August 28, 2004

Over the last three weeks the communities of Laikipia, Narok and Samburu have challenged the 99 year leases of their land to ranchers at the expiry of these leases this year. The state on its part has clamped down on members of the Maasai communities for asking this hard question, arrested and

charged them in courts of law. The government has even clarified that the leases were 999 years as opposed to 99.

Land is at the heart of human progress and development, it carries with it an emotional charge and it is on land that all other progress stems. Within our social and political system the blot of historical injustice on land distribution, use and tenure is a national catastrophe waiting to happen. The Coast in particular suffers a land crisis that is unparalleled by any.

out of time

It is upon this background that Ujamaa Center launches the Coast Social Forum whose focus will be to help build the social and community capital that can institute organised resistance to violations and grave injustices that are committed against the people of Kenya. This forum will bring voices of the microsphere to that policy table and build capacity of the poor to solve national problems.

Land redistribution, access to forestland, the sea and to mineral resources are the objects of this forum. A new constitution that guarantees this possibility has been made but sections of the government have blocked its implementations. These will be central concerns of the forum in its long-term campaign that we launch today named "It is Time"

We wish to ask all stakeholders to join the people in proclaiming this aspiration and taking on our own destiny.