        |
|
When the Kenyan government provided backing for the Maasai delegation to the UN Working Group, it apparently did so in the name of indigenous rights,6 even though the current government is at least partly responsible for the conditions the Maasai endure in the Kajiado and Narok districts of Rift Valley Province. That apparent contradiction becomes easier to understand if the question that emerges is not specifically about the threat to Maasai cultural survival, but also includes the role the Maasai play in broader human rights issues. Daniel arap Moi, Kenya's current president, was responsible for ending the group ranching system; so why would he also have sent the MDA to Geneva and Vienna?
When Jomo Kenyatta was president, from 1963 to 1978, Kenya was for all intents and purposes a Kikuyu-dominated one-party state, despite whatever intentions were expressed at the outset that there should be multi-party democracy and power-sharing among constituent peoples. Kenyatta's political party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), was an organization of primarily Kikuyus and Luos. The Kikuyus had been favored by the British, due to their usefulness in the colonial enterprise, but they were also the main participants of the "Mau Mau" uprising that was instrumental in achieving liberation from British rule. The British permitted some of the Kikuyus to buy land in the Rift Valley, and Kikuyus thought that therefore they were the rightful owners of that land.
After independence, the Kikuyu enjoyed domination over the other peoples who became Kenyans (perhaps against the will of some of them) and developed a superior attitude towards them. The Kikuyu were the movers and shakers of Kenya. Many of them, armed with college degrees from the West, achieved economic prosperity and formed a burgeoning elite. In the Rift Valley, many more Kikuyu (as well as Luhyas and Luos) who had been brought in by force to be exploited as cheap labor found the means to buy up the land. But that land had been dispossessed from the pastoralists, including the Maasai, who wanted it back.
Daniel arap Moi, a Kalenjin, was Kenyatta's vice-president and occupied his office with total deference to Kikuyu domination of the state and of KANU. The Kalenjin were the main constituents of the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) that opposed Kenyatta and the Kikuyu, but it never could compete successfully, nor was there any other competitor to Kenyatta, the Kikuyu or KANU. During the Kenyatta years, Moi and the KADU opposition stood for the political ideology of "Majimboism," which is Swahili for ethnic (i.e., indigenous) regionalism, or "ethno-federalism." Majimboism proposes that the peoples who are indigenous to any given region should control that region's affairs; the platform thus opposes any centralized domination of the entire state by any particular people(s). The ideology also proposes the subordination of non-indigenous people(s) within particular regions by those who are indigenous. In the extreme, the ideology has come into practice as an "ethnic cleansing" policy that is disposed toward the expulsion of non-indigenous people(s) from territories which they have inhabited presumably without justification or legitimacy. In Kenya, Majimboism has materialized in the form of extremely violent expulsions that have become commonplace in the Western, Nyanza and Rift Valley provinces.7
The Kalenjins aspire to return to the Rift Valley from which they were evicted, along with the Maasai, during the colonial period. The Kikuyu, Luyha and Luo owners of private property of the Rift Valley stand in the way of the Kalenjin and Maasai return. The Kalenjins and Maasai regard themselves as "indigenous" to the Rift Valley, while they view the Kikuyu, Luhya and Luo as "black colonialists," "foreigners" and "aliens."8 Ironically, under the post-colonial regime of legitimate private ownership of property, the most valuable land in the Rift Valley stayed in the hands of the white population who became Kenyan citizens and who are not the objects of Majimboism, largely because they are a small minority. But for the more numerous African "immigrants" to the region, Majimboism has come to represent the attempt of the pastoralist former inhabitants to take possession and control of the territory. Majimboism and the KADU were contained, as long as Kenyatta was in power and the Kikuyu controlled the Rift Valley. However, when Kenyatta died in 1978, Daniel arap Moi came to power, and he then emulated Kenyatta's precedent of one-party domination but turned Kenya into a Kalenjin project, which it has been ever since. The West, which might have influenced the agenda of either Kenyatta or Moi, largely tolerated one-party rule in Kenya, since it never threatened to become one of the Soviet clients that were presumed to have developed in certain neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa (e.g.: Ethiopia, Somalia and Tanzania) during the Cold War era. But one-party rule inevitably produced an abundance of dissent and consequential abuses. After a coup attempt in 1982, Kenya's human rights record took a dramatic plunge, with many reported cases of torture and detention without trial.9
After the Cold War ended, and socialism seemed to fade as a threat, the West raised its expectations of "democratization" in Kenya. In 1991, when single-party dictatorship was clearly threatening to produce violent insurrection that might have unfavorable consequences for the entire region (neighboring Somalia was then suffering total social disintegration, while Eritrea was on the verge of liberation from Ethiopia), Kenya lost billions of dollars in aid from Western donors who made financial assistance contingent on the establishment of a multi-party system. Moi bent to external pressures and economic sanctions, and he instituted multi-party elections in Kenya in 1992 and repealed the constitutional amendment establishing one-party rule. However, he warned that these changes would cause ethnic conflict, and when his Kalenjin-dominated KANU was re-elected that year, one major factor in its victory was the degree to which Kalenjins terrorized the opposing political parties and the peoples who were their constituents. KANU deliberately tried to hinder the opposition in 1992 by engineering the worst intercommunal violence in the nation's history. Kikuyus and Luos living in the Rift Valley were killed indiscriminately by Kalenjins, and in some cases, by Maasai. This was a calculated move, as driving Kikuyus and Luos from the Rift Valley would clear the way for Kalenjins to control full voter support in the province with the most representation in Parliament. At least 1500 people were killed and some 300,000 displaced between 1991 and 1994.10
Since 1992, "ethnic conflict" has been a predominant feature of the national political landscape, as Kalenjins and their Maasai allies attempt to prevent the re-emergence of Kikuyu, Luhya and Luo power and to evict those people(s) from lands in the Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza provinces. President Moi rejects the idea of Kenya as a multi-party state. He believes that multi-partyism serves to divide Kenya's diverse indigenous peoples and provides the fuel that ignites passions based on indigenous identity. Moi justifies his policy by reasoning that since Kenyatta ran a Kikuyu project, the precedent has now been long-established that single-party rule is as legitimate as domination by particular peoples. So, following precedent, there is nothing wrong with the over-representation of Kalenjin in Moi's cabinet and the Parliament. The few non-Kalenjin members of KANU are confirmed groupthinkers who share the same world view as the Kalenjin members. To divert from groupthink is to risk losing their posts and, depending on their potential to influence the masses, their lives.
President Moi prides himself on being a spiritual leader. Frequently quoting the bible, he vows to crush the "enemies of Kenya." Since winning the 1992 elections, Moi has confirmed Kenya as a one party state, and armed with his bible, he rules with renewed vengeance. He is accused in Kenya and internationally of having one of the worst records of human rights abuses in Africa. One Kenyan critic reports that "Moi has perfected the repressive state crafted by Kenyatta, through party control of civic groups, trade unions, the press, the parliament and critically, the judiciary. Suppressing dissent, harassing opponents and fanning the killings of innocents in opposition areas" (sic.).11
Among Moi's enemies is Louis Leakey, a white Kenyan and the son of famous anthropologists Mary and Louis Leakey, who was an ally of the regime until he was forced to resign as the head of the National Wildlife Service in 1994. Leakey has since formed his own party, Safina (meaning "Noah's Ark"), which now poses one of the biggest challenges to the KANU. Moi has vowed that neither Leakey nor any other "colonialist" will rule Kenya. Another current enemy and a co-founder of Safina is Koigi wa Wamwere, who has recently been identified by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch/Africa as one of the most important human rights victims in Africa. Wamwere's case is of particular interest due to his attempt to report upon and protest the Majimboist policies that are sweeping southwestern Kenya. He was arrested in 1993 on charges of treason, sedition, possession of illegal firearms, and violation of "security provisions." He has been tortured and possibly will be sentenced to death. He is being treated as a "prisoner of conscience" by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch/Africa.
Strong evidence links the clashes in the Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza provinces to Moi's government.12 To further compound these accusations, Moi has censored the Kenyan press and created a hostile environment for foreign journalists. In 1993, a number of journalists who covered the violence in the Rift Valley were attacked and others intimidated by having their facilities ransacked and destroyed. Because reports to police went unacknowledged and reparations were not forthcoming, the obvious conclusion is that these attacks were perpetrated on the orders of higher authority.13
Fourth World Bulletin • Spring/Summer 1996
Copyright © 1996 by the Fourth World Center
Created by Aigis Communications, Ltd