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"id": 184955,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/184955/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Mwiria",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology",
"speaker": {
"id": 190,
"legal_name": "Valerian Kilemi Mwiria",
"slug": "kilemi-mwiria"
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"content": " Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to support this very important Motion on our liberation and the people who did so much to get us free to even be able to be speaking, as we are in Parliament today. It is good that we recognise that this goes beyond the Kikuyu, Meru and Embu people, to include the Nandi, as the last speaker has said, as well as the Pokots. In fact, there was a big massacre of the Pokot people by the British in 1950, where more than 500 Pokots were massacred October 8, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2557 while resisting British rule. There were also Asians who took part in the struggle. Examples are Pinto, Malkiat Singh and others. There were Maasais and Luhyas, as we have been told. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, those people fought for Independence, so that they and other Africans could benefit but like they say, with the Independent African Government, there is a Swahili saying which goes: \"Ahsante ya punda ni mateke \". What happened is that many of the people who fought for our freedom, as a matter of fact, were harassed by the Kenyatta regime that took over from the colonialists. In fact, some were chased and flushed out of the forests by the same people they fought for. In fact, there were leaders of the Mau Mau who were shot dead by the Independence Kenya Government. As that was happening, it turned out that a lot of the people who took over the Government were not, in themselves, thinking about the people who fought and about the country at large, but rather for themselves. So, the people who got the most rewards were the ones we called the \"homeguards\". The \"homeguards\", who fought the Mau Mau fighters and did all sorts of terrible atrocities against the Africans, were the same ones who got the most land. They got the biggest jobs and continue to frustrate the people who fought for Independence. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we have been told that many Mau Mau fighters died poor and their children followed them. Many were assassinated. We do not know what happened to people like Mr. Kungu Karumba. People like Gama Pinto were assassinated. Many of the children of those families are amongst the many squatters we are talking about. So, when we talk about squatters, we are not just talking about those in the Mau Forest, but they include other Kenyans who are squatting on account of the fact that their parents were not able to support them in any way. They could not give them any education or any other means to be able to acquire any land resources in this country. I agree with Mr. Mututho and others who have spoken. We should give these people some minimum pieces of land. The question is where this land is going to come from. We have been told that there are many Kenyans who own much more than they need. We just need to go to the Ndung'u Report, which has not been implemented up to this point. The Ndung'u Report gives us cases of Kenyans who own whole provinces. These happen to be the Kenyans who did nothing for struggle for Independence. In fact, they were the beneficiaries. The Ndung'u Report talks about many cases of Kenyans who have grabbed public land that used to belong to the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) and others; thousands of acres. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, therefore, it would not be so difficult for us to find land for these people, as well as for those people we are trying to get out of the Mau Forest. I think there is land. If the people who own so much of it become less greedy, and if the Government has the will to dare touch the people who have land they do not need, and which they did not buy but in a lot of cases, grabbed even what was meant for public utility. We should have programmes of re- settling them in an organised manner, including giving them basic survival necessities like, as it has been said, housing and so on. We should have education programmes for their children and grandchildren, so that they can also benefit from what it is that they cannot get from the land, but which education can make possible for them to achieve. We must provide support for them to start small businesses now that we have all sorts of funds, including the ones for the Youth Enterprise Development Fund and Women Enterprise Development Fund. It is possible to come up with a special fund for children of veterans, so that they can have a more decent life than their parents. That way, they can be happy that their parents, at least, fought for something. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we should also give them some legal support. All the time, I encounter Mau Mau veterans from Meru, Nyeri and other places, coming to Nairobi. They have Mr. Paul Muite as their advocate. I know it is not easy that they have to meet their own 2558 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 8, 2008 expenses. As a Government, we should be able to provide the legal fees for those people, so that they can pursue both their matter of compensation as well as whatever else that they can benefit from in this country. We have been told that we should also be able to remember these people in many ways. If you go to South Africa, and to Pretoria Square, you will see that they have a list of all the people who fought during the World War I. If you go to many countries, you will find that they have a memorial listing of the people who did their country proud. In Nairobi, recently, we remembered the late Dedan Kimathi, but there are others like Koitalel arap Samoei, Gama Pinto and many others. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I remember that when Nelson Mandela first visited Kenya, the first question he asked even before he became the President of South Africa was where he would find the family of Dedan Kimathi. Of course, he was not going to find them, because it was not a priority of the regimes that took over the leadership of this country, but a foreign dignitary could remember them. So, we need to be able to have an opportunity to remember these people, and the square should include all their names, what roles they played for this country, which years they passed on and what it is that they are remembered for. We have national days and presidential awards like the Elder of the Burning Spear (EBS),"
}