2004: Partner NEWS Vol. 7 no. 3

The 10-Mile land dispute

A long-standing dispute over ownership of Kenya’s Ten-Mile Costal Strip, stretching from Vanga near the Tanzanian border to the furthest Island of Faza near Somalia, has forced locals to live as squatters on their own land.

By Tsuma Charo

Coast province ought to be amongst the richest provinces in Kenya. But it’s marked by a complex land problem that is impoverishing people. 

The history of landlessness dates back to 1498 when the Portuguese conquered the Kenyan Coast. The Portuguese were replaced first by the Omani Arabs and subsequently the British. As the Portuguese retreated from the coast defeated, the only reminders of their presence were Fort Jesus in Mombasa that occupies less than five acres of land and the Vasco da Gama Pillar in Malindi built on less than an acre. The story of Arab and British colonisation, however, is a different one. One that is responsible for most of the current land problems.   

Land for absentee landlords

During the British colonialism, land was taken from the indigenous ethnic groups on the coast, primarily the Mijikenda. A Ten-Mile Coastal Strip arrangement allowed those claiming ownership within the strip to get title deeds under the Land Titles Ordinance.

But the Land Titles Ordinance was known only to the Arabs, the British and a few Africans educated at mission schools. Majority of local inhabitants were ignorant of the law. They did therefore not lay claims of ownership as envisaged in the Ordinance, and the land they resided on was consequently declared Crown Land under the control of the British colonial administration.

Today, the inhabitants of the coast experience a twin problem: absentee landlords and landlessness. During colonialism many people of Arab origin acquired titles to vast parcels of land within the Ten-Mile Costal Strip. They left at independence leaving agents to collect rent for them. Despite the fact that the constitutional provisions regarding privatisation of Trustland has been contravened by issuing land titles to people who are not ordinarily residents in the costal area, many people have been turned into rent-paying squatters on their own ancestral land.

Land for wildlife

Not only humans occupy land in the Coast province. Game reserves, national parks and plantations are major exploiters of land. According to Kenya Land Alliance residents in Malindi and Taita Taveta districts have ceded 75% of the land to two prominent families and wildlife. In Taita Taveta Tsavo East and West National Parks occupy a major part of the districts total land surface. Even though poverty indicators in the districts are depressing statistics, money accrued from the parks and plantations go exclusively to the government and private companies. Calls for reform of the Kenya Wildlife Service Act have gone unheeded. Yet communities want to participate in the management of wildlife areas, to share profit from gate collection and engage in sustainable game meat business.

No land for locals

Agitation for land rights at the Coast is a continuing undertaking. An organization called Coast Land Rights Lobby Group has been formed but the police recently dispersed their opening sensitisation rally. Cabinet minister and leading Maasai land rights lobbyist, Hon. William ole Ntimama was one of the convenors of the rally.

The pressure for the return of grabbed land has sometimes taken a violent and lawless turn. In 1997, resentment against upcountry landowners lead to brutal land clashes in Mombasa and Kwale districts. The epicentre was Likoni, where a Kikuyu, formerly influential in the Kenyatta administration, controls 1,000 acres of land in an urban setting. His poultry farm was attacked and houses burnt. Around 100 upcountry people died during the clashes. This year, a silent fight for the land, owned by Waitiki Ndegwa has erupted again. A local ‘self help’ group has started subdividing and apportioning the Watiki land without recourse to the law.

While the present laws on land can and does uphold private ownership it cannot redress land injustice.