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{
    "id": 779054,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/779054/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 410,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Thank you very much Madam Temporary Speaker for giving me the opportunity to raise a matter that is urgent and of national importance and definite as required under Standing Order No.34(1). I represent the County of Bungoma in the western part of our country. It is a county that shares a common boundary with Trans Nzoia, Kakamega, Busia and the international boundary with Uganda. Mount Elgon, being an integral part of Bungoma, a constituency and a sub-county with two districts administratively occupies the realm of Mount Elgon back to the tip of the mountain where we share a common boundary with Uganda. Seven or eight years ago, there were serious security challenges in Mount Elgon where a ragtag army called the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SDLF) emerged and committed serious atrocities against the people of Bungoma. They could visit your home and chop off the ears of your entire family and go with them. In other situations, they would visit a home and slice off your upper lip and go with it and leave you with a naked mouth. They would go to homes and kill the entire family. At that time, the National Security Council chaired by President Kibaki ordered the army into Mount Elgon. In an operation of about three and a half months, those characters were flushed out. There was a young man called Matakwei who was leading the SDLF. He was eventually caught up and terminated. I wish he was arrested and subjected to due process so that he could tell the county who his masters and paymasters were. At that time, I must acknowledge, there was cooperation and collaboration from Uganda, where those who fled there were also subjected to reprisals. Madam Temporary Speaker, we thought that that was over and there has been relative peace in Mt. Elgon. Even as we went to elections, because electoral cycles pose challenges, Mt. Elgon was reasonably peaceful. However, sometime in June last year, what looked like criminal activities started, where families were given warnings and attacked. People were killed and some robberies were committed. I remember an old man at Kapkateny Market who, in December last year after selling his maize crop, a group of young men went to his home, demanded to be given the money and thereafter exterminated his family. In a similar case, some young men visited the family and wiped out a man, his wife and all his children. When you look at this, the new skirmishes that are causing so much mayhem in Mt. Elgon are not connected to the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF). This is because nobody has come up with any agenda to talk about land injustices or demanding land. These are just, in my view, criminals roaming from place to 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."
}