WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2011-04-21 Time: 23:00:03 Posted By: News Poster
By Samuel Koech and Bernard Kwalia
Nairobi – Rose Charo has been living in squalid conditions at Alko satellite camp in Rongai for the past three years.
On Tuesday, she saw hope on being told that 600 acres had been bought in Trans Nzoia County to resettle her and other families that fled their homes following the 2008 post-election violence in the country.
Ms Charo and other 255 internally displaced persons joyfully pulled down their tents, boarded buses and lorries and set off for Chepchoina ready for a new beginning.
“I was filled with so much joy and packed my belongings ready for a new start in life but it seems it’s the start of yet another hard one,” Ms Charo said.
On arrival in Trans Nzoia, they were greeted by youths, mainly squatters and landless from the area, who told them not to set foot on the farm.
The government had promised each of the displaced two and a quarter acre on which to build their houses and also farm.
The locals said the region had many squatters and the land should go to them first. They said there were more than 10,000 squatters from the 1992, 1997 and 2007 land clashes.
Ordered to return
The displaced from Afraha, Lanet, Kapkures and Ogilgei in Nakuru had travelled overnight in more than three buses and four lorries with their belongings.
“They surrounded our vehicles and ordered us to go back where we came from or they would burn us alive. My life has just come down tumbling again. I am not sure if I have the strength to go through this any more,” Ms Charo said amid sobs.
“It is better to live peacefully in tents instead of this kind of treatment. We are stranded by the roadside. For how long are we going to be political slaves in this country?” she asked.
The IDPs said they would walk back to Rongai if the buses and the lorries hired by the Special Programmes ministry did not take them back to their camps.
The Chepchoina land is part of the vast tracks owned by the Agricultural Development Corporation in Kwanza constituency, Trans Nzoia West District. It borders the cattle rustling-prone Mt Elgon area where Sabaot Land Defence Force reigned terror a few years ago. “Pokots regularly come here to steal cattle armed with AK-47 rifles,” said Chepchoina location chief Richard Kirui.
A Mr Kapchanga said of the planned resettlement: “As long as you have cash you can readily acquire a gun from former SLDF fighters or the Pokot and we are ready to do so because we are landless.”
Such sentiments were echoed by area MP and Forestry and Wildlife minister Noah Wekesa.
He said he would not allow the displaced from outside to be settled there while thousands of locals were landless.
“I will not allow IDPs from other counties to be settled in Kwanza constituency because Trans Nzoia has more displaced people and squatters than any other place in the country,” he said at Keese Secondary School.
Parliamentary aspirant Janepher Masis and nominated councillor Pius Kauka termed the resettlement an incitement.
But North Rift regional commissioner Wilson Wanyanga assured the IDPs that they would be settled on the farm and warned leaders against inciting locals to invade the farm.
Some of the displaced in the North Rift said the move was bound to re-ignite ethnic tensions.
North Rift IDPs chairman Stephen Gathuo said the government official spearheading the resettlement should make it clear that most of those being relocated to other areas were landless.
Safer areas
“Most of them were traders who lost everything and have not been able to reconstruct their lives. Some genuinely had land in interior parts and police cannot guarantee them round-the-clock security against threats from their neighbours,” said Mr Gathuo.
The IDPs representative said those who had returned to their original land only needed houses while those who could not return due to hostility needed to be resettled elsewhere.
The government’s plan to identify land for the IDPs should continue as budgeted for, he said, and it should identify land within regions where the -victims were displaced.
Alternatively, he said, the government should give the victims money to buy land on their own or start businesses in areas they considered secure.
“The Sh10,000 compensation and Sh25,000 meant for those whose houses were destroyed is just a way of saying sorry for what happened under the government’s watch. It’s not worth what these people lost,” said Mr Gathuo.
However, the displaced agreed that those who feel they could not continue staying where they were before the post-election violence were free to identify buyers willing to purchase their land at market rates and relocate to areas they considered safe.
He said the government could buy their land at competitive prices to enable them acquire land elsewhere if acquiring land for a group had become a problem.
The IDPs claimed the government move to resettle them in other regions had failed because no one was willing to settle in areas they considered volatile.
“Getting land for all those affected, at one place has also turned out to be an uphill task,” said Mr Gathuo.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 21 April 2011
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201104211442.html?viewall=1