LAND GRABBING AND THE RISE OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
By: Awaaz
Our traditional communities revered the land, used it amicably and preserved the environment. The seeds of unequal allocation, evictions and land grabbing were
planted by the colonialists and nurtured by the independent regimes that followed it. As if the utterly skewed land policy in present day Kenya is not bad enough, we now have foreign
'investors' seeking to 'purchase' our land to grow food and other crops for export. A case in point is the Qatar bid to procure rights over some 40,000
hectares in the Tana River Valley in return for building a deep-sea port, all the while our people are languishing in landlessness.
AwaaZ has put together a selection of writings on the environmental and historical aspects of the land question, including a summary of the Ndungu report; and turned the spotlight on some
of the social movements which have arisen from attempts at land-grabbing. Citizens have vociferously defended their rights to the land - interestingly, some of
the earliest protests were voiced by Kenya’s Indian leaders in the first two decades of the 20th century.
Way back in 1903, aMrs Scott had remonstrated with an African who she maintained had 'encroached on her land'. 'The land belongs to us and not to the European' had declared the African and knocked her to the ground. B ...Read more |
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