Kenya | Nightmare at Bamburi Farm

G4S security guards working for the multinational cement manufacturer Bamburi Portland Cement Ltd, along with a special Kenyan police unit stationed at a site claimed by Bamburi, have been accused of torture and assault by dozens of locals in Denyenye, a small village in Kwale County, coastal Kenya. The villagers, who live near a 1,500-acre piece of contested land, rely on it for farming cattle, fetching firewood for cooking, and accessing the ocean for fishing. However, in what appears to be a pact from hell, Bamburi, G4S security guards, and Kenyan law enforcement officials have jointly and violently kept the locals from their land for decades.

The former British private security multinational G4S, now part of the American security giant Allied Universal, operates in various countries, including the UK, South Africa, and the Netherlands. Bamburi Cement, the local subsidiary of the Swiss building materials multinational Holcim, has contracted G4S for security services on and around the contested land, where it claims to plan to develop economic activities. While the company asserts that it purchased the land in 1954 from a private owner, who allegedly received it as a gift from the erstwhile British colonial government, its ownership documents remain unclear (see below).

Paramilitary police and guard dogs

The community in Denyenye reports experiencing extreme violence for the first time in 1952 when the colonial government forcibly evicted them from their ancestral land. Since then, they have endured assaults, torture, and rape, resulting in some deaths. Since the late 1990s, the Kenyan General Service Unit (GSU), an armed paramilitary wing of the Kenyan police, has been stationed at the site. The unit's involvement with the community began in 1997 during a local uprising against marginalisation, which was partly directed at other communities perceived as better off. Following the repression of this violence, known as ‘Kaya Bombo’ in Swahili, the GSU remained at the Bamburi farm, establishing a permanent camp in 2007 for approximately 30 officers. The Kenyan police did not respond to ZAM’s inquiry regarding the unit’s continued presence.

In 2005, G4S joined the police unit, patrolling the land with guard dogs.

“Many women won’t talk because of the shame”

Mwakideu*, who is in her late forties, is terrified every day she fetches firewood from the forest. She has no option since there is no other fuel. But the thought of one day needing help from her 13-year-old daughter is nerve-wracking, she says: the child was conceived through rape in 2011 by a GSU policeman, and she cannot bear the thought that the same fate might await her child. Her fears seem justified, since what happened to her personally was no aberration: she was raped again, by another GSU man, in 2015, and she knows “many women” who have experienced the same but won’t talk about it “because of the shame.”

Now 69-year-old Mishi Juma is one of the few others who confirm that she, too, was sexually harassed by GSU officers patrolling the village in 2017. “They came to my house and touched my private parts”, she says.

In 2004, thirteen years earlier, Juma had already endured a devastating loss: her son, Chuma Juma, died after a beating by GSU officers who caught him fetching firewood. Unemployed and in his mid-20s, Chuma was returning home with the wood when he was attacked. “I was told that GSU officers descended on him and beat him up,” says Mishi Juma. “His brothers carried him to the local hospital, where he died on the third day. Doctors found his ribs broken from the kicks. I couldn’t do much to complain, especially after his father passed away. We have always been told that you cannot accuse a police officer and win in court.”

Fruitless complaints

“We have always been told that you cannot accuse a police officer”

For her part, Mwakideu reveals that her husband divorced her because of the rapes, and she terminated the second pregnancy, saying, “I could not have another child with an unknown father.” Neither she nor her husband ever reported the rapes, assaults, or beatings to the local police. Like Mishi, Mwakideu “felt it would be fruitless.”

The story of Fatuma Ali Mingauri (51), who lives near the contested land, suggests their concerns are well-founded. In 2016, Mingauri, along with other villagers, attempted to raise complaints with the Bamburi company about harassment by police officers and security guards. While meeting with company officials, her phone rang—she was informed that GSU officers were at her home, harassing her daughters, then 12 and 8 years old.

“I found the girls crying,” she told ZAM. “Many villagers had gathered at my house, and the GSU officers harassing people drew a pistol to scare them away.” When she returned to the meeting at the GSU office, the boss “apologised,” but that was the extent of it, aside from some unsettling advice: “He told us to beat them up if they came to our villages again.” This was hardly a solution the residents of Denyenye could act on, given the heavily armed nature of the special police unit. Mingauri believes that her husband died because of what happened. “He was mentally disturbed after the incident and was in and out of hospital for the next three years, often speaking about what happened. It hurt him a lot because he felt he had no capability for revenge. That’s how he (eventually) just died of a stroke,” Mingauri said, sobbing. “I was widowed with six children.”

“They called us invaders”

Hamad Juma Dari, a 34-year-old father of three, had permission from the village chairman to clear a small field for farming on land adjacent to the ocean, which is considered public. But on the evening of Monday, March 18^th, 2019, while on the beach, he and two friends “were attacked by three GSU men who were accompanied by a G4S security officer who just stood and watched as we were beaten for about one hour. One GSU officer also stood by holding a gun just in case we resisted. They called us invaders who had trespassed onto Bamburi land,” Dari recalls.

Guarded like pigs

In the area, three stone beacons bearing the year 1955 mark the boundaries between the four blocks of land, placed by Bamburi to assert ownership. But village chairman Ali Bakari Shambi, born in Denyenye in 1939, clearly remembers that the evictions started already in 1952. In a croaky voice, frowning his bushy eyebrows and from under a Muslim skull cap paired with a green suit, he tells ZAM how, at 13 years old, he witnessed the then village chief inform the community that the colonial British government had gifted the land to an army general who was retiring. “This was when we found out that someone was claiming our ancestral land, which we called Chikuyumtole.”

The Denyenye families were given three months to relocate, and those who refused to move were ushered into vans by armed police, their mud huts subsequently demolished, Shambi says. “When my father and mother refused to relocate, they were jailed for a week at the Kwale police station.” After their release, they moved in with relatives who lived on adjacent plots of land.

Two years later, in 1954, the community was informed once again that someone had purchased 'Chikuyumtole' and that the new owner was the cement company Bamburi. While the colonial government had previously allowed locals to access the idle land for grazing their cattle, gathering firewood, and fishing, now “a manager appeared,” says Shambi, “who would patrol the land armed with a big gun.”

Fellow elder Mwanaidi Mwaranguo Mwagarere, who claims to be 100 years old and was pregnant with her second child in 1952, remembers the police vans arriving in the village and community members being forcefully removed. “We had been peacefully farming cassava, maize, and lentils, but they demolished our family homes, and we lost all our crops. We moved onto adjacent land, accessing the Bamburi farm to graze cattle, gather firewood, and fish.”

The two Denyenye elders recount how, from the fifties to the early 2000s, Bamburi often allowed the villagers access to the ancestral land. However, there were also intermittent attempts to prevent them from farming there, followed by increasing repression. This “yo-yo-ing” led to Mwanaidi’s decision, nine years ago, to stop farming. “We are guarded like pigs here,” she says, “for farming on our own land.”

Septic wounds

According to locals, the private security officers from G4S, hired by Bamburi, sometimes surpass the GSU in cruelty. Additionally, G4S has dogs.

Shee Mbimbi (39) works at a nearby quarry. In August 2023, he encountered two G4S guards as he was walking home, breaking off branches for firewood along the way.  “Two guards confronted me and asked what I was doing. One began beating me with a baton, and I tried to defend myself. The other one then released a dog on me, and it bit me. They escorted me home and warned me not to tell anyone that I was bitten by a Bamburi dog.”

As we sit outside his homestead in Denyenye, a breeze rustling the leaves of the coconut and mango trees, Mbimbi recounts his visit to a local hospital, where he could not afford medical treatment, not even rabies shots. In phone footage taken immediately after the attack, Mbimbi is seen lying on his back, cradling a bloody injured leg. “They didn't take me to the police station,” he says to the person filming him.  “They (G4S) told me to warn others not to collect firewood from that land, or else they would release their three dogs to kill them.”  A year later, Mbimbi’s wound has gone septic. A doctor he saw recently—thanks to an NGO that helped with the costs—told him it may be too late to save his leg, as the sepsis has spread to the bone.

G4S in Africa

G4S is the McDonald's of the private security sector, generating US$20 billion in revenue in 2023 with operations in approximately 90 countries around the world, 22 of which are African. In South Africa, the company faces accusations of permitting torture, murder, and involuntary medication with antipsychotic drugs as a form of ‘crowd control’ in a private prison it operates. In 2023, a spectacular escape from that prison prompted the government to reclaim control, ultimately leading to the termination of G4S's contract.

G4S staff have gone on strike in Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, and South Africa, because of ‘poverty wages’ and dangerous working conditions. G4S staff in Kenya stand accused of roughing up refugees who tried to access the UNHCR’s offices in Nairobi and of taking bribes from migrants in the refugee camp Dadaab on the border with Somalia, where G4S had a security contract. Despite its poor track record, the company remains one of Kenya’s largest private employers, securing contract after contract. During protests against Kenya’s corrupt regime recently, G4S offered the government its services for assisting with law enforcement.

Support from activists

Around the time Mbimbi was bitten, a new civil society organisation, the Kwale Mining Alliance (KMA), started to help. Among the first cases they took up was the one of Juma Sudi Mwamkungoma (33), who had entered the Bamburi farm on 30 August 2023 to fetch firewood. Three GSU officers caught him, and he was ordered to bring the firewood to their camp, where, according to Mwamkungoma, three drunk officers and their superior started to beat him up. On 9 September 2023, the KMA interviewed him on camera about the assault. Ten days later, on 19 September, the group accompanied Mwamkungoma to the police station, where they insisted the officers record the case. (ZAM has a copy of the report.)

Sadly, the effort came too late to help Mwamkungoma, who succumbed to his injuries the next day. But since then, the KMA has lodged twelve reports with the local police, which are now the subject of a class action suit (see below.) Among these cases is that of Omar Mbwana, a 52-year-old father of seven, who was attacked by G4S guards with dogs one evening in September 2023 while trying to collect firewood. G4S guards first hit him with a stone before unleashing a dog on him, he says. “The dog first held my thigh then my left arm. I was shouting and crying but no one came. Then the G4S guard came and removed the dog before tying me and then beating me more.”

“They told me to go for treatment, then left me.”

The G4S officers eventually took Mbwana, bleeding and with his arms tied, to a metal container, where his brother and son were allowed to speak to him through a window. “I did not sleep and was not given any food. In the morning, I was taken to a police station, where I was advised to visit the hospital. The G4S officers took me to the nearby dispensary and told me to go to Kwale for treatment. Then they left me,” he tells ZAM while seated on a yellow plastic container outside his house in Denyenye. He adds that the police never investigated his case.

Another police report details the case of Abdallah Zuzu, a father of four in his late thirties, who, in early 2024, encountered G4S officers while searching for a stray cow. According to the report, after hearing someone shout, "Release the dog!", Zuzu was struck in the face by a stone, fell and lost consciousness. When he woke up, one G4S guard was holding a dog over him while the other beat him with a stick. The assault left scars on his back that are still visible more than 6 months later.

No compensation

Assisted by the KMA, Zuzu reported the crime to the local police but quickly realized there was little chance of achieving justice. When he encountered one of the G4S guards at the police station, he recalls, “They said they would compensate me with an amount of 100,000 shillings (US$750), but all they did was pay my medical bills and not the compensation.” Zuzu moved away from Denyenye following these events. “I would love to go back to where I was born and bred”, he says. “But I am afraid that if I see the guards, I might do a bad thing because I want revenge.” The two guards who assaulted him also live in Denyenye.

“Our dog handler acted in self-defence”

ZAM wrote to both the Kenyan police and the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) regarding all the above claims, but neither responded despite multiple follow-ups. When asked about the case of Mbwana, G4S Kenya stated, “Mr Mbwana threatened our dog handler with a machete when he was found stealing eucalyptus poles. Our dog handler acted in self-defence and within protocol.” Commenting on the same case, Bamburi's parent company Holcim said that "We take human rights allegations of any kind extremely seriously and in this case a member of the human rights team flew to Kenya to investigate and support our colleagues on the ground. (...) the company has found no evidence of wrongdoing after conducting reviews and enquiries." However, two key members of the Denyenye community, who had been involved in the logging of complaints and all cases raised by the community, told ZAM they were not aware of any review or enquiry conducted by Holcim. 

In response to all six police reports regarding complaints from Denyenye locals about dog bites, G4S stated, “Our security officers working at Bamburi Cement are trained to a high standard, including in the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. We have one security dog on-site, which is deployed only at night by a trained dog handler and kept on a double leash. We believe that the allegations you have raised against G4S are unsubstantiated.”

Contested ownership

Bamburi Cement claims it “owns and has full legal title to the (contested) land.” However, the company has been unable to provide proof of this legal title, and neither have various Kenyan government bodies, including the Chief Registrar at the Ministry of Lands in Nairobi, the Chief Registrar of Lands in Kwale County, the chairperson of the National Land Commission, the director-general of the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), the Kwale County Attorney-General, the Kwale County government, the Parliamentary Taskforce on Historical Land Injustices, and the Kwale Senate Committee on Land.

Between 2018 and 2021, the local Denyenye Maweni Community Land Restoration organization petitioned all these bodies to provide legal documents proving that Bamburi owns the land; none responded. Even a public petition submitted to the National Assembly in 2021 has gone unanswered.

“I wrote that Bamburi acquired the land illegally”

This lack of clarity may corroborate what a former Bamburi manager, who worked for the company for nearly 20 years (from 1990 to 2008), told ZAM on condition of anonymity. “Around 2006, a French managing director, Michel Puchercos, visited Bamburi.” (At that time, Bamburi was still a subsidiary of the French multinational Lafarge, which would later merge with Swiss Holcim.)  “He (Puchercos) asked me to write a report about the historical land issues. I wrote that Bamburi had acquired Blocks 1,3 and 4 illegally because there are no documents to prove the company bought these pieces of land. After that report, Puchercos disappeared and never got back to me. My colleagues made my life in the company impossible because of this report since they probably feared the loss of their jobs, so I decided to resign.”  ZAM approached Puchercos (who retired in 2023), who responded: "honestly I don’t remember much of this topic, which was relevant 20 years ago, so I am afraid I won’t be of any help."

Holcim, its global operations and the Bamburi land

Holcim is one of the biggest building materials multinationals in the world, with an annual revenue of US$30 billion and a presence in 70 countries. However, it is not universally loved, especially not in the developing world. In 2014, during workers’ protests against a dangerous work environment and poverty wages at its cement plant Ambuja, in Gujarat, India, security guards working for Holcim beat up a local labour union leader and assisted in the imprisonment of a further seven union activists. In Uganda, in 2023, human rights organisations filed an OECD complaint against the company for environmental impact and human rights violations at their Hima Cement plant. Complaints have also emerged in River State, Nigeria, where the poverty-stricken Mfamosing community resent not having been consulted on the mining taking place in their area.

Holcim has further been slapped with a US$778 million fine after charges levelled against it by the US State Department concerning paying ISIS in Syria millions of dollars in “protection money” so it could continue its business during the civil war. 

A former manager of Holcim subsidiary Bamburi, who prepared the report on the contested ownership of the Bamburi site and spoke to ZAM on condition of anonymity (see article), is convinced that Holcim was and is aware of the irregularities surrounding the land. “They sent Bamburi seven million shillings (US$55,000) a month for the upkeep of the empty piece of land, and the French director I reported to visited Denyenye every month to check on issues,” he says.

In response to questions, Holcim, -headquartered in Zug, Switserland-, commented: "Bamburi Cement owns and has full legal title to all four blocks of the land at the Matuga site/Diani Estate, where it has a permit to build a clinker production facility in full compliance with government regulations. Holcim and its subsidiaries are deeply committed to respecting global standards on human rights, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights." 

Mfaume Hassan, the chair of the community organisation, claims he personally visited the Lands Ministry in 2018, to ask for copies of the lease certificates for Block 1,2, 3 and 4, but was shown a lease certificate only one for Block 2. “We were not allowed to make a copy.” He adds that, shortly after, the community organization received a letter from the Ministry of Lands confirming that Bamburi owns Block 1. However, the letter, which is in ZAM's possession, is described as “strangely irregular” by a government source in Kwale, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Documents proving land ownership are usually forms that contain a lot more information. Legal land ownership is not proven through a two-paragraph letter.” 

Interestingly though, in the letter the ministry claims that Block 1 is the same size as Block 2: 162 hectares. Which is less than half the size (of 392 ha) Bamburi claims it is.  According to a surveyor who was contracted by local activists several years ago to produce a map of the four blocks of the contested land, Block 1, currently in use by Bamburi, is indeed 392 ha. Even if Bamburi indeed owns Block 1, there is a worrying discrepancy between the size it has registered with the Ministry of Land and the land it is guarding.

Weighty issues

When approached by ZAM, Amos Musyoka, the director of land adjudication at the Ministry of Land and Physical Planning, initially promised to provide the ownership documents for Bamburi. However, three days later, Musyoka recanted this commitment, stating that the “issues raised are weighty and I would advise that the concerned persons get in touch with the relevant government agencies for assistance.”

After pressing on, ZAM is then invited by Bamburi to view its ownership papers at a meeting at the private Capital Club in Nairobi on 8 October. This would be better than having the meeting at their offices, Bamburi spokesperson Brian Mungatana claims, “given the sensitivity surrounding land matters in our jurisdiction.” Mungatana further demands that no photographs will be taken and says that there won’t be room for questions or discussion.

The company doesn’t want questions

At the meeting, ZAM discovers that the company is still unable to present the original 1954 title deed. Instead, lease certificates for blocks 1, 2, 3, and 4 are projected on a screen. The screenshot of the lease certificate for Block 1 again states its size as 392 hectares, more than double the 162 hectares indicated in the letter from the Ministry. The commencement dates of the lease certificates presented at the meeting also differ from those in ZAM's possession. The lease certificate for Block 2 that ZAM has is for a 50-year lease starting on 01/08/2001, while the certificate for Block 2 displayed on the screen begins in 2016. Bamburi continues to refuse to answer any questions regarding this.

ZAM understands that the company now plans to construct a clinker production facility on the land adjacent to Denyeye village, extending its grip on the land further, while also considering offers from two other East Africa-based bidders who have offered to buy the cement company.

Momentum for change

Meanwhile, the human rights protests continue. While the police have not followed up on the twelve reports of violence, Emmanuel Mwangi, a human rights lawyer, is now using them in a class action suit involving 11 community members before the Kwale High Court. In addition to suing for injuries, deaths, and trauma, the case will also address the land issue. “The new 2010 constitution in Kenya contains very strong and progressive stipulations around land,” says Faith Alubbe, CEO of the Kenya Land Alliance. “Most likely, Bamburi grabbed the land in 1954 during a state of emergency that suspended most laws, including the constitution.” The fact that “locals were made squatters on their own land” may prompt interventions from the UN and the African Union Special Rapporteur on natural resources, she adds. “They deserve justice.” The Kenyan government’s Human Rights Commission has also begun an investigation.

“Deeply committed to human rights”

Bamburi Cement Ltd states in response to questions that “the company has found no evidence of wrongdoing after conducting reviews and inquiries. Bamburi is deeply committed to respecting global standards on human rights, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.” Remarkably, locals informed ZAM that the company never asked them any questions about the violence. The firm further insists it “has full legal title” to the contested land.

Bamburi's parent company Holcim states that “we adhere to the principles and values of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.” However, the multinationals’ compliance with the OECD guidelines may soon come under scrutiny, as not only the Kwale Mining Alliance but also the Kenya Human Rights Commission, Transparency International, and the international NGO Human Rights in Development are preparing an OECD complaint regarding Bamburi’s and G4S's presence on ‘Chikuyumtole.’

The National Land Commission, the supervisory body for the Kenyan police IPOA, and the Kenyan security regulator were approached with questions, but despite several reminders did not provide any answers.    

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Fund for Special Journalistic Projects in the Netherlands. Ruth Hopkins works for Onderzoekscollectief Spit.

The consortium that investigated this case, focusing on different angles from the situation in Kenya to the multinationals involved to the money flows from various countries are: Follow the Money (Netherlands); WOZ Magazine (Switzerland); The Nation (Kenya); ZAM Magazine and The Africa Report. All partners are publishing simultaneously today, 14 November 2024.

This article was updated to reflect a removal, based on information received by Holcim, of the earlier assertion that Holcim's withdrawal from Uganda was connected to the complaint filed against it by human rights organisations.