The grave situation facing Kenya's internally displaced persons (IDPs) was brought to the fore yesterday. The IDP situation was as a result of ethnic cleansing operations by certain tribes led by their leaders in Kenya immediately after the announcement of the winner in hotly contested and controversial presidential elections in December 2007.
Yesterday some of the IDPs who are yet to be resettled by the government, despite promises to do so, arrived in Nairobi, the country's capital city, to seek audience with President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister, Raila Odinga. They had travelled for more than 500 kilometers to get to the city, from Eldoret, Trans Nzoia and elsewhere. They wanted to be told categorically about the plans to resettle them, after almost a year in dilapidated refugee camps. The group was composed of mainly elderly women and children. This was happening as the so called leaders zoomed nearby in their 4x4 fuel guzzlers, peering at them in amusement from behind their dark-tinted car windows.
The result? As they confidently marched in the city, they were met by heavily-armed anti-riot police contingents who dispersed them by shooting rubber bullets in the air and lobbing tear-gas canisters at them. That was the end of their quest to meet the two gentlemen.
That no government functionary was willing to listen to them is an indication that our leaders are insensitive to the cause of the normal mwananchi. The leaders seem to have forgotten what caused the internal displacements once they got into positions of power. Furthermore the same IDPs were the ones who voted one way or the other for the same leaders.
The internal refugees are not in a position to fend for themselves, without urgent government intervention, and a solution should be implemented as soon as possible to minimise their suffering. At worst, the coalition government should give itself until the end of this year to resolve this issue, once and for all.
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