The politics of IDPs

The Institution of Surveyors of Kenya (ISK) says the resettlement of Kenyans displaced during the post election violence should be done professionally to avoid leaving loopholes that might expose a community to vulnerability of attack. ISK chairman Mwenda Makathimo spoke as the government and Parliament discussed the way forward to solving the issue of the displaced.
Makathimo said the displaced were traumatised and should not be made to return to the same farms where they saw violence taking place.

Instead, the government should resettle them elsewhere. Said he: “They should be settled in a secluded zone with a buffer. The security should be coordinated to guarantee security from attackers until the communities are able to cultivate their cohesiveness over several generations”.
“Apart from security, the people would be more organised to carry out mechanised farming. The provision of other social amenities would also be easily coordinated from the government and other service providers”, he added.

An estimated 350,000 Kenyans were displaced during the post-election violence, mainly in the Rift Valley. Political and religious leaders have called on Parliament to address the issues of historical land injustice in the Rift Valley so as to create harmony in the communities living in the area, with some criticizing the way the government has been resettling the IDPs. A prominent clergyman cum civil rights activist Rev Dr Timothy Njoya said the government should show more human face to the repatriation of internally displaced persons (IDPs). “The use of army lorries was not humane as it portrayed “the application of force” by the authority. The government should have held intense consultations between the local people and the people who had been displaced during the violence so as to create an environment of reconciliation that would lead to a harmonious co-existence.”

Njoya, who was accompanied by a prominent women rights advocate Njoki Ndung’u, said the government should give a one-month grace period for people to return what they had stolen from the aggrieved parties. “I ask you to reconcile and to forgive one another,” said the clergy.
Njoki asked the community not to be fighting when controversial issues touching on political line arise because, by so doing they will only be jeopardizing themselves as ordinary citizens.
Using the popular example of elections was ‘stolen’ as having been the one which triggered violence, Njoki said “thieves are not here… they are in Nairobi and we will pursue them from there.” Many of the IDPs want compensation before they are asked to return to their farms or businesses.

On the other hand the government says it is determined to help in the resettlement of the displaced with even promises of seed money to start life afresh. President Mwai Kibaki in May led a fundraising as part of getting the money required for the resettlement of the refugees, some of whom fled to the neighbouring Uganda.

Meanwhile as normalcy limps back to the country, hope is in the horizon for Kenya’s most earning economic sector – tourism. That notwithstanding, the newly re-appointed chairman of the Kenya Tourist Board, Jake Grieves-Cook says industry players have to move pretty fast to compensate for the lost business. Cook said the industry is pleased that the announcement of the new coalition Cabinet happened in April as the 200 international journalists invited into the country to sell Kenya as a tourist destination, were in country.

He said as the journalists left the country, they would go to market Kenya with the assurance that Kenya has resolved the contentious issue of the Cabinet line up, whose stalemate was likely to polarise the country, create tension and scare and affect the tourism industry. Grieves Cook said the journalists drawn from major countries of the world were invited because the government and the private sector wanted the world to know the reality of the situation on the ground. The journalists were drawn from North America, US, UK, Italy, Germany and other European countries, Japan, China, Spain, among others. “The journalists were here at the invitation of the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, the Kenya Tourist Board and the private sector. We wanted them to see the conditions experienced by tourists for themselves. We wanted them to observe the situation on the ground as they see the diversity of attraction”, Grives-Cook stated, adding:
“The sector may not celebrate as yet. We need to take an extra mile to strategise on how to market the Kenyan tourism sites. We have already lost the January-March high season and a lot of bookings for July-December (another high season) have been cancelled”.

He noted that after reaping over Sh60bn last year, tourism sector was optimistic of breaking the record this year. “We are now targeting to get what we got last year, as post-election violence spoiled the broth. We are going to work hard to convince those who cancelled bookings between July-December (high season) that things are now back to normal.” Grieves-Cook said the journalists visited Samburu, Maasai Mara, Lamu, Lake Victoria, among other sites of attraction.

The delay by President Kibaki and Raila Odinga in naming the new Cabinet line up was sending the wrong signals to an already fragile tourism sector. A director of a tour and travel firm said if the two did not resolve the stalemate soon, it could have lead to another negative publicity for our country and lead to potential tourists starting to cast doubt about our country’s stability.