Ugly side of bitter Pokot-Tugen ethnic clashes

NCIC chair Francis Ole Kaparo addresses Ilchamus community in Logumgum yesterday

They say when two bulls fight the grass suffers most. This, however, is not the case in Ramacha area of Arabal division, Baringo South constituency.

A stand-off between two warring communities, the Pokot and Tugen, has left the grass unattended for several seasons now. None of the two sides is ready to give in. The grass in the hilly area continues to grow taller and taller as cattle from both sides of the divide continue to starve for pasture.

A drive through the area presents a picture of deserted homes and crumbling infrastructure. Homes left by fleeing Tugens. Homes crumbling under attacks by ants. Boreholes left unattended are rusting by their taps. No one comes to draw water any more. Schools have turned into police camps as students flock safer learning institutions closer to ‘civilisation’.

Kiptoo Kimosop, the Mukutani ward administrator, is a victim of the mass displacement. He was briefing us about the displacement details when he suddenly pointed to our left: “Over there. That was my home. That used to be my house. And here, nearer the fence, was a small shop I had set up,” he says, quite casually.

He has since been pushed alongside everyone to Chemorongion shopping centre, right on the edge of the cliff overlooking Lake Baringo and its offshoot Lake 94. Here, we find his folks crammed in little mabati huts, staring at each other, waiting for peace to come from heaven.

He says he had hundreds of goats and cows but the raids and disease decimated them. He points at one of his cows: “Kwanza hii, kama ingekuwa inaongea ingekupatia story mingi sana (If this cow could talk, it would narrate many tales),” he says. The cow has been taken away more than three times. And the journeys to recover it have been quite something, he tells us.

Ghostly sight

At Kapindasim Primary school, a boarding school in its heydays, the clatter in the compound tells the story of the violence and hurry with which the pupils were hounded out. A solar system installation is disabled, plastic water tanks cut out in the most barbaric of ways and the school bell, the symbol of order, strewn apart.

The dormitories are a ghostly sight of what they used to be. Books left behind by fleeing pupils are strewn on the steel double-decker beds together with drums, gongs and other extra-curricular school items.

“Malipo ni hapa duniani ahera yaenda hesabu,” a Swahili composition heading in a wide-open book screams for my attention. It was written on September 3, 2013. The book belongs to Toroitich Kipuro Samwel of Standard 7 East.

Besides this is Gladys Jepkoech Yatich’s CRE book covered in a newspaper with a heading “Bouteflika makes public show.” These are testimonies of children routed out of their educational pursuits. The assumption is that they were transferred to a different school where they finished their primary education. They may also have given up and stayed at home.

The school is now a police camp. The pupils’ only crime, we are told, was identifying their parents stolen cows as they grazed by their schools or at watering points nearby.

Earlier in the day, we had been at Mukutani town with National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) peace facilitators and the entire sub-county security team. The town is a melting pot of the three communities in the area - the Ilchamus, Pokot and Tugen.

Traditionally, they used to meet in the town to sort out their issues. The meetings have, however, became scarce as animosity between them grew.

During a peace meeting held in the town, NCIC commissioner Dr Joseph Nasongo urged locals to listen to the cry of their children missing out on education and other opportunities owing to insecurity.

“Your kids will not get special national examinations because of insecurity. They will not get employment on account of their background. It is their qualifications that will matter. How will they get sound education if you cannot allow them the right environment?” he pleaded.

Dr Nasongo, a conflict resolution expert added: “Kenya has no owner when history is factored. We all came from somewhere. The Bantus from Central Africa, the Cushites from the direction of Ethiopia and the Nilotes from the Sudan area.” He said it is a great shame that such a respected county like Baringo had brought so much shame to the country. During the meeting, Pokots elders said they had longed to meet with their Tugen counterparts.

“We want you (Tugens) as well as Ilchamus in Kiserian to come back home and live in peace like in the good old days,” one Pokot elder remarked. A Tugen elder, who only identified himself as Mzee Lesiolalima, said elders had also been looking out to meet the Pokots for a lasting peace. Area MCA Peter Amasile said “serious administrative issues” in the county were to blame for the insecurity. He said the government must listen to the people.

Elusive peace

David Tesi, Sector Commander of the National Youth Service (NYS) mission in the area, decried the unresponsiveness of the area youth into NYS activities. He said although he wanted about 600 recruits to help in opening up area roads, he had only recruited 25.

“And I am not even looking for educational qualifications. I am only looking for young men who have the right body structure, who have a phone and are registered on M-Pesa,” he said.

At Mukutan, they talked peace - all sides all through. But in Ramacha, the grass they wouldn’t let either of the sides graze continues to waste away. A bull which both sides would not agree whether it belonged to the Tugens or Pokots continues to wander aimlessly on both sides but in Mukutani town.