| The East African |

Letter
Thursday, February 26, 2004 

Where will slum-dwellers go?

The sight of bulldozers destroying mansions on road reserves elicited few cries of condemnation or sympathy. We all became patriotic overnight as we sounded off on public interest, adding that it was pay back time for looters. The whole of civil society gave its blessings to evict, demolish and reclaim Government roads, railways, electricity pylons, and so on. In our excitement, we forgot that the next round of evictions might target the poor: landless people in the rural areas and slum-dwellers in urban centres. 

Asking questions about their future seemed to be spoiling the spectacle acted out on our TV sets daily. Human rights groups were happy to be photographed with the bulldozers, naively unaware that their unreserved support for demolitions would be used as the backdrop for slum clearance in Kibera and Kaloleni.

Should the demolition of Kibera proceed as planned, in the next few weeks, we are liable to have a humanitarian disaster on our hands that might make the ethnic clashes of a decade ago pale in comparison. 

The targeted population in Kibera is 60,000 and irregular evictions put their livelihoods at risk and considerably increases the likelihood of violence in the slums and adjoining areas. Structure owners will inevitably resist with force. 

The Government has a right to repossess and protect public property. But it also has a moral duty to protect the most vulnerable of its citizens. 

Kibera is the largest single slum in the whole world. Narc did inherit a legacy of squalor and endemic poverty in the slums. But the vote they received from the millions of Kenyans was a mandate to treat its people with dignity and respect. 

Arbitrary and forced evictions of the poor are both immoral and illegal. If the Government needs to repossess its land as a matter of urgency, then it has a moral duty to provide resettlement for the evicted. 

Slums may be an eyesore, but they are a reality that is not of the poor’s making. They are a constant reminder of how the country degenerated in the past decades. A new Government cannot wipe the poor out with bulldozers. It needs to restore their dignity and treat them with respect.

That can begin by giving adequate notice, offering alternative settlements, and consulting with the residents. The world is watching Narc’s bulldozers. How it handles the informal slum-dwellers will show how committed it really is to democratic values, human rights and service to the poor.

Fr GABRIEL DOLAN,
Kitale.