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"id": 227912,
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"speaker_name": "Dr. Kituyi",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Trade and Industry",
"speaker": {
"id": 293,
"legal_name": "Mukhisa Kituyi",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir. I share the sense that the matter of the violence in Mount Elgon District deserves attention at the highest level by us as the political class. There are problems and we need to find how to deal with them. Rather than just apportioning blame amongst individuals, I am a neighbour of Mount Elgon. I am hosting most of the displaced people from Mount Elgon. All politicians going to Mount Elgon pass through my constituency. I have refrained from visiting the area on the advice we all got that at this difficult time, let politicians keep off for the time being. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I have, however, met all the former Members of Parliament from the region, the current hon. Member and councillors to seek what is happening and ask where we are going wrong. Chebyuk was not a problem originally. In 1965, the Government decided to move 600 Ndorobos, who were staying in Chepkitale Forest, and created a settlement scheme in Chebyuk. This was created out of Government land, which was not occupied by anybody. When this scheme started being administered in 1971, there was a complaint from the Sabaot that they should also be given some of the land. The Government varied the original arrangement and gave one third of the land to the Soy. Phase II was similarly administered, with one third of the land being given to the Soy and two thirds to the Ndorobo. In the current phase III, it was decided that since there are many landless people among the Soy the land be given 50-50. That is what the Government decided to do. It allotted 50 per cent of the land to the Ndorobo and 50 per cent of it to the Soy. Mr. Speaker, Sir, since then a series of things have happened. One is that some persons have told the Soy not to take the 50 per cent of the land allocated to them. Some people are telling them, \"do not accept this to be implemented; when we will be in Government you will get 100 per cent. We will deny the Ndorobo some of the land\". I am not Ndorobo. The Ndorobo do not have too many educated people to go to Non-Governmental Organisations to speak for them. But the casualties of this are more in the Ndorobo than in the Soy. Mr. Speaker, Sir, of the 84 people known to be dead today, 13 were raiders and 71 others. These include people who have died under other circumstances. There is the young man who lost his wife, and then got up and killed his brother-in-law and father-in-law because he had an AK-47 in his house. Mr. Speaker, Sir, what do I get from the leaders from both sides of Mount Elgon? One is that young men in Mount Elgon among the Soy, who consider themselves the Sabaot Land Defence Force, are not accountable to elders. They do not take orders from the elders. The problem is that some of them are being reckless. An example is the one who was shown on the Kenya Television Network (KTN) screen, Mr. Matakuei Komon. He called a press conference to say, \"I April 4, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 353 have an army of 10,000 people and we will fight\". Wazee wanasema huu ni upumbavu. But they are also saying, let the Government also not overreact. I request my colleague, the Minister in charge of internal security, to see that the Government does not overreact because of criminal irresponsibility by some young people. Many of the victims being killed have got nothing to do with land disputes. The killing of students happened in Kapsokwony. Chebyuk is not Kapsokwony. Those youth were killed by people who call themselves the Ganja Weed or guerillas of Darfur. This does not have any bearing directly to the crisis in Chebyuk. What is our responsibility? My colleagues from Rift Valley should not say that they are more concerned than others because that is their community. The community of Mt. Elgon is my community as well. The people of Mt. Elgon should not be divided between the Kalenjin and non-Kalenjin."
}