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{
    "id": 383783,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/383783/?format=api",
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    "content": "recognize that historical injustice and we are not saying that it should be ignored but what Sen. G. G. Kariuki brought to this House are the current IDPs. Those are the people living in the tents today. Are we saying that we should not look at their plight because others who were there in 1995 have not been looked at? Why can we not address these ones today and tomorrow we look at those others? It is that spirit that I am opposing the amendment because I see that we are generalizing the problem and therefore making it difficult for it to resolved. Let us deal with that category today. We were very embarrassed while trying to solve that problem in the Government. I do agree with Sen. (Dr.) Machage and my deputy in the energy committee that the solution might not be giving land to the IDPs. We have tried but it has brought the same problems. In fact, I think the best way to deal with IDPs is to establish how many they are, line them up, give one of them a cheque and tell them to either go and do business or get out to negotiate their own piece of land from individuals elsewhere. So long as we keep looking for land for them, it will be difficult to find land for all of them. In fact, if the money we have spent as a Government in trying to resettle IDPs was given to them in cash and we do not patronize them but allowed them to go elsewhere and buy land, many of them would have found ways of surviving. We need to look at this Motion as a final attempt to bring justice to this people who are suffering in the IDP camps today. Having said so, I also know as a fact, and we should also learn how to appreciate painful facts, a woman might give birth today to a child she loves very much and tomorrow Dr. Khalwale can pronounce that child dead. That is a painful fact but it is a fact. I want to state on the Floor of this House today that there are certain historical injustices which would be very difficult to resolve and I think we have to live with that fact. Personally, I do not believe that it would be possible to give every Kenyan land. It is not possible. In another 20 to 30 years, most Kenyans would be living in towns and not on land. When I used to spend some time in the United States of America (USA), I attended a human rights conference. Three of the participants came and stayed the whole afternoon trying to convince us that the Government of Canada is illegal. They were calling the story “Hunting the Moose.” They said when you hunt the moose, you do not take breakfast, you do not take lunch and you do not take dinner; you only eat after the moose is dead. And they said that this is the spirit that the Red Indians should adopt; that they should not have breakfast, lunch or dinner until they have driven out the British and the French from Canada, because that is their land. And we asked them: “Surely, how realistic is this demand?” and they said “Our grandfathers died fighting for that land; our fathers died too and we are also going to die doing so.” Now, do you foresee a situation where the British and the French are going to leave Canada so that the Native Americans can recover their land? Even in this country, the Maasai will never go back to the land they were forcefully removed from by the British in Laikipia. There could be other ways of trying to alleviate and improve their community, but I think that is not something that we should be thinking about. Similarly, these claims of 1895, many of them will be resolved; but not in that manner. What we should do is to look at the marginalized communities, now that we The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}