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from ouko joachim
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2011
The Ocampo six is just the symptom and not the disease. Although violence in Kenya was part and parcel of the colonial state, which used it to ensure control, after independence, President Jomo Kenyatta used both the carrot and the stick to maintain power, with the use of violence mainly concentrated in the hands of the State.
Opposition parties were subjected to political harassment and those individuals who refused to support the status quo experienced various types of repression and even detention without trial. Rallies by students and others, were dispersed by the GSU using force.
The Government of Kenyatta was responsible for the murder of three political figures, Pio Gamma Pinto, Tom Mboya, and J.M. Kariuki. Kenyatta viewed them as threats to his regime and potential contenders for political power. Individual members of the opposition who agreed to lie low to Kenyatta were weaned back to the fold through appointments to Government positions, and allocations of land as well as provision of other perks.
Under Kenya’s second President Daniel arap, to consolidate his base after becoming the President, Moi rewarded his supporters, particularly the Kalenjin, through appointments to political offices and with jobs in the public service and the military. These individuals given these were viewed by President Moi’s opponents as not qualified or competent.
It explains why all the elections since multiparty era have been marred with violence. It also explains why 2007 electoral violence were systematic attacks on Kenyans based on their ethnicity and their political leanings. Attackers organized along ethnic lines, assembled considerable logistical means and traveled long distances to burn houses, maim, kill and sexually assault their occupants because these were of particular ethnic groups and political persuasion.
It is against the background that according to the Commission of Inquiry into the Post Election Violence (CIPEV) which began on 23rd May 2008 with an announcement published in the Kenya Gazette Notice No.4473 vol. cx-no.4- under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Philip Waki, a judge of Kenya’s Court of Appeal, the 2007 violence was planned.
The aim was that the Kalenjins could get opportunity to get their illegally acquired land by Kikuyus. Ndungu Report noted that throughout the 1980s and 1990s public land was illegally and irregularly allocated “in total disregard of the public interest and in circumstances that fly in the face of the law”. “Land grabbing” and the allocation of public land as political patronage were part of the gross corruption of this period.
Those involved in this allocation were senior public servants, but also local land boards, the courts, and a range of officials including members of the provincial administration, politicians, and others. Land allocations were therefore used to reward “politically correct individuals”
Given that the recommendations of the Ndungu report were never implemented, this has increased the sense of frustration in attempting to deal with land tenure disputes. The fact that institutions which could have been used to resolve land disputes have not been impartial has encouraged individuals to take matters into their own hands and to use violence to resolve them.
Unless land issue in Kenya is resolved, politicians will still use the occasions of future elections to fuel violence. It explains why politicians have capitalized on issues surrounding land, including encouraging violence during elections. In discussions of post-election violence, many Kalenjins argue that it is a product of longstanding anger over land distribution following independence.
They argue that land was alienated by the colonial government and then unfairly parcelled out to Kikuyus and other groups whom they view as outsiders. Many Kalenjins believe that issues relating to land were the reason for both the pre electoral violence in the 1990s and the post election violence after the December 2007 elections.
Why youths are easily used by politicians
Youths are used given that majority of them are unemployed. Also, given that between 1992 and 1996 alone, the number of street children increased 300 percent in just four years, many of these initially rootless children who are now adults are the product of displacement by ethnic violence. They have grown up on the streets and are inured to violence.
The combination of being rootless, having survived amidst violence, plus their need for an identity and a livelihood makes them ready recruits for violent gangs, which exist all over Kenya and are tapped by politicians, particularly but not exclusively during elections. They are devoid of ideology and operate on a willing buyer willing seller basis.
Apart from street children, there is also a growing problem of unemployment among youth who are university educated, estimated to be around 40,000 a year, given that only 150,000 formal sector jobs have been created since 2003, raising the spectre of whether these individuals will also be ready to engage in violence as well if they are unable to find work.
In the past many politicians have used these violent gangs to decimate their opponents, to protect themselves from a dictatorial state in the 1990s, and to gain power then and now. This has itself given gangs such as Mungiki, the Taliban, Chinkororo and others a life and the ability to operate without fear of being caught because they are well protected. That is why the attempts by the government to ban such gangs are fruitless.
It explains further why the main perpetrators of systemic violence have never been prosecuted. That is why, unless this scenario comes to an end, violence in Kenya will always remain endemic, out of control, and used routinely to resolve political differences.
According to paragraphs 90 and 91 of the Waki report, in each clash area, non-Kalenjin or non-Maasai, as the case may be, were suddenly attacked, their houses set on fire, their properties looted and in certain instances, some of them were either killed or severely injured with traditional weapons like bows and arrows, spears, pangas, swords and clubs. The raiders were well organized and co-ordinated. Their attacks were generally under the cover of darkness, and where the attackers were in broad daylight, the raiders would smear their faces with clay to conceal their identities.
The attackers targeted mainly the Kikuyu, but also the Kisii, the Luhya, and the Luo, other non-Kalenjin and non-Maasai communities were not spared. The attacks were barbaric, callous and calculated to drive out the targeted groups from their farms, to cripple them economically and to psychologically traumatize them.
The reasons for clashes according to the various reports were:
1) “Ambitions by Kalenjins of recovering what they think they lost when the Europeans forcibly acquired their ancestral land.
2) The desire to remove “foreigners”, derogatorily referred to as “madoadoa” or “spots” from their midst. The reference was mainly towards the Kikuyu, Kisii, Luo and other communities who had found permanent residence in the Rift Valley.
3) Political and ethnic loyalty.”
The sad part of the story is that of 70 year old Mzee Joseph Mwangi Macharia (Karobe) who watched as seven members of his family were hacked to death – his wife, three sons (aged 36, 33 and 23), one daughter (aged 25), a grandson (aged 6) and a granddaughter (aged 6).
As he pleaded for mercy one of attackers struck his son on the chest with a club and another shot him with an arrow as he tried to escape. Another son was pierced with a spear and his throat was cut. The rest of the family tried to hide inside the house but it was broken down and they were pulled out. His daughter and her child were pulled out and their throats were slit. So was his wife’s throat. That is when Mzee Macharia escaped into a nearby bush and watched as his house was set on fire. He stayed in the bush until the following morning.
On the 31st December Kalenjin warriors were spotted being ferried by lorries from the Ziwa area. They were armed with arrows and bows. Immediately after alighting from the lorries they met with a rival group of Kikuyu youth from Munyaka who were coming from there to defend Kikuyus against the Kalenjin attackers. They were armed with pangas (machetes) and rungus (clubs). The Kalenjins set houses on fire as they retreated.
Most reports from witnesses and others describe large groups of Kalenjin youth blocking roads with felled trees, large boulders, tractors, and the use of petrol to burn dwellings and farms in numerous non-contiguous areas.
In some other cases, reports describe what appear to have been simultaneously coordinated attacks from different points and the need for transport to have brought attackers from miles away to gathering points.
A number of government officials testifying to the Commission also described the violence as spontaneous. A senior provincial government security officer, who testified in camera, told the Commission that it was organized crime.
The larger Nakuru district due to its high Kikuyu population was the hardest hit by the tribal clashes that came to be associated with the region from 1991 to 1998, they include Nakuru town, Molo, Naivasha, Rongai and Subukia Districts.
While Nakuru, Molo and Naivasha Districts have a clear Kikuyu majority, Narok is predominantly Maasai, while Koibatek has a clear Kalenjin majority. In Rongai, the population between Kalenjin and Kikuyu is almost even with a slight margin in favour of the Kalenjin.
With regard to the Mungiki/Kikuyu side, an NSIS report dated 18 December 2007 noted that two Mungiki leaders of the Nakuru chapter were engaging in a recruitment drive aiming at recruiting 300 new members from the Nakuru area.
On 15 January 2008, a week before the most brutal attacks erupted in Nakuru,
NSIS was able to establish that some Mungiki members were planning to discredit the government by instigating chaos in Nakuru, among other places.
After noting the heightening of tension in the Bahati division of Nakuru between the Luo and Kalenjin on one side and the Kikuyu on the other following the eviction of 50 Luos from rental houses belonging to the Kikuyu, NSIS concluded on 18 January 2008 that “confrontations are likely.”
Finally, on 23 January 2008, NSIS had information that a former Nakuru MP was organizing Mungiki members to attack non-Kikuyu people residing within Nakuru town and that the intended targets of the Mungiki included former Nakuru parliamentary candidate and other ODM provincial and district leaders.
Finally, NSIS received information on 25 January 2008 that the Mungiki co-ordinator for Nakuru had advised Kikuyu businessmen in Nakuru Town to close down their businesses and join the sect members in attacking non-Kikuyu to revenge attacks on Kikuyus in North Rift
On the Kalenjin and Luo side, NSIS was informed on 2nd January 2008 of a plan by a group of Luo and Kalenjin youth from the Kaptembwa area of Nakuru to attack the Kikuyu and government supporters and to set ablaze their business premises. According to NSIS, Mungiki was informed of this plan and was able to deploy its members in the affected areas with a view to counter the intended attack. NSIS information on 7 January 2008 was that a Kalenjin chief was leading a group of local elders in mobilizing youths from the Kalenjin community to evict the Kikuyus living in the area.
Planning of Violence in Naivasha: Political Leaders and Mungiki
The Commission received credible evidence to the effect that the violence in Naivasha between the 27th and the 30th January 2008 was pre-planned and executed by Mungiki members who received the support of Naivasha political and business leaders. The Commission has also evidence that government and political leaders in Nairobi, including key office holders at the highest level of government may have directly participated in the preparation of the attacks.
Central to that planning were two meetings held in State House and Nairobi Safari Club in the run up to the election with the involvement senior members of the Government and other prominent Kikuyu personalities.
Evidence produced by NSIS suggests that this agency was collecting information on the planning of violence in Naivasha by Mungiki members and politicians, at both local and national level.
As early as 3 January 2008, NSIS had information that two former MPs of the Kikuyu community were “said to be negotiating with the outlawed Mungiki with a view to have sect members assist the community to counter their attackers” and that Mungiki members were meeting “in an undisclosed location in Nairobi with a view to carrying revenge attacks on Luos/Kalenjins travelling along Nairobi-Naivasha highway on undisclosed date.”
On 15 January, NSIS was informed that Mungiki members were planning to discredit the Government by instigating chaos in Nairobi and Nakuru “while others would raid Kamiti and Naivasha Prisons to rescue their colleagues held there among them [Maina] Njenga.” This supported information presented to Waki team in camera by a senior police officer in Naivasha who had learned on 9 January that “there was a likelihood of the so-called mungiki making a way into prison with the intention of whisking away the chairman [Mr. Maina Njenga] who is currently held in that particular prison.”
Witnesses also informed the Commission that there had been several planning meetings that had been convened in the Kikuyu-dominated parts of the Central Province/Rift Valley Province border. These meetings had been used to recruit fighters, to coordinate communal violence and to organize funding.
There have been reports that a pastor, a former MP and sitting one urged people to take up arms in self-defense in the Limuru area. The allegation is corroborated by the intelligence reports covering the period between 15th January to 15th February, 2008, in a mammoth rally attended by some Kikuyu MPs and politicians.
FM stations broadcasting in vernacular were also adversely mentioned in the Waki Report on post-election violence. It recommended that authorities should investigate media houses accused of disseminating irresponsible information the culprits
Kass FM, which broadcasts in Kalenjin, Inooro (Kikuyu) and Lolwe FM (Luo) were among stations mentioned, the commission said in its report released yesterday.
Kameme and Coro FM, all broadcasting in Kikuyu, were also named by the report as among those cited by witnesses for using derogatory language. So far only Kass Frm broadcaster, Mr Joshua Shang has been implicated.
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