No Quick Fix for What Still Ails Kenya

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Both men lived for years in a slum in the central Kenyan town of Limuru, where Karanja, who is 58, worked as a driver and Machiria worked odd jobs. In the 1980s, they joined a cooperative and managed to buy a few acres in the lush and cool central highlands.

But the land soon became the object of a dispute between the cooperative and a wealthy adjacent landowner, who claimed the property as his own.

Instead of siding with the small farmers, the Moi government told Machiria, Karanja and the others that they could settle on several dry acres at Oljorai. Instead of titles, they received so-called allotment letters, which have expired.

"If you have nothing, you accept anything," Machiria said.

Oljorai had by then become government land intended for use in resettlement programs to help poor farmers.

But when Machiria and Karanja arrived in 1988, just about the only person with land there was Moi's son and a handful of people who had worked for the Block family.

Piece by piece, the two men transported their lives to Oljorai. They trucked in the timbers and metal sheets for their homes, and Machiria built a water tank to irrigate the dry fields.

Karanja planted a small grove of orange and lemon trees. He sank his life's savings into a generator and an old truck engine he modified to run a mill. He built a wooden gazebo where he and his neighbors, including some who eventually attacked him, often sipped tea on hot afternoons.

"I am feeling very bad in my brain when I remember it," Karanja said. "Even the birds, they were building houses in my trees. That was my happiness."

'Kikuyus Must Go'

Over two decades, the government settled thousands of people at Oljorai. Some were former employees of Moi's; others came for reasons similar to Karanja's and Machiria's. Few have any sort of legal title, meaning they could be swept away again at any time.

Kaitany, the Kalenjin cattle keeper, said he arrived after Moi's government evicted him and his neighbors from better land elsewhere in the Rift Valley. They were given five acres each at Oljorai.

Then last year, Kaitany said, it began to look as if they might all be evicted again.