because of the current poitical climate here so fruitfull for their new confederate  partnership with the ugly side of the US south, particularly Texas.

When you are involved on the ground with these issues and  you see what is at stake, and you are older and a little more temperent than you were in your fire-brand days,  shouting from the mountaintop in righteous indignation seems hollow and it is far more hard work and challenge to find a solution without bloodshed and misery.

I respect your views.