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Q&A: "They Mobilised Violence For Their Own Reasons"

Interview with Jacqueline Klopp, assistant professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University

NAIROBI, Aug 27 2008 (IPS) - The text of the Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation Accord, brokered by former UN chief Kofi Annan in March this year and released to the press in full last Sunday, identifies land as one of the central issues creating "economic, social, political and environmental problems" in the country.

Other analyses of recurring waves of post-election violence and large-scale internal displacement in Kenya also focus on land distribution as the root-cause of the problem.

Jacqueline Klopp, assistant professor at Columbia University, New York, challenges the basic premise of this discourse on land and violence. She has conducted several research projects in Kenya since 1988 and is an active advocate of the rights of the internally displaced people.

Klopp was in the country again this month, travelling to resettlement sites and meeting with IDP groups to assess the government's resettlement plan. She also coordinated with local civil society groups and IDP networks to set up an advocacy and policy research centre in Nairobi.

In an interview with IPS correspondent Najum Mushtaq, Klopp explains the history of population displacements in Kenya, and how the introduction of multi-party democracy is related to repeated bouts of violence.

IPS: How is internal displacement linked to the land issue?

Jacqueline Klopp: The way the current discussion is going is very misleading because some of the perpetrators of the violence at the higher political levels have used the land issue to divert people's attention from the fact that they mobilised violence for their own selfish electoral reasons.

So, for example, you go to a place like Kulesoi, in the Rift Valley, you see that most of the farms there are Kalenjin farms. The bigger ones are Kalenjin farms, actually owned by some of the politicians who are involved in the violence. The Kikuyu population had very small farms. And if you look at it historically, that area is Masai land, not Kalenjin land.

So the discourse that the Kikuyus are the outsiders and the violence is a land issue is completely fallacious.

Another example that illustrates this point is the Coast province where they have some of the most severe land problems in the country (going back to the Arab, Omani rule which created what can be called the Arab-Kenyan land-owning elite at the expense of the indigenous people). But, unlike the Rift Valley, there was no violence on the Coast—a little bit for the first two days and then none.

One of the reasons was that the local imams (Muslim clergy) said no to the violence, so did the local elders. The professional and business class, fearing it will destroy the tourist industry, were saying no. When the politicians had wanted to whip up these sentiments, they said no.

IPS: But does this mean that land is not a source of conflict and displacement?

JK: The country has had serious land issues historically. Some of the first displacements were due to colonisation and the grabbing of land by displacing people. That's how many displaced groups ended up in forests, such the Mau Mau fighters.

Then at independence, large land-owners were created through a system where land was allocated corruptly in an inequitable way. That generated a lot of initial displacement and also created new migration patterns.

So, some of the freedom fighters – Mau Mau, for example – when they returned from the forest they didn't find a piece of land because it had been re-allocated. They bought little farms elsewhere. And these people who have small farms are being attacked as outsiders.

So you can see how this land-grabbing facilitates the displacement. But that's a class issue, although the politicians have made it sound especially in the Rift Valley as if it's an ethnic issue linked to land, which it is not.

And the politicians, a lot of whom are big land owners, do not want anyone to see that this is a class issue because then you start to say that Kenyatta (Kenya's first president) marginalised his own Kikuyu people, too – as there are so many poor Kikuyus in the Rift Valley and other regions.

So it shows that the discourse on land is diverting people's attention from the class issue. Land is not purely an ethnic issue as Rift Valley politicians are trying to portray it – that all the Kikuyus are dominating, have taken our land, even when they themselves are sitting on Masai land.

IPS: Your work suggests a link between the introduction of multiparty democracy in Kenya and the increased incidence of large-scale internal displacement. How would you explain that linkage?

JK: It is clear that the cycles violence and displacement are linked to the electoral cycles. There were different kinds of displacement prior to multiparty democracy – displacements during the colonial period and those displaced because of government policy from forests or as a result of slum demolition – those people are very vulnerable too.

But what we have seen in terms of large-scale displacement after the colonial period is linked to the elections under the multiparty system.

If you have a constituency where there is a slight majority of one ethnic group – say, Kalenjins or Luhiyas – one of the strategies for politicians is to consolidate that block of votes by promising them the property of the 'others', blaming the problems on the outsiders.

It is like gerrymandering in the United States, except that here in Kenya because of the impunity and the lack of rule of law, as a politician you literally get rid of these people to ensure a majority.

More importantly, it is a matter of ethics and morality of the leaders. There are politicians who come into certain constituencies and try to create a multi-ethnic block as a counter to ethnic politics.

Some people have done that successfully, like Kipruto Kirwa in Cherangani who consistently brought people together, built a winning inter-ethnic majority and it's a very cosmopolitan place. He almost won again, too. So it comes down to what kind of strategies political leaders choose.

IPS: But is it the fault of multiparty democracy in itself or is there another way of looking at it?

JK: I think we have to be honest. The introduction of political competition was a very narrow constitutional reform. You get rid of the ban on political parties but you leave a very repressive colonial constitution in place, which allows impunity. It means that politicians now will use violence to stay in power.

Multiparty politics is a good thing, it's necessary. But it was a very narrow vision to say we're just going to allow parties and that's all the constitutional reform we need. There had to be more comprehensive reforms to ensure the rule of law and an end to impunity.

One of the biggest problems is – and it's not unique to Kenya – that any place where the stakes for winning are so high and a politician can literally get away with murder, they'll commit murder. In a country that has a more entrenched rule of law or slightly different electoral incentives, then it's not as likely.

The point to emphasise is that multiparty politics is not bad in itself. It's just that it has created perverse incentives when there is no rule of law and where politicians have made these choices how to mobilise people.

There are several examples in Kenya where politicians and people have worked very hard to build peace in inter-ethnic constituencies. The Coast is an example. The mayor of Nakuru has multi-ethnic support.

You can have that kind of politics and politicians make choices. They know they're doing something wrong, they know that murder is wrong. So there is a corrupt political culture.

If we're going to be honest about it, then we can't just say (the violence and displacement) is a result of historical injustices. There are real people and real responsibility for this.

It's coming up in the Waki Commission. Commission after commission in the past also pinned responsibility for these cycles of violence leading to large scale displacement.

IPS: Does this mean that the impact of reconciliation between the political leadership, between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, has not trickled down in society?

JK: It hasn't because they hardly went down to the ground. They did a couple of tours. That's it. They did not have a strategy to engage opinion leaders at the local level. I do not remember the last time President Kibaki visited an IDP camp or met them. The same goes for Raila.

They did a few visits early on and then it dropped off their agenda. I don't think the politicians understand – partly because they don't want to as they're responsible – how deep the rifts are.

There is something very terrible going on in this country as the displaced people are relying on their ethnic networks and settling along ethnic lines. In the slums, this area is a Kikuyu only and that one for another tribe. There is a process of ethnic homogenisation.

Now there are very clear potential conflict zones because inter-ethnic associations and economic and social activity which provide some buffer against this kind of violent mobilisation are being eroded.

The political leadership did not prioritise the IDP issue. Look at what they did prioritise: who gets which cabinet posts, how do we position ourselves for 2012 (elections). Honestly, they are not taking it seriously.

If you are interested in poverty alleviation and economic reconstruction you can't ignore this displacement issue, but people who are doing economic reconstruction tend to ignore the displaced people. These people have skills, had a life before being displaced and now they are thrown into homelessness and poverty. Bring them back into the economy.

IDPs become a problem for the government, which then tries to use the provincial administrations where it is treated as a security issue only. And they do very short-term things to get rid of the 'problem', which often means making the IDPs invisible.

Displacement is a cross-cutting issue, causing multiple problems. It's linked to the ecology—as you see now there are genuinely displaced people now forced to live in the forest and if they're going to be displaced again, there is no plan for them. It's linked to the economy and slum creation… so there's a whole lot of issues that are not being addressed.