Factors cited in the IPOA report include lack of planning and reinforcement in Mpeketoni, poor communication equipment, shortage of vehicles and fuel, and above all, simmering ethnic, land and religious tensions, and mutual suspicions between the communities in Lamu county

The Mpeketoni attacks in June 2014 were a violent culmination of long simmering resentments over unresolved land-based historical injustices.

Palpable ethnic tensions were exploited by extremist terror networks like al Shabaab, working in cahoots with bands of frustrated unemployed youths. The question of religion also factored in driving the conflict.

The gross incompetence and ineptness of the police and other Kenyan security forces served to worsen an already precarious situation.

At approximately 8.45pm on Sunday, June 15, 2014, approximately 20 to 30 gunmen attacked Mpeketoni town in Lamu county. The heavily armed gunmen conducted simultaneous attacks on the Administration Police Divisional Headquarters in Mpeketoni and Mpeketoni town centre, and shortly afterwards attacked Mpeketoni police station. The attackers shot their victims at close range, mainly in the head, and torched buildings and vehicles. One victim burnt to death in a vehicle. The attack ended between 2am and 3am.

In this attack, 49 people were killed, 44 vehicles torched and 26 buildings burnt. The attackers then left Mpeketoni and went towards Kibaoni.

At Kibaoni, there was an exchange of ?re between uncon?rmed parties. A Kenya Police Reservist of?cer was found dead later that morning at Kibaoni and a Mark 4 ri?e recovered.

On Monday, another attack took place further inland in Kijijoni village, in Kaisari, where nine people were killed and one house torched. Some of the nine people were shot at close range and some had their throats slit. Two days later, police recovered two bodies from Pangani.

In total, 60 people were killed, 59 men and one woman who succumbed to injuries later. The ethnic breakdown of the victims was 37 Kikuyus, 10 Giriamas, five Kambas, three Kalenjins, two Luos, two Merus and one Kisii.

These details are available in a thorough report by the Independent Police Oversight Authority that does not mince words in assessing the efficacy of the Kenya Police and other security organs.

IPOA found that the police response to the Mpeketoni attacks was slow and disjointed, that a full-time command post or Operation Centre was not established to coordinate the follow up operations, that the Administration Police Rapid Deployment Unit left their Mkunumbi base, about 16km from Mpeketoni, at 9.08pm, arrived in Mpeketoni at midnight but remained out of sight until 4.45 am.

According to IPOA, the police response on June 16, was riddled with confusion. Interviews with both senior and junior of?cers on the ground indicated that the presence of a high-level delegation from Nairobi distracted from the ef?cient planning of follow up operations. A blame game ensued with senior commanders from Nairobi blaming the commanders on the ground for failure to prevent the attack, while the commanders blamed each other for the delayed response. More seriously, the IPOA criticises the police for ignoring intelligence reports from early 2014 warning of possible attacks by al Shabaab.

The IPOA report stated that the attacks involved persons with knowledge of the geographical layout of Mpeketoni town, who possibly provided the intelligence to locate the various targets. The team’s observation of Mpeketoni town revealed that the attackers conducted selective attacks on buildings, but torched all functional vehicles indiscriminately. The attackers tactically positioned gunmen at the entrance to the AP Of?ce, which blocked the only route from Mpeketoni police station. It was the team’s opinion that the number of attackers was not more than 30.

Other factors cited in the IPOA report include lack of planning and reinforcement in Mpeketoni, poor communication equipment, shortage of vehicles and fuel, and above all simmering ethnic, land tensions, religious tensions, and mutual suspicions between the communities in Lamu county.

These IPOA findings back observations from the field research including detailed narratives and eye-witness accounts of the ordeals perpetrated on the hapless populations of Mpeketoni, Pandanguo, Kibaoni, Hindi, Hongwe and other affected parts of Lamu.

A resident of Mpeketoni, Raya Ahmed Famau, the coordinator of the Lamu-based Sauti ya Wanawake, was categorical that al Shabaab was responsible for the attacks. She was not happy with the official state narrative that “local political networks” were to blame and retorted that the onus was on the government to provide credible evidence to disprove eye-witness accounts of a well organised al Shabaab operation.

Abubaker el Alamudy, the chair of the Save Lamu Coalition, also insisted that terrorists were to blame. He said it is unfortunate there had been an attempt to politicise the tragedy to score “cheap partisan points.”

Despite being foreigners, the al Shabaab attackers seemed to have a detailed grasp of local geography, history, demography and culture of Lamu. Famau explained that “al Shabaab” is simply an Arabic reference to “the youth”. She said the terror group is not an exclusively Somali outfit but recruits broadly across East Africa. She thought it very possibility that the al Shabaab attackers included members of Mpeketoni’s Gikuyu community, who may have supplied advance logistical intelligence.

Famau referred to the arrest of Mpeketoni resident Ibrahim Kamau, also known as Hussein Kamau, and reported to have led the attack on Pandanguo. He was mysteriously freed from Gamba police station during a subsequent al Shabaab raid, and then disappeared without trace. Kamau was reportedly freed by people linked to al Shabaab.

A Somali former minister and serving MP and a Somali civil society activist in Mogadishu believed that the larger al Shabaab provided the firepower, training, and propaganda apparatus but “outsourced” the local operation to the Nairobi and Mombasa-based jihadist group al Hijra. The al Hijra group has recruited different ethnic groups across Kenya including Luos, Bukusus, Maragolis, Kambas, Gikuyus, Swahilis and Somalis into autonomous terror cells linked to al Qaeda

The International Crisis Group report in September 2014, quoted survivors stating that the gunmen who attacked Mpeketoni spoke several languages, including Somali and Swahili. They attributed the attacks to retribution for the “Kenyan government’s brutal oppression of Muslims through coercion, intimidation, and extrajudicial killings of Muslim scholars, particularly in Mombasa and the violation of Muslim honour and sanctity”.

The Institute of Security Studies organised a seminar in Nairobi in October 2014, on the subject of insecurity in Kenya. Dr Anneli Botha, a South African born researcher, presented a paper entitled Radicalisation in Kenya: recruitment to al-Shabaab and the Mombasa Republican Council. Botha asserted the Kenyan government’s response to terrorism may be making the problem worse. She argued that many Muslim youths join extremist groups as a reaction to the Kenyan government’s assassination of religious leaders, mass arrests and racial profiling.

Dr Botha called for the Kenya government to change its approach or risk inspiring a new cycle of radicalisation and violence. She said the Kenyan leadership had just denied that domestic circumstances contributed to the radicalisation of Kenyans. She called on the government to address the grievances of young people in Kenya and to focus more on intelligence to identify those actually responsible for acts of terror. She also called for an end to ethnic profiling.

However, the main driving factor of the attacks was the controversy about the resettlement of Kenyans from upcountry in Mpeketoni, not just in the early 1970s by the Jomo Kenyatta regime but also later. After the 2007-08 post election violence, the Mwai Kibaki administration settled hundreds of Kikuyus in Lamu after they had been displaced from the former Rift Valley. Others came from Tanzania. This caused resentment among the Bajuni, Swahili and Orma speaking populations in Lamu.

The resultant bitterness causing demonstrations after a curfew was imposed on Lamu Island, which was not affected by the Mpeketoni killings, which took place kilometres away. The curfew has confirmed feelings of collective punishment among the indigenous residents of Lamu county.

No credible environmental impact assessment has been carried out for the Lapsett mega project, and it has also inspired a speculative land buying by well-connected elites from Nairobi. The influx of ‘outsiders’ grabbing land in Lamu is seen as a creeping attempt to further marginalise the ancient Swahili culture and Muslim identity in the Lamu archipelago

Local organisations such as Amu Council of Elders, Shungwaya Welfare Association and the Save Lamu Coalition have documented the social and economic grievances of the indigenous communities. In their memorandum to the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission, filed two years before the Mpeketoni attacks, they cited six factors behind the historical injustices in Lamu county.

They include the illegal or unprocedural adjudication of government land, lack of compensation for displaced persons, unprocedural settlement schemes, failure to recognise natural resources rights, misuse of state power to gain land without consultation, and compensation and intimidation by organised groups and powerful leaders.

Nicholas Mrima Wanyepe, a veteran lands rights activist who serves as the coordinator of the Coast Landless Social Forum, reiterated the salient points of the Save Lamu memo. He warned that other Mpeketonis were waiting to erupt all over the Coast if these issues were not resolved.

Many of those interviewed felt that the Kenyan state, both at the national and local level, ought to deal comprehensively with the long neglected historical injustices, especially around land. They call for the full implementation of the TJRC report, which made far-reaching recommendations. Some commended the Uhuru Kenyatta government for its recent intervention in first assembling leaders from Lamu for a dialogue, cancelling dodgy land deals and supporting the National Land Commission in trying to resolve land issues in Lamu through public consultations. Others felt that much more needed to be done.

Activists want the National Cohesion and Integration Commission and civil society organisations to engage in reconciliation and peace building in Mpeketoni as well as areas of Lamu county such as Hindi, Hongwe, Manda Island, Kiunga and the Boni Forest. Communities such as the Amu, Bajun, Orma, Gikuyu, Meru, Sanye, Luo, and South Asians should all take part.

Security analysts are concerned about policing in Lamu county. They consider it crucial to implement the 19 IPOA recommendations, including harmonisation of the police command structure, establishing a full operation centre, deploying rapid deployment units, use of hellebore operations, continuous training of police officers and improvements in their terms of service, discouraging the commercialisation of police operations – especially during emergencies, better transport and communications facilities, instituting disaster response plans in Lamu county, gazetting the County Policing Authority and operationalising community policing committees, and redeployment of NIS and national government representation in Lamu county.

Investigations and field research for this article were facilitated by the African Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG)

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