Why grass never grows at Wagalla

By Boniface Ongeri

The wind blows swiftly, raising a cloud of grey dust and ruffling dry thorn shrubs. Nothing else appears to move at the abandoned Wagalla airstrip, on a sunny morning, the scene of one the most infamous atrocities ever committed against a civilian population in Kenya.

Last Sunday was the 26th anniversary of the Wagalla massacre and, unlike recent years when the day has passed with little mention, a large crowd of protestors turned up to bring the issue back to the fore, demanding justice.

Wajir residents demonstrated recently in the town demanding justice and compensation for Wagalla massacre victims.  Above, the abandoned office block at Wagalla airstrip. [PHOTO: FILE AND BONIFACE ONGERI/STANDARD]

Prompted by the attention drawn to the Wagalla incident by the work of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC), human rights groups and kin of those who were massacred, turned up at the desolate scene, 15km west of Wajir town to rekindle the scandal that they say should never be forgotten.

The marched on the bare gravel of the airstrip where grass seems never to have grown on the ground that local people say still cries for justice.

"We won’t rest until the perpetrators of the Wagalla massacre are brought to book," Birik Hassan, 42, said in a fading voice.

Gunfire

Hassan, a survivor of the massacre who was 26 when he heard the rattle of gunfire, as people he knew were executed, said: "Forgiveness is out of question, lives were lost after a Government that should have protected its people unleashed its force on them."

He was among residents who gathered at a village square in Wagalla Location during the weekend to commemorate the killings of at least 2,000 people by security forces on February 14, 1984. The Government has all along maintained the figure was less than 400 but the affected community have always claimed that those killed were more than 2,000, some accounts putting it at over 4,000.

Retired chief Bishar Ismail Ibrahim says , "All we are asking is for justice and compensation from Government," said Bishar who was then Wagalla Location chief.

Some of the protestors lay prostrate on the graveled runway to re-enact what they were subjected to, but other survivors give the airstrip a wide path.

"I can’t bear the sight of a scene where blood flowed like a river and lives of people were snuffed out. Each time I am around here the echo of gunshots and cries of men in agony ring in my ears. It haunts me," Hassan Abdille, 89, said.

Age may have slowed him down, but he says the memory of the material day is still vivid.

"Soldiers opened fire on us like animals. We were huddled together at the runway and shot," he recalls, his eyes getting glazed. In the lead up to the massacre, the two clans had been embroiled in bitter clashes resulting in widespread bloodletting. The then District Security Committee singled out the Degodia as the cause of trouble and, to restore order, hundreds of men from the clan were rounded up and concentrated at the airstrip, according to the minutes of the security meetings.

Five days

"We were confined to the run way for five days, naked, without food and water and under searing heat of day and freezing nights," Abdille said.

"It was a sea of humanity out there at the airstrip as men braved the scorching heat as soldiers and police officers surrounded from all sides," Bishar says, adding, "No one was allowed to get out once inside."

It has never been clear whether the killing was pre-planned action, but witnesses recall hell broke loose when some men, unable to persevere, frail and knowing they might die anyway, staged a dash for freedom.

The Government has acknowledged the responsibility of 386 people killed adding that the residents claim of over 4,000 is grossly exaggerated.

And as the TJRC prepares to hold its sittings in North Eastern Province, a cloud of uncertainty awaits them against the background of criticism heaped against its leader Bethuel Kiplagat.

"The sitting will amount to nought if the Indemnity Act is still in place," Nominated MP Mohammed Affey says.

The Act shields any Government officers involved in security operations from arrest and prosecution.