Kenya: Panic in Mau as eviction nears
Nairobi — With exactly a week to go before a deadline for those settled in a section of the Mau Forest complex expires, thousands of anxious settlers are grappling with the inevitability of eviction. A two-pronged plan in the past week has cleared any doubts on the government’s determination to get the settlers out and start rehabilitation work. Last week the Kenya Forest Service gave settlers 14 days to leave Saino, Korao, Ndoinet, Tinet and Kiptagich settlements schemes in South Western Mau. Three days, earlier the Interim Coordinating Secretariat on the Mau, the team charged with guiding the whole process, released a plan of action that would see parts of Eastern Mau and South Western Mau repossessed in the next month. But even as things seem to be moving finally, a litmus test still awaits it in the form of whether the targeted settlers will heed its notice and vacate the forest. Signs that a challenge still lies ahead have been betrayed by the reluctance that has met a request by the secretariat asking the settlers to start handing in their title deeds at any of the 14 centres in districts surrounding the forest complex. Only a handful of titles deeds have been volunteered, and it remains to be seen what action the government will take should the settlers stay put as most of them have vowed. To complicate things further, the State appears to have limited its options when it declared that forceful eviction of settlers was not in its plans. According to Mr Hassan Noor Hassan, the secretariat boss, force would not be employed to make people move out or surrender titles. “We do not anticipate use of force. We have made an appeal to them so that they surrender the titles and move out as a gesture of patriotism and goodwill,” he said at a recent press briefing in Nakuru. A Nation team that visited some of the settlements this week came across settlers who have vowed to stay put. They demanded that the government halt the process until a proper mechanism to relocate them was in place and issues of compensation worked out. “Our fathers, grandfathers were buried here. Where are you telling us to go?” asked Mr Kelele Tuimising, 47, who reads sinister motives in the eviction order. … Mrs Tapelkat Ng’etich, of Kiptagich in Kuresoi said the residents were ready to die rather than leave the forest. She blamed the government for causing their problems by allocating illegal loggers and multinationals part of the forest. Similarly vowing to stay put are members of the Ogiek community who insist they have been residents of the forest and have no livelihood outside it. …
