Why villagers oppose rice project

Coalition Constitution Reform wrote:

Publication Date: 3/14/2007
We are alarmed at a story in the Nation of February 27, titled: ‘Yala Swamp firm to open new rice mill’.

We in Budalang’i constituency in Busia District, join our counterparts in Kadenge Sub-location of Siaya to reject Dominion Company’s plans to remove villagers from their ancestral land to create room for the project.

As many are aware, on November 15, 2006, MPs debated and passed a Motion in Parliament tabled by Nominated MP Peter Oloo Aringo.

We, the Abanyala aware of the value of courage, must stand up and say a big NO to the MPs who supported Dominion’s expansion project into the Yala Swamp in Busia.

We don’t want to be caught in a similar situation to that which has afflicted our neighbours in Siaya District. The residents within and bordering the one-third of Yala Swamp in Budalang’I, with a population of 19,239 know that they stand to lose if it is leased for 25 years to a private foreign investor.

We are not in Yala Swamp by choice. We have more than 45 villages, with homes, schools, health and shopping centres.

We suspect that deals may have been cut in this plan to alienate our land. As much as we want the promotion of farming by irrigation and the expansion of commercial farming, we are opposed to an investor who does not apply community-driven approach.

The people of Budalang’i prefer a project which aims at ending the perennial flooding and supports community-based projects with direct benefits to the locals. Success comes from not giving up on the journey.

Plans are underway to lobby like-minded people to support a peaceful demonstration to be held on March 20, as a sign of solidarity to resist forceful eviction from Yala Swamp.

After extensive soul-searching and consultations in the area, our solemn plea to our local leaders and to President Kibaki is to reject the plan for the expansion of the Yala Swamp project by the American company. This is the cry of the majority, who do not see how this project is going to benefit them.

LINUS OUMA OGONGO,
Budalang’i.

CCR-Kenya brings together organizations and individuals who believe that for Kenya to truly attain genuine democratic liberation, comprehensive constitutional reforms must be completed before the 2007 general elections. The coalition works to raise awareness to bring pressure on the ruling class to allow Kenyans to reform the constitution before another election. To read the CCR'-Kenyas Roadmap for Constitutional Reforms Before 2007 Elections, please click:
http://www.madaraka-kenya.org/
Roadmap%20for%20constitutional%20reform%20before%202007%20
elections.pdf

The struggle henceforth, is between "those who, satisfied with today, would make an effort to delay the future as much as possible, to put up obstacles against any substantive change, and those who, exploited today, aspire to a new reality."Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Heart, (1997), (p53).