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IDPs And 'Host' Communities Must Rebuild Together
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The East African (Nairobi)
OPINION
12 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Philip Ochieng Onguje
Nairobi
Kenya's internally displaced persons are once again riding military trucks and public buses clutching their few worldly belongings. This time though, they are not fleeing marauding mobs but returning to their farms in what the government calls "Operation Rudi Nyumbani."
At last, the eyesore that is the IDP camps is vanishing and those who have returned have began reconstructing their lives in earnest.
However, some in the IDP camps are reluctant to return home because of the security aspects of the programme on resettlement.
On the face of it, one can say that two important principles set by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees relating to IDPs were not adhered to when designing and executing this ambitious programme.
The first requires that special efforts be made "to ensure full participation of IDPs in the planning and management of their return or resettlement and integration." On this score, it appears the IDPs were ambushed.
The second requires competent authorities to establish conditions and provide the means that allow IDPs to return voluntarily and with dignity to their homes or places of habitual residence, or to resettle voluntarily in other parts of the country where they feel safe. The country is not even agreed on this basic principle.
While some Kenyans believe that IDPs need not necessarily be resettled in the farms from where they were evicted, others believe they must return to the same places they once occupied, regardless of fears they might have.
Looked at critically, however, it is discernible that Kenya does not have a resettlement policy, on internal displacement occasioned by inter-communal violence and hostility.
This is despite the fact that Kenya has seen IDPs created by political upheavals since it attained its independence.
Subsequently, it is not possible to hold state institutions and public servants accountable in the course of undertaking a resettlement programme, even if the security arrangements collapse.
In an attempt to ameliorate the massive IDP crisis occasioned by the post-elections violence in December 2007, the grand coalition government has embarked on a Ksh31 billion ($492 million) National Reconciliation and Emergency Social and Economic Recovery programme.
THOUGH THE STRATEGY ACKNOWLEDGes the significance of reconciliation and security for resettlement of the IDPs, it does not direct that the returnees and those who evicted them must be at the forefront of designing their own reconciliation, security and reconstruction priorities.
Ideally, to ensure that reconciliation has been achieved, the returnees and the host communities would have worked jointly to help each other in reconstruction of homes and social amenities.
There was a need to make people appreciate the impact of the violence on their social and economic lives and through dialogue, get them to commit not to engage in violence that would destroy what they have rebuilt themselves.
That way, reconciliation would be achieved much faster.
Examples abound in Kenya. After about 30 years of prevarication, the government, in the 1990s, finally allowed communities in Garissa, Ijara, Isiolo and Samburu to take charge of their own peace and security.
Several inter-communal peace and security agreements were almost immediately negotiated and adopted.
Thousands of illegal guns were returned and peace structures established. These regions were the most peaceful when the rest of Kenya was in flames.
TODAY, IN THE RIFT VALLEY, THE REturnees are reconstructing their homes alone. The military is expected to rebuild schools, hospitals and water points for them.
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In the next week or so, the government is expected to provide more material support. The consequence of this approach will be that the two communities feel further apart. While one will be feeling abandoned that its government sees it as the aggressor that must be kept at bay using all force possible, the other will be feeling that the government is its benefactor.
The coalition government must consider its approach.
Philip Ochieng Onguje is a programme officer, human security & development at PeaceNet Kenya
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