FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
A Movement for Civil Rights Emerges in The Rural Maasailand in midst of Historic Superior Court Case in Kenya
UPDATE: MAR. 27 2011: Meitamei Olol Dapash, lead petitioner in the Maasai community suit to see the return of 30,000 acres of ancestral land at Mau Narok, has been arrested along with more than 50 Maasai community members, on charges of inciting violence. Olol Dapash, texting from jail, called the charges “frivilous” and vows to maintain the community’s commitment to non-violent occupation of Mau Narok while waiting for the determination of Kenyan Suprior court. 500 Maasai people are holding vigil outside of the jail insisting on Dapash’s release. Many Maasai people have been injured in the last two days by over 100 paramilitary government troops sent to clear Mau Narok of Maasai people and make way for settlement of other Kenyans. This recent assault by government troops coincided with a hearing of the case in Kenyan Superior Court in Nairobi on March 25, and appears to indicate the government’s desperation as it is under pressure to clear and resettle the land before the court rules.
UPDATE: MAR. 14 2011: The date for the next hearing has been set in the Maasai Community’s suit for the return of ancestral land at Mau Narok. On March 25, lawyers will present arguments to a panel of three Superior Court Judges in the downtown Nairobi courthouse, as Maasai people gather and wait in the streets outside to show their support for the case, filed in January 2010 by 52 members of the Maasai community for the return of 30,000 acres appropriated under colonial rule and re-taken by elite Kenyans following Independence.
UPDATE: FEB. 20 2011: For the first time in over 100 years, representatives from across Kenyan Maasailand gathered to demand that the Kenyan government right past injustices and return stolen ancestral land. Yesterday, 15,000 Maasai people, from as far away as Samburu in the north to Loitokitok in the east and Transmara in the west, gathered at Mau Narok to show the community’s unified support for the case for the return of Mau Narok to the Maasai community. The gathering included political, religious and traditional leadership. Those gathered fasted, sang, prayed and declared their commitment to civil rights for all Maasai people and all Kenyans and to a politics of non-violence.
UPDATE: JAN.11 2011: Tension mounts as Maasai community and Kenyan government face off over historical land rights case in Mau Narok. Government attempts to settle IDPs on Maasai ancestral homeland through deployment of the Kenyan military have been thwarted by the community’s refusal to vacate the land. No incidence of violence initiated by the Maasai community have been reported, yet community members have armed themselves and declared a willingness to die for this cause. One month after the assassination of land rights activist Moses Ole Mpoe, arrests and death threats continue to be directed against Maasai leadership. A recent NTV poll shows that 86% of Kenyans support Maasai claims to this land and IDPs have refused settlement there. However, Minister of Special Programs, Hon. Esther Murugi, has insisted that the government will not back down from IDP settlement, and has made statements considered to be provocative and discriminatory by Maasai community leadership.
NAKURU, KENYA-JAN. 5, 2011: Police are free to arrest the aged widow, and son, of former Kenyan Cabinet Minister Mbiyu Koinange for the December 3 murder of Moses Ole Mpoe and Parsaaiayia Ole Kitua, activists of the Maasai community’s struggle to regain ancestral homeland at Mau Narok. Mbiyu Koinange came into possession of land at Mau Narok during his tenure as Kenya’s Minister of Internal Security in the 1970s; his rightful title is the subject of a suit brought by representatives of the Maasai community, which is currently being heard in Kenyan court. Maasai community leadership has demanded that the Kenyan government undertake a more thorough investigation of the murders, claiming to be unconvinced that the accused persons are the sole architects of this crime.
DEC. 11 2010: Slain Maasai land rights activist Moses Mpoe was laid to rest today amidst a crowd of thousands of grieving Maasai community members. Cabinet Minster William Ole Ntimama delivered a speech to the mourners stating that he believed senior government officials were responsible for Mpoe’s assassination due to Mpoe’s involvement in a historic court case that would return 30,000 acres of land to the Maasai community.
The land was originally taken from the Maasai by British colonial authorities and during the process of legal independence in the 1960s was given to high-ranking Kikuyu politicians. Tension has built around the return of the land called Mau Narok, as the current administration wants to use it to resettle Internally Displaced Peoples, while the Maasai community has filed suit to have it returned and used for subsistence and as a wildlife conservancy. Minister Ntimama pledged to the crowd that he would step down from his position if the government refused to act in a search for the killers.
NAKURU, KENYA–DEC. 82010: Maasai community activist Moses Ole Mpoe was shot to death on Friday, December 3, by masked gunmen who pulled up alongside his car on a motorbike and sprayed the vehicle with machine gun bullets. Mpoe was traveling to Nakuru town from Mau Narok—the region involved in a land rights case currently being heard in the Kenyan Superior Court. If successful, the case would return almost 30,000 acres of Maasai land that was taken during British colonialism and is now in the hands of several Kenyan political and financial elites.
Mpoe had been a strong voice in the campaign to return Mau Narok to the Maasai for many years. He died at the scene along with another colleague. A third passenger was taken to Nairobi National Hospital with bullet wounds to the head. The Kenyan government has called in federal investigators from the United States to help track down the perpetrators.
In addition to these murders, Maasai people have reported to the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition, a local human rights organization, that they have recently been beaten by armed guards when trying to take their cattle across the disputed land. Maasai community activist and political leader Meitamei Olol Dapash said, “Moses Ole Mpoe has been martyred for his people, and his assassins but must be found and brought to justice. He was a forceful voice for the land rights case, but the Maasai people will not be silenced in our quest to have these lands returned.”
Kenya’s post-election violence in 2007 revealed the continuing tensions in the country between elite members of the Kikuyu community who dominate both political and market spheres and the remainder of Kenya’s 42 ethnic communities. This includes the Indigenous Maasai, who have yet to see their ancestral lands returned since legal independence occurred in 1963. The Kibaki administration recently promised Mau Narok, the 30,000 acre area which includes precious water sources, to Kikuyu Internally Displaced Peoples in an attempt to thwart the legal return of the land to the Maasai families who have lived displaced on the outskirts of its wheat farms for the past 70 years.
For many years, Moses Ole Mpoe was the lone voice in the campaign to return Mau Narok to the Maasai. In the summer of 2008, Mpoe gave an interview to students of Prescott College in Arizona who were conducting historical research in preparation for the court case saying, “In 1963, Maasai were told that Kenya was indepdendent. But in the eyes of the Maasai, independence has not happened. Native Land Councils were created to give colonized land back to local communities. But the Maasai did not get one quarter of their original land returned. Mau Narok was taken from the Maasai without any agreement…Even if we get no land back from this fight, we want to know how the land was taken from us. We want to know the truth. We want the world to know.” When his attempts to organize for the private transfer of the land to the community were thwarted in 2001, he began to advocate for the issue to be resolved in court.
In early 2010, 52 petitioners representing the Maasai community filed a suit in Kenya Superior Court to recover Mau Narok. The suit is being argued by two lawyers from Letangule and Associates. The opposition has hired 14 lawyers to represent the defendants. including former Provincial Commissioner Simeon Nyachae and the estate of former Member of Parliament Mbiyu Koinange.
On November 1, 2010, exactly one week before opening arguments were offered in court, the government began forcibly evicting Maasai people from Mau Narok. This action was met with non-violent community protests, with support from Maasai Parliamentarians. On December 2nd, hundreds of Maasai community members from Mau Narok came to Nairobi as court witnesses to ensure a fair trial.
As the legal strategy builds upon rulings from other Indigenous land claims in Australia, South Africa and Kenya, all parties understand that if this case is successful it could bring a flurry of similar cases to courts worldwide, drawing on the 2007 United Nations Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People. Meitamei Olol Dapash said of the case, “Through the case to regain Mau Narok, it is clear the justice system of this country is on trial…[It] is the beginning of a new dawn for the Maasai people…It is a matter of life and death for us and we are determined to succeed.”
Maasai Community Partnership Project: The Partnership Project shares the resources of higher education not generally available to the Maasai community, including: access to scholarship about Maasai people, as well as time, skills, money and technology to produce scholarship written by and with Maasai people. For more information visit www.maasaicpp.org.
Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition: The Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition advocates for the protection of traditional land rights of the Maasai people, and for conservation, management and sustainable use of the great ecosystems of East Africa, visit www.maasaierc.org.
Contact for more information and interviews: Kaitlin Noss. kaitlin.noss@gmail.com 928-273-3490
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VIDEO ON THE MPOE ASSASSINATION below
Reporting from the scene of the assassination of Moses Mpoe on December 3, 2010:
This video shows community reactions and statements from Mpoe’s family, along with information about the on-going land-rights issues in Mau Narok:
A video from Moses Mpoe’s Burial in Mau Narok on December 9, 2010:
