MOMBASA, 23 July 2014 (IRIN)-A string of attacks by gunmen on communities in
Kenya's southeastern Coast Province over the past six weeks has left more
than 100 people dead, and the real fear of yet more violence to come.
The death toll in the raids in Lamu and Tana River counties is undisputed.
There is also a general agreement that the cause of the violence is
"politics and land". But on who is behind the attacks, and why, the
consensus is shakier.
The biggest attack to date was in Mpeketoni, 300km along a potholed road
from Kenya's second city of Mombasa, 50km south of Lamu, the ancient port
and cradle of Islamic Swahili culture. Mpeketoni is an overwhelmingly Kikuyu
town, Kenya's large and politically powerful ethnic group from the centre of
the country. They were settled in the area by the government in the late
1960s and crucially provided with title deeds, legal tenure which the
traditional owners of the land do not possess.
On the evening of 15 June, an estimated 40 heavily-armed men took over the
town. For 9 hours, undisturbed by the security forces, they executed almost
exclusively men, burned down businesses and torched vehicles. When it was
over, 59 people were dead. The majority were Kikuyu, but there were also a
significant number of victims from among the coastal Mijikenda community.
According to eyewitnesses, the raiders wore military kit, some were bearded
and spoke Somali or broken Swahili; all consistent with claims by the Somali
insurgent group al-Shabab - battling the Kenyan army in southern Somalia -
that they were responsible. But the government has dismissed the connection.
In a 17 June statement President Uhuru Kenyatta made it clear he regarded
the violence as deliberately aimed at Kikuyu settlers, who over the years
have gravitated in increasing numbers to the coastal strip. "The attack in
Lamu was well planned, orchestrated, and politically motivated ethnic
violence against a Kenyan community, with the intention of profiling and
evicting them for political reasons," he said.
Several weeks after the attack, that was the prevailing view In Mpeketoni -
a community under siege, in which their MP was a key target for the
attackers. Mpeketoni wields a significant block vote in Lamu County, and the
political demographics point to increasing Kikuyu influence. Current Lamu
governor Issa Timamy, who campaigned on a platform of local indigenous land
rights, felt it expedient to pick a Kikuyu as his running mate. He was
nevertheless arrested in connection with the violence, although is yet to be
charged.
As in the best whodunits, everybody seems to have a motive. But according to
Hussein Khalid, executive director of the Mombasa-based human rights group
Haki Africa, the evidence points to a unit of al-Shabab that includes local
recruits, which is cleverly playing on the region's social and economic
tensions.
"I know of youth crossing the border to fight with al-Shabab, some of them
from the Lamu area. [If they have returned to Lamu] that would explain why
[according to eyewitnesses] some of the attackers covered their faces, and
referred to people [in the town] by their names," he told IRIN.
A national newspaper reported intelligence officials as saying they believed
one of the al-Shabab commanders in the Lamu area was a Kikuyu who had
converted to Islam - a suggestion not denied by Deputy Inspector General of
the Administration Police Samuel Arachi. "Al-Shabab has mutated. Previously
it was basically Somali, now it is anybody who has been radicalized," he
told IRIN.
"But who is financing this, who are the paymasters? And why now?" He added:
"It doesn't matter if it is al-Shabab, the Mombasa Republican Council [a
coastal separatist group] or Mungiki [a Kikuyu militia], they won't get away
with it."
Marginalized
The real culprit, local analysts say, is the history of marginalization of
coastal people - what academic Paul Goldsmith describes as the "crisis of
second-class citizenship", where the mixed-heritage Swahili are largely
peripheral in post-independence Kenya.
Mainland Lamu and Tana counties are the traditional home of the Swahili
Bajuni and smaller neighbouring communities. But at independence their
communal land, instead of being administered as trust land as elsewhere in
Kenya, remained under the authority of the state. What that has meant is
that local people are effectively squatters, and "this place we call home is
not ours, at least not on paper," said Khalid.
Cross-border raids from Somalia during the 1960s as a result of the Shifta
conflict also drove the Bajuni off their land, shutting down economic
activity and impoverishing the local community. Insecurity continued in the
1990s with the collapse of the Somali state.
Settlement scheme for landless Kikuyu
Death toll in Lamu
* 15 June: 65 people killed in Mpeketoni and environs
* 17 June: 15 killed in Poromoko and Majembeni villages, Witu
* 23 June: 5 killed in Taa village, Pandanguo area
* 5 July: 12 killed in villages in Hindi area
* 5 July: 9 killed at Gamba police station
* 18 July: 7 killed in bus attack, Witu
Mpeketoni is an example of what has been labelled Kenya's "rigged
development". It was created as a settlement scheme for landless Kikuyu in
1968. Despite initial hardships they made a success of the project (the name
is a reference to the single "carton" [cardboard box] of supplies each
settler received from the back of a truck) and it is now a thriving town of
50,000 people boasting banks, agricultural schemes, solidly-built churches,
and a planned university campus.
But, according to Goldsmith, Mpeketoni benefited from a level of
institutional support other rural development projects to settle local
people, did not receive. "No security, no assistance of any sort, no land
rights, no government infrastructure" were daunting hurdles. Those that gave
up found ready takers for their plots among the people funnelling into the
region from up-country. "Nasty things happened in Lamu that cannot happen
elsewhere in Kenya," said Goldsmith.
The fertile land between Mpeketoni and Witu is commonly referred to as
witemere - literally, "cut for yourself". The idea that the land is there
for the taking (or squatting) is part of an up-country narrative that
"people from the coast are lazy and don't want to work" - and are failing to
make the most of what they have, said Khalid. Insult is added to injury when
the takeover is crowned with the award of title deeds from officials also
originally from central Kenya.
Perceptions of injustice
The proposed multibillion dollar Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport
(LAPSSET) Corridor Project is further fuelling perceptions of injustice. The
mega 1,700km regional road and rail link is expected to boost Kenya's GDP by
3 percent, according to the government's Vision 2030 plan. But land
speculation and evictions driven by LAPSSET - as well as the project's
impact on local livelihoods - are real concerns if not carefully managed,
says a new report by the Kenya Human Rights Commission. In-migration is
expected to significantly rise, which will have a local political and
economic impact.
Already there is concern that the promised jobs at the port may bypass local
people. Emblematic of that was the removal of a local man at the helm of
LAPSSET and his replacement with former Cabinet secretary Francis Muthaura.
"The project is being run on the coast, why in hell bring a 'foreigner',
more so from the ruling class, to run everything," Mohammed Ramadhan of the
Kenya National Commission on Human Rights told IRIN.
"We hate them. We don't want them here, but we're not ready to fight," one
former politician from Hindi, 40km from Mpeketoni, said of the new settlers,
especially those displaced by the 2008 post-election violence in the Rift
Valley. "Everything they take for themselves. There is no thanks, and now
they are taking over politically, and the government is backing them."
Grievances
Meanwhile, the government's response to the growing insecurity is adding to
the list of grievances. Rights activists argue that underlining the
perception of second-class status is the difficulty of getting an ID card.
"Anybody with an Islamic name has a problem. It's easier to get a passport
in America than the country in which I was born," said the politician.
But Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa was clear: "The national ID is
a security document. You don't just get it like that. You need to be
checked. So any delay is understandable because of the global terrorist
threat," he told IRIN.
But no ID makes finding a job all the harder. For young men "with no hope
for the future and who don't feel part of Kenya", the ideology of Jihad is
energizing, said Khaled. And it is not just coastal youths who feel the
lure. Growing numbers of converts from other communities in Kenya are
crossing into Somalia to join al-Shabab, making profiling all the harder for
the authorities.
Marwa rejected that argument. "For the majority of youths being radicalized,
drugs is the main cause. They are addicts, so it's easy to manipulate them.
We want leaders to discuss this - let's avoid side shows." He also denied
the widespread allegation the government had any hand in the extra-judicial
killing of hardline clerics believed to be involved in recruiting youths to
join al-Shabab. More than seven clerics in Mombasa the authorities linked to
terrorism have died since 2012.
Given the simmering discontent available to exploit, a home-grown al-Shabab
franchise might prove difficult to dislodge, with a leaky border to Somalia,
and Lamu's thick Boni forest to hide in. "From an insurgency point of view,
it's the smartest thing [al-Shabab] could have done," said Goldsmith.
The saliency of the land question and marginalization are recognized in the
constitution's provisions for the devolution of powers and the addressing of
historical injustices. Kenya's Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission
also made specific recommendations that the National Land Commission should
undertake an adjudication and registration exercise on the coast and "revoke
illegally obtained titles".
A private member's Community Land Bill - intended to safeguard community
land rights and provide for the registration and protection of community
land - is expected to be re-tabled in the Senate later this year. "That is
the crux of the matter. The community should own LAPSSET, they are the ones
who should benefit," said Ramadhan.
But in the short-term, all non-government analysts IRIN spoke to expected
the violence to increase. "You can't fight an ideology by using force. You
fight an ideology with an ideology," said Khalid.