Coast residents suffered most land injustices

By ALLY JAMAH

Mombasa, Kenya: The Mijikenda, Taita and Pokomo communities in the Coast have suffered the worst land-related injustices since independence and successive governments did little to solve the problem, the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission has concluded.

In a report released yesterday, TJRC said land-related injustices took the forms of illegal alienation of public and trust land, preferential treatment of specific ethnic groups in settlement schemes at the expense of the most deserving landless.

Other injustices are forceful settlement of members of a community outside their homelands, forceful evictions and land grabbing by Government officials and politically-correct persons.

Land grabbing was heightened at the Coast by President Jomo Kenyatta, who used the Provincial Administration to acquire huge tracts of land and to reward his cronies, mainly from up country, the report said.

The report claimed the late President used the then Coast PC Eliud Mahihu to control who acquired land at Coast. It cited an example that PC Mahihu took the opportunity between 1974 and 1976, using his junior officers like DCs and chiefs, to forcefully acquire land on Manda Island in Lamu from residents.

The commission recommended the Ministry of Lands or other appropriate Government authority immediately begins a process of surveying, demarcating and registering all remaining public lands, including those that were formerly owned or managed by local authorities, all protected wildlife areas and riverbanks, among others.

It recommended that the National Land Commission commences work with the Ministry of Lands and settlement to undertake adjudication and registration exercises at the Coast and all other areas where the same has not been conducted.

No rewards

“Successive governments have, since independence, failed to take tangible action to deal with these deep-rooted feelings among the inhabitants of the Coast. One of the critical issues, described by some as ‘ticking time bomb’, is the seemingly intractable land question,” stated the report. “Coast communities have consistently complained of exclusion from the hinterland and exploitation of their resources without reward.”

It called for urgent measures to revoke illegally obtained titles to and re-open all public beaches, beach access routes and fish landing beaches, especially at the Coast.

“While Government officials benefited from illegal acquisition and allocation of public land to themselves and their close associates and coastal communities that were in dire need of re-settlement were excluded,” said the report

The report cited cases where coastal families were forcibly evicted to pave way for occupation by people from upcountry. “After independence, the following villages that were occupied by the Bajuni as their homelands were destroyed — Kiunga, Kishakani, Funambai, Vibondeni, Ashwei and Materoni. The indigenous Bajuni have either been displaced or outnumbered by immigrants and thus they have become a minority in their own homeland.”

The report although land injustices were seen in virtually every part of the country, the Coastal region suffered the worst, blaming it for the emergence of secessionist groups like the Mombasa Republic Council. It said the injustices were at the heart of gross underdevelopment of the Coast.

It recommended that PA should not play any part in redressing the land “time bomb” in the Coast since they have been central in perpetrating the injustices. The report concluded that the PA lacks moral authority and public support in addressing the explosive matter.

It warned that although the current  constitutional dispensation, including the National Land Commission and related laws can help solve the huge problem of land in the Coast, lack of political will by top national and regional leadership  to implement and support the mechanism would mean that the problem is not fixed.

The Commission recommended that the National Land Commission fast-tracks the process of addressing and recovering all irregularly/illegally acquired land at the Coast  and other parts of the country. It ordered that measures should be designed by the Ministry of Lands and settlement to encourage individuals and entities to surrender illegally acquired land.

The report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land revealed that some 200,000 illegal titles were created between 1962 and 2002. Of these, 98 percent were issued between 1986 and 2002.

Most of the grabbed lands include ancestral lands occupied by minority and indigenous groups including coastal communities such as the Boni, among others as well as the Ogiek, Maasai, Sengwer. It said that  only few of the recommendations of the Ndungu Commission have been implemented to date.