/IPS DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN/ KENYA: Violence on Kenyan Coast

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Oct 11 1997 (IPS) - Charles is a lucky man. He survived an attack on a displaced persons’ camp at the Catholic church in Likoni, a sprawling suburb of the Indian Ocean Port of Mombasa, some 500 kilometres southeast of here.

“The attackers came right to the front of the church gate,” he recalls. “There were about fifty of them, some wearing police hats and fatigues. They looked like a force, and so they moved easily because people thought they were the police. Even the po lice at the gate took time to realise who they were.

“The men opened fire on the gate. One man was killed just outside the gate, another was killed just inside. A policeman was shot in the head, but later recovered in the hospital.”

Lucas, a traditional dancer who works in tourist hotels, was in the Shirloni Bar in Mombasa when it was attacked on Sep 5, at about 7:30 p.m.

“The first person to enter the bar had a camouflaged jacket, green trousers and boots,” he recounts. “He carried a G3 rifle and wore a hat like the National Youth Service cap – so I thought he was security.

“He entered, shot once in the air and ordered everyone to lie down flat on the floor. When we were on the floor, the others came in. They were many – I’d say 100 – armed with machetes, axes, sticks and other weapons. They started attacking the people on the floor, killing and slashing. I ran for the door. They slashed at me as I ran out of the door and across the road, cutting at my head, back, arms and legs.”

Lucas is now in a hospital undergoing treatment for hideous machete-inflicted injuries, including broken and slashed limbs, cuts down his back and a deep cut across the top of his skull. According to one of his friends, the assailants had shouted a warni ng as they hit out at the fleeing Lucas: “Vacate this place or we will take action”.

The bar was then burnt to the ground, along with another property nearby. Lucas survived to tell the tell; others didn’t. Four persons were reported to have been killed on the spot, including a two-year-old child. At least three other people later died i n hospital.

The violence in and near Mombasa erupted on Aug. 13 when a gang of marauders – said to be advocates of a federal system of government that would give regions a greater say in running their affairs – attacked two police outposts in Likoni, stealing 30 aut omatic guns and 5,000 rounds of ammunition.

Unconfirmed reports say up to 70 persons have been killed and 100,000 displaced by the violence.

According to a report by the London-based human rights organisation, African Rights, the attacks have been invariably directed at non-indigenous people – those who come from other parts of Kenya, particularly persons of the Luo, Luhya, Kikuyu and Kisii e thnic groups.

The ‘Up-country’ people as they are called comprise an estimated 40 percent of Mombasa’s population and are concentrated in economically strategic areas around the town, according to the 25-page report, entitled ‘Violence at the Coast’. Up-country people work at the port and in tourist hotels, dominate trade and the transport business, own land and occupy prominent positions in management, teaching and business. Some have lived on the coast for generations, while others come seeking work on a more tempor ary basis.

Likoni, the epicentre of the crisis, was deserted and the reason was spelt out in graffiti on the walls of abandoned houses and shops such as “Three days to leave or you die”, according to the African Rights report. It said leaflets had been distribute d in the Mombasa area calling for the expulsion of Wabara (up- country people), but the threat was taken to mean anybody deemed an “outsider”.

The report, published on Monday, is based on a visit to the Coast. It draws both on incidents witnessed and interviews with victims of the violence. It documents the killings, attacks, threats and destruction of property which have terrified Kenyans — a nd led to a dramatic fall in earnings from tourism.

African Rights argues that events in Mombasa in August and September 1997 do not suggest an all-powerful government strategy but rather are evidence of a dangerous and systematic collapse of Kenyan institutions. “The government does not have the institu tional ability to cope with disorder,” it adds.

The gangs responsible for the attacks have taken on an almost mythical status, retreating to the forested areas and continuing merciless hit-and-run attacks on the south and north coast. They reportedly operate in bands of around a hundred, and sometimes number as many as 500, according to African Rights.

Witness describe those dressed in camouflage fatigues and carrying guns as the leaders of the “killing squad”, made up mainly of men in civilian clothes armed with weapons like machetes, axes and knives. Some raiders who were shot dead were apparently

dressed in black outfits, wore dreadlocks, and had traditional charms tied round their wrists.

While events in Mombasa have their own local dynamic, there are obvious parallels with the violence in Western Kenya and the Rift Valley in the early 1990s when an estimated 1,500 people were killed and more than 300,000 displaced amid clamours for what is known in Kenya as ‘majimboism’ (a federal system).

African Rights described majimboism as the crudest form of election rigging in Kenya – the use of ‘clashes’ to create ‘zones’ of one-party supporters. It is primarily a political aim but always uses ethnic labels, according to the international watch dog , which recalled that, in the early 1990s, the government used the strategy in an aggressive response to the introduction of a multi-party system.

The use of majimboism on the coast by hardliners of the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) is related to a peculiarity of Kenya’s electoral law: a successful presidential candidate must garner at least 25 percent of the vote in five provinces.

In the Coastal province, votes from the migrant community are crucial to allowing the opposition to seize three key constituencies in an region that has otherwise been a stronghold of the ruling party, said African Rights.

Urging the government of President Daniel arap Moi to stop the chaos, African Rights said the violence in Mombasa should be seen in its national context. “Without wholesale political and institutional reform, the human suffering at the coast can be seen as a warning of things to come to Kenya,” it said.