Horrifying inhumane acts visited upon residents of Mt Elgon

By John Oywa

A woman lifted her skirt to reveal a scar on her thigh, where a rapists’ panga landed as she struggled to escape. "They broke into my house and raped me in turns. They claimed I was a Government spy. When the military soldiers came to our village to punish them, they also raped me. I feel like killing myself," she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Her ordeal is a case study of gross human rights abuses visited on the residents of Mt Elgon both by Sabaot Lands Defence Forces (SLDF) and the Kenyan security officers sent to save villagers from the gang. Within two years beginning 2006 when the SLDF took up arms to protest against alleged historical injustices, more than 1,000 people had been killed, women raped, dozens of men castrated and more than half of the population in the agriculturally rich region uprooted from their homes. A new report by the Human Rights Watch says 300 victims of the Mt Elgon atrocities, most of them men, are still missing.

The report, launched in Nairobi on Thursday, says the SLDF killed 750 villagers and civil servants while the military officers enforcing the Operation Okoa Maisha (save lives) executed 270 others. The Human Rights Watch Report says a forest near the border with Uganda could be having 14 mass graves. The report, Hold Your Heart - Waiting for Justice in Kenya’s Mt. Elgon, captures horror accounts of human rights abuses in Mt Elgon. The human rights organisation has accused the Government of failure to investigate and take action on the extra-judicial killings and the forced disappearance of more than 300 people in Mt Elgon. It has petitioned the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute people behind the atrocities and is also seeking the intervention of the United Nations and the East African Court of Justice.

Victims of both the SLDF and the military told The Standard On Saturday spine chilling tales of torture. At Kapkota village, just a few metres from one of the two fortified military camps established to help restore peace in the area, a youthful man sat on his motorcycle taxi waiting for passengers. He told us his wife ran away with two children when he was arrested by the military in 2008. He was acquitted by a Bungoma court and is now struggling to reconstruct his life. Asked if he will re-marry, he said: Hakuna haja ya kutafuta bibi tena. Walinivunja (there is no reason for another wife because they crushed my manhood), he said.

Men castrated

Locals estimate both the military and the militia group members’ castrated more than 40 men.

"We have helped many men who were castrated to get medication. It is a sad case," said Mr Godfrey Kipsisey, a member of the Mt Elgon professional welfare group in Nairobi. Another spine chilling case is that of a 75-year-old woman who had her left ear cut off by members of the militia group. "I was coming from the market. They (the SLDF) stopped me and asked if I want them to cut off my head or my ear? I was silent while they cut off my ear," she says.

Stories are told of how women visiting the military camps in search of their husbands were told to go search for their bodies in the forest.

The Secretary of Cheptais District Peace Committee, Mr Moses Wefwafwa told the Standard On Sunday Standard that women whose husbands went missing cannot access their savings or seek bursary for their children because of lack of proof that they have died.

"Many widows and orphans are suffering because they cannot get help since the Government cannot give them death certificates, burial certificates or acknowledgement letters that their spouses actually died," said Wefwafwa.

One such widow is Phylis Kipteyo, whose husband-Patrick Kipteyo Sewui, a former assistant chief, was arrested by the military in 2008 and has never been seen since. "I last saw him at the Chepkube military camp in March 2008. He was bloodied and beaten and was surrounded by three soldiers. Two years later, I received a letter from the Government saying he had been sacked for deserting duty," said Kipteyo. She added: "Without a death certificate, I can’t access his bank account yet I have six children and two grandchildren to feed. I can’t even inherit his land."