Protests erupted in Kenya’s Naivasha area as tensions sparked by the killing of a black trespasser on the land of Thomas Cholmondeley, scion of one of wealthiest white farming families in East Africa, burst into the open.
The demonstrations followed allegations by the family of the dead man, Robert Njoya, that the two had been on first-name terms and that the victim was shot from behind.
This is the second time in just over a year that Cholmondeley, an old Etonian, has been accused of killing a black man. He is heir to a vast estate owned by his 77-year-old father, Lord Delamere, and his actions have exposed deep hostilities beneath the beauty of Kenya’s Rift Valley.
Local people told The Observer of a long-running catalogue of incidents between Cholmondeley (46) and people living around his family’s 65 000-acre farm. They allege that women collecting firewood who stray on to Delamere land are regularly chased off with bull whips and that Cholmondeley insists on dealing personally with any report of trespass.
In one alleged incident, which The Observer was unable to verify independently, farmer David Waweru claimed his wife was dive-bombed and covered with insecticide on Cholmondeley’s estate by a crop-spraying plane.
”He is hated around here. He is a very arrogant man. Perhaps he has a problem with poachers, but the poachers are not from our villages, they are from outside,” said Waweru.
The latest killing came one week short of a year since a murder charge against Cholmondeley was controversially dropped. Then he shot dead an undercover game warden he said he had mistaken for a poacher. The case caused rioting in the capital, Nairobi, over what was seen as an example of a racially biased justice system in a country haunted by its colonial past.
This weekend a succinct headline in Nairobi’s daily tabloid newspaper the Standard said: ”Oh no, not again!”
Cholmondeley is in jail facing a possible murder charge and, if he is convicted, could face the death penalty.
Njoya, a 37-year-old stonemason and farmer, was shot from behind, according to his brother, last Wednesday evening. He was with a group of fellow farmers about a kilometre inside the Soysambu ranch, a vast lush green farm in the valley more than an hour’s drive from Nairobi.
A police report says the weapon used was a World War II Enfield rifle and it was fired by Cholmondeley. If so, it is not clear why he had a weapon. After the last shooting his firearms licence was revoked and three weapons were seized. His security staff, however, were allowed to continue carrying guns in an area that has seen a number of murders of wealthy white Africans in recent years.
With his watery blue eyes and close-clipped blond hair, the Kenyan-born Cholmondeley looks every inch the British nobleman. His family have been in Kenya for generations. His grandfather, the fourth Lord Delamere, used to shoot out the light bulbs at Nairobi’s five-star Norfolk hotel for fun. Now a more serious allegation of ”trigger happiness” is levelled against his descendant.
The MP for the region, William ole Ntimama, said Cholmondeley ”treated Kenyans with contempt” — a statement as revealing in its exclusion of the white man’s birthright as a Kenyan as it was condemnatory.
This killing has reignited a fierce debate over Cholmondeley’s earlier acquittal. The Kenya Human Rights Commission called him ”trigger happy” and said it regretted last year’s decision by the attorney general to terminate that case. Kenya’s section of the International Commission of Jurists said justice must be seen to be done this time.
The very right of the accused man’s family to be in the country is hotly contested. Kenyans are awaiting a delayed report by a government committee investigating the legality of ”white-settler” ranches. Critics claim this estate and the land around it belongs to the Masai tribe — which wants back the tens of thousands of acres seized by colonialists.
People from Njoya’s home town blocked the main Nairobi highway for three hours on Friday, waving placards and shouting for justice against the ”white settler” while the dead man’s family have decided to postpone his burial as a protest. They fear that Cholmondeley will go free again.
Tensions first erupted in April last year when Cholmondeley admitted shooting Samson ole Sisana, a wildlife officer investigating illicit game meat sales. Cholmondeley was held for a month before a murder charge was dropped.
Last week Cholmondeley was arrested only hours after Njoya bled to death on his way to hospital, leaving a widow and four children aged between two and nine.
Police say Cholmondeley told them he had been walking with a friend when they found five poachers carrying machetes, sticks and a dead impala. He challenged them and they set their dogs on him. He opened fire intending to shoot the two dogs. Friends of Cholmondeley claim Njoya was hiding behind a bush and Cholmondeley man did not see him.
Njoya’s brother, Joel Movangi, who identified the body, told The Observer he was shot from behind. ”There was not a scratch on the front of his body,” said Movangi. ”My brother had been working on his farm all day when he and three friends, who are also farmers, went to chase off the wild animals who come to eat their crops. They were not poaching.”
Cholmondeley had previously refused a request from Njoya to help keep wild animals away. ”He is a very arrogant man,” Movangi said. ”We will not accept a whitewash, we will not bury my brother until we see justice is being done.”
Police confirmed that the animals’ bodies were found at the scene. ”We will treat the shooting as murder,” said a spokesperson, adding that Cholmondeley was expected to be moved to regional headquarters for his own protection. — Guardian Unlimited Â