My Journey to Lamu – Day 2
I sit on the baraza by the jetty on what passes for Lamu’s main road called Mui Ya Pwani. I note that the road is paved with cobblestones or cabbro and later find out from a plaque that it was opened in October last year by Lawyer Issa Timamy in his capacity as Chairman of the National Museums of Kenya who funded its construction.
Timamy is one of the aspirants for Lamu County Governor. I discussed the paving of the road with the locals who said Timamy had also given a pick-up which serves as an ambulance. The two gestures by Timamy, they said, had made him more popular lately than the area MP for Lamu West, Fahim Twaha, in whose constituency is Lamu Town. As we discussed, the ambulance sped past us heading in the direction of the district hospital. It was covered with a canvas on which was painted: Makenzi Juu !
I asked ther locals who Makenzi was, and they told me it was the councillor for the area through whom Timamy had presented the ambulance. Shortly afterwards, Makenzi sped by on a motor bike. One of the locals pointed in the horizon at a clump of trees and said Makenzi normally goes there to chat with his supporters.
I later noticed the ambulance making several more trips, carrying the sick to and fro hospital. Behind us, at sea, were three patrol boats painted wsith Lamu East CDF. I asked since going by boat from the island to Mokowe was Sh 100, had Lamu East MP Abu Chiaba presented those three boats to give free rides to his constituents in the outlying islands. I was informed no, that was not the case. My informants said Chiaba had given the boats to the Fisheries Dept. to ensure fishermen did not fish fingerlings. It sounded disappointing that Chiaba did not see fit to economically empower his fishermen by giving them bigger boats to go and fish in deeper waters.
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I write this on Monday, Day 1 of the Ramadhan Fast. This is the best time of the year when mosques are packed to overflowing capacity, to educate the People of Lamu about the Save Lamu Campaign so they can be sensitized and enabled to take a full active part in it.
Are you listening Aidarus Shariff Alwi of the Lamu CIPK Branch ? Please assemble your colleagues and fan out all over Lamu mosques, spreading the Message of Save Lamu so your people can be awakened.
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There is not a single moment to lose. There is the political aspect of the Save Lamu Campaign which must not be overlooked. The 2012 Elections are exactly a year away from now. It is imperative and absolutely necessary that Save Lamu should have political representation at the national and county levels so its voice can be heard more effectively in the corridors of power on the Port Project.
My Journey to Lamu – Day 1
I have this habit of sending out SMSes on my observations whenever I go out on safari.
It was 9am, last Wednesday, July 27th, as the TSS coach began the journey to Lamu from Mombasa.
I took a quick look round my fellow passengers and sent this SMS to friends: I don’t need to travel to Mpeketoni to see the Kikuyu settlers there. Mpeketoni is travelling with me in the bus to Lamu. There is this Kikuyu woman with a big parcel. She told me it contained Kimbo and other products either unavailable or expensive in Mpeketoni.
She said she came to Mombasa regularly to buy her household needs and that she also worked on the farm. I was unable to find out what her husband did.
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At Kilifi Town, the bus was boarded by a Kikuyu hawker who started promoting his wares, mostly ointments and medication for gums.
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We arrived at Witu around 430pm and the crowded bus was boarded by as many as 15 boys and girls of Witu Secondary School returning home to Mpeketoni. About five were Walamu girls and the rest Kikuyus. But they were friendly to one another and cracked jokes. One of the Lamu girls found a seat next to me and twice, two Kikuyu girls – one of whom the Lamu girl appeared to be fond of and repeatedly called her “Lucy, shuka hapa!” jokingly – sat on the Lamu girl’s lap.
I smsed my disappointment: “These young Walamus are the ones we were counting on to carry on the struggle for Mpeketoni in the future.”
Later, in Lamu town, when I mentioned this incident to a participant of the Save Lamu Meeting, he told me the Walamus in Mpeketoni lived segregated from the Kikuyus and hardly socialised with them.
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Passing through Mpeketoni and Hindi settlement towns, I smsed: The Kikuyus brought nothing special with them to Lamu. They live in mud hovels. They were brought here in a transfer of the poverty they lived in Central, that is all.
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Reaching Lamu town and seeing donkeys as the main traffic on the narrow roads, I smsed: Are there zebra crossings for donkeys in Lamu ?
The next day, I headed for the main Riyadha Mosque and was bumped in my lower back by a donkey’s head: it felt very hard. I looked back to see a young driver riding it. He told me: “It is your fault. I was signalling you from a distance.
I stepped aside to let them pass. I went to Riyadha to indulge a friend, Muhdhar Khitamy, the Supkem Coast Chairman. Reaching the mosque, I found an adjoining madrassa building that was deserted except for two bleating goats tied inside.
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After the Save Lamu Meeting ended at 1.30pm, we came out and one of the participants spotted a Kikuyu councillor from Mpeketoni sitting on the terraces of the building where we had our meeting. I guessed he heard everything that had been said inside via amplifiers.
I was introduced to him and promptly I asked him to confirm if indeed there existed a school of thought amongst Mpeketoni Kikuyus which held that Kikuyus were in Mpeketoni strictly for farming and should not interfere in local politics. He hesitated to answer me. I then asked him if he would show me round if I went to Mpeketoni, but before he could answer, a young Mlamu participant of our meeting who was listening to us, interjected: “Don’t ask him for permission. Go there. He has no right to be there in the first place.”
I looked from where we stood I could see a one-storey building with a shop below. Above its entrance was the following: Ngai Ane Angoosa Store for Vitenges.
Somebody told me later it meant: God Is Guiding Me.
Amen. Let God guide him back to his home province. That somebody from all the way in Central Kenya was guided by Ngai to set up a vitenge shop in ancient Lamu town shows how impoverished the Lamu people are. When will God also guide the Walamus into owning such shops in their own place of birth, if not elsewhere ?
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The moment I returned back to Mombasa my ears were assailed by a cacophony of noise from the matatu traffic. A far cry from the peaceful serenity and quiet I enjoyed in Lamu for two days. I smsed: Give me punda silence any day rather than noisy matatu traffic.
Save Lamu Campaign: My Take
As we met at the Save Lamu Quarterly Meeting in Lamu Town, UN World Heritage Committee was issuing a call to Ethiopia to stop proceeding with its massive Gibe Dam construction project which, it said, would cause Lake Turkana to dry up.
UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee should issue a similar call to the Kenya Government to stop proceeding with its proposed Lamu Port and Railway Line to South Sudan via Southern Ethiopia because it will lead to an enviromental disaster of unimaginable proportions.
I believe the Save Lamu Committee ought to invite representatives of UNESCO World Heritage Committee to its future quarterly meetings. It should solicit the UNESCO World Heritage Committee’s active assistance in getting the Kenya Government to consult the people of Lamu on the implications of this massive project for the future survival of their Community.
If need be, UNESCO World Heritage Committee should aid the People of Lamu in filing a case against the Kenya Government at the World Court in The Hague.
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The people of Lamu Town who own properties have their hands tied economically by the declaration of Lamu Town as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. What this declaration means is that they can no longer rebuild their houses by putting up new structures that can yield good rental incomes for them.
Surely, the People of Lamu ought to be financially compensated by both UNESCO and Kenya Government for loss of potential revenues arising from the designation of their ancient town as a World Heritage site.
Also, both UNESCO and Kenya Government must pay serious attention to the need for carrying out a beautification programme as most, if not all, the buildings in the town are in a deplorable state. The further you go into the town the more filth and squalor you will come across. The People of Lamu should not be made to suffer economically simply because their old, decaying buildings are a source of tourist attraction.
At the moment, it is only the tour operators and hoteliers who are benefiting while very little goes to the indigenous owners of these historic buildings.
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We have heard and read many times how Man’s economic and industrial development has decimated forests and almost caused the extinction of many wild animal species.
The Lamu Port and Railway Project is the first major instance where Man’s development activity is likely to threaten the existence of the very ethno-cultural identity of an entire community within the span of 30-50 years.
All the more reason why the People of Lamu must not relent in their demand to engage the Government on the adverse implications of this mega-buck project which will lead to 1,000,000 workers moving into their archipelago, thereby effectively blotting their identity as a community out of existence.
This must not be allowed to happen under any circumstances. I propose that the People of Lamu should demand cast-iron guarantees from the Government of Kenya that the deployment of Project workers should not detrimentally affect the People of Lamu.
Specifically, I propose:
1. A major Economic and Educational Empowerment Crash Programme For The People of Lamu should be embarked upon by the Government of Kenya with
massive aid from the Arab and Muslim World.
Such a Programme should be designed to cushion the People of Lamu from Cultural Shock, by enabling them to sustain their position in the new socio-economic environment which the proposed Project will usher in.
2. The Government must not allow the imported workers to stay more than ten years in any area of Lamu.
3. Such imported workers should not be allowed to interfere with the political and parliamentary process in Lamu which should be the sole preserve of the People of Lamu.
4. Imported workers should not be allowed to have permanent settlements including landed properties, as this will result in reproduction of their numbers which will adversely affect the indigenous population.
5. It is ridiculous for the Government to spend USD 2 trillion to facilitate development of communications and transportation to Southern Ethiopia and South Sudan whilst the indigenous people of Lamu find it extremely difficult to travel from one island to another, or even from Mokowe to Witu by road.
The Government should give priority to the transportation needs of the People of Lamu ahead of the needs of Southern Ethiopia and South Sudan.
KPA should buy several passenger boats or schooners for transporting people and goods within the archipelago. This will be one positive way of assisting the People of Lamu economically.
In conclusion, the People of Lamu are being unfairly and wrongfully treated by successive Kenyan Governments. They are never considered for anything of benefit for their welfare. Whenever they and their archipelago are thought of by Nairobi, it is in connection with something that is detrimental to their interests.
This can no longer be allowed to go on like this. It must be stopped.
Four long decades of displacement from home
By PATRICK BEJA
Tima Obo, now in her late 50s, has been internally displaced for nearly all her lifetime.
She was born in Rubu village in Kiunga, Lamu, but displaced by Shifta bandits when she was hardly 12 years old. “My family returned to Rubu after the first round of attacks, but armed bandits revisited the village, tortured and displaced us for good,” she recalls. Obo’s family and other villagers sought refuge on the Lamu islands and ended up in Lamu town, where they rented tiny rooms.
The islands were safe as bandits battled with state forces on the mainland. Obo has not set foot in Rubu since the attack, as her family vowed never to
return. She narrated her story during our recent visit to Lamu, as her grandchildren played, while donkeys roamed the sprawling Kashmir slum.
Obo and her family regard themselves as the first internally
displaced persons (IDPs) in Kenya. In Lamu, they have settled mainly on Lamu and Manda islands.
FREEDOM CELEBRATIONS
Those on Lamu island boast pioneering the construction of Kashmir, Bombay and Kandahar slums, where they pitched tent as they could not pay the high rents demanded by landlords.
The sprawling slums lie south west of Lamu old town, just behind Lamu Boys High School. They do odd jobs to survive.
Those on Manda island do subsistence farming and fishing. Although the majority are low-income families, their hopes for formal settlement by the Government fade away each new day.
The infamous secessionist Shifta war was fought between 1963 and 1968 along the Kenya-Somalia border in Northern Frontier District (NFD), but the State has evidently paid scant attention to the displaced.
The conflict, which pitted ethnic Somalis against the newly independent Kenya Government, spilled over to Lamu and spoiled the people’s freedom celebrations.
“I have lived as an IDP since childhood and now I’m a grandmother. I do not understand why the Government did not think of resettling us since Independence,” laments Obo.
Hassan Awadh Hassan, a grandfather, says he has also lived his life as an IDP after his family was evicted during the Shifta insurgency in Matironi village in Mkokoni. He has since put up a makuti house at Bombay slums on Lamu island.
“My family was displaced when I was only 10 years old. My parents told me of many people killed, raped, sodomised and houses, including food stores, burnt down by heavily armed bandits,” Hassan recalls. He says villagers at first hid food in the ground to guard against
destruction by the bandits, but those captured would be tortured until they revealed its whereabouts. His family sought refuge on Takwa island, then moved to Manda, and ended up on Lamu island slums.
SCARY STORIES
“I do not dream of tracing my origins in Mkokoni because of the scary stories of torture and persistent insecurity there,” Hassan says.
“Lamu IDPs are a forgotten lot. We are only remembered during election campaigns when politicians ask for our votes. We read politics in our plight,” he adds.
Another slum dweller, Bwana Obo Shee, who originated from Mkokoni claims Government security forces were more vicious and ruthless than bandits as they, too, tortured and forcefully disarmed civilians.
MILITARY BASE
“Before the Shifta war, our people were armed. But soon after Independence they were disarmed and made vulnerable to bandit attacks, from Kiunga to Hindi areas, forcing them to seek refuge on the nearby island,” he says. Shee says his parents and villagers were happy farmers on the Lamu mainland villages, growing maize, millet, cassava, cowpeas and other crops, in addition to keeping livestock before Independence. But all hell broke loose when the disarmament programme and the Shifta war began.
“We read malice in the Kenyatta Government actions. Why did the State disarm and fail to protect us? We were branded Shiftas and there was no resettlement programme for us since then. I was born in Kenya, but I am not proud of being a Kenyan,” he says. Shee lives in Bombay slum but has a farm on Manda island, where IDP squatters have had long-standing disputes with hoteliers who allegedly got land from a former powerful Coast Provincial Commissioner.
“The PC told us the land was earmarked for a military base but sold it to a white man for the establishment of a hotel. This has frustrated us for long,” Shee says.A special Government committee decided to refer to the bandits as “Shiftas” to minimise the political nature of the conflict. The bandits aspired to control huge swathes of Kenya and unite them with Somalia in quest for what the former Horn of Africa nation’s leader Siad Barre called “the Greater Somalia,” hemming in all lands occupied by ethnic Somalis.
Kenyatta’s son named in prime land scandal
Do we really need Uhuru Kenyatta for president. This grabbing by his brother happened in Moi’s time. Who is eager for Uhuru to be president? Show me the alternative…dear mashadites
News
Monday, March 6, 2000
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Kenyatta’s son named in prime land scandal
By EDMUND KWENA
A son of President Jomo Kenyatta was allocated 50,000 acres of prime land at the Coast, an MP has claimed.
Mr Peter Muigai Kenyatta, Mzee Kenyatta’s eldest son, was allocated the land at the Mpeketoni scheme in Lamu District, Lamu West MP Fahim Twaha said.
The MP’s remarks came amidst growing controversy across the country over the Kenyatta regime, which critics have accused of political repression and corruption while its defenders say the charges are unfair.
Mr Twaha told a public rally held at Mkunguni in Lamu town on Friday that the land was given to Mr Muigai Kenyatta because of weaknesses in the land processing system.
He told a rally attended by Lands Minister Joseph Nyagah and assistant ministers Zebedeo Opore and Francis Tarar that flaws in the land acquisition process had denied a lot of people their rightful share.
“I am not attacking Peter Kenyatta as a person, but how can one justify that in the same settlement scheme in Mpeketoni, a total of 3,600 families were allocated 36,000 acres while one man got 50,000 acres?” he asked.
The MP said that the planned review of the Constitution should cover land issues. He called for the decentralisation of land allocation so that decisions affecting wananchi would be taken at the grassroots level.
“As it is now, someone can come from Nairobi and claim your land because the decisions on land allocation are being made in the capital,” he said.
He suggested that even decisions to employ government officers and concerning government expenditure be referred to the locations.
He said: “District land allocation committees are not democratic as they consist of five members – the district commissioner, town clerk, planning officer, land officer and chairman of the county council,” the MP said.
“The only local person is the chairman of the county council, who is directly accountable to the people. Unfortunately, either because they are outnumbered or are corrupted with offers of choice plots for themselves and their families, they tend to betray the local people.”
On a promise by Minister Nyagah that the government would issue title deeds to Coast people, Mr Twaha said persistent calls for federalism appeared to have woken the government out of its slumber.
“Our calls for independence of the Coast Province appear to have been a wake-up call for the government, which is now moving fast to release titles to the people in the Coast Province,” he said.
He said the fact that Mr Nyagah had flown to Lamu “with a high-powered delegation and in a military plane”, showed that the government was finally listening to Coast people.
He said the Shungwaya Association, which obtained a court injunction stopping all new land allocations in Lamu District, wanted an assurance that there would be no more land grabbing in the district before withdrawing the injunction.
“The association is ready to withdraw the injunction but the government on its part must also give guarantees that land grabbing will no longer occur in the district,” Mr Twaha said.
Minister Nyagah has been on an extensive tour of Coast Province to address the thorny land issue.
Uchunguzi Online 