Britain's Inhumane Acts

Mau Mau uprising: Bloody history of Kenya conflict

Thousands of Mau Mau suspects were detained in prison camps

Legal action taken against the British government to secure compensation for four Kenyans allegedly tortured during the Mau Mau uprising will cast the spotlight on one of the Empire's bloodiest conflicts.

The uprising is now regarded in Kenya as one of the most significant steps towards a Kenya free from British rule.

The Mau Mau fighters were mainly drawn from Kenya's major ethnic grouping, the Kikuyu.

More than a million strong, by the start of the 1950s the Kikuyu had been increasingly economically marginalised as years of white settler expansion ate away at their land holdings.

Since 1945, nationalists like Jomo Kenyatta of the Kenya African Union (KAU) had been pressing the British government in vain for political rights and land reforms, with valuable holdings in the cooler Highlands to be redistributed to African owners.

But radical activists within the KAU set up a splinter group and organised a more militant kind of nationalism.

By 1952 Kikuyu fighters, along with some Embu and Meru recruits, were attacking political opponents and raiding white settler farms and destroying livestock. Mau Mau supporters took oaths, binding them to their cause.

In October 1952 the British declared a state of emergency and began moving army reinforcements into Kenya.

So began an aggressively fought counter-insurgency, which lasted until 1960 when the state of emergency was ended.
Basically you could get away with murder - it was systematic” says Professor David Anderson Oxford University

The number killed in the uprising is a subject of much controversy. Officially the number of Mau Mau and other rebels killed was 11,000, including 1,090 convicts hanged by the British administration. Just 32 white settlers were killed in the eight years of emergency.

However, unofficial figures suggest a much larger number were killed in the counter-insurgency campaign.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission has said 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the crackdown, and 160,000 were detained in appalling conditions.

David Anderson, professor of African Politics at Oxford University, says he estimates the death toll in the conflict to have been as high as 25,000.

He said: "Everything that could happen did happen. Allegations about beatings and violence were widespread. Basically you could get away with murder. It was systematic."
'Oppressive violence'
The African Home Guard, recruited by the British, used oppressive violence as a means of controlling the population, Prof Anderson suggests.

A claim for compensation was first lodged in 2009

He said: "The British armed the militia, rewarded them, incentivised them, allowing them to pillage property of the nationalists.

"Mau Mau families were subject to pillage by their neighbours. People would simply walk up to the farm and walk away with things."

In addition to search-and-destroy missions against Mau Mau fighter bands operating in the forests, the British also strategically resettled Kikuyu in villages. They also detained some 100,000 Kikuyu without trial, often for periods of between three and seven years.

London law firm Leigh Day & Co lodged a claim in mid-2009 on behalf of five elderly Kenyans. One has died since the case was lodged.
“They [the Mau Mau] were put in camps where they were subject to severe torture, malnutrition, beatings” Martyn Day Solicitor

The firm says its clients suffered terribly in detention camps or at the hands of British-led soldiers.

Solicitor Martyn Day told the BBC: "They were put in camps where they were subject to severe torture, malnutrition, beatings. The women were sexually assaulted. Two of the men were castrated. The most severe gruesome torture you could imagine.

"A lot of the officers involved were white, they were controlling the violence against these Mau Mau. It wasn't just isolated individual officers. It was systematic. The whole purpose was to break the Mau Mau."

The UK says the claim is not valid because of the amount of time since the abuses were alleged to have happened, and that any liability rested with the Kenyan authorities after independence in 1963.

But Leigh Day & Co says the case is an "opportunity for the British government to come to terms with the past and apologise to the victims and the Kenyan people for this grave historic wrong".

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has backed their case.

The state of emergency lasted for eight years

"In my view, the British government's attempt to pin liability on Kenya for British colonial torture represents an intolerable abdication of responsibility," he said.

"Britain's insistence that international human rights standards should be respected by governments around the world will sound increasingly hollow if the door is shut in the face of these known victims of British torture."

But it is clear that brutal violence was exacted on both sides.

Prof Anderson explains: "There was lots of suffering on the other side too. This was a dirty war. It became a civil war - though that idea remains extremely unpopular in Kenya today."

One example was the Mau Mau raid on the "loyalist" village of Lari, where the majority of the men were away fighting with the British Home Guard. The rebels killed more than 70, mostly women and children.

Tim Simmonds, who joined the Kenyan police reserve as a tracker shortly after settling in Kenya in 1954, says the Mau Mau fighters "went on the rampage", slaughtering thousands of people, leaving him so frightened he slept under his bed for a year.

While deploring the treatment of detainees in the camps, he says he has no regrets about fighting the insurgents in the bush.

"They really got what they deserved. I'm really quite tough on this. If I had the chance again in the same situation, them killing people, would I go out and kill them again as I did? Yes sir I would."

It has long been suggested that the suppression of the Mau Mau was more brutal in nature than the action taken against other colonial uprisings across the British Empire.

Some historians have posited that white settler pressure on the British government and the characterisation of the Mau Mau fighters as the epitome of savagery may have been behind this.

The Kikuyu themselves were split, with "haves" often siding with the British against Mau Mau "have-nots" and many happy to take the confiscated land of their fellow villagers.
Empire 'not deserved'
Prof Anderson notes that one of the things marking the battle against the Mau Mau was the number of hangings, with capital offences extended during the emergency to include "consorting" with Mau Mau.

Some attention was paid to allegations of atrocities at the time, with questions asked in parliament about 11 Africans beaten to death in a British camp at Hola.

Among those who spoke out were the Labour MP Barbara Castle and the Conservative Enoch Powell, now best known for his "rivers of blood" speech.

He suggested at the time that if such killings were to go unpunished Britain did not deserve an empire.

"I would say it is a fearful doctrine, which must recoil upon the heads of those who pronounce it, to stand in judgment on a fellow human being and say, 'Because he was such-and-such, therefore the consequences which would otherwise flow from his death shall not flow.'"

Even though the Mau Mau were thoroughly defeated by 1960, the exact reforms that nationalists had been pressing for before the uprising had started and, by 1963, Kenya was independent.

Britain's Conspiracy

18 April 2012 Last updated at 00:00 GM

British colonial files released following legal challenge

By Holly Wallis BBC News

The files reveal how the British punished suspected Mau Mau rebels in the 1950s

Secret files from British colonial rule - once thought lost - have been released by the government, one year after they came to light in a High Court challenge to disclose them.

Some of the papers cover controversial episodes: the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, the evacuation of the Chagos Islands, and the Malayan Emergency.

They also reveal efforts to destroy and reclassify sensitive files.

The Foreign Office says it is now releasing "every paper" it can.

But academics say the Foreign Office's "failure" to deliver the archive for decades has created a "legacy of suspicion".

In particular, the first batch of papers reveal:

• Official fears that Nazis - pretending to catch butterflies - were plotting to invade East Africa in 1938
• Detailed accounts of the policy of seizing livestock from Kenyans suspected of supporting Mau Mau rebels in the 1950s
• Secret plans to deport a Greek Cypriot leader to the Seychelles despite launching talks with him to end a violent rebellion in Cyprus in 1955
• Efforts to deport Chagos islanders from the British Indian Ocean Territories
• Concerns over the "anti-American and anti-white" tendency of Kenyan students sent to study in the US in 1959 - the same year Barack Obama's Kenyan father enrolled at university in Hawaii

In January 2011 - following a High Court case brought by four Kenyans involved in the Mau Mau rebellion - the government was forced to admit that 8,800 files had been secretly sent to Britain from colonies, prior to their independence.

It said the files had been held "irregularly".

Professor David Anderson, an adviser to the Kenyans in the case and professor of African History at Oxford University, said progress had been made retrieving "the 'lost' British Empire archive", but added there was still a "lurking culture of secrecy" within government.

"The British government did lie about this earlier on... this saga was both a colonial conspiracy and a bureaucratic bungle."

He added that the release of the files would help "clear the air on Britain's imperial past".
'Migrated' files
The 1,200 records being released are the first of six tranches to be made public at the National Archives by November 2013.

They cover the period between the 1930s and 1970s and were physically transferred or "migrated" to the UK.

The archive contains official documents from the former territories of Aden, Anguilla, Bahamas, Basutoland (Lesotho), Bechuanaland (Botswana), British Indian Ocean Territories, Brunei, Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya, Sarawak and the Seychelles.

The archive released on Wednesday details how British colonial officials selected files for secret "migration" back to Britain - using criteria set out in a 1961 memo by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Iain Macleod.
'Burned and destroyed'
They were instructed to keep papers that might embarrass the UK government, other governments, the police, military forces or public servants; might compromise sources of intelligence; or might be used unethically by ministers of successive governments.

Officials in Kenya reclassified access to documents according to the reader's ethnicity and descent in order to restrict material

According to Kenyan ministry of defence files from 1961, administrators devised new classifications, such as "Watch", in order to withhold information from indigenous governments.

Files stamped with a "W" could only be viewed by a "British subject of European descent", while "legacy" files could be passed on to subsequent administrations.

Other new classifications included Personal, Delicate Source, and Guard - which could "not be communicated to the Americans".

The Kenyan files also contain references to material being destroyed.

One memo from April 1961 says: "To obviate a too laborious scrutiny of 'dead' files, emphasis is placed on destruction - a vast amount of paper in the Ministry of Defence secret registry and classified archives could be burnt without loss, and I should be surprised if the same does not apply to the CS's (chief secretary's) Office."

Colonial files from the Malayan administration also point to the destruction of papers - ahead of the country's independence in 1957.

In July 1956, an official writing to the private secretary to the British high commissioner questions what to do with archives relating to the Malayan Emergency - the 1948-1960 conflict with communist insurgents.

Referencing the "List C" papers, he writes: "I have been through them and it would seem that some contain items of historical interest in the event of anyone writing a history of the Emergency or biography of former high commissioners.

"The others should be dealt with in detail, but I have not time to do this. Would you agree to their disposal as suggested against individual files in the list?"

An appendix in the same file indicates that "List C" documents are to be "destroyed".

Researchers who have studied the colonial archive say there is little reference to the alleged massacre of 24 unarmed rubber plantation workers by British troops at Batang Kali in December 1948 - during the Malayan Emergency.
'Long overdue'
Tony Badger, professor of history at Cambridge University - who has been appointed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to review the files - said the government was releasing "every paper" it could, rather than merely "every paper of interest".

However, he added the release was "long overdue".

"Given the failure of the Foreign Office to acknowledge the existence of - and certainly the failure to manage the migrated archive until very recently, you can amply understand the legacy of suspicion amongst journalists and academics about these records", he said.

He estimated that "well under 1% of material" had so far been held back from release.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said the foreign secretary was "pleased" with the release and "committed" to making the colonial archive "available to the general public as soon as possible".

"These files are an important part of our history and by working with the National Archives we are ensuring that they can be accessed by current and future generations."

Britains Dirty Past

Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes

Review finds thousands of papers detailing shameful acts were culled, while others were kept secret illegally

Ian Cobain, Owen Bowcott and Richard Norton-Taylor

The Guardian, Wednesday 18 April 2012

Hanslope Park, where the Foreign Office kept a secret archive of colonial papers. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

Thousands of documents detailing some of the most shameful acts and crimes committed during the final years of the British empire were systematically destroyed to prevent them falling into the hands of post-independence governments, an official review has concluded.
Those papers that survived the purge were flown discreetly to Britain where they were hidden for 50 years in a secret Foreign Office archive, beyond the reach of historians and members of the public, and in breach of legal obligations for them to be transferred into the public domain.
The archive came to light last year when a group of Kenyans detained and allegedly tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion won the right to sue the British government. The Foreign Office promised to release the 8,800 files from 37 former colonies held at the highly-secure government communications centre at Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire.
The historian appointed to oversee the review and transfer, Tony Badger, master of Clare College, Cambridge, says the discovery of the archive put the Foreign Office in an "embarrassing, scandalous" position. "These documents should have been in the public archives in the 1980s," he said. "It's long overdue." The first of them are made available to the public on Wednesday at the National Archive at Kew, Surrey.
The papers at Hanslope Park include monthly intelligence reports on the "elimination" of the colonial authority's enemies in 1950s Malaya; records showing ministers in London were aware of the torture and murder of Mau Mau insurgents in Kenya, including a case of aman said to have been "roasted alive"; and papers detailing the lengths to which the UK went to forcibly remove islanders from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
However, among the documents are a handful which show that many of the most sensitive papers from Britain's late colonial era were not hidden away, but simply destroyed. These papers give the instructions for systematic destruction issued in 1961 after Iain Macleod, secretary of state for the colonies, directed that post-independence governments should not get any material that "might embarrass Her Majesty's government", that could "embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants or others eg police informers", that might compromise intelligence sources, or that might "be used unethically by ministers in the successor government".
Among the documents that appear to have been destroyed were: records of the abuse of Mau Mau insurgents detained by British colonial authorities, who were tortured and sometimes murdered; reports that may have detailed the alleged massacre of 24 unarmed villagers in Malaya by soldiers of the Scots Guards in 1948; most of the sensitive documents kept by colonial authorities in Aden, where the army's Intelligence Corps operated a secret torture centre for several years in the 1960s; and every sensitive document kept by the authorities in British Guiana, a colony whose policies were heavily influenced by successive US governments and whose post-independence leader was toppled in a coup orchestrated by the CIA.
The documents that were not destroyed appear to have been kept secret not only to protect the UK's reputation, but to shield the government from litigation. If the small group of Mau Mau detainees are successful in their legal action, thousands more veterans are expected to follow.
It is a case that is being closely watched by former Eoka guerillas who were detained by the British in 1950s Cyprus, and possibly by many others who were imprisoned and interrogated between 1946 and 1967, as Britain fought a series of rearguard actions across its rapidly dimishing empire.
The documents show that colonial officials were instructed to separate those papers to be left in place after independence – usually known as "Legacy files" – from those that were to be selected for destruction or removal to the UK. In many colonies, these were described as watch files, and stamped with a red letter W.
The papers at Kew depict a period of mounting anxiety amid fears that some of the incriminating watch files might be leaked. Officials were warned that they would be prosecuted if they took any any paperwork home – and some were. As independence grew closer, large caches of files were removed from colonial ministries to governors' offices, where new safes were installed.
In Uganda, the process was codenamed Operation Legacy. In Kenya, a vetting process, described as "a thorough purge", was overseen by colonial Special Branch officers.
Photograph: The National Archives Clear instructions were issued that no Africans were to be involved: only an individual who was "a servant of the Kenya government who is a British subject of European descent" could participate in the purge.
Photograph: The National Archives Painstaking measures were taken to prevent post-independence governments from learning that the watch files had ever existed. One instruction states: "The legacy files must leave no reference to watch material. Indeed, the very existence of the watch series, though it may be guessed at, should never be revealed."
When a single watch file was to be removed from a group of legacy files, a "twin file" – or dummy – was to be created to insert in its place. If this was not practicable, the documents were to be removed en masse. There was concern that Macleod's directions should not be divulged – "there is of course the risk of embarrassment should the circular be compromised" – and officials taking part in the purge were even warned to keep their W stamps in a safe place.
Many of the watch files ended up at Hanslope Park. They came from 37 different former colonies, and filled 200 metres of shelving. But it is becoming clear that much of the most damning material was probably destroyed. Officials in some colonies, such as Kenya, were told that there should be a presumption in favour of disposal of documents rather than removal to the UK – "emphasis is placed upon destruction" – and that no trace of either the documents or their incineration should remain. When documents were burned, "the waste should be reduced to ash and the ashes broken up".
Some idea of the scale of the operation and the amount of documents that were erased from history can be gleaned from a handful of instruction documents that survived the purge. In certain circumstances, colonial officials in Kenya were informed, "it is permissible, as an alternative to destruction by fire, for documents to be packed in weighted crates and dumped in very deep and current-free water at maximum practicable distance from the coast".
Photograph: The National Archives Documents that survive from Malaya suggest a far more haphazard destruction process, with relatively junior officials being permitted to decide what should be burned and what should be sent to London.
Dr Ed Hampshire, diplomatic and colonial record specialist at the National Archive, said the 1,200 files so far transferred from Hanslope Park represented "gold dust" for historians, with the occasional nugget, rather than a haul that calls for instant reinterpretation of history. However, only one sixth of the secret archive has so far been transferred. The remainder are expected to be at Kew by the end of 2013.

The City council of Nairobi

This guy @iGaddo is such a psycho! My ribs are cracking...:

Why does the Goverment play so many Games?

Government resettles first batch of

Mau forest evictees

Photo/FILE Chebugen Camp at the edge of Mau Forest where some of the people evicted from the complex are living.

By SAMUEL KOECH skkoech@ke.nationmedia.com

Posted Saturday, April 14 2012 at 22:30

IN SUMMARY



240 households given land at Chemusian Farm in Kipkabus, Eldoret as Special Programmes minister assures others will be

resettled

The Ministry of Special Programmes has finally resettled the first batch of Mau forest evictees three years

after they were flashed out of the water tower.

The 240 evictees were given alternative settlement at Chemusian Farm, Kipkabus in Eldoret East District.

Minister for Special Progammes Esther Murugi, who presided over the exercise, said that the government

would speed up the countrywide process of settling IDPs and forest evictees.

“Although ther

e have been a myriad challenges in trying to settle them, we are happy with the progress.

We are almost through with the settling of IDPs but the first batch of forest evictees has been settled

today. We are in the process of identifying chunks of land to

settle the others,” said Ms Murugi.

The minister said that identification of land has been the major impediment to the exercise. She also

added social and political challenges had led to some landless people facing hostile reception from the

host communities.

“Land owners have consistently hiked land prices therefore making it difficult to work within our budget.

Some of the displaced people also faced hostilities from a number of host communities,” she added.

5,710 households

The permanent Secretary for Special Programmes, Mr Andrew Mondoh, said the government evicted

5,710 households residing in four gazetted forests.

The PS added that it had managed to settle evictees from Chepyuk forest in Mount Elgon.

“We have

forest evictees from Embobut in Marawet, Mau, Tinderet in Trans Nzoia and Kieni Forest in

Gatundu. The Government continues to identify suitable land for resettlement with a view to ensuring

that all forest evictees have been resettled as soon as possible,” said Mr Mondoh.

The permanent secretary added that there are 2,000 internally displaced persons that are yet to be

resettled, adding that the ministry had received Sh4.4 billion and has so far used Sh3.3 billion towards

the resettlement exercise.

Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner Osman Warfa urged the local communities to interograte well and

enhance peace to spur development in the area. He cautioned politicians against inciting the local

residents warning that those who do would be dealt with.

“The local community should integrate and harmon

ise well with the evictees to ensure peace prevails at

all time. The provincial administration will deal with politicians trying to incite the local residents,” said

the PC.

The Special Programmes ministry provided more than 300 tents, beans, maize, foodstuffs and promised

to provide them with seeds and fertiliser to enable them prepare for the planting season.

Meanwhile, internally displaced persons living in Naka camp in Eldoret on Saturday held demonstrations

to protest the alleged sale of relief food by some of the officials in the camp.

The IDPs claimed that the chairman of the camp has been colluding with his officials to sell off maize,

beans and cooking oil. The IDPs intercepted a consignment of more than 100 bags of maize that was

being packaged ready for sale at Langas.

“The chairman has been using the relief foods meant for the displaced persons to enrich himself and some

official at the camp. He redirected some bags of maize and was on the process of repackaging them ready

for sale,” said Mr Bilda

d Karanja, vice chairman of the Naka camp.

The consignment was being transported to the camp to benefit more than 120 households that have been

living at the camp since the 2007/08 post-election violence.

The maize was packed in National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) bags.

“We trailed the car ferrying the bags after it changed route and we found the chairman trying to unpack

the maize ready for sale. We demand that police investigate how long the syndicate has been going on,”

said Mary Wambui an IDP putting up at the camp.

One official at the camp is said to have fled to safety after the irate group tried to rough him up. He has

also been accused of seeking sexual favours from women at the camp in exchange for relief food.

More than 600,000 people were displaced after the violence with majority of them having been resettled

after living in the camps for more than four years. Those who did not stay in the camps went to their

homes of origin while another group was settled in Uganda.

More than 1,000 people were killed in the fighting

Insatiable Greed is the Bottomline

Nepotism is the real issue, not tribalism

By GABRIEL DOLAN
Posted  Friday, December 30  2011 at  18:15

What baffles me most about reaction to remarks made by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights commissioner Hassan Omar Hassan is why he needed to spend five hours at the National Integration and Cohesion Commission explaining himself.

Surely, even a cursory glance at his commentary would reveal that he was just repeating what the NCIC themselves had exposed in their April audit on ethnic profiling in the civil service.

That research revealed that the big five — Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luhya, Kamba and Luo — occupy 70 per cent of positions in the civil service, while 20 ethnic communities hold less than one per cent.

Hassan might have been blunt in his remarks but the fact that Kikuyus hold 22.3 per cent of all civil service jobs and make up only 17 per cent of the population tells it all.

Statistics do not lie. Besides, having your own man in State House is a huge advantage, confirmed by the fact that Kalenjins hold 16.7 per cent of all civil service posts despite accounting for only 13 per cent of the population.

Considered together, both communities have around 30 per cent more positions than they should.

Yet, statistics can conceal important details. It would appear upon further scrutiny of these figures that cronyism and nepotism are even greater problems than ethnicity.

A closer look at the composition of all the top posts that Hassan raved about would show that loyalty, cronyism and blood ties were the determining factors in allocating most top positions.

The Kikuyu top jobs are not widely distributed among their community, nor indeed are the Luo jobs well dispersed among the Nyanza population.

Previous audits on the composition of 51 Kenyan envoys showed how loyalty and family were rewarded equally by both principals.

Their appointments give a whole new meaning to power sharing. Both parties are equally adept at planting their cronies and family members as ambassadors.

A closer examination also of not just the Prime Minister’s office, but every other of the 40-something ministers in this bloated cabinet would reveal that in the absence of any opposition or oversight body, every minister has put his family and buddies in top jobs.

If you doubt the extent of the problem, have a look at any Kenya Gazette of the past couple of years and get an informed view of appointments to parastatal boards, university governing councils or any one of hundreds of committees.

You will see that cousins, failed politicians and disgraced administrators reappear in obscure committees and collect hefty sitting allowances as they decide on weighty matters for which they have no aptitude or experience.

The Kikuyu may have found the most lucrative positions at the trough, but they do not have a monopoly on greedy ambition.

This coalition grudgingly agreed to sit quietly and eat together in February 2008. The two elite groups are the real beneficiaries, not the communities from where they originate.

Mr Hassan missed to say that the big issue is not tribalism but elitism, cronyism, nepotism and insatiable greed. Happy and Prosperous Year to all.

gdolan54@gmail.com

An inspirational speech to start your morning (Video)

In Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator (1940), Chaplin plays a poor Jewish barber that is mistaken for Adolf Hitler. The film ends with what many critics regard as one of the greatest speeches of all time.An inspirational speech to start your morning (Video)

Kenyans against the Vultures

Kamatusa agrees to mobilise atheletes to boycott the olympics..Limuru 3 Gema meeting final declaration- to mobilize kikuyu women to join the 'courageous' esther murugi in her nude act if Uhuru goes to Hague. This meeting was attended by religious leaders, business leaders, youth represenatives, cult leaders, women leaders... No education, no health, no cost of living, no job creation, no nothing kenyan discussed. When will it be about us..till when will we allow us to be mislead. One by one kenyans will open their eyes and they will see that for 49years after independence it hasnt been about them, it has all been about the vultures who raid our taxes and savings through outrageous salaries, through companies that do not exist e.g trust bank, anglo leasing etc.

Malcolm X in Los Angeles (May 5, 1962)

Profit Vs Morality

“When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.”
― Shirley Chisholm

This can also be illustrated by Ngugis observation of the colonial and slavery eras of the blackman history. " they have seen the bowels of pregnant women ripped open, they have witnessed the artistic finese of the colonial mercenary hewing the bodies of struggling peasants and workers as carcasses fit for the god of profit" (from  Ngugi wa Thiong'o his book Writers in Politics)

Capitalism and Neo colonialism in africa

It was Africa that fed capitalism from its beginnings in slavery, through the colonial phase to the current phase of neo colonilalism with all the intracate tubes leading from africa to the metropolis of  the western world. Ngugi wa Thiongo in his book Writers in politics

Socrates

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have... Socrates

Capitalist greed

Greed is a virtue in a capitalistic/imperialist society more often than not refered as smartness. The very people who run the system agree with . This is Bitange Ndemo a PS in the current kenyan goverment admitting him being part of the ruling class are the problem, resulting from greed and impunity. "

Even in the wake of such reality, Information permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo has blamed greed driven by capitalism for the poor management of disasters in slums in the recent past.

According to Dr Ndemo, if Kenya’s urban area policies were executed to the letter, with less of egotistic politics and impunity, there would be better disaster management especially in slum areas.

The selfishness exhibited by some politicians is to blame, says Dr Ndemo.

Sadly slum residents, because they have nowhere to go, easily buy the politicians’ logic and end up as victims despite warnings of danger posed by their environment.

So, what is the way out of this situation?

Dr Ndemo says the government should be firm when acting in the interest of the citizens because sometimes impunity in Kenya is perpetuated under the guise of democracy.

Though Dr Ndemo accepts that slums may not be eradicated any time soon, he urges the government of the day to provide better living conditions for slum residents.

For me the politicians and their lietnants in the name of PSs like Ndemo who continue fooling their naive/peasnat followers that they are doing something like slum upgrading but reaaly if the people are not in control of the economic system where they decide what their taxes will do, where a goverment provides them with incetives to grow themselves. It doesnt matter how many highrises they construct the slums will be here with us for along time. Who awards the contacts for the high rises, who supplies material for construction, who supervises the construction. whoever does this and am sure is not a slum dweller benefits from all these so called slum upgrading projects and that means more misery for the slum dweller who is inhumanly displaced from their houses to pave for these concrete jungles. My question is whose interest does Ndemo have in serving in impunity filled, greed thriving egoistic goverment? (italics bloggers own comments)

for the full article: http://www.trinityafer.com/en/index.php/news/7181-greed-and-bad-politics-encourage-urban-slums-kenya

Small scale farmers

For two weeks i have been trying to get ferlizer from the Nakuru(Kenya) NCPB Depo without success. But finally a friend called me and gave me a bag to start planting as i await my bag to be processed. Rumours among frustrated farmers who have been camping at the yard for over two weeks told me that a nominated MP from Rift Valley allied to ODM has been allocated  200 thousand bags allegendly to woo voters. But what is striking is the resilience of small scale farmers and especially those from Njoro who ishared a day with during this planting season. and though they have not stolen from anybody there the one's suffering from the MPs actions of impunity and forced to buy an expensive brand from Mea Ltd, another member of fertilzer cartel in Kenya  which distributes at almost double the amount a bag costs at an NCPB depo. Which brings me to the question why Kenyans get emotional with their so called leaders who dont reciprocate these emotions.For am planning to get  a nice nyahunyo and wait at the parliament gate and go the ghetto radio way nyahunyo nyahu nyahu, because i dont think i placard is enough.