Other analysts accuse both the government and the opposition of exploiting the situation in Lamu and wider land issues for political gain, rather than using them as a starting-point for resolving the problem. Willis said politicising the land problem was obstructing real progress.
“This kind of approach is probably not going to improve the situation, because all that happens is that the two political camps will use this as a way of throwing mud at each other,” Willis said. “The way you sort [it] out is not to have this accusatory theatre of ‘you did this and you did that’. That isn’t going to help.
“Is this [Lamu unrest] going to set off a genuine programme of land reform and investigation of historical injustices which will improve the situation? I fear the answer is probably no.”
Challenge on a huge scale
Whatever the quality of the new legislation and however tightly it is enforced, experts warn that immense practical problems still lie ahead.
Willis says years of corruption and malpractice at multiple levels have made the land ownership a highly complex matter.
“They have not made very much progress on investigating local grievances because it is extraordinarily difficult to do so,” he noted.
Willis warns that the main obstacle is defining what qualifies as injustice and what is rightful ownership, and proving that this is the case.
“In many cases, if you start undoing one injustice you may find yourself creating another injustice,” he said. “Many people in Kenya are almost certainly sitting on bits of land that they reasonably believe they legally own. Yet they may find that they do not, because of some earlier act of incompetence or corruption that will call their title into question.”
(This article is part of IWPR’s Kenya Security series. It was produced as part of a media development programme implemented by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting and Wayamo Communication Foundation in partnership with Capital FM)
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