By Ben Ole Koissaba
July 26, 2013 was a gloomy day for the Maasai community who live in Narasha in Naivasha
By Rapaine Ole Koissaba Ben
National elections were held in Kenya on March 4th putting into place a new biometric voter registration technology, aiming to prevent falsification of ballots. The country's last election saw falsification of voter registration that led to 1.2 million votes cast by people actually deceased. The technology, which uses photographs and fingerprinting to identify voters, was created and sold to Kenya by the Canadian government for a total cost of US $7.2 million.
The grassroots parliamentary campaign for Maasai land and human rights activist, Meitamei Olol Dapash, continues to thrive and grow throughout Maasailand, Kenya, but needs help to see victory in the polls on March 4th! Meitamei is the founder and Director of the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition since 1987 and leader of the suit for the return of 30,000 acres of ancestral land at Mau Narok to the Maasai community, due to be heard in Kenyan court next month.
In a major step for Samburu communities battling for their land rights in Laikipia, Kenya, a judge handling the case was found unfit to continue serving in the judiciary after the community filed an application for his recusal. He was sent home the last week of 2012.
The community accused the judge of the following counts of bias:
On June 12th through 14th, a lawsuit brought by the Samburu Indigenous People of Kenya against the US NGO African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and the Kenya government institution, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), has a hearing at the high court in Nyeri, Kenya.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
