Relatives lured into Mungiki traps and bodies left to the dogs in Naivasha

In our continuing verbatim report, the Waki Team notes that Naivasha violence was triggered off by the influx of IDPs from other districts.

Naivasha is a sprawling town in Rift Valley Province located on the shores of Lake Naivasha that is home to a variety of wildlife and a sizeable population of hippos.

The lake’s name derives from the Maasai name Nai’posha (rough water) because of the sudden storms which can arise over the lake. Between 1937 and 1950 the lake was used as a landing place for flying boats on the Imperial Airways passenger and mail route from Southampton in Britain to South Africa.

The area is well known for its population of European immigrants and settlers and is a popular tourist resort and also a weekend haunt for Nairobi residents due to its proximity to Hell’s Gate National Park, Longonot National Park and the nearby Mount Longonot.

The main industry is agriculture, especially floriculture around the lake providing a source of employment and income for the local population. There are about 52 flower farms in Naivasha area which accounts for almost 74 per cent of all the flower farms in the country.

Naivasha District further hosts Kenya’s geothermal plant at nearby Ol-Karia and is therefore of strategic national importance since a significant component of Kenya’s electricity generation is located here and the area thus represents the future of the geothermal industry in Kenya.

The majority of the population is Kikuyu with substantial immigrant workers on the flower farms who are mainly Luo and Luhya.

Formerly a part of Nakuru District before it was hived off as a separate district, the area experienced some ethnic violence in 1992 pitting the Kikuyu on one hand and Maasai on the other as explained in the Akiwumi Report.

The commission heard from several witnesses that there was no major violence in Naivasha before and immediately after the 2007 General Election.

According to the district commissioner Katee Lucas Mwanza, the district has no history of ethnic violence, with the exception of the Maahi Mahiu area bordering Narok District, where there had been ethnic and land related conflicts between members of the Maasai and Kikuyu communities.

A Naivasha District Security and Intelligence Committee (DSIC) meeting held on 6 December 2007 to review security plan ahead of the General Election noted that in the past, parts of the district that had experienced clashes during elections included the areas of Maella, Maai Mahiu, Oljarai, Longonot and Moi Ndabi. Naivasha town was not mentioned.

Indeed, several witnesses who appeared before the commission highlighted the history of peaceful co-existence between ethnic groups living in Naivasha Town.

Peter Otieno, a resident of Naivasha for 18 years and leader of the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union representing flower plantation workers, told us that, “Naivasha had been peaceful until the 2007 General Election. With the many tribes in Naivasha, they had been co-existing and doing business together and they had been co-existing without any problem.”

Another witness who gave her testimony in private described her relations with her Luo, Luhya and Kikuyu neighbours as follows:

“Q: How were you living with your neighbours before you voted?
Witness: We used to live very well with my neighbours. We even used to borrow (sic) and help each other.”

The Commission was told that incidents of violence registered before the elections were of political, rather than ethnic nature, and they occurred in the context of a highly charged political rivalry during the campaign period.

Appearing before us in private, a former Naivasha councillor who worked as election monitor for the 2007 elections answered as follows to a question about political tension during the electoral campaign:

“Q: I asked you what your assessment was overall in terms of, were there political tensions there or was there an environment which was suitable for such tensions?

Witness: Yes, there was a clear difference between ODM supporters and also PNU supporters, but there was no actual violence. But on December 22, ODM people were attacked on their way to Suswa, they were attacked in Maai Mahiu and some of the people in the team were badly beaten up; and one eventually succumbed to the injuries […]”

As was the case in the rest of the country, however, the political rivalry during the campaign soon took a clear ethnic dimension and tension started to build up in Naivasha between members of the majority Kikuyu community and those from the Luo, Kalenjin and Luhya communities, most of whom worked as wage earners in the local flower farms.

According to a witness, “we were divided, the Kikuyus were in PNU and me with my other Luo colleagues were in ODM.”

This politico-ethnic tension heightened immediately after the results of the presidential election were announced on December 30. As members of the public, mostly from the Kikuyu community, were celebrating the Kibaki win they were also threatening members of other communities.

The Luos in particular were threatened with eviction, following stories about the pre-election expectation of Luo tenants not to pay any more rent if Raila Odinga had won the elections.

According to union leader Peter Otieno, “On 30th when the results were announced, many people poured on the streets celebrating the results, and the celebration continued up to late in the night. […]

As people were celebrating among them they were uttering words against other tribes which was scaring other tribes away from celebrating. […] Some were uttering that the Luos should be circumcised, my Lords. Those were the words coming from the crowd.”

Other sworn evidence from a Luo resident was as follows: “After Kibaki was declared winner, people in my area started cheering and saying that those Luos who thought they would not pay house rent once Raila was declared winner should be prepared to leave – ‘Wajaluo wajipange’.

There was tension soon after the announcement. Our landlord used agents in the house where we used to live to collect rent. She ordered the agents to evict all Luos from her property because there were rumours that houses hosting Luos would be burnt down.”

Kabati estate in Naivasha town was most affected by the eviction of Luo tenants, some of whom started seeking refuge in the compound of the Naivasha Maximum Security Prison.

Duncan Ogore, then officer in charge of the prison, told the Commission that the first group of mostly women and children from the nearby Kabati estate arrived to the prison in the evening of 30 December 2007 and by 3 January 2008, the number of displaced persons in the Naivasha prison had reached 112, including 68 children and 44 adults.

Eruption of Violence

By early January 2008 the majority of districts in the Rift Valley Province were theatres of large scale violence.

Naivasha District, however, did not experience violence of similar magnitude until the end of January 2008. The Commission was told that the violence that broke out on 27 January 2008 in Naivasha was as a result of a growing bitterness caused by the massive influx of IDPs from other districts of the North Rift Province.

The District Commissioner informed the Commission that Naivasha Town had started receiving Kikuyu IDPs from other parts of the Rift Valley after announcement of the election results and that at its peak the town accommodated upwards of 22,000 IDPs displaced from Eldoret, Kisumu, Kericho, Kipkelion, Kitale, Trans Nzoia District, Narok and Molo District.

The IDPs, who were mainly Kikuyus, brought painful personal stories of ordeals experienced in places from where they had fled and pointed accusing finger at members of such communities as the Kalenjin, Luo and Luhya.

This, combined with the accumulation of minor incidents throughout December 2007 and the first half of January 2008, led to an extremely volatile situation and laid the ground for the revenge attacks on non-Kikuyus in Naivasha between 27 and 30 January 2008.

Consistent witness testimony and evidence tendered to the Commission suggest that the attacks on members of the Luo, Kalenjin and Luhya communities that started on 27 January 2008 were executed in an orderly and well planned manner by a coordinated group.

The Commission was able to reconstruct the events of 27 January 2008 as follows:

In the morning of Sunday 27 January 2008, large groups of demonstrators started congregating in different places in Naivasha, ostensibly to protest the killing of Kikuyus in other parts of the province, demonstrate against the restriction of movement (“curfew”) earlier imposed by the DSIC, and demand that prison warders be withdrawn from the joint security patrols in the streets of Naivasha.

The District Commissioner acceded to the demand for withdrawal of prison officers and a group of prison warders who were proceeding towards the OCPD’s office to commence security patrols was called back to the prison. He told another group of cheering protestors that the curfew would be lifted and asked them to disband.

This is a summary of sworn evidence and other testimony, from individuals and government officials. Most of it was taken ‘in camera’ in Naivasha.

Main roads within and through Naivasha were barricaded by the demonstrators, including the Nakuru-Nairobi and the Gilgil-Mai Mahiu highways.

The demonstrations attracted big crowds and happened simultaneously in different places of the town, which resulted in security forces and local administration authorities spreading all over in attempts to respond to the situation by addressing the demonstrators, dispersing the crowds and clearing roadblocks.

The same morning, at around 10:00am, the Kikuyu gangs attacked Luo and other non-Kikuyu families and burnt their houses in different estates of Naivasha. The hardest hit areas were the estates of Kihoto, Kabati, Site, Council (Kanjo) Estate and Karagita.

It later became clear that the attackers were organized so that groups of “demonstrators” would keep police and administration authorities busy on the streets while other groups were chasing Luos and other non-Kikuyus in the estates, killing them and burning their houses. As the DC told us:

“…the time where we were trying to quell these clashes we thought of using our normal method of addressing people in public barazas and meeting and when we realized that there appeared to have been an organized gang as we addressed people here another gang was somewhere committing a more serious offence…”

In at least one case, the same crowd that the DC was addressing at Kariuki Chotara Road went on a looting and burning rampage targeting Luo and Kalenjin shops as soon as the DC and the police left to go and address another group.

The commission heard that in the ensuing violence the Kikuyu gangs killed forty people in one day. This included nineteen members of one Luo family who died on the afternoon of the 27th when their Kabati house was set on fire while they were locked inside.

Gangs of young Kikuyu men armed with machetes went round the town, forcing other Kikuyu to join them, in search of Luos, Luhyas and Kalenjins.

The gangs blocked roads and public transport and searched vehicles forcing passengers to identify their ethnic groups.

A Catholic social volunteer who involved herself in rescue operations in the morning of January 27 said she saw “young men…flagging down the vehicles and shouting: “Kuna mjaluo kwa hii gari!! Tunataka wajaluo!”

In the evening, one Luo woman was nearly caught at one such road block while on her way back from the flower farm where she worked.

She told us: “I worked till 4pm when it was time to go home. At the stage inside our place of work, the company drivers informed us that they had just left town and there was chaos, that road blocks were being mounted.

"The drivers advised Luos against boarding the vehicles. I decided to board. I requested my friends to board with me so that in case we are killed we could all die together.

"On reaching ‘sanctuary’ we found a convoy of vehicles lined up. The vehicles were not being allowed to pass. We found armed Kikuyus armed (sic) with pangas. The company vehicles did not take us to the stage. It dropped us at the field called kiwanja ndogo. The Kikuyus were waiting for Luos to alight from the company vehicles so that they could run after them and kill them.”

A Kikuyu woman who interacted with the attackers while rescuing her Luo friends described the unfolding of violence as follows: “Young men were walking in groups. Not only young men because it was everybody in the society. They were all walking in groups, shoving people up and down.

“In fact, they were chasing the non-Kikuyus like rabbits and then when one is captured just hacked to death. They were burning property and the local women were following them, looting.”

The attacks were targeted against mainly members of the Luo community, though Luhyas and Kalenjins were also targeted and among the forms of violence perpetrated by the mobs was forced circumcision on four members of the Luo community.

The Ministry of Medical Services through the District Medical Officer of Health gave a figure of 48 deaths were recorded between 27th January and 31st January.

Post-mortems carried out at the Naivasha District Hospital showed the causes of PEV deaths to be burns (22), sharp object injuries (19) and gunshot injuries (6).

In addition, in 2 cases the cause of death was “unknown” while one person died of injuries from arrow shot. Of the 50 deaths, 11 were female and 32 were Luos, an indication that members of the Luo community were particularly targeted.

The attacks resulted in a serious humanitarian crisis when Luo, Luhya and Kalenjin residents of the town took refuge at the Central Police Station, Naivasha, which was not equipped with sanitation facilities to handle such huge numbers, estimated at 8,000 IDPs.

Further, the number of non-Kikuyu IDPs seeking refuge at the Naivasha Prison eventually rose to 10,000 by 3rd of February 2008 and by default the Naivasha Prison turned into a camp for IDPs.

Killing of Eric Ouma Oyieko: An Account by His Sister

On Monday [28 January 2008], I woke up and started thinking of my business that I set up after obtaining a loan at my place of work. Even before I went to work, a workmate came to me…

He told me that my brother had been killed while taking tea. My brother’s name was Eric Ouma Oyieko. I told the workmate that it could not have been my brother because when we were fleeing I passed by my brother’s house and I found a padlock. I knew he had also fled. My brother used to live near me in the next building known as ‘Makao ya Amani.’

At about 10am something told me that I should go and check on him. I boarded a Securicor car and paid Sh50. They were the only vehicles operating. On arriving there I found a crowd of people including policemen who were standing nearby but at a distance from the other people.

They did not look bothered. I found he had been attacked and had deep cuts all over his body. He was dying. I talked to the policemen around and requested them to take my brother to the hospital so that even if he died, he would die at the hospital.

The police told me to get away from them, that I should not disturb them, that if I insisted I would end up like my brother and that it was not their work.

I didn’t have anything to do. I decided to go back to Sher, where we were seeking refuge. I walked to Sher because I did not have bus fare with me. I left Karakta at about 11am but got to Sher at 4pm. I took a lot of time walking and sitting down.

I had a lot of thoughts on my mind. By that time my brother had died. I touched him and he was no longer moving. He was dead. I informed my husband that my brother was dead.

He asked me if I had taken my brother to the mortuary and I told him I hadn’t since I did not get any assistance from the police.

The following day, another workmate of mine informed me that my brother had not been moved to the mortuary and was still lying on the road, that his head had been chopped off and that dogs were eating his private parts.

My brother was clobbered to death before he was mutilated. The people who did that to him were using spiked clubs. They had fixed nails on the club and as they hit his face the nails would pluck flesh from his body.

I was not able to go to work that day. I just sat on the road. It was then that I saw a Landrover full of police men. The driver was a Kalenjin because he was speaking in Kalenjin.

I talked to him and informed him that my brother had been killed in Karakta and that his body was not collected. I boarded their vehicle and we went with them to where my brother’s body was. I found that the dogs had eaten him just as I had been informed.

We picked him and took him to the mortuary. By then he was smelling badly and he had started rotting because his body had spent two days on the sun before being collected. His body had insects that had started to eat him due to rotting…

I learned that on that Monday my brother was taking tea from his house when some Kikuyu told him that I and my husband had been killed. He left the tea and came to our shop to look for us.

He peeped through the glass window when some people said, ‘There he is’. They were actually looking for my husband and when they could not find him, they killed my brother.

My late brother was married to Mildred Achieng’. They had three children, Ochieng (5 years), Amam (11/2 years) and Linet (4 years).

Ochieng was present when his father was being clobbered and mutilated. He has since gone mad. He keeps on saying, “Baba wanakata kichwa yako, (…Dad they are chopping off your head)”