Land And Pasture At The Heart Of The Killings In Isiolo - - 20 May 2000
Political power determines access to a range of resources. This is
reinforced by an archaic land laws and loose tenure system that permit
mobility, paving the way for ethnic nationalism resulting in ethnic clashes,
like the ones seen in Isiolo District, writes KONCHORA GURACHA, in the first of
a two-part series.
It is Saturday morning in Isiolo town. Small groups huddle in discussion.
They are trying to come to terms with a thunderbolt:- the sacking of their
local member of parliament, Mr. Charfano Guyo Mokku the previous day.
There are rumours that the crowd is contemplating a major demonstration to
protest at their MP’s sacking. We defy local counsel and drive to the killing
field in Isiolo. We decide to abandon our car and walk the remaining kilometre
to Bulla Udhud, where the Somali were marking the end of the mourning period
(tasia) in prayer and feasting.
Suddenly, all hell breaks loose. Gun shots rent the air and we are
surrounded by a crowd of rowdy youths, who hurl threats and insults at us. One
suggests that they stop wasting time trying to interrogate us and just cut us
up with machetes.
Reason seems to prevail and we are taken before a council of elders and
religious leaders. Word has reached them that some journalists have dared to
venture into their secret abode. We sit petrified as they lecture us. And as we
sat petrified listening to embargoed lectures, with sentries posted all round,
the old Swahili adage “Palipo wazee hapaharibiki jambo”, (Nothing goes wrong
where there are elders) came to mind acquiring an even bigger meaning.
But the worst seems to be over and we are invited to share their meal. After
two hours, the elders agreed to give us their side of the story.
We set off for the town again to record the planned demonstration. As we
near Safi Estate, we see vehicles speeding away. They are followed by fleeing
crowds on foot and herds of camels. Trouble broke out at the demonstration as
people threw stones and burnt houses and commercial buildings.
Welcome to lawless Isiolo District, Kenya’s latest dark reality, since
independence, where an estimated 100 people have been killed in fighting
between Borana and Somalis.
Two weeks ago, some 40 people, among them three policemen, were killed in
the Emiret area.
The Degodia have been accused of being the cause of the recent killings.
In 1991, some 3,000 Degodia pastoralists crossed into the Merti Division,
inhabited by the Borana, with their livestock in search of pasture and water.
The agreement with their Borana hosts was that they return to their communal
lands in the neighbouring Wajir District in North Eastern Province.
The agreement was not honoured and tension started building up. The
situation became particularly volatile as the 1997 General Election approached.
Even the government was cautious about enforcing the relocation of the Degodia
to Wajir.
Local politics complicated the matter further as politicians saw a chance to
cash in on extra votes. Eligible Dedogias were allowed to register as voters
and participated in the election.
The pastoralists were eventually pushed out of Merti Division and settled in
the Kipsin area, where they have fought bloody battles with the Samburus from
the adjacent Ol Donyiro grazing lands.
Insecurity has taken its toll on the lucrative tourism industry, on which
the Isiolo County Council depends. It earns more than Sh80 million from the
industry. The district hosts popular tourist facilities like the Samburu
Serena, Sarova Shaba, Samburu Intrepids and Bufallo Springs.
The council uses Sh10 million every year for burseries for needy students
and recruits and trains its own rangers. Somalis have accused the civic body of
discriminating against them in employment.
The council chairman, Mr. Hussein Ali Abduba, denies this. “It is true that
99 per cent of our rangers are from Isiolo, but the fact remains that these
people (Somalis) are merely feeling threatened by the rangers,” he said.
Another contentious issue in the Borana/Somali feuds is the argument that
the Somalis were endangering the environment with their large herds.
“The large number of herders around the parks and reserves and the
prevailing insecurity is retarding our community conservation efforts and
development,” said Mr. Dabasso Halkano of the Detha Forum, a local conservation
body.
In this high stake game of nerves, there are also talks of a deliberate
sabotage of this lifeblood to an otherwise semi-farmished lands. Interestingly,
talks on land, conservation and insecurity in Isiolo also brings a renowned
private game ranch known as the Lewa Downs into the picture. Not much is known
of this ranch, only that its associated with one Ian Craig who also happens to
own an aircraft with which he does alot of sorties aiding the police and the
military and in the process, as fate will have it earning barbs from the local
communities.
The overriding contention is that the Boran feel their lifeline tourism
industry here is deliberately strangled by both the migrant pastoralists who
hold no stake in it and fast mushrooming private ranches.
Land is also at the heart of the Isiolo clashes. According to the archaic
Trustland Act, all pastoral land is held in trust for the people by the
government. Recent cases of illegal land allocations has not earned the
government the people’s trust and security of tenure is difficult to ensure,
partly due to the nomadic nature of the pastoralists.
The invasion of the Somalis has not been taken kindly by the Borana, to whom
land has near-sacred significance. The Act nonetheless delineates tribal
grazing zones and requires a group to obtain the express consent of their hosts
one they transcends their borders which were often jealously guarded . Over and
above the emotive nature that is land to Kenyans, Boran mythology has an even
more atavistic connotation to land where one swears by the soil when all things
are hard put against him or her.
Thus, anything sworn by the soil to the Boran is a testimony that is true to
the letter and they are doing it right now in Isiolo that they will fight to
the last person for their soil, which in their language is synonymous with
land. And they are still saying it in no uncertain terms, that there could
never be peace in Isiolo until the so-called migrant pastoralists leave the
district.
Also underpinning the clash is the so-called leasehold land. This is land
curved out of the land formerly owned by the now defunct Livestock Marketing
Division (LMD). The lease was to be for a period of 99 years and the land is
under a users’ association. One claim strongly held by the Somalis is that the
the leasehold land was originally given to the Issak and Arti clans of the
Somali and hence theirs until the expiry of the lease in around 2050.
This claim is however strongly disputed by the local Borans who in addition
to discounting the lease issuance accuse the Somalis of playing a trickster
role. Their argument is that even if the lease was granted it was given to the
Issaks and Artis and not the current Degodia and Murulle now claiming user
rights.Others see the land riddle in Isiolo as part of the land grabbing mania
engulfing the entire country.
This category perceive the current move to kick out the Somalis as a scheme
meant to create safe havens for a clique of powerful land expropriators from
the Rift Valley keen on acquiring huge chunks of land in Isiolo in
collaboration with an equally powerful local elites.
The deployment of the Army to control the situation was controversial as
many complained that the soldiers used excessive force and an estimated 100
people were killed.
The sacking of the assistant minister, a Borana, did not help ease the
tension. His people perceived it as persecution of their MP, who was fighting
for their rights.
Reliable sources indicate President Moi, on his return from a malaria
conference in Nigeria was thoroughly furious at reports the bandits attempted
to bring down one of the helicopters before a motar fire turned them in, this
against the background to the tragic shooting down of another military
helicopter in which the late Samburu District Commissioner James Nyandoro
perished in the hideous Suguta Valley in 1996 while pursuing bandits.
“Somebody somewhere may have briefed the President into sacking Mr. Mokku
based on the prevailing situation in Isiolo at the time, particularly on the
possibility that the military was challenged”, said a source on anonymity. The
merit or the lack of it in this argument notwithstanding, Mr. Mokku’s sacking
sent just the wrong signal to his Isiolo North Constituents, suddenly putting
him on the bad spot at the wrong time.
While he may have everything to do with the killings in his Isiolo Central
Division turf, it would have albeit for a while stay, observers say, due to the
reigning tensions. It gave the Borans reason to argue their man was
unceremoniously axed for their course and in effect made something of a hero
for a man whose political fortunes were fast ebbing.
He may have been a villain in the corridors of power, the man popularly
known as the “king” of Isiolo managed to reap from what many thought was a
misfortune.
It would be recalled that simultaneous demonstrations in his support was
organised in Isiolo town and at his birth place in distant Merti as news of his
sacking came through.
The Borans are now holding their political bets close to their chest and as
they conjure what to do next, many are of the view that the President may have
taken counsel from Somali leaders in sacking Mr. Mokku and in the process
creating more problems for the already beleaguered Kanu.
It is reasoned widely that Isiolo is not the only place hit by banditry
killings and Mokku is perhaps not the only one thought to incite his
constituents to violence; others have done it and still serve in the government
even as cabinet ministers. And what guarantees are there that if Mokku could
instigate clashes while in government what makes him not to do the same when
out of it as a mere backbencher?. Such is what many of the goof say was
committed.
In fact the Borans interpret the President’s action as a sanction on
continued killings in Isiolo, as they vow fighting will go on until the Degodia
and the Murulle leave the district.
It is a nonetheless a wait and see attitude for the Borans who strongly
belive their man would some day at least before the 2002 elections be
reinstated if Kanu is to hope for some votes, not just in Isiolo North but also
in the entire Boran community including the neighbouring Marsabit and Moyale.
The extension is given impetus by the fact that Mr. Mokku is not just a Boran
who are the majority in these districts but comes from the largest Karayu clan.
Whether the Kanu high command will read signs on the walls is beside the
point. But recent events in Isiolo has had serious political and security
backlashes for the government.