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Keeping up the pressure:
Davinder Lamba at a recent protest meeting in
Nairobi. Photo © D. Lamba.
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In Kenya all land is either owned by individuals,
or held in trust. The government holds public land
in trust for all the people and local authorities
hold Trust Land in trust for people resident in the
area. There is some law to ensure that public land
held in trust is not misallocated to individuals.
But gross abuse of public trust and of the law was
rampant under the former government. This resulted
in widespread land grabbing and related corruption.
The poor were badly affected. So were the wetlands,
coastal tracts, forest lands, and urban open spaces.
In 1995, Mazingira Institute convened the Habitat
Task Force (HTF) under the National Council of NGOs
to advocate for housing and land rights and to oppose
forced evictions. The institute, in collaboration
with HTF and the Human and Legal Rights NGOs, initiated
a campaign of civic education and public awareness,
create a database, and launch advocacy, civic action,
legal aid and community organizing.
A national public forum established the Operation
Firimbi Action Network comprising local chapters.
Kenyans were encouraged to blow the whistle on land
grabbing and the land grabbers, including corrupt
public officials and politicians, exercising authority
and control for personal economic and political gain.
They were encouraged to use the power of organization
for maximum effectiveness and to re-assert the rule
of law, respect for human rights, and commitment to
just governance for the management of public land
and its protection.
From the outset, the campaign ran into problems associated
with the hostile political environment prevailing
at the time and a lack of financial resources.
The strategy deployed to deal with the hostile political
environment was to implement the campaign under an
umbrella NGO organizational framework to protect individuals
and organizations from attack, intimidation, victimisation,
and to ward off deregistration by the authorities
of the organizations involved.
The public response after a media campaign was overwhelming
and resulted in 375 cases of land grabbing being reported.
Although such gatherings were often banned, the public
forum attracted people countrywide.
The fact that Kenyans are blowing the whistle everywhere
in the country on land grabbing and grabbers, including
the corrupt public officials and politicians involved,
is an achievement which can be attributed to Operation
Firimbi Campaign.
The objective of stimulating public awareness of the
blatant illegality of public land grabbing and to
slow it down was achieved. The database on land grabbing
today is the only source of documentation available
to the public and over 375 case files are accessible.
Operation Firimbi Action Network now has 167
local chapters, and it is growing. There is also progress
reasserting the rule of law.
Dependence on land is fundamental to socio-economic
wellbeing in a country like Kenya where social welfare
is very low. The wealth and poverty of the nation
is reflected in the inequitable distribution of land.
It is further aggravated by illegal misappropriation,
and related destruction of natural resources. Forced
evictions of the poor often results from misallocation
of public land they live on.
On the environmental front, the campaign has exposed
how land grabbing affects wetlands, forest, coastal
lands, and urban open spaces. Nairobi's Karura Forest
adjoining the UN Complex, is the best known case,
but by no means the only one. It was direct action
and protest by groups like the Greenbelt Movement,
Operation Firimbi, religious communities, parliamentarians,
and others, which exposed misappropriation, destruction
of the natural environment and stopped the real estate
development.
Culturally, the campaign recognizes that the core
of African philosophy, and most traditional thinking,
rests upon consensus, and in many cases, it still
does. After coming together to consider all the options
around a particular problem, a consensus is allowed
to emerge about the best way forward in the interests
of the community. This is still common experience
in many small communities. Operation Firimbi Action
Network uses this cultural strength in building
local chapters.
Lessons drawn from the campaign show that it is an
ongoing process, akin to germinating a seed, and transplanting
and nurturing it to maturity.
The campaign is pressuring the government to deliver
its promise of addressing the past evils of plunder
of public land and corruption by putting in place
mechanisms and measures for restoration and recovery.
Operation Firimbi received international
acclaim when it was awarded the 1999 UN-HABITAT Scroll
of Honour award for promoting secure tenure and transparent
land allocation. The award is
presented every year by UN-HABITAT, on World Habitat
Day, to organizations or individuals for their outstanding
contributions to human settlements.
Davinder Lamba, is Coordinator of Operation Firimbi.
He was appointed to the Presidential Commission of
Inquiry into the Illegal and Irregular Allocation
of Public Land, established in July 2003. This article
is excerpted with the kind permission of the Settlements
Information Network Africa (SINA) Newsletter (no.
56, March 2003).
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