The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission report released last year condemned the Mpeketoni land settlement scheme of the 1960s as unprocedural, dubious, irregular and the cause of perpetual tension in the area.
The TJRC report, which was given to President Uhuru Kenyatta last year, analysed conflicts in Lamu in the context of the Shifta (Kenya-Somali) conflict of the 1960s.
The commission also factored in historically-rooted threats to peace posed by the proposed construction of the new Lamu Port.
It said the Senior Kenyatta's government 1964 - 1978 engaged in setting up dubious settlement schemes that were engineered to deceive locals while benefiting non-natives from up-country.
TJRC reported that only about 15 to 20 per cent indigenous Coastals benefited, while the rest of the land was taken up by non-native individuals ferried from interior parts of Kenya especially Kikuyus and Kambas.
Even after coastal land was irregularly allocated to aliens, some members of the coastal communities who received allotment letters had their land illegally taken away, the report states.
It further explains that, “In Lamu district, where a larger settlement programme was implemented, supported by aid from Germany, 10,000 members of the Kikuyu community were settled between 1969 and 1979, including ex-Mau Mau soldiers."
The irregular move raised the population of the Kikuyu to 20 per cent in the district.
TJRC found that locals had previously lost their land to Arabs, and the British and hoped to regain it at independence, when upcountry people, came in and grabbed whatever land that was remaining.
Kenyatta's government also reportedly enacted a land legislative framework that condemned the locals to being squatters at the mercy of the government which continued to take the land without consideration to the local communities.
“In Lamu, for example, all the land in what currently constitutes Lamu County was categorized as government land, while the local indigenous population was considered as ‘squatters’ on the land, yet it was their own,” the report points out.
Additionally, lack of title deeds exposed the coastal communities to violent evictions by government functionaries, especially security forces, in pretence of carrying out security operations.
The report cited an undated incident in which Somali raiders crossed the border and killed a police officer in Kiunga.
“The GSU, in addition to torturing the local Bajuni communities, demolished their villages, including Rasini and Mtanga Wanda islands, causing them to flee. Upon return, community members found that their land had been taken over and registered in the names of upcountry people who, to date, claim to be owners of the land,” the commission said.
In neighbouring Kipini, Swahili and Giriama locals said they discovered that people from other communities, especially the Akamba and the Kikuyu, as well as soldiers who had descended on the area for unexplained reasons, had sub-divided their land and obtained title deeds.
The report said that every time Kenyan security forces were sent to the area to respond to Shifta attacks, they turned against community members and tortured them, destroying their crops, demolishing their homes and forcibly evicting them.
“As a result, community members have been forced out of twelve villages in the area, including Shakani, Shendeni and Vundeni,” the commission said adding that in other places, the locals were simply forcibly evicted to pave way for immigrants from interior Kenya.
The commission listed Kiunga, Kishakani, Funambai, Vibondeni, Ashwei and Materoni as some of the villages occupied by Bajuni people at independence, but which were subsequently destroyed and taken over by upcountry people.
On the Lamu Port issue, the report said, the government knew all along (as early as 1965) that the port would be constructed. It says the people believe the reason why many upcountry people were settled on their land is to enable them to become beneficiaries of compensation schemes.
Apart from the report being tabled in Parliament, there has been no dialogue on the contentious matter. President Uhuru Kenyatta is also overly hesitant to implement the report and is instead resorting to cheap populist politics to fool coastal residents.
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