MAU NAROK, KENYA – As slain land rights activist Moses Mpoe was laid to rest on Dec. 11, thousands of community members gathered to mourn and remember him.
During the funeral, murmurs circulated suggesting that senior government officials and their families were responsible for Mpoe’s assassination, as Mpoe played a major role in a court case that aimed to return more than 30,000 acres of land in the area known as Mau Narok to the Maasai community, a semi-nomadic people indigenous to East Africa who are known for their distinctive dress and customs. The land, originally taken from the Maasai people by British colonial authorities in the early 20th century, was later given to high-ranking politicians during the independence proceedings of the 1960s. In the midst of a pending court case and a government announcement that it would begin resettling internally displaced people, IDPs, in the disputed acres of Mau Narok, tensions escalated in the last months of 2010.
Mpoe, the most visible and vocal spokesman for Maasai land rights in Mau Narok, began leading a series of non-violent protests after the government began forcibly removing the Maasai people from Mau Narok in order to make room for IDPs on Nov. 1.
After a month of escalated tensions, a gunman on a motorcycle shot Mpoe at point-blank range as he sat in a traffic jam just a few miles from his home on Dec. 3. Mpoe died at the scene, leaving behind two widows and 18 children, 11 of whom are under 12. Six of his children are in secondary school, and the eldest attends Egerton University. Mpoe also left behind a legacy of land rights protests and an escalating campaign to fight for the rights of the Maasai people in Kenya’s Rift Valley.
Only a week after his funeral, the rumors proved to be true. David Njuno Mbiyu , the son of late Cabinet Minister Mbiyu Koinange, was arrested for the murders of Mpoe and Parsaaiyia Ole Kitu, known as Punyua, who was travelling with Mpoe at the time of the shooting. Mbiyu has been charged with two counts of murder, but has so far denied his role in the killings.
The link between Mbiyu and Mpoe is both direct and complex. The late Mpoe was the farm manager of the 4,900-acre Muthera Farm, owned by Mbiyu’s family and located in the disputed area of Mau Narok. Mpoe has openly challenged the legitimacy of Mbiyu’s family’s ownership of the Koinange estate and went so far as to name them in a court case pending in Kenya’s Superior court. The history of the disputed land, including the Muthera Farm, dates back more than a century. And Mpoe was at the forefront of the fight to give the land back to the Maasai people.
To date, Mbiyu and three associates have been arrested in connection with Mpoe’s murder. Last week, Nakuru District High Court Judge William Ouko denied a request by the widow of the late cabinet minister to bar police from arresting her in conjunction with the murder. Ouko rejected her unusual request and told police that if there is evidence linking her to the murder, they are free to arrest her.
When The Press Institute visited Mau Narok just two weeks after the murders, interviews with Mpoe’s friends and family revealed the intense hostilities he faced in his efforts to have land returned to the Maasai people. Mpoe’s brothers say he was the subject of frequent death threats and intimidation from local authorities and politically connected families.
Josephat Mpoe, the youngest brother of the deceased, says Mpoe received multiple death threats in connection with his land activism just days before his murder. He says the family filed complaints with local police, but no action was taken despite the increasingly visible role Mpoe played as the face of land rights in Mau Narok.
“The afternoon of Dec. 3, 2010, was sunny and beautiful,” Mpoe says of the last time he saw his brother alive. “I was with my two brothers in Mau Narok [until] about 5:30 in the evening. We said our goodbyes and Moses and Punyua got into the Ford Ranger, headed for Nakuru.”
Mpoe says he had plans to meet his brother again the following day when he returned from Nakuru, just an hour up the road.
“A few hours later, I got news from people that Moses and Punyua were dead,” he says. “I could not believe my ears. I rushed to the scene to see whether what I was being told was true or a bad joke. True to their words, Moses was killed in cold blood.”
According to one person who witnessed the shooting but requested anonymity, “The gunman sprayed the vehicle with bullets. After making sure Moses was dead, he jumped onto the motorcycle and sped off.”
The Fight Continues Without Mpoe
In Mau Narok, community leaders say they will continue Mpoe’s fight. In the wake of his death, the community of protesters appears invigorated and more determined to contest government ownership of all 30,000 acres of land. But particular attention is being paid to a 2,400-acre parcel in Mau Narok, which the government says it owns. Since Nov. 1, Maasai people have been forcibly evicted to make room for 915 IDPs from around the country on the disputed land.
The fight over this land has been more than 100 years in the making. Before his death, Mpoe and other local community activists received renewed hope for their land rights claims when the new constitution was approved last August. The constitution includes new laws related to land ownership and historic rights, but Odenda Lumumba of the Kenya Land Alliance says talk of this section of the new constitution was so politicized leading up to the vote last year that the details of the land rights clauses still remain largely misunderstood.
But what is well understood here is the complicated history of the land at Mau Narok. Residents here, young and old, are well-versed on this history of how they say they lost their land. In short, the Maasai say their land was taken from them during colonial rule in the early 20th century. When Kenya gained independence, the fertile land was handed out to friends and political allies of the new president, Jomo Kenyatta. Although many say that 99-year lease has expired, members of the government say the lease is, in fact, a 999-year lease that is no where near expired. But last year, as Kenyans went to the polls to affirm a new constitution, Mpoe and dozens of other members of the Maasai community took their case to the courts in hopes of having their land returned to them. Ever since the case was filed in court, the decades-long fight has gained momentum. In the midst of that momentum, Mpoe solidified his role as leader.
A Convoluted History Unravels, a Case Goes to Court
In December 2009, almost one year to the day before Mpoe was assassinated, 52 people representing the Maasai community filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, in an attempt to have more than 30,000 acres of land returned to them.
While land rights issues are common in Kenya, the plight of the Maasai in Mau Narok has become a political drama complete with corruption, intrigue and, now, murder.
Two lawyers from a reputable firm are arguing the Maasai’s case in Superior Court, while the defendants have hired more than a dozen lawyers to represent the interests of the politicians and their families who have occupied and profited from the land since the 1970s. Defense lawyers did not return requests for comment. The family of Mbiyu Koinange is among the families represented in the case, since Koinange, like many other high-ranking politicians of the day, was given land in the area after colonial rule ended in return for political loyalty.
Although the drama surrounding the land at Mau Narok has been going on for more than a century, it was the 100-year mark observed in December 2010 that is believed to be the source of the increased tension and eventual violence against activist Mpoe.
According to the Maasai Community Partnership Project, MCPP, the land at Mau Narok was promised to the Maasai elders by the British government in the 1911 Agreement under the term of a 99-year lease. At independence in 1963, the Maasai expected their land returned to them. Instead, community leaders say their land was then allocated to friends and political allies of Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president after independence.
For more than 30 years, thousands of Maasai people lived on the borders of the disputed land at Mau Narok, while politicians built gates and hired guards to protect the land that many of them received without so much as a title transfer, according to the MCPP.
But things began to change in 2000. A young community leader named Moses Mpoe began to openly challenge the legitimacy of ownership of many farms in the area, including the one where he worked, owned by Mbiyu. Mpoe launched what locals have called a fearless land rights campaign, despite knowingly going up against powerful political families.
After nearly a decade, Mpoe and his followers were overjoyed when their case was filed with the Superior Court last year. But just one week before closing arguments were to be heard this year, the government began forcibly evicting Maasai people from areas in Mau Narok in order to make room for IDPs from other parts of Kenya. (See a follow up story on the IDP situation on the Newswire tomorrow.)
Throughout the month of November, the situation in Mau Narok began to decline. The government continued to advance plans to resettle IDPs and issued a general arrest warrant for all Maasai people who were occupying the land.
On Dec. 2, just one day before Mpoe was gunned down, more than 1,000 Maasai people traveled to Nairobi for the court hearing. The case was gaining momentum as eight Maasai members of Parliament spoke out in favor of the case. A final ruling in the case is pending.
Resettlement IDPs Ignites New Fight
Although many members of the current government refused to go on record for this article, there are a handful of people in office today who support the Maasai efforts in Mau Narok. William Ole Ntimama, minister of heritage, describes himself as “a self-styled champion of Maasai rights.” Ntimama began agitating for the return of community lands in the early 1990s.
“There is a lot of idle land in this country,” Ntimama says. “Why couldn’t the government buy it, or [apply] the force it’s using against the community to take the IDPs back to where they came from?”
Wilson Murguyia, a community leader from Narok North, says any occupation of this land is unlawful, as the British agreed to a 99-year lease, a common belief among the Maasai here. But according to Amos Kimunya, Kenya’s lands minister, the lease was for 999 years, not 99 years.
Murguyia says that many foreign farmers began selling their land in 2004. Stephen Rose, a White farmer who long resided in the area, is said to have sold his 2,400-acre farm to the government before relocating to his native South Africa because he knew his 99-year lease had expired, Murguyia says. That 2,400-acre plot has become the source of much contention here, as more than 900 IDPs may soon move in.
The he-said, she-said of the land dispute here is common. What is new is the vigor with which the people here say they will fight for their land.
“The Maasai cannot be intimidated or silenced by the government by their killing or facilitating the deaths of our brothers, Mpoe and Punyua,” Murguyia says. “We have resolved to fight this to the bitter end. Maasai people will not be cowed. We will fight for the restoration of the area to the community’s ownership.”
In the weeks since Mpoe’s death, three more members of Parliament have openly voiced their opposition to the resettlement of IDPs in Mau Narok.
Defence assistant minister Joseph Nkaissery and two members of Parliament, Nkoidila ole Lankas and Gideon Konchellah, publicly said last week that the government should resettle the IDPs elsewhere.
Augustine Masinde, director of physical planning in the Ministry of Land, says there are 6,802 IDPs who are in need of resettlement. He says the government will need more than 20,000 acres of land to resettle the whole population of IDPs, so the 2,400 acres in Mau Narok account for a significant portion of what is needed.
For Josephat Mpoe, resettling IDPs by evicting Maasai is insulting. He says there are more than 4,000 landless Maasai in the Narok district.
“The government must understand that we have landless people among the Maasai,” Mpoe says. “We need to secure the future of our children so that they do not remain landless or without cattle. The government should also be reminded that the land they want to resettle IDPs on is the subject of a court case we have filed.”
The court case and battle over Mau Narok has attracted the attention of a group of scholars who published a report titled, “Mau Narok: A Century of Maasai Land Rights Denied,” in May 2010. The research in the report largely favors the facts put forward by the Maasai people.
Maasai elder Tuireren Ole Tikani says that, in addition to filing for legal proceedings to recover its land, the community has also notified the International Court of Justice and the African Court on Human Rights. He says they hope to present a “water-tight case” there as well.
Thomas Lentangule, the Maasai’s lawyer in the case pending in Superior Court, says he is hopeful that the thousands of contested acres of land in Mau Narok will soon be returned to the Maasai. Lentangule says because one of the contested properties named in the suit is the Koinange estate, home to Mbiyu, who is charged with Mpoe’s murder, the details of the long land dispute will likely become key evidence in Mbiyu’s trial, which is scheduled to be heard in June.
Mbiyu has been remanded to Nakuru prison until the trial.