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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4

USAID, in efforts to understand the potential for conflict resolution programming in Kenya and in the Greater Horn of Africa commissioned sixteen papers. Fifteen of them are subject specific. Among the subjects covered are traditional conflict resolution techniques, violence on women, electoral violence, state driven conflicts, urban settlements conflicts, conflicts between agriculturists and pastoralists, ethnic "clashes", conflict early warning indicators, community based conflict management practices, trade conflicts, land conflicts, pastoral cosmology, Islam related conflicts and the Greater Horn of Africa conflict system.

This paper was commissioned to review conflict resolution literature and to distil programming lessons from the literature and the fifteen papers. Towards that end, the author was requested to discuss how Kenya has managed to avoid the cataclysmic conflicts that have taken place in the region. Finally it was supposed to suggest areas which USAID/Kenya could consider in its programming.

Conflict resolution programming is a new concern in development programming. Consequently there are many questions on how it is to be integrated to the normal development programming concerns. The author did not identify any previous work specifically done along these lines. Methodologically then, this is, in more ways than one, a leap into the dark! Among programming people, there is also some confusion. Should conflict resolution be part and parcel of governance? Should it be a stand-alone? Should it be part of all sectoral programs? How does one define conflict? Are some conflicts outside the purview of donor intervention? Resolution of some of these questions would have led to a more elegant methodology.

Since the author did not find methodological models, he decided to lead the substantive portion of the paper with a discussion of the bifurcated source of conflict resolution thinking. This is found in chapter two after a brief introductory chapter describing the genesis of the consultancy.

Chapter two notes that conflict resolution thinking comes out of two traditions. One tradition emphasizes state to state interactions. Thus conflict resolution is in the realm of international relations. In the past, relations between states would be under the mandate of the Department of State and not USAID. However, some US Government programs currently straddle the classic distinction between diplomacy and development. One such thrust is the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative whose mandate embraces working with the states of the region and their inter-governmental organizations. Of course there are many conflicts, for example on refugees, pastoralism, boundaries, natural resources, which cut across many states. Its initial strategy document emphasized food security. It could use state driven conflict resolution mechanisms to address this and many other issues.

The second school of conflict resolution does not see states as the only actors in conflict resolution for it emphasizes that conflict is anchored on intra-state cleavages. In this arena, individuals, communities, development organizations and the private sector are joint actors with the state, albeit unequal. Its major writings have concentrated on the methodology of resolving or transforming conflict. An underlying idea for this school is that for conflict to be resolved, change must come not only to individuals but also to social institutions, including the state. Thus when state institutions interact with civil society institutions and development agencies to prevent or transform conflict there is nurturing of democratization of state and society. This is so since the skills of participation, representation and policy generation are undertaken during the process. This school operates in the classic realm of development. Its concerns therefore fit the classic mandate of USAID.

Reviewing the literature of both schools identified two issues not adequately addressed. These are the problem of a people wanting to exit from already existing states and the role of expanding social, economic and political opportunities for conflict containment. The problem of exit has come to regional scholarship forcefully given the Somali, Eritrea and Great Lakes experiences. Exit from states is seen in some scholarship as part and parcel of resolving conflict. The expanding economic, social and political opportunities of the first years of Kenyan independence primarily explain why it avoided the chaos found in some of the countries in the region.

Chapter two also argues that the main driving force of conflict in Kenya is the absence or weakness of a framework and institutions for popular participation in rulership and the economy. This conclusion is central to all subsequent presentation.

The fifteen commissioned papers were assigned so as to use various methodologies of conflict identification. The key methodologies are historical-political analysis, conflict impact on social groups and analysis of rapid change. They are not mutually exclusive. One should note that they are not the usual skills looked for in staffing development agencies. It follows then that those who need to staff conflict resolution programs must re-train or hire staff with skills to do these analyses.

Conflicts are aided by state military peacekeeping, by new private corporate armies and by non-participatory emergency /relief activities just as mediators sometimes inadvertently do more harm than good.

Finally, most literature notes that conflict in the third world is generally structured around ethnicity. However, all should be wary of interpreting most conflicts as ethnic for more often than not, ethnicity is a camouflage for other kinds of conflict.

Chapter three focuses on how Kenya has so far avoided the cataclysmic conflicts found in some of the states of the region. It is noted that conflict resolution writing does not make the point that expansion in the economic, social and political arenas minimizes conflict. This was the Kenyan experience in the first two decades of independence.

The pre-independence populations who hoped that independence would lead to personal and familial improvement actually lived the improvements. There was minimum agreement about leadership by the people and the national elite. The takeover of Whitehighlands, acquisition of crown lands and acquisition of urban land and other assets led to economic expansion and improvements in the standards of living of many people. The pre-independence idea of majimbo did not lead to conflict for it was marginalised. Africanisation and deracialisation of public and private employment not only employed those coming on to the job market but sent positive messages to the African component of society which had suffered racial discrimination during the colonial period.

The expanding economy, during the first twenty years, ensured that individuals and families were acquiring assets and living better than before. Although the economy did not perform as spectacularly for the next thirteen years, there was a lag between the disaffection triggered by the shrinking opportunities. This again worked to contain conflict. It is not clear that the same can be said for the immediate future for there is no guarantee that economic performance will improve. Individual and social disillusion is let loose on the land.

Conflict resolution theory does not dwell on the impacts of education. Education has expanded spectacularly since independence. Sociological theory assumes that education leads to more open and tolerant society. One can thus posit that the educational expansion is good for Kenya. However, one must also present the experience of countries like Rwanda where mass media has been used to feed conflict. An educated population is not just mobilisable for democratic oriented behavior but can be mobilized for ethnic conflict ends. In any case, education is not seen now as the primary pathway to improvement for many educated are unemployed and the dictates of cost sharing are such that significant numbers are dropping out of schools. Access to education, especially at the post-secondary level is now ethnicised with some communities claiming that they are not getting their fair share. Issues of access to education have the potential for leading to conflicts in the future.

There also has been expansion of peoples’ organizations outside the state and party structure. There are among others harambee groups, burial groups, clan organizations, churches and other religious organizations and perhaps most important cooperatives. These organizations have enabled people to learn new organizational skills. No doubt they had a role on scaling down some conflicts even under the single party state. Their experiences form a base for further development of peoples’ initiatives, particularly for civil society institutions.

Lack of systemic conflict in Kenya to date cannot be explained only in terms of activities of the population. The Kenyan State organized itself for control fairly quickly after independence. It created many institutions towards that end. Among these was the single party that managed political conflict. A dominant civil service assured depoliticisation and control. Specific laws like the Chiefs Act, the Preservation of Public Security Act and the Societies Act limited assembly and free participation. They also helped keep the lid on conflicts for people could not organize openly.

The fact that there have not been many conflicts does not mean that it is posited that there will not be in the future. Conflicts are likely for the population has exploded without equivalent economic expansion lately. Traditional social systems, providing economic cushions and conflict mediation are falling apart. The young do not even recognize these traditions. Individualism is let loose on the land. The land is not able to carry the population at existing technology. There are ethnic conflicts over the land, usually masked under pastoral versus agricultural production systems. There is rural and urban landlessness for some of the poorest members of society. Hope for the future is a past nightmare. Ethnic entrepreneurs prowl the land protected by an extractive national elite. Electoral violence and lack of tolerance at the state and individual levels block systemic democratization.

In these circumstances it is to be expected that there will be significant conflicts in the future. Poverty is increasing with about 50% of the nation’s population living below the poverty line. The future crisis is not just urban poverty but also shortage of natural resources to support rural populations.

Chapter Four summarizes some of the major conflicts which took place between 1963 and 1996 for inspite of the state’s attempt to keep a lid on conflict, there were some. More significant is the fact that their impacts endured. The key ones are the shifta war, land, livestock raiding, natural resources driven conflicts and ethnic violence. These have contributed to the brutalization of society as well as the genesis of popular violence.

The shifta war was a war for maintaining colonial boundaries and thereby keeping Somalis in Kenya despite their wanting to join their kinsmen in Greater Somalia. The legacy of the war has been marginalisation of the area and a public service that accepts brutalization of the public.

Freedom fighters who did not like the post-independence capitalist approach on land in Kenya reverted to the forest to fight. They were defeated militarily. Their agitation did not get linked to political parties and their options for a different land holding regime was extinguished. This put a lid on land conflict.

Livestock raids were significant sources of conflict after independence. They were important for intra-ethnic inter-generational capital formation and local level restocking. They have evolved into large scale militarized sources of wealth and patronage through national and cross-border trade. It is conceivable they will threaten not only the pastoral regions but also the nation as guns, unlike water, flow uphill.

Conflicts over land, water and other natural resources are increasing. In the future these will probably become the major conflicts although they will be camouflaged under ethnicity.

Leading up to the first multi-party elections in 1992, there was what has been called ethnic clashes. These appear to have been politically instigated clashes to show that multi-partism cannot work in Kenya. It could well be that the conflict was over land and other resources. What is not in doubt is the fact that they appear to have been instigated by some powerful politicians. Hence the birth of the ethnic entrepreneur. Their impact has been to ethnicise Kenyan politics.

Recently, popular violence has increased. This is violence that is mob driven. The most common form is the beating to death of thieves and other marginal people. This is an insidious form of violence that seems to be spreading from the urban to the rural areas. A subset of popular violence is violence on women, which is treated in detail in one of the fifteen papers.

Having reviewed conflict theory in chapter two, explained how Kenya avoided the conflict patterns found in the region in chapter three and briefly discussed some of the major conflicts in the Kenyan experience in chapter four, chapter five summarizes what the consultant sees as areas of programming opportunity.

Potentially, the most explosive area is in urban slums where between 60% and 85% of the urban population live. Total urban population is about 20% of the national population. What makes this population important, from a conflict point of view, is its destructive potential as all cases of urban riots show.

The interface areas of pastoral and agricultural production area important sources of conflict as different production systems struggle over land, water and forage. So are the pure pastoral areas where the populations are larger than the carrying capacities of these harsh lands. The young challenge the traditional control over resources. In turn, in the high potential areas some areas have extreme landlessness again driven by population explosions. The landless, many of them young have no means of livelihood. In the high potential areas facilitating completion of land registration would contribute to minimizing some conflicts. However, in both pastoral and high potential areas there is need to find other sources of livelihood, particularly for the young. They are the cannon fodder for ethnic entrepreneurs.

Transforming both politics and the state to become more open, participatory and relevant to local community interests is a key approach to minimizing systemic conflict. Towards that end, there is need to ensure that mass media does not fan conflicts by reporting which does not address conflicts objectively. Media also informs. This role should be expanded to assist this society to image the future.

In the long term, democratic practices and tolerance should be part of the normal education of citizens. Introducing school curricula on these issues may be useful for the long-term development of a more tolerant society.

If the issues immediately discussed refer to the internal Kenyan process, there are other issues that are regional in nature. Among these are the problems of cross border raiding, which can only be resolved by both cross border community and state actions.

There exists potential conflict over the exploration and exploitation of both oil and mineral resources, which appear to straddle borders.

Finally, refugees, as opposed to internal refugees, generate conflicts. Kenya has hosted refugees from many of the region’s countries. Kenyans have very hostile attitudes towards some of them. Regionally, other countries are beginning to complain about refugees’ costs. Tackling attitudes on refugees and perhaps finding repatriation solutions should minimize this type of conflict.

Since the end of the Cold War, the emerging world system has had to figure out how development and international relations are to be conducted in the new environment. During the Cold War era, its dictates dominated whatever else was being done in the international system. In rethinking of interactions among nations, Africa has featured for a variety of reasons. First, it is the poorest continent and continues to demand aid. Second, it has had many leaders propped up by the two Cold War camps. Now that they are not useful, they have to forage on their own. Their attempts to forage has triggered political and economic processes within their countries and on the continent in general which challenge their governance, the third major reason. Finally, current international thinking puts a premium on resolving conflicts so that they do not lead to wars.

USAID and other United States agencies are part and parcel of this post-Cold War environment. It has had to rethink how its development work can address the issues of conflict in the countries it is undertaking development work. Since policy for USAID to get involved in conflict resolution has been made, USAID country offices have to struggle with how to operationalised the policy concerns.

This paper forms part and parcel of USAID/Kenya’s efforts to think through on how to operationalised conflict resolution. It is the integrating paper to a broad Conflict Resolution Consultancy. The objectives of the consultancy are detailed in Appendix 1.

USAID/Kenya in efforts to understand conflicts in Kenya specifically and the Greater Horn of Africa in general, not only commissioned this paper but another fifteen related papers by independent consultants. Of the eighteen authors, 6 are working in the NGOs sector, 8 are academics in Kenyan universities, 1 is an editor with a Kenyan business publication, 2 are full-time land valuation consultants in the region and one is a full-time consultant in development management. Of the eighteen authors, thirteen are Kenyans and four are Americans.

The coordinating consultant, guided by discussions with the relevant USAID/Kenya staff, identified contributors on the basis of their experience and academic background. The topics were assigned to assure coverage of issues which, in the opinion of the coordinating consultant, could assist USAID/Kenya develop a program on conflict resolution.

Among these were:

This paper serves several purposes. First, it summarizes conflict theory to provide a possible programming framework specific to Kenya. Second, it discusses how the Kenyan State has managed conflict - some would say dominated violence - since independence. Third, it offers a menu of possible program activities. The paper is part and parcel of a report that incorporates the fifteen commissioned papers.

At meta-theory (defined as theory on theories) level, conflict resolution has come into scholarship from two distinct traditions. Confusion reigns when some theoreticians try and merge the two traditions¹ without being clear that the end of the cold war has not terminated debate about the role of the state. State formation, or more accurately, state re-configuration, is still unfinished business in many places. So are issues of non-state agencies like NGOs and corporate armies acting in the state arena.

Paying attention to the nature of the state is important fact in designing programs by both USAID and DOS, especially if such programming is to be coordinated across the traditional interests of the two agencies, namely, development and diplomacy.

The first set of theories of conflict resolution addresses issues between states. A good example of this is the book by I. William Zartman, titled Ripe for Resolution: Conflict and Intervention in Africa.^2. This body of scholarship has exploded as practitioners of statecraft look for new theory and practice to inform operations of governments, UN, NGOs, regional bodies and corporate armies after the end of the Cold War. It, with twenty-twenty hind sight vision, calls to question old diplomacy which did not pay attention to preventing crises between states, forgetting that Cold War ideological diplomatic programming accepted war (the sharp end of conflict) as a tool to be used against ideological enemy states. Under the Cold War, development agencies followed the dictates of ideological diplomacy. War by other means was development!

This evaluative scholarship emphasizes avoidance of war by state armies. It also conveniently forgets that the business of creating states, or, in the old the language, ‘nation building’, is still very much part and parcel of societal structural issues in as diverse places as Yugoslavia, Sudan, and Africa’s Great Lakes region, to pick only a few examples. Finally, now that there are no clear ideological enemies, a rationale has to be found not only for the military, but also for the diplomatic and development industries of the developed world. This has to be done in the context of shrinking budgetary resources for aid in those countries.

This body of academic literature concentrates on conceptualizing activities that hopefully solve problems between existing states. It does not address the issue of dismembering existing states and creating new states out of existing configurations, obviously an unfinished business in as diverse places as former Yugoslavia and the Greater Horn Region. It has nothing to say about classical development within states other than that military budgets eat into the resources that could be used for classical development investment.

The concept of preventive diplomacy is central to this body of literature. Preventive diplomacy is defined as those activities that enable states to address and solve crises that if unattended will lead to overt conflict that in turn may lead to war. Such situations are to be avoided for the nexus of armed conflict and war, and the attendant violence, is politically and economically costly if undertaken by the armies of the West. Increasingly war cannot be sold to the populations of the developed world given that liberal democracy has "conquered" the other major ideologies and it may be the "end point of man’s ideological evolution" and the "final form of government" thereby giving mankind the "end of history" as Fukiyama has argued.^3. The populations would rather invest in the free market and technology that drive the expansion of liberal democracy rather than investing in conducting ideological or overt wars. That they might get desired mineral resources from Africa through corporate armies may be acceptable. Of course there is intellectual dissent on whether the West, and the US in particular, can export liberal democracy⁴ but Fukiyama’s point is that technology and the market do not leave room for other systems.

The main actors in preventive diplomacy are states, but the various theories seek to incorporate other institutions to act on the behalf of states. These can be the UN, regional organizations, development agencies, corporate armies or national civil institutions.

Some authors point out that in post-cold war Africa, the doctrine of non-interference in the internal affairs of states has been superseded by the need to settle conflicts using continental organs. The end of the doctrine of non-interference in the internal affairs of states, whose central pillar is the maintenance of the inherited colonial state boundaries as enshrined in the OAU charter, has enabled external interference in the internal affairs of some states, in support of the OAU conflict management activities. Among the developed states which have taken this opportunity are the US, France and, the UK, who also happen to have had the longest military-to-military relationships.⁵ Corporate armies, a throw back to the late nineteen century colonization, are also becoming key actors in Africa as exemplified by Executive Outcomes.

Ironically, Cohen writes: "The devastating wars in Liberia and Rwanda ...were nurtured and fuelled from neighboring countries...It is to be hoped that the wars in these two countries will serve as a deterrent to governments tempted to help insurgents overthrow "unsavory" regimes next door". ⁶ Such comment points out that the doctrine of interference in the internal affairs of some states, as understood by practitioners like Cohen, is still not sensitive to the need to re-configure states, including the democratization of state and society, historically central issues in state formation. Asefa shares the same confusion when he posits that traditional structures can become the carriers of consensus politics whilst expanding present day states to larger sovereignties.⁷

In any case, within this state driven theory of conflict resolution, there are programming activities geared to solve those conflicts that threaten international stability and are based on the "politics and relations of the countries". ⁸ To the extent that some states are "defective" and/or "predatory"⁹ and thus threaten international stability, something needs to be done to contain them, the realm of preventive diplomacy¹⁰ and peacekeeping. Preventive diplomacy and peace keeping in this perspective is clearly in the realm of inter-state affairs. It is not in the development realm. It does not address internal democratization of either the state or society.

Within this framework, it is still a relevant question how programming will address the process by which democratic systems can grow internally without encumbrances from without particularly when driven by external states. Are we to conclude that democratization dictates allow states to interfere in the internal affairs of other states?

The second distinct body of literature on conflict resolution concentrates on resolving armed conflict, internal conflicts or complex emergencies within particular states. In other words, conflict is essentially intra-national. A good example of this orientation is Lederach writings.¹¹

This body of literature assumes that the main actors in conflict management are state and societal institutions. Broadly speaking then, the conflicts which take place within a state, including activities of predatory states, complex emergencies, natural emergencies and internal wars, development wars and poverty¹², are seen as part and parcel of development and thus are objects of development planning, funding and implementation.

It can be argued, at the level of meta-theory, that this body of literature assumes democratization of state and society through development for in solving conflicts the involved parties get to participate in rulership, get representation and, since most conflicts are about denial of natural resources and public services, participants get better access to natural resources and public services. This body of literature further argues that ultimate conflict, war, is antithetical to development. Thus there is an urgent programming need to inform all development actors of the need to get into conflict resolution and to take into account conflict transformation even if only to ensure that sectoral activities do not generate or exacerbate conflicts. This is my interpretation of the meaning behind Lederach’s statement that conflict resolution or transformative peacemaking is both systemic and personal.^13. It is only through such that society begins to insure justice and democracy.

This body of literature insists that in programming, development actors (be they CBOs, national or international NGOs, bilaterals, multilaterals or states) respond to ideological, governance and authority, racial, environmental, gender and identity, (ethnic, religious, tribal or linguistic) differences.¹⁴ They must anticipate and address conflicts to assure development and social peace, the new "eternal twins"! ¹⁵

Within this body of literature, the quest for early conflict warning indicators reminds one of the earlier efforts to identify early warning on drought and other natural disasters. Those efforts led to non-people oriented techno-fix solutions. It is to be hoped that as the development industry looks for early warning indicators on conflict, people will be put first, as Robert Chambers would put it.

In any case, the CIDA paper, just cited, makes an explicit argument that when there is open conflict and war, there cannot be development activities. This is the theatre of humanitarian aid.¹⁶ This position is under attack as a result of the fact that humanitarian aid at times supports conflict as we discuss below in the section, "Aiding Conflict". Development can only be during malaise, denied crisis and reconciliation and reconstruction phases in a continuum which sees conflict evolving over time and intensifying as shown graphically below. An interesting theoretical and programming question, not raised by this particular approach, is whether the pattern of conflict evolution is necessarily cyclical!

An underlying meta-theory assumption of this second school of conflict resolution is that when state institutions interact with civil society institutions and development agencies to prevent conflict, there is nurturing of democratization of state and society for the skills of participation, representation and policy generation are undertaken during the process.

The two schools of conflict resolution do not address a critical issue in the Grater Horn of Africa area, namely, what happens if particular ethnicities are marginalised, oppressed and are victims of systematic state violence - genocide. Ahmednasir¹⁷ makes a useful contribution to conflict resolution theory by bringing to the fore the issues of the nature of state to be created and what are the collective rights of nationalities within such a state.

He writes: "Because of the failure of African states to develop ethnic-free values in the running of the affairs of the state, it is only fair that all ethnic nationalities who want to form their own ethnic states should be allowed that right peacefully, otherwise they will resort to the use of force which they have all the moral right to use."¹⁸

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This theoretical standpoint is useful, for it brings to conflict resolution thinking the issue of ethnic access and equity to state controlled resources, be it objective or ideological.

From an international relations point of view, it is important to raise it for the West, the dominant actor in international relations now, to allow for the reorganization of states if particular ethnicities are systematically oppressed.

Ahmednasir elaborates as follows: "The withdrawal of superpower patronage will encourage disadvantaged members of society to reassert their rights and re-dress past grievances. This (together) with demands for democratization from both western countries and the grassroots population, will reignite fundamental questions concerning the desirability of particular ethnic groups remaining in current nation states.....It is really tragic that in spite of the existence of a problem of such magnitude and such tragic consequences only one African country (Ethiopia) has in the last thirty years addressed the issue of peaceful constitutional secession."¹⁹

By approaching the problem of specific ethnicities being totally marginalised by the state and society, within the nation state, Ahmednasir shifts the argument away from just ethnicity to a problem of nation-building and thus collective rights of ethnicities within the framework of creating a nation. His argument is not that ethnicities have the right to bear arms and thus increase conflict and violence. Secession should be a collective constitutional right. The use of violence should be the last resort. Ahmednasir specifies the conditions under which secession should be exercised as follows:

Obviously, genocide should be added to these conditionalities.

Ahmednasir is not alone for one of the most respected American Africanist, Harvey Glickman, adds the caveat that exit must not be in the context of war. He writes:

"In certain circumstances politicized ethnicity challenges existing territorial boundaries, which remain perhaps among the most pernicious - albeit the strongest - legacies of colonial rule in Africa. We might view what is happening in Africa today as part of the larger process of post-colonial re-allocation of political authority that was distorted by the Cold War, which allowed rationalizing support for military and other forms of dictatorship in Africa as well as specious centralized control of African economies......[M]ore open political systems and consent-based governance may consider peaceful partition, when democratically debated, as one end of a spectrum of policy alternatives in the face of protracted and intransigent conflict".²⁵

The option for exit for particular ethnicities is something worth paying attention to in the Greater Horn of Africa area. Where ethnicities are willing to fight, like the Eritreans and "Southern Sudanese" and others have reminded us in the recent past, it could be a useful option. No doubt other ethnicities will operationalised the concept of exit in the future if they are intolerably oppressed and if they cannot takeover the state to terminate the perceived oppression as the Banyamulenge and others have just done in former Zaire.

In Conflict Management in Kenya²⁶, Weeks and Young define "[S]ome overall factors of possible instability (as) land, population pressure, social inequality, tensions of democratization and influx of modern weapons. ...[T]he issue of ethnic conflict..... appears to us likely to define the contours of violence if it occurs, although not necessarily to "cause" disorder."²⁷. If this is an acceptable view in 1996, clearly it does not explain "when the rain began to beat us" as Chinua Achebe would put it.

At the meta-theory level, it can be argued that the main driving force for conflict, since the onset of Arab and Western colonization, is the absence or weakness of a framework and institutions for popular participation in system-wide politics, economy and the state. Denial of participation in rulership and the economy has always meant that societal cleavages are reinforced and the various species of the "state" remain authoritarian and extractive. Such cleavages then deny justice. It is only through participation that justice is assured. Justice, for individuals and ethnicities, perhaps more than representation, is the central ingredient in the evolution of democracy in the region. Development is no more than a method of assuring justice, political and economic, for individuals and ethnicities.

Participation of all would assure identification of sociopolitical demands from all parts of the society. Demands would be aggregated and conflicts -including developmental conflicts -mediated. If demands are not so aggregated and dealt with, cleavages get reinforced and trigger events that may lead to violent conflicts, including development wars.

The Kenyan nation-state has yet to become the framework for participation by all.^28. Writing in the mid-seventies, Mutiso²⁹ argued that the politics of nationalism marginalised the majority non-asomi (literary unschooled), that the politics of post-independence Kenya maximized the power of the bureaucracy and, further, that post-independence politics depoliticised society. The attendant political process was non-participatory, for the single party itself was non-participatory and only concentrated on intra-asomi (literary schooled) competition for the opportunity to use the state for accumulation.

Pointing to the possibility of increasing ethnicisation, Mutiso wrote "...if the characteristics of the center i.e., weak party, personalism and perception of sub-systems defined as tribe, and a lack of penetrative institutions continue, the political process and institutions of the periphery will consolidate themselves by attracting all the kinsmen into new organizational forms and the tribe will be consolidated politically perhaps more than it has even been."³⁰ It can be argued that this scenario, offered in 1975, has been actualized since then, for even the opportunities for multi-partism, since 1992, have led to no more than political organizations (sometimes called political parties wrongly) whose characteristics are essentially ethnic.

This ethnicisation of politics, as well as the non-democratic behavior of the state, is not just a Kenyan problem. Writing on Africa in general, in the nineties, Mamdani states ".[T]he fist of colonial power that was the local state was tightened and strengthened....(at independence)....[T]he more it centralized coercive authority in the name of development or revolution, the more it enforced and deepened the gulf between town and country (reinforcing a bifurcated state.)...The bifurcated state that was created with colonialism was (eventually) deracialised (at independence by Africanisation), but it was not democratised. If the two-pronged division that the colonial state enforced on the colonised - between town and country, and between ethnicities - was its dual legacy at independence, each of the two versions of the post colonial state tended to soften one part of the legacy while exacerbating the other......In the process, both experiences reproduced one part of the dual legacy of the bifurcated state and created their own distinctive version of despotism."³¹

On civil society, Mamdani makes a useful contribution by pointing out that it, like other institutions on the continent, has had a checkered past and present. Because of this, it is not clear whether the current assumptions, by both African and Western development theoreticians and actors, about its programmatic ends is in the realm of the feasible. He writes: " The current Africanist discourse on civil society resembles an earlier discussion on socialism. It is more programmatic than analytical, more ideological than historical. Central to it are two claims: civil society exists as a fully formed construct in Africa as in Europe, and the driving force of democratization everywhere is contention between civil society and the state."³²

Reviewing the theoretical basis of civil society from Hegel, through Marx, Gramsci and his critics on the subject, ³³ as well as the history of civil society during colonialism and post colonialism, Mamdani points out its different uses at different times. First, civil society evolved from the first moment of " the colonial state as protector of the society of colons". ^34. Its second moment was " the moment of the anticolonial struggle, for the anticolonial struggle was at the same time a struggle of embryonic middle and working classes, the native strata in limbo, for entry into civil society". ^35.

Independence " tended to deracialise the state but not civil society. Instead, historically accumulated privilege, usually racial, was embedded and defended in civil society..... The key policy instrument in that struggle was what is today called affirmative action and what was then called Africanisation. The politics of Africanisation was simultaneously unifying and fragmenting as its first moment involved the dismantling of racially inherited privilege. The effect was to unify the victims of colonial racism. Not so the second moment, which turned around the question of redistribution and divided the majority along lines that reflected the actual process of redistribution, regional, ethnic and at times familial.... [T]he other side of the politics of affirmative action was the struggle of the beneficiaries of the colonial order - mainly colons in the settler colonies and immigrant minorities (from India and Lebanon) in non-settler colonies - to defend racial privilege.... Racial privilege not only receded into civil society, but defended itself in the language of civil rights of individuals and institutional autonomy.... To victims of racism the vocabulary of rights rang hollow, a lullaby for perpetuating racial privilege. Their demands were formulated in the language of nationalism and social justice. The result was a breach between the discourse on rights and one on justice, with the language of rights appearing as a fig leaf over privilege and power appearing a the guarantor of social justice and redress. This is the moment in history of actually existing society. This is the moment of the collapse of an embryonic indigenous civil society, of trade unions and autonomous civil organizations, and its absorption into political society......It is the time when civil society-based social movements became demobilised and political movements statized".^36.

African civil society, and by extension civil society in the Greater Horn, has thus not been able to deal with traditional despotism found within customary authority in the rural areas mainly.³⁷ Having been statised, it has not been able to deal with current state despotism. Neither has it been able to represent the majority. Many donor driven civil society institutions are no more than employment bureaus for the politicised national elites based mainly in urban areas. They respond to the funding fashion of the moment. Their organizational reach, in Stein Rokkan sense, is strictly elitist and urban. They thus are not available for mass mobilization for democratization. This is so despite claims by some regimes that they are building civil society institutions to replace existing rulership.

Democratization is not just important for its own sake. It is an avenue to appropriate and sustainable development. The centrality of democratization, to assure development, in widened state systems, is emphasized by Ki-Zerbo who writes: "In Africa today, it is an impossible task to try to build a micro-nation state in the absence of development, and therefore democracy; or in the absence of democracy because development is lacking. The only legitimate way forward for the African state today is to pursue fundamental and positive objectives through federalism and local grassroots power....What is required is not so much the abolition of the African nation states but their transformation into new institutions better suited to address the realities, interests and values of peoples."³⁸

Several conclusions for Africa, in general, and, the Greater Horn of Africa in particular, can be easily drawn from this meta-theory perspective on the centrality of participation by all to assure both democratization and development.

First, funding activities that improve governance, for example, increasing state accountability, transparency and reduction of corruption, is a contribution to conflict resolution in the long term.

Second, creating system-wide popular (non-elitist) civil society institutions and increasing their advocacy role contributes to conflict resolution for many states have essentially been non-participatory. A caution is in order though. Too many of the civil society institutions, quickly baked by donors since the late eighties, are no more than new forms of enforcing the exploitation of the country by the town, as Mamdani would argue. Some get manipulated by the state, thereby blocking popular pressure for change, as Wamba-dia-Wamba’s study of the Zaire National Conference among others shows.³⁹ These standpoints suggest that programming primacy ought to be put on community based civil society institutions which operate in the rural areas with little support or reference from their exploitative urban elitist cousins. Such organizations exist and are vibrant. An example of such an organization in Kenya is the Utooni community which since 1977, decided that not many people or institutions were interested or were going to do anything meaningful in their development. As a result, it organized to transform its production processes, to rehabilitate the natural environment, to get relevant technical training for its youth, to implement family planning and health. Last year they built a police station to get security in the community! ^40. The urban poor seem to be beyond the pale. Building institutions to service them must be a priority.

Further, it is not sufficient to only support the organization of civil society institutions for in the final analysis, politics is organized by political interest groups and parties. Supporting these institutions is a critical issue, although problematic. It has been avoided by some donors on the basis of not wanting to interfere in the "internal affairs" of countries. Yet some donors, mainly Scandinavian countries and Germany, have creatively used the foundations affiliated to their major political parties to support emerging political parties and interest groups in an assortment of African countries without being charged as interfering.

Third, participating publics and individuals are the key to democratization of state and society; therefore, enabling publics to get information, which in turn activates their participation in solving fundamental cleavages in state and society is a worthy development activity. Participating publics can be created by mass media. However, most regional media is generally controlled by the state. Even where it struggles to leave the deadly clutches of the state; there has been little support from donors. Few governance programs have focused on the support of media.

Fourth, creating political structures, which are wider than the colonially derived nation states, is an important step towards development and democracy, for it minimizes the ethnic reference point organizationally, over and above the usually known benefits of economy. In this context, consolidating and supporting regional bodies, including inventing the Greater Horn as an organizational idea is worthy of support.

Programs for conflict resolution can only be developed if there is an acceptable methodology for identifying such conflicts. The literature gleaned shows three broad analytical approaches to identification of conflicts.

The first is historical-political analysis. It is argued that by analyzing post-cold war politics one can identify conflicts based on colonial and cold-war legacies, defective states, predatory states, state-society conflicts, poverty and development wars.⁴¹ Clearly, its focus is to establish existing cleavages with a potential of triggering open conflict.

The second analytical approach centers on the impact of conflict on groups in society. It is particularly concerned about gender and different social groups. Therefore, it is only operational if conflict already exists. This methodology mainly concentrates on showing how the particular conflict impacts on the various sociological categories. The programming implication here is that those concerned about development do the analysis from a micro to macro level and then act to support those being negatively affected by the conflict. One gets the feeling that this is an offshoot of the emergency humanitarian tradition with its commitment to "working" for those needing relief.

The third analytical approach is to analyze change itself, particularly the velocity and turbulence of change⁴²The argument is that the actors in development, particularly NGOs, need to identify those turbulent changes which throw up conflicts leading to people needing assistance. Presumably, after such analysis, one would be in a position to identify which conflicts can be attended to.

In the case of USAID/Kenya, such determination will have to be made within the Democracy and Governance Strategic Plan and the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative plans. The former specifically states that the program will have three primary concerns over the next five or so years, namely:

3. Helping assist conflict management mechanisms, and developing better early warning antennae for possible inter-communal violence.

A document titled Breaking the Cycle of Despair: President Clinton’s Initiative on the Horn of Africa. Building a Foundation for Food Security and Crisis Prevention in the Greater Horn of Africa, Concept Paper for Discussion, November 1994, stresses that the focus might begin with:

1. Strengthening support for effective regional and national food security.

This was the initial major document. It is under revision as at the middle of 1997. Its main focus is food security but it is expected that subsequent policy documents will cover other issues too.

USAID/Kenya, seeking analysis to inform programming on conflicts in Kenya specifically and the Greater Horn of Africa in general, commissioned sixteen papers by independent consultants. Of the eighteen authors of sixteen papers, 6 are working in the NGOs sector, 8 are academics in Kenyan universities, 1 is an editor with a Kenyan business publication, 2 are full-time land valuation consultants and 1 is a full-time development management consultant. Of the eighteen, thirteen are Kenyans and four are Americans.

The coordinating consultant, guided by discussions with the relevant USAID/Kenya staff, identified contributors on the basis of their experience and academic background on the issues. The coordinating consultant ensured that the three analytical schools of conflict identification were represented in the methodologies used by various writers. Further, the topics were assigned to assure coverage of important areas for future programming.

Among these were 1. To assess possibilities of conflict on land, forage and water resources, Islam, trade, and urban unplanned settlements, elections, and state authoritarianism. 2. To document and draw lessons from "ethnic" clashes in Kenya’s recent past. 3. To document and assess the extent of violence on women. 4. To discuss and assess the applicability of traditional conflict resolution mechanisms. 5. To draw lessons from relevant current conflict resolution practices in the region and Kenya. 6. To cover the issue of early warning antennae, not just for possible inter-communal violence but also for regional inter-state conflicts.

Discussions on specification of conflict resolution "analytical approach(es)", the need for empirical data and, perhaps most important, what programming lessons can be learned from the case studies were held with the authors. Various drafts were produced and discussed with the coordinating consultant and some staff in USAID/Kenya. Ultimately a three-day in-house conference was held between the consultants and USAID/Kenya staff before the final papers were produced. Appendix 2 lists the fifteen papers and notes their key conclusions.

In the literature on conflict resolution, there is a good deal of confusion on roles for the security forces, development agencies, and indeed, diplomacy, for it is recognized that most of these institutions have aided conflict, however inadvertently.

Earlier we noted that the military of the developed world is looking for new role in the post-Cold War period. This role is subsumed under the notion of peacekeeping, whether individually or under the UN.

Some NGOs argue that military peacekeeping not only supports one side in conflicts, thereby exacerbating them, but also draws resources from either humanitarian work or development into military related activities. In Somalia it is generally accepted that for each ten dollars spent on unsuccessful peacekeeping only one was spent on humanitarian aid. Significantly, community-based-conflict-resolution activities, proposed during UNISOM, were ignored, as the dictates of the military option were operationalised. It was left to some countries to finance these activities when the UN forces pulled out. This author was involved in some of these efforts.

It should be noted that since 1980, there has been a shift in international aid away from development to relief activities. It is argued that fund raising for relief, especially by NGOs, is easier and more sellable than fund-raising for development. Relief activities are also easier to implement since they are techno-fixes as opposed to development that calls for detailed local knowledge. Further, humanitarian NGOs have recently operated in ways which seemed to defy state structures whilst drawing resources to parties involved in conflicts. The case of Eritrea is usually cited. The conclusion of these criticisms is that at times Kissinger’s benign neglect is called for.

What used to be called mercenaries have now evolved into corporate armies organized into transnational companies and working as contractors to existing states. In this genesis, one needs to note that mercenaries were funded and used by Western countries during the Cold War to shore up regimes of interest to the West like Zaire or to fight regimes of no interest to the West like Angola. Cuba played the same role for Soviet Union in Angola and Ethiopia. Now that the Cold War is over, mercenaries, as corporate armies, have been recruited to prop up regimes in as diverse countries as Sierra Leone and Zaire.

The rise of corporate armies is in some ways a repeat of the old imperial trading companies private armies, whether they were Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, British, French or German. These days the pattern also includes South Africans and Eastern Europeans. Private armies have also been used in American Cold War diplomacy in Asia since Bien Dien Phu in 1954 and in Latin America for much longer.

What is new about the corporate armies is first, that African governments invite them. Second, they are being touted as an alternative to sending the state armies of the democratic Western world to humiliating situations like happened in Somalia. Third, it is being argued that the use of such corporate armies would assure the West the minerals it needs from the African continent, without the need to use their regular armies. Such was the argument for their protecting mines in Zaire, oil installations in Angola, diamond mines in Sierra Leone and so forth. Fourth, they are being touted as a possible OAU force to assure security on the continent. Fifth, is their interlocking transnationality by sectors. Their companies are directly involved in fighting, training of armies, providing air transport, clearing of mines (which they at times were responsible for laying) building roads, harbors and pipelines as well as mining.

It should not take much imagination to see that these corporate armies, organized as business transnationals⁴³, are likely to become major actors in the determination of the rulership of some countries. This no doubt will work against democratization for the propped leaders are the least democratic. They also will work against the evolution of national and regional economies using their natural resources to develop sustainable businesses. It is obvious then that programming should oppose the use of corporate armies in all circumstances.

As resources are drawn away from development to relief, it is clear that emergency (humanitarian) relief NGOs do not believe in participatory approaches to their work, for they are not only externally led, but also ‘techno-fix’ oriented and programmed to serve what they define as vulnerable groups. The notion that relief and development are ultimately about people and should be people led is totally missing in the stream of emergency/relief NGO activities. Refugees and the displaced are not people!

Arguments are being made that humanitarian aid supports conflict when combatants use it. Doctors Without Borders make this statement with respect to their work in the Rwanda refugee camps.⁴⁴ The same concerns have been raised by Catholic Relief Service, Save the Children, Care and World Vision.⁴⁵ Chester Crocker, former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, is quoted as stating "When we intervene, even if it is with just food and medicine and blankets and so forth, we are in fact, affecting a balance of power." ⁴⁶

Looking for political solutions should be given priority over emergency aid. This, incidentally, alludes to classical diplomacy as a precedent for emergency aid. This position seems to also be supported by the NGOs brought together by Action Aid to discuss the Great Lakes Crisis in Nairobi⁴⁷ The primacy of politics, central in the intra-national conflict resolution model, seems to be the one supported by the NGOs meeting in Nairobi. It is articulated because of the dismal failure of all and sundry in the Great Lakes Crisis.

An argument is being made that the role of mediation can be counterproductive. An example is Kuperman’s⁴⁸ study of Rwanda were he shows that mediators used leverage in a conflict which was "ripe" for settlement but in the process triggered genocide, for they did not appreciate that an entrenched Hutu elite would be threatened by the settlement. The elite then pushed the country towards genocide to protect their interests. The importance of this study is to caution all and sundry about the romantic notion that there are conflicts which are ripe for settlement. It is also to remind us that: " A wild animal, when cornered, should be expected to attack". ⁴⁹ In short deep knowledge about the possible actions of the major political actors is called for before application of textbook mediation as recommended by approaches of preventive diplomacy.

In most conflict writing, there is a persistent argument that most conflict, in the Third World in particular, is structured around ethnicity. We say "structured" for we want to emphasize that this argument assumes that the cause of conflict is ethnicity, although serious attempts to get to root causes would show that it is not necessarily so. However, since the ethnic organizational principle is known and used by a large body of people, conflicts that are not ethnic can be so masked. In Section C of this chapter, where we covered methods of analyzing conflicts, it was pointed out that one of the objectives of the analysis should be to establish whether conflict is ethnic or ethnicity is simply being used by ethnic political/military entrepreneurs to mask other issues.

A review of USAID experience in ethnic conflict resolution concluded that, "The major potential areas for USAID ethnic conflict project activity are programs that focus on preventing ethnic conflict, programs that address existing ethnic conflicts, and programs that focus on post conflict reconstruction."⁵⁰ This document straddles the meta-theory problems of the inter-state and intra-state approaches to conflict resolution. One should note that the specific areas which are seen as the theatre for USAID development activities are pretty much the same as seen by the Canadians, ⁵¹ that is, development can only be done during malaise, denied crisis and reconciliation and reconstruction phases in a continuum which sees conflict evolving over time and intensifying as shown graphically below. But unlike the Canadian model, which sees the period of open conflict and war as the period for humanitarian activities, the USAID review sees this period as one for diplomatic activities by the Department of State, Department of Defense, multilateral bodies and NGOs. The NGOs are present primarily for non-state channel mediation, whereas the others are there for formal international negotiation and peacekeeping.⁵²

This USAID review of ethnic conflict resolution experience is useful also for developing a hierarchy of the origins of ethnic conflict. In short, the hierarchy shows that the preconditions of ethnic conflict are physical survival variables, territorial issues, cultural issues and political issues. Gross disparity of treatment, lack of justice and lack of legal redress magnify these. All that remains, if preconditions are so magnified, is a triggering incident that will lead to violent ethnic conflict.

This review of USAID experience is important for programming for a variety of reasons. One must point out that by including it one is not suggesting that all conflicts are ethnic. However, one can systematically argue that in analyzing potential conflicts, one can use the hierarchy to determine whether ethnics are likely to generate violent conflicts by dis-aggregating the variables suggested.

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In other words, it is imperative that one establishes preconditions to conflicts. The key ones are related to physical survival- defined as security and access to resources, territorial issues, cultural issues and political issues. These cannot be established if the histories of the areas are not taken into account.

It is a truism that programming for development puts little premium on histories of areas targeted for projects. The obvious conclusion is that those involved in developing programs and projects to address conflicts must delve into the local histories significantly.

Program and project planners normally do not have historical analysis skills. An obvious conclusion then is that those who are to plan programs and projects in conflict resolution must acquire those skills or buy them from those who have them. One should further note that the useful history for conflict resolution programming is not formalistic history, which generally covers modern institutions, men, the educated rich and the urban, which is called for. What is needed is the living history. This is history as interpreted by the marginal actors among whom are the rural and urban poor, women and youth and pastoralists.

A. CONFLICT THEORY LIMITS: KENYA 1963-1997

In reviewing the writings on conflict in Africa, one is struck by the fact that all analyses ignore the variable of social, economic and political expansion as a limitation on conflicts developing to the violent level whether they are elite, factional, communal, mass or popular conflicts following Chazan as interpreted by Wolf.⁵³

At the meta-theory and meta-experience level, it can be hypothesised that the reason why Kenya avoided many conflicts developing into the violent stage was its social, economic and political expansion during the first twenty-five years after independence. Social and political expansion is used here rather than just economic so as to include political and IDEATATA, the objective realities with which human ideas are supposed to correspond. This is not to argue that all the people of Kenya accept the idea that the post-colonial state is "a cash cow" to be milked as both colonial and post-colonial elites have assumed as is argued by Berkeley.⁵⁴ It is simply to argue that the coming of independence enabled many to expand their social, economic and political inter-action patterns. One would, however, agree with Berkeley that most Kenyans do not define politics or individual or familial socio-economic improvement in ethnic terms but rather in terms of bad governance. The present struggle then is for good governance rather than for fighting or eliminating some ethnic groups.

To this consultant, the explanation why Kenya has not fallen into the violent conflicts found elsewhere in the region has many components. These are: hope generated by independence, the creation of the single party, land settlement, Africanisation, economic expansion, educational expansion, expanding organizational bases, and creation of state violence and conflict management instruments. These issues are discussed below seriatim.

B. ACHIEVING THE POLITICAL KINGDOM

To paraphrase Nkrumah, the primary objective of African nationalism was to get political independence. Under this idea most of the conflicts on the nature of leadership and participation were subsumed. So were class conflicts among Africans.⁵⁵ Of course, it is true that some political leaders were assassinated since they appeared to threaten the dominant ruling factions. Among them are Pio Pinto and Tom Mboya during the first ten years of independence, Ronald Ngala and J. M. Kariuki during the second decade, and Robert Ouko during the third. However, for the generation which had grown up during the colonial period, independence was an achievement which allowed them to paper-over conflicts which could have been pursued and involved large numbers of the population in violence.

This is such a simple idea that many analysts dismiss it. Yet when one discusses politics with the elderly, they keep coming back to it. In the first twenty years or so after 1963, there was "satisfaction" over both local and national leadership and conflict over leadership did not engender large-scale violence. The political elite, fragmented into tribal units by the colonial state’s practices, did appear to be unified in the commitment to independence. Save for the "Shifta" and the Land Freedom Army, discussed below, the bulk of their followers were also unified in accepting it. Non-elites also shared in the hope for a better future. After all, they had "their" government. They could go out and get land. They could send their children to school. They could even go to formerly closed districts. THEY DID NOT NEED A PASS TO GO TO NAIROBI OR MOMBASA. THEY COULD LIVE WEST OF GOVERNMENT ROAD (MOI AVENUE!). WHAT THEY COULD NOT DO, THEIR SONS COULD DO FOR MBURI YI MBERE!

This notion that one can also "make it" is best illustrated from the Kikuyu traditions although it is found among other ethnicities. When the traditional Kikuyu elite, athamaki/andu a ngome, "arrived" economically, they put rings on their fingers so that they could not use them. As they called drinking parties to entertain other rich men, some ndungata men; defined as very poor men who had nothing literally for they only sold their labor (kutungata); had to be around to hold the beer horns and to feed the andu a ngome. As the later sang about their riches (mainly wives, children, land and livestock) the poor kept quiet for they had no livestock, land or other property to sing about. However, as the poor were allowed to drink the dregs, they also got drunk and as they went home they sang that mburi yi mbere, literally the goat is ahead, but, philosophically meaning that as long as they had a penis, they could produce a son who in turn could acquire wealth.

This traditional phenomena was reincarnated during the coffee boom, in the late seventeen, when the new andu a ngome, made rich by coffee smuggling and other state patronage, would go into bars and ask people drinking beer why they were drinking ‘muddy water’. Of course, the ‘clean water’ was whisky or brandy bought by the case!

Sociologically, it is important to note that to accept your current poverty and that your son will transcend it is to accept current inequality and not to raise conflicts to the violence level about it since your son will transcend it. It is also to accept that each person has the chance to accumulate and thus to maintain the peace for the accumulation process. As long as there is hope, there is order, however inequitable! ⁵⁶

C. KANU, KADU, APP AND THE SINGLE PARTY STATE

In the run-up to independence, there were differences on who was to form the government, and what the constitution was to be like. Organizationally, this was shown in the political parties KANU and KADU. Kenya’s scholarship has reified the idea that KADU was formed to assure the small tribes access to the state and thus bloc domination by the large tribes in KANU⁵⁷. An equally valid explanation may be that the liberal whites that in their quest for a post-independence role, did not see themselves being involved in KANU with the strong personalities of Kenyatta, Mboya and Odinga favored KADU. In any case, in November, 1964, KADU voluntarily joined KANU, thereby assuring that the nationalist politicians were in one party. Around the same time, Ngei who had created APP, in protest of KANU not recognizing him as the Kamba tribal leader, had also been absorbed into KANU.⁵⁸

Creation of a single party was important in that this prevented "national" elite political conflicts from taking overt form at the time. In turn, the "national" elite did not mobilize its variegated tribal followers to fight. This does not mean that there was unanimity in terms of either ideology or policy both at the elite or popular levels. On the contrary, there were major differences on land, the organization of state power, economic development strategy and so on.⁵⁹ These were patched over by bringing together all tribal "representatives" into KANU. This enabled these key political players to perceive themselves, and be perceived by other politicians as well as their followers a "national" political elite. Kenyatta thus was able to contain the political and policy conflicts within the single party.

This state of affairs continued until 1966 when the radical wing of KANU was driven out of the party. The essential policy difference was over land.⁶⁰ Once out of KANU, the radical wing sought to organize itself as an opposition, the KPU, which, however, survived for only three years, between 1966 and 1969. It was proscribed then and no opposition party was to be registered until 1992.

The decade of the seventies saw the decimation of the tribal political bases of all who opposed the Kenyatta government. The periphery never organized to challenge the "national" leadership. By the time Moi took over in 1978, very few political leaders had systematically organized followers in their tribal areas, save Odinga. The technique, pioneered by Kenyatta and later orchestrated by Moi, was to always back a few politicians in the peripheries, who were opposed to the perceived tribal leader to keep him dependent on national support. Ngei used to say in public meetings that a small stone was thrown into the Kamba political arena by Mboya to assure this. By this he meant the opposition to him, by among others Mulli, Mallu, Ngala and Mulu Mutisya. The latter was ultimately to run him out of the KANU district leadership in 1983. He might as well have been speaking for Muliro, Ngala, Angaine, Seroney or any of the others who at independence were the tribal political leaders.

The culmination of the destruction of periphery machines within KANU was encapsulated in Moi's proposal to replace the post of District chairman with sub-branch (constituency) chairman. No doubt this is targeted to political machines at the peripheries.

In any case, throughout the first decade of independence, the bulk of the population was busy expanding its land holdings and getting education for their children. These were seen as the key activities one did for posterity than worrying about ethnic politics.

The question of the ultimate ownership of land, which the nationalists argued had been stolen by European settlers, was a central problem of independence government. It could have led to violent conflict. The Mau Mau war was essentially about re-capturing that land for Africans. The land problem was "solved" by constitutional provisions, taking over white-highlands, fighting Mau Mau reversionist, and kicking the major free land advocates out of KANU.

The independent Kenya Government accepted the notion of private property and entrenched property rights into the constitution in Chapter 2. 14. C. The government also initially got the British government to finance the buying of mixed farms from settlers for the so-called Million-Acre Settlement Scheme. By 1965, it had largely managed in getting British funds for members of the elite to purchase their own mixed farms or other farms under cooperatives or limited liability companies. The emerging elite also controlled these.

Between 1961 and 1970 the Million Acre Scheme and other less formal settlement schemes had settled more than 500,000 Africans (4% of the national population) on 1.5 million acres in one fifth of the former white-highlands. This was about 4% of the nation’s agricultural land.⁶² At the same time, the government ensured that the emerging political and bureaucratic elite got land in the highlands, initially Z plots, the plots zoned to include the farm house which were significantly bigger than the plots allocated to ordinary allottees but later in other forms. Between 1965 and 1970, another million acres was passed on to the elite as large-scale farms. The elite therefore got about as much land as the poor allottees! By 1975 the remaining 40% of the European mixed farms would pass on to Africans as settlement schemes, but 60% would be passed on as large scale farms bought by the elite for themselves or as proxies for their poor! ⁶³ By 1984, there were 4,192 large scale farms covering 2,177,092 hectares (5,442,730 acres) according to the CBS.⁶⁴.

Soon after independence in 1963, those ex-Mau Mau who did not like what was going on with regard to the land issue (the basic reason why they had fought) reverted to the forest. The key generals were Baimungi, Acholi and Mwariama. The Kenya Government, by fighting the Mau Mau who returned to the forest, clearly established that Mau Mau driven land agitation was over. By 1965 most of the forest Mau Mau had been beaten into submission and ex-Mau Mau were organized into land buying companies! Baimungi and Acholi died in the fighting. Mwariama was ultimately appointed a chief by the government in a settlement scheme in the former White Highlands!

Some political organizing around the issue of free land had been attempted after independence. This agitation was within KANU and it led to some splintering of the party. APP was formed in 1962 over the issue of free distribution of the white-highlands. By reintegrating it into KANU in 1963, the agitation of Paul Ngei who conceivably could have won a national following was undercut. The agitation continued within KANU, led mainly by Kaggia and Odinga. It called for redistribution of land, establishment of land ceiling for individual owners and ownership only by citizens.⁶⁵

The amalgamation of KADU into KANU in 1964, minimized the policy influence of this radical group.⁶⁶ Since they continued their agitation, those politicians who took a hard line on land within KANU (Kaggia and Odinga and their followers) were thrown out of KANU in 1966. They formed the KPU in 1966. It was only to last three years for it was proscribed in 1969. By this time it was accepted within elite circles that private property, especially land, was sacrosanct. That no land would be given freely was entrenched in KANU ideology. J.M. Kariuki, the last major agitator on the issue of free land, was to pay the supreme price. He was assassinated in 1975.

By 1970, individual large scale buy-outs, and the land buying companies controlled by the political elite and which were vehicles for political elite accumulation as they bought cheap, subdivided and sold dear to the poor, grew as vehicles for mediating on land. When the poor deepened agitation on subdivision of land buying companies (mainly ranches) this form threatened to generate violence. In 1980, Moi ordered the immediate subdivision of all land-buying company land, further reducing the potential for violence over the White-Highlands issue. His popularity with the poor, who had bought into the land buying companies to get land, soared, survived the imperfect 1988 elections, and stayed until it was grounded by the ethnic clashes at the turn of the decade.

One should recall, however, that the main agitation on land was among the Kikuyu.⁶⁷ Further, the most contested parts of the White-highlands abutted Kikuyu and Kalenjin areas. It is also a fact that land in the districts of Nakuru, Nyandarua, Laikipia, Uasin Gishu and Trans Nzoia, were initially contested mainly by these tribes. It is also a fact that the perceived political problem on land was seen as neutralizing Kikuyu agitation. This view was shared by the departing British as well as by the Kenyan political and bureaucratic elite taking over during the first decade. Consequently, the settlement schemes almost exclusively settled Kikuyus in Nyandarua and Nakuru initially thereby setting the stage for the clashes in the nineties.

The exhausting of British funds to continue the settlements led to the evolution of the individual buyer and land buying companies within less than five years of independence. Again, these favored the Kikuyu who, in general, had higher per capita income as a result of colonial magnetization of their areas and were in state institutions and could therefore organize the financing of the buy-outs. The Kalenjin organized for buy-outs but they did not present a challenge to their Kikuyu counterparts. Their major buy-outs were in Trans Nzoia and Uasin Gishu, where the main competitors were Luhya. It is also true that in Nakuru there was competition between Kalenjin Enterprises and Ngwataniro, the main organized land buying operations of the Kalejin and Kikuyu respectively. As long as Kenyatta lived, the later had muscle. In fact, the Change-the-Constitution group used the Ngwataniro system, which was in the opposition to Moi in 1976. It sought to bar him from succeeding Kenyatta. This, perhaps, is why to date he pays special attention to Nakuru and Laikipia politics where the Ngwataniro "system" has continued to be a major actor in local level politics.

It should be further noted that explosion from the "native reserves" and into the Whitehighlands was not only confined to the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. Other major tribes expanded out of their colonial boundaries. The Meru extended out towards Laikipia and Isiolo, thereby setting up the current (1997) land and grazing conflicts between the Meru and the Boran in Isiolo. The Kamba expanded to the areas between Machakos and Nairobi but met stiff competition from the Kikuyu on the Thika and Komarock sides. They also expanded towards Kajiado. The Nandi moved into Trans Nzoia and Uasin Gishu. The Luo expanded into the Sugar Zone. The Kisii expanded towards the Kipsigis, who in turn were moving towards Nakuru. Very few of the other tribes moved into the former Whitehighlands in any significant numbers. Notably, the Maasai, who have historical claims to very large parts of the White-highlands, did not take part in the first ten years expansion to any significant extent.

Studies on land in Kenya have concentrated on the land in the Whitehighlands generally ignoring the expansion to the so-called Crown Lands, which offered opportunities for some ethnic groups as discussed by Mbithi and Barnes⁶⁸. They show that between the 1962 and 1969 censuses, 13% of the national population moved. Central, Western and Eastern Provinces were undergoing net out-migration. The provinces with net immigration were Coast and Rift Valley.⁶⁹ For Coast Province, the bulk of migrants came from Machakos, Kitui, Kisumu, Kakamega and Siaya. Immigrants into Rift Valley were mainly from Kiambu, Nyeri, Muranga, Kakamega and Bungoma, Kisumu, Siaya, and Kisii.

These inter-district and inter-province flows were not the only migrations. Within districts there were major movements. The Kamba exploded out into Eastern Kitui, ⁷⁰ Makueni and Yatta.^71. The Embu expanded into Mbeere and Gachoka.^72. The Meru moved towards Isiolo. ⁷³ The Giriama into the areas north of the Sabaki⁷⁴, the Duruma towards Taita and the Digo towards Tanzania.⁷⁵ In the pastoral districts, areas which had been zoned to keep the Somali out of contact with the Boran, Bajuni, and Orma, Samburu out of contact with the Turkana, Eastern Pokot and Boran, were widely peopled.⁷⁶ As a consequence districts like Isiolo, Lamu and Tana River began to have conflicts over natural resources use in livestock production. Again within districts like Tana River, Somali encroached on the grazing areas of the Orma. Interior (Kikuyu) settlers were placed in Lake Kenyatta in Lamu and in other settlements along the Tana. The Turkana and the Pokot overlapped in their districts at different times. The Pokot lost some of their wetter areas to settlers from elsewhere, especially in Kapenguria division. So did the Maasai in areas like Mau, Transmara, Ngong and Loitoktok.

One should also note that some tribes did not really get a chance to expand significantly to their Crown Lands or the "white-highlands" abutting them. Among these are the Taita, whose "white-highlands" were privatized by members of the national elite from without and some ranches by local land buying companies dominated by some local elites. The bulk of their crown land had become Tsavo National Park in 1948.

Land in the Coastal Strip has presented a special problem since the colonial period. Kenya Government accepted the British colonial treaties, which recognized the land as belonging to the Sultan of Zanzibar despite the fact that specific ethnic groups claimed it. Some bits of it were part and parcel of the "white-highlands". To date the coastal ethnic groups have not made much headway in establishing their claim to these lands in either traditional, Islamic or modern law. They are treated as squatters when the land is given to others especially for the development of the tourism industry.

The Coastal area received substantial population from the interior. This is potentially an explosive issue now that there is systematic mobilization on land in coastal local level politics. The conflict potential is heightened by its being linked to religious differences for the immigrants are mainly Christian whilst the indigenous peoples are Muslim.

None of these movements and settlements have been adequately studied, for the district boundaries subsumed the crown lands. However, the point one wants to make is that the expansion into the white-highland and repossession of crown lands stemmed land hunger until the eighties when land again became a conflict triggering issue. It was then a short step to the ethnic clashes of the 1990s.

A word on urban land. Colonial racist zoning laws copied from South Africa ensured that Africans did not own urban land, neither could they be domiciled there for extended periods.⁷⁷ Further, only labor, usually male, could be in the urban areas. These legal, economic and sociological strictures were to change quickly at independence.

Africans moved into urban centers for economic and other reasons. In 1948, the urban population was 276,000 and formed 5.1% of the population. In 1962 it was 671,000 and 7.8%. By 1969 urban population was 1,079,908 or 9.9%. By the 1979 census it had doubled to 2,308,194 or 15.1%. Ten years later it had practically doubled again to 3,877,444 or 18%.

This rapid rate of urbanization has triggered conflicts in urban land use. It is estimated that about 60% to 80% of all urban population lives in illegal settlements, for the poor do not have legal access to urban land.

Several further points need to be made. First, the number of urban agglomerations has been growing, thereby creating urban problems all around the country. In 1948 there were only seventeen centers with more than 2,000 people. This number had doubled by the 1962 census. It grew to 47 by the 1969 census and doubled to 90 by the 1979 census. By 1979, the fast growing urban centers had high potential hinterlands with already high densities. Among these were Machakos, Meru, Bungoma, Kakamega, Kisii, Kisumu, Embu and Nyeri. By the 1989 census 139 centers had more than 2,000 people.

Second, although Nairobi accounted for about half(47.2%) of the country’s urban population in 1969, by 1979 it was loosing ground for it accounted for 35% which was reduced to 34% by the 1989 census. Third, and perhaps most important, sixty percent of the urban population in the 1989 census was under 20. So the towns will be growing as this population builds families even if there is no rural-urban migration, which is unlikely. Fourth, it is estimated that 60 to 80% of the urban population lives in informal settlements, without any rights to the land. If experience in other rapidly urbanizing countries is anything to go by, one would expect vicious conflicts as already are beginning to happen as the Soweto and Mukuru slum fights of 1996 show. Property owners are using both private and public security organizations to evict the poor. The political elite is privatizing the public lands used by squatters rapidly thereby increasing conflicts.

If the state-building structures, political elite-building processes, and individual and community land acquisition processes and initiatives masked the issue of land hunger during the first two and a half decades of independence, by the third the issue could not be so easily mediated, for the population had exploded and the new families needed land. They, like their parents from the pre-independence generations, still craved land for self-actualization. Traditionally, among many Kenya communities, the very definition of become a human being is also being situated on some land. No man or woman is a complete human being if they do not have land. This traditional value is obviously no longer tenable for many people.

In 1948 Kenya’s population was 5,405,966. In 1962 it was 8,636,263 and grew to 10,942,705. By 1979 it was 15,327,061 and by 1989 it was 21,443,636.⁷⁸ Given that: "Only about 20% of Kenya’s land is considered to have high or medium potential for farming or intensive livestock production...Kenya has one of the highest agricultural population densities in the world when its agro-climatic potential is taken into consideration."⁷⁹ The problem is not just overall densities but also that the high densities in the high potential areas have led to landlessness, and further that population has spilled over from the high density areas to marginal lands so much that 25% of the national population is currently in fragile ASALs.⁸⁰ Further, given that most of the population is rural (90.1 % in 1969, 84.9% in 1979 and 82% in 1989) ⁸¹ and depends on agriculture, clearly acquiring land for economic survival as well as ontological reasons was already a problem in the eighties.

The need for land and the fact that it is not equitably distributed has a bearing on conflict. There still are very large land holdings controlled by the political elite and/or their international allies. The latest data shows land holding is from the mid eighties.

Hectares >19 20-49 50-99 100-199 200-299 300-399 400-499 500-999 1000-1999 2000-3999 4000-19999 20000-< Total

Bungoma - 11 - 2 - - - - - - 1 - 5

Kakamega 1 - 1 - - - 1 - - - 1 - 4

Kisumu 1 29 25 16 7 1 2 1 3 2 - - 87

Kisii 1 1 3 - 2 1 1 2 - 3 - - 14

Baringo 1 - 1 1 - - 1 2 - - 1 - 7

Kericho 13 40 32 15 12 14 12 22 12 2 1 - 175

T.Nzoia 229 209 76 62 63 42 25 55 26 3 2 - 792

Laikipia 50 5 10 12 6 3 3 18 16 14 28 8 193

Nakuru 169 186 64 79 59 61 42 113 36 25 8 8 842

Nandi 3 10 4 11 8 3 2 20 8 4 1 - 74

U.Gishu 106 317 87 82 82 47 54 89 32 2 5 - 903

Nairobi 34 20 12 3 3 4 3 2 5 - 1 - 87

Kiambu 122 64 72 53 29 18 6 10 2 2 3 - 381

Nyandarua 11 79 18 6 6 7 4 15 4 2 4 - 156

Nyeri 58 51 20 15 6 1 5 10 10 3 2 - 181

Muranga 33 2 4 20 18 6 2 9 5 2 1 - 102

Machakos 54 4 11 4 4 2 4 10 9 12 17 1 132

Meru 1 - 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 4 6 - 19

Kilifi - 4 3 3 1 2 - 3 1 2 1 - 20

Kwale 4 1 1 1 3 1 1 - 1 - 1 - 14

T. Taveta - - - - - - - - - 2 2 - 5

Total 891 1043 446 384 312 214 169 383 171 84 86 10 4192

Source: CBS. Agricultural Census of Large Farms, 1984.

This data is shown in Table 1: Agricultural Holdings by Size of Holding and District, 1984. Introducing this report, CBS notes that there were 4,192 large-scale farms in 1984 which covered 2.17 million hectares (5,425,000 acres).⁸² CBS also points out that it is expected that the farms will continue to be subdivided. It is not feasible to establish what the status of these large scale farms is in 1997 since no clearance for such work has yet to be approved and the CBS has not conducted any surveys on the same recently.

It should be noted, though, that the districts with the largest number of large-scale farms, namely Uasin Gishu (903), Nakuru (842) and Trans Nzoia (792) have experienced ethnic clashes.

It is not surprising, then, that the decade of the nineties is full of land conflicts, both in the rural and urban areas. It is this consideration which leads the consultant to posit that land-driven conflicts will take an increasingly violent character in the future.

A substantive programming issue then is what is feasible in terms of conflict resolution over land? The option of formal return to original ethnic areas, however disproportionate in ethno-regional terms the expansion in the past thirty years, seems to me would entail unacceptable threat to social peace. It follows, then, that the conflict resolution programmes are desirable not only in the crop agricultural areas which form 20% of the country but also in the 80% of the country which forms the pastoral areas. In the former areas the primary issues are individual equitable access and protection of private property land rights. In the later the central issue is community access and rights to natural resources. In the urban areas the issues are conflict over private and public rights to land and the serious problem of landless urban squatters.

In the run-up to independence, there was an argument made by KADU that the preferred form of government was federal, majimbo in Kiswahili. The argument was that by having regional governments, the interests of the smaller tribes would be taken into account. It is important to stress that this argument was not made in terms of a regional government being nearer to the people and that it would be more democratic. The argument was made by the tribal elites to serve their political leadership interests that are not the same as the peoples interests. In any case the majimbo idea had a very limited life for, by 1964 the KADU proponents of the idea had voluntarily crossed the floor and joined KANU, in service of their interests. They were rewarded by ministerial posts as well as the other patronage (mainly land and later businesses) which emanated from the state.⁸³ By absorbing the KADU political elite, the KANU government was able to "dilute" the agitation of small tribes leaders from becoming a conflict which would lead to violence. It did not address the democratic government idea.

From a conflict resolution point of view, it may well be that there is a case for revisiting majimbo albeit from a democratisation perspective. A government, which is closer to the people, is likely to encourage participation. However, in the opinion of the consultant, there is a clear and present danger that creating regional governments can get the country onto the escalator to fragmentation. Many would be tempted to actualise such government in the name of ethnicity. Many might seek to relocate those from other areas back to their home regions as the "ethnic" clashes experience has shown us. This also has been the thesis of the vocal majimboists like William ole Ntimama.

The initial fifteen years of independence were important in deracialising the public and private sector.⁸⁴ Table 2: Employment in 1964, shows the racial nature of employment where the Europeans were the professionals and managers, the Asians the technicians and semi-professionals and the Africans mainly sub-professionals. It should also be noted that the numbers of the employed both in the public and private sectors were not large as shown in the table.

Table 2: Employment in 1964

European Asian African Total

No. % No. % No. %

1.Professionals/ 3267 50.4 1745 26.9 1476 22.7 6488

Top Management

Source: Republic of Kenya, Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. High Level Manpower Requirements and Resources in Kenya. 1964-1970. Nairobi: East Africa Institute Press. May 1965. Quoted in Gavin, Robert. Correcting Racial Imbalance in Employment in Kenya. International Labor Review. Volume 95 No. 1 and 2, January-February, 1967 p. 74.