Daily Nation Opinion

Why the MRC should use extant legal provisions to resolve Coast land issues

By Ibrahim Mwathane
Posted  Sunday, October 28  2012 at  18:35

I am saddened whenever I see pictures of young people at the Coast being bundled into police vehicles headed for the cells or courts.

This was replayed following the arrest of Mombasa Republican Council leader Omar Mwamnuadzi. Pictures of young Kenyans, some with severe bruises, arrested as they allegedly engaged the police to prevent the arrest of the MRC leader, hit us right in our sitting rooms.

I turned to a young man I work with and asked: “Do you think these young men have been through school?”

We concluded that most couldn’t have, and they wouldn’t have had any gainful employment either, making it easy for manipulative adults to exploit their ignorance.

I went on to observe that even assuming they got “their separate Coast territory”, in their circumstances, they would be exploited by their leaders even more.

Well-meaning leaders at the Coast should, therefore, work to empower such youth and redirect them to seek legal and sustainable options to resolving historical land grievances. And they must firmly reject any incitement to violence by insincere leaders.

We now have enabling policy, constitutional and legal frameworks. It will now be possible to resolve the Coast land issues systematically.

Kenya’s complex historical land question evokes bitter memories from those who lost their legitimate land rights over the years. The introduction of a formal land management regime by the colonialists fuelled it.

The application of formal land laws to allocate land to favoured persons progressively displaced some communities. This was aggravated by our liberation war, with people who were forcefully moved or detained losing their legitimate land rights.

Kenya’s Coast, Central and Rift Valley provinces bore the brunt. Sadly, post-independence governments didn’t do much to address this problem, instead aggravating it through preferential allocation of the remaining public land using pre-independence laws.

This increased frustrations and anger within communities. It’s such discontent that unscrupulous leaders have occasionally exploited to incite violence whenever it suits them. It’s such discontent that is getting exploited at the Coast.

Prior to the general elections, such land injustices, real or perceived, are played up to incite violence. The resultant flare-ups effectively increase or diminish vote baskets for the antagonists in the affected zones.

But in all instances, the individuals and communities involved, along with our country, have lost. Lives have been lost, people maimed and many displaced.

Children suffer, go hungry and drop out of school. Property is lost or destroyed. Businesses close and lifestyles are disrupted. Our economy and global image suffer.

But the violence never resolves the salient issues. Land disputes and injustices linger. Sustainable solutions will only be obtained through constitutional and legal mechanisms. And a lot of work has been done on this.

The National Land Policy approved in 2009 provides for the establishment of a legal and administrative framework to investigate, document and determine historical land injustices and to recommend how they can be resolved.

The new Constitution established a National Land Commission whose function is to initiate investigations into present or historical land injustices and recommend appropriate redress.

These policy and constitutional commitments were written into the recently enacted National Land Commission Act 2012 and the Land Act 2012.

The Land Commission Act, for instance, obliges this Commission to, within two years of its establishment, prepare and recommend to Parliament an appropriate legal framework to help in the investigation and resolution of historical injustices.

The Land Act requires that mechanisms be put in place to address the Coast squatter and absentee landlord problem, and also to address the resettlement of internally displaced persons.

Coast leaders, including the MRC, should call for the implementation of these provisions expeditiously, the most sustainable way forward.

For us all, the policy, constitutional and legal opportunities now available should provide hope. In the fullness of time, historical land injustices will be resolved.

It therefore behoves us all to refuse to be incited against our brothers as we approach the General Election. We need to preserve peace and harmony countrywide.

Mr Mwathane is chairman, Land Development and Governance Institute (www.ibrahimmwathane.com)