Mining and Economic Development in Kenya: At What Cost?

Biographical notes for Mr. Haron Ndubi and Dr. Willy Mutunga

Mr. Haron Ndubi

     Nine years ago, 25 year old Haron Ndubi graduated from the University of Nairobi with a tool that was to prove invaluable in his vocation to advance the rights of Kenya’s poor, dispossessed masses. Mr. Ndubi’s law degree was to be put to the service of the defence of marginalized Muslims, women sex workers, the victims of political violence, and most recently, the Digo and Kamba peoples, whose land and livelihood is now threatened by Tiomin Resources Inc.

     Mr. Ndubi first raised a voice of dissent against the regime at university, when he authored a dissertation on individuals’ rights to freedom of religion, and religious groups’ rights to political expression. Today, he is a member of the Mombasa-based Muslims for Human Rights, a cause he took up during his period of private legal practice in the Kenyan coastal city. During this time, the lawyer founded a practice, which focused on public interest cases, defending the rights of the urban poor in the face of speculators’ attempts at illegal land grabs. As elected chair of the local bar association, Mr. Ndubi sensitized his colleagues to issues of human rights and social justice.

     After a period of bloody political and ethnic violence in the Mombasa region in 1997, Mr. Ndubi’s efforts were instrumental in forcing the Moi regime to allow the Law Society of Kenya to participate in a government-appointed judicial investigatory committee. He fought hard to have unpopular witnesses testify as to the root causes of the violent clashes: one was Father John Anthony Kaiser, the priest murdered earlier this year for his work to promote social justice.

     Today, Mr. Ndubi is Executive Director of Kituo Cha Sheria (Legal Advice Centre) an NGO providing free legal advice. As a founding member of community organization Ilishe, he also works actively to promote communities’ empowerment to defend their rights. He also works to defend women’s rights as an advisor to the Board of Solidarity with Women in Distress, an organization that rehabilitates women sex workers.

Dr. Willy Mutunga

     Dr. Willy Mutunga is an Advocate of the High Court in Kenya. He studied law at the University of Dar Es Salaam and at York University (Osgoode Hall Law School) in Toronto, Canada.

     A committed activist in the pro-democracy movement in Kenya since the 1970s, Dr. Mutunga has worked in a number of prominent human rights organizations throughout the country, and has also been an active member of the university staff trade unions. His work in the pro-democracy movement, notably with the pro-democracy Twelfth of December Movement, made him a target of Moi’s Kenyan African National Union (KANU) party, and he was imprisoned from 1982-83. He has since spoken out vociferously on behalf of political prisoners.

     Dr. Mutunga was Chair of the Law Society of Kenya from 1993-95. He is also the author of a number of widely published articles, the rights of detainees, the role of NGOs and civil society in democratization, the constitutional rights of Kenya’s nomad pastoralists, and the rights of tenants.

     Dr. Mutunga is currently Executive Director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, a member the National Convention Executive Council, co-Chair of the Citizens Coalition for Constitutional Change (4Cs) and a member of the Board of Directors of Rights & Democracy.