Map of Mt. Elgon, Kenya
Summary
Civilians in Kenya’s western Mt. Elgon district near the border with Uganda have been twice-victimized in a little known conflict between Kenyan security forces and a militia group known as the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF), forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes.
Since 2006 the SLDF has attacked thousands of civilians, killing, raping, and mutilating, in a complex mix of land disputes, criminality, and struggles for local power. The government’s security response, initially lacklustre, was massively stepped up in early 2008 after Kenya’s disputed elections by the introduction of the Kenyan armed forces. In a joint army-police operation, the security forces conducted mass round-ups of thousands of men and boys, tortured hundreds if not thousands in detention, and unlawfully killed dozens of others. Residents are supportive of action against the SLDF but have been horrified and traumatized by the way in which the operation has been carried out.
Both the SLDF and the Kenyan security forces have been responsible for serious human rights abuses. To the extent that the fighting in Mt. Elgon has risen to the level of an armed conflict, both sides have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law (the “laws of war”) that amount to war crimes.
The Kenyan government has a responsibility to promptly and impartially investigate and prosecute the individuals responsible for these crimes. Thus far the official response has been muted and insufficient. While trumpeting SLDF abuses, government officials have persisted in denying reports of torture by the security forces even as the evidence has piled up, with reports and publicity in recent months from local human rights organizations, local media, Human Rights Watch, the Nairobi-based Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU), and the constitutionally independent state human rights organ, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.
Local human rights activists and journalists who have investigated and exposed abuses by both the SLDF and the security forces have been hounded. Two prominent activists were sought by the military after issuing a joint statement with Human Rights Watch in April 2008. Both left the country for a short time.
Eventually, in June, the authorities announced an internal police investigation into torture allegations–but have not made public the terms of reference or degree of independence of such an inquiry. An internal investigation by security organs who are responsible to the same ministers and commanders who should be investigated is unlikely to provide answers to the questions that need to be asked. Was arbitrary arrest, detention, and torture planned from the outset? At what level were officials aware of what was going on and why did they not take immediate steps to end the abuses once they were known?
Human Rights Watch is therefore calling for an independent public inquiry to transparently examine the responsibility of senior police and military commanders and government officials and ministers, to look at grievances and consider compensation for victims of human rights abuses and wanton destruction of property by the security forces.
In addition, criminal investigation into persons responsible for torture, extrajudicial killings, and other abuses by both the SLDF and state security forces should be stepped up. Those who fund and otherwise support the SLDF should be investigated and prosecuted. Families should be properly informed of deaths in custody and the bodies of their relatives should be returned. The authorities should allow unimpeded access to humanitarian agencies to support the displaced communities, and provide medical attention to detainees.
The conflict in Mt. Elgon has long been ignored by the Kenyan government and has escaped international attention. While its roots lie in conflicts over land, as with most organized violence in Kenya it is closely related to politics. Various militias have existed since the early 1990s in Mt. Elgon, funded and manipulated by local politicians to their advantage.
The history, organization, and funding of the SLDF is an example of the relationship between land grievances and the manipulation of ethnicity and violence for political ends that is a disturbingly deep-rooted and longstanding element of the Kenyan political process. This came to prominence in the violence, much of it orchestrated, in the Rift Valley and Western Kenya in early 2008 in the wake of the disputed presidential election of December 27, 2007.
The violence following the elections shocked the world—and many Kenyans—into recognizing the scale of the governance failures within the Kenyan political system, and the explosive consequences of repeated failures to address historical injustices and accountability for abuses. The depth of organization manifested in the SLDF and the long-lasting nature and scale of the human rights problems in Mt. Elgon are a particularly extreme illustration of the dangers of lack of action by the authorities allowing impunity for those involved in organized crime and human rights abuses.
The Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) is a non-state armed group that first emerged in 2006 to resist government attempts to evict squatters in the Chepyuk area of Mt. Elgon district. Since its formation, the militia’s activities have expanded, becoming more violent and more overtly political. In the run up to and following the 2007 general election the SLDF supported certain political candidates and targeted political opponents and their supporters.
The security response, initially police-led, failed to contain the rapidly evolving armed group as it wreaked havoc in Mt. Elgon and parts of Trans-Nzoia districts. Thousands of people have been displaced as a result of SLDF activities and clashes between the militia and security forces. Estimates of the numbers of people displaced by the violence range between 66,000 by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and 200,000 by the army, as of April 2008.
According to Kenyan human rights groups, since 2006 the SLDF has killed more than 600 people, has kidnapped, tortured, and raped men and women who opposed them or their political supporters, and has kidnapped and tortured people who owned land that members of the militia coveted, forcing the owners to choose between mutilation or surrendering their property. They have collected “taxes” from the population and they effectively ran a parallel administration, punishing civilians by cutting off their ears and sewing up their mouths if they defied the militia.
In March 2008, after the December 2007 election, the Kenyan army was deployed to regain control of Mt. Elgon district, in a joint operation with the police called ‘Operation Okoa Maisha’ (‘Save Lives’ in Swahili). Local residents initially welcomed the crackdown but were quickly alienated by the strategy pursued by the security forces. The scale of the human rights violations committed by the Kenyan security forces in the course of their operations against the SLDF, in particular systematic torture, is truly shocking.
Victims described to Human Rights Watch how military and police units rounded up nearly all males in Mt. Elgon district, some of them children as young as 10. At military camps, most notoriously one called Kapkota, every detainee appears to have been tortured and forced to identify members of the SLDF or the location of weapons. Security personnel beat them with sticks, chains, and rifles. Some people died as a result and their bodies were removed in helicopters for disposal in the forest. Suspects were then ‘screened’ by walking past informers who decided if they were members of the SLDF or not. Significantly, the screening took place after the initial torture. Most were then released, some with very grave injuries. The others were detained, some tortured further and then either “disappeared” by the military or handed over to the police and taken to jails at Bungoma and Kakamega.
Local human rights groups say they have documented 72 people dead and 34 missing since the beginning of the operation on March 9 and the end of June 2008; a source within the operation put the figures even higher, saying up to 220 have been extra-judicially killed. According to the military’s own figures they have detained nearly 4,000 people. Of these, the military say they transferred around 800 to jail. As of June 2008, about 758 SLDF suspects have been arraigned in court on charges of promoting war-like activities, although many of these have since been bailed.
Human Rights Watch saw several bodies in local mortuaries that attendants said had come from Kapkota camp. They showed visible signs of torture such as welts, bruises, broken bones, rope burns on wrists and feet, and swollen soft tissue. According to local human rights workers, over 450 detainees including 32 children of school-going age, were held in extremely congested conditions in Bungoma jail during March, April, and May 2008. They were initially denied adequate medical attention, despite the fact that five have died in custody from their wounds, and others remain in critical condition.
The Kenyan security forces are legally bound by international human rights law, much of which has been incorporated into domestic legislation. The Kenyan constitution and human rights law provide fundamental due process guarantees for all individuals in detention. At all times, the prohibition on the use of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment is absolute.
Since the beginning of the joint army-police operation in March 2008, fighting in Mt. Elgon appears to have risen to the level of an internal armed conflict under international humanitarian law (the laws of war). This law is applicable in situations of armed conflict that rise above internal disturbances and tensions such as riots or sporadic acts of violence. Relevant law includes article 3 common to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law.
All parties to the conflict, both government security forces and the SLDF, are obliged to act in accordance with the law on the conduct of hostilities and to protect civilians and captured combatants. SLDF military operations that are permissible under the laws of war will still violate Kenyan criminal law, for which SLDF members may be prosecuted. These would include offenses such as murder and attempted murder, weapons possession, promotion of war-like activities, and conspiracy.
The Kenyan government has tasked the police to look into allegations of torture, however, the United States and United Kingdom should suspend military and other assistance to the Kenyan security forces until the allegations of serious offenses committed in Mt. Elgon are properly investigated and appropriate action is taken to ensure accountability.