About the Report

This report, sponsored by the Center for Conflict Analysis and 

Prevention, follows a June 17, 2008, U.S. Institute of Peace 

panel discussion on displacement in Kenya and is based on 

extensive local research, including monitoring work before 

the 2007 election. In writing and researching this paper, we 

are grateful to Dr. Raphael Kinoti of the National Council of 

Churches of Kenya, Mr. Mutuku Nguli of PeaceNet, Abdullahi 

Boru, and Job Kipkosgei, as well as the many others who 

shared their knowledge and insight. 

Jacqueline Klopp is an associate research scholar at Columbia 

University and a board member of the Internal Displacement 

Policy and Advocacy Center (IDPAC) based in Nakuru, Kenya. 

Patrick Githinji, a former high school teacher and university 

student prior to displacement, and Keffa Karuoya, IDPAC 

program officer, have both been displaced multiple times and 

continue to work for IDPAC.

1200 17th Street NW • Washington, DC 20036 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063

Special Report 251 September 2010

© 2010 by the United States Institute of Peace. 

All rights reserved.

Jacqueline M. Klopp, Patrick Githinji, and Keffa Karuoya

Internal Displacement 

and Local Peacebuilding 

in Kenya

Challenges and Innovations

Summary

•	 Peacebuilding after the 2007–08 postelection violence in Kenya is inextricably linked to 

the challenges of dealing with the hundreds of thousands of people that the violence internally displaced—a problem recognized in the national accord drawn up after the violence 

occurred.

•	 Effective resettlement of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and reconciliation should be 

a key indicator of successful peacebuilding, which in turn requires appropriate monitoring 

and evaluation of resettlement, reconciliation, and compensation efforts. In addition to the 

broader reforms stipulated in the national accord, the legislature and judiciary should be 

encouraged to more systematically address the grievances around internal displacement. 

•	 Currently, nongovernmental peacebuilding organizations continue to be urban and Nairobicentric, focusing on sporadic small projects, youth exchanges, and workshops. They rarely 

tap into informal or formal networks of local people and institutions, and no rigorous 

monitoring and reporting of previous hot spots of violence occur in an institutionalized 

and continuous manner.

•	 Local-level government responses to displacement remain largely within a pre-election 

security paradigm, entailing the construction of more police posts and involving the provincial security apparatus in compensation and resettlement. This is not effective. Much more 

needs to be done, including structural reforms that improve transparency and accountability 

in government institutions at the local level.

United States Institute of Peace www.usip.org

SPECIAL REPORT

Contents

Internal Displacement and Local Peacebuilding 3

The Kenyan Case 4

Internal Displacement and Peacebuilding in Kenya 6

Experience of Kuresoi Constituency 8

Conclusions and Lessons Learned 12
2

•	 Police reform is particularly important, as some police officers participated in the postelection violence and are currently involved in resettlement and compensation schemes. 

Sanctioning those officers who were involved, coupled with support and expansion of community policing to uphold laws protecting IDPs, will be crucial to reestablishing the peace 

and order needed for successful resettlement and reintegration.

•	 International actors could bolster more innovative approaches that better involve key local 

actors and institutions in pro-peace mobilizations, such as IDP networks, universities and 

colleges, elders’ councils, women’s groups, and media.

•	 Peacebuilding work in previous violence hot spots should be linked to economic empowerment that reinforces interethnic cooperation. Currently, much economic development 

assistance proceeds as if the violence did not occur.

•	 Everything must be done to protect and expand the hard-won political space for antiviolence mobilizations to operate.

Since the election in December 2007, Kenya has witnessed an unprecedented degree of 

postelection violence1 that has produced large numbers of victims, including hundreds of 

thousands of IDPs.2 It also generated many perpetrators, from the highest levels of government to ordinary people.3 This violence has torn apart Kenya’s social fabric and generated 

deep trauma. It also has contributed to a general economic downturn, reduced agricultural 

production, hunger, environmental degradation, stresses on health care systems, surges 

in crime, and greater insecurity. To make matters worse, conflicts in Uganda, Sudan, and 

Somalia have spilled over into Kenya, and arms are more readily available in both rural and 

urban areas.4 This makes Kenya dangerously divided and well armed. 

A high probability of recurrent violence exists, especially as elections approach in 2012, 

but such violence is not inevitable. To stop postelection violence, Kenya embarked on a 

national dialogue and reconciliation process, which led to a power-sharing arrangement 

and a national accord.5 The accord’s four key agenda areas provide a road map for necessary short- and longer-term changes to prevent future violence. These proposed changes 

aim not only to deal with immediate humanitarian issues, but also to puncture impunity 

and promote broader institutional change.6 In this sense the accord represents the official 

consensus on a national strategy for building peace.7

This paper looks at one critically important aspect of the accord—agenda two—which 

calls for “immediate measures to address the massive humanitarian crisis of traumatized 

victims and the displaced and to promote reconciliation, healing and restoration.”8 A focus 

on internal displacement is one key lens to critically analyze Kenya’s current peacebuilding, 

which we define as actions and approaches to “prevent, reduce, transform and help people 

recover from violence in all its forms including structural violence.”9 How IDPs are treated, 

whether they return to their homes, and if so, how successful their reintegration is tells a 

great deal about progress in a peacebuilding process. This paper analyzes the internal displacement and peacebuilding nexus first through a theoretical review and discussion, and 

then more concretely through the case study of Kuresoi in Kenya. 

The Kenyan case clearly illustrates the challenges of translating national-level agreements into local-level peace.10 Our case study, Kuresoi Constituency in the South Rift Valley, 

illustrates this and illuminates some of the key issues emerging from the current situation. 

Kuresoi experienced extreme violence not only in the last election, but in previous electoral 

cycles. To bring local voices into discussions of displacement and peacebuilding, we interviewed many displaced and those involved in violence as well as local actors engaged in 

peacebuilding, particularly elders’ councils, government actors, and the National Council of 

Churches of Kenya (NCCK),11 one of the main peacebuilding agents in the region. From this 

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions.

To request permission to photocopy or reprint materials, 

e-mail: permissions@usip.org

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, 

nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. 

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, 

promote post-conflict peacebuilding, and increase conflict 

management tools, capacity, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with 

knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, 

D.C. • George E. Moose (Vice Chairman), Adjunct Professor 

of Practice, The George Washington University, Washington, 

D.C. • Anne H. Cahn, Former Scholar in Residence, American 

University, Washington, D.C. • Chester A. Crocker, James R. 

Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Foreign 

Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. • Ikram U. 

Khan, President, Quality Care Consultants, LLC., Las Vegas, 

Nev. • Kerry Kennedy, Human Rights Activist • Stephen D. 

Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor 

of Law, George Mason University, Arlington, Va. • Judy Van 

Rest, Executive Vice President, International Republican 

Institute, Washington, D.C. • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice 

President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 

Members Ex Officio

Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor • James N. Miller, 

Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy •

Ann E. Rondeau, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy; President, 

National Defense University • Richard H. Solomon, 

President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) 
3

analysis, we distill some lessons for moving forward with the agenda of supporting more 

effective pro-peace mobilizations and constraints on violence. We argue that, along with 

national-level transformations that puncture impunity, successful peacebuilding requires 

redress and reintegration of the displaced at a local level. This is an urgent task if Kenya is 

to avoid violence in 2012 and beyond.

Internal Displacement and Local Peacebuilding: The Connections

The interconnections between internal displacement and peacebuilding are gaining policy 

attention. UN secretary-general Kofi Annan noted in a 2005 speech to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that “the return of refugees and internally displaced persons 

is a major part of any post-conflict scenario ... it is often a critical factor in sustaining a 

peace process and in revitalizing economic activity.”12 In January 2009, UNHCR emphasized 

that “the scale of return and success of integration are two of the most tangible indicators 

of progress in any peacebuilding process.”13 More recently, a report of the secretary-general 

on peacebuilding after conflict put the “reintegration of returnees” as a key area where more 

significant progress must be made.14

The growing literature on peacebuilding and internal displacement emphasizes a number 

of specific interconnections. First, without successful local peacebuilding, resettlement 

and reintegration of the displaced to former homes becomes a potentially dangerous and 

hence less attractive option. In some cases, return can produce more violence. In Kenya, 

as elsewhere, IDPs have been killed or maimed when they have attempted to return to 

former homes in areas without adequate peace and order.15 Persistent insecurity linked 

to mobilized youth, local impunity, and the failure of the police and legal system makes 

resettlement and reintegration of the displaced dangerous. Some argue further that the 

return of the displaced to their former homes challenges gains in land that play into peace 

agreements. This can trigger further violence from those who currently live on the newly 

appropriated or vacated land16 unless there is careful mediation of these property disputes 

and reconciliation processes.17

Second, without the healing and reconstitution of local social fabrics linked to successful return and reintegration, a country often moves toward more polarization and ethnic 

separation. Trauma and anger among IDPs, reinforced by the large concentration of victims 

with sad and horrific stories to tell, means that new settlements of the displaced can easily become recruiting grounds for the next round of violence.18 The displacements shatter 

cultural cohesion and undermine traditional practices used to mediate disputes, which 

often depend on the aggrieved meeting face-to-face where the wrongdoing occurred. When 

violations of the law are left unaddressed locally as victims flee, impunity at the local level 

becomes entrenched.

Third, the process of separation produced by displacement creates economic challenges. 

Violence often disrupts the local economy, which depends on interethnic cooperation for 

market access, labor, and transportation services. The loss of producers—small businesses 

and farmers—often worsens the prospects for local economic recovery where violence 

occurs. Where IDPs settle, either as integrated displaced or as impoverished settlers on 

marginal and unproductive lands and urban slums, they generate new challenges. New 

ethnically homogenous and unsustainable settlements can increase the potential for violent conflicts between the displaced and host communities, even if the two groups share 

cultural identities, as the newcomers’ needs for water, firewood, and other resources create 

environmental and social damages that spill over to the host community. Relief food in such 

new settlements can also undercut local economies. Finally, for IDPs, it is widely recognized 

that economic empowerment and “property restitution and compensation are perhaps the 

Persistent insecurity linked to 

mobilized youth, local impunity, 

and the failure of the police and 

legal system makes resettlement 

and reintegration of the 

displaced dangerous.
4

most effective measures for remedying economic insecurity that results from an individual’s 

displacement and loss of livelihood.”19

In brief, internal displacement creates serious challenges for peacebuilding, and the two 

are intertwined. Preventing further displacement and durable solutions to current displacement requires a peace that involves reconstruction and reform of the state and economy at 

both local and national levels. This includes not only resettlement but dispute resolution; 

adjudication of property, especially land disputes; and attack on impunity through reinforcing law and order, in not only the police force but also the courts and mediation systems. 

All too often, displacement and its aftermath are viewed within a humanitarian or security 

lens that obscures these critical but politically charged aspects of how peace must be built. 

In turn, peacebuilding often proceeds as if there is no significant need to restructure the 

local state.20 The failure to do so, and thus create trust in state institutions to deliver law 

fairly, often means locals rely on traditional or informal mechanisms with mixed results and 

contradictory effects.21

A look at current peacebuilding in Kenya reveals some key problems. First, at local levels 

the government response to displacement remains largely within the pre-election security 

paradigm, entailing the construction of more police posts and involving the security apparatus in resettlement, despite ample evidence that many members of the provincial administration and police played into the violence.22 Second, peacebuilding organizations, with 

notable exceptions, continue to be urban and Nairobi-centric, focusing on sporadic small 

projects, youth exchanges, and workshops instead of building rural-urban coalitions to advocate for needed local structural changes, including building institutions around property restitution and other historical grievances.23 Third, no rigorous monitoring of hot spots occurs 

in an institutionalized and continuous manner; it tends to happen only before the election, 

when there is inadequate time and strategy to manage the violence. Fourth, peacebuilding, 

including monitoring efforts, rarely tap into informal or formal networks of local people and 

institutions, such as IDP networks or schools and colleges, which are already trying to manage frayed local relations through their own creative mediations and interactions.24 Fifth, 

peacebuilding often fails to address cultural practices and narratives (on all sides) that can 

aggravate tensions and interethnic relations. Sixth, while some efforts attempt to leverage 

economic reconstruction and development assistance to deepen interethnic linkages and 

cooperation, in practice, peacebuilding continues to be perceived and hence funded and 

implemented as a separate activity from development. Finally, little evaluation of past 

efforts appears to take place, although this would encourage more strategic learning and 

produce more accountability within peacebuilding activities. 

The Kenyan Case

The magnitude of the violence after Kenya’s contested election in December 2007 shocked 

many international observers. Yet a close reading of patterns of violence in the 1990s shows 

spikes of violence before multiparty elections beginning in 1992 and accumulating problems 

stemming from politicians using informal militias, including death squads within the police 

force, for their own political purposes.25 Further, throughout the 1990s large numbers of 

IDPs were never properly assisted by the government or civil society, and the communities 

where violence occurred, with some exceptions, were left with the divisions and adverse 

effects of past episodes of displacement. Local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 

government commissions, and scholars have documented and analyzed these cumulative 

problems, added to those created by colonial displacements and inequitable land redistributions.26 However, it was not a serious part of pre-election conflict assessments.27

Internal displacement 

creates serious challenges for 

peacebuilding. . . . Preventing 

further displacement and 

durable solutions to current 

displacement requires a peace 

that involves reconstruction 

and reform of the state and 

economy at both local and 

national levels.
5

Before the election a number of hot spots in the Rift Valley, such as Mt. Elgon and 

Kuresoi, were already experiencing high levels of violence and displacement.28 The level of 

hate speech overall was alarming. Monitoring campaign rallies and incitement, the Kenya 

National Commission on Human Rights (KNHRC) found that the hate speech came from 

politicians in both major parties: the Party for National Unity (PNU) led by incumbent 

Mwai Kibaki, and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) led by Raila Odinga. The Peace 

and Development Network (PeaceNet), a national umbrella organization for all NGOs and 

individuals working on peacebuilding, had seventy-seven peace monitors linked to a text 

messaging center that analyzed the continual flow of data coming in from cell phones. None 

of these monitors, however, tapped directly into IDP networks in the regions where violence 

was already occurring or where high levels of hate speech and mobilization suggested that 

violence was imminent. Further, the monitoring did not translate into any concrete and 

coordinated action to push for sanctions or actions to prevent the violence. 

Anticipating problems, donors pooled funding within the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for peacebuilding and violence prevention initiatives. The most 

prominent, Chagua Amani Zuia Noma (Follow Peace and Avoid Chaos) was spearheaded by 

a network of civil society, media, private sector, and religious organizations called Partnership for Peace. The initiative was officially launched on September 21, 2007, only three 

months before the election. While it condemned violence in Mt. Elgon, Kuresoi, and other 

places, and produced a media campaign that included spreading peace songs and videos, it 

appears to have relied on exhortation through media and workshops to a general public, or 

to specific groups such as youth and women.29 It also appealed much more to middle-class 

and urban Kenyans than to rural youth, whom politicians were already mobilizing using local 

languages and traditional modes of organization. Further, it did not respond to the various 

local political discourses fueling animosity based on narratives of historical grievance. 

Fear of powerful politicians also played into the failure to act boldly to counter hate 

speech and ongoing violent mobilizations; also, Kenyan civil society organizations were 

politically polarized and failed to speak in one voice about local-level violence and disputes 

in rural areas. Excepting a few organizations, such as the Kenya Human Rights Commission 

(distinct from the KNHRC), the Center against Torture (Eldoret), the Center for Human Rights 

and Democracy (Eldoret), and some local offices of the NCCK and other churches, most failed 

to address the growing problems of internal displacement that the violence caused. Rather, 

in a pattern that is not unique to Kenya, most efforts by civil society, media, international 

agencies, and even PeaceNet and the KNHRC focused on monitoring the election and overt 

aspects of campaign fraud, such as misuse of public funds or the manipulation of the party 

nomination process or voter registration. Meanwhile, the less-scrutinized informal organizing of violence before the election30 helped produce the infrastructure for mass violence 

when the election went awry. 

Most of the violence spread right after the Electoral Commission of Kenya delayed 

announcing the presidential results for days and then declared Mwai Kibaki the winner on 

December 30. Some of the violence appeared to emerge from angry demonstrations aimed 

at the Kibaki government and its PNU supporters for stealing the election. The government 

responded by using excessive and calculated force, sometimes using police to intimidate 

the opposition, especially in the ODM strongholds in Kisumu and parts of the Nairobi slums. 

Hundreds were killed in brutal and deliberate police action, which involved using live ammunition on “demonstrators,” including women and small children.31

As the violence escalated, some ODM politicians organized and used demonstrations to 

bargain for power. In some areas they also encouraged and organized violent evictions of 

PNU voters from opposition zones, such as Mt. Elgon and Kuresoi. Some of these processes 

had begun even before the election.32 In response, some of the PNU leadership funded and 

Fear of powerful politicians 

also played into the failure 

to act boldly to counter hate 

speech and ongoing violent 

mobilizations
6

armed militias, including the notorious Mungiki,33 supposedly to protect their “people.”34

These militias committed atrocities, including massacres of presumed ODM supporters in the 

Rift Valley. This caused displacements out of Central Province and Naivasha and Nakuru areas 

with large IDP camps forming in Kisumu.35 Unlike in past cycles of violence, the emerging 

dynamics were much more like a civil war than the state-sponsored violence of the past.

Existing networks around peacebuilding—such as Concerned Citizens for Peace, including PeaceNet and Partnership for Peace—were crucial during the crisis. PeaceNet’s network 

of election monitors very quickly focused on reporting violence and became a key source of 

information. By December 30, it was organizing meetings with its members to discuss interventions, including finding a mediation team.36 By January 1, five prominent Kenyans who 

were involved in peacebuilding and peacekeeping in Kenya and the region—Ambassador 

Bethuel Kiplagat, General Daniel Opande (retired), General Lazaro Sumbeiywo (retired), Ms. 

Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, and George Wachira—formed the core of the Concerned Citizens for 

Peace initiative, which joined with PeaceNet. Three days later, they were meeting regularly 

at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi to strategize, inform the international community of events, 

and absorb private-sector actors, the media, writers, scholars, and activist citizens of all 

stripes who developed strategies to intervene. In the subsequent negotiations involving 

the Panel of Eminent African Personalities of the African Union, which led to the national 

accord, “civil society was pivotal in actually creating an environment that was favourable for 

negotiations.”37 Still, the IDP networks by and large were not invited to participate.

On February 1, 2008, the two main political leaders, Kibaki and Odinga, and their parties 

agreed as part of agenda one of the accord to take action to stop the violence and restore 

rights and liberties. Violence declined rapidly and a semblance of normalcy returned, at least 

in Nairobi, demonstrating the political nature of much (but not all) of the violence and its 

role within a bargaining process over power.38 As some of the mobilized militia groups are 

informal and have political ties, challenges exist to demobilization and these groups could 

be easily reactivated. There is evidence that these militia groups are gaining more autonomy 

and that arms are being stockpiled for 2012.39 As the most recent report from the KNDR 

monitoring project notes with alarm:

Some groups have gained relative autonomy from political patronage, but they in 

turn have “trapped” some politicians into financing them. In some locations, illegal 

groups also use forced recruitment tactics such as threats, kidnapping and compulsory 

oaths. These groups continue to undertake their activities with impunity and, in some 

instances have threatened security officials.40

A senior administrative police officer expressed concern that if nothing is done to deal 

with these groups, mobilization times will be much shorter in the future.41 These groups 

pose a serious challenge for peacebuilding and resettlement and reintegration of the 

displaced.

Internal Displacement and Peacebuilding in Kenya

Peacebuilding activities have continued since the signing of the national accord. However, 

using “the scale of return and success of integration of the displaced as two of the most 

tangible indicators of progress in Kenya’s peacebuilding process,”42 peacebuilding in Kenya 

is unsuccessful in key parts of the country. Only a fraction of IDPs43 can be considered 

returned or settled, and among those, many do not have adequate security and livelihoods, 

access to compensation, restitution, or improved relations with neighbors. 

Kenya has a long history of internal displacement linked to its colonial history. Colonial 

reorganization and centralization of control over labor and land rights favored white settlements and plantations, eventually provoking the Mau Mau insurgency, violence, and further 

Kenya has a long history of 

internal displacement linked to 

its colonial history. 
7

dislocations. In postcolonial Kenya, those in political office easily manipulated inherited 

institutional structures determining land allocation.44 In competitive multiparty elections, 

which were reinstated in Kenya in 1991, this made it easy for land to became politicized in 

election campaigns. It is hardly surprising that the multiparty elections in the 1990s saw the 

dominant authoritarian party, the Kenya African National Union, manipulating land claims, 

followed by the first mass displacements linked to the electoral cycle. This was in part a 

form of gerrymandering or punishment of opposition. Politicians activate claims that certain 

constituents hold land illegitimately since they are not indigenous to an area conceived as 

an ethnically homogenous territory. They then use these claims to encourage violent mobilization to purge voters they think will support the opposition based on their ethnicity.45

In the 1990s, these politics generated hundreds of thousands of conflict-induced IDPs 

in Kenya. Yet by and large, these people were neglected and left to their own resourcefulness. PeaceNet was formed in 1992 to cope with the displacement, but eventually moved 

toward general peacebuilding and lost focus on the displaced, even though the problem 

was far from addressed adequately. The government distorted and manipulated the 

one UNDP-sponsored resettlement scheme in 1994; the displaced either failed to receive 

land or got small pieces of marginal land while the rest was doled out as patronage to 

government supporters.46

Among the few organizations that consistently assisted and advocated for IDPs were the 

NCCK, the Catholic Peace and Justice Commission, and the Kenya Human Rights Commission. 

Together, they helped the displaced to form a national IDP network to advocate for their 

rights.47 Many of the displaced were living not far from their original homes, in some areas 

where the violence in 2007 would once again be most serious; in these places, despite the 

efforts of peacebuilders such as the NCCK and PeaceNet, the government had never properly 

addressed the displacement and deep problems created by past violence and impunity. This 

is one among many factors explaining the intensity of violence in the last election.48 Many 

victims were displaced multiple times over, sometimes from the locations they had fled to 

from previous displacements. A Kenya Land Alliance survey of IDPs in the Rift Valley found 

32 percent of the displaced interviewed had been affected at least once before, in 1992, 

1997, or 2002,49 some of them from the same perpetrators.50

When the coalition government formed and postelection violence in 2007–08 was 

defused, the government, through the president’s office, moved to take over humanitarian 

relief and reconstruction from international agencies and the Kenya Red Cross. This included 

responsibility for the large numbers of IDPs. Rather than create a task force involve key players—including the NCCK and key ministries, such as those of justice and land—and use the 

opportunity to develop a proper national IDP policy,51 legal framework, and strategy, the 

government instead handed the job to the small Ministry of State for Special Programmes. 

Further, the government actively discouraged civil society, the media, and the private sector 

from staying involved, squandering their activism and goodwill during the initial crisis. 

The ministry then launched a poorly conceived, organized, and timed Operation Rudi 

Nyumbani (Return Home) and the related operations Tujenge Pamoja (Build Together) and 

Ujirani Mwema (Good Neighborliness), using the overstretched provincial administration 

to manage them. Even with training from PeaceNet and the small but important police 

peace corps,52 administration police could not properly support the exceptionally challenging resettlement and peacebuilding tasks while simultaneously dealing with broader 

security concerns.53 It is not surprising, then, that inadequate peacebuilding took place: 

There were no proper plans to develop transparent registries, compensation, and restitution 

schemes, nor was there a place where IDPs could check on the whereabouts of lost loved 

ones. Instead, the government ordered the provincial administration to dismantle camps, 

putting the administration in the awkward position of forcing people out, sometimes into 

Politicians activate claims 

that certain constituents hold 

land illegitimately since they 

are not indigenous to an area 

conceived as an ethnically 

homogenous territory. They then 

use these claims to encourage 

violent mobilization to purge 

voters they think will support 

the opposition based on their 

ethnicity.
8

hostile communities where informal militias persisted, exacerbating the security problem 

it was supposed to address. There was no program for the displaced, who were in slums or 

“integrated” by fending for themselves—a possible 300,000 people or more.54

Apart from the IDP network and some of its local partners, no monitoring system was 

in place. The government once again should have invited actors such as the KNCHR and 

its partners, along with peacebuilding networks such as PeaceNet, the NCCK, and the IDP 

Network, to develop a monitoring scheme. Instead, the process was opaque and lent itself 

to corruption and political manipulation, once again worsening the security situation. It 

also exacerbated resentment among the displaced, deepening ethnic division. Some IDPs 

believed that compensation was meant for one ethnic group, the Kikuyu—Kibaki and many 

of his PNU associates are Kikuyu—even though the majority of any ethnic community did 

not get compensation. The Kenya Land Alliance Survey found that the majority of the 2,746 

displaced people interviewed did not receive start-up capital of 10,000 or 25,000 Kenyan 

shillings (K.sh).55 In another location, IDPs found that the chief had allocated their compensation to supporters, including young people involved in the violence. 

Despite the lack of a proper ongoing monitoring system, the Kenya Human Rights Commission and more recently South Consulting for the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation 

process did monitoring reports,56 confirming the appalling situation of most IDPs. The Kenya 

Human Rights Commission report on Operation Return Home related that most of the displaced 

are “in deplorable conditions bordering on gross human rights violations; poor housing, lack of 

food, lack of safe water,” noting the prevalence of ‘sexual and gender-based violence, lack of 

maternal healthcare ... [and] exposure of children and pregnant mothers to extreme weather 

conditions.”57 These reports deal mostly with IDPs in rural areas, not those who were either 

displaced within or ended up in Kenya’s urban slums, and it is likely that urban IDPs are among 

the most vulnerable. Given the magnitude of the problems surrounding the displaced, the 

peacebuilding activities thus far do not get close to adequately dealing with them. A more 

localized view reveals even more specific challenges—but also some ways forward.

The Experience of Kuresoi Constituency

Kuresoi drew national attention before the 2007 election. A relatively new constituency, 

bordering the contentious Mau forest, it was carved out of a larger Molo constituency in 

time for the 1997 election. It was gerrymandered to have a majority Kalenjin58 population 

to ensure dominance of the Kenya African National Union (KANU), and unsurprisingly the 

KANU candidate won there with a large majority in 1997 and again in 2002. In 2007 the 

incumbent MP Moses Cheboi (KANU) was fighting against the ODM candidate, former internal security permanent secretary and KANU stalwart Zakayo Cheruiyot, who eventually won 

the seat. The constituency was still seen as a bastion of KANU and former KANU military 

men, bureaucrats, and politicians who used the same techniques of violent displacement of 

non-Kalenjin voters—Kikuyu, Luhya, Kisii, and Ogiek, who are traditional forest dwellers—

as in the 1990s. This was despite the peacebuilding efforts in the region.

Before the 2007 election, the National IDP Network actively documented escalating 

violence and analyzed it in some detail.59 The aggressors largely came from within the local 

Kipsigis community (a Kalenjin subgroup), and those targeted were from the Kisii, Luhya, 

and Kikuyu communities. Some youth from other communities also perpetrated senseless 

revenge killings. The social and political dynamics before the election showed clearly that 

serious trouble was on the way, and the major challenges for local peacebuilding networks—

as well some of the current approaches to the displaced—look similar to ineffective strategies in the past, as the pre-election monitoring report relates:

Given the magnitude of the 

problems surrounding the 

displaced, the peacebuilding 

activities thus far do not get close 

to adequately dealing with them.
9

Throughout this period the government has worked to contain the situation, not by 

investigating higher level perpetrators and ensuring their arrest and prosecution, but 

by creating new police posts and units at different villages and commercial centers. 

At the community level, peace actors joined together, using a bottom-up approach to 

preventing the conflict by electing elders and youth from every community to oversee 

peace meetings and reconciliation. Among the actors were National Council of Churches 

of Kenya (NCCK), the Catholic Diocese of Nakuru (CDN), and provincial administration 

police. The committees have achieved some significant results to date, especially in 

the Likia zone. A collaborative effort by Muslim, Christian and Hindu leaders, the Likia 

and Beyond Peace and Conflicts Resolution Council has been active in peacebuilding 

activities and in increasing local police presence in the area.60 A fifty-member peace 

committee has also been set up in the area, and is partnering with the Internal 

Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Kenya Human Rights Commission.61

Despite such localized successes, hatred and suspicion throughout the region continue 

and the mistrust among communities is high. There have been several initiatives to 

support reconciliation and resettlement of displaced families, yet progress has been 

very slow, with limited government recognition, and with frequent recurrences of 

violence. At this time the situation appears to be worsening with renewed clashes 

and acts of intimidation. A local militia group attacked the homes of three opposition 

candidates, causing them to withdraw from the election, and released a list of approved 

candidates.62 Bridges have been destroyed in the area, disrupting commerce and 

transportation and severely impairing police responses to attacks as well.63 Several 

episodes of anonymous leafleting of communities have occurred, warning “foreigners” 

that they would be attacked if they did not to leave the area, and urging communal 

and youth violence.64

In mid-October the IDP Network held an intensive, three-day training for peace 

committees from the entire region (including Kuresoi and Likia) at the Baraka Seminary 

Centre in Molo with more than 160 committee members and 10 chiefs participating. 

The NCCK, the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (CJPC), CCR, and the Provincial 

Administration police jointly supported it. The final evening of the workshop was 

followed by a night of terror with Peace Committee member Mr. Anyona being shot 

three times and seven others also seriously injured, including a two-year-old baby. 

Two people were killed that night and eight houses were torched at Kamwaura Trading 

Centre.65 The local administrative response was very slow, observers reported, with 

police arriving five hours after the 3:30 a.m. incident and the District Commissioner 

and other officials responded in the afternoon. Residents upset by the laxity of the 

administration’s responses to security issues interrupted the DC’s address, demanding 

reinforcements for the four police officers currently stationed in the area.66 Locals 

reported that the increased police presence was withdrawn the following day. Local 

residents continued to flee the area, seeking refuge at schools, churches, government 

buildings, and market centres. 

This report was before the election on December 2007. The actual voting went without 

major incident apart from protests from voters who claimed to be missing from the voter 

list. But violence began to escalate once again after the incumbent Mwai Kibaki (PNU) was 

declared winner in a suspicious, flawed electoral process. The local Presbyterian Church of 

East Africa building was burned on December 30, 2007, and thirty houses were torched on 

New Year’s Eve. A local Kikuyu politician, Njuguna Ngengi, was lured to a local farm with a 

request to mediate a dispute and was killed. Youth, some in uniforms of blue T-shirts and 

yellow shorts, torched houses and killed non-Kalenjin residents. Many displaced regrouped 

in Molo town and formed groups to kill Kalenjin. The death toll reached well over fifty 

people, and tens of thousands were displaced. 

Our recent study of Kuresoi involved interviews in all parts of the constituency with 

actors on both sides of the divide, as well as those involved in peacebuilding.67 It revealed 

some very serious problems. Currently, there are more than twenty transit camps, two main 

IDP-owned settlements, and one main camp. IDPs from the two settlements, Mitoni Tunuane and Good Hope Muiriini, received the 10,000 K.sh—approximately $125—given by the 

government as a resettlement package. They used this to buy small parcels of land, creating 

relatively homogenous and impoverished settlements. The majority of the displaced are 

“integrated” in town centers and have not returned home. Some did not own land and hence 

have nowhere to return. Some are business owners who did not own land but lost their 

Despite such localized successes, 

hatred and suspicion throughout 

the region continue and the 

mistrust among communities 

is high.
10

businesses. Some IDP children go to school now near the camps or towns, since inadequate 

numbers of schools have been rebuilt; in some cases, parents have left their children alone 

in towns so they can continue school, but this raises other problems. Other IDPs do not 

feel secure enough to return to their own farms. Naturally, IDPs complain of government 

neglect and corruption and heavily criticize the government’s failure to manage restitution 

of property and security.

Within the Kalenjin community and the groups that initiated the violence,68 there is also 

a theme of victimization and neglect. Respondents feel that too much attention is given to 

the displaced without recognition of the ways they themselves are suffering. Kalenjin youth 

emphasize their sense of economic marginalization relative to other communities. They also 

mention historical land injustices as among their deep grievances.69

A discussion with the Kuresoi Kipsigis Council of Elders exemplifies how local land grievances are articulated to justify communal anger and violence. The elders complained about 

a scheme called Olenguruone, which the colonial government used to clear forest and settle 

Kikuyu. During the Mau Mau revolt, most of the Kikuyu were chased out and detained. In 

1955, the colonial government settled Kalenjin under the scheme, but after independence 

the government settled Kikuyu on the land. The elders claim a Kikuyu-dominated provincial 

administration allowed an illegal subdivision of land to accommodate Kikuyu outsiders when 

there was not enough land for all the Kalenjin families. They still resent this.

Another informant explained: 

Going back to history in the year 1975 at Kuresoi, there was a certain Rift-Valley 

provincial commissioner (PC) known as Isaiah Mathenge. He was a Kikuyu provincial 

commissioner. It was very unfortunate that at the time Mathenge was appointed Rift 

Valley P.C. Kipsigis from sides of Kericho, Bomet, and Bureti migrated to invade Mau 

forest. Warning was given for people to vacate out of the forested areas. People resisted 

the move, but instead shifted their cattle to some parts of Olenguruone. Through a spy, 

Mathenge received information that people had resisted to move away from the forest. 

With an immediate action, Mathenge sent a large number of police to evacuate people 

out of the forest and burn houses. Orders were followed. The houses were burnt to a 

frazzle and the cattle confiscated. It is said that on the spot, police slaughtered some 

cows. While others were sold at a price of three shillings, five shillings and fatty big 

bulls were sold at a price of ten shillings!70

Many Kipsigis repeat the narratives of historical injustice and are frustrated that there is 

no way to discuss and address them. Kikuyu elders also articulate many injustices regarding 

land, both historically and more recently, also linking them to the more recent Kalenjindominated provincial administration. Both parties are deeply aggrieved by unjust actions of 

local state actors, especially in their manipulation of land and the security apparatus.

The postelection violence also unleashed insecurity, trauma, and social problems in 

successive waves on a formerly cosmopolitan community, as some senior figures in society, 

including politicians and elders, sanctioned killing. This insecurity has become more widespread and endemic. As one young man observed:

After last year post-election violence many youths at Kuresoi enhanced cattle rustling 

for the people of their community. The major difference with the clash against the 

Kikuyu is that, when taking away the cattle of their community they can’t kill or burn 

the houses. . . .Who would have dreamed that after postelection violence Kipsigis 

youths would turn against their community? Large numbers of youths at Kuresoi are a 

living threat to humanity. They have caused mayhem.71

Another issue peacebuilders have not addressed is the formation of ethnic warrior identity based on traditional practices, no doubt bolstered by a sense of social and economic 

disempowerment. Youth mentioned in discussions that all young men go through secret initiation rites.72 A number of participants in these rites claim this reinforces their masculine 

warrior identity. As one young man explained, 

Another issue peacebuilders 

have not addressed is the 

formation of ethnic warrior 

identity based on traditional 

practices, no doubt bolstered by 

a sense of social and economic 

disempowerment. 
11

It is during the circumcision ceremony that youths are trained in how they can develop 

to be real warriors and how they can exterminate other communities (their enemies). 

During this rite of passage from childhood to adulthood they are taught that if they can 

kill there would be no either spiritual or emotional impact has they would be purified 

later after killing!73

Another young man had gone through a month-long initiation process in which he 

was very clearly taught that other Kenyan cultures were inferior. This is not unique to the 

Kalenjin and Kikuyu and raises critical questions about the limitations of workshops and 

trainings when confronted with problematic teachings in secretive traditional spaces. These 

ceremonies, which appear to have a large effect on youth identity and mores, constitute a 

challenge for peacebuilding that requires further investigation, engagement, and collaboration with those who do these initiation rites. 

Responses to Kuresoi’s Violence

To confront the complex challenges, an array of actors from the government, international 

organizations, and local NGOs and networks were engaged in the region right after the 

election violence. However, most have pulled out or are inactive, leaving local institutions 

with the heavy task of dealing with the situation themselves. A preliminary analysis reveals 

enormous gaps between the problems facing Kuresoi and the peacebuilding interventions 

that have taken place. 

First, the peacebuilding activities tend to be fragmented. They are mostly sports activities, humanitarian aid to IDPs, or workshops typically targeting the displaced or the youth, 

but with a few exceptions do not link to strategic peacebuilding, displacement, or local 

economic empowerment; they tend to be sporadic or one-time events without follow-up 

or consistent relationship building. Human rights NGOs are largely absent. Second, official 

peacebuilding efforts are largely defunct, including the district-level peace committees 

sanctioned by the government. More broadly, restructuring of the local administration, 

including dismissal or removal of officials linked to violence—especially among the police—

has not occurred and constitutes a major barrier to peacebuilding, as demobilization of militias and mediation of unresolved crimes and disputes require a reformed police force. Third, 

the government so far has failed to develop appropriate legal mechanisms to sort out land 

and property disputes that continue to fuel tensions, and officials complicit in undermining 

justice, as in Kuresoi, have not faced any sanction. Fourth, little is being done to address 

the key issues that both the displaced and the broader community articulate, including participants in the violence. For the displaced, this includes restitution of property, compensation, and apologies; on the other side, it involves exclusion from assistance and a failure to 

recognize their suffering and grievances, including historical land injustices. Finally, women 

and children appear to be largely excluded from peace committees and other peacebuilding 

activities, and elders are not adequately brought into platforms of dialogue.74

A few initiatives try to link the displaced and former neighbors through assistance. The 

Danish Refugee Council tried giving seeds and fertilizers to the community members to 

plant with the understanding that they contribute to the cereal banks for the displaced, 

but the organization has since left the area. The NCCK is developing a modified approach 

to the youth—typically between ten and thirty years old—from the Kalenjin community 

involved in violence. It focuses on building concern for their economic well-being, giving 

space for participants to develop their own ideas for facilitating peace. According to Dr. 

Raphael Kinoti, who is leading the initiative, it is important to show the youth that “you 

are interested in their lives not just using them for peacebuilding” and help them connect 

to existing services and opportunities. They obtained microfinance loans for some children 

to start small businesses and five joined colleges. Such initiatives should be incorporated 

To confront the complex challenges, 

an array of actors . . . were 

engaged in the region right after 

the election violence. However, 

most have pulled out or are 

inactive, leaving local institutions 

with the heavy task of dealing 

with the situation themselves.
12

into the resettlement process to deal with (mis)perceptions that the displaced are getting 

special treatment or benefits.

The NCCK approach addresses one of the many grievances local residents use to justify 

violence: that other communities in the area were better connected to markets for agricultural produce and services.75 Through the engagement the youth are brought into economic 

connection and interest with a broader multiethnic world—the NCCK and PeaceNet core 

staff is very diverse—and these connections align with their economic interest and personal 

empowerment agenda.76 The approach works potentially better than simple dialogue or 

youth funds, which tend to be used by those who are already connected into the system and 

know how to apply for them; the point is to create new relationships and networks linked to 

and reinforced by economic opportunity, not just economic opportunity itself.77

However, the youth are expected to provide ideas for peace. One youth group decided to 

return stolen things to the displaced, now mostly destitute. They negotiated for two bicycles—important assets for a poor member of a rural community—to be returned in a small 

ceremony. They also organized home visits to return three cows, four goats, and fifteen iron 

sheets. This had a great symbolic effect as the news spread; according to Dr. Kinoti, in two 

weeks some of the few houses built for returnees filled. It also started to address the crucial 

question of restitution. More effort generally needs to be made to encourage restitution 

and the rule of law through returning stolen property. Peacebuilding efforts should work 

with local police, who could create more incentives to return property within a grace period 

and, in doing so, start to rebuild respect for the law. These promising approaches, however, 

depend on reformed police institutions.

Moreover, the overall situation remains very serious. Peace activists such as Mr. Anyona 

have been killed for organizing meetings and many peacebuilders have been silenced by violence and fear.78 This fundamental problem has not been systematically addressed. In this 

regard another concern is the involvement of retired and on-duty police as well as former 

army officers in coordinating and escalating violence. These individuals typically possess 

firearms, and as the recent report by Professor Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on 

extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary execution, makes clear, they are likely to have experienced a culture of impunity and violence in their professional lives. This problem is compounded by the ever-widening circulation of small arms.79 One higher-level security official 

in the South Rift Valley informed us that many stockpiles exist since the last episodes of 

violence, anticipating the next round of elections. 

Local efforts at peacebuilding can be overridden by violence if they do not involve the 

security apparatus that supports peace and the rule of law. In Kuresoi, community policing 

by the specially trained peace corps within the administration police saved many lives at 

crucial moments and has allowed access to areas that might otherwise be too insecure for 

peacebuilding meetings. Thus, even without full-fledged police reform, it may be possible 

to find some police support for peacebuilding and community policing programs. Deepening 

this collaboration at local levels is another key but difficult issue. Avenues must be opened 

and widened to build creative pro-peace collaborations while finding mechanisms to reform 

the state, including the police, to provide the security needed for successful peacebuilding 

as well as resettlement and reintegration of the displaced.

Conclusions and Lessons Learned

Using “the scale of return and success of integration of the displaced”80 as tangible indicators 

of progress in Kenya’s peacebuilding process, there are enormous gaps between current programs and policies and the actual peacebuilding interventions required. Peacebuilding efforts 

in Kenya are rarely adequately analyzed and evaluated, and despite the recent recognition that 

More effort generally needs 

to be made to encourage 

restitution and the rule of 

law through returning stolen 

property.
13

displacement and peacebuilding must be dealt with together,81 the two are often treated as 

conceptually and programmatically distinct. 

The government’s national policy on peacebuilding and conflict management only mentions displacement in passing.82 UNDP’s recent efforts at peacebuilding, while laudable, 

rely on exchanges, exhibitions, and dialogue that often appeal to urban youth83 without 

systematically linking into rural networks.84 They do not reach and operate in Kuresoi or 

places like it, nor do they bring in all the key actors in communities affected by violence, 

including the displaced. Further, these efforts often appear completely separate from other 

development efforts, which often proceed as if the violence and displacement did not happen and sometimes inadvertently intensify the conflict dynamics.85

Present government initiatives for dealing with both displacement and peacebuilding 

through district and local peace committees are inadequate without reforming some of the 

administration that is the backbone of these efforts.86 The draft national policy on peacebuilding and conflict management notes that there is need for reform of the constitution, 

public service, police, and land policies, but such reforms often remain out of the discussions 

about peacebuilding.87 The current formulation process of a national internal displacement 

policy and national land policy, which passed parliament in December 2009, provide openings for these dialogues at the local level. 

Civil society and universities or colleges could continuously monitor and report on displacement and communities affected by violence. However, all too often universities are 

ignored in peacebuilding and scattered NGO actors tend to engage in a number of activities 

with no clear overall coordination. Many of these activities are helpful and meaningful to 

those who participate in them, but the overall efficacy of these programs in addressing the 

deep dynamics of violence and displacement is questionable. The tendency toward parallel 

and small-scale initiatives is accentuated by the fragmented nature of donor funding.88 

There is much untapped potential in Kenya to deepen and restructure interventions. 

The extent of violence in the future will depend in the short term on political coalitions 

and in the longer term on the success of structural reform stipulated in the national accord, 

including whether Kenya will have a new constitution that restructures the local state to 

make it more transparent and impartial. Violence will also crucially depend on whether 

national institutional change reaches the local level and creative interventions address the 

deep divisions and grievances in so many Kenyan communities. This demands more sophisticated peacebuilding that embraces the locally textured complexity of the current situation 

in many areas of Kenya, recognizing the full extent of the damage to social and economic 

fabrics that violence and displacement have caused.89 A strategic and creative peacebuilding effort could draw the displaced and their communities (new or old) together into joint 

economic empowerment initiatives. Formal and informal networks might be linked in platforms for dialogue in neutral local institutions, such as small colleges and universities.90 In 

Kuresoi, the local agricultural college is one main site of local and ongoing initiatives for 

peace, symbolically linking peace with economic opportunity and education. 

To better understand local context, interventions must be based on continuous monitoring and solid information about concrete concerns and grievances, such as land and historical injustices, as well as cultural and election practices that keep people divided. Overall 

peacebuilding cannot be divorced from broader issues of reform of state structures to make 

them more impartial in service delivery and more effective locally. Some tentative lessons 

emerge out of this analysis: 

•	 Resettlement and reintegration of the displaced should become a key indicator of successful peacebuilding in communities affected by violence. Systematic information through 

continual monitoring involving the displaced must be supported and fed into warning 

systems of future conflict.

The extent of violence in the 

future will depend in the short 

term on political coalitions 

and in the longer term on the 

success of structural reform 

stipulated in the national 

accord, including whether Kenya 

will have a new constitution 

that restructures the local state 

to make it more transparent 

and impartial.
14

•	 The government, civil society, and donors should support local institutions to better perform their duties toward the displaced and violence-torn communities more generally. Civil 

society and donors should encourage the KNHRC to set up an IDP unit to take complaints 

and push the government to monitoring compliance with the rights of IDPs as Kenyan 

citizens. Courts and parliament must be properly briefed by the KNHRC and civil society 

and held to account for the plight of the displaced and the larger community affected by 

violence. Civil society and the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs should explore 

how to bolster legal aid and mediation mechanisms for the displaced and other aggrieved 

parties, especially to handle property disputes that continue to deepen grievances.91

•	 Donor and civil society support for antiviolence mobilization and peacebuilding should 

not focus only on elections, but also reform, including of courts,92 local administration, 

and institutions dealing with land allocation. Supporting the careful implementation of 

Kenya’s national land policy will enhance transparency over land allocations, helping to 

avoid deepening grievances. 

•	 The government and civil society must pay special attention to the police, both general 

and administrative. The police and military must not unfairly retrench young members 

and must sanction those involved in violence. As some ex-military and ex-police officers 

organized or participated in local violence, they must also be sanctioned. However, there 

also must be greater outreach to former military or policemen. Opportunities to nurture, 

support, and expand the peace corps and community policing within Kenya’s police93

should be explored. 

•	 Most crucially, the government and civil society must support careful implementation of the 

National Task Force on Police Reforms. Human rights and conflict prevention and resolution 

skills should be taught in police training colleges, along with refresher courses to keep up 

a dialogue on these issues within the police.

•	 International support for peacebuilding must go beyond the individual rational critical 

dialogue model (workshops and exhortation) to support more innovative approaches that 

involve key local actors and institutions, such as elders’ councils, women’s groups, and 

media, in pro-peace mobilizations. As one respected peacemaker, Bishop Cornelius Korir of 

the Catholic Diocese, writes, “we need to facilitate amani mashinani—peace in the village, 

not peace in urban hotels.”94 Local pro-peace mobilizations in some parts of Kenya have 

been successful. On the coast, violence started but was quickly stopped by a successful 

mobilization of elders, mosques, the local provincial administration, and civil society organizations, as well as prominent politicians and intellectuals, shifting moral authority in the 

region overwhelmingly against violence.95

•	 More peacebuilding efforts should be linked to economic empowerment in hot spot areas 

that at the same time nurtures interethnic cooperation and linkages among the displaced, 

youth in communities involved in violence, and the private sector. 

•	 Universities, colleges and schools that bring youth together and create neutral spaces 

should be brought into peacebuilding initiatives more centrally, both to accumulate information on local conditions but also to link empowerment with peace. 

•	 Existing and past peacebuilding programs should be critically reviewed and evaluated, paying particular attention to whether these efforts support or displace local efforts. 

•	 Finally, peacebuilding requires democratic deepening, political space, and deeper state 

reforms to entrench the rule of law and democratic rights. Authoritarianism and shrinking 

political space destroys room to maneuver. Everything must be done to protect and expand 

the hard-won political space for antiviolence mobilizations to operate.96

Peacebuilding requires 

democratic deepening, political 

space, and deeper state reforms 

to entrench the rule of law and 

democratic rights.
15

Notes

1. The forms of violence experienced in 2007–08, however, were part of a pattern reaching back into Kenya’s 

history.

2. See Sheila Mwiandi, “Moving Beyond Relief: The Challenges of Settling Kenya’s Internally Displaced,” USIPeace 

Briefing, August 2008. Available at http://www.usip.org/resources/moving-beyond-relief-the-challenges-settlingkenyas-internally-displaced (accessed July 25, 2010); and the Kenya Human Rights Commission, Out in the Cold: 

The Fate of Internally Displaced Persons in Kenya (2008–2009) (Nairobi: Kenya Human Rights Commission, 2009). 

Available at http://2logicstudios.com/khrc/1/content/?e=21 (accessed July 25, 2010).

3. There are also complex cases of victim-perpetrators—people forced to kill others or be killed. 

4. Based on interview with Mutuku Nguli, executive director PeaceNet Nairobi, August 21, 2009, and Inspector J. 

Mele Nakuru, August 20, 2008. There are also problems of ammunition leaking from the government; see James 

Bevan, Blowback: Kenya’s Illicit Ammunition Problem in Turkana North, Occasional Paper 22 (Geneva: Small Arms 

Survey, 2008). See also David Okwembah and Dominic Wabala, “Illegal Guns—100,000 Reasons to Be Afraid,” 

Daily Nation, March 11, 2007, available at http://allafrica.com/stories/200703110212.html (accessed July 25, 

2010); and Peter Ng’etich and Barnabas Bii, “Kenyan Activists Quizzed over Arms Claims,” Daily Nation, October 

9, 2009, available at http://www.nation.co.ke/News/politics/-/1064/670398/-/xtrvgkz/-/ind (accessed July 25, 

2010).

5. The full set of the text of the accord and related documents are available at http://www.dialoguekenya.org/ 

(accessed July 25, 2010).

6. This includes addressing long-term issues, such as land reform, constitutional reform, unemployment and 

poverty, and inequality. See Jacqueline M. Klopp, “Kenya’s Unfinished Agendas,” Journal of International Affairs, 

vol. 62, no. 2 (2009), 143–158; and Karuti Kanyinga, “Hobbling Along to Pay-Offs: The Kenya Grand Coalition 

Government,” Paper prepared for a workshop on political inclusion in Africa, American University, April 24–25, 

2009. Available at http://www.american.edu/sis/africacouncil/Conference-2009.cfm (accessed July 25, 2010).

7. There is a national peace building and conflict management policy, which has been in a draft stage for many 

years. As of this writing, it does not appear to have passed through cabinet, perhaps indicating its low priority.

8. See Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation, annotated agenda and time table, February 1, 2008. Available 

at http://www.dialoguekenya.org/agreements.aspx (accessed July 25, 2010).

9. Statement by Antonio Guterres, UNHCR, to the UN Security Council, New York, January 8, 2009.

10. This is a well known problem; see Séverine Autessere, “The Trouble with Congo: How Local Conflict Fuels Regional 

Violence,” Foreign Affairs (May–June 2008): 94–110. 

11. On the National Council of Churches of Kenya, see http://www.ncck.org/.

12. UN secretary-general’s address to UNHCR Executive Committee, Geneva, October 6, 2006. Cited in Brookings-Bern 

Project, Addressing Internal Displacement in Peace Processes, Peace Agreements and Peacebuilding (Washington, 

DC: Brookings Institution, 2007), 15.

13. Statement by Guterres to Security Council. Cited in Khalid Koser, “Integrating Displacement in Peace Processes 

and Peacebuilding,” Refugee Survey Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 1 (2009), 6. 

14. See paragraph 58.

15. See the case of two men, Amos Maina and David Wachira, who were killed in November 2009 after 

returning to homes built by the Danish Refugee Council in Kuresoi. See K24, “Two Men Sodomized and 

Butchered in Kuresoi," available at http://k24.co.ke/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=485:menkuresoi&catid=34:kenyan&Itemid=54 (accessed July 25, 2010).

16. Such land issues can certainly trigger disputes. See Mathijs van Leeuwen, Partners in Peace: Discourses and 

Practices of Civil-Society Peacebuilding (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 123–42; and Humanitarian Policy Group, “Crisis 

in Kenya: Land, Displacement and the Search for ‘Durable Solutions,’” HPG Policy Brief 31, April 2008. 

17. Brookings-Bern Project, Addressing Internal Displacement, 19. 

18. For a brilliant analysis of the radicalizing influence of segregated camps or settlements on refugees in Tanzania, 

see Lissa Mallki, Purity and Exile Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). Perpetrators also face serious trauma. Some argue that the trauma 

of violent displacement in the 1990s helped create the Mungiki, a Kikuyu quasi-religious movement. Mungiki 

were part of the postelection violence in 2007–08, and there continue to be concerns about Mungiki recruiting 

among the displaced in some areas.

19. Andrew Solomon, “Justice, Accountability, and the Protection of Displaced Persons,” Paper prepared for an annual 

course on forced migration, Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, December 1, 2009, 7–8. This is also part of the 

Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (Principle 29).

20. See Jesse Bernstein, “Protecting and Promoting the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons: A Role for National 

Courts?” MA thesis, London School of Economics. 

21. There can be tensions between traditional peacemaking mechanisms and the constitution. See Tanja Chopra, 

“When Peacebuilding Contradicts Statebuilding: Notes from the Arid Lands of Kenya,” International Peacekeeping, 

vol. 16, no. 4 (2009), 531–45.

22. See the Commission of Inquiry into Ethnic Clashes, known as the Akiwumi Commission (Nairobi: Government 

Printers, 2001), and the most recent Commission of Inquiry on Post Election Violence (CIPEV), (Nairobi: 

Government Printers, 2008), available online at http://www.dialoguekenya.org/creport.aspx (accessed August 

16, 2010). In extreme cases, people with reputations of being involved in violence are put in charge of 

resettlement.

23. The Kenya Land Alliance is one exception.

24. Paula Pickering, Peacebuilding in the Balkans: The View from the Ground Floor (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 

2007).

25. Kenya Human Rights Commission, “Kayas of Deprivation, Kayas of Blood: Violence, Ethnicity and the state in 

Coastal Kenya,” 1997; “Killing the Vote: State Sponsored Violence and Flawed Elections in Kenya,” 1998; “Kayas 

Revisited: A Post Election Balance Sheet,” 1998. See also Jacqueline M. Klopp. “‘Ethnic Clashes’ and Winning 

Elections: The Case of Kenya’s Electoral Despotism,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, vol. 35, no. 2 (2001), 

473–517; Jacqueline M. Klopp and Prisca Kamungi, “Violence and Elections: Will Kenya Collapse?” World Policy 

Journal, vol. 24 (2008), 11–18. 
16

26. See Kenya Human Rights Commission and the three government commissions on the violence: a select committee 

of the national assembly called the Kiliku Committee, Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee to Investigate 

Ethnic Clashes in Western and Other Parts of Kenya (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1992),the Akiwumi Commission, 

and CIPEV.

27. See George Kut, “Mobilizing Early Response Project—Kenya,” Nairobi Peace Initiative-Africa/GPPAC Eastern 

and Central African Region, February 2009, available at http://gppac.net/uploads/File/Kenya%20MERP%20

ASSMENT%20Report.doc (accessed July 25, 2010).

28. IDP Network of Kenya, “Internal Displacement Alert and Analysis: Kuresoi Constituency,” unpublished manuscript, 

December 2007; Médecins Sans Frontières, Mount Elgon: Does Anybody Care? (Brussels: Médecins Sans Frontières, 

2008); Human Rights Watch, “All the Men Have Gone”: War Crimes in Kenya’s Mt. Elgon Conflict (New York: Human 

Rights Watch, 2008).

29. This is not to say that youth or women are not important; they are critical. But there is a need to be more specific. 

Which youth, which women, why, and how? All this must be understood in the context of men and their relations 

to women and children as well as constructions of masculinity.

30. Linda Kirschke, “Informal Repression, Zero-Sum Politics and Late Third Wave Transitions,” Journal of Modern 

African Studies, vol. 38, no. 3 (2000), 383–405; and Klopp, “‘Ethnic Clashes’ and Winning Elections.”

31. See CIPEV, chapter 4. 

32. In some hot spots, such as Kuresoi and Mt. Elgon constituencies, violence has started well before the actual 

election. Subsequent evidence would suggest that while violent local conflicts existed for some time without 

resolution—especially regarding land in Mt. Elgon—this became entangled in electoral calculations, as 

politicians used them to consolidate their support and kill or displace opponents. 

33. On Mungiki, see David Anderson, “Vigilantes, Violence, and the Politics of Public Order in Kenya,” African Affairs, 

vol. 101, no. 429 (2002), 531–555; Peter Kagwanja, “Facing Mount Kenya or Facing Mecca? The Mungiki, Ethnic 

Violence and the Politics of the Moi Succession in Kenya, 1987–2002,” African Affairs, vol. 102, no. 406 (2003), 

25–49; and Mutuma Ruteere, Dilemmas of Crime, Human Rights and Politics in Mungiki Violence in Kenya (Nairobi: 

Kenya Human Rights Institute, 2008). 

34. One police informant claimed that wealthy PNU supporters paid a large sum each for AK-47s easily available in 

the North Rift. See Kennedy Agade Mkutu, Guns and Governance in the Rift Valley: Pastoralist Conflict and Small 

Arms (Oxford: James Currey, 2008) for an explanation of why.

35. Human Rights Watch, “All the Men Have Gone”; CIPEV, 113–128; author interviews. 

36. Personal communication, Dekha Imbrahim Abdi, February 20, 2009. 

37. Elisabeth Lindenmayer and Josie Lianna Kaye, A Choice for Peace? The Story of 41 Days of Mediation in Kenya (New 

York: International Peace Institute, 2009), 13.

38. Jacqueline M. Klopp and Elke Zuern, “The Politics of Violence in Democratization,” Comparative Politics, vol. 39, 

no. 2 (2007), 127–146.

39. PeaceNet research also suggests an AK-47 going for 100,000 K.sh before the violence in 2008 now sells at 

15,000 K.sh. A pistol in Nairobi sells for 2000 K.sh. These low prices suggest a large increase in supply and hence 

accessibility. On weapons stockpiling, see Okwembah and Wabala, “Illegal Guns,” and Ng’etich and Bii, “Kenyan 

Activists Quizzed.”

40. South Consulting, “The Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation Monitoring Project: Status of Implementation 

of Agenda Items 1–4 Fourth Review Report,” October 2009, 4, available at http://www.dialoguekenya.org/

mreport.aspx (accessed July 25, 2010).

41. Interview with Senior Assistant Commandant of the Administration Police Fred Mwei, Nairobi, August 20, 2009.

42. Statement by Guterres to Security Council, in Koser, “Integrating Displacement,” 6. 

43. See South Consulting, “The Kenya National Dialogue,” 13–14: “the closure of camps has not ended displacement 

because thousands remain displaced in 43 ‘transit camps’ and in other locations. Some of the IDPs remain in 

camps due to fear of attacks in return areas, while others are landless. Still there are those who cannot go back 

because they do not have adequate finances to rebuild their lives.”

44. Ato Onoma, “The Use of Land to Generate Political Support,” Africa Development, vol. 33, no. 3 (2008), 147–

155.

45. Kenya Human Rights Commission, “Killing the Vote”; Klopp, “‘Ethnic Clashes’ and Winning Elections.”

46. Human Rights Watch, Divide and Rule: State Sponsored Ethnic Violence in Kenya (New York: Human Rights Watch, 

1993); Klopp, “‘Ethnic Clashes’ and Winning Elections”; and Scott Matter, “Clashing Claims: Neopatrimonial 

Governance, Land Tenure Transformation, and Violence at Enoosupukia, Kenya,” Political and Legal Anthropology 

Review, vol. 33, no. 1 (2010), 67–88.

47. For a more detailed account, see Jacqueline M. Klopp, “Kenya’s Internally Displaced: Managing Civil Conflict 

in Democratic Transitions,” Dorina Bekoe (ed.), in East Africa and the Horn: Confronting Challenges to Good 

Governance, (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 2006); Prisca Kamungi and Jacqueline M. Klopp, “Failure to Protect: Lessons 

from Kenya’s IDP Network,” Forced Migration Review, vol. 28 (2008), 52–53; Internal Displacement Monitoring 

Centre, I Am a Refugee in My Own Country: Conflict-Induced Internal Displacement in Kenya (Geneva: Internal 

Displacement Monitoring Centre, 2006).

48. Others include the greater circulation of arms and the deep anger among aggressors about the election and the 

perception that Kibaki unfairly favored his coethnics. The retrenchment of young military and police from the 

hotspots fueled the fire.

49. Kenya Land Alliance, Land Data Survey Report on Internal Displacement (Nakaru: Kenya Land Alliance, 2009), 

10.

50. Compare the list of alleged perpetrators in the KNCHR, Kenya on the Brink of the Precipice: A Human Rights 

Account of Kenya’s Post 2007 Election (Nairobi: KNHRC, 2008) to the names in the Akiwumi Commission for the 

1997 violence. 

51. The Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs has now drafted a national IDP policy with input from 

stakeholders.

52. The “peace corps” based in Nakuru is a small group of specially trained police who engage in community policing 

and conflict resolution. They saved many lives in the Nakuru region before and during the postelection violence 

in 2007–2008. 
17

53. See CIPEV, chapter 11.

54. During the height of the violence the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated 

approximately 600,000 displaced people with half of those later hosted in camps. This leaves around 300,000 

integrated IDPs.

55. Kenya Land Alliance, Land Data Survey Report, 9.

56. Kenya Human Rights Commission, Out in the Cold, and A Tale of Force, Threats, and Lies: Operation Rudi Nyumbani 

in Perspective (Nairobi: Kenya Human Rights Commission, 2008); and South Consulting, “Kenya National 

Dialogue.” See also Internal Displacement Monitoring Report, I Am a Refugee in My Own Country, for an overview 

of the situation before the more recent violence.

57. Kenya Human Rights Commission. A Tale of Force, Threats and Lies, 27; Jacqueline Klopp and Nuur Mohamud 

Sheekh, “Can the Guiding Principles Make a Difference in Kenya?” Forced Migration Review GP-10 (2008), 

19–20.

58. Kalenjin means ”I say” in multiple local languages and has come to signify a fluid collective ethnic identity. 

The local peoples in this area are largely Kipsigis who are part of this collective constructed identity, Ogiek who 

traditionally lived in the Mau forest, and Kikuyu, Kisii, and others brought in to labor on white farms and who 

later bought small pieces of land and settled. For a superb treatment of Kalenjin politics, see G. Lynch, “Courting 

the Kalenjin: The Failure of Dynasticism and the Strength of the ODM Wave in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province,” African 

Affairs, vol. 107, no. 429 (2008), 541–568.

59. IDP Network of Kenya, “Internal Displacement Alert.” 

60. Lorraine Anyango, “How Likia Won the Battle for Peace,” Daily Nation, September 11, 2007.

61. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, “Kenya: Clashes, Elections and Land—Church Keeps Watch in 

Molo,” July 19, 2007.

62. Barnabas Bii and Bernard Kwalia, “Kenya: Fresh Flare-Ups Could Disrupt Voting,” Daily Nation, November 3, 

2007.

63. Bii and Kwalia, “Kenya: Fresh Flare-Ups.”

64. Standard Team, “Police Alert as Sect Drops Scare Leaflets,” East African Standard, May 17, 2007; Elizabeth Mwai, 

James Ratemo, Edith Fortunate, Elizabeth Awuor, and Isaiah Lucheliet, “Kenya: Ndingi Calls for Sacking of Security 

Minister,” East African Standard, April 9, 2007; Nation Correspondents, “Kenya: Five Killed in Fresh Clashes,” Daily 

Nation, May 12, 2007.

65. Steve Mkawale, “Villagers Flee Homes After Violence,” East African Standard, October 21, 2007.

66. Francis Mureithi and Noah Cheploen, “Kenya: Tension as Raiders Hit Molo,” The Daily Nation, October 20, 2007.

67. While we have been tracing Kuresoi for a long time and one of us is from the area, we conducted interviews for 

this paper between June 24 and July 6, 2009.

68. Even Kalenjin warriors we spoke to admitted to starting the violence and working in a very coordinated way using 

cell phones. 

69. Gabrielle Lynch, “Courting the Kalenjin: The Failure of Dynasticism and the Strength of the ODM Wave in 

Kenya’s Rift Valley Province,” African Affairs, vol. 107, no. 429 (2008), 541–568, and “Durable Solution, Help 

or Hindrance? The Failings and Unintended Implications of Relief and Recovery Efforts for Kenya’s Post-election 

IDPs,” Review of African Political Economy, vol. 36, no. 122 (2009), 604–610.

70. Personal communication to authors, May 29, 2009.

71. Personal communication to authors, May 29, 2009.

72. For the 2007 election cycle, in many parts of the Rift Valley the ceremony was arranged to fall just before the 

election. It is unclear whether this was a calculated mobilization strategy or, as others claim, simply a move to 

be sure the ceremonies did not interfere with voter turnout.

73. Personal communication with youth from Kuresoi, May 29, 2009.

74. This was also observation of a recent Direct Action evaluation that which supports peace committees. See Sophie 

Gordon, “An Evaluation of Peace Direct’s “Rapid Response Fund’ in Kenya. Available at http://www.peacedirect

.org/wp-content/uploads/rrf-evaluation-kenya-02-06-09-final.pdf (accessed on August 12, 2010).

75. Even if the dynamics of the violence do not map onto the justifications, the justifications are very important to 

discuss and act upon to shift perceptions. 

76. Interview with Dr. Raphael Kinoti, NCCK South Rift, Nakuru March 25, 2009.

77. Anecdotal evidence suggests local groups in the Nairobi slums are innovating in an ad hoc way with this 

approach. I am grateful to Odindo Opiata for this insight.

78. Many courageous Kalenjin elders wished to reach out for help, but Nairobi-based institutions such as the 

KNHRC failed to support them adequately. The local organizations, including the NCCK, were in an atmosphere 

of intimidation. It was only fortunate that the local administration police unit, which supported peace efforts, 

offered some protection; both higher level officers are studying peace and conflict resolution.

79. See Mkutu, Guns and Governance. 

80. Statement by Guterres to Security Council, in Koser, “Integrating Displacement,” 6. 

81. UN secretary-general’s address to UNHRC Executive Committee, Geneva, October 6, 2006. Cited in Brookings-Bern 

Project, Addressing Internal Displacement in Peace Processes, Peace Agreements and Peacebuilding (Washington, 

DC: Brookings Institution, 2007).

82. See national policy. The peace effort among the provincial administration has a website at http://www.ppf-rvp

.or.ke/ (accessed July 25, 2010). 

83. See the program descriptions at http://www.ke.undp.org/projects (accessed July 25, 2010). 

84. Compounding this problem is that “there is currently no mechanism in the UN to ensure oversight and follow up 

or to establish accountability in peacebuilding.” Brookings-Bern Project, Addressing Internal Displacement, 58.

85. Toi market in Kenya’s Kibera slum was rebuilt in a way that locked out people violently evicted based on their 

ethnicity. Even development interventions face constraints from the postelection violence. A UN-Habitat financed 

government upgrading scheme in Kenya’s Kibera slum faced unexpected hurdles when people refused to move 

into the new units: Many had moved into properties displaced people owned and thought the upgrading project 
18

was a scheme to get them out. See Johan de Smedt, “‘No Raila, No Peace!’ Big Man Politics and Election Violence 

at the Kibera Grassroots,” African Affairs, vol. 108, no. 433 (2009), 1–18; compare issues discussed here to similar 

issues in Kibera.

86. Of course, the government is complex and divided, with some politicians and bureaucrats at both national and 

local levels implicated in crimes; hence, they have a strong interest in opposing reforms. 

87. Lederach notes the importance of “strategic engagement with the public sphere in peace processes”; See John 

Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 

59.

88. Personal communication with Bethuel Kiplagat, Concerned Citizens for Peace, Nairobi, January 2009, Nairobi, and 

interview with Mutuku Nguli, Chief Executive PeaceNet, Nairobi, August 21, 2009. 

89. Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 48.

90. See the case of Amoud University in Abdi Samatar, “Somali Reconstruction and Local Initiative: Amoud 

University,” World Development, vol. 29, no. 4 (April 2001), 641–656.

91. See Bernstein, “Protecting and Promoting the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.”

92. Professional associations, such as the Law Society of Kenya, should be more involved in sanctioning members 

when there is evidence of serious violation of human rights, hate speech, and other violations of the law and 

professional norms.

93. Reformers within the administration police argue for community policing. See Terry Mwaniki, Peter M. Mbuchi. 

Mark Leleruk, and Fred Mwei, Peace Building and Conflict Management: Joint Case Study of the North Rift Region 

of Kenya (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa, 2007). 

94. Bishop Cornelius Korir, Amani Mashinani (Peace at the Grassroots): Experiences of Community Peacebuilding in the 

North Rift Region of Kenya (Eldoret: Catholic Diocese 2009). 

95. These successful cases require more study. I am grateful to Dekha Abdi for her comments on the coast.

96. This will especially be true as the International Criminal Court case proceeds in Kenya and witnesses who wish to 

provide evidence against those involved in the violence face serious vulnerability.

Of Related Interest

•	 Integrating Internal Displacement in Peace Processes and Agreements (2010) by Gerard 

McHugh (Peacemaker‘s Toolkit)

•	 Moving Beyond Relief: The Challenges of Settling Kenya‘s Internally Displaced by Sheila Mwiandi (Peace Brief, August 2008)

•	 Kenya: Setting the Stage for Durable Peace? By Dorina Bekoe (Peace Brief, April 2008)

•	 Orphans of Conflict: Caring for the Internally Displaced by Donald Steinberg (Special Report, 

October 2005)

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