Kenya to Drill for Oil in Samburu Territory

As we’ve been reporting over the past several months, since February there have been ongoing government assaults on the Samburu people and allied tribes by the Kenyan government, with many people killed and almost all Samburu cattle confiscated.

The government claims that the operations were in response to several cattle rustling incidents immediately before the assaults, but papers provided by a military informant indicate that the attacks had been planned by the government for more than a year in advance and had the purpose of driving the Samburu out of their territories.

Now a report in Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper suggests a possible underlying motivation. The October 12 edition of the paper reports that the Kenyan government has issued an oil exploration lease to a Chinese firm that will begin drilling for oil in Isiolo, the epicenter of all the violence against the Samburu, over the next two weeks.

According to the Kenyan energy minister,  Kiraitu Murungi, the government has signed 18 oil production contracts over the past 18 months, a period that coincides with the planning and execution of the Samburu attacks.

Those contracts are in various stages of negotiation, with the Isiolo drilling being the first to be implemented, at a cost of $26 million. The oil exploration contracts and the Samburu attacks also coincide with a major highway construction project through Samburu territory, also being conducted by the Chinese.

There is no direct evidence of a link between the oil and highway projects and the Samburu attacks, but given the very large amounts of money involved and the potential profits, such a link would not be surprising.

More information  Circulating information. See also a related article here

Original Source from http://www.culturalsurvival.org

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