The origins of land disputes in the fertile Rift Valley

Disputes over land ownership did not play a major role in the post-election violence in Kenya's Rift Valley province, Kalenjin and Kikuyu leaders say.

However, although experts say the disputes are the principal cause of bad blood between the two communities, the leaders blame the clashes on competition for political leadership.

To normalise relations, they are proposing a Kalenjin-Kikuyu political alliance in readiness for the 2012 General Election. A union between Agriculture minister William Ruto and his Finance counterpart, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, is said to be in the offing.

The political intricacies that have characterised post-independence Kenya have only served to entrench the animosities which, for the first time, degenerated into a full-blown conflict at the advent of political pluralism in 1991.

But Dr Charles Otieno, a policy analyst, disputes this view, saying that the land question has been turned into a vote-winner by interested parties in the Rift Valley. He sees a deliberate attempt by leaders in the region to scuttle land reforms.

Burying heads in the sand

“Politicians are simply burying their heads in the sand by not acknowledging the land factor. It is the single major source of conflicts between the two communities.”

He adds: “Certain people fear that they will lose political capital once this issue has been conclusively addressed. Politicians have formed the habit of invoking the emotive land issue to gullible youths to win votes.”

Dr Karuti Kanyinga, a senior fellow at the Institute of Development Studies of the University of Nairobi, contends that wide-ranging land reforms demand promoting good democratic governance and changing people’s mindsets about land.

“We need to educate our people to shift their focus from land,” he says. “We need to tell our youth that there is life beyond the farm. This entails prudent management of the economy to enable them to shift into other income-generating activities in urban centres,” he adds.

The fact that land disputes are the major cause of bad blood between Kalenjins and Kikuyus in Rift Valley province is in contrast with the view held by leaders from both communities that land rows have played a marginal role in fuelling conflicts over the past two decades.

The experts also dismiss claims by leaders from both sides that only a political union will end the animosities. They instead criticise politicians for turning the issue into a vote-winning mechanism every election time.

The disputes stem from the premise that Kikuyus were helped by the Government of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta to acquire land in what Kalenjins consider their ancestral home.

But historians say the post-independence period is just another phase in the convoluted land issue, although the era is significant because it was during this time that the relations between the two communities were at their chilliest.

In retracing the history of the animosities, historians and policy analysts contend that the land issue lies in sins of commission or omission by the colonial government. But it is appropriate to clarify that, according to historians, the two communities have never had a history of antagonistic relations.

The seed of discord was sowed by the colonial government in the mid-1940s, they add.

Colonial documents accessed by the Saturday Nation show that in 1957, the Annual Colonial Government Report for Elgeyo-Marakwet said: “In common with other Kalenjin people however, there is everywhere else dislike of the Kikuyu settlement being established in what is regarded as their district’s sphere of influence in Uasin Gishu.”

Ever growing number

Notes another report released the same year titled Inter-Tribal Affairs: “The ever growing number of Kikuyus in the forests is causing some light concern among the Elgeyos who feel that far too great a promotion of their intermediate school places will be filled by their progeny. The general attitude is that ‘the Kikuyu are cleverer than us; we had better watch out.’”

The groundwork for this hatred was laid much earlier by the colonial farmers’ blind desire for more land. By the turn of the 19th century, the colonial government had pushed many Kenyan communities into reserve and squatter camps to create land for their cash crops. The worst hit were Central, Rift Valley and Coast provinces.

Being pastoralists, however, Kalenjins struck a rather unique deal with the colonial farmers, which allowed the community to work on the white farms but still have access to swathes of livestock grazing fields.

But things changed in 1940s, explains Dr Prisca Cherono, a history lecturer at Eldoret’s Moi University. At this time, agricultural profitability was at its peak due to shortages in Europe, which was smarting from the effects of World War II.

She says Kalenjins were also growing in number and that their pastoral lifestyle was taking up too much land. This was proving a hindrance to the colonial ambitions of expanding their cash-crop farms.

It therefore became necessary for the colonial farmers to confine Kalenjins in squatter camps to reduce the amount of grazing land.

“The excuse they used to this end was that Kalenjins were lazy workers. They then broke the understanding they had with the community and started confining them in squatter camps and limited the movements of their animals,” she points out.

However most of them refused to be squatters in the white highlands. The pastoralists who suddenly found themselves without a means of livelihood therefore moved to search for pasture.

“They, of course, went with the bitterness that they had been chased away from the land of their fathers, only for another community to occupy it. It is a bitterness that never dissipated,” Dr Cherono explains.

The migration created the Kalenjin diaspora in central Rift Valley, Taita-Taveta and Tanzania. In 2007, some of the families that had moved to Tanzania from the larger Nandi district returned to demand to be given back their ancestral land.

The colonialists had brought in Kikuyus from Central province to work on their farms. They argued that Kikuyus were more productive since they had a history of plant cultivation.

Dr James Runaku, a history teacher at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, notes that this was when things went wrong between Kalenjins and Kikuyus.

“Historically, pastoralists and cultivators have never lived in peace,” he says. “The colonial government did not consider the consequences of forcing the two groups to live together yet they did not have a common cultural background,”

By the 1950s, Kikuyus in Rift Valley had grown tremendously in number, and this did not go down well with the local community, says Mr Ken Wafula, the executive director of the Centre for Human Rights, an NGO based in Eldoret.

The organisation is currently doing research titled Demystifying Historical Injustices Around Land In Rift Valley, which analyses the nature and causes of land conflicts in Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia and Nandi districts

“Notes from files of colonial administrators we have accessed indicate that as early as 1952, the local community had expressed dissatisfaction with the movement of Kikuyus into what they considered their ancestral land,” he says.

Upon the recommendation of the Uasin Gishu district commissioner at the time, Mr P.H. Brown, the transfer of Kikuyus from Central to Rift Valley was temporarily halted, Mr Wafula says.

“But it was resumed after the DC who succeeded him, Mr R.Symes-Thompson, wrote to his bosses to tell them that Kikuyus were needed to boost production in the farms.”

If the colonial governments had set the conditions for the bad blood between Kalenjins and Kikuyus, the government of Mzee Kenyatta ensured they blossomed into outright hatred.

Foremost, in 1961, the colonial government set aside 1 million acres to resettle the landless when it became apparent that it would have to relinquish power. But this came with two conditions that complicated the land issue.

The first was that Kenyans were free to own land anywhere in the country. This meant that people who had displaced from their homes would not necessarily move back upon the attainment of independence.

The second was that no land would be given free of charge. It was to be acquired on a willing-seller-willing-buyer basis. This made it possible for the rich to acquire huge tracts at the expense of the poor, the driving force behind the struggle for independence.

In line with the latter requirement, the colonial government advanced the new government a loan of $100 million under the Settler Transfer Fund to buy farms for squatters.

Dr Cherono reckons this was the single greatest mistake the independence government made in handling the land issue. “Why was the Government buying back land which colonialists had got free?,” she wonders. “It convoluted the problem further and exposed it to corruption which became the hallmark of the exercise.”

Even under these circumstances, land distribution among the affected communities was skewed. Experts agree that land distribution during the Kenyatta regime greatly favoured the Kikuyu.

“The Kikuyu had several advantages over other communities,” says an analyst who does not wish to be identified by name, saying this will compromise his relations with soem organisations.

“It had the full backing of the Government. They (Kikuyus) had easy access to the money given by the colonialists and also loans from banks. This made it easier for them to purchase land from other communities that were comparatively disadvantaged in terms of the power equation.”

He says there is need for a forensic audit on how the Government spent the loan advanced to it by the colonial government. He notes that this has become a bone of contention between the two communities.

“Whenever Kalenjins say Kikuyus were given land for free, they always charge that the Government gave them money to purchase their land. Perhaps it is time we knew once and for all how this money was spent,” he adds.

Concerned about the rapid loss of land, fiery Tinderet MP Jean Marie Seroney convened a meeting at Nandi Hills in 1969 to tackle the issue. The resultant Nandi Hills Declaration laid unequivocal claim to all land in Nandi for the community, and resolved to oppose further settlement of Kikuyus in the district.

However the declaration was vehemently opposed by the state. More notably, it was opposed by Mr Daniel arap Moi, the Internal Affairs minister, close confidant of President Kenyatta and nemesis of Mr Seroney. Consequently, Mr Seroney was jailed for incitement.

Kalenjins also claim that the Kenyatta government never allowed them to buy land being vacated by the white farmers even when they had the money. Instead, Kikuyus were given preference to acquire the farms at the heartland of Kalenjins.

“The establishment did not want the Kikuyu squatters in Rift Valley to return to their homeland after independence,” says Ms Susan Choge, a lecturer at Masinde Muliro.

“This is because their land had been transformed into lucrative cash-crop farms, which had been acquired by the ruling elite. The Kikuyu elite, who had acquired rich coffee and tea farms, therefore, made efforts to ensure that these squatters were permanently settled in Rift Valley. The Kenyatta government pulled all the stops towards this end.”

This move greatly angered the Kalenjin, who saw it as nothing but a continuation of the colonial injustices against them. The community put up resistance to against the Government in certain instances, which was met with brutal force.

A case often cited by the community is a conflict at Makonge farm of Ziwa, Uasin Gishu district, in 1976. A tussle over ownership of the land led to the arrest and imprisonment Eldoret North MP Chelagat Mutai.

The land was hosting Kalenjin squatters. However, their request to buy it was turned down by the Government even after collecting the requisite amount. It was instead given to a Kikuyu land-buying company.

Of course, many other Kikuyus in Rift Valley are latter-day migrants who acquired land on a willing seller-willing-buyer basis. However this fact seems to have been lost in the raging hatred between the two communities.