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[23 July 2014] - A string of attacks by gunmen on communities in Kenyaâs 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 âpolitics and landâ. 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 Kenyaâs second city of Mombasa, 50km south of Lamu, the ancient port and cradle of Islamic Swahili culture. Mpeketoni is an overwhelmingly Kikuyu town, Kenyaâs 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.Â
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.
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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. âThe 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,â he said.Â
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 regionâs social and economic tensions.
âWe have heard 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,â he told IRIN. Â
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.  âAl-Shabab has mutated. Previously it was basically Somali, now it is anybody who has been radicalized,â he told IRIN.Â
âBut who is financing this, who are the paymasters? And why now?â He added: âIt doesnât matter if it is al-Shabab, the Mombasa Republican Council [a coastal separatist group] or Mungiki [a Kikuyu militia], they wonât get away with it.âÂ
Marginalized
The real culprit, local analysts say, is the history of marginalization of coastal people - what academic Paul Goldsmith describes as the âcrisis of second-class citizenshipâ, 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 âthis place we call home is not ours, at least not on paper,â 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
Mpeketoni is an example of what has been labelled Kenyaâs ârigged developmentâ. 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 âcartonâ [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.Â
But, according to Goldsmith, Mpeketoni benefited from a level of institutional support other rural development projects to settle local people, did not receive. âNo security, no assistance of any sort, no land rights, no government infrastructureâ were daunting hurdles. Those that gave up found ready takers for their plots among the people funnelling into the region from up-country. âNasty things happened in Lamu that cannot happen elsewhere in Kenya,â said Goldsmith.Â
The fertile land between Mpeketoni and Witu is commonly referred to as witemere - literally, âcut for yourselfâ. The idea that the land is there for the taking (or squatting) is part of an up-country narrative that âpeople from the coast are lazy and donât want to workâ - 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.Â
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 Kenyaâs GDP by 3 percent, according to the governmentâs Vision 2030 plan. But land speculation and evictions driven by LAPSSET - as well as the projectâs 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. âThe project is being run on the coast, why in hell bring a `foreignerâ, more so from the ruling class, to run everything,â Mohammed Ramadhan of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights told IRIN.
âWe hate them. We donât want them here, but weâre not ready to fight,â 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. âEverything they take for themselves. There is no thanks, and now they are taking over politically, and the government is backing them.â
Grievances
Meanwhile, the governmentâs 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. âAnybody with an Islamic name has a problem. Itâs easier to get a passport in America than the country in which I was born,â said the politician.
But Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa was clear: âThe national ID is a security document. You donât just get it like that. You need to be checked. So any delay is understandable because of the global terrorist threat,â he told IRIN.
But no ID makes finding a job all the harder. For young men âwith no hope for the future and who donât feel part of Kenyaâ, 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.Â
Marwa rejected that argument. âFor the majority of youths being radicalized, drugs is the main cause. They are addicts, so itâs easy to manipulate them. We want leaders to discuss this â letâs avoid side shows.â He also denied the widespread allegation the government had any hand in the extra-judicial killing of hardline clerics believed to have been involved in recruiting youths to join al-Shabab. More than seven clerics in Mombasa, linked to terrorism by the authorities, 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 Lamuâs thick Boni forest to hide in. âFrom an insurgency point of view, itâs the smartest thing [al-Shabab] could have done,â said Goldsmith.
The saliency of the land question and marginalization are recognized in the constitutionâs provisions for the devolution of powers and the addressing of historical injustices. Kenyaâs 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 ârevoke illegally obtained titlesâ.
A private memberâs Community Land Bill â intended to safeguard community land rights and provide for the registration and protection of community land â is expected to be re-tabled in the Senate later this year. âThat is the crux of the matter. The community should own LAPSSET, they are the ones who should benefit,â said Ramadhan.
But in the short-term, all non-government analysts IRIN spoke to expected the violence to increase. âYou canât fight an ideology by using force. You fight an ideology with an ideology,â said Khalid.