White Kenyan aristocrat convicted of shooting poacher

Source: Rueters

By Humphrey Malalo and Wangui Kanina

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The heir to Kenya's most famous white settler family was convicted Thursday of shooting a black poacher on his estate in a case highlighting the east African nation's delicate colonial legacy.

The High Court acquitted Tom Cholmondeley -- a descendant of Lord Delamere who came to Kenya from Britain a century ago -- of murder but found him guilty of manslaughter in the 2006 death of Robert Njoya on the family's 55,000-acre ranch.

"My hope is that this ruling will act to warn errant white farmers that there is rule of law in this country," said Benjamin Mungania, a human rights activist in the Naivasha area where Cholmondeley and his family come from.

Justice Muga Apondi said sentencing would be given at a later day, meaning Cholmondeley's dream of walking free on Thursday after three years in jail was dashed.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5465HG20090507

nt

http://www.smh.com.au.nyud.net:8090/ffximage/2006/05/11/cholmondeley12506_wideweb__470x359,0.jpg

~snip~
Here in Kenya, our Scooter Libby is the Honorable Thomas Patrick Gilber Cholmondeley
(pronounced CHUM-ly- The more silent letters the more aristocratic, eh Chum?). Tom Cholmondeley is the last heir and descendant of Baron Delamere, a prominent white settler. In colonial times, the Delamere influence was as far reaching as their estates: Nairobi’s main street was even called Delamere Avenue until independence. Cholmondeley is still one of the largest white landowners in Kenya today.
In 2005, Cholmondeley shot and killed a Kenyan Wildlife Service worker Samson ole Sisina, who was working undercover to catch poachers on Cholmondeley’s 100,000-acre estate near Lake Naivasha in central Kenya.

Because the KWS worker had a gun, and because the heir claimed self-defense (read: because he was a rich and powerful white dude), he was let off. Public outrage ensued. Inspired by land reclamation in Zimbabwe, hundreds if Maasai attempted to take back land that Cholmondeley’s great grandfather had stolen from their tribe. But Kenya isn’t Zimbabwe, and police in riot gear showed up to put things right.

Less than eighteen months after his release, in what could have been a scene from White Mischief, Cholmondeley shot another Kenyan, Robert Njoya Mbugua. Njoya had picked up a dead Antelope he found on Cholmondeley’s estate. Again Chum had suspected poaching; Njoya died on the way to the hospital. Cholmondeley is still in prison awaiting trial. Many Kenyans suspect that the authorities are waiting until after the election in December 2007 to give Mr. Cholmondeley a light sentence.

http://coffeespoon.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/the-kenyan-scooter-libby/

http://www.ethiomedia.com.nyud.net:8090/adimage/tom_chelmondeley.jpg

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/0cl7chR3AL4ZA/610x.jpg
.
AP Photo 30 months ago
Tom Cholmondeley leads police and court officials at Soysambu farm, near Naivasha, Kenya, Thursday, Nov. 2 2006. The descendant of Kenya's most famous white settlers returned to his family's sprawling ranch Thursday surrounded by dozens of armed police officers, as witnesses in his murder trial described the night he shot a black man who was trespassing on his estate. Thomas Cholmondeley, 38, could face the death penalty if convicted in the killing of 37-year-old Robert Njoya. He says he shot the man accidentally and had been aiming for a pack of dogs.

http://www.daylife.com/photo/0cl7chR3AL4ZA

That's where his side totally lost me. Sure, he wasn't convicted of that, but it's like a woman who has two husbands who both just "happen" to drown in a bathtub.

Were it just the poacher, I'd be more sympathetic (though, unless the guy was armed, shooting someone who's posing no physical threat to you and is just trespassing is completely unwarranted), but if he also shot a ranger... the dude obviously is a shoot first type.

how his family accumulated this land in Kenya was "their land" attained legally or was it stolen from the Kenyans?

In 1899, Delamere married Lady Florence Anne Cole, daughter of Lowry Egerton Cole, 4th Earl of Enniskillen. The couple soon sought to relocate to the Kenya highlands.

Delamere originally applied for a land grant in May 1903 but was denied because the governor of the Protectorate, Sir Charles Eliot, thought the land was too far from any population center.<9> His next request for 100,000 acres (400 km2) near Naivasha was denied because the government felt that settlement by a colonizing farmer might ignite conflicts with the Maasai tribesman who lived on the land. Delamere’s third attempt at land acquisition was successful. He received a 99-year lease on 100,000 acres (400 km2) of land that would be named “Equator Ranch,” requiring him to pay a £200 annual rent and to spend £5000 on the land over the first five years of occupancy.<9> In 1906, he acquired a large farm, which would eventually include more than 200,000 acres (800 km²), located between the Molo River and Njoro town. This ranch he named Soysambu.<7> Together, these vast possessions made Delamere one of Kenya's "largemen" - the local name for the handful of colonists with the greatest land holdings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Cholmondeley,_3rd_Baron_Delamere

You can try the links at the link for further reading.

This is a subject on which there is profound disagreement. My point is that nowadays the native Kenyans have the guns, and the Yurpean Kenyans have always been as miniscule minority. The native Kenyans, of course, still remain divided along tribal lines, but that will not save this guy's ass, and he ought to know that.

Delamere died in November 1931 at age 61.<32> He was survived by his second wife, formerly Lady Charles Markham (née Gwladys Helen Beckett, daughter of Hon. Rupert Eveleyn Beckett).<33>

He was succeeded in the barony by his son from his first marriage, Thomas. At his death, he left Kenya's agricultural economy healthy enough to develop into one of the most stable economies in Africa. He also left unpaid bank loans totalling £500,000.<34>

Nairobi's Third Avenue was named Delamere Avenue to commemorate his place in the development of the colony, and an eight-foot bronze statue of the 3rd Baron was erected at the street’s head. His widow, Gwladys, became the first woman mayor of Nairobi.

When Kenya achieved independence in 1963, many white settlers opted to sell their farms and leave the country rather than submit to African rule. Delamere’s family, by then headed by his son Thomas, the 4th hereditary baron, elected to remain and accept Kenyan citizenship.

Other traces of Delamere’s colonial “reign” were not permitted to linger. Delamere Avenue was renamed Kenyatta Avenue, after Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, and the statue of Delamere was relocated to the family’s Soysambu estate, where it faces out toward the mountain known locally as "Delamere's Nose" or "The Sleeping Warrior." Among the Masai, with whom Delamere was the first to establish a strong European connection, his family is now frequently reviled as those who “stole” the Masai’s land.<35>

His family's post-colonial standing in Kenya was badly damaged in April 2005, when Delamere’s great-grandson Thomas Chomondeley (in line to become the 6th hereditary baron) shot and killed Samson ole Sisina, a Masai and game warden who was arresting some of the Soysambu staff. Cholmondeley was not charged with a crime, and many Kenyans were outraged. A year later, Cholmondeley shot and killed Robert Njoya, who was poaching on his property. For this second killing, Cholmondeley was arrested and charged with murder. He was sentenced to life in imprisonment in May 2009. <36> As one police spokesman summed up the reversal of the family fortune: “The Delameres used to be untouchable. But that’s all changed now.”

Same link as post #9

Where did the title they paid for come from? The natives did not have a Yurpean style notion of private ownership, or legal title to real estate. In fact it was a fairly recent invention even in Europe. The fact that the Yurpean colonial powers imposed their own legal and economic systems on the natives does not really dispose of the issue, it is the issue.

governor of the Protectorate, Sir Charles Eliot. It says he denied them the first time but it doesn't mention he denied them the 2nd time and then sold or rented the third time. I'll look up his profile. I meant post #8

Thanks for the history lesson.

on edit: I don't mean that sarcastically.

My original point is that this fellow cannot rely on sympathy from native Kenyans in his troubles, and he ought to know that.

it seems to me. i'm not deriding the government at the time, but it's sort of useless to argue anymore about justice, equitability or even fairness when the native population probably had to watch helplessly as their country was being divided into lots for the white men to "buy." Sort of like being a Native American going through the same thing, and finding that 100 years later, the propaganda of the settlers still has them branded as "savages."

Overtime the country has removed the families name from the streets.

the same fate as he would give the animals he kills. Black or white, it doesn't matter. Until we can accept that animals have the right to live and not to suffer at Man's hands, we will never be able to claim we're better than they are.

Poachers are killers and are illegal ones. The use of the word "poacher" itself indicates an illegal activity. I've always said that I think poachers should die in the same fashion that they kill animals. If that means falling into a pit and being impaled on the stakes they have set up for their prey, so be it.

I agree that there is inequity between the two races in that land, but there must be a conscience to make poaching reprehensible, with penalties across the board to those who do it. On the other hand, if Tom Cholmondeley wants to escape prison time, there should be some kind of a move for him to give up some of the 55.000 acres (WTF? that's a lot of land!) he and his families own to some of the native Kenyans to farm on, or find some activity that doesn't entail killing animals. It might be a way to bridge the gap between different populations, and somehow open a new door to reclaiming some of the properties that were grabbed when whites colonized in Africa.

On edit: different stories talk about different amounts of land (and not just from the Wiki article). It appears to me that depriving Mr. Chum of some of his vast holdings is still a bigger punishment in the scheme of things.

prudent after wrongly killing another man. Does he seem sufficiently "compos mentis" to be left at large? And in possession of a vast property which has already proved so onerous and troublesome to him.

When he gave the double thumbs-up sign, those guards should have held up three fingers.

poaching does not give anyone the right to blow someone else away. that's just sick. you evidently don't believe in arresting and trying someone for a crime, just in murder.

It's hard to tell who are the good guys.

You'd think he would have learned his lesson after killing the wildlife ranger. Sounds like someone had an itchy trigger finger.

term. He should have been in jail for life before this happened.



"So. It's not even a very good joke, really. It's basic juxtaposition: The family does all these crude, vulgar things, then calls it "The Aristocrats." http://www.ericdsnider.com/movies/the-aristocrats/