_http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/world/africa/05kenya.html?ex=1158120000&en=
de64ac593a132407&ei=5070&emc=eta1_ 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/world/africa/05kenya.html?ex=1158120000&en=de64ac593a132407&ei=5070&emc=eta1) 
 
 
Kenya Killings Put Aristocrat in Racial Fire 
 
By _JEFFREY GETTLEMAN_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/jeffrey_gettleman/index.html?inline=nyt-per) 
Published: September 5, 2006
 
SOYSAMBU, _Kenya_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/kenya/index.html?inline=nyt-geo)  — Of all the upper-crust 
British families who  came to this country and never left, one is more famous than 
them all: the  Delameres. 
 
 
 
Thomas Cholmondeley, fourth generation of baronial settlers in  Kenya, 
flanked by police officers during a court appearance in May in  Nairobi. 



They had the most glamorous parties, the most fabled pedigree (going back to  
William the Conqueror, they said) and, not insignificantly, the most stunning 
 land. 
Soysambu Ranch is the jewel in their crown, 50,000 acres teeming with giraffe 
 and zebra in the heart of Africa’s great Rift Valley. The scenery is 
straight  off a postcard — the golden pastures, the sculptured hills, the sense of 
getting  so much of the world in one big gulp. 
But Thomas Cholmondeley, the cravat-wearing scion of the family, who until  
recently was on track to be the sixth Baron of Delamere, is no longer here. He  
is in Kamiti maximum security prison in Nairobi, the rare white face behind 
bars  in this country, awaiting trial in a murder case that is dividing Kenya.  
Because in little more than a year, he has shot and killed two black Kenyans  
on his ranch.  
The first was an undercover wildlife ranger who was arresting some of Mr.  
Cholmondeley’s workers suspected of poaching. Claiming self-defense, Mr.  
Cholmondeley was cleared without trial.  
The second was a poacher himself, with an antelope slung over his back. Mr.  
Cholmondeley says that the poacher’s dogs attacked and, again, that he fired 
in  self-defense.  
White farmers in Kenya, an increasingly beleaguered and endangered species,  
are deeply sympathetic. They say that crime is out of control and the police 
are  useless, and that the bush, however beautiful, is awash with guns.  
Certainly, there has been an explosion of violence in the Rift Valley, with  
gangs surging in from Nairobi and tensions peaking between the dirt-poor farm  
workers and the handful of white Kenyans still living on vast tracts of land. 
 Joan Root, a famed conservationist, was gunned down in her bedroom in 
January.  Other whites have been killed in holdups. One farmer said he now slept 
with an  elephant gun by his side.  
During colonial times this area, 50 miles northwest of Nairobi, was famed  
among whites for its hedonistic lifestyle and called Happy Valley. Now, it seems 
 to be under siege.  
But black Kenyans see Mr. Cholmondeley’s situation differently, and worry  
that the days of white privilege may not be over. His absolution in the first  
case deepened their cynicism about an already suspect judiciary and ignited  
large protests. Some people even threatened to invade white farms. 
The case seems to be hitting many of Kenya’s sore spots — land, violence,  
corruption, the illegal game trade and, of course, race. 
“It’s very sexy when a white man gets in trouble,” said Maina Kiai, chairman 
 of Kenya’s human rights commission. “We still have this inferiority complex 
and  get a thrill out of seeing a white man in a powerless position.” 
And this is not just any white man. 
The Hon. Thomas Patrick Gilbert Cholmondeley, 38, is a 6-foot-6,  
raised-in-the-bush anachronism, who has a scar running from his ankle to hip  from when 
he was attacked by a buffalo several years ago and whose  great-grandfather 
made it fashionable for British aristocrats to move to Africa.  
That settler, Hugh Cholmondeley (pronounced CHUM-lee), the third Baron of  
Delamere, took chunks of the Rift Valley from local (and illiterate) Masai  
tribesmen in the early 1900’s, turning the area into a playground for whites. He  
rode horses through bars and shot chandeliers at fancy hotels and went on to  
become a leading dairy farmer and politician. Nairobi’s main street was named  
Delamere Avenue until independence in 1963. 
Thomas was born five years later, grew up on Soysambu (the name means “place  
of red rock” in the Masai language) and eventually was shipped off to Eton. 
By  then, a Masai named Samson ole Sisina was fixing trucks for Kenya’s tourism 
 board, hoping to become a wildlife ranger. Robert Njoya, a poor Kikuyu  
tribesman, had dropped out of school to haul rock, and to poach game. The men  
lived near Naivasha, a once sleepy town going through serious growing pains. 
Flower farms were sprouting up along Lake Naivasha, drawing thousands of  
low-paid temporary workers. Many lived in squatter camps, including one named  
Manera built on Delamere land. The people there call Mr. Cholmondeley “the  
honorable killer” and say he has terrorized them for years. 
Mary Njeri, 51, said Mr. Cholmondeley caught her collecting firewood on his  
property two years ago and slapped her until she saw stars. Peter Kiragu, 12,  
said he was playing soccer on Delamere property four years ago when Mr.  
Cholmondeley snatched him by the back of his shirt, threw him into a truck and  
kept him locked up for hours.  
Both episodes were reported to the police but charges were never pursued.  “
The Delameres used to be untouchable,” said Gideon Kibunjah, a Kenya police  
spokesman. “But that’s changed now.”  
The Thomas Cholmondeley described by white friends is much different:  
charming, genuine, a good listener, a father involved with his two sons, the  type 
of rancher to speak Swahili to his workers and look them in the eye.  
The director of his family’s dairy and beef ranches, he is a proponent of  
wildlife and his efforts have increased the numbers of giraffes, zebras,  
pelicans and flamingoes in the area. One reason he was licensed to carry a gun  was 
to protect that game.  
“Tom loves that land,” said Dodo Cunningham-Reid, a friend who runs an  
exclusive bed-and-breakfast in Naivasha.  
Fred Ojiambo, Mr. Cholmondeley’s lawyer, said his client had been unfairly  
demonized. He did not want to discuss details, but said: “It’s very difficult 
to  only look at this case as the firing of a gun. This happened in a context.”
  
Last year, Kenya wildlife officials said, workers at Soysambu were suspected  
of poaching and dealing in illegal “bush meat” from poached animals. On 
April  19, 2005, Mr. Sisina, who had been promoted from mechanic to ranger, and 
two  other rangers drove onto the ranch, undercover, and caught workers skinning 
a  buffalo.  
Just as Mr. Sisina and his colleagues began to make arrests, Mr. Cholmondeley 
 arrived. He saw strangers in street clothes holding his staff at gunpoint 
and  shot Mr. Sisina.  
After Mr. Cholmondeley was arrested, he told the police, “I am most bitterly  
remorseful at the enormity of my mistake.” He said he thought Mr. Sisina was 
a  robber.  
The case cracked open a rift between police officials pushing for a murder  
trial and prosecutors who believed the claim of self-defense. And the Masai 
were  watching.  
The Masai are famed for their red ochre war paint and traditional pastoralist 
 ways. Most are dirt poor, but Mr. Sisina was different. He had moved from a 
dung  hut to a respectable government job. 
When the charges were abruptly dropped a month later — a picture of Mr.  
Cholmondeley flashing thumbs-up ran on the front page of Kenya’s leading  
newspaper — the Masai detonated, protesting outside the attorney general’s  office 
and threatening to storm Soysambu. 
“The Delameres were the ones who stole our land in the first place,” said  
William ole Ntimama, a Masai member of Parliament. “And now look at us. We’ve  
become part of the wildlife.” 
Angry Masai marched onto white farms two years ago and tried to reclaim  
ancestral land. But Kenya is no Zimbabwe, where the government instigated such  
seizures. Kenyan police officers in riot gear cleared out the Masai. 
Mr. Sisina left behind eight children, and his widow, Seenoi, now relies on  
handouts to feed them. Mr. Cholmondeley returned to the family business,  
Delamere Estates Ltd., and to patrolling Soysambu with guns.  
On May 10 this year, Mr. Njoya, the Kikuyu tribesman, went looking for food  
for his wife, Sarah, and their four children. He took two friends and six dogs 
 and they found a dead antelope in a trap they had laid on Soysambu land.  
That evening Mr. Cholmondeley, carrying a colonial-era rifle, was out  
scouting a location for a house. 
What happened next is not clear. Mr. Cholmondeley said the hunters turned the 
 dogs on him, and he shot two, accidentally hitting Mr. Njoya. Mr. Njoya’s  
friends said they never even saw Mr. Cholmondeley. 
“We just heard shots coming out of the bush,” said Peter Gichuhi, who said 
he  was standing next to Mr. Njoya. 
Mr. Njoya bled to death within minutes. 
“Oh no, not again!” was the headline this time, and the protests were  
extensive. Many black Kenyans boycotted Delamere products, calling the family’s  
yogurt, marketed with the distinctive golden crown, “blood yogurt.”  
This time, prosecutors filed murder charges. The trial is set for Sept. 25.  
If convicted, Mr. Cholmondeley could be hanged.  
The last time a white man was at the center of such a sensational case in  
Kenya was in 1980, when Frank Sundstrom, an American sailor, killed a prostitute 
 in Mombasa. Mr. Sundstrom pleaded guilty to manslaughter, was fined $70 and 
let  go


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