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"speaker_name": "Mr. Poghisio",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this Motion. I would also like to pick up from where Mr. Cheboi left, because I thought he had actually started speaking about the path of the provision of the solution to these issues. I am, in a way, a neighbour of Mount Elgon. If you look at the history of Mount Elgon and the Sabaot people, you will realise that they are people who have been struggling to just feed themselves in every situation. They started doing so a long time ago, their land having been occupied. In fact, they refer to themselves as \" bikap koret \", which means \"the people of the land\", and yet they have no land to talk about. The land is so small. These are people who are proud of being land owners. So, when you deal with the Sabaot and the Sabei of Uganda, who are almost of the same community, they have the same problems. Look at their history. They struggle to feed themselves. They also have the feeling that the other communities around them have been oppressing them, and are struggling to get out of that oppression. Now, within the same district, one group feels terribly oppressed by another. It happens in every district. There are people within a 362 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 4, 2007 district who are much more powerful than others. Therefore, the struggle to free yourself is key to sorting out this problem. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to congratulate the Minister of State for Administration and National Security for what he has done or not done. His wisdom in not moving with haste is helping sort out some of the issues. Suppose the Minister of State for Administration and National Security had actually started arresting the people we tell him to arrest! We might have been minus the area Member of Parliament, who is an Assistant Minister. We might have been minus the other hon. Members who have been named here. So, in a way, there is wisdom in not rushing to do some of these things. The issue at hand is not whether it is the individual. Mr. Serut alone cannot cause the trouble that we have seen in Mount Elgon. Mr. Kapol - whatever his name is - or the others, cannot, on their own, cause the problems that we have seen in Mount Elgon. We tend to think that those individuals have more strength than the Government. Is that what we are trying to portray? Can those people actually make the whole district of Mount Elgon go up in flames and we just sit and watch? I do not think so. I think there are issues that we are not addressing, which must come out. I would like to recommend that the decision has to be made by this House that the troubles in Mount Elgon be made to come to a stop. Those troubles can be stopped if we decide that in this House. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, that means taking all the drastic measures that are needed to make sure that from today henceforth something is done. Even if it means stopping the land allocation exercise in Phase III of the settlement scheme, the Government should do so and let the people live. I have been in worse situations than this. In a place in Northern Uganda called Gulu, from where the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) have been operating, people were displaced within their own areas. Just when the LRA and the Government agreed to cession of hostilities, those people started breathing from that night. It is possible to do it. I know that the Government is listening. It has all the intelligence, and all the power to do what it needs to do. My suggestion is that the Government should move in to stop the suffering in Mount Elgon from today. It can be done, but let us not talk about taking orders from people on who to arrest and who should be victimised. Let us leave those things out. Let us leave this to the wisdom of Mr. Michuki and his team. Let us leave this to the elders and the young people of Mount Elgon. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, politics should be left out of this issue. Let us go for humane solutions to this problem. Remove some of the officers who have been in that district for a long time. Let them go, so that you can bring in fresh people who understand and who can be trusted. That has been an issue within that district. Let us deal with this matter now. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}